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UNCG psychologist studies mind wandering |
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Thursday, 29 March 2007 |
by MILLIE TOLLESON
News Reporter
Dr. Michael Kane, a cognitive psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, released a study reporting, on average, undergraduate students are mind wandering 30 percent of the time.
Kane, with two other psychologists at UNCG and two graduate students, recruited about 120 undergraduate students to participate in the research.
These students were then pre-tested on working memory capacity, which tests various aspects of a person’s intelligence.
Students carried a palm pilot for one week. Throughout the week, the palm pilot beeped randomly eight times per day.
Each time, students were prompted to “take immediate stock of what they were thinking about,” Kane said.
Questions took into account the content of the person’s thoughts, their current location and their mood.
“These questions gave us a sense of when mind wandering is most likely
to happen,” Kane said. “We found a lot out about the contexts that
promote mind wandering.”
The research revealed that mind wandering is more likely when a person
is tired, anxious, bored or performing schoolwork, Kane said.
On the contrary, mind wandering is less likely when a person is happy, enjoying the present activity or trying to concentrate.
Kane said, surprisingly, doing things that were challenging, unusual or important saw little mind wandering.
One person reported no mind wandering at all, while some reported mind wandering up to 90 percent of the time, Kane said.
Kane said he is most interested in the study of working memory capacity in relation to attention.
“Those with high-working memory capacity can better tune out
distracters in the environment and are better at dividing attention,”
Kane said.
Kane said people with a low capacity often suffer from goal neglect or forgetting your goal halfway through a task.
“Mind wandering is not objectively good or bad. It depends on the context in which it occurs,” Kane said.
Productive thinking and planning can be done many times during the day when we are performing other activities, Kane said.
“Mind wandering is a common aspect of our experience,” Kane said.
“Forgetting to wash your hair in the shower is no big deal, [but] some
mistakes due to mind wandering can be tragic.”
Kane points to the case of the University of California at Irvine
professor who forgot his infant son in the car, which led to his son’s
death.
“It was probably a left to the daycare and right to work, and he went
right. It was a mundane mistake, but in this case, the consequences
were tremendous,” Kane said.
Some obvious negative effects of mind wandering for students include
having trouble focusing on lectures or readings, Kane said.
Dr. Joan Woodworth, a psychology professor at Appalachian State
University, said research has shown professors can expect students to
be tuned out by the end of class.
“You can basically blow off the last 10 minutes of class. Students are thinking of something else,” Woodworth said.
Woodworth said the inability to concentrate is often a result of sleep
deprivation, and the college-age group is at the highest risk.
“Research on sleep deprivation is very clear. A certain amount of
inattention is normal, but it is made worse by fatigue, a crisis in
your life or being preoccupied,” Woodworth said.
As far as effective study skills, Woodworth said students who find they
are re-reading paragraphs or mind wandering should take a break, change
location and try again.
“People think they are studying for three hours but they probably
weren’t. They were probably mind wandering for some of that time,”
Woodworth said.
Woodworth said additional resources for students who have trouble
concentrating are the Psychology Clinic and the Learning Assistance
Program on campus.
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