Let your mind wander

The very idea of a mind wandering suggests that the wandering mind is off course, aimless, or somehow gone astray. However, it might be more accurate to suppose that the mind is looking the other way while loosening the reins to allow more productive interaction between areas typically seen as having opposing actions. Recent research has shown that when the brain shifts its attention from a routine task and wanders, or daydreams, the so-called executive network, which is important for complex higher-level processing and problem solving, is activated. Earlier research had shown activity in the default network during daydreaming; the default mode seems to be what our brain slips into when it’s not attending to anything in particular.

The recent study suggests that when the mind wanders, these two networks, hitherto seen as opposed, are able to work together, perhaps allowing the solution of knotty problems. The study used fMRI to examine the brains of people who were carrying out a rote task; their level of attention was evaluated based on their performance on the task, their own reports of how attentive they were, and their brain activity. This press release on EurekAlert has more details.

This might explain some of the mysterious workings by which the mind can come up with an answer by going at a problem sideways, while ostensibly working on something else. For example, every Sunday morning I listen to the Sunday puzzle with Will Shortz on NPR. Shortz leaves listeners with a puzzle to solve during the week; the solution often comes to me later in the day when I’m in the shower or folding laundry. And one reason that I enjoy jigsaw puzzles, long walks, and cross-stitch is that these seemingly mindless activities can give me a break from considering some troublesome situation and, at least sometimes, allow me to come up with an answer or an approach to try. (Try as I might, though, I still can’t justify having a bad Freecell habit.)

The paper will be in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering, by Kalina Christoff, Alan M. Gordon, Jonathan Smallwood, Rachelle Smith, and Jonathan W. Schooler. Published online before print May 11, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0900234106.