Effects of Current Mood State on the Time-Frame Orientation of Mind-Wandering

The current study examined the effect of mood state on the time-frame orientation (retrospective versus prospective) of mind-wandering (i.e., daydreaming). The mood states of participants were recorded before and after performing a long, repetitive facial emotion discrimination task using the Affect Grid (emotional valence and arousal). Depending on the initial valence reported by participants, various experimental manipulations were selected to attempt to maintain this mood state, such as emotionally provoking images, the brightness of background lighting, and emotion inducing background music. During this task, each participant was prompted 15 times to provide their mind-wandering state and, if mind-wandering at the time, to then provide the time orientation and emotional content of the mind-wandering episode. Results revealed that the time-frame orientation of mind-wandering episodes were more likely to be prospective than retrospective, and the time-frame orientation was affected by both arousal and emotional valence. Depression scores, gathered at an earlier time via mass testing and related to emotional valence, were related to time orientation. Not surprisingly, the emotional content of the mind-wandering episodes matched the participant’s emotional state during the experiment. These results clearly highlight that the time-frame orientation and content of our mind-wandering episodes (daydreams) are not random but rather reflect our current concerns and physiological states. EFFECTS OF CURRENT MOOD STATE 3 Effects of Current Mood State on the Time-Frame Orientation of Mind-Wandering Mind-wandering is defined as any cognitive event which redirects executive control functioning from an initial task to processing personal goals (Smallwood & Schooler, 2006). Mind-wandering is synonymous with task-unrelated thought (TUT), stimulus-independent thought (SIT), and daydreaming (Berntsen, 2009; Giambra, 1989; Mason, Norton, Van Horn, Wegner, Grafton, & Macrae, 2007; McVay & Kane, 2009; Smallwood, Obonsawin, & Heim, 2003). Mind-wandering has received recent research interest from cognitive scientists after being neglected in the past. The relationship of mind-wandering to the default mode network of the brain has helped trigger these new research developments (Christoff, Gordon, Smallwood, Smith, & Schooler, 2009; Mason et al., 2007), as well as a general interest in other unconscious cognitive phenomena, such as involuntary memories (Mace, 2008). In fact, recent cognitive studies have now been successful in linking mind-wandering with a plethora of other psychological phenomena, including subjective life narratives (Berntsen & Rubin, 2002), agerelated effects on memory (Kliegel, Kvavilashvili, Schlagman, & Schulz, 2009), and specific personality variables (Hartmann, Kunzendorf, Rosen, & Grace, 2001). Many additional studies have been conducted in which the cognitive processes associated with mind-wandering itself were explored, including its often dreamlike mental imagery (Kunzendorf, Hartmann, Cohen, & Cutler, 1997), as well as its apparent goal-directed functioning (Klinger, 1999). However, one particular feature of mind-wandering which has remained relatively ignored by cognitive psychologists is the time-frame orientation (retrospective versus prospective) of its content, and more specifically, the cognitive processes by which this orientation is determined. Time-Frame Orientation EFFECTS OF CURRENT MOOD STATE 4 Understandably, the concept associated with the time-frame orientation of mindwandering may be somewhat difficult to grasp. Therefore, a good example taken from the psychological literature might be more effective in delineating this feature of mind-wandering. There is perhaps no better description of a mind-wandering episode than that provided by French novelist Marcel Proust within the first volume of his semi-autobiographical novel “In Search of Lost Time,” Proust describes an unusual experience of the novel’s narrator while enjoying a piece of madeleine cake dipped in tea. In what has come to be known as the “episode of the madeleine”, the narrator vividly delineates how the taste of the tea-soaked cake revealed to him a distant memory of when he used to eat the confection with his aunt, Leonie, on Sunday mornings as a child (Proust, 1913-1927). This example accurately illustrates the concept of time-frame orientation in the form of a past-directed (retrospective) mental journey that catapulted him back in time to past memories spent with his aunt as a youth. One critical question remains for psychologists ---Why did Proust’s mind-wandering send his involuntary thought processes hurtling to the past, as opposed to the future, and furthermore, what cognitive and psychological factors influenced this time travel direction? Given the involuntary nature of mind-wandering, could time travel just be a random feature of mind-wandering episodes, or could the direction of these travels be predicted by psychologists in some way? Answering these questions is at the heart of the current thesis.