Mind Wandering and Task-Focused Attention: ERP Correlates

Previous studies looking at how Mind Wandering (MW) impacts performance in distinct Focused Attention (FA) systems, using the Attention Network Task (ANT), showed that the presence of pure MW thoughts did not impact the overall performance of ANT (alert, orienting and conflict) performance. However, it still remains unclear if the lack of interference of MW in the ANT, reported at the behavioral level, has a neurophysiological correspondence. We hypothesize that a distinct cortical processing may be required to meet attentional demands during MW. The objective of the present study was to test if, given similar levels of ANT performance, individuals predominantly focusing on MW or FA show distinct cortical processing. Thirty-three healthy participants underwent an EEG high-density acquisition while they were performing the ANT. MW was assessed following the ANT using an adapted version of the Resting State Questionnaire (ReSQ). The following ERP’s were analyzed: pN1, pP1, P1, N1, pN, and P3. At the behavioral level, participants were slower and less accurate when responding to incongruent than to congruent targets (conflict effect), benefiting from the presentation of the double (alerting effect) and spatial (orienting effect) cues. Consistent with the behavioral data, ERP’s waves were discriminative of distinct attentional effects. However, these results remained true irrespective of the MW condition, suggesting that MW imposed no additional cortical demand in alert, orienting, and conflict attention tasks.

[1]  T. Hendler,et al.  Towards a Neuroscience of Mind-Wandering , 2011, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[2]  René J. Huster,et al.  The role of the cingulate cortex as neural generator of the N200 and P300 in a tactile response inhibition task , 2010, Human brain mapping.

[3]  Michele T. Diaz,et al.  Maintenance and Representation of Mind Wandering during Resting-State fMRI , 2017, Scientific Reports.

[4]  M. Raichle.  Two views of brain function , 2010, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[5]  Nikolai Axmacher,et al.  Mind wandering simultaneously prolongs reactions and promotes creative incubation , 2017, Scientific Reports.

[6]  Fei Wang,et al.  Relationships between the resting-state network and the P3: Evidence from a scalp EEG study , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[7]  J. Smallwood,et al.  The restless mind. , 2006, Psychological bulletin.

[8]  Steve Majerus,et al.  Neural Correlates of Ongoing Conscious Experience: Both Task-Unrelatedness and Stimulus-Independence Are Related to Default Network Activity , 2011, PloS one.

[9]  Marc Joliot,et al.  The resting state questionnaire: An introspective questionnaire for evaluation of inner experience during the conscious resting state , 2010, Brain Research Bulletin.

[10]  Jin Fan,et al.  The activation of attentional networks , 2005, NeuroImage.

[11]  John Duncan,et al.  The role of the right inferior frontal gyrus: inhibition and attentional control , 2010, NeuroImage.

[12]  Feng Liu,et al.  Reliable Attention Network Scores and Mutually Inhibited Inter-network Relationships Revealed by Mixed Design and Non-orthogonal Method , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[13]  Gabriel Gaudencio Rego,et al.  Is the Relationship Between Mind Wandering and Attention Culture-Specific? , 2017 .

[14]  R. C. Oldfield.  The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. , 1971, Neuropsychologia.

[15]  Jonathan Smallwood,et al.  The Decoupled Mind: Mind-wandering Disrupts Cortical Phase-locking to Perceptual Events , 2014, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[16]  S. Hillyard,et al.  Spatial Selective Attention Affects Early Extrastriate But Not Striate Components of the Visual Evoked Potential , 1996, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[17]  Bruce D. McCandliss,et al.  Testing the Efficiency and Independence of Attentional Networks , 2002, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[18]  M. Posner,et al.  The attention system of the human brain. , 1990, Annual review of neuroscience.

[19]  Jin Fan,et al.  Attentional Phenotypes for the Analysis of Higher Mental Function , 2002, TheScientificWorldJournal.

[20]  Ivan Toni,et al.  On the relationship between the “default mode network” and the “social brain” , 2012, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[21]  Abraham Z. Snyder,et al.  A default mode of brain function: A brief history of an evolving idea , 2007, NeuroImage.

[22]  J. Buhle,et al.  Typologies of attentional networks , 2006, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[23]  Sheng He,et al.  Different efficiencies of attentional orienting in different wandering minds , 2012, Consciousness and Cognition.

[24]  M. Berchicci,et al.  New insights into old waves. Matching stimulus- and response-locked ERPs on the same time-window , 2016, Biological Psychology.

[25]  Eric Hahn,et al.  Event-related potentials associated with Attention Network Test. , 2010, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[26]  S. Hillyard,et al.  Cortical sources of the early components of the visual evoked potential , 2002, Human brain mapping.

[27]  A. Beck,et al.  Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory: Twenty-five years of evaluation , 1988 .

[28]  Perrine Ruby,et al.  Distinct Regions of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex Are Associated with Self-referential Processing and Perspective Taking , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[29]  Michael J. Kane,et al.  Dispatching the wandering mind? Toward a laboratory method for cuing “spontaneous” off-task thought , 2013, Front. Psychol..

[30]  M. Posner,et al.  The attention system of the human brain: 20 years after. , 2012, Annual review of neuroscience.

[31]  M. Vázquez-Marrufo,et al.  Disentangling the attention network test: behavioral, event related potentials, and neural source analyses , 2014, Front. Hum. Neurosci..

[32]  M. Berchicci,et al.  Beyond the “Bereitschaftspotential”: Action preparation behind cognitive functions , 2017, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[33]  D. Shore,et al.  Mixing measures: testing an assumption of the attention network test , 2011, Attention, perception & psychophysics.

[34]  M. Eimer.  An ERP study on visual spatial priming with peripheral onsets. , 1994, Psychophysiology.

[35]  Claire Braboszcz,et al.  Lost in thoughts: Neural markers of low alertness during mind wandering , 2011, NeuroImage.

[36]  F. Fregni,et al.  Mind wandering and the attention network system. , 2017, Acta psychologica.

[37]  S. Majerus,et al.  Relationships between mind-wandering and attentional control abilities in young adults and adolescents. , 2014, Acta psychologica.

[38]  J. Smallwood,et al.  Inspired by Distraction , 2012, Psychological science.

[39]  Benjamin W. Mooneyham,et al.  The costs and benefits of mind-wandering: a review. , 2013, Canadian journal of experimental psychology = Revue canadienne de psychologie experimentale.

[40]  Nash Unsworth,et al.  Similarities and differences between mind-wandering and external distraction: a latent variable analysis of lapses of attention and their relation to cognitive abilities. , 2014, Acta psychologica.

[41]  Todd C. Handy,et al.  Differential recruitment of executive resources during mind wandering , 2014, Consciousness and Cognition.

[42]  Lawrence M. Ward,et al.  An event-related brain potential study of inhibition of return , 1999, Perception & psychophysics.

[43]  Zachary C. Irving,et al.  Mind-wandering as spontaneous thought: a dynamic framework , 2016, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[44]  Anna Lena Biel,et al.  Age differences in the Attention Network Test: Evidence from behavior and event-related potentials , 2016, Brain and Cognition.

[45]  M. Posner,et al.  Assessing the molecular genetics of attention networks , 2002, BMC Neuroscience.

[46]  Jonathan Smallwood,et al.  Going AWOL in the Brain: Mind Wandering Reduces Cortical Analysis of External Events , 2008, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[47]  J. Smallwood,et al.  The science of mind wandering: empirically navigating the stream of consciousness. , 2015, Annual review of psychology.

[48]  D. Spinelli,et al.  Brain waves from an “isolated” cortex: contribution of the anterior insula to cognitive functions , 2017, Brain Structure and Function.

[49]  A. Jacobs,et al.  Stimulus onset asynchrony and the timeline of word recognition: Event-related potentials during sentence reading , 2012, Neuropsychologia.

[50]  Keiji Iramina,et al.  The influence of stimulus onset asynchrony on neuronal suppressive phenomenon in face processing: An event-related potential study , 2011, 2011 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[51]  M. Kane,et al.  What Mind Wandering Reveals About Executive-Control Abilities and Failures , 2012 .

[52]  W. Perlstein,et al.  An Event-Related Potential Investigation of the Effects of Age on Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Function , 2016, Front. Aging Neurosci..

[53]  J. Theeuwes,et al.  Stay Tuned: What Is Special About Not Shifting Attention? , 2011, PloS one.

[54]  Kara D. Federmeier,et al.  Time for prediction? The effect of presentation rate on predictive sentence comprehension during word-by-word reading , 2015, Cortex.

[55]  R. Klein,et al.  Appraising the ANT: Psychometric and theoretical considerations of the Attention Network Test. , 2010, Neuropsychology.

[56]  Steve Majerus,et al.  Mind-wandering: phenomenology and function as assessed with a novel experience sampling method. , 2011, Acta psychologica.

[57]  K. Christoff,et al.  Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.