Probe-caught spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering in relation to self-reported inattentive, hyperactive and impulsive traits in adults.

Research has revealed a positive relationship between types of mind wandering and ADHD at clinical and subclinical levels. However, this work did not consider the relationship between mind wandering and the core symptoms of ADHD: inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. Given that the DMS-V attributes mind wandering to inattention only, and that only inattention is thought to result from impairment to the executive function linked to mind wandering, the present research sought to examine this relationship in 80 undiagnosed adults. Using both standard and easy versions of the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) we measured both spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering. We found that spontaneous mind wandering was related to self-reported inattentive traits when the task was cognitively more challenging (standard SART). However, hyperactive and impulsive traits were related to spontaneous mind wandering independent of task difficulty. The results suggest inattentive traits are not uniquely related to mind wandering; indeed, adults with hyperactive/impulsive traits were more likely to experience mind wandering, suggesting that mind wandering might not be useful diagnostic criteria for inattention

The concepts of 'sameness' and 'difference' in an insect

Insects process and learn information flexibly to adapt to their environment. The honeybee Apis mellifera constitutes a traditional model for studying learning and memory at behavioural, cellular and molecular levels(1). Earlier studies focused on elementary associative and non-associative forms of learning determined by either olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex(1) or the learning of visual stimuli(2) in an operant context. However, research has indicated that bees are capable of cognitive performances that were thought to occur only in some vertebrate species. For example, honeybees can interpolate visual information(3), exhibit associative recall(4,5), categorize visual information(6-8) and learn contextual information(9). Here we show that honeybees can form 'sameness' and 'difference' concepts. They learn to solve 'delayed matching-to-sample' tasks, in which they are required to respond to a matching stimulus, and 'delayed non-matching-to-sample' tasks, in which they are required to respond to a different stimulus; they can also transfer the learned rules to new stimuli of the same or a different sensory modality. Thus, not only can bees learn specific objects and their physical parameters, but they can also master abstract inter-relationships, such as sameness and difference