Using phenomenology and mindset induction to assess the prospective function of mind-wandering

A notable feature of the human cognitive apparatus resides in its propensity to spontaneously generate thoughts uncoupled from the “here and now”. An important function of these cognitions, often referred to as mind-wandering, might be to create and/or update scripts, schemata, and future plans in long-term memory. In this study, we investigated this hypothesis by examining whether priming personal projects influenced the occurrence and characteristics of mind-wandering episodes during a subsequent, unrelated cognitive task, as assessed with an experience sampling method. We found that inducing particular mindsets that were related to personal goals (i.e., writing an essay about one’s personal projects) in comparison to a control baseline condition (i.e., writing an essay about a familiar itinerary) increased the number of future-oriented mind-wandering reports while participants performed the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART). Furthermore, participants judged most of these thoughts as having a future-oriented function (i.e., they were related to planning, decision making, or reevaluating situations). Finally, as behavioral validation of participants’ subjective reports, we found that mind-wandering was positively linked with intra-individual variability (IIV) in response times, whereas reports of being concentrated on the SART were negatively linked with IIV. These data support the view that an important function of mind-wandering resides in the anticipation and planning of the future.