TY - JOUR A1 - Soemer, Alexander A1 - Schiefele, Ulrich T1 - Text difficulty, topic interest, and mind wandering during reading JF - Learning and instruction : the journal of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction N2 - The present article deals with the question of how the difficulty of a text affects a reader's tendency to engage in task-unrelated thinking (mind wandering) during reading, and the potential role of topic interest as a mediator of the relation between text difficulty and mind wandering. Two-hundred and sixteen participants read three texts with each text either being easy, moderate, or difficult in terms of readability and cohesion. From time to time during reading, participants were interrupted and required to indicate whether they were voluntarily or involuntarily engaging in mind wandering. After reading each text, they rated their interest in and familiarity with the topic, and subsequently answered a number of comprehension questions. The results revealed that reading difficult texts increased both voluntary and involuntary mind wandering and this increase partially explained the negative relation between text difficulty and comprehension. Furthermore, topic interest fully mediated the effect of text difficulty on both forms of mind wandering. KW - Mind wandering KW - Reading comprehension KW - Interest KW - Text difficulty Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2018.12.006 SN - 0959-4752 VL - 61 SP - 12 EP - 22 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Soemer, Alexander A1 - Idsardi, Hilda Marije A1 - Minnaert, Alexander A1 - Schiefele, Ulrich T1 - Mind wandering and reading comprehension in secondary school children JF - Learning and individual differences N2 - This study investigated predictors of mind wandering during reading and their effects on comprehension in a sample of secondary school children. One hundred and twenty-five eighth-graders read either an easy, moderately difficult, or difficult version of an expository text and subsequently answered a number of comprehension questions. Students were asked about their thoughts during reading, their propensity to mind wander in various life situations, as well as their interest in the topics of the text. Overall, the results were consistent with the general mind wandering literature: More difficult texts were associated with lower topic interest, more mind wandering during reading, and worse comprehension. Topic interest was negatively related to mind wandering during reading. Furthermore, the propensity to mind wander in daily life had both a positive effect and a negative effect on comprehension, the latter being mediated by mind wandering during reading. Based on these results, it is argued that mind wandering may benefit school children's reading comprehension if it is applied in appropriate situations and for activities that promote comprehension. KW - Mind wandering KW - Reading comprehension KW - Interest KW - Text difficulty KW - Secondary school children Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2019.101778 SN - 1041-6080 SN - 1873-3425 VL - 75 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Soemer, Alexander T1 - Task-unrelated thoughts and forgetting in working memory JF - Journal of memory and language N2 - The present article reports four experiments that investigated the effects of task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) on forgetting in non-verbal working memory. Participants had to remember three non-verbal stimuli over unfilled retention intervals (RIs) and then judge whether or not a subsequently presented probe stimulus matched one of the to-be-remembered stimuli. Participants additionally responded to randomly appearing probes that measured different aspects of their TUT engagement during the RI of the preceding trial. Forgetting over unfilled RIs was observed in three of four experiments and reliably associated with the proportion of time spent on TUTs. In contrast, the visual and auditory nature of the TUTs and the number of different TUTs did not reliably predict forgetting. The results support the view that TUTs block attention-based processes that are needed for restoring decaying memory representations rather than an alternative account in terms of interference caused by the content of the TUTs. KW - Short-term memory KW - Working memory KW - Forgetting KW - Decay KW - Interference KW - Mind wandering Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2019.03.004 SN - 0749-596X SN - 1096-0821 VL - 106 SP - 118 EP - 134 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schad, Daniel A1 - Nuthmann, Antje A1 - Engbert, Ralf T1 - Your mind wanders weakly, your mind wanders deeply - objective measures reveal mindless reading at different levels JF - Cognition : international journal of cognitive science N2 - When the mind wanders, attention turns away from the external environment and cognitive processing is decoupled from perceptual information. Mind wandering is usually treated as a dichotomy (dichotomy-hypothesis), and is often measured using self-reports. Here, we propose the levels of inattention hypothesis, which postulates attentional decoupling to graded degrees at different hierarchical levels of cognitive processing. To measure graded levels of attentional decoupling during reading we introduce the sustained attention to stimulus task (SAST), which is based on psychophysics of error detection. Under experimental conditions likely to induce mind wandering, we found that subjects were less likely to notice errors that required high-level processing for their detection as opposed to errors that only required low-level processing. Eye tracking revealed that before errors were overlooked influences of high- and low-level linguistic variables on eye fixations were reduced in a graded fashion, indicating episodes of mindless reading at weak and deep levels. Individual fixation durations predicted overlooking of lexical errors 5 s before they occurred. Our findings support the levels of inattention hypothesis and suggest that different levels of mindless reading can be measured behaviorally in the SAST. Using eye tracking to detect mind wandering online represents a promising approach for the development of new techniques to study mind wandering and to ameliorate its negative consequences. KW - Mind wandering KW - Reading KW - Eye movements KW - Signal detection theory KW - Levels of processing KW - Sustained attention Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.07.004 SN - 0010-0277 VL - 125 IS - 2 SP - 179 EP - 194 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -