Mind-wandering could actually be helpful when it comes to learning something new
There were some patterns hidden away in the task planted by researchers, which meant the game could be played without too much attention if necessary. (Pexels: Anna Tarazevich)
Good news for people with short attention spans: it could actually be helpful to let your mind wander when trying to learn a new task.
New research, released by ELTE Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, found people who paid less attention when learning and performing a new task were no more likely to perform better than those who gave it their full attention.
How does it work?
Researchers had 37 people come to their laboratory in Hungary, and fitted them with 64-channel scalp electrodes to monitor brain activity.
They were given an exercise called the "alternating serial reaction time" task to complete, which meant participants watched an arrow on a big screen television, and hit a key on a keyboard to indicate whether it had gone up, down, left or right as accurately and and quickly as they could.
Participants were intermittently asked three questions about their level of mind wandering, and later had to complete the ASRT task 30 times in "blocks".
After every block, they were asked questions about their attention — if their mind had wandered, if they'd been thinking about anything at all, or if they had been focused on the task.
How was it measured?
Brain activity was recorded with the electrodes attached to participants at the beginning of the study.
This data, along with how the participants answered the questions, was used to determine if peoples' attention had wandered — based on things like impaired task performance, and slow frequency.
Scientists used statistics to build a behavioural analyses of the participants, and said their work indicated a "distinct" association between mind-wandering and probabilistic learning.
Probabilistic learning means the participants would use their prior experience of the task to assess the probability of something happening.
What did scientists find?
Scientists have talked about the harmful impact of mind wandering on everyday activities for years, but the university's research team said their study was different.
They said the reason we know so much about the negative effects of mind- wandering is because previous studies usually involve attention-demanding cognitive operations.
However, their study was designed to be simple and could be done without too much strain.
The study aimed to slow down and simplify previous cognitive tests that test distraction. (Pexels Anastasia Shuraeva)
"This ... was because participants could make predictions based off probabilities that they learned without awareness," the report said.
"Mind-wandering while doing the task did not worsen performance, and in some cases even enhanced learning.
"Spontaneous mind-wandering was more beneficial to learning than deliberate mind wandering."
Scientist Péter Simor said their findings confirmed our brains never stop.
"Most cognitive work looks at learning when you are fully engaged," he said.
"But in real life we spend so much time passively learning.
"As our brain needs sleep, maybe we also need passive ways of learning, or 'wakeful rest', to recover from tasks that require your brain to be online and engaged."
The study was peer reviewed, and funded by Chaire de Professeur Junior Program by INSERM and French National Grant Agency, the National Brain Research Program project, the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office Grant and the Janos Bolyai scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.