Drescher Leonhard Hakon, Van den Bussche Eva, Desender Kobe
Department of Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
Department of neurophysiology and pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
PLoS One. 2018 Feb 9;13(2):e0191639. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191639. eCollection 2018.
Despite the abundance of recent publications about mind wandering (i.e., off-task thought), its interconnection with metacognition and cognitive control has not yet been examined. In the current study, we hypothesized that these three constructs would show clear interrelations. Metacognitive capacity was predicted to correlate positively with cognitive control ability, which in turn was predicted to be positively related to resistance to mind wandering during sustained attention. Moreover, it was expected that participants with good metacognitive capacity would be better at the subjective recognition of behaviorally present mind wandering. Three tasks were used: The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) to measure mind wandering, a perceptual decision task with confidence ratings to measure metacognitive efficiency, and a conflict task to measure cognitive control. Structural Equation Modelling was used to test the interrelations among the three constructs. As expected, metacognitive efficiency was positively related to cognitive control ability. Surprisingly, there was a negative relation between metacognitive efficiency and the degree to which subjective mind wandering reports tracked the behavioral index of mind wandering. No relation was found between cognitive control and behavioral mind wandering. The results of the current work are the first to shed light on the interrelations among these three constructs.
尽管近期有大量关于走神（即任务无关思维）的出版物，但它与元认知和认知控制之间的相互联系尚未得到研究。在当前的研究中，我们假设这三个概念将呈现出明显的相互关系。预计元认知能力与认知控制能力呈正相关，而认知控制能力反过来又与持续注意力期间对走神的抵抗力呈正相关。此外，预计具有良好元认知能力的参与者在对行为上出现的走神进行主观识别方面会表现得更好。使用了三项任务：用于测量走神的持续注意力反应任务（SART）、用于测量元认知效率的带有信心评级的知觉决策任务，以及用于测量认知控制的冲突任务。采用结构方程模型来检验这三个概念之间的相互关系。正如预期的那样，元认知效率与认知控制能力呈正相关。令人惊讶的是，元认知效率与主观走神报告追踪走神行为指标的程度之间存在负相关。未发现认知控制与行为性走神之间存在关联。当前研究的结果首次揭示了这三个概念之间的相互关系。
