ArticleJournal of cognition2018
Tracking the Dynamics of Mind Wandering: Insights from Pupillometry.
Article in Journal of cognition, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Relative Accuracy of Different Methods for Measuring Mind Wandering Subtypes: A Systematic Review.Brain and behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Building a construct-valid battery of performance and self-report indicators of sustained attention consistency.Behavior research methods · 2025Article
- Effect of subconscious changes in bodily response on thought shifting in people with accurate interoception.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Pupillometry tracks errors in interval timing.Behavioral neuroscience · 2022Article
- Spontaneous and deliberate future thinking: a dual process account.Psychological research · 2021Review
- Creativity in Narcolepsy Type 1: The Role of Dissociated REM Sleep Manifestations.Nature and science of sleep · 2020Article
- A closer look at the timecourse of mind wandering: Pupillary responses and behaviour.PloS one · 2020Article
- Space-time interaction: visuo-spatial processing affects the temporal focus of mind wandering.Psychological research · 2019Article
- Pupillometry as an Objective Measure of Sustained Attention in Young and Older Listeners.Trends in hearingArticle
- Catching Mind Wandering With Pupillometry: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges.Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive scienceReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mind wandering (MW) refers to the shift of attention away from a primary task towards thoughts unrelated to the task. Here we show that significant new insight into the dynamics of this process can be gained by using pupillometry. Participants performed a monotonous vigilance task which was intermixed with task-irrelevant verbal cues. At fixed times, we interrupted them and asked what they were thinking about immediately prior to the probe and what had triggered their thought. We observed pupil dilation after the presentation of verbal cues reported to have triggered MW, compared with other verbal cues with similar emotional content. Thus, MW is associated with pupil dilation. We also analysed the pupil-constriction response to the task-stimuli (vertical and horizontal bars, to be categorized as targets and non-targets for the vigilance task), and found that this was unchanged during MW. We conclude that pupil size provides an index of MW, objective and covert and that this may be exploited in further studies to understand whether and how MW affects the processing of sensory stimuli.
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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.