The DOI matches its Crossref record; 32 of the 32 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
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.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“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]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974) · Psychology of Learning and Motivation · doi:10.1016/s0079-7421(08)60452-1 · Cited by 9,860
Wandering minds: the default network and stimulus-independent thought
Mason, M. F., Norton, M. I., Van Horn, J. D., Wegner, D. M., Grafton, S. T., & Macrae, C. N. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1131295 · Cited by 2,792 · cited 2×
“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).”
BackgroundA wandering mind is an unhappy mind
Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1192439 · Cited by 2,575 · cited 2×
“Training in these and other strategies holds promise for reducing mind wandering associated with unhappiness (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010).”
BackgroundDistracted and confused? Selective attention under load
Lavie, N. (2005) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.12.004 · Cited by 2,102 · cited 3×
“…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).”
BackgroundInfluentialSmallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2006) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.946 · Cited by 2,067 · cited 3×
“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).”
BackgroundSelf-citationAn automated version of the operation span task
Unsworth, N., Heitz, R. P., Schrock, J. C., & Engle, R. W. (2005) · Behavior Research Methods · doi:10.3758/bf03192720 · Cited by 1,861
Load Theory of Selective Attention and Cognitive Control
Lavie, N., Hirst, A., de Fockert, J. W., & Viding, E. (2004) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/0096-3445.133.3.339 · Cited by 1,812
Christoff, K., Gordon, A. M., Smallwood, J., Smith, R., & Schooler, J. W. (2009) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0900234106 · Cited by 1,769 · cited 6×
“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).”
ResultInfluentialSelf-citationKane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (2003) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/0096-3445.132.1.47 · Cited by 1,725 · cited 1×
“%) relieve WM from proactively maintaining these goals (Kane & Engle, 2003).”
BackgroundKane, M. J., Brown, L. H., McVay, J. C., Silvia, P. J., Myin-Germeys, I., & Kwapil, T. R. (2007) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01948.x · Cited by 979
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Andrews‐Hanna, J. R., Smallwood, J., & Spreng, R. N. (2014) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/nyas.12360 · Cited by 2,102
Self-citationMind-wandering as spontaneous thought: a dynamic framework
Christoff, K., Irving, Z. C., Fox, K. C. R., Spreng, R. N., & Andrews-Hanna, J. R. (2016) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn.2016.113 · Cited by 1,376
The Science of Mind Wandering: Empirically Navigating the Stream of Consciousness
Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2015) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015331 · Cited by 1,685
“By contrast, when tasks make fewer demands, executive control tends to maximize the occurrence of task-unrelated thought both inside (Levinson et al. 2012, Rummel & Boywitt 2014) and outside of the laboratory (Kane et al. 2007).”
InfluentialSelf-citationSmallwood, J. (2013) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0030010 · Cited by 564
“However, such methods do not provide any evidence on what motivates the experience of mind wandering in the first place, that is, it is not necessarily the case that availability of working memory resources is an imperative stimulus for mind wandering to occur (see Levinson et al., 2012).”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationSmallwood, J., & Andrews-Hanna, J. (2013) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00441 · Cited by 433
“SGT under non-demanding situations is beneficial because it is associated with capacities such as creativity, patience and better cognitive control (Baird et al., 2011, 2012; Levinson et al., 2012; Smallwood et al., 2013).”
BackgroundSelf-citation
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
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
