Revisiting consciousness: Distinguishing between states of conscious focused attention and mind wandering with EEG

Mariana Dias Da Silva-van Riel*, Óscar F. Gonçalves, Diogo Branco, Marie Postma

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    13 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Fluctuating between external conscious processing and mind wandering is inherent to the human condition. Past research showed that in tasks requiring sustained attention, mind wandering episodes in which attention is directed internally constrain conscious processing of external stimuli. Conversely, conscious processing of internal stimuli is enhanced during mind wandering. To investigate this, we developed and administered a visuomotor tracking task in which participants were instructed to track the path of a stimulus on a screen with a mouse while responding to rare targets. Prior to reports of mind wandering we found the following: The P3 event-related potential component for targets, indicative of conscious stimulus processing, was attenuated at electrodes Cz and Pz. Moreover, alpha power, indicative of internal mental states, increased globally. Theta power increased along the centroparietal area, and beta decreased along right frontal and right centroparietal areas. Interestingly, trait mind wandering was positively correlated with delta power and gamma power, but negatively correlated with the theta-beta ratio. These results demonstrate that mind wandering is characterized by distinct neural signatures at both a state and trait level.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number103332
    Number of pages18
    JournalConsciousness and Cognition
    Volume101
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - May 2022

    Keywords

    • Attention
    • Consciousness
    • EEG
    • Mind wandering
    • Perception

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