Why does working memory capacity predict variation in reading comprehension? On the influence of mind wandering and executive attention

Mind wandering probes as a source of mind wandering depends on attention control demands

Mind wandering is a topic of great interest in many areas, but as with all psychological constructs, the interpretation of experimental results might depend on the way it is measured. A common way of measuring mind wandering in experiments is with self-report thought probes. An important question with this methodology is if the probe itself may be influencing participants' mind wandering. Previous research suggests that multiple thought probes throughout a task may lead to less mind wandering. However, in some studies (e.g., Schubert et al, 2019) the probes occurred during a recorded lecture video and in the others (e.g., Seli et al, 2016) the probes occurred during a sustained attention to response task (SART). What is missing in the current literature is a comparison of the effect the number of thought probes has on mind wandering during a task that requires a greater deal of thought control throughout the task to perform well, such as a complex span task or working memory. As such, in the two experiments presented here we randomly assigned participants to one of four conditions. Conditions contained a minimum of one and a maximum of six probes. In the first experiment, we found that participants who had received fewer probes mind wandered less during an operation span task, supporting our hypothesis. In the second experiment, we found that participants who had received fewer probes mind wandered more during a video lecture. The results suggest that thought probes interact with attentional control demands to influence mind wandering.

Impact of active and latent concerns about COVID-19 on attention

The interactions between emotion and attention are complex due to the multifaceted nature of attention. Adding to this complexity, the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the emotional landscape, broadly heightening health and financial concerns. Can the heightened concerns about COVID-19 impair one or more of the components of attention? To explore the connection between heightened concerns about COVID-19 and attention, in a preregistered study, we collected survey responses from 234 participants assessing levels of concerns surrounding COVID-19, followed by four psychophysics tasks hypothesized to tap into different aspects of attention: visual search, working memory, sustained attention, and cognitive control. We also measured task-unrelated thoughts. Results showed that task-unrelated thoughts, but not survey reports of concern levels, negatively correlated with sustained attention and cognitive control, while visual search and working memory remained robust to task-unrelated thoughts and survey-indicated concern levels. As a whole, these findings suggest that being concerned about COVID-19 does not interfere with cognitive function unless the concerns are active in the form of task-unrelated thoughts.

The influence of working memory capacity and lapses of attention for variation in error monitoring

In two experiments, individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC), lapses of attention, and error monitoring were examined. Participants completed multiple WMC tasks along with a version of the Stroop task. During the Stroop, pupil diameter was continuously monitored. In both experiments, error phasic pupillary responses were larger than phasic pupillary responses associated with correct incongruent and correct congruent trials. WMC and indicators of lapses of attention were correlated with error pupillary response, suggesting that high WMC and low lapse individuals had enhanced error monitoring abilities compared with low WMC and high lapse individuals. Furthermore, in Experiment 2 error awareness abilities were associated with WMC, lapses of attention, and the error phasic pupillary responses. Importantly, individual differences in the susceptibility to lapses of attention largely accounted for the relationship between WMC and error monitoring in both experiments. Collectively, these results suggest that WMC is related to error monitoring abilities, but this association is largely due to individual differences in the ability to consistently maintain task engagement and avoid lapses of attention.

Perceptual coupling and decoupling of the default mode network during mind-wandering and reading

While reading, our mind can wander to unrelated autobiographical information, creating a perceptually decoupled state detrimental to narrative comprehension. To understand how this mind-wandering state emerges, we asked whether retrieving autobiographical content necessitates functional disengagement from visual input. In Experiment 1, brain activity was recorded using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in an experimental situation mimicking naturally occurring mind-wandering, allowing us to precisely delineate neural regions involved in memory and reading. Individuals read expository texts and ignored personally relevant autobiographical memories, as well as the opposite situation. Medial regions of the default mode network (DMN) were recruited during memory retrieval. In contrast, left temporal and lateral prefrontal regions of the DMN, as well as ventral visual cortex, were recruited when reading for comprehension. Experiment two used functional connectivity both at rest and during tasks to establish that (i) DMN regions linked to memory are more functionally decoupled from regions of ventral visual cortex than regions in the same network engaged when reading; and (ii) individuals with more self-generated mental contents and poorer comprehension, while reading in the lab, showed more decoupling between visually connected DMN sites important for reading and primary visual cortex. A similar pattern of connectivity was found in Experiment 1, with greater coupling between this DMN site and visual cortex when participants reported greater focus on reading in the face of conflict from autobiographical memory cues; moreover, the retrieval of personally relevant memories increased the decoupling of these sites. These converging data suggest we lose track of the narrative when our minds wander because generating autobiographical mental content relies on cortical regions within the DMN which are functionally decoupled from ventral visual regions engaged during reading.

As your eyes scan these words, you may be thinking about what to make for dinner, how to address an unexpected hurdle at work, or how many emails are sitting, unread, in your inbox. This type of mind-wandering disrupts our focus and limits how much information we comprehend, whilst also being conducive to creative thinking and problem-solving.

Despite being an everyday occurrence, exactly how our mind wanders remains elusive. One possible explanation is that the brain disengages from visual information from the external world and turns its attention inwards. A greater understanding of which neural circuits are involved in this process could reveal insights about focus, attention, and reading comprehension.

Here, Zhang et al. investigated whether the brain becomes disengaged from visual input when our mind wanders while reading. Recalling personal events was used as a proxy for mind-wandering. Brain activity was recorded as participants were shown written statements; sometimes these were preceded by cues to personal memories. People were asked to focus on reading the statements or they were instructed to concentrate on their memories while ignoring the text. The analyses showed that recalling memories and reading stimulated distinct parts of the brain, which were in direct competition during mind-wandering.

Further work examined how these regions were functionally connected. In individuals who remained focused on reading despite memory cues, the areas activated by reading showed strong links to the visual cortex. Conversely, these reading-related areas became ‘decoupled’ from visual processing centres in people who were focusing more on their internal thoughts.

These results shed light on why we lose track of what we are reading when our mind wanders: recalling personal memories activates certain brain areas which are functionally decoupled from the regions involved in processing external information – such as the words on a page.

In summary, the work by Zhang et al. builds a mechanistic understanding of mind-wandering, a natural feature of our daily brain activity. These insights may help to inform future interventions in education to improve reading, comprehension and focus.

Attention Control in Children With ADHD: An Investigation Using Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)

Attention problems are a predominant contributor to near- and far-term functional outcomes in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, most interventions focus on improving the alerting attentional network, which has failed to translate into improved learning for a majority of children with ADHD. Comparatively less is known regarding the executive attentional network and its overarching attention control process, which governs the ability to maintain relevant information in a highly active, interference-free state, and is intrinsic to a broad range of cognitive functions. This is the first study to compare attention control abilities in children with ADHD and typically developing (TD) children using the Visual Array Task (VAT) and to simultaneously measure hemodynamic functioning (oxyHb) using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS). Nineteen children with ADHD Combined type and 18 typically developing (TD) children aged 8 to 12 years were administered the VAT task while prefrontal activity was monitored using fNIRS. Results revealed that children with ADHD evinced large magnitude deficits in attention control and that oxyHb levels in the left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) were significantly greater in children with ADHD relative to TD children. These findings suggest that poor attention control abilities in children with ADHD may be related to increased left dlPFC activation in response to an underdeveloped and/or inefficient right dlPFC. The need to design interventions that target and strengthen attention control and its corresponding neural network is discussed based on the likelihood that attention control serves as the potential quaesitum for understanding a wide array of ADHD-related deficits.

The Jack and Jill Adaptive Working Memory Task: Construction, Calibration and Validation

Visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is essential to human cognitive abilities and is associated with important life outcomes such as academic performance. Recently, a number of reliable measures of VSWM have been developed to help understand psychological processes and for practical use in education. We sought to extend this work using Item Response Theory (IRT) and Computerised Adaptive Testing (CAT) frameworks to construct, calibrate and validate a new adaptive, computerised, and open-source VSWM test. We aimed to overcome the limitations of previous instruments and provide researchers with a valid and freely available VSWM measurement tool. The Jack and Jill (JaJ) VSWM task was constructed using explanatory item response modelling of data from a sample of the general adult population (Study 1, N = 244) in the UK and US. Subsequently, a static version of the task was tested for validity and reliability using a sample of adults from the UK and Australia (Study 2, N = 148) and a sample of Russian adolescents (Study 3, N = 263). Finally, the adaptive version of the JaJ task was implemented on the basis of the underlying IRT model and evaluated with another sample of Russian adolescents (Study 4, N = 239). JaJ showed sufficient internal consistency and concurrent validity as indicated by significant and substantial correlations with established measures of working memory, spatial ability, non-verbal intelligence, and academic achievement. The findings suggest that JaJ is an efficient and reliable measure of VSWM from adolescent to adult age.

Unique and overlapping contributions of sustained attention and working memory to parent and teacher ratings of inattentive behavior

Sustained attention and working memory are two closely intertwined executive functions that may underlie inattentive behavior. However, little research has teased apart their precise contributions in a single study. This study examines the extent to which ratings of children's inattentive behavior are associated with these executive functions. Specifically, we investigated the unique and overlapping statistical contributions of sustained attention capacity and working memory capacity to parent and teacher ratings of inattentive behavior (operationalized as scores on both the Inattentive and Hyperactive/Impulsive scales of the Conners' Rating Scale), while controlling for IQ. Children aged 8-11 years completed measures of sustained attention capacity, working memory capacity and IQ. Parents and teachers completed Conners-3 Parent and Teacher Short Forms, as a measure of inattentive behavior. We found that the unique statistical contribution of sustained attention capacity emerged as the most important factor in both parent and teacher ratings of inattentive behavior, with effects of moderate magnitude. In contrast, working memory capacity accounted for a small amount of variance. The overlap between sustained attention and working memory explained a small but substantive amount of variance in inattentive behavior. These findings support the idea that sustained attention and working memory are distinct executive functions that may contribute to goal-directed behavior both uniquely and through their interactions.

Neuropsychological features of mind wandering in left-, right- and extra temporal lobe epilepsy

PURPOSE

Mind wandering, i.e. mental time-travelling and imagery unrelated to the current situation has recently been related to mesial temporal lobe (memory) function. In this regard we evaluated as to whether parameters of mind wandering are related to material specific memory in patients with a left-, right-, or extra- temporal lobe epilepsy.

METHODS

In this prospective controlled study we analyzed mind wandering, material specific memory, and executive functions in 29 right-handed patients with right-, left-, or extra-temporal lobe epilepsies. Mind wandering was assessed with a sustained attention to response task containing embedded inquiries on mind wandering. In addition, verbal list learning and memory (VLMT), design list learning (DCS-R), and executive function (EpiTrack) were assessed.

RESULTS

In patients with right temporal lobe epilepsy, the propensity to mind wander was positively related to verbal memory performance, while in left temporal lobe epilepsy, the propensity and future related mind wandering were positively correlated to the performance in visual/figural memory. Generally, the propensity of MW was related to executive function as well.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest that mind wandering in lateralized temporal lobe epilepsy appears to be non-specifically driven by executive function and specifically by the mode and functionality of the memory system of the non-epileptic hemisphere. Repeated assessments would be required to discern as to how much such patterns depend on lesions versus epileptic dysfunction and whether they change with successful medical or surgical treatment.

Context Regulation of Mind Wandering in ADHD

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to understand the association between MW frequency and clinical measures, context regulation of MW and group differences in task performance.

METHOD

27 adults with ADHD and 29 controls performed tasks manipulating demand on working memory and sustained attention, and recorded their MW frequency using probes.

RESULTS

A significant association between MW frequency and the clinical measures was demonstrated. Along with increased MW frequency, individuals with ADHD reported decreasing MW frequency during increasing demands on working memory (context regulation), but not on sustained attention (deficient context regulation). Controls, however, maintained continuous task focus across all conditions. Group differences in task performance were no longer significant after adding MW frequency as a covariate.

CONCLUSION

Deficient context regulation during increasing demands on sustained attention suggests that sustained attention deficits may play a more important role in regulation of MW in ADHD. MW frequency might also underpin performance deficits in ADHD.

Male practitioners of physical activity present lower absolute power of beta band in time perception test

Cortical changes resulting from physical activity and differences in the estimation of the time of practitioners and non-practitioners of physical activity have already been documented. However, there aren't studies that compare the cortical responses of the time estimate between these groups. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of the level of physical activity in time estimation and beta band activity in frontal regions, specifically in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and parietal cortex during the task of estimating time in practitioners and non-practitioners of physical activity. After characterizing the sample, the signal was captured using an electroencephalogram during a task to estimate the time of four intervals of supraseconds. The results indicated that the practitioners of physical activity had lower errors in the evaluation of time for the intervals of 1 s, 7 s, and 9 s. The beta band showed less activity among practitioners of physical activity. The correlation between task performance and the absolute power of the beta band proved to be positive in the task of estimating time in the 7 s, and 9 s intervals. It was concluded that participants involved in the regular practice of physical activity showed underestimation in the temporal judgment and lower absolute power of the beta band during the time estimate.

Age-related changes in ongoing thought relate to external context and individual cognition

Understanding how age-related changes in cognition manifest in the real world is an important goal. One means of capturing these changes involves "experience sampling" participant's self-reported thoughts. Research has shown age-related changes in ongoing thought: e.g., older adults have fewer thoughts unrelated to the here-and-now. However, it is currently unclear how these changes reflect cognitive aging or lifestyle changes. 78 younger adults and 35 older adults rated their thought contents along 20 dimensions and the difficulty of their current activity in their daily lives. They also performed cognitive tasks in the laboratory. In a set of exploratory analyses, we found that older adults spent more time thinking positive, wanted thoughts, particularly in demanding contexts, and less time mind wandering about their future selves. Past-related thought related to episodic memory differently in older and younger adults. These findings inform the use of experience sampling to understand cognitive aging.

Propensity to intentional and unintentional mind-wandering differs in arousal and executive vigilance tasks

We typically observe a decrement in vigilance with time-on-task, which favors the propensity for mind-wandering, i.e., the shifting of attention from the task at hand to task-unrelated thoughts. Here, we examined participants' mind-wandering, either intentional or unintentional, while performing vigilance tasks that tap different components of vigilance. Intentional mind-wandering is expected mainly when the arousal component is involved, whereas unintentional mind-wandering is expected mainly in tasks involving the executive component. The Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) assessed the arousal component, whereas the Sustained Attention to Response task (SART) assessed the executive component of vigilance. The two types of mind-wandering were probed throughout task execution. The results showed that the overall rate of mind-wandering was higher in the PVT than in the SART. Intentional mind-wandering was higher with the PVT than with the SART, whereas unintentional mind-wandering was higher with the SART than with the PVT. Regarding mind-wandering as a function of vigilance decrement with time-on-task, unintentional mind-wandering in the PVT increased between blocks 1 and 2 and then stabilized, whereas a progressive increase was observed in the SART. Regarding intentional mind-wandering, a progressive increase was only observed in the SART. The differential patterns of intentional and unintentional mind-wandering in both tasks suggest that, intentional mind wandering occurs mainly in arousal tasks in which propensity to mind-wander has little impact on task performance. However, unintentional mind-wandering occurs mainly in executive tasks as a result of a failure of cognitive control, which promotes attentional resources to be diverted toward mind-wandering. These results are discussed in the context of the resource-control model of mind-wandering.

Exploring self-generated thoughts in a resting state with natural language processing

The present study seeks to examine individuals' stream of thought in real time. Specifically, we asked participants to speak their thoughts freely out loud during a typical resting-state condition. We first examined the feasibility and reliability of the method and found that the oral reporting method did not significantly change the frequency or content characteristics of self-generated thoughts; moreover, its test-retest reliability was high. Based on methodological feasibility, we combined natural language processing (NLP) with the Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformers (BERT) model to directly quantify thought content. We analyzed the divergence of self-generated thought content and expressions of sadness and empirically verified the validity and behavioral significance of the metrics calculated by BERT. Furthermore, we found that reflection and brooding could be differentiated by detecting the divergence of self-generated thought content and expressions of sadness, thus deepening our understanding of rumination and depression and providing a way to distinguish adaptive from maladaptive rumination. Finally, this study provides a new framework to examine self-generated thoughts in a resting state with NLP, extending research on the continuous content of instant self-generated thoughts with applicability to resting-state functional brain imaging.

The impact of auditory distraction on reading comprehension: An individual differences investigation

Background noise disrupts auditory selective attention and impairs performance on cognitive tasks, but the degree to which it is disruptive depends on the task and the individual. According to the load theory of attention and cognitive control, selective attention is influenced by both the perceptual load and the cognitive load of the primary task. Recent studies suggest that hard-to-read font in a reading task may shield attention against background noise and auditory distraction. The current study examined the disruptive effect of background noise on reading comprehension as a function of perceptual load and cognitive load. Perceptual load was manipulated by introducing task disfluency (hard-to-read or easy-to-read font), and cognitive load was manipulated by varying the type of background noise and investigating individual differences in working memory capacity. The results suggest that high perceptual load and high working memory capacity both facilitate reading comprehension. However, contrary to previous research, neither perceptual load nor capacity moderates the disruptive effect of background noise. These results failed to support the generalizability and applicability of the shield effect of perceptual disfluency against auditory distraction during reading but supported the beneficial effect of perceptual disfluency on reading comprehension.

Individual differences in dimensions of mind wandering: the mediating role of emotional valence and intentionality

Individual differences in executive control ability reliably show that those with greater executive control report fewer instances of mind wandering during moderately demanding tasks. However, these findings have been limited in that they often treated mind wandering as a variable that collapsed across a variety of thought categories or dimensions. We suggest that two dimensions of mind wandering, intentionality and emotional valence, may be differential related to individual difference in executive control ability. The present study examined this using multiple measures of working memory capacity and attentional control while measuring emotional valence and intentionality of mind wandering during a single sustained attention task. Non-cognitive predictors of mind wandering were also measured. Overall, the results suggest that both working memory capacity and attention control are significant predictors of mind wandering propensity, replicating previous findings. However, the dimensions of emotional valence and intentionality suggested that this finding was not consistent across all types of thought reports. The current findings provide support for the view that it is critical to consider these two dimensions, among other important dimensions, of mind wandering to have a more complete understanding of individual differences in mind wandering.

Individual differences in task-unrelated thought in university classrooms

This study investigated what academic traits, attitudes, and habits predict individual differences in task-unrelated thought (TUT) during lectures, and whether this TUT propensity mediates associations between academic individual differences and course outcomes (final grade and situational interest evoked by material). Undergraduates (N = 851) from ten psychology classes at two US universities responded to thought probes presented during two early-course lectures; they also indicated sitting in the front, middle, or back of the classroom. At each probe, students categorized their thought content, such as indicating on-task thought or TUT. Students also completed online, academic-self-report questionnaires at the beginning of the course and a situational interest questionnaire at the end. Average TUT rate was 24% but individuals' rates varied widely (SD = 18%). TUT rates also increased substantially from the front to back of the classroom, and modestly from the first to second half of class periods. Multiple-group analyses (with ten classroom groups) indicated that: (a) classroom media-multitasking habits, initial interest in the course topic, and everyday propensity for mind-wandering and boredom accounted for unique variance in TUT rate (beyond other predictors); (b) TUT rate accounted for unique (modest) variance in course grades and situational interest; and (c) classroom media multitasking and propensity for mind-wandering and boredom had indirect associations with course grades via TUT rate, and these predictor variables, along with initial interest, had indirect associations with end-of-term situational interest via TUT rate. Some academic traits and behaviors predict course outcomes in part because they predict off-task thought during class.

An individual differences investigation of the relations among life event stress, working memory capacity, and mind wandering: A preregistered replication-extension study

Klein and Boals (2001a, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 15[5], 565-579, Experiments 1 and 2) found that working memory capacity correlated negatively with perceived negative life event stress and speculated the relation may be driven by thoughts produced from these experiences. Here, we sought to replicate the association between working memory capacity and perceived negative life experience and to assess potential mediators of this association such as mind wandering propensity, rumination propensity, and the sum of negatively valenced mind wandering reports. In this preregistered replication and extension study, with data collected from 356 subjects (ns differ among analyses), we found no evidence suggesting that perceived negative life stress is associated with working memory capacity. Additionally, we found evidence consistent with the claim that negatively valenced mind wandering is uniquely detrimental to cognitive task performance, but we highlight a potential confound that may account for this association that should be addressed in future work.

Aberrant modulation of brain activity underlies impaired working memory following traumatic brain injury

Impaired working memory is a common and disabling consequence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that is caused by aberrant brain processing. However, little is known about the extent to which deficits are perpetuated by specific working memory subprocesses. Using a combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and working memory paradigm, we tested the hypothesis that the pattern of brain activation subserving working memory following TBI would interact with both task demands and specific working memory subcomponents: encoding, maintenance, and retrieval. Forty-three patients with moderate-severe TBI, of whom 25 were in the acute phase of recovery (M = 2.16 months, SD = 1.48 months, range = 0.69 - 6.64 months) and 18 in the chronic phase of recovery (M = 23.44 months, SD = 6.76 months, range = 13.35 - 34.82 months), were compared with 38 demographically similar healthy controls. Behaviourally, we found that working memory deficits were confined to the high cognitive load trials in both acute (P = 0.006) and chronic (P = 0.024) cohorts. Furthermore, results for a subset of the sample (18 chronic TBI and 17 healthy controls) who underwent fMRI revealed that the TBI group showed reduced brain activation when simply averaged across all task trials (regardless of cognitive load or subcomponent). However, interrogation of the subcomponents of working memory revealed a more nuanced pattern of activation. When examined more closely, patterns of brain activity following TBI were found to interact with both task demands and the working memory subcomponent: increased activation was observed during encoding in the left inferior occipital gyrus whereas decreased activation was apparent during maintenance in the bilateral cerebellum and left calcarine sulcus. Taken together, findings indicate an inability to appropriately modulate brain activity according to task demand that is specific to working memory encoding and maintenance.

The influence of student engagement on the effects of an inferential reading comprehension intervention for struggling middle school readers

Although many students benefit from evidence-based reading comprehension interventions, not all students will exhibit adequate response. Moderation analysis provides a statistical approach to examine for whom and under what conditions interventions are most effective. Conducted within a parent project, which investigated the effects of an inferential reading comprehension intervention, the current study examined factors related to the deployment of students' attention as well as language status that might be associated with differential response to intervention. Sixty-six struggling middle school readers were randomly assigned to a computerized version of the intervention, a teacher-led version, or business-as-usual (BaU) control instruction. The influence of language status (i.e., English Learner status) and pre-intervention levels of mind-wandering, anxiety, and mindset on the effects of the inferential reading comprehension intervention were examined. There were no moderator effects for the teacher-led group compared to the BaU control. Conversely, anxiety, mind-wandering, and language status moderated the effects of the computer-led intervention for some reading and inference-making outcomes. The computer-led intervention was associated with improved inference-making for students with higher levels of self-reported anxiety and mind-wandering. In contrast, the computer-led intervention was less beneficial than BaU instruction for English learners. Findings are discussed with respect to how these factors might be relevant for interpreting the effects of interventions for struggling middle school readers in general, and for English learners in particular. The findings also point to the importance of considering the characteristics of both student and instructional features in the creation and testing of reading comprehension interventions.

The effects of posture on mind wandering

Using a reading comprehension task, we explored whether body postures would influence mind wandering, a universal internally self-generated activity. Specifically, participants were instructed to perform a reading comprehension task under three postural conditions (lying supine, sitting, and standing upright). Probe-caught technique with prompts presented at irregular intervals was adapted to measure the frequency of mind wandering. Self-caught method was used to measure the meta-awareness of mind wandering by self-reports. Results indicated that the radio of mind wandering was significantly greater in lying than standing and sitting, but the meta-awareness of it was not different among three postures. Moreover, the reading performance, an indirect indicator of executive control, decreased in lying compared to standing and sitting. We suggested that the increase of mind wandering in lying posture may due to the dysfunction of executive control, which also results in the redistribution of cognitive resources. Suggestions for future research are proposed.

Moment-to-Moment Continuous Attention Fluctuation Monitoring through Consumer-Grade EEG Device

While numerous studies have explored using various sensing techniques to measure attention states, moment-to-moment attention fluctuation measurement is unavailable. To bridge this gap, we applied a novel paradigm in psychology, the gradual-onset continuous performance task (gradCPT), to collect the ground truth of attention states. GradCPT allows for the precise labeling of attention fluctuation on an 800 ms time scale. We then developed a new technique for measuring continuous attention fluctuation, based on a machine learning approach that uses the spectral properties of EEG signals as the main features. We demonstrated that, even using a consumer grade EEG device, the detection accuracy of moment-to-moment attention fluctuations was 73.49%. Next, we empirically validated our technique in a video learning scenario and found that our technique match with the classification obtained through thought probes, with an average F1 score of 0.77. Our results suggest the effectiveness of using gradCPT as a ground truth labeling method and the feasibility of using consumer-grade EEG devices for continuous attention fluctuation detection.

Boys-Specific Text-Comprehension Enhancement With Dual Visual-Auditory Text Presentation Among 12-14 Years-Old Students

Quality of language comprehension determines performance in all kinds of activities including academics. Processing of words initially develops as auditory, and gradually extends to visual as children learn to read. School failure is highly related to listening and reading comprehension problems. In this study we analyzed sex-differences in comprehension of texts in Spanish (standardized reading test PROLEC-R) in three modalities (visual, auditory, and both simultaneously: dual-modality) presented to 12-14-years old students, native in Spanish. We controlled relevant cognitive variables such as attention (d2), phonological and semantic fluency (FAS) and speed of processing (WISC subtest Coding). Girls' comprehension was similar in the three modalities of presentation, however boys were importantly benefited by dual-modality as compared to boys exposed only to visual or auditory text presentation. With respect to the relation of text comprehension and school performance, students with low grades in Spanish showed low auditory comprehension. Interestingly, visual and dual modalities preserved comprehension levels in these low skilled students. Our results suggest that the use of visual-text support during auditory language presentation could be beneficial for low school performance students, especially boys, and encourage future research to evaluate the implementation in classes of the rapidly developing technology of simultaneous speech transcription, that could be, in addition, beneficial to non-native students, especially those recently incorporated into school or newly arrived in a country from abroad.

Testing the construct validity of competing measurement approaches to probed mind-wandering reports

Psychology faces a measurement crisis, and mind-wandering research is not immune. The present study explored the construct validity of probed mind-wandering reports (i.e., reports of task-unrelated thought [TUT]) with a combined experimental and individual-differences approach. We examined laboratory data from over 1000 undergraduates at two U.S. institutions, who responded to one of four different thought-probe types across two cognitive tasks. We asked a fundamental measurement question: Do different probe types yield different results, either in terms of average reports (average TUT rates, TUT-report confidence ratings), or in terms of TUT-report associations, such as TUT rate or confidence stability across tasks, or between TUT reports and other consciousness-related constructs (retrospective mind-wandering ratings, executive-control performance, and broad questionnaire trait assessments of distractibility–restlessness and positive-constructive daydreaming)? Our primary analyses compared probes that asked subjects to report on different dimensions of experience: TUT-content probes asked about what they’d been mind-wandering about, TUT-intentionality probes asked about why they were mind-wandering, and TUT-depth probes asked about the extent (on a rating scale) of their mind-wandering. Our secondary analyses compared thought-content probes that did versus didn’t offer an option to report performance-evaluative thoughts. Our findings provide some “good news”—that some mind-wandering findings are robust across probing methods—and some “bad news”—that some findings are not robust across methods and that some commonly used probing methods may not tell us what we think they do. Our results lead us to provisionally recommend content-report probes rather than intentionality- or depth-report probes for most mind-wandering research.

Adult bilinguals outperform monolinguals in theory of mind

Theory of mind (ToM) is an essential ability for social competence and communication, and it is necessary for understanding behaviours that differ from our own. Research on bilingual children has reported that 3- and 4-year-old bilinguals outperform monolinguals in ToM tasks. Research suggests that adult bilinguals also might outperform monolinguals; nevertheless, this effect has yet to be established. Here, we tested bilingual and monolingual adults on the director task. Results showed that bilingual adults outperformed monolinguals in response to perspective-dependent trials of the director task, but not in response to control trials. This suggests that bilingualism is associated with individuals' ability to take into account the perspective of another person. In addition, the number of cultures that participants were exposed to, regardless of whether the participant was bilingual or not, was also associated with ToM performance. Overall, the findings suggest that linguistic and cultural experience have an impact on ToM.

Testing the attention-distractibility trait

Forster and Lavie (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40[1], 251-260, 2014; Psychological Science, 27[2], 203-212, 2016) found that task-irrelevant distraction correlated positively with a measure of mind-wandering and a report of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptomology. Based primarily on these results, Forster and Lavie claimed to establish an attention-distractibility trait. Here, I tested whether these associations could be distinguished from associations with working memory capacity and task-relevant distraction (measured with an antisaccade task). With data collected from 226 subjects (ns differ among analyses), the results from the current study suggest that the measures of task-irrelevant distraction and working memory capacity were not (or only very weakly) associated with measures of mind wandering (measured both with a stand-alone questionnaire and in-task thought probes) and ADHD symptomology. Task-relevant interference (i.e., antisaccade accuracy) was associated with mind-wandering reports from in-task thought probes (presented in a separate task), but not the stand-alone mind wandering questionnaire or ADHD symptomology. Additionally, the measure of irrelevant-distraction exhibited low internal consistency suggesting that (as measured) it may not be a suitable individual difference measure. [Preregistration, data, analysis scripts and output are available via the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/bhs24/ ].

Validation of the German Version of the Mind Excessively Wandering Scale (MEWS-G)

Increasing evidence shows that unintentional mind wandering is linked to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and that its frequency contributes to symptom severity and functional impairment in ADHD. However, empirical data on mind wandering in adult ADHD are still scarce, and a validated scale to assess mind wandering in German adult ADHD patients is lacking. The primary aim of this study is to assess the psychometric properties of the German version of the recently published Mind Excessively Wandering Scale (MEWS-G) in terms of factorial structure and factor stability, internal consistency and construct validity. Analyses were performed in 128 adults with ADHD, clinical and healthy controls. As described for the original English 15-item version of the scale, we found lowest item-total-correlations for items 6, 10 and 14 with item-total correlation of all: 0.54/ADHD: 0.32 (item 6), all: 0.55/ADHD: 0.39 (item 10) and all: 0.11/ADHD: -0.04 (item 14). Item-total correlations for the remaining items were 0.65-0.86 and Cronbach Alpha was 0.96 indicating good internal consistency of the 12-item version of scale, on which we based all further analyses. Principal component analysis indicated a one- and two- factorial scale structure respectively explaining 71.7 % and 78.7 % of variance. Both factors showed good stability with lower stability of the factor-2 solution if sample size was reduced. The two-factorial solution also had many cross-loadings and a strong correlation of both factors in confirmatory factorial analysis (rf1f2 = 0.87). It probably describes related and interdependent, but not distinct facets of mind wandering, which strongly argues for the one factorial structure of the scale. Mean MEWS-G score in ADHD was 23.77 ± 7.85 compared to 7.64 ± 7.27 in controls (p < .0001). According to ROC, the optimal cut-off point to discriminate ADHD and controls is at MEWS-G score = 13. On the symptom level, MEWS-G score was correlated with ADHD, depressive and total psychiatric symptom scores, on the personality level with neuroticsm and negatively with conscientiousness and on the functional level with social interaction difficulties and impaired self-efficacy. In summary, our study shows that MEWS-G is a reliable, valid instrument to assess spontaneous mind wandering in adult ADHD and to discriminate between ADHD and controls.

Re-examining the effect of motivation on intentional and unintentional task-unrelated thought: accounting for thought constraint produces novel results

It has been proposed that motivating participants to perform well on a cognitive task ought to lead to decreases in rates of intentional, but not unintentional, task-unrelated thought (TUT; a commonly studied variety of mind wandering). However, at odds with this prediction, research has found that increasing motivation results in decreases in both intentional and unintentional TUTs. One possible explanation for this surprising finding is that standard assessments of TUT may inadvertently conflate TUTs with another variety of mind wandering: unconstrained thought. If so, then deconfounding task-unrelated and unconstrained varieties of mind wandering might produce the predicted effect of a decrease in intentional, but not unintentional, TUT when motivation is increased. To explore this possibility, in the present study, participants completed a sustained-attention task after receiving standard instructions (normal-motivation condition) or instructions informing them that they could leave the study early if they achieved a certain level of performance (motivated condition). Throughout the task, we assessed rates of TUT (both intentional and unintentional) and unconstrained thoughts. Consistent with prior work, the results indicated that motivated participants reported being on-task significantly more frequently than non-motivated participants. However, unlike previous work, we found that when deconfounding TUTs and unconstrained thoughts, participants in the motivation condition reported significantly fewer bouts of intentional TUT than those in the non-motivation condition, but no differences in rates of unintentional TUT were observed between groups. These results suggest that (a) motivation specifically targets intentional TUT and (b) standard assessments of TUT conflate task-relatedness and thought constraint.

Psycholinguistic features, design attributes, and respondent-reported cognition predict response time to patient-reported outcome measure items

Purpose

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) vary in their psycholinguistic complexity. This study examined whether response time to PROM items is related to psycholinguistic attributes of the item and/or the self-reported cognitive ability of the respondent.

Methods

Baseline data from Wave 2 of the Quality of Life in Neurological Disorders (Neuro-QoL) development study were reanalyzed. That sample contained 581 adults with neurological disorders and whose self-reported cognitive abilities were quantified by the Neuro-QoL v2.0 Cognitive Function Item Bank. 185 Neuro-QoL items were coded for several psycholinguistic variables and design attributes: number of words and syllables, mean imageability of words, mean word frequency, mean age of word acquisition, and response format (e.g., about symptom frequency or task difficulty). Data were analyzed with linear and generalized linear mixed models.

Results

Main effects models revealed that slower response times were associated with respondents with lower self-reported cognitive abilities and with PROM items that contained more syllables, less imageable (e.g., more abstract) words, and that asked about task difficulty rather than symptom frequency. Interaction effects were found between self-reported cognition and those same PROM attributes such that people with worse self-reported cognitive abilities were disproportionately slow when responding to items that were longer (more syllables), contained less imageable words, and asked about task difficulty.

Conclusion

Completing a PROM requires multiple cognitive skills (e.g., memory, executive functioning) and appraisal processes. Response time is a means of operationalizing the amount or difficulty of cognitive processing, and this report indicates several aspects of PROM design that relate to a measure’s cognitive burden. However, future research with better experimental control is needed.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11136-021-02778-5.

The inattentive on-screen reading: Reading medium affects attention and reading comprehension under time pressure

This study explored the influence of reading media and reading time-frame on readers' on-task attention, metacognitive calibration, and reading comprehension. One hundred and forty undergraduates were allocated to one of four experimental conditions varying on the reading medium (in print vs. on screen) and on the reading time-frame (free vs. pressured time). Readers' mindwandering while reading, prediction of performance on a comprehension test, and their text comprehension were measured. In-print readers, but not on-screen readers, mindwandered less on the pressured than in the free time condition, indicating higher task adaptation in print. Accordingly, on-screen readers in the pressured condition comprehended less than the other three groups. Mindwandering and text comprehension were similar under free reading time regardless of medium. Lastly, there were no differences in readers' metacognitive calibration. The results support the hypothesis of shallow information processing when reading on screen under time constraints.

Quantifying streams of thought during cognitive task performance using sequence analysis

Streams of thought vary in content from one moment to the next, and these temporal patterns have been argued to be critical to understanding the wandering mind. But few analytic methods have been proposed that can account for both the content and temporal ordering of categorical experience sampling thought probes over time. In the present study, I apply sequence analytic methods to quantify the dynamics of thought from time series sequences of categorical experience sampling thought probes delivered across five different cognitive tasks in the same individuals (N = 545). Analyses revealed some patterns of consistency in streams of thought within individuals, but also demonstrated considerable variability within and between task sessions. Hierarchical clustering of sequence dissimilarities further revealed common typologies of mind wandering across individuals. These findings demonstrate the application of sequence analytic methods for quantifying the dynamics of thought over the course of task performance and show that contextual task constraints are associated with how streams of thought unfold over time. More broadly, sequence analysis provides a valuable framework for investigation of time ordered cognitive and behavioral processes across psychological domains.

Electrophysiological modulation of sensory and attentional processes during mind wandering in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

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Adults with ADHD relative to controls reported lower P1 during high demands on sustained attention.

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Adults with ADHD also showed lower P1 during task focus, but not during mind wandering than controls.

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Increased mind wandering frequency in ADHD might account for these between-group effects.

We recently reported increased mind wandering (MW) frequency in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) relative to controls during high demands on sustained attention, reflecting deficient context regulation of MW. Studies on community samples previously linked context regulation of MW with attenuation in brain sensory processes, reflecting perceptual decoupling, and attentional processes during MW compared to task focus. However, the association between deficient context regulation of MW and these neural processes has not been studied in ADHD. We addressed this question by comparing adults with ADHD (N = 23) and controls (N = 25) on event-related potentials of early sensory processes (P1) and attention allocation (P3) during tasks manipulating cognitive demands (high vs low) on working memory and sustained attention, and during periods of MW and task focus measured through experience-sampling. Compared to controls, adults with ADHD showed reduced P1 during high sustained attention demands, as well as reduced P3 during high working memory demands. These group differences were no longer significant after adding MW frequency as a covariate. Across tasks, adults with ADHD showed no differences from controls on the P1 during MW episodes, but attenuated P1 during task focus. P3 was reduced in adults with ADHD compared to controls during MW, but not during task focus during the sustained attention task. These findings converge to indicate that impairments in early sensory processing in individuals with ADHD seem parallel to increased MW frequency and might reflect inefficient adjustments from periods of MW to task focus.

Effortful control is associated with executive attention: A computational study

INTRODUCTION

Effortful control (EC) is the self-regulatory aspect of temperament that is thought to reflect the efficiency of executive attention (EA). Findings on relationship between EC and performance on EA tasks among adults are still contradictory. This study used a computational approach to clarify whether greater self-reported EC reflects better EA.

METHODS

Four hundred twenty-seven healthy subjects completed the Adult Temperament Questionnaires and the Attention Network Task-revised, a conflict resolution task that gauges EA as the flanker effect (FE), that is, the difference in performances between incongruent and congruent trials. Here we also employed a drift-diffusion model in which parameters reflecting the actual decisional process (drift rate) and the extra-decisional time are extracted for congruent and incongruent trials.

RESULTS

EC was not correlated with the FE computed with the classic approach, but correlated positively with drift rate for the incongruent trials, even when controlling for the drift rate in the congruent condition and the extra-decisional time in the incongruent condition.

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrates an association between self-reported EC and EA among adults. Specifically, EC is not associated with overall response facilitation but specifically with a greater ability to make goal-oriented decisions when facing conflicting information.

Interference control in working memory: Evidence for discriminant validity between removal and inhibition tasks

Working memory (WM) is a system for maintenance of and access to a limited number of goal-relevant representations in the service of higher cognition. Because of its limited capacity, WM requires interference-control processes, allowing us to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information. Recent research has proposed two interference-control processes, which are conceptually similar: (1) an active, item-wise removal process assumed to remove no-longer relevant information from WM, and (2) an inhibitory process assumed to suppress the activation of distractors against competing, goal-relevant representations. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which the tasks used to assess removal and inhibition measure the same interference-control construct. Results showed acceptable to good reliabilities for nearly all measures. Similar to previous studies, a structural equation modeling approach identified a reliable latent variable of removal. However, also similar to some previous studies, no latent variable of inhibition could be established. This was the case even when the correlation matrix used to compute the latent variable of inhibition was disattenuated for imperfect reliability. Critically, the individual measures of inhibition were unrelated to the latent variable of removal. These results provide tentative support for the notion that removal is not related to the interference-control processes assessed in inhibition tasks. This suggests that the removal process should be conceptualized as a process independent of the concept of inhibition, as proposed in computational WM models that implement removal as the "unbinding" of a WM item from the context in which it occurred.

Validity of attention self-reports in younger and older adults

Human attention is subject to fluctuations. Mind-wandering (MW) - attending to thoughts unrelated to the current task demands - is considered a ubiquitous experience. According to the Control Failure x Concerns view (McVay & Kane, 2010), MW is curbed by executive control, and task-irrelevant thoughts enter consciousness due to attentional control lapses. The generation of off-task thoughts is assumed to increase with higher number of personal concerns. Challenging this view, older adults report less MW than younger adults. Here, we addressed the hypothesis that older adults report less MW due to a lower ability to notice attention lapses and to appraise their current on-task focus. In an age-comparative study (N = 40 younger and N = 44 older adults) using a battery of three tasks spanning working memory, reading comprehension, and sustained attention, we assessed the correlation between the degree of self-reported on-task focus and task performance on a trial-by-trial basis. Younger and older adults' degree of on-task attention measured through thought probes was correlated equally strongly with performance across trials in all tasks, indicating preserved ability to monitor attentional fluctuations in healthy aging. Self-reported current concerns' number and importance did not differ across age, and they did not predict self-reported attention across tasks. Our study shows that lower rates of MW in aging do not reflect lower validity of older adults' attentional appraisal or lower levels of current concerns.

Sustained attention and behavioral ratings of attention in struggling readers

Attention is correlated with reading, but the extent to which behavioral ratings and sustained attention relate to reading skills is unclear. We assessed 245 4th and 5th grade struggling readers (mean age = 10.3 years) on behavioral ratings of attention, sustained attention, and reading over a school year. Contributions of behavioral ratings and sustained attention were considered cross-sectionally and longitudinally in the context of other important predictors of reading. Results suggest that sustained measures and behavioral ratings assess distinct, yet overlapping, aspects of attention. Both types of attention accounted for unique variance in comprehension, but not word reading accuracy or fluency, when evaluated cross-sectionally. Results also support the role of behavioral ratings of attention in fluency and in comprehension growth. Findings suggest that multidimensional assessment of attention is useful when considering its relation to reading, and highlights the need to integrate conceptualizations of attention that arise from different theoretical approaches.

Not all fixations are created equal: The benefits of using ex-Gaussian modeling of fixation durations

Various cognitive and perceptual factors have been shown to modulate the duration of fixations during visual exploration of complex scenes. The majority of these studies have only considered the mean of the distribution of fixation durations. However, this distribution is skewed to the right, so that an increase in the mean may be driven by a lengthening of all fixations (i.e., a right shift of the whole distribution) or only the relatively longer ones (i.e., a longer right tail of the distribution). To determine which factor is at play, the distribution can be modeled with an ex-Gaussian distribution, which is a convolution of a Gaussian and an exponential distribution. Here we demonstrate the usefulness of applying the ex-Gaussian model to empirical distributions of fixation durations and the reliability of its parameters across time. We demonstrate how the ex-Gaussian model had advantages over exclusive consideration of the mean, by showing that an increase in the mean can stem from specific changes in the components of the ex-Gaussian distribution. Specifically, the type of image leads to a change in the Gaussian component alone, indicating a right shift of the main mass of the distribution. By contrast, familiarity with the inspected image modifies the exponential component, and results in a more specific modulation of a subset of relatively long fixations. Hence, estimating the ex-Gaussian parameters may provide novel insights into the underlying processes that determine fixation duration and can contribute to the future development of process-based computational models of gaze behavior.

Environmental and Cognitive Enrichment in Childhood as Protective Factors in the Adult and Aging Brain

Some recent studies have highlighted a link between a favorable childhood environment and the strengthening of neuronal resilience against the changes that occur in natural aging neurodegenerative disease. Many works have assessed the factors – both internal and external – that can contribute to delay the phenotype of an ongoing neurodegenerative brain pathology. At the crossroads of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors, these relationships are unified by the concept of cognitive reserve (CR). This review focuses on the protective effects of maintaining this CR through the cognitive aging process, and emphasizes the most essential time in life for the development and strengthening of this CR. The in-depth study of this research shows that early stimulation with regard to social and sensory interactions, contributes to the proper development of cognitive, affective and psychosocial capacities. Childhood thus appears to be the most active phase in the development of CR, and as such we hypothesize that this constitutes the first essential period of primary prevention of pathological aging and loss of cognitive capacities. If this hypothesis is correct, early stimulation of the environment would therefore be considered as a true primary prevention and a public health issue. The earlier identification of neurodevelopmental disorders, which can affect personal and professional development across the lifespan, could therefore have longer-term impacts and provide better protection against aging.

Changes in reading behaviour of periodicals on mobile devices: A comparative study

Mobile devices not only bring convenience to aspects of life but also change people’s behaviour in their daily lives, in particular reading. While most of the studies focus on reading books, there are few systematic publications primarily focusing on electronic periodicals, especially comparing the different needs of patrons from different faculties. Through an online questionnaire, the authors explored whether and how university patrons of the University of Hong Kong changed their reading behaviour of e-periodicals in the context of mobile devices. Six reading patterns were investigated: reading frequency, types of periodicals, preference of mobile devices, reading time spent, reading time slot and reading location. The authors purposefully compare subjects selected from three faculties (Education, Engineering and Science) to examine whether research and learning requirements affect their behaviours. The analysis found that reading patterns did indeed change after patrons adopted mobile devices to read periodicals. There are also some statistically significant differences among the faculties investigated, reflecting their different information needs. The findings can help academic libraries review their periodical subscription policies and reading promotion schemes to satisfy various patrons’ needs.

Facing up to the wandering mind: Patterns of off-task laboratory thought are associated with stronger neural recruitment of right fusiform cortex while processing facial stimuli

Human cognition is not always tethered to events in the external world. Laboratory and real world experience sampling studies reveal that attention is often devoted to self-generated mental content rather than to events taking place in the immediate environment. Recent studies have begun to explicitly examine the consistency between states of off-task thought in the laboratory and in daily life, highlighting differences in the psychological correlates of these states across the two contexts. Our study used neuroimaging to further understand the generalizability of off-task thought across laboratory and daily life contexts. We examined (1) whether context (daily life versus laboratory) impacts on individuals' off-task thought patterns and whether individual variations in these patterns are correlated across contexts; (2) whether neural correlates for the patterns of off-task thoughts in the laboratory show similarities with those thoughts in daily life, in particular, whether differences in cortical grey matter associated with detail and off-task thoughts in the para-hippocampus, identified in a prior study on laboratory thoughts, were apparent in real life thought patterns. We also measured neural responses to common real-world stimuli (faces and scenes) and examined how neural responses to these stimuli were related to experiences in the laboratory and in daily life - finding evidence of both similarities and differences. There were consistent patterns of off-task thoughts reported across the two contexts, and both patterns had a commensurate relationship with medial temporal lobe architecture. However, compared to real world off-task thoughts, those in the laboratory focused more on social content and showed a stronger correlation with neural activity when viewing faces compared to scenes. Overall our results show that off-task thought patterns have broad similarities in the laboratory and in daily life, and the apparent differences may be, in part, driven by the richer environmental context in the real world. More generally, our findings are broadly consistent with emerging evidence that shows off-task thoughts emerge through the prioritisation of information that has greater personal relevance than events in the here and now.

Working Memory Load Selectively Influences Response Inhibition in a Stop Signal Task

Inhibitory control is a key executive function and has been studied extensively using the stop signal task. By applying a simple race model that posits an independent race between a GO process responsible for initiation of responses and a STOP process responsible for inhibition of responses, one can estimate how long it takes an individual to inhibit an ongoing response, the stop signal reaction time. Here, we examined how stop signal reaction time can be affected by working memory. Participants engaged in a dual task; they completed a stop signal task under low and high working memory load conditions. Working memory capacity was also measured. We found that the STOP process was lengthened in the high, compared to the low, working memory load condition, as evidenced by differences in stop signal reaction time. The GO process was unaffected and working memory capacity could not account for differences across the load conditions. These results indicate that inhibitory control can be influenced by placing demands on working memory.