The rest of this blog post will be written with the assumption that this article has been read.
High WMC predicts more and less mind wandering
While it is true that high working memory capacity does predict more mind wandering and task unrelated thoughts under some circumstances, the opposite is also true. During some circumstances high working memory capacity predicts less TUT. It is my belief that while the article discussed is true, it is also misleading. They key to understanding is that high WMC is a predictor of more TUT during easy tasks and easy tasks only. As the article writes briefly, without taking any further notice of "it doesn’t mean that people with high working memory capacity are doomed to a straying mind.". This has to be stated much more clearly. As a matter of fact, this has been proven in real life studies. In 2007 Kane et. al. proved that people with higher WMC will mind wander less often then low WMC subjects in contexts that demands; higher concentration, provides a higher challenge and requires higher effort by the subjects.
As seen at the image (from Kane et. al. 2007) to the left, high WMC subjects managed to control their thoughts during high concentration and therefore could focus on task related thoughts. But as Levinson, Davidson and Smallwood also showed in 2012, high WMC subjects mind wandered more during tasks which required less concentration (for further statistics see Kane et. al. 2007)
WMC and mind wandering
So, what we have learned is that WMC affects, among other contextual factors, how often a a person mind wanders. We know that there is a clear relation between mind-wandering and WMC, we can also reason that working memory is a limited resource and TUT occupies this resource. We can also claim that high WMC subjects can control their thoughts and stay more focused on the task at hand then lesser WMC subjects. So working memory is also clearly intertwined with ability to focus.
In Kanes study several other predictors to mind wandering was also found. These included how fun the subject thought their current task where, anxiety, stress and being bad at their current activity. These were factors that led to higher mind wandering, regardless of the subjects WMC.
As Kanes study was conducted in real life, there is a high ecological validity in the study, but at the same time there is also greater chance of errors in the collected data. But as can be seen by the figures presented in Kanes study one can see a relation to the study conducted by Levinson, Davidson and Smallwood. As their study showed in laboratory environment that tasks with low concentration demand and less challenging tasks led to high WMC subjects mind wandering more often. Reasoning leads us to believe that this later study complements Kanes study and proves the hypothesis that working memory is a resource and that TUT occupies it.
What neither of the study shows is that you can predict your own WMC by observing how often your mind wanders, since WMC is only one predictor of mind wandering, and any the nature of the task at hands predicts whether or not MWC should predict more or less mind wandering.
References:
Kane, M.J., Brown, L.E., Little, J.C., Silvia, P.J., Myin-Germeys, I., & Kwapil, T.R. (2007). For whom the mind wanders, and when: An experience-sampling study of working memory and executive control in daily life. Psychological Science, 18, 614-621.
Levinson, D.B., Smallwood, J., & Davidson, R.J. (2012). The Persistence of Thought: Evidence for a Role of Working Memory in the Maintenance of Task-Unrelated Thinking Psychological Science
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