Segmenting the stream of consciousness: the psychological correlates of temporal structures in the time series data of a continuous performance task.
Brain and cognition February 1, 2008 Jonathan Smallwood, Merrill McSpadden, Bryan Luus et al.
Principal component analysis of response times during a continuous performance task can distinguish mental states. Three components accounted for 58.8% of the variance in response time data. The second-largest component was a marker for mind wandering: it was stronger under slow stimulus presentation (paralleling the distribution of mind-wandering reports) and more powerful before failures in response inhibition (a behavioral marker of mind wandering) and less powerful before reports of task-focused thinking. The analysis appears to be a viable tool for differentiating mental states and may help identify neural substrates underlying mind wandering.