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The Family-Resemblances Framework for Mind-Wandering Remains Well Clad

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Disagreements with Christoff et al.

(i) It is a false dichotomy (and an ignoratio elenchi) that researchers either adopt an exclusive ‘scientific’ definition of mind-wandering, or refrain from doing so and proceed unscientifically. Allowing for only two alternatives in defining mind-wandering ignores the third (scientific) alternative we proposed: Mind-wandering is a cluster concept with a probabilistic rather than a definitional structure, where membership is graded along multiple dimensions and some exemplars are more

Clarifications of Our Framework

(i) We re-emphasize the critical role of protoypicality in the family-resemblances framework. Christoff et al. [1] argue that it ‘groups together different and sometimes conflicting definitions of mind-wandering.’ Not so. Within the family-resemblances framework, concepts do not dissolve into each other but are distinguished by constellations of graded prototypicality. As we previously argued, we can determine which varieties of mind-wandering are more versus less prototypical by polling

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    Thus, perseverative or voluntary thoughts should not be considered as mind wandering. To account for these various, often competing definitions, it has been proposed to consider mind wandering from a family-resemblance perspective (Seli et al., 2018e; Seli et al., 2018b). This perspective suggests that mind wandering can be described with multiple definitions hierarchically ordered along with a probabilistic structure.

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    Likewise, our exploratory measure of a one-item evaluation of mind wandering can be optimized by taking more aspects of the state of mind wandering into account and by differentiating intentional and unintentional mind wandering. There has been a considerable development of this construct, which is relevant also in the context of mind wandering during music listening (Christoff et al., 2018; Seli, Kane, Metzinger et al., 2018; Seli, Kane, Smallwood et al., 2018). In contrast to studies on tempo effects in sports and driving, where fast music has been shown to speed up behavior (Edworthy & Waring, 2006; Rendi et al., 2008), we did not find an effect of musical tempo on motor responses.

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