ArticleScientific reports2021
The think aloud paradigm reveals differences in the content, dynamics and conceptual scope of resting state thought in trait brooding.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Spontaneous Goal-Related Cognition Predicts Well-Being and Real-World Goal Attainment Across Adulthood in a Think-Aloud Study.Research square · 2026Article
- An fMRI dataset of verbalized spontaneous thought with annotated transcripts and self-report trait measures.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Detecting risk for depression and anxiety symptoms among older bereaved women using text-based analysis in the Nurses' Health Study II.American journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Rumination Out Loud? Linguistic, Neural, and Psychophysiological Correlates of the Think-Aloud Paradigm.Depression and anxiety · 2026Article
- Phenomenology of the stream of thought: dissociable dynamic dimensions revealed through experience sampling.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Dynamics of the stream of thought: insights from an accumulation-to-threshold model.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Mapping content and dynamics in the stream of consciousness through latent brain state analysis.iScience · 2025Article
- Neural dynamics of spontaneous memory recall and future thinking in the continuous flow of thoughts.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Hyperactive ADHD symptoms are associated with increased variability in thought content in less constrained contexts.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- The effect of perceived parental rejection on depression in high school students: the chain mediating role of rumination and alexithymia.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Excluding spontaneous thought periods enhances functional connectivity test-retest reliability and machine learning performance in fMRI.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Reconsidering intrapersonal communication through an interdisciplinary lens.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- A novel scoring protocol reveals age-related differences in abstract compared to concrete thinking in cued autobiographical remembering.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Coupled changes between ruminating thoughts and resting-state brain networks during the transition into adulthood.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- Comparison of trait and state mind wandering among schizotypal, subclinically depressed, and control individuals.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Article
- Speaking Well and Feeling Good: Age-Related Differences in the Affective Language of Resting State Thought.Affective science · 2024Article
- Individual variability in neural representations of mind-wandering.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Creative minds at rest: Creative individuals are more associative and engaged with their idle thoughts.Creativity research journal · 2024Article
- Aberrant degree centrality profiles during rumination in major depressive disorder.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Although central to well-being, functional and dysfunctional thoughts arise and unfold over time in ways that remain poorly understood. To shed light on these mechanisms, we adapted a "think aloud" paradigm to quantify the content and dynamics of individuals' thoughts at rest. Across two studies, external raters hand coded the content of each thought and computed dynamic metrics spanning duration, transition probabilities between affective states, and conceptual similarity over time. Study 1 highlighted the paradigm's high ecological validity and revealed a narrowing of conceptual scope following more negative content. Study 2 replicated Study 1's findings and examined individual difference predictors of trait brooding, a maladaptive form of rumination. Across individuals, increased trait brooding was linked to thoughts rated as more negative, past-oriented and self-focused. Longer negative and shorter positive thoughts were also apparent as brooding increased, as well as a tendency to shift away from positive conceptual states, and a stronger narrowing of conceptual scope following negative thoughts. Importantly, content and dynamics explained independent variance, accounting for a third of the variance in brooding. These results uncover a real-time cognitive signature of rumination and highlight the predictive and ecological validity of the think aloud paradigm applied to resting state cognition.
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