Fluctuating Minds: Spontaneous Psychophysical Variability during Mind-Wandering Henríquez, Rodrigo A. Chica Martínez, Ana Belén Billeke, Pablo Bartolomeo, Paolo Mind-wandering is the occasional distraction we experience while performing a cognitive task. It arises without any external precedent, varies over time, and interferes with the processing of sensory information. Here, we asked whether the transition from the on-task state to mind-wandering is a gradual process or an abrupt event.We developed a new experimental approach, based on the continuous, online assessment of individual psychophysical performance. Probe questions were asked whenever response times (RTs) exceeded 2 standard deviations from the participant’s average RT. Results showed that mind-wandering reports were generally preceded by slower RTs, as compared to trials preceding on-task reports. Mind-wandering episodes could be reliably predicted from the response time difference between the last and the second-to-last trials. Thus, mindwandering reports follow an abrupt increase in behavioral variability, lasting between 2.5 and 10 seconds. 2024-10-07T08:08:31Z 2024-10-07T08:08:31Z 2016-02-10 journal article Henríquez RA, Chica AB, Billeke P, Bartolomeo P (2016) Fluctuating Minds: Spontaneous Psychophysical Variability during Mind-Wandering. PLoS ONE 11(2): e0147174. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147174 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/95596 10.1371/journal.pone.0147174 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional Plos One