The contribution of latent factors of executive functioning to mind wandering: an experience sampling study

Abstract

Accumulating evidence suggests that individuals with greater executive resources spend less time mind wandering. Independent strands of research further suggest that this association depends on concentration and a guilty-dysphoric daydreaming style. However, it remains unclear whether this association is specific to particular features of executive functioning or certain operationalizations of mind wandering, including task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs, comprising external distractions and mind wandering) and stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thoughts (SITUTs, comprising mind wandering only). This study sought to clarify these associations by using confirmatory factor analysis to compute latent scores for distinct executive functions based on nine cognitive tasks and relating them to experience sampling reports of mind wandering. We expected that individuals with greater executive control (specifically updating) would show a stronger reduction in SITUTs as momentary concentration and guilty-dysphoric style increase. A bifactor model of the cognitive battery indicated a general factor (common executive functioning) and ancillary factors (updating and shifting). A significant interaction between updating and concentration on mind wandering was observed with mind wandering defined as TUTs, but not as SITUTs (N = 187). A post hoc analysis clarified this discrepancy by showing that as concentration increases, both external distractions and mind wandering decrease more strongly among people with greater updating. Moreover, common executive functioning predicted a more negative slope of guilty-dysphoric style on SITUTs, whereas updating and shifting predicted more positive slopes. The opposite slopes of these executive functions on daily life mind wandering may reflect a stability-flexibility trade-off between goal maintenance and goal replacement abilities.

Keywords: Concentration; Daydreaming; Ecological momentary assessments (EMA); Experience sampling method (ESM); Guilt/fear-of-failure; Inhibiting; Mind wandering; Shifting; Task-switching; Updating; Working memory capacity.

Fig. 1

Violin plot showing the distributions of task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs), stimulus-independent thoughts (SITs) and stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thoughts (SITUTs) across individuals (N = 187). Vertical grey lines denote medians

Fig. 2

Illustration of path loadings for the correlated factors model (A) and the bifactor model (B) parametrizations (N = 193). EF = executive functioning. Solid lines represent significant loadings and dashed lines represent non-significant loadings. *p < .05, **p < .01

Fig. 3

Task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) as a function of the interaction between updating-specific ability and momentary effort to concentrate on one’s current task (N = 187): A The model based on the hierarchical linear modelling. B A scatterplot of updating-specific scores and slope coefficients of concentration on TUTs based on within-person ordinary logistic regression

Fig. 4

The percentage of stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thoughts (SITUTs) as a function of guilty-dysphoric style (± 1 SD) and A common executive functioning (EF), B updating-specific, and C shifting-specific abilities (N = 187)

Fig. 5

Schematic conceptual depiction of the factors contributing to mind wandering based on the current results. The pluses indicate positive slopes and the minuses indicate negative slopes. For instance, the arrow from concentration to mind wandering indicates that trying harder to concentrate on current activity is associated with a decrease in mind wandering, whereas the arrow from updating pointing at the arrow from concentration to mind wandering indicates that individuals with higher updating show a more strongly negative slope of concentration on mind wandering (i.e., a moderation). The blue arrow indicates that the relation was observed specifically for stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thoughts (SITUTs), whereas the red arrows indicate that the relations were observed for multiple operationalizations of mind wandering, such as external distractions. EF = executive functioning