Date of Award
Spring 5-8-2024
Degree Name
Master of Arts (AM/MA)
Degree Type
Thesis
Abstract
People need to sustain focused attention to achieve goals. Yet, attention often lapses, as minds wander towards task-unrelated thoughts. The conventional way to study temporal dynamics in mental states is through intermittent thought probes, which explicitly ask if thoughts are task-related. However, probes are rare and interrupt behavior. We designed a novel paradigm aiming to infer mind wandering (MW) from performance alone. On each trial, participants see a random dot kinematogram with varying evidence and indicate the coherent direction. Importantly, responses are repetitive: 90% of trials exhibit the same direction. To validate our task, participants respond to occasional thought probes. When they reported being off-task, accuracy was higher and RT lower, suggesting less stimulus processing and more reliance on bias. To classify internal states for individual trials from performance, we fit a Hidden Markov Model with Generalized Linear Models (HMM-GLM) for each state to responses. In a two-state HMM-GLM, RT was lower on off-task trials. Latent states also aligned with self-reported focus. This shows that attentional states can be measured on a trial-to-trial basis without thought probes, paving the way for future MW research.
Language
English (en)
Chair and Committee
Wouter Kool
Committee Members
Julie Bugg, Todd Braver
Recommended Citation
Zhang, Cathy, "Inferring Mind Wandering from Perceptual Decision Making" (2024). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3094.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/3094