What Does "Mind-Wandering" Mean to the Folk? An Empirical Investigation

Elucidating the difference between mind-wandering and day-dreaming terms

Self-generated thoughts have been widely investigated in recent years, while the terms "mind-wandering" and "day-dreaming" are usually used interchangeably. But are these terms equivalent? To test this, online study participants were presented with situations of a protagonist engaged in self-generated thoughts. The scenarios differed with regard to type of situation, the activity in which the protagonist was engaged in, and the properties of the self-generated thoughts. Two different groups evaluated the same situations; one group evaluated the extent to which the protagonist mind-wandered and another the extent to which the protagonist day-dreamt. Our key findings were that the situations were perceived differently with regard to mind-wandering and day-dreaming, depending on whether self-generated thoughts occurred when the protagonist was busy with another activity and the type of self-generated thoughts. In particular, while planning, worrying, and ruminating thoughts were perceived more as mind-wandering in situations involving another activity/task, the situations without another activity/task involving recalling past events and fantasizing thoughts were perceived more as day-dreaming. In the additional experiment, we investigated laypeople's reasons for classifying the situation as mind-wandering or day-dreaming. Our results altogether indicate that mind-wandering and day-dreaming might not be fully equivalent terms.

The relationship between mind wandering and reading comprehension: A meta-analysis

Mind wandering (MW), a shift of attention away from external tasks toward internally generated thoughts, has been frequently associated with costs in reading comprehension (RC), although with some contrasting results and many reported potential intervening factors. The aim of the meta-analysis was to evaluate the relationship between MW and RC, considering the role of participants' and text's characteristics, as well as methodological issues in the measurement of the two constructs. From a set of 25 selected full texts (73 correlation coefficients), pooled correlation (r = -0.21) revealed a negative significant relationship. Using trait-based questionnaires to assess MW compared with online probes resulted in an average significant change of 0.30 in the correlation between MW and RC, leading to a null correlation. A significant effect of age was also found, with more negative correlations with increasing age. None of the other moderating variables considered (i.e., language, text type, text length, RC assessment, text difficulty, text interest, and working memory) resulted in a significant effect. From the present meta-analysis, we might suggest that MW and RC are partially overlapping and vary, within a swing effect, in relation to a set of shared factors, such as working memory, interest, and text length. There might also be side-specific factors that drive the movement of primarily one side of the swing, and future research should further consider the role of individual differences in RC. Implications for research and educational settings are discussed.