Department of Psychology and Brain Health Research Centre, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand; Brain Research New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand.
Department of Psychology and Brain Health Research Centre, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Neuropsychologia. 2023 Jul 4;185:108585. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108585. Epub 2023 May 9.
Previous research has established that mind wandering does not necessarily disrupt one's task-switching performance. Here we investigated the effects of mind wandering on electrophysiological signatures, measured using event-related potentials (ERPs), during a switching task. In the current study, a final sample of 22 young adults performed a task-switching paradigm while electroencephalography was continuously recorded; mind wandering was assessed via thought probes at the end of each block. Consistent with previous research, we found no significant disruptive effects of mind wandering on task-switching performance. The ERP results showed that at the posterior electrode sites (P3, Pz, and P4), P3 amplitude was higher for mind-wandering switch trials than on-task switch trials, thus opposing the typical pattern of P3 attenuation during periods of mind wandering relative to on-task episodes. Considering that increased P3 amplitude during higher-order switch trials (e.g., response rule switching) may reflect the implementation of new higher-order task sets/rules, the current findings seem to indicate similar executive control processes underlie mind wandering and task-set switching, providing further evidence in favor of a role for switching in mind wandering.
先前的研究已经证实，心不在焉不一定会干扰任务转换的表现。在这里，我们研究了心不在焉对切换任务中事件相关电位 (ERP) 测量的电生理特征的影响。在本研究中，最后有 22 名年轻成年人在执行任务切换范式的同时连续记录脑电图;在每个块的末尾通过思维探针评估心不在焉的情况。与先前的研究一致，我们没有发现心不在焉对任务转换表现有显著的干扰效应。ERP 结果表明，在后部电极部位 (P3、Pz 和 P4)，心不在焉的转换试验的 P3 振幅高于任务相关的转换试验，因此与心不在焉期间相对于任务相关事件的 P3 衰减的典型模式相反。考虑到在更高阶的转换试验(例如，反应规则转换)中 P3 振幅的增加可能反映了新的更高阶任务集/规则的实施，当前的发现似乎表明心不在焉和任务集转换的执行控制过程相似，进一步支持了切换在心不在焉中的作用。
