Dataset Information

Mind wandering increases linearly with text difficulty.

ABSTRACT: Although mind wandering during reading is known to be affected by text difficulty, the nature of this relationship is not yet fully understood. To examine this issue, we conducted an experiment in which participants read non-fiction texts that varied along five levels of difficulty under naturalistic conditions. Difficulty levels were determined based on Flesch-Kincaid Grade Levels and verified with Coh-Metrix indices. Mind wandering was measured with thought probes. We predicted that text difficulty and mind wandering have a U-shaped (i.e., quadratic) relationship. Contrary to our expectations, but in line with some prior studies, mind wandering linearly increased with text difficulty. Additionally, text interest moderated the effect of text difficulty on mind wandering. Finally, mind wandering was associated with worse performance on a comprehension test. Together, our findings extend previous work by showing that (a) a linear relationship between difficulty and mind wandering exists during common page-by-page reading of pre-existing texts and that (b) this relationship holds across a broad range of difficulty levels.

SUBMITTER: Kahmann R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8821482 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Mind wandering increases linearly with text difficulty.

Kahmann Rebecca R Ozuer Yesim Y Zedelius Claire M CM Bijleveld Erik E

Psychological research 20210212 1

Although mind wandering during reading is known to be affected by text difficulty, the nature of this relationship is not yet fully understood. To examine this issue, we conducted an experiment in which participants read non-fiction texts that varied along five levels of difficulty under naturalistic conditions. Difficulty levels were determined based on Flesch-Kincaid Grade Levels and verified with Coh-Metrix indices. Mind wandering was measured with thought probes. We predicted that text diffi ...[more]

PMID: 33576850

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Project description:A significant body of literature supports the contention that pupil size varies depending on cognitive load, affective state, and level of drowsiness. Here we assessed whether oculometric measures such as gaze position, blink frequency and pupil size were correlated with the occurrence and time course of self-reported mind-wandering episodes. We recorded the pupil size of two subjects engaged in a monotonous breath counting task while keeping their eyes on a fixation cross. This task is conducive to producing mind-wandering episodes. Each subject performed ten 20-min sessions, for total duration of about 4 h. Subjects were instructed to report spontaneous mind-wandering episodes by pressing a button when they lost count of their breath. After each button press, subjects filled in a short questionnaire describing the characteristics of their mind-wandering episode. We observed larger pupil size during the breath-focusing period compared to the mind-wandering period (p < 0.01 for both subjects). Our findings contradict previous research showing a higher baseline pupil size during mind wandering episodes in visual tasks. We discuss possible explanations for this discrepancy. We also analyzed nine other oculometric measures including blink rate, blink duration and gaze position. We built a support vector machine (SVM) classifier and showed that mean pupil size was the most reliable predictor of mind wandering in both subjects. The classification accuracy of mind wandering data segments vs. breath-focusing data segments was 81% for the first subject and 77% for the second subject. Additionally, we analyzed oculometric measures in light of the phenomenological data collected in the questionnaires. We showed that how well subjects remembered their thoughts while mind wandering was positively correlated with pupil size (subject 1, p < 0.001; subject 2, p < 0.05). Feelings of well being were also positively correlated with pupil size (subject 1, p < 0.001; subject 2, p < 0.001). Our results suggest that oculometric data could be used as a neurocognitive marker of mind-wandering episodes.

Dataset Information

Mind wandering increases linearly with text difficulty.

Publications

Mind wandering increases linearly with text difficulty.

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