Konishi, Mahiko and Smallwood, Jonathan orcid.org/0000-0002-7298-2459 (2016) Shadowing the wandering mind:how understanding the mind-wandering state can inform our appreciation of conscious experience. Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive science. 233–246. ISSN 1939-5078
Abstract
The mind-wandering state illustrates two fundamental aspects of consciousness: its generative nature, which is reflected by the stimulus-independent content of thought that occurs when our minds wander; and metacognition, the unique capacity of the mind to reflect and understand itself. Self-generated thought, which allows us to consider people and events that are not present in the immediate environment, and metacognition, allowing us to introspect and report our inner experiences, are both essential to the scientific study of mind-wandering. Nevertheless, they also inevitably lead to specific issues that mirror more general problems in the field of consciousness research. The generative nature of consciousness makes it difficult to have direct control on the phenomenon, and the act of introspecting on inner experience has the potential to influence the state itself. We illustrate how the field of mind-wandering research can overcome these problems. Its generative nature can be understood by triangulating the objective measures (such as neural function) with subjective measures of experience and it can be manipulated indirectly by varying the demands of the external environment. Furthermore, we describe candidate covert markers for the mind-wandering state, which allow the phenomenon to be observed without direct interference, minimizing the concern that instructions to introspect necessarily change conscious experience. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Psychology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 17 Oct 2016 14:35 |
Last Modified: | 02 Mar 2025 00:04 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1392 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/wcs.1392 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:105858 |
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