Harnessing the wandering mind: The role of perceptual load

摘要: Perceptual load is a key determinant of distraction by task-irrelevant stimuli (e.g., Lavie, N. (2005). Distracted and confused?: Selective attention under load. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9, 75–82). Here we establish the role perceptual determining an internal form task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs or “mind-wandering”). Four experiments demonstrated reduced frequency TUTs with high compared to low visual-search task. Alternative accounts terms increased demands on responses, verbal working memory motivation were ruled out clear effects found for unintentional TUTs. Individual differences (TUTs) external (response-competition) distractors correlated. These results suggest that exhausting attentional capacity task-relevant processing can reduce information from sources alike.