Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame.
Psychol Aging. 2012 Dec;27(4):951-958. doi: 10.1037/a0028831. Epub 2012 Jun 11.
Mind wandering occurs when a person's stream of thought moves from the primary task to task-unrelated matters. Some theories of mind wandering suggest that it is caused by decreased attentional control associated with lower working memory (WM) capacity. Others suggest that it is caused by attention being directed toward internally generated thoughts and that it is associated with higher WM capacity. These ideas were assessed testing older adults because they have been argued to have reduced attentional control and lower WM capacity. The first account predicts that mind wandering should increase in older adults, while the second account predicts the opposite. Two experiments show that older adults exhibited a lower rate of mind wandering than younger adults. However, when using text interest as a covariate, the age difference in mind wandering disappeared. These results are further addressed in light of participants' current concerns and preserved situation model processing in cognitive aging.
当一个人的思维从主要任务转移到与任务无关的事情上时，就会出现思维漫游。一些关于思维漫游的理论认为，这是由于注意力控制的降低与较低的工作记忆（WM）容量有关。另一些理论则认为，它是由注意力指向内部产生的想法引起的，并且与较高的 WM 容量有关。这些观点是通过测试老年人来评估的，因为他们被认为注意力控制能力降低，WM 容量较低。第一个假设预测老年人的思维漫游应该会增加，而第二个假设则预测相反的情况。两项实验表明，老年人的思维漫游率低于年轻人。然而，当使用文本兴趣作为协变量时，思维漫游的年龄差异就消失了。根据参与者当前的关注点和认知老化中情景模型处理的保留情况，进一步讨论了这些结果。
