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The Persistence of Thought: Evidence for a Role of Working Memory in the Maintenance of Task-Unrelated Thinking
Open accessAbstract
Tasks that tax working memory (WM) have consistently been found to decrease mind wandering. These findings may indicate that maintenance of mind wandering requires WM resources, such that mind wandering cannot persist when WM resources are being consumed by a task. An alternative explanation for these findings, however, is that mind wandering persists without the support of WM but is nonetheless decreased during any demanding task because good task performance requires that attention be restricted from task-unrelated thought (TUT). The present study tested these two competing theories by investigating whether individuals with greater WM resources mind-wander more during an undemanding task, as would be predicted only by the theory that WM supports TUT. We found that individuals with higher WM capacity reported more TUT in undemanding tasks, which suggests that WM enables the maintenance of mind wandering.
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“By contrast, individuals with improved executive control are able to limit their self-generated thought to non-demanding or unimportant contexts.10,176,178”
From The default network and self-generated thought: component processes, dynamic control, and clinical relevance (2014) · cites this paper as [176]
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“This theory rests on findings that TUT increases when WM resources are available, such as during tasks that place few demands on WM resources (Mason et al., 2007; Teasdale et al., 1993).”
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“…WMC interaction, F(1, 72) = 9.3, p < .01, ηp 2 = .11, and with theory that high load induces low TUT regardless of an individual’s WM resources by exhausting limited perceptual capacity in task-relevant processing (Forster & Lavie, 2007, 2009; Lavie, 2005; Lavie, Hirst, de Fockert, & Viding, 2004).”
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“Such taskunrelated thought (TUT) presents a paradox: Although the spontaneous nature of TUT suggests that it is a resource-free process, its priority-driven nature suggests that it is a resourceintensive process (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006).”
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“A recent laboratory study indicated that individuals who possess greater WM resources report less TUT during a go/no-go task commonly used to study mind wandering (the Sustained Attention to Response Task, or SART; McVay & Kane, 2009).”
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“This negative relationship can be reversed, however, when the demands of the task are very low (Levinson et al., 2012; Zavagnin et al., 2014) or the individual is not willing to concentrate on the task (Kane et al., 2007a; Kane et al., 2017).”
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“Moreover, it has been found that people mind wander more at “ opportune ” moments, that is, when task demands are low, then when a task requires their full attention (e.g., Levinson, Smallwood, & Davidson, 2012; Smallwood & Schooler, 2006; Smallwood, Obonsawin, & Reid, 2003).”
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“However, according to our knowledge, no study has demonstrated a relationship between working memory and awareness of MW. Previous studies have reported that working memory capacity is related to probe-caught MW, but is not significantly correlated with self-caught MW (Levinson et al., 2012).”
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“A study on community members found was MW was increased with higher working memory capacity provided that the task made few demands on working memory (Levinson et al. 2012).”
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“In low-demand tasks, the relationship between WMC and mind wandering is mixed, with some studies showing positive associations (Levinson et al., 2012; Zavagnin et al., 2014) and others showing negative associations (Meier, 2019; Robison & Unsworth, 2017).”
Gigliotti, M. F., Lauret, D., & Delevoye, Y. (2025) · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications · doi:10.1186/s41235-025-00676-9 · Cited by 2
“As an explanation, authors argued that simple tasks are usually under-stimulating and under-demanding (Levinson et al., 2012), leaving more attentional resources available.”
Strandberg-Long, P. (2021) · Stanislavski Studies · doi:10.1080/20567790.2021.1969762 · Cited by 1
الله, م. إ. م. ع. (2022) · المجلة التربوية لکلية التربية بسوهاج · doi:10.21608/edusohag.2022.243661 · Cited by 1
Henderson, S., Ryan, A. D., Atack, L. W., & Campbell, K. L. (2024) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/jocn_a_02195 · Cited by 1
“This idea has received some support from work showing that individuals with higher working memory capacity report more TUTs during relatively undemanding tasks (Levinson, Smallwood, & Davidson, 2012).”
Ain, Y., Rai, S., Galbraith, A., Buerkner, J., Andrews‐Hanna, J. R., Callahan, B. L., & Kam, J. W. Y. (2025) · Journal of Attention Disorders · doi:10.1177/10870547251394173 · Cited by 1
“…to involve various cognitive constructs and processes, including the affective content of thought during MW (Smallwood, 2013; Smallwood & Andrews-Hanna, 2013), and working memory (Levinson et al., 2012) – a construct of particular relevance to ADHD (Alderson et al., 2013; Martinussen et al., 2005).”
واقع التجول العقلي لدى طلبة الجامعة في العراق في ضوء بعض المتغيرات
وداعة, ز. ن. (2020) · International Journal of Educational & Psychological Studies · doi:10.31559/eps2020.8.2.15 · Cited by 1
Mind Wandering, Memory and Mood
Hickey, J. (2013) · UCL Discovery (University College London) · Cited by 1
The diversity of mind wandering : The role of individual differences and cognitive factors
Marcusson‐Clavertz, D. (2016) · Lund University Publications (Lund University) · Cited by 1
Dynamic Compression for Novel Haptic Interactions
Foo, E. W. (2020) · University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy (University of Minnesota) · Cited by 1
Electroencephalography (EEG) brain computer interface (BCI) for mental states detection
Wai, A. A. P. (2023) · DR-NTU (Nanyang Technological University) · doi:10.32657/10356/166652 · Cited by 1
The Relationship between Bilingualism, Cognitive Control, and Mind Wandering
Shulley, L. J. (2015) · TopSCHOLAR (Western Kentucky University)
PSY 5014: Psychology of Human Learning and Memory (Spring 2014)
Koutstaal, W. (2014)
Understanding the varieties of self-generated thought
Ruby, F. J. M. (2015) · White Rose eTheses Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York)
Stein, L. M. (2012) · Rutgers University Community Repository (Rutgers University) · doi:10.7282/t3kh0m8k
Tsukahara, J. S. (2014) · CSUSB ScholarWorks (California State University, San Bernardino)
Attentional Control: Strategies for Structuring Cognition
Edelstein, J. M. (2016) · eScholarship (California Digital Library)
Seli, P. (2015) · UWSpace (University of Waterloo)
Metadata
- Authors
- Levinson, D. B., Smallwood, J., & Davidson, R. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2012-03-14
- Volume
- 23
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 375-380
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC3328662
- OpenAlex
- W2129021060
- Cited by
- 232
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 18 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 9.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Fetzer Institute
- Association for Psychological Science
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH043454)
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (P01AT004952)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P30HD003352)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Mind wandering and attention
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Keywords
- mind wandering, working memory, task-unrelated thoughts, task demands, attentional control, cognitive resources
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Attention, Female, Humans, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Middle Aged, Task Performance and Analysis, Thinking
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