Monaural and binaural story recall by schizophrenic subjects.

P. Green and other investigators have reported that schizophrenic Ss have poorer recall of stories presented to both ears than to the single best ear (binaural deficit) and poorer recall of stories presented to the left ear than to the right ear (monaural asymmetry) than do normal control Ss. These studies are plagued by potential methodological problems, including differences in overall accuracy, which artifactually affect the difference scores, and scoring methods that are vulnerable to systematic bias. In this study, scores of schizophrenic, bipolar, and normal control Ss on the Auditory Comprehension Test were compared. Scoring bias was avoided by the use of blind scoring and a revised scoring manual, and artifactual effects of accuracy were considered in interpreting the results. Contrary to previous findings, the groups did not differ on either monaural asymmetry or binaural deficit.     

Tracking the train of thought from the laboratory into everyday life: An experience-sampling study of mind wandering across controlled and ecological contexts

In an experience-sampling study that bridged laboratory, ecological, and individual-differences approaches to mind-wandering research, 72 subjects completed an executive-control task with periodic thought probes (reported by McVay & Kane, 2009) and then carried PDAs for a week that signaled them eight times daily to report immediately whether their thoughts were off task. Subjects who reported more mind wandering during the laboratory task endorsed more mind-wandering experiences during everyday life (and were more likely to report worries as off-task thought content). We also conceptually replicated laboratory findings that mind wandering predicts task performance: Subjects rated their daily-life performance to be impaired when they reported off-task thoughts, with greatest impairment when subjects’ mind wandering lacked metaconsciousness. The propensity to mind wander appears to be a stable cognitive characteristic and seems to predict performance difficulties in daily life, just as it does in the laboratory     

For whom the mind wanders, and when: an experience-sampling study of working memory and executive control in daily life

An experience-sampling study of 124 undergraduates, pretested on complex memory-span tasks, examined the relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and the experience of mind wandering in daily life. Over 7 days, personal digital assistants signaled subjects eight times daily to report immediately whether their thoughts had wandered from their current activity, and to describe their psychological and physical context. WMC moderated the relation between mind wandering and activities' cognitive demand. During challenging activities requiring concentration and effort, higher-WMC subjects maintained on-task thoughts better, and mind-wandered less, than did lower-WMC subjects. The results were therefore consistent with theories of WMC emphasizing the role of executive attention and control processes in determining individual differences and their cognitive consequences.