Letting go of the present: Mind-wandering is associated with reduced delay discounting

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2012.10.007Get rights and content

Abstract

The capacity to self-generate mental content that is unrelated to the current environment is a fundamental characteristic of the mind, and the current experiment explored how this experience is related to the decisions that people make in daily life. We examined how task-unrelated thought (TUT) varies with the length of time participants are willing to wait for an economic reward, as measured using an inter-temporal discounting task. When participants performed a task requiring minimal attention, the greater the amount of time spent engaged in TUT the longer the individual was prepared to wait for an economic reward. These data indicate that self-generated thought engages processes associated with the successful management of long-term goals. Although immersion in the here and now is undeniably advantageous, under appropriate conditions the capacity to let go of the present and consider more pertinent personal goals may have its own rewards.

Highlights

► We compared how mind-wandering related to self control, as measured by delay discounting (DD). ► Mind-wandering was measured as task unrelated thinking (TUT). ► DD was assessed by how a temporal delay reduced preferences for a distant reward. ► TUT was associated with a tendency towards less extreme DD. ► These data suggest that mind wandering can be a signature of good self-control.

Introduction

Almost half of waking thought involves self-generated, stimulus-independent mentation that is unrelated to events taking place in the “here and now” (Klinger, 1978a, Klinger, 1978b, Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010) and the theoretical interpretation of such mind-wandering has become an important question in cognitive science (McVay and Kane, 2010, Smallwood, in press, Smallwood and Schooler, 2006). As we spend so much time engaged in self-generated thought, one important question is how this experience relates to the choices that people make in daily life.

One line of argument suggests that during self-generated thought, consciousness becomes decoupled from perception, providing an opportunity to guide behavior using internally-represented plans and goals (Antrobus et al., 1966, Barron et al., 2011, Baumeister and Masicampo, 2010, Baumeister et al., 2011, Smallwood et al., 2003, Smallwood et al., 2011). Reports of task-unrelated thought (TUT) obtained during the performance of non-demanding tasks support the hypothesis that off-task thought can be a process that aids the preparation for future events: under these conditions, TUT is often future-focused, taking the form of autobiographical planning (Baird, Smallwood, & Schooler, 2011, Smallwood et al., 2009, Smallwood et al., 2011, Smallwood et al., 2011). In similar circumstances, TUT has been implicated in creativity (Baird et al., 2012), consolidation of self-memories (Smallwood et al., 2011) and is associated with larger working memory capacity (WMC, Levinson, Smallwood, & Davidson, 2012).

Mind-wandering has also been linked to poor performance on the tasks of the moment; TUT often leads to errors in complex tasks such as reading (McVay and Kane, 2011b, Smallwood et al., 2008) and is also frequent in groups of individuals who exhibit cognitive deficits under laboratory conditions (such as ADHD; Shaw & Giambra, 1993). These results have led to the suggestion that mind-wandering, when trying to concentrate on an external task, results from a failure to inhibit an interfering internal thought using the process of executive control (McVay and Kane, 2009, McVay and Kane, 2010, McVay and Kane, 2011a, McVay and Kane, 2011b).

Based on the different views on the mind-wandering state described above, it is possible to derive contrasting predictions on how self-generated thought could relate to the choices that people make to navigate through the social world in which they exist. As mind-wandering allows cognition to be devoted to the consideration of personal objectives that extend beyond the current moment, TUT could be associated with processes that are important for making choices that are beneficial over the long term. In contrast, because mind-wandering can lead to worse performance in tasks of the moment, it may reflect a general source of cognitive interference that would hinder successful decision-making.

To test how self-generated thought relates to decision-making processes, we examined the relation between individual variations in TUT and the capacity to resist the temptation of a small immediate economic reward in order to receive a larger reward at a later date in the future. When faced with such a choice, a tendency to opt for the smaller immediate reward over a larger future reward is known as delay discounting (DD). As selecting the smaller sooner reward reflects a situation when a choice is made because of immediacy rather than absolute value, DD is thought to be detrimental for making decisions that are beneficial in the long run (for a review see Peters & Buchel, 2011). For example, developmental studies have revealed that children who discount rapidly have problems in cognitive control in later life (Eigsti et al., 2006). In adults, rapid DD is associated with health problems (Chabris, Laibson, Morris, Schuldt, & Taubinsky, 2008), substance abuse (Bickel & Marsch, 2001) and lower credit ratings (Meier & Sprenger, 2012). Together these different lines of evidence suggest that DD “underlies a wide variety of disadvantageous behaviors” (Bickel & Marsch, 2001, page 260) in part because it makes it harder to make choices that benefit an individual over a long period of time.

By assessing the relationship between DD and TUT, we hoped to determine how mind-wandering relates to the balance of short versus long term choices that an individual makes. By virtue of its association with poor performance, TUT may be linked to more extensive DD (i.e. an exaggerated preference for an immediate reward). Alternatively, mind-wandering’s association with the process of planning and goal preparation suggests that TUT could predict less extensive DD (i.e. a reduced preference for an immediate reward). We also assessed the context dependency of the relationship between DD and TUT. Prior studies have demonstrated that TUT in less attention-demanding tasks are associated with higher WMC while this is not the case for tasks with greater attentional demands (Levinson et al., 2012). To explore the context dependency of any relationship with DD, TUT was therefore measured in both a simple choice reaction time (CRT) task and a more attention-demanding working memory (WM) task.

Section snippets

Methods

A community sample of 94 right-handed participants from the database of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany were recruited for this experiment (Mean age = 29 years, Age range 19–38 years, 49 females). All of them were native German speakers, had normal or corrected-to-normal vision, no history of psychiatric or neurological conditions and no history of substance abuse. Five participants were subsequently excluded from analysis due to extreme scores on

Results

In the DD task, we calculated the mean number of times the participant selected the future reward separately for each time period (p.Future). We observed the expected reduction in preference for the future option for longer delay periods (see Fig. 1). An analysis of Variance (ANOVA), with a single factor representing the seven delay periods indicated that this decline was significant [F (6, 570) = 138.08, p < .001, η2 = .59]. The TUT frequency was calculated from the Likert-scale responses separately

Discussion

Task unrelated thinking under non-demanding conditions was associated with a greater capacity to resist the temptation of an immediate reward in favor of receiving a larger economic reward later in the future. Although mind-wandering when performing a task that requires undivided attention may result from poor control (e.g. McVay & Kane, 2009), these data suggest that engaging in task unrelated thought when the environment is not challenging is a signature of an individual who makes patient

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Nikolaus Steinbeis for advice on the DD task, to Roman Linz, Fransiska Ritschel and Johannes Golchert for help with data collection and to members of the Department of Social Neuroscience for discussions on this topic. Part of this data was collected in fulfillment of FRs Master Thesis who is now partially supported by Grant R305A110277 from the US Office of Education awarded to J.W. Schooler and J. Smallwood.

References (40)

  • E. Barron et al.

    Absorbed in thought: The effect of mind wandering on the processing of relevant and irrelevant events

    Psychological Science

    (2011)
  • R.F. Baumeister et al.

    Conscious thought is for facilitating social and cultural interactions: How mental simulations serve the animal-culture interface

    Psychological Review

    (2010)
  • R.F. Baumeister et al.

    Do conscious thoughts cause behavior?

    Annual Review of Psychology

    (2011)
  • W.K. Bickel et al.

    Toward a behavioral economic understanding of drug dependence: Delay discounting processes

    Addiction

    (2001)
  • C.F. Chabris et al.

    Individual laboratory-measured discount rates predict field behavior

    Journal of Risk and Uncertainty

    (2008)
  • K. Christoff et al.

    Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering

    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

    (2009)
  • I.M. Eigsti et al.

    Predicting cognitive control from preschool to late adolescence and young adulthood

    Psychological Science

    (2006)
  • T.A. Hare et al.

    Self-control in decision-making involves modulation of the vmPFC valuation system

    Science

    (2009)
  • J.W. Kable et al.

    The neural correlates of subjective value during intertemporal choice

    Nature Neuroscience

    (2007)
  • J.W. Kam et al.

    Slow fluctuations in attentional control of sensory cortex

    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

    (2011)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text