Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China.
Beijing Key Lab of Applied Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2023 Jul 13;8(1):43. doi: 10.1186/s41235-023-00502-0.
Considerable research suggests a link between mind wandering and diminished levels of motivation and interest. During episodes of mind wandering, individuals may engage in efforts to redirect their attention back to the task at hand (known as focus back effort). Building on the resource-control hypothesis, we hypothesized that the influence of interest and motivation on mind wandering may be mediated by focus back effort. In Study 1, we employed a latent-variable approach to investigate these relationships across three tasks with varying cognitive demands. The results showed that individual differences in interest indirectly influenced mind wandering through the mediating factors of motivation and focus back effort. Furthermore, individual differences in interest indirectly predicted task performance through the mediating factors of motivation, focus back effort, and mind wandering during the high-load task. In Study 2, we replicated the relationships among these factors in a reading comprehension task. The results consistently support the role of focus back effort as an adaptive mechanism for executive control, enabling the allocation of cognitive resources to both mind wandering and task performance. These findings underscore the significance of focus back effort in elucidating the interplay between mind wandering, motivation, interest, and task performance. Importantly, our results align with the resource-control theory.
大量研究表明，心流与动机和兴趣水平降低之间存在关联。在心流期间，个体可能会努力将注意力重新集中到手头的任务上（称为焦点后努力）。基于资源控制假说，我们假设兴趣和动机对心流的影响可以通过焦点后努力来介导。在研究 1 中，我们采用潜在变量方法在三个具有不同认知需求的任务中研究了这些关系。结果表明，兴趣的个体差异通过动机和焦点后努力等中介因素间接影响心流。此外，兴趣的个体差异通过动机、焦点后努力和高负荷任务中心流等中介因素间接预测任务表现。在研究 2 中，我们在阅读理解任务中复制了这些因素之间的关系。结果一致支持焦点后努力作为执行控制的适应性机制的作用，使认知资源能够同时分配给心流和任务表现。这些发现强调了焦点后努力在阐明心流、动机、兴趣和任务表现之间相互作用的重要性。重要的是，我们的结果与资源控制理论一致。
