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Emotion
Mindfulness and Mind-Wandering: Finding Convergence
Through Opposing Constructs
Michael D. Mrazek, Jonathan Smallwood, and Jonathan W. Schooler
Online First Publication, February 6, 2012. doi: 10.1037/a0026678
CITATION
Mrazek, M. D., Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2012, February 6). Mindfulness and
Mind-Wandering: Finding Convergence Through Opposing Constructs. Emotion. Advance
online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026678
Mindfulness and Mind-Wandering:
Finding Convergence Through Opposing Constructs
Michael D. Mrazek
University of California, Santa Barbara
Jonathan Smallwood
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences,
Leipzig, Germany
Jonathan W. Schooler
University of California, Santa Barbara
Research into both mindfulness and mind-wandering has grown rapidly, yet clarification of the relation-
ship between these two seemingly opposing constructs is still absent. A first study addresses the
relationship between a dispositional measure of mindfulness (Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale,
MAAS) and converging measures of both self-reported and indirect markers of mind-wandering.
Negative correlations between dispositional mindfulness and 4 measures of mind-wandering confirm the
opposing relationship between the 2 constructs and further validate the use of the MAAS as a
dispositional measure of mindfulness. A second study demonstrated that 8 minutes of mindful breathing
reduces behavioral indicators of mind-wandering during a Sustained Attention to Response Task
compared with both passive relaxation and reading. Together these studies clarify the opposition between
the constructs of mindfulness and mind-wandering and so should lead to greater convergence between
what have been predominately separate, yet mutually relevant, lines of research.
Keywords: mindfulness, mind-wandering, attention
While the restless nature of attention has been a feature of
Eastern philosophical thought for several thousand years, it has
only recently become a focus of scientific research. Studies have
begun to investigate the dispositional tendency to mindfully an-
chor attention on the here and now (Brown, 2007), while a con-
ceptually related research domain has examined the processes
which govern intermittent shifts of attention away from the task at
hand (known as mind-wandering, for reviews see Smallwood &
Schooler, 2006; Schooler et al., 2011). Given that mindfulness and
mind-wandering appear to be opposing constructs with respect to
the ability to remain undistracted, the current set of studies first
review the conceptual relationship between these constructs and
then examine whether mindfulness training is capable of leading to
reductions in mind-wandering.
A recent special issue of Emotion dedicated to mindfulness was
prefaced with a commentary calling for further validation of self-
reported measures of dispositional mindfulness by linking such
measures to existing methods for assessing mind-wandering (Da-
vidson, 2010). Mindfulness is operationalized in a variety of ways,
with ongoing disagreement as to the most privileged and useful
definition of this construct (Grossman & Van Dam, 2011). One
perspective defines mindfulness as sustained nondistraction
(Brown & Ryan, 2003; Wallace & Shapiro, 2006; Dreyfus, 2011),
whereas multifactor construals of mindfulness emphasize not only
awareness of present experience but also an orientation toward
one’s experiences characterized by curiosity, openness, and accep-
tance (Bishop et al., 2004; Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, &
Toney, 2006). Amid this disagreement, there is nonetheless con-
sensus that sustained attentiveness represents a fundamental ele-
ment (if not a complete characterization) of mindfulness. Accord-
ingly, we focused our investigation on mindfulness as
nondistraction as it is operationalized by the Mindful Awareness
Attention Scale (MAAS), the most widely used dispositional mea-
sure addressing the extent to which an individual attends without
distraction to present experience (e.g., I find myself listening to
someone with one ear, doing something else at the same time,
reverse scored) (Brown & Ryan, 2003).
In direct contrast to mindfulness, which entails a capacity to
avoid distraction, mind-wandering is characteristically described
as the interruption of task focus by task-unrelated thought (TUT)
(Smallwood & Schooler, 2006). Many behavioral markers of
mind-wandering have a distinctly mindless quality, such as rapid
and automatic responding during continuous performance tasks
(Smallwood et al., 2004), absent-minded forgetting (Smallwood,
Baracaia, Lowe, & Obonsawin, 2003), and eye-movements during
reading that show little regard for the lexical or linguistic proper-
ties of what is being read (Reichle, Reineberg, & Schooler, 2010).
Furthermore, event-related potential studies have demonstrated
that instances of mind-wandering are characterized by a reduced
awareness of task stimuli and the external environment (Barron et
al., in press; Smallwood, Beach, Schooler, & Handy, 2008; Kam et
Michael D. Mrazek and Jonathan W. Schooler, Department of Psycho-
logical & Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara; Jona-
than Smallwood, Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute
for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michael
D. Mrazek, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa
Barbara, CA 93106. E-mail: mrazek@psych.ucsb.edu
Emotion © 2012 American Psychological Association
2012, Vol. ●●, No. ●, 000– 000 1528-3542/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0026678
1
al., 2011). The ability to remain mindfully focused on a task
therefore appears to be in direct opposition to the tendency for
attention to wander to task-unrelated concerns. Where mindfulness
ends, mind-wandering begins.
The conceptual relationship between mindfulness and mind-
wandering clearly warrants careful empirical investigation to es-
tablish the actual relationship between these two seemingly op-
posing constructs (Davidson, 2010). Two prior studies have
examined the association between self-reported dispositional
mindfulness and indirect markers of mind-wandering during a task
in which attentional lapses are problematic (the Sustained Atten-
tion to Response Task, SART). The SART is a GO/NOGO task
and its performance markers are among the most carefully vali-
dated and commonly used indirect measures of mind-wandering
(Smallwood et al., 2004, Smallwood, Fishman, & Schooler, 2007,
Smallwood et al. 2008; McVay & Kane, 2009; Cheyne et al.,
2009). Low self-reported mindfulness as measured by the MAAS
is associated with fast and careless responding in the SART
(Cheyne, Carriere, & Smilek, 2006). An adapted version of the
MAAS called the MAAS-LO (lapses only) has also been associ-
ated with several performance markers of mind-wandering in the
SART (Cheyne, Solman, Carriere, & Smilek, 2009). These studies
provide preliminary evidence that mindfulness and mind-
wandering are conceptually linked, yet because these indirect
measures can be influenced by factors besides task-unrelated
thought (McVay & Kane, 2009) it is important to validate the
MAAS with direct reports of mind-wandering. Furthermore, in
order to establish the relationship between these constructs, it is
important to address whether measures of mind-wandering are
predictive of distraction within the contexts of tasks typically
associated with the application of mindfulness (e.g., meditation).
Study 1 addresses these issues by embedding thought sampling
into a meditation task structured to represent one way mindfulness
is characteristically developed and practiced, thereby establishing
a more ecologically valid paradigm for research into mindfulness.
If mindfulness and mind-wandering can be convincingly dem-
onstrated to be opposing constructs, this insight would provide
many opportunities for convergence between what have histori-
cally been largely separate lines of research. For instance, the
well-established disruptive role that mind-wandering can exert on
task performance (e.g., Smallwood et al., 2003, 2004, 2007, Small-
wood, McSpadden, Luus, & Schooler, 2008; Reichle et al., 2010)
could be reduced by exercises that increase mindfulness. While
mindfulness training has been demonstrated to improve executive
attention, perceptual sensitivity, and even sustained attention
(Tang et al., 2007; MacLean et al., 2010), the impact of mindful-
ness training on mind-wandering is less clear. In fact, to date there
has been little progress in developing effective strategies for re-
ducing mind-wandering. Study 2 therefore examines whether a
brief mindfulness exercise can reduce mind-wandering, thereby
potentially both introducing an effective antidote to mind-
wandering and establishing a causal relationship between the pres-
ence of mindfulness and the absence of mind-wandering.
Summary and Experimental Overview
Mindfulness and mind-wandering appear to be conceptually
opposing constructs with respect to undistracted attention. Study 1
addresses this relationship by associating naturally occurring vari-
ation in dispositional mindfulness with four converging indicators
of mind-wandering, including a novel and more ecologically valid
measure of mind-wandering during mindful breathing. Building on
this work, Study 2 explores whether a brief period of mindful
breathing reduces indicators of mind-wandering during a subse-
quent task.
Study 1
Study 1 examines the association between four sets of variables:
(a) self-reported dispositional mindfulness, (b) self-reported dis-
positional daydreaming, (c) experience sampling of mind-
wandering during a mindful breathing task, and (d) two indirect
performance measures of mind-wandering during the SART. Us-
ing both indirect and self-reported measures of mind-wandering,
Study 1 provides a comprehensive examination of the relationship
between mindfulness and mind-wandering.
Method
Participants
One hundred and seventeen (33 males) undergraduate students
participated in exchange for course credit (mean age !19, SD !
1.33). Four participants were excluded for failing to complete the
dispositional questionnaires. One hundred thirteen participants
were therefore included in the final analysis. All studies reported
were approved by the University of California Santa Barbara’s
Institutional Review Board and informed consent was obtained
from each participant at the beginning of the experimental session.
Procedure
All participants completed a 10-minute mindful breathing task
with thought sampling probes, a 10-minute mindful breathing task
requiring self-catching of mind-wandering, and a 10-minute SART
in a counterbalanced order. Stimuli for all studies were presented
via E-Prime (Version 2.1, Psychology Software Tools, Pittsburgh,
PA) using Dell desktops in individual soundproof rooms.
During both mindful breathing tasks, participants were in-
structed to continuously focus their attention on the sensations of
their breath without attempting to control the rate of respiration.
They were asked to keep their eyes open and gaze into the space
in front of them. For the experience sampling version of this task,
six thought probes occurred at quasi-random intervals on the
computer screen, alerting participants to indicate whether their
attention was directed to the task or task-unrelated concerns using
a 5-point Likert scale (1 !completely on task, 5!completely on
task-unrelated concerns). For the self-catching version of this task,
participants were asked to press the spacebar anytime they noticed
their attention had drifted to task-unrelated concerns.
The SART is a GO/NOGO task that has been repeatedly used as
an indirect measure of mind-wandering (Smallwood et al., 2004;
Cheyne et al., 2009). Participants were asked to respond as quickly
as possible to frequent nontargets (O’s) by pressing the spacebar
and to refrain from responding to rare targets (Q’s). A total of 240
stimuli were presented, including 216 nontargets and 24 targets
that occurred at unpredictable quasi-random intervals. Stimuli
were presented for 2 s with an interstimulus interval of 500 ms.
2MRAZEK, SMALLWOOD, AND SCHOOLER
Different performance markers in this task have been associated
with varying degrees of task disengagement, with failures of
omission to targets (SART errors) generally indicating a more
pronounced distraction than a large response time coefficient of
variability (reaction time [RT] CV). RT CV has been shown to
indicate a qualitatively distinct state of mind-wandering that
emerges from a minimally disruptive disengagement of attention
(Cheyne et al., 2009). This state is characterized by a periodic
speeding and slowing of response times as attention fluctuates
slightly (Smallwood et al., 2008). RT CV complements SART
errors by addressing minimally pronounced occurrences of mind-
wandering.
Following these tasks, mood was measured using the Positive
and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) (Watson, Clark, & Tel-
legen, 1988). This measure consists of two 10-item scales mea-
suring positive and negative affect. Participants were asked to rate
to what extent they felt a certain way right now from 1 (very
slightly or not at all)to5(extremely). Participants also completed
dispositional measures of mindfulness (MAAS) and daydreaming
(Imaginal Processes Inventory (IPI), Daydreaming Subscale). The
MAAS-LO scores were calculated by dropping three items from
the MAAS—two relating to the consequences of attention lapses
rather than the lapses themselves and one addressing lapses while
driving, which may have limited applicability to college under-
graduates (Carriere, Cheyne, & Smilek, 2008).
Results
Table 1 presents the correlations between measures as well as
interitem reliability for the three questionnaires. Analysis of vari-
ance (ANOVA) indicated no effect of gender was observed on any
of the variables. MAAS scores indicating high levels of mindful-
ness were negatively correlated with self-reported trait mind-
wandering. Furthermore, high levels of trait mindfulness were also
associated with less mind-wandering as measured by self-reported
TUT during mindful breathing, SART errors, and RT CV. These
results provide converging evidence suggesting that mindfulness
and mind-wandering are roughly opposing constructs.
The only measure of mind-wandering which was not associated
with mindfulness, was self-caught TUT during mindful breathing.
One explanation for this finding is that self-catching measures both
distraction and subsequent metaawareness of the distraction
(Schooler, Reichle, & Halpern, 2004), two dimensions which may
have inverse associations with mindfulness (see Mason et al., 2007
for a discussion of this issue).
We next ensured that the meditation task was not influencing
SART performance in a way that would invalidate the observed
association between the MAAS and SART performance by exam-
ining the effect of task order on SART errors. No significant
differences were found between those who completed the SART
first (M !2.97), after one meditation task (M !2.84), or after two
meditation tasks (M !3.63), F(2, 110) !1.142, p!.32. None-
theless, these small numerical differences suggest that a targeted
mindfulness exercise designed to reduce mind-wandering may be
most effective when of short duration.
As shown in Table 1, high levels of negative affect measured by
the PANAS were associated with more SART errors. This finding
is consistent with a large body of evidence indicating that negative
affect is associated with SART errors (Smallwood et al., 2005,
2007, Smallwood, Fitzgerald, Miles, & Phillips, 2009; Seibert &
Ellis, 1991). In the present study, negative affect was unassociated
with MAAS scores, suggesting that trait mindfulness and negative
affect may make unique contributions to an individual’s tendency
to make errors in tasks of sustained attention. To test this possi-
bility, we conducted a simultaneous regression analysis predicting
SART errors from MAAS scores and negative affect. Together the
two predictors explained approximately 9% of the variance in
SART errors, R
2
!.089, F(1, 110) !5.364, p".01. An inspec-
tion of the standardized partial regression coefficients (#) and
semipartial correlations (sr
2
) revealed that both variables explained
a significant amount of unique variance in SART errors, with
MAAS scores being the strongest individual predictor. These
findings revealed that SART errors were fewer for those with high
dispositional mindfulness (#!–.24, p".05, sr
2
!.06) and
greater for those experiencing more negative affect (#!.19, p"
.001, sr
2
!.04).
Discussion
Study 1 demonstrates that mindfulness and mind-wandering can
reasonably be thought of as opposite sides of the same coin. High
self-reported dispositional mindfulness was associated with less
Table 1
Correlations Among Trait Mindfulness, Task Performance, and Mind-Wandering
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. MAAS .849
2. MAAS-LO .961
!!!
.839
3. RT CV $.188
!
$.186
!
—
4. SART errors $.234
!
$.228
!
.449
!!!
—
5. TUT $.220
!
$.253
!
.252
!!
.088 —
6. IPI $.237
!!
$.242
!!
.216
!
.060 .258
!!
.950
7. Self-caught TUT $.086 $.107 .227
!
.176 .255
!!
.268
!!
—
8. Negative affect .005 .002 $.025 .184
!
.014 .018 $.018 —
9. Positive affect .054 .082 $.076 $.091 $.027 .001 $.091 $.088
Note. N !113. MAAS !Mindful Attention Awareness Scale; MAAS-LO !Mindful Attention Awareness Scale - Lapses Only; RT CV !Response
Time Coefficient of Variability (SD/Mean); TUT !self-reported task-unrelated thought; IPI !Imaginal Processes Inventory Daydreaming Subscale.
Cronbach’s alpha measure of reliability for the three questionnaires measures are presented in italics.
!
p".05.
!!
p".01.
!!!
p".001.
3
MINDFULNESS AND MIND-WANDERING
mind-wandering using four converging indicators. This finding
lends support to the use of the MAAS as an operationalization of
mindfulness (e.g., Way et al., 2010) and clarifies the relationship
between two intuitively related and increasingly studied psycho-
logical constructs. Future research should examine whether com-
pleting attention tasks like the ones used in this study alters
participants’ responses on self-report scales like the MAAS, per-
haps by increasing their familiarity with their attentional perfor-
mance. Future work could also extend the association between
mindfulness and mind-wandering using event-related potential and
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures of mind-
wandering which have themselves been validated using the self-
report and behavioral measures used in the present study (Barron
et al., 2011; Smallwood et al., 2008; Kam et al., 2011; Christoff,
Gordon, Smallwood, Smith, & Schooler, 2009).
Study 2
Study 1 established an association between the constructs of
mind-wandering and mindfulness using a correlational design.
Study 2 examines this issue in greater detail by examining whether
inducing mindfulness can attenuate mind-wandering. This expec-
tation is consistent with the many well-documented benefits of
mindfulness training (see Brown, 2007 for a review). However,
many prior studies have utilized intensive meditation training
lasting months or years, limiting the applicability of observed
improvements for most societal and educational contexts
(Brefczynski-Lewis, Lutz, Schaefer, Levinson, & Davidson, 2007;
MacLean et al., 2010). Other encouraging studies have found
beneficial results from training as brief as two weeks to four days
(Tang et al., 2007; Zeidan, Johnson, Diamond, David, & Goolka-
sian, 2010), However, to date, no published mindfulness training
study has specifically examined its impact on mind-wandering.
1
Furthermore, from a methodological perspective, meditation inter-
vention studies typically include so many different aspects in their
intervention that it is difficult to discern which specific element is
responsible for any observed changes. What is needed in order to
discern the causal role of mindfulness in mitigating mind-
wandering is a simple manipulation that directly and specifically
targets individuals’ ability to remain mindful. Using such an ap-
proach, one recent study found improvement in emotional re-
sponding to emotion-inducing videos following an 8 minute mind-
fulness exercise (Erisman & Roemer, 2010). Given that an
8-minute intervention would provide the simplest and most acces-
sible mindfulness exercise while also allowing for a high degree of
experimental control, Study 2 examined whether a brief mindful
breathing exercise can decrease mind wandering.
Method
Participants
Sixty (22 males) undergraduate students participated in ex-
change for course credit (mean age !19, SD !1.17). Participants
were recruited to a study entitled “Relaxation & Attention”
through the University of California Santa Barbara subject pool.
Procedure
After 20 practice trials in the SART, participants were randomly
assigned to conditions and completed 8 minutes of either mindful
breathing, passive relaxation, or reading. Expectation effects and
demand characteristics were minimized by informing all partici-
pants that they were participating in a study designed to examine
the effect of relaxation on attention. The mindful breathing con-
dition provided participants with the simple instruction to sit in an
upright position while focusing their attention on the sensations of
their breath without trying to control the rate of respiration and to
return their attention to the breath anytime they became distracted.
Unlike Study 1, participants were not asked to keep their eyes open
and were not required to make any responses during the exercise.
Participants in the reading condition were asked to browse a
popular local newspaper. Those in the passive rest condition were
asked to relax without falling asleep. Following this manipulation,
all participants immediately completed the same 10-minute SART
used in Study 1. Mood was measured before and after the manip-
ulation by asking participants to rate their current degree of energy,
pleasantness, and relaxation using a 9-point Likert scale.
Results
We first examined the effects of mindful breathing on two
indirect measures of mind-wandering: SART errors and RT CV.
Univariate ANOVA revealed an effect of condition on both SART
errors, F(2, 57) !3.80, p".05, and RT CV, F(2, 57) !3.10, p!
.05. As displayed in Figure 1, follow-up post hoc tests indicated
that both SART errors and RT CV in the mindful breathing
condition were significantly less than in either comparison group
(p’s ".05). As predicted, 8 minutes of mindful breathing reduced
mind-wandering as compared with passive relaxation or reading.
We next analyzed the decay curve to see whether mindful
breathing had an equivalent effect on performance throughout the
duration of the task. The SART was divided into four equal task
blocks, each corresponding to 60 trials and six targets. Mind-
wandering increased over the duration of the task as indicated by
a main effect of task block in a repeated-measures ANOVA, F(3,
171) !2.857, p!.039. However, there was no interaction
between condition and task block, F(6, 171) !.976, p!.443. The
relative reduction in mind-wandering following mindful breathing
therefore appears to have been stable across the 10-minute task.
We next examined the effect of condition separately on each of
the three measures on mood. A repeated-measures ANOVA re-
vealed a main effect of session indicating that participants reported
feeling more relaxed after the manipulation, F(2, 57) !6.74, p!
.01. A marginally significant Time %Condition interaction sug-
gests that this effect was strongest among those in the mindful
breathing condition, F(2, 57) !2.643, p!.08. However, no main
effects or interactions were observed for pleasantness or energy
(p’s &.05).
Finally, we examined the effect of mood measured prior to the
attention task on SART errors and RT CV. Consistent with Study
1, SART errors were negatively correlated with high energy (r!
–.267, p".05), pleasantness (r!–.304, p".05), and relaxation
(r!–.266, p".05), whereas RT CV was not associated with
mood (p’s &.05). Although SART errors and RT CV were
1
Two unpublished studies have found evidence that meditation training
courses are associated with a reduction in SART errors (Wong et al., 2008;
Jha, Stanley, Kiyonaga, Wong, & Gelfand , 2009).
4MRAZEK, SMALLWOOD, AND SCHOOLER
strongly correlated in this study (r!.400, p".001) and in Study
1(r!.449, p".001), negative affect was uniquely associated
with SART errors. Given that SART errors are considered an
indicator of more pronounced mind-wandering than RT CV
(Cheyne et al., 2009), one possible interpretation is that negative
affect leads to a particularly engrossing form of mind-wandering.
Discussion
Study 2 demonstrates that 8 minutes of mindful breathing can
attenuate indirect performance markers of mind-wandering in a
task of sustained attention. Only brief written instructions of the
technique and 8 minutes of mindful breathing were necessary to
achieve the observed improvement, indicating that further inves-
tigation into the utility of brief interventions is warranted.
Although we cannot determine the precise mechanism by which
the mindfulness exercise reduced mind-wandering, at least two
possibilities warrant further consideration. First, mindfulness ex-
ercises may reduce the actual occurrence of task-unrelated
thoughts. Attending to a simple stimulus, such as the breath,
provides fertile ground for distracting thoughts to arise, but such
thoughts may lose their disruptive salience when they are contin-
ually ignored. A second possibility is that mindfulness exercises
improve metacognitive regulation, perhaps increasing awareness
of mind-wandering and thereby allowing attention to be redirected
from off-task thoughts more quickly. These differing explana-
tions—which are not mutually exclusive—provide direction for
future research.
Although not the primary focus of the present investigation, one
interesting pattern of findings observed in Study 1 and replicated
in Study 2 is the relationship between mood and mind-wandering.
Intriguingly, the two experiments used different measures of mood
and yet both found that negative affect correlated with SART
errors but not with other indirect and self-reported measures of
mind-wandering. The association between negative affect and
SART errors is now well-established (Smallwood et al., 2005,
2007, 2009), yet the present studies indicate that this association is
not true for all markers of mind-wandering. The unique association
between mood and SART errors in the present studies may suggest
that the association between mind-wandering and negative affect
emerges only during pronounced task-disengagement. Future re-
search should further clarify the circumstances in which mind-
wandering and mood interact.
General Discussion
By clarifying the opposing relationship between mindfulness
and mind-wandering, the present studies make several contribu-
tions to the understanding of these constructs. First, Study 1
demonstrated a reliable negative correlation between an existing
measure of mindfulness and multiples markers of mind-wandering.
Study 2 further underlined this conceptual relationship by demon-
strating that mindful breathing reduces behavioral indicators of
mind-wandering in a subsequent task. The effectiveness of this
intervention establishes a causal relationship between the cultiva-
tion of mindfulness and subsequent reduction in mind-wandering.
Given the robust relationship between mind-wandering and im-
paired task performance (for reviews see Smallwood & Schooler,
2006; Smallwood et al., 2007), the benefits of a straightforward
and simple activity to reduce mind-wandering has great practical
significance. Future research should investigate the impact of
mindful breathing exercises on other activities that are known to be
disrupted by mind-wandering.
By specifying the relationship between mindfulness and mind-
wandering, the present study also helps to bridge two rapidly
growing streams of research into an integrated understanding of
undistracted attention. For example, existing research indicates
that training in mindfulness can reduce activation of the default-
mode network, a collection of brain regions that typically show
greater activation at rest than during externally directed cognitive
tasks. Both long-term meditators and individuals who have com-
pleted a 2-week meditation program show reduced activation of
the default-mode network (Brefczynski-Lewis et al., 2007; Tang et
al., 2009). Given that this network has been repeatedly associated
with markers of mind-wandering (Christoff et al., 2009; Mason et
al., 2007), the improvement in sustained attention following mind-
ful breathing observed in Study 2 may be mediated by diminished
default-mode activation. Future research should directly test
whether mindfulness training reduces mind-wandering by damp-
ening activation of the default mode network.
Figure 1. Reduction of mind-wandering following mindful breathing.
Note: n!60. Two performance markers during the SART indicated that
8 minutes of mindful breathing led to a reduction in mind-wandering.
SART Errors refer to errors of commission when a participant fails to
withhold a response to rare nontargets. Reaction Time Coefficient of
Variability is calculated as the standard deviation of RT divided by the
mean RT.
5
MINDFULNESS AND MIND-WANDERING
We focused our investigation on mindfulness as nondistraction,
which we believe represents the element most central to mindful-
ness and also most directly linked to mind-wandering (Brown &
Ryan, 2003; Wallace & Shapiro, 2006). However, more complex
operational definitions of mindfulness emphasize additional fea-
tures of the experience that may also be associated with mind-
wandering. For example, Bishop & colleagues (2004) have for-
malized a two-factor construal of mindfulness that emphasizes not
only nondistraction, but also a curious, open, and accepting orien-
tation toward one’s experience. One possibility is that mind-
wandering has a similar relationship to this nonjudgmental orien-
tation: being fully attentive to a given sensation may preclude the
possibility of being closed or intolerant toward it. Yet it is also
possible that it is the content of mind-wandering that is most
strongly associated with the nonjudgmental orientation toward
one’s experience. Future research could profitably investigate how
the actual content of mind-wandering episodes relates to the var-
ious subprocesses of multifaceted frameworks for mindfulness.
Perhaps the most compelling question for future research is to
untangle the relationship between the benefits of mindfulness and
the potential benefits of mind-wandering. After all, the human
capacity to plan the future and reflect on past experience has clear
adaptive value (Smallwood, 2010; Baars, 2010). There may be
many circumstances in which diverting attention away from a
simple primary task is beneficial. Yet the accumulating evidence
for the positive outcomes of mindfulness could be interpreted by
some to suggest that mind-wandering is of little or no benefit.
Future research should address this issue, perhaps by examining
whether the practice of mindfulness affords a degree of control
over mind-wandering that allows for its benefits while minimizing
its costs.
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Received July 7, 2010
Revision received July 29, 2011
Accepted August 19, 2011 "
7
MINDFULNESS AND MIND-WANDERING
