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Yip, Jennifer Mikaela Yan Wa

University of British Columbia

Researchers have delved into mind-wandering (MW) in the last decade to shed light on its significance in understanding and treating human psychopathology. MW offers a unique avenue to examine the cognitive dynamics crucial to the inception and progression of thoughts. This dissertation investigates how attentional states interact with processing affect and incidental emotional information. Chapter 1 reviews the literature to uncover how MW research in ADHD and depression can contribute to a broader understanding of MW mechanisms. This exploration revealed implications such as the role of executive control processes, distinguishing intentional from unintentional MW, and different frameworks to interpret MW. The mechanism-based term Perceptually Decoupled Cognitions (PDCs) is introduced to consolidate various MW-related phenomena. Chapter 2 showed that inattentional PDCs may be distinguished into MW, repetitive negative thinking (RNT), and introspective thinking. Notably, the link between MW and negative mood is at least partially explained by RNT. Chapter 3 delved into in-the-moment task inattention and its immediate impact on emotional processing. Additionally, it explored how everyday tendencies toward PDCs influence task inattention and the processing of incidental emotional stimuli. The results showed that a selective sensitivity to angry faces and its corresponding conservative response bias persists despite being in off-task states. In the concluding chapter, the implications of the above findings are discussed through a novel theoretical model grounded in affect regulation and metacognitive control. This model posits that unintentional PDCs are driven by a fundamental affective system that guides environmental navigation but may not always be adaptive. Meanwhile, intentional PDCs are influenced by a higher-level metacognitive system aligned with personal goals and values. This research provides insights into the intricate interactions among cognition, affect, and attentional states, illuminating the complex dynamics of the human mind in diverse contexts.

Text

2023-12-05

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/86761

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/