Moving forward in the study of mind wandering: A dynamic process-based perspective

Dans le cadre de l’axe 1 une conférence vous est proposée en salle plat à la MSHS, de 12h30 à 13h30 le jeudi 11 octobre 2018, avec Manila VANNUCCI.

Résumé :

While reading a book, attending a lecture or driving, there may be moments when our attention spontaneously drifts away from the primary task and our mind starts wandering elsewhere towards internal thoughts, such as personal memories and prospective thoughts, whose content is unrelated to the ongoing task. We refer to this phenomenon as mind wandering (MW). Our understanding of the neurocognitive process of MW has dramatically increased over the past decade. However, up until recently, most research on MW has investigated this mental state from a static content-based perspective, by assessing whether task-unrelated thoughts are taking place during a task. Manila Vannucci (Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug Research and Child Healt —NEUROFARBA—, University of Florence, Italy) will present the key challenge still facing research, that is the identification of the processes and events that prompt the initial occurrence of MW (the onset) as well as its maintenance-continuity over time: Why does the mind start wandering at that specific moment? And how does this mental state arise and unfold over time? In the seminar Manila Vannucci will briefly review the state-of-the art in the field, and present a series of studies carried out by her research group, aimed at investigating the ongoing thought dynamics of MW, by combining behavioural techniques and pupillometry. The relevance of this dynamic process-based perspective for our understanding of how human attention and thought work, and its implications for applied research on MW in educational and professional contexts will be discussed.