Abstract
Throughout our daily experiences, it is not uncommon for us to be multitasking or otherwise distracted regardless of the task at hand. The consequences of this are well established: divided attention impairs cognitive performance and, in particular, later visual memory. However, distractions can also come from within, when thoughts drift away from the current task onto unrelated concerns. The extent of the impact of such mind wandering episodes on later visual memory remains unclear. Here, we consider how spontaneous, moment-to-moment fluctuations in attention impact visual memory. We indexed attentional states using subjective reports of depth of mind wandering (MW) and variance in response times (RTV) during a sustained attention task. Participants (N=100) attempted to respond rhythmically to computer-generated scene images presented one at a time and were told to remember them for a later memory test. No judgment or decision was required; participants simply pressed a key rhythmically with each scene’s onset. Following this, we measured old-new recognition memory for the presented scenes and tested whether our metrics of MW predicted performance. Consistent with our predictions, linear mixed-effects modelling revealed that subjective reports of depth of MW significantly predicted subsequent scene memory; greater depth led to poorer memory. This finding indicated that participants’ subjective reports of attention quality during encoding predicted long-term visual memory. However, previously observed associations between RTV and both MW reports and memory were not present. Notifying participants about the upcoming memory test likely enhanced attention and uniformly reduced RT variance. Current follow-ups explore whether making the memory task implicit changes both RTV and the association with later memory, and deriving more continuous readout from long-term memory to test for effects on memory precision. Overall, the present study demonstrates that mind wandering, like divided attention, negatively impacts visual memory.