ReviewNeuropsychologia2016
From mind wandering to involuntary retrieval: Age-related differences in spontaneous cognitive processes.
Review in Neuropsychologia, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Ecological momentary assessment of mind-wandering: meta-analysis and systematic review.Scientific reports · 2023Pooled it
- Are the correlates of mind wandering consistent across younger and older adults?Psychological research · 2026Article
- Spontaneous Goal-Related Cognition Predicts Well-Being and Real-World Goal Attainment Across Adulthood in a Think-Aloud Study.Research square · 2026Article
- Mapping content and dynamics in the stream of consciousness through latent brain state analysis.iScience · 2025Article
- Further unpacking age-related differences in mind wandering: The roles of emotional valence and meta-awareness.Memory & cognition · 2025Article
- Examining cognitive differences in expert meditators and non-meditators older adults.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Using objective and subjective measures of mind wandering to predict progression to development of cognitive impairment and test associations with Alzheimer disease biomarkers.Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology · 2025Article
- Effective engagement in computerized cognitive training for older adults.Ageing research reviews · 2025Review
- Review
- Arousal and sustained attention fluctuate differently with respiration in younger and older adults.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in mind-wandering in older adulthood.Psychology and aging · 2024Article
- Age-Related Differences in Mind Wandering: The Role of Emotional Valence.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2024Article
- Mind wandering on command.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Investigating the relationship between periodontitis and specific memory processes in the search for cognitive markers of Alzheimer's disease risk.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- A systematic approach to brain dynamics: cognitive evolution theory of consciousness.Cognitive neurodynamics · 2023Article
- Reconceptualizing mind wandering from a switching perspective.Psychological research · 2023Review
- Cognitive and non-cognitive variables influencing age-related effect of mind wandering across the adult life span.European journal of ageing · 2022Article
- Predicting response time variability from task and resting-state functional connectivity in the aging brain.NeuroImage · 2022Article
- Episodic-semantic interactions in spontaneous thought.Memory & cognition · 2022Review
- Incorporating ecological momentary assessment into multimethod investigations of cognitive aging: Promise and practical considerations.Psychology and aging · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The majority of studies that have investigated the effects of healthy aging on cognition have focused on age-related differences in voluntary and deliberately engaged cognitive processes. Yet many forms of cognition occur spontaneously, without any deliberate attempt at engaging them. In this article we review studies that have assessed age-related differences in four such types of spontaneous thought processes: mind-wandering, involuntary autobiographical memory, intrusive thoughts, and spontaneous prospective memory retrieval. These studies suggest that older adults exhibit a reduction in frequency of both mind-wandering and involuntary autobiographical memory, whereas findings regarding intrusive thoughts have been more mixed. Additionally, there is some preliminary evidence that spontaneous prospective memory retrieval may be relatively preserved in aging. We consider the roles of age-related differences in cognitive resources, motivation, current concerns and emotional regulation in accounting for these findings. We also consider age-related differences in the neural correlates of spontaneous cognitive processes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.