In a recent review, we suggested that an important aspect of mind-wandering is whether participants are aware that they are off task (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006). We tested this hypothesis by examining the information-processing correlates of mind wandering with and without awareness in a task requiring participants to encode words and detect targets with either a high or a low probability. Tar...

This paper reports the results from a sensor-free detector of mind wandering during an online reading task. Features consisted of reading behaviors (e.g., reading time) and textual features (e.g., level of difficulty) extracted from self-paced reading log files. Supervised machine learning was applied to two datasets in order to predict if participants were mind wandering as they navigated from...

This paper reports the results from a sensor-free detector of mind wandering during an online reading task. Features consisted of reading behaviors (e.g., reading time) and textual features (e.g., level of difficulty) extracted from self-paced reading log files. Supervised machine learning was applied to two datasets in order to predict if participants were mind wandering as they navigated from...

A wandering spleen is a rare condition characterized by the malposition of the spleen due to laxity or absence of its supporting ligaments. Although Gaucher disease generally presents with massive splenomegaly, which one of the predisposing causes of a wandering spleen, literature shows only one report of a wandering spleen in a child with Gaucher disease. In this case presentation, a 13-year-o...

Although mind-wandering is common, engaging in task-irrelevant thoughts can have negative functional consequences. We examined whether mind-wandering frequency may be related to falls—a major health-care problem. Seniors completed a sustained attention task and self-reported their current attentional states. Monthly falls reports were collected over 12 months. Falls were associated with an incr...

Individual differences across a variety of cognitive processes are functionally associated with individual differences in intrinsic networks such as the default mode network (DMN). The extent to which these networks correlate or anticorrelate has been associated with performance in a variety of circumstances. Despite the established role of the DMN in mind wandering processes, little research h...

This study developed and examined the validity of Japanese versions of the Daydream Frequency Scale (DDFS) and the Mind Wandering Questionnaire (MWQ), which measures propensity for spontaneous thoughts and mind wandering, respectively. In Study 1, we translated the items of the DDFS and the MWQ into Japanese and verified their validity. In Study 2, we confirmed the correlation of both scales wi...

Amajor controversy in cardiac electrophysiology is whether ventricular fibrillation (VF) is maintained by wandering wavelets or mother rotors. On the basis of a computer model of atrial fibrillation by Moe1 developed in 1962, fibrillation was hypothesized to be maintained by multiple small, wandering wavelets, in which the activation pattern is constantly changing. According to the wandering wa...

Mind wandering has been considered as a mental process that is either independent from the concurrent task or regulated like a secondary task. These accounts predict that the form of mind wandering (i.e., images or words) should be either unaffected by or different from the modality form (i.e., visual or auditory) of the concurrent task. Findings from this study challenge these accounts. We mea...