Mind wandering, meaning, and action

走神是一种普遍存在的认知现象，普遍存在于教育、工作环境等日常活动中。一个核心问题是，人们应该如何看待这种盛行。一方面，走神可以被描述为执行控制的一种不受欢迎的失败。如果这是一个合理的视角，我们应该寻求将走神的现象降至最低的方法。另一方面，走神可能被解释为一个人的心理目标优先程度的正常和适当变化的产物。例如，执行当前目标任务的目标可能暂时变得不如思考其他事情的目标那么重要。因此，走神可能会培养合适的、甚至是必要的过程，如计划、创造力以及精神和身体的动态平衡。如果后一种观点是正确的，我们应该尝试描绘在什么情况下走神是有益的，以及在多大程度上走神是有益的。为了理清这些可能性，我们需要了解走神的本质，以及它与正在进行的认知活动之间的关系。这项研究旨在通过对走神的统一理论分析来发展这样的理解：尤其是，我认为走神将资源从意义的解释和分配转移到当前的语境中。作为一种速记，我将其称为手头任务的“有意义的处理”。反过来，有意义的加工涉及将当前情况与存储在记忆中的语义知识和先前的经验联系起来。因此，由于一个人进行这一必需的记忆提取的能力有限，可能会出现思维漂移的缺陷。在所提出的研究中，这一总体论题被应用于动作控制、认知控制和语篇理解的现象。在动作控制方面，走神预计会干扰根据最近经验调整动作的能力；在认知控制领域，走神预计会干扰根据指令或设定调整任务绩效的能力；在文本理解方面，走心预计会干扰知识和经验在构建文本记忆表征中的使用。文中描述了在这些领域中测试和扩展这些预测的实验。因此，这项拟议的研究提供了一个基础广泛的项目，调查走神缺陷的性质。长期目标是了解走神现象及其对认知表现的影响。特别是，提出的记忆提取方面的理论分析提供了重要的线索，即走神何时会干扰正在进行的生产活动，什么时候不会。

Mind wandering is a ubiquitous cognitive phenomena, common in education and work environments and other day-to-day activities. A central question is how one should view this prevalence. On the one hand, mind wandering can be characterized as an undesirable failure of executive control. If this is a reasonable perspective, we should seek ways to minimize mind wandering. On the other hand, mind wandering might be interpreted as a product of the normal and appropriate variations in the levels of priority of ones mental goals. For example, the goal of performing the current target task may become temporarily less important than the goal of thinking about other things. As such, mind wandering might foster suitable or even needful processes such as planning, creativity, and mental and physical homeostasis. If this latter perspective is correct, we should attempt to delineate under what circumstances and to what degree mind wandering is beneficial. In order to disentangle these possibilities, we need to understand the nature of mind wandering and how it is related to ongoing cognitive activities. The proposed research is intended to develop such an understanding through a unified theoretical analysis of mind wandering: In particular, I argue that mind wandering diverts resources from the interpretation and assignment of meaning to the current context. As a shorthand, I refer to this as “meaningful processing” of the task at hand. In turn, meaningful processing involves relating the current situation to one’s semantic knowledge and prior experience stored in memory. Thus, deficits in mind wandering may occur because one’s ability to carry out this required memory retrieval is limited. In the proposed research, this overarching thesis is applied to phenomena in the control of action, cognitive control, and text comprehension. In the control of action, mind wandering is predicted to interfere with the ability to tune actions on the basis of recent experience; in the domain of cognitive control, mind wandering is predicted to interfere with the ability to modulate task performance based on instructions or set; and in text comprehension, mind wandering is predicted to interfere with the use of knowledge and experience in the construction of text memory representations. Experiments are described to test and extend these predictions in each of these domains. The proposed research thus provides a broad-based program investigating the nature of mind-wandering deficits. The long-term objective is to gain an understanding of the phenomenon of mind wandering and how it affects cognitive performance. In particular, the proposed theoretical analysis in terms of memory retrieval provides important clues as to when mind wandering will interfere with ongoing productive activity and when it will not.