The troubling science of neurophenomenology.
Experimental Brain Research September 1, 2018 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-016-4623-7 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Experimental study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Cognitive effort Mindlessness Perceptual decoupling Sustained attention Vigilance |
| Citations | 39 |
| Key findings | Participants' explicit and implicit awareness of a pre-catch trial word was independent of self-reports of being on- or off-task, challenging the view that mind-wandering reports indicate perceptual decoupling. |
Abstract
Researchers suggest links between mind-wandering and impaired processing of external task stimuli: mind-wandering results in perceptual decoupling. The primary methodology employed to investigate the effects of mind-wandering requires people to report their conscious state and then predicts prior behavior or neurophysiological responses using the person's self-report. Unfortunately, this method employs reports that occur after the behavior occurs. An alternative methodology employs a word displayed prior to a performance check or catch trial. After the catch trial, participants then report their awareness of the word occurring, attempt to recognize the word, and also report whether they were on- or off-task. We show that participants' explicit and implicit awareness of the pre-catch trial word is independent of self-reports of conscious state. This finding conflicts with the perspective that mind-wandering reports indicate perceptual decoupling. Reports of mind-wandering may alternatively be how people explain behavioral outcomes.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on philosophy of mind, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Deep-Dream Virtual Reality Platform for Studying Altered Perceptual Phenomenology | 2017 | Experimental study | |
| New World Tryptamine Hallucinogens and the Neuroscience of Ayahuasca. | 2018 | Review with original neuroimaging and neurophysiological data | |
| Differential contributions of serotonergic and dopaminergic functional connectivity to the phenomenology of LSD Healthy adults | 2022 | Secondary analysis of experimental data | n = 15 |
| TMS-EEG and resting-state EEG applied to altered states of consciousness: oscillations, complexity, and phenomenology. | 2023 | Experimental study | |
| Training novice practitioners to reliably report their meditation experience using shared phenomenological dimensions. Novice meditation practitioners | 2019 | Neurophenomenological experiment |
Citations in the library
Cited by 3
- How do you know if you were mind wandering? Dissociating explicit memories of off task thought from subjective feelings of inattention. August 11, 2023
- Problems and Hopes of Neurophenomenology and First-Person Neuroscience e-Rhizome December 30, 2019
- States of mind: Towards a common classification of mental states. Consciousness and Cognition March 1, 2025