ArticlePsychology and aging2024
Cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in mind-wandering in older adulthood.
Article in Psychology and aging, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Effects of mindfulness training on sustained attention and mind-wandering in older adults: results from the HealthyAgers randomized controlled trial.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2026Trial
- Are the correlates of mind wandering consistent across younger and older adults?Psychological research · 2026Article
- Further unpacking age-related differences in mind wandering: The roles of emotional valence and meta-awareness.Memory & cognition · 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
- Cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in mind-wandering in older adulthood.Psychology and aging · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
Age-related declines in the frequency of mind-wandering are well established. Theories of mind-wandering have attempted to explain why this decline occurs, but no one theory firmly predicts such changes. One problem with these theoretical views, and the studies that have grown out of them, is their reliance on cross-sectional methods, which do not account for within-person changes over time in mind-wandering, and it is well-documented that cross-sectional and longitudinal changes in some cognitive domains do not align. We present a novel analysis of longitudinal change in subjective and objective indicators of mind-wandering during a sustained attention task. Cognitively normal adults (N = 277, age range 42-94) completed a sustained attention task with thought probes to measure mind-wandering repeatedly over several years. Linear mixed effect models revealed baseline differences in subjective mind-wandering reports among middle-aged and older adults. However, longitudinally, middle-aged participants showed a significant increase in subjective mind-wandering, whereas older participants showed no change. Changes in mind-wandering could not be explained by attentional control ability or contemporaneous estimates of interest and perceived difficulty, but they were explained by baseline levels of conscientiousness. Objective measures of mind-wandering did not show these same patterns and were largely only associated with participants perceived difficulty. Our results build on previous cross-sectional research and suggest that incorporating longitudinal analyses into theories of ageing and mind-wandering and mind-wandering more broadly is important for refining these theories. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
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