Elsevier

Biological Psychology

Volume 94, Issue 1, September 2013, Pages 38-43
Biological Psychology

Flexibility as the key for somatic health: From mind wandering to perseverative cognition

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.05.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Separation of the studies on MW and rumination/worry led to implausible results.

  • MW per se is not associated with increased physiological reactivity or low mood.

  • MW becomes maladaptive when it takes the form of rumination or worry.

  • An increase in cognitive rigidity is associated with higher autonomic inflexibility.

Abstract

Mind wandering (MW) has been defined as the brain's default mode of operation. It is a common experience, however, that this process can become maladaptive, and take the form of repetitive thoughts. We aimed to compare the cardiac and cognitive correlates of perseverative cognition (PC) and MW. Seventy-three healthy participants were engaged in two recall interviews designed to draw their attention to a neutral and a personally relevant negative episode. After each interview, participants performed a 20-min tracking task with thought probe while the electrocardiogram was continuously recorded. Perseverative cognition was associated with higher levels of cognitive inflexibility (slower reaction times, highest intrusiveness, efforts to inhibit), autonomic rigidity (low heart rate variability), and mood worsening compared to being focused on task or MW. Results suggest that MW fails to serve its adaptive function, and turns into a risk factor for health whenever it becomes a rigid and inflexible pattern (PC).

Introduction

Mind wandering (MW), a drifting away from an activity toward unrelated inner thoughts and feelings, has been defined as the default mode of operation of our brain (Mason et al., 2007). Given the time that humans dedicate to this activity, it has been suggested that mind wandering is associated with an evolutionary advantage. Several adaptive functions have been proposed, for example, mind wandering might be useful to maintain an optimal level of arousal, or to integrate past, present and future experiences into a coherent frame (e.g., Baars, 2010). In contrast with this view, a series of recent studies showed an association between episodes of MW and negative mood (e.g., Killingsworth and Gilbert, 2010, Smallwood et al., 2009a), dysphoria (e.g., Carriere et al., 2008, Smallwood et al., 2007), slowed response time (RT), increases in heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (e.g., Smallwood et al., 2004a, Smallwood et al., 2004b), and enhancement of the blink reflex (Smilek, Carriere, & Cheyne, 2010). Given the pervasiveness of this cognitive process in our lives (46.9% of the samples in Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010) and the adaptive role conferred to it, it seems implausible that MW has the effect of making people vulnerable in terms of physiological reactivity and mood worsening, both recognized risk factors for health.

Aside from the recent literature on MW, there is a wider series of more clinically oriented studies focused on rumination and worry (i.e., perseverative cognition, PC) that suggest the role of these processes in the onset and maintenance of psychopathology (Aldao, Nolen-Hoeksema, & Schweizer, 2010), and highlight their consequences on somatic health (reviewed in Verkuil, Brosschot, Gebhardt, & Thayer, 2010). In fact, both rumination and worry have been associated with a number of established risk factors for health, such as prolonged activation of the endocrine and immune systems (reviewed in Denson, Spanovic, & Miller, 2009), diminished HR variability (HRV) and baroreflex sensitivity (e.g., Ottaviani and Shapiro, 2011, Ottaviani et al., 2009), increases in 24-h blood pressure (e.g., Hogan and Linden, 2004, Ottaviani et al., 2011), and decreases in HRV during the day (e.g., Pieper, Brosschot, van der Leeden, & Thayer, 2010) and the subsequent night (Brosschot, Van Dijk, & Thayer, 2007). Worry and rumination seem therefore to act as pathophysiological mechanisms with a negative impact on the cardiovascular system (reviewed in Gerin et al., 2012) and health in general (reviewed in Brosschot, 2010).

The ability to adaptively let our mind wander without ruminating or worrying is critical to mental health. However, in spite of the large amount of work on PC on the one hand and MW on the other, the literature on these topics is largely separate. The present study attempts to integrate these concepts, driven by the conviction that this separation led to implausible results and interpretations. According to a dimensional view of psychopathology, we assume that MW is not in itself a maladaptive process, but it fails to serve its function and turns into a risk factor for health whenever it becomes rigid and inflexible, that is, when it takes the form of PC (mind wandering-perseverative cognition continuum hypothesis). The rationale for this hypothesis derives from recent evidence that MW involves control processes during easy tasks (Levinson, Smallwood, & Davidson, 2012), and facilitates creative problem solving (Baird et al., 2012), both important sources of cognitive flexibility. On the other hand, there are studies showing that the tendency to experience PC is associated with reductions in objectively assessed cognitive flexibility (Davis & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Similarly, findings on the dimensionality of rumination and worry suggested that it lies on a severity continuum, with more experienced intrusiveness and more efforts to inhibit these processes associated with their more severe, pathological forms (e.g., Ruscio and Borkovec, 2004, Watkins, 2004).

To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare the cardiac and cognitive correlates of MW and PC. The rationale for collapsing ruminative and worrisome thoughts into one category derives from previous studies showing different content but no differences between these two processes on appraisals and strategies (Watkins, Moulds, & Mackintosh, 2005). To our knowledge, no study has directly compared the physiological outcomes of rumination and worry. Separate studies, however, showed a common autonomic signature, that is diminished HRV in both rumination (e.g., Ottaviani et al., 2009, Ottaviani and Shapiro, 2011) and worry (e.g., Brosschot et al., 2007, Delgado et al., 2009, Pieper et al., 2010). Indeed, some of the most prominent approaches include rumination and worry under the umbrella term of perseverative cognition (reviewed in Brosschot, Verkuil, & Thayer, 2010) or repetitive thoughts (reviewed in Watkins, 2008).

Our first hypothesis was to find higher cognitive rigidity (slower reaction times, higher intrusiveness, and efforts to inhibit) during PC compared to MW. In line with Friedman and Thayer's model of anxiety (Friedman & Thayer, 1998), we also expected that an increase in cognitive inflexibility would be associated with higher levels of autonomic rigidity assessed by HRV, an established risk factor for health (Thayer, Yamamoto, & Brosschot, 2010). Thus, we hypothesized that PC would be characterized by lower HRV compared to MW. Our third hypothesis was to find greater mood worsening in PC compared to MW.

Section snippets

Participants

The sample was composed of University students who received credit for participation: 31 men (mean age 25.2 (4.4) years) and 42 women (mean age 23.4 (4.6) years). Individuals were invited to participate in a study on “the psychophysiological correlates of attention” and were not informed about the true aims of the study. Before debriefing them, we asked participants what they thought was the real purpose of the study, and their answers suggested that they believed it was a study on sustained

Results

Table 1 shows socio-demographic, lifestyle, and personality characteristics in women and men.

As accuracy on the tracking task was 99.3%, analyses could not be performed on the number of errors. Each participant had at least one episode of perseverative cognition. On average, participants reported being focused on the task for 55.2% of probes (64% during the first task and 46.4% during the second task), distracted by external stimuli for 6.1% (5.82% during the first task and 6.4% during the

Discussion

Results support the view that MW, conceptualized as the cognitive correlate of a resting state characterized by adaptive attentional fluctuations, is not itself dysfunctional but it becomes maladaptive and a risk factor for health whenever flexibility is lost and the system is “locked in” to a particular pattern. Under these circumstances, the individual becomes unable to inhibit the inappropriate response and, instead of adaptively fluctuating or MW, he/she experiences intrusive thoughts.

Funding

This work was supported by Sapienza Progetti Ateneo 2011 (Grant No. C26A11NBT3) and by the Italian Ministry of Health Young Researcher Grant (GR-2010-2312442).

Acknowledgements

We thank Dario Meligrana, Barbara Medea, and Antonio Vaudo for their assistance in data collection.

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