Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
May 26, 2009
Kalina Christoff, Alan M Gordon, Jonathan Smallwood et al.
1,832 citations
Mind wandering, which occupies a large portion of waking life, involves parallel recruitment of both default and executive brain networks, two systems previously thought to work in opposition. Using fMRI with experience sampling during a task, activation in default network regions, particularly medial prefrontal cortex, was linked to subjective reports of mind wandering and to performance errors. Executive network recruitment also occurred, especially when participants lacked meta-awareness of their mind wandering. The findings suggest that mind wandering represents a unique mental state where these networks cooperate rather than oppose each other.
Consciousness and cognition
February 1, 2025
Anusha Garg, Shivang Shelat, Madeleine E Gross et al.
13 citations
Thinking aloud while letting the mind wander does not substantially alter the stream of consciousness compared to thinking silently. In two studies with 111 and 102 participants, people who verbalized their ongoing thoughts showed no significant differences in meta-awareness or how often their topics shifted. Of 21 thought qualities and 18 content topics examined, only three qualities (private thoughts, mind blanking, and session difficulty) and one topic (partner, intimacy, love, and sexual matters) differed between conditions. Cognitive load also did not differ. The findings indicate that the Think Aloud method is a reliable and minimally reactive tool for studying the natural flow of thoughts in task-absent settings.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2024
Justin Riddle, Jonathan W Schooler
7 citations
Although we intuitively feel we have a single, unified conscious experience, we often face indecision, hold contradictory beliefs, or engage in internal debates. The Nested Observer Windows (NOW) Model proposes that consciousness is hierarchical: information processed across many spatiotemporal scales of the brain feeds into subjective experience. It likens the mind to a hierarchy of nested mosaic tiles, where each tile is itself an image made of smaller tiles. Unitary consciousness sits at the apex, where perceptual constructs become fully integrated and complex behaviors are initiated. The model defines observer windows as spatially and temporally constrained systems that integrate information.
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews
October 1, 2023
Ruben E Laukkonen, Margaret Webb, Carola Salvi et al.
Feelings of insight help people select ideas from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and generating intuitive confidence, enabling fast action under uncertainty. This 'Eureka heuristic' is explained through active inference: implicit restructuring via Bayesian reduction produces a higher-order prediction error (the content of insight), while dopaminergic precision-weighting of that error accounts for the confidence, pleasure, and attentional capture (the feeling of insight). The account aligns with the phenomenology, accuracy, and neural unfolding of insight, as well as its effects on belief and decision-making. Dangers include the formation and entrenchment of false beliefs and vulnerability of insights under psychoactive substances and misinformation.
Frontiers in human neuroscience
January 1, 2019
Tam Hunt, Jonathan W Schooler
Resonance—synchronization, harmonization, or vibrations in a general sense—appears to be integrally related to consciousness. In mammalian brains, a specific combination of gamma, beta, and theta electrical synchrony is a possible neural correlate of consciousness. Similar resonance patterns occur in many living and non-living structures. This paper reviews resonating structures across neuroscience, biology, and physics and proposes a solution to the 'combination problem' of consciousness: how micro-conscious entities combine into macro-consciousness.
Annual review of psychology
January 3, 2015
Jonathan Smallwood, Jonathan W Schooler
Conscious experience is fluid, rarely staying on one topic for long. Mind wandering illustrates this, as attention shifts from a current task to unrelated thoughts and feelings. Its content and relation to meta-cognition determine functional outcomes. Mind wandering involves perceptual decoupling to escape the moment, with content arising from episodic and affective processes, regulated by executive control. It carries costs, linked to errors, and benefits, associated with creativity and future planning. Strategies can minimize downsides while maintaining productive aspects.
Psychological bulletin
March 1, 2011
Jonathan W Schooler
On the centennial of William James's death, the author considers how James might have responded to Fox, Ericsson, and Best's (2011) defense of think-aloud protocols for capturing the stream of consciousness. James would likely view the procedure as scientifically rigorous introspection but would caution that it captures substantive verbal thoughts while missing inchoate cognitions. The author also notes that the conclusion that verbal protocols are nonreactive does not speak to their validity and conflicts with findings that verbalization impairs performance on some tasks. James would be pleased that introspection is finally receiving scientific grounding.