Attenuation of deep semantic processing during mind wandering: an event-related potential study

Neuroreport
Judy XuJanet Metcalfe

Abstract

Although much research shows that early sensory and attentional processing is affected by mind wandering, the effect of mind wandering on deep (i.e. semantic) processing is relatively unexplored. To investigate this relation, we recorded event-related potentials as participants studied English-Spanish word pairs, one at a time, while being intermittently probed for whether they were 'on task' or 'mind wandering'. Both perceptual processing, indexed by the P2 component, and deep processing, indexed by a late, sustained slow wave maximal at parietal electrodes, was attenuated during periods preceding participants' mind wandering reports. The pattern when participants were on task, rather than mind wandering, is similar to the subsequent memory or difference in memory effect. These results support previous findings of sensory attenuation during mind wandering, and extend them to a long-duration slow wave by suggesting that the deeper and more sustained levels of processing are also disrupted.

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Citations

Jan 21, 2021·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Julia W Y KamRobert T Knight
Mar 13, 2021·Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences·Janet MetcalfeTeal S Eich
Aug 27, 2021·Frontiers in Human Neuroscience·Colin Conrad, Aaron Newman

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