Mind wandering is not an obstacle, but a functional component of human learning

Abstract

Mind wandering, the experience when attention drifts away from the current task and engages in spontaneous thoughts is generally labeled as a mental liability with a robust negative impact on cognitive performance. Despite its established cognitive costs, the potential benefits of mind wandering remain elusive. Nonetheless, an emerging line of studies suggest that although mind wandering impairs performance in tasks requiring goal-directed cognitive control, it seems to be positively associated with implicit probabilistic learning. Interpreting these empirical findings by the frameworks of neurocompetition and offline information processing, we propose that mind wandering is an essential component of human cognition that acts as a gatekeeper between goal-directed controlled processing and implicit, automatic learning. We propose that mind wandering involves the transient reallocation of task-relevant frontoparietal resources leading to the coordinated activity of the frontoparietal central executive and the default mode network to maintain spontaneous thoughts. The reduction of executive control relaeases implicit learning from top-down constraints and facilitates transient offline states characterized by slow waves and sharp wave ripples providing optimal conditions for the processing of previously acquired information. We argue that mind wandering as a gatekeeper between controlled and automatic processing contributed to the adaptive adjustment of behavior.