Mind-wandering - Research Methods

Research Methods

Mind-wandering is studied using thought sampling, or simply asking participants what they are thinking about at any given moment. Another way in which mind-wandering has been studied is through the use of behavioral indicators of a lapse in external attention. A common technique is to use the sustained attention to response (SART) task originally developed by Ian Robertson and his colleagues at Trinity College, Dublin to explore deficits in executive control after lesions to the frontal lobe. Since there is no direct way to measure mind wandering researchers have had to improvise to collect the data they needed. One process used was to simply give patients something to focus on and then at different times ask them what they were thinking about. Those who were not thinking about what was given to them were considered “wandering”. Other researchers tried to use technology such as an fMRI to see the changes in brain function and to plot in the brain where this phenomenon occurs, but the results were inconclusive. In the 1980s Eric Klinger conducted a study on what people day dreamed about. In his findings he concluded that in the event of mind wandering people think of ordinary everyday events. He also concluded that people with boring jobs tend to do the most mind wandering most of it to pass the time. He stated that less than 5% of those thoughts involved sexual or violent acts.