Chronotype and time-of-day correlates of mind wandering and related phenomena

Abstract

This study investigated the associations between morningness/eveningness and the frequency of mind wandering (MW), daydreaming, mindfulness and attention-related cognitive errors. Self-reported time-of-day for the peak occurrence of these phenomena was also studied. A total of 1852 Chinese, aged 18–82, each completed one of several surveys comprised of various combinations of scales. Morningness was negatively correlated with MW, daydreaming and attention-related cognitive errors, and positively correlated with mindfulness. Additionally, more MW, daydreaming and attention-related cognitive errors, and less mindfulness, were generally reported at the non-preferred time-of-day (evening for morning-types, morning for evening-types), although this interaction was especially strong in morning-types. The implications of these findings for theories of MW are discussed.

Keywords:

• mind wandering
• daydreaming
• mindfulness
• chronotype
• time-of-day

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the many teachers and administrative staff who helped with data collection. This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31200766 and No. 91124003) and the Scientific Foundation of the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. Y1CX212005).