Watching the mind travel: Understanding internal distraction from our own involuntary thoughts

在任何给定的时刻，我们的大脑都在选择关注什么--这一过程被称为选择性注意力。这些选择是必要的，因为我们经常接触到大量的信息，这远远超出了我们大脑的处理能力。然而，有时我们的大脑似乎做出了错误的选择。例如，当我们试图完成一项紧急的工作任务时，我们可能会发现，我们的注意力已经转移到了思考我们的午餐计划上，这违背了我们的意愿。司机可能会被路人分心而错过红灯。学龄儿童可能会被与朋友争吵的想法分散注意力，从而错过了他们课程的关键部分。不管分心的来源是什么，对任务表现的影响都是一样的：当我们分心时，我们的学习、工作、驾驶或做任何其他任务的能力都会受到严重影响。工业是围绕尽量减少分心的努力而建立的，通常是针对环境(例如，降噪耳机)。然而，当分心来自我们自己的思想时，这是不起作用的，因为大多数情况下是这样的。除了对任务的破坏性影响，不自觉的想法还会让我们接触到我们希望避免的信息，从而造成进一步的伤害：一个试图睡觉的人可能会发现，他们的想法违背了他们的意愿，回到了与工作有关的情况。一个正在康复的酒鬼可能会远离酒吧，但无法摆脱饮酒的念头。一个人可能会因为与过去的创伤有关的不想要的想法或想象而极度痛苦。从日常生活中经历的扰乱注意力的想法，到与焦虑症有关的令人不安的侵入性想法，再到与成瘾有关的诱人想法，所有这些经历都有一个共同的潜在现象，即无意识思维。我们缺乏对是什么导致非自愿思想发生的基本理解。换句话说，我们头脑中的一条特定信息是如何突然劫持我们的意识的？几十年来对选择性注意的研究让我们对外部信息(例如，视觉、声音)分散注意力的原因有了丰富的见解。令人惊讶的是，这一领域几乎完全忽略了由我们自己的无意识思维分散注意力的话题--限制了选择性注意力模型解释现实世界分散注意力的能力。这种遗漏很可能是由于方法障碍--非自愿思维的不可控、不可预测和主观性质意味着它们不能轻易地用传统方法来研究。然而，神经成像技术的进步打开了令人兴奋的机会，填补了文献中的这一空白，并建立了对来自所有来源的分心原因的全面理解。这项拟议的研究将使用一种新的神经成像方法，结合行为实验，开发和测试一种新的通过无意识思维引起的内部分心模型。神经成像方法涉及在人们执行一项无关的任务之前，在他们的大脑中植入一个特定的想法：试点数据显示，特定的非自愿想法可以通过他们独特的神经信号来跟踪。通过研究这些“标记”思维和其他大脑区域之间的交流，我们可以识别与非自愿思维有关的网络。行为实验将测试哪些类型的思维最让人分心，以及这些思维在人与人之间的差异。使用这种方法，我们将测试我们所知道的关于大脑如何选择感觉信息的知识--我们知道的很多--是否可以用来预测我们的大脑如何选择我们的想法。了解我们的大脑是如何产生非自愿思维的，这是一个基本的垫脚石，从长远来看，可以帮助我们解释--并最终预测、控制或预防--它们对教育、生产力、健康和安全以及心理健康造成的负面、有时是灾难性的后果。

At any given moment, our brains are making choices about what to focus on - a process called selective attention. These choices are necessary because we are constantly exposed to an enormous amount of information, which vastly exceeds our brain's processing capacity. However, sometimes our brains appear to make the wrong choices. For example, while trying complete an urgent work task, we may find our attention has switched, against our will, to thinking about our lunch plans. A driver may be distracted by a passer-by and miss a red traffic light. A school child may be distracted by thoughts about an argument with a friend and miss a key part of their lesson. Regardless of the source of distraction, the consequences for task performance are the same: When we are distracted our ability to learn, work, drive or do any other task is seriously compromised.Industries are built around attempts to minimize distraction, typically targeting the environment (e.g. noise-cancelling headphones). However, this will not work when the distraction comes from our own thoughts, as is the case much of the time. Beyond their disruptive impact on tasks, involuntary thoughts cause further harm through their capacity to expose us to information we would prefer to avoid: A person trying to sleep may find their thoughts returning, against their will, to a work-related situation. A recovering alcoholic might stay away from bars but be unable to escape thoughts about drinking. A person may be intensely distressed by unwanted thoughts or imagery relating to a past trauma. From the disruptive distracting thoughts experienced in daily life, the disturbing intrusive thoughts associated with anxiety disorders, to the tempting thoughts associated with addiction, all these experiences have in common the underlying phenomenon of an involuntary thought. We lack a fundamental understanding of what causes involuntary thoughts to happen. In other words, how does a particular piece of information from our minds suddenly hijack our consciousness? Decades of research into selective attention have given us a rich insight into the causes of distraction by external information (e.g., sights, sounds). Surprisingly, this field has almost entirely neglected the topic of distraction by our own involuntary thoughts - limiting the ability of selective attention models to explain real world distraction. This omission is likely due to methodological barriers - the uncontrollable, unpredictable and subjective nature of involuntary thoughts means they cannot easily be studied using traditional approaches. However, advances in neuroimaging techniques open up the exciting opportunity to fill this gap in the literature and build a comprehensive understanding of the causes of distraction from all sources. The proposed research will use a novel neuroimaging approach, combined with behavioural experiments, to develop and test a new model of internal distraction by involuntary thoughts. The neuroimaging approach involves planting a specific thought in people's minds, before they perform an unrelated task: Pilot data show that specific involuntary thoughts can be tracked through their unique neural signature. By studying the communication between these 'marker' thoughts and other brain regions, we can identify the networks involved in involuntary thoughts. Behavioural experiments will test which types of thought are most distracting, and how these vary from person to person. Using this approach, we will test whether what we know about how the brain selects sensory information - and we know a lot - might apply to predict how our minds choose our thoughts. Understanding how our brains cause involuntary thoughts is a fundamental stepping stone that in the longer term can help us to explain - and ultimately predict, control or prevent - their negative, sometimes disastrous, consequences for education, productivity, health and safety, and mental health.