TY - JOUR PY - 2009// TI - Tracking the train of thought from the laboratory into everyday life: an experience-sampling study of mind wandering across controlled and ecological contexts JO - Psychonomic bulletin and review A1 - McVay, Jennifer C. A1 - Kane, Michael J. A1 - Kwapil, Thomas R. SP - 857 EP - 863 VL - 16 IS - 5 N2 - In an experience-sampling study that bridged laboratory, ecological, and individual-differences approaches to mind-wandering research, 72 subjects completed an executive-control task with periodic thought probes (reported by McVay & Kane, 2009) and then carried PDAs for a week that signaled them eight times daily to report immediately whether their thoughts were off task. Subjects who reported more mind wandering during the laboratory task endorsed more mind-wandering experiences during everyday life (and were more likely to report worries as off-task thought content). We also conceptually replicated laboratory findings that mind wandering predicts task performance: Subjects rated their daily-life performance to be impaired when they reported off-task thoughts, with greatest impairment when subjects' mind wandering lacked metaconsciousness. The propensity to mind wander appears to be a stable cognitive characteristic and seems to predict performance difficulties in daily life, just as it does in the laboratory.
Language: en
LA - en SN - 1069-9384 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/PBR.16.5.857 ID - ref1 ER -