Summary: A recent study indicates that unrestrained thoughts wandering may actually improve learning when performing things that need little attention. Using probabilistic analysis, scientists tracked brain activity as participants completed a straightforward, low-effort learning process.
Surprisingly, those who let their imaginations wander performed just as well as, if not better, than those who were completely focused. This suggests that some types of unconscious learning can be supported by quiet states of mind, related to sleep-like neurological action.
Important Information
- Advantages of Passive Learning: Mind wandering didn’t affect performance in low-attention things, but it occasionally improved learning.
- Mental Activity Link: Sleep-like cerebral oscillations were linked to better job performance while wandering.
- Spontaneity Matters: Unplanned thoughts wandering was more advantageous than deliberate daydreaming.
Origin: SfN
How well do people learn and carry out tasks that require attention and lively thinking can suffer when their thoughts wander. However, there are more passive forms of learning that call for less focus.
Péter Simor and colleagues from Eötvös Loránd University studied how thoughts wandering affects learning in tasks that require little attention in their JNeurosci report.  ,  ,
While the researchers monitored their mental activity, roughly 40 study participants engaged in a straightforward learning process. Because individuals were able to predict outcomes based on probabilities they had not realized they had.
Mind wandering while performing the task did not affect efficiency, and in some cases, even increased understanding. Learning was more benefited by unexpected mind wandering than intentional mind wandering.
During thoughts wandering and as a result of improvements in job memory, cyclic neural activity in the brain, similar to that seen during sleep or sleep-like states, took place. So, sleep-like neural activity linked to impulsive mind wandering stimulates learning in tasks that need little to be studied.
The majority of mental labor emphasizes learning when you are completely engaged. However, in reality, we spend a lot of time learning quietly! Our brains need sleep, but perhaps we also require silent methods of learning or “wakeful rest” to recover from tasks that call for your brain to be engaged and online, Simor suggests.  ,
About this information about this analysis that explores learning and daydreams
Author: SfN Media
Source: SfN
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Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Disclosed entry.
Péter Simor and colleagues ‘” Mind Wandering During Implicit Learning is Associated with Increased Periodic EEG Activity and Superior Separation of Hidden Probabilistic Patterns” are cited in this paper. Journal of Neuroscience
Abstract
Mind waning while engaged in tacit learning is correlated with increased monthly EEG activity and improved removal of invisible probabilistic patterns.
Mind wandering, which accounts for 30 % to 50 % of our waking hours, continues to be a mysterious phenomenon in cognitive neuroscience.
Numerous studies found a negative correlation between attention-demanding ( model-based ) tasks and mind wandering in both laboratory and natural settings.
However, it was observed that mind wandering promoted creativity and problem-solving and did not appear to be destructive to all mental areas.
We looked into whether mind wandering could aid model-free processes, like stochastic learning, which rely on the automatic acquisition of analytical regularities with little attentional demands.
In healthy adults ( N = 37, 30 females ), we combined a well-established implicit probabilistic learning task with thought probes.
Respondents were fitted with high-density electroencephalography to study the neural correlates of mind wandering and probabilistic understanding.
Our findings support the hypothesis that stochastic learning was not only resistant to periods of thoughts wandering but also had a positive correlation with it. Especially useful for identifying the probabilistic patterns in the visible stream was spontaneous, as opposed to deliberate mind wandering.
Cortical oscillatory activity in the low-frequency ( slow and delta ) range, which suggests covert sleep-like states, was linked to improved probabilistic learning and mind wandering, particularly in the early stages of the task.
Our results provide novel insight into the possible mental advantages of task-unrelated thoughts in addition to shedding light on its neural mechanisms given the significance of probabilistic inherent understanding in predicted control.
