Journal article 681 views 59 downloads
Manipulating the temporal locus and content of mind-wandering
Consciousness and Cognition, Volume: 79, Start page: 102885
Swansea University Author: Alice Liefgreen
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DOI (Published version): 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102885
Abstract
The human brain has a tendency to drift into the realm of internally-generated thoughts that are unbound by space and time. The term mind-wandering (MW) is often used describe such thoughts when they are perceptually decoupled. Evidence suggests that exposure to forward and backward illusory motion...
| Published in: | Consciousness and Cognition |
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| ISSN: | 1053-8100 |
| Published: |
Elsevier BV
2020
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa60561 |
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| Abstract: |
The human brain has a tendency to drift into the realm of internally-generated thoughts that are unbound by space and time. The term mind-wandering (MW) is often used describe such thoughts when they are perceptually decoupled. Evidence suggests that exposure to forward and backward illusory motion skews the temporal orientation of MW thoughts to either the future or past respectively. However, little is known about the impact of this manipulation on other features of MW. Here, using a novel experimental paradigm, we first confirmed that our illusory motion method facilitated the generation of MW thoughts congruent with the direction of motion. We then conducted content analyses which revealed that goal orientation and temporal distance were also significantly affected by the direction of illusory motion. We conclude that illusory motion may be an effective means of assaying MW and could help to elucidate this ubiquitous, and likely critical, component of cognition. |
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| Keywords: |
Daydreaming; Illusory motion; Vection; Experience sampling; Mental time travel; Future-thinking; Thought sampling; Scenes; Hippocampus; Episodic memory |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Funders: |
This work was supported by a Wellcome Principal Research Fellowship to E.A.M. (101759/Z/13/Z), the Centre by a Centre Award from Wellcome (203147/Z/16/Z), and by University College London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience Programme. |
| Start Page: |
102885 |