The role of working memory capacity and mind wandering in creativity and insight

Conflicting theories suggest opposing predictions for the role of working memory capacity (WMC) and mind wandering in insight problem solving and creativity. The executive-control-benefit perspective suggests that insight problem solving and creativity would benefit from the effectively focused attention that high WMC enables. Focused attention should help guide a selective search of solution-relevant information in memory and help inhibit uncreative yet accessible ideas. In contrast, the executive-control-cost perspective suggests that unfocused attention would be beneficial to insight and creativity, as it should allow access to more loosely relevant concepts, remotely linked to commonplace ideas. By inserting incubation periods into two insight problems and two creativity tasks, my main goal was to test whether or not WMC and mind wandering during the incubation tasks predict post-incubation performance on insight and creativity problems. Yet a third possibility, however, is that individual differences in WMC predict flexibility in control, such that people with higher WMC better adjust attentional focus (i.e., narrowly or broadly) to fit the requirements of the task. For instance, there is less benefit to mind wandering during a stand-alone attention task than during the incubation period of an insight problem or creativity task, where task-unrelated thoughts could lead to progress toward the problem-solving or creative goal. Following up on previous research, I also explored the possibility, in both studies, that self-reported concentration during the attention-demanding tasks may moderate the relationship between WMC and mind wandering in the lab, as it does in daily-life activities. In a second experiment I included an openness measure and a need for cognition measure in order to assess the moderating role of intellectual motivation on WMC to predict success in insight and creativity. Overall, results suggest that WMC is beneficial for certain insight problems, but not for creativity, and whereas mind wandering is not helpful for creativity, it may in fact be harmful in some insight problems. In addition, concentration does not seem to interact with WMC to predict mind wandering in the lab like it does in daily life. Finally, although openness to experience predicted both TUTs and creativity, neither openness to experience nor need for cognition moderated the relationship between WMC and insight or creativity

Working memory capacity and the antisaccade task: A microanalytic–macroanalytic investigation of individual differences in goal activation and maintenance

The association between working memory capacity (WMC) and the antisaccade task, which requires subjects to move their eyes and attention away from a strong visual cue, supports the claim that WMC is partially an attentional construct (Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle, 2001; Unsworth, Schrock, & Engle, 2004). Specifically, the WMC-antisaccade relation suggests that WMC helps maintain and execute task goals despite interference from habitual actions. Related work has recently shown that mind wandering (McVay & Kane, 2009, 2012a, 2012b) and reaction time (RT) variability (Unsworth, 2015) are also related to WMC and they partially explain WMC’s prediction of cognitive abilities. Here, we tested whether mind-wandering propensity and intraindividual RT variation account for WMC’s associations with 2 antisaccade-cued choice RT tasks. In addition, we asked whether any influences of WMC, mind wandering, or intraindividual RT variation on antisaccade are moderated by (a) the temporal gap between fixation and the flashing location cue, and (b) whether targets switch sides on consecutive trials. Our quasi-experimental study reexamined a published dataset (Kane et al., 2016) comprising 472 subjects who completed 6 WMC tasks, 5 attentional tasks with mind-wandering probes, 5 tasks from which we measured intraindividual RT variation, and 2 antisaccade tasks with varying fixation-cue gap durations. The WMC-antisaccade association was not accounted for by mind wandering or intraindividual RT variation. WMC’s effects on antisaccade performance were greater with longer fixation-to-cue intervals, suggesting that goal activation processes—beyond the ability to control mind wandering and RT variability—are partially responsible for the WMC-antisaccade relation

A "Goldilocks zone" for mind wandering reports? A secondary analysis of how few thought probes are enough for reliable and valid measurement

Mind wandering assessment relies heavily on the thought probe technique as a reliable and valid method to assess momentary task-unrelated thought (TUT), but there is little guidance available to help researchers decide how many probes to include within a task. Too few probes may lead to unreliable measurement, but too many probes might artificially disrupt normal thought flow and produce reactive effects. Is there a “Goldilocks zone” for how few thought probes can be used to reliably and validly assess individual differences in mind wandering propensity? We address this question by reanalyzing two published datasets (Study 1, n = 541; Study 2, n’s ≈ 260 per condition) in which thought probes were presented in multiple tasks. Our primary analyses randomly sampled probes in increments of two for each subject in each task. A series of confirmatory factor analyses for each probe “bin” size tested whether the latent correlations between TUT rate and theoretically relevant constructs like working memory capacity, attention control ability, disorganized schizotypy, and retrospective self-reported mind wandering changed as more probes assessed TUT rate. TUT rates were remarkably similar across increasing probe-bin sizes and zero-order correlations within and between tasks stabilized at 8–10 probes; moreover, TUT-rate correlations with other latent variables stabilized at about 8 thought probes. Our provisional recommendation (with caveats) is that researchers may use as few as 8 thought probes in prototypical cognitive tasks to gain reliable and valid information about individual differences in TUT rate

mTurk and open science

#SIPS2018 Unconference page - with the aim of compiling a document on mTurk best practices for open and reproducible researc

The Worst Performance Rule or Not-Best Performance Rule?

Reanalysis of Kane et al. (2016) examining the relationship between WMC, TUTs, and RT measures of attentional control

Worst performance rule, or not-best performance rule?

The worst performance rule (WPR) is a robust empirical finding reflecting that people’s worst task performance shows stronger relations to cognitive ability compared to their average or best performance. However, recent meta-analytic work has proposed this be renamed the “not-best-performance” rule because mean and worst performance seem to predict cognitive ability to similar degrees (with both predicting ability better than best performance). We re-analyzed data from a previously published latent-variable study to test for worst vs. not-best performance across a variety of reaction time tasks in relation to two cognitive ability constructs: working memory capacity (WMC) and task-unrelated thought (TUT) rate. Using two methods of assessing worst performance—ranked-binning and ex-Gaussian-modeling approaches—we found evidence for both worst and not-best performance rules. WMC followed the not-best performance rule (correlating equivalently with mean and worst RTs) but TUT propensity followed the worst performance rule (correlating more strongly with worst RTs). Additionally, we created a mini-multiverse following different outlier exclusion rules to test the robustness of our findings; our findings remained stable across the different multiverse iterations. We provisionally conclude that the worst performance rule may only arise in relation to cognitive abilities closely linked to (failures of) sustained attention

An Exploratory Analysis of Individual Differences in Mind Wandering Content and Consistency

We conducted an exploratory study of adult individual differences in the contents of mind-wandering experiences and in the moment-to-moment consistency of that off-task thought content within tasks. This secondary analysis of a published dataset (Kane et al., 2016) examined the content-based thought reports that 472-541 undergraduates made within five probed tasks across three sessions, and tested whether executive-control abilities (working memory capacity [WMC], attention-restraint ability), or personality dimensions of schizotypy (positive, disorganized, negative), predicted particular contents of task-unrelated thought (TUT) or the (in)stability of TUT content across successive thought reports. Latent-variable models indicated trait-like consistency in both TUT content and short-term TUT-content stability across tasks and sessions; some subjects mind-wandered about some things more than others, and some subjects were more temporally consistent in their TUT content than were others. Higher executive control was associated with more evaluative thoughts about task performance and fewer thoughts about current physical or emotional states; higher positive and disorganized schizotypy was associated with more fantastical-daydream and worry content. Contrary to expectations, executive ability correlated positively with TUT instability: higher-ability students had more shifting and varied TUT content within a task. Post hoc analysis suggested that better executive control predicted inconsistent TUT content because it also predicted shorter streaks of mind-wandering; tuning back in to task-related thought may decouple trains of off-task thought and afford novel spontaneous or cued thought content. [Data, sample analysis scripts and output, and manuscript preprint are available via the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/guhw7/.