The dissertation examined family caregivers’ perceptions of wandering behavior after their loved one has been diagnosed with ADRD (Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias). Semi-structured in-depth face-to-face interviews of a convenience sample of 22 caregivers in the Dallas metropolitan area were conducted. Responses were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. The use of qualitative methods facilitated the study of how caregivers of a loved one with ADRD understood and explained in their own voice the wandering behavior associated with the disease and how their views of the behavior informed the caregiving process. In particular, this research examined why some caregivers tend to recognize wandering behavior as significant early on while the ADRD patient is still living in the home (and community) and modifications can be made to keep him or her there despite the behavior, and why some caregivers do not. Findings indicated that caregivers were concerned about the general safety of their loved one. Precautions were taken within the home for conditions related to frailty, but were much less likely to be taken to address wandering behavior and its negative consequences. Three groups of caregivers emerged: (a) those who primarily reacted to their loved one’s problem behaviors including wandering, and intervened minimally; (b) those who were proactive, making modifications in their routines and environment to protect their loved one after a trigger event; and (c) those who had a mixed response, who did the best that they could with what they had. This last group of caregivers took on additional roles, modified their homes for safety, but environmental stressors and inadequate supports limited their interventions. Implications of the findings for aging in place and community, further research, policy-making, and practitioners are discussed.

Time perception is a fundamental aspect of consciousness related to mental health. One cognitive state related to time perception is mind wandering (MW), defined as having thoughts unrelated to the current task. Little research has directly assessed the relationship between these two constructs, despite the overlap in clinical significance and the shared importance of attention for healthy functioning. In the present study, I addressed this by having a sample of 40 adults in the United States complete an online sustained attention to response task remotely while answering thought probes related to thought type and time perception. Multilevel modeling results indicated that cognitive factors were related to the judgements of passage of time (JOPOTs; the feeling that time is passing quickly or slowly) while they had little relation to the estimated duration or the accuracy of those estimations. Specifically, JOPOTs were related to attention to task and emotional valence, and the addition of MW, intentionality, and fixed/dynamic thoughts to the models explained additional variance. Duration estimations and JOPOTs were unrelated to each other, suggesting JOPOTs and duration estimations have different relationships to cognitive factors and should be studied as separate constructs. Additionally, results suggested that the heavy use of dichotomization in the MW literature should be shifted in favor of conceptualizing attention to task as a continuous variable. The difference in effects of MW on estimation durations and JOPOTs specifically is novel finding. This is the first study to evaluate the relationship between MW and both duration estimations and JOPOTs, thus it may advance mechanistic and phenomenological understanding of MW which could in turn inform clinical theories of time perception in disorders including ADHD and depression.

abstract: Previous literature was reviewed in an effort to further investigate the link between notification levels of a cell phone and their effects on driver distraction. Mind-wandering has been suggested as an explanation for distraction and has been previously operationalized with oculomotor movement. Mind-wandering’s definition is debated, but in this research it was defined as off task thoughts that occur due to the task not requiring full cognitive capacity. Drivers were asked to operate a driving simulator and follow audio turn by turn directions while experiencing each of three cell phone notification levels: Control (no texts), Airplane (texts with no notifications), and Ringer (audio notifications). Measures of Brake Reaction Time, Headway Variability, and Average Speed were used to operationalize driver distraction. Drivers experienced higher Brake Reaction Time and Headway Variability with a lower Average Speed in both experimental conditions when compared to the Control Condition. This is consistent with previous research in the field of implying a distracted state. Oculomotor movement was measured as the percent time the participant was looking at the road. There was no significant difference between the conditions in this measure. The results of this research indicate that not, while not interacting with a cell phone, no audio notification is required to induce a state of distraction. This phenomenon was unable to be linked to mind-wandering. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Human Systems Engineering 2019

An evaluation of the global water storage contribution to the Chandler wobble has never been undertaken because: (1) the hydrological data necessary for the reconstruction of an extended monthly time series have not been available; and (2) the water storage contribution has traditionally been regarded as relatively unimportant because of its minor role in the excitation of the annual wobble. However, a crude approximation of the global water storage series is possible using worldwide records of monthly precipitation and temperature, accumulating precipitation at individual locations whenever temperatures are at 0° Celsius or below. Comparison of this modeled series with a previous estimate of the annual component of the global water balance, and with the observed monthly polar motion series, indicates good agreement with the former, and a significant correlation with the latter near the Chandler frequency. / text

The relationship between life stress and working memory capacity (WMC) has been documented in college students and older adults. It has been proposed that intrusive thoughts about life stress are the mechanism responsible for the impairments seen in WMC. To examine the mechanism responsible for these impairments the current study attempted to induce intrusive thoughts about personal events. The current study allowed for a test of predictions made by two theories of mind wandering regarding the impact of these intrusive thoughts on WMC task performance. One hundred fifty undergraduates were assigned to a control group, positive event group, or negative event group. Participants in the positive and negative event groups completed a short emotional disclosure about an imagined future positive or negative event, respectively, to induce positive or negative intrusive thoughts. WMC measures were completed prior to and following the emotional writing. Results indicated a significant relationship between WMC and mind wandering, however the writing manipulation did not result in any consistent changes in intrusive thoughts or WMC. The results suggest a causal relationship between WMC and mind wandering. The emotional valence of the intrusive thought altered the impact on WMC. No relationship was seen between the measures of stress and WMC. The results of the current study suggest that negative intrusive thoughts result in impaired WMC task performance but other types of off-task thoughts may not result in similar impairments.

The current thesis intersects cognition and education to study the mental experience of mind wandering and its consequences. This research examines attention and memory using materials, methodologies, and research questions drawn from authentic classroom environments. The overarching question driving this thesis centres on when and why students mind wander during lectures, and how we can reduce its negative impact on learning. The hypothesis underpinning all the presented research proposes that stronger motivation reduces mind wandering, thus improving learning outcomes. The current thesis examines how three different motivational manipulations affect reports of intentional mind wandering—when participants deliberately choose to redirect their attention away from the lecture—and unintentional mind wandering—when participants find their attention to be off-task despite their best efforts to stay focused. Quizzing, monetary rewards, and time-based rewards affected mind wandering reports, particularly reports of intentional mind wandering. Although, throughout this thesis, there was no direct impact on learning, there was consistent evidence of a negative correlation between mind wandering reports and learning. Based on these findings, this thesis discusses implications for the enterprise of mind wandering research, principles of motivation to leverage in education, and pedagogies to improve the classroom learning experience. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Our minds wander multiple times a day—during work, school, leisure time, meals, and countless other activities. When mind wandering occurs during lectures, it negatively impacts our ability to learn information. If we are motivated, we are likely to learn more, and some researchers have suggested that this happens because we are better able to pay attention while learning. The research presented in this thesis used three reward types in an attempt to reduce two types of mind wandering (intentional vs. spontaneous) and, therefore, produce better learning. This thesis demonstrated that outside rewards can increase motivation, and that these changes in motivation appear to affect intentional mind wandering more than spontaneous mind wandering. Reducing mind wandering by properly motivating our students should promote better learning; as educators, effective lectures must play that role for students.

Människor tenderar att driva iväg i tankarna en stor del av den vakna tiden oavsett vad de företar sig. Vidare uppvisar befolkningen otillräcklig sömn vilket är avgörande för kognitiva förmågan och individers hälsa. Studiens syfte var att undersöka sömn som prediktor för uppmärksamhet i form av mind wandering, samt specifikt kategorierna spontaneous och deliberate mind wandering. Ett andra syfte var att undersöka kön, ålder, studerande och arbetande som prediktorer för mind wandering, samt specifikt spontaneous och deliberate mind wandering. Den första hypotesen var att sömnstörningar predicerar mind wandering. Den andra hypotesen var att sömnstörningar predicerar spontaneous mind wandering. Den tredje hypotesen var att kön predicerar a) mind wandering, b) spontaneous mind wandering och c) deliberate mind wandering. Den fjärde hypotesen var att ålder predicerar spontaneous mind wandering. Studien använde kvantitativ metod med ett bekvämlighetsurval och snöbollseffekt. Datainsamlingen skedde med en digital självskattningsenkät och bestod av 201 deltagare. Enkäten innehöll instrumenten The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Sleep Disturbance (PROMIS), mind wandering questionnaire (MWQ), Mind Wandering Spontaneous (MW-S) och Mind Wandering Deliberate (MW-D). Data analyserades med deskriptiv statistik och multipel regression. Resultatet gav stöd för den första, andra och tre hypotesen, dock förkastades den fjärde hypotesen. Sömnstörningar och kön predicerar mind wandering och spontaneous mind wandering. Studerande och kön predicerar deliberate mind wandering. Däremot predicerade ålder inte mind wandering. Sammantaget visade studien att sömnstörningar har samband med mind wandering, men endast avseende spontaneous mind wandering vilket kan associeras till bristande exekutiv kontroll. Negativa implikationer är associerade med spontaneous mind wandering då det kan leda till att individen inte kan fullfölja sin uppgift och bli mer benägen att känna sig olycklig. / People tend to drift away in their thoughts for a large part of their waking hours regardless of what they are doing. Furthermore, the population exhibits insufficient sleep, which is crucial for cognitive ability and the health of individuals. The purpose of the study was to investigate sleep as a predictor of mind wandering, as well as special categories of spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering. Another aim was to investigate gender, age, studies and work as predictors of mind wandering, spontaneous and deliberate mind wandering. The first hypothesis was that sleep disturbances predict mind wandering. The second hypothesis was that sleep disturbances predict spontaneous mind wandering. The third hypothesis was that gender predicts a) mind wandering, b) spontaneous mind wandering and c) deliberate mind wandering. The fourth hypothesis was that age predicts spontaneous mind wandering. The study used quantitative methods with a convenience sample and snowball effect. The data collection took place with a digital self-assessment questionnaire and consisted of 201 participants. The survey contained the instruments The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Sleep Disturbance (PROMIS), mind wandering questionnaire (MWQ), Mind Wandering Spontaneous (MW-S) and Mind Wandering Deliberate (MW-D). The data was analyzed with descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The result provided support for the first, second and third hypothesis, however the fourth hypothesis was rejected. Sleep disturbances and gender predict mind wandering and spontaneous mind wandering. Studies and gender predict deliberate mind wandering. In contrast, age did not predict mind wandering. Overall, the study showed that sleep disorders are related to mind wandering, but only with regard to spontaneous mind wandering. Negative implications are associated with spontaneous mind wandering as it can lead to the individual feeling unhappy.

The central purpose of this dissertation is to develop and test a theoretical model of mind wandering in a technological setting by integrating the emerging work and theory on mind wandering—a shift of attention from the primary task to the processing of internal goals. This dissertation is intended to advance our understanding on the costs and benefits of mind wandering in information systems (IS) research and in turn, contribute to the literature of cognitive IS research. Understanding the consequences of mind wandering in a technological setting is imperative because mind wandering plays a vital role in influencing various outcomes associated with technology use and/or technology learning, such as technology anxiety, software self-efficacy, and task performance. This dissertation is composed of three essays which examine the determinants and consequences of mind wandering and focus of attention on a number of emotional and cognitive outcomes. A multi-method approach (i.e., online survey and laboratory experiment) across three essays is used to test the research models. Essay 1 focuses on developing the measurement items and estimating the impact of mind wandering on users' emotional outcomes (i.e., technology anxiety and users' satisfaction). Drawing upon the content regulation hypothesis of mind wandering, the content of thoughts are differentiated into two categories—technology-related thought (herein IT) and non-technology related thought (herein non-IT). The results show that whereas mind wandering (non-IT) is a major determinant of technology anxiety, focus of attention (IT) is the main predictor of users' satisfaction. Essay 2 focuses on the effect of mind wandering and focus of attention in the IS learning context. The study begins by exploring the hypotheses concerning the roles of executive functions (i.e., inhibition, switching, and working memory) and task complexity in influencing the occurrence of mind wandering and focus of attention, and in turn, cognitive outcomes (i.e., software self-efficacy and learning performance). Essay 2 integrates the use of psychological testing to measure executive functions and self-report to measure mind wandering and focus of attention. The interaction effects between mind wandering and focus of attention are also tested. The findings reveal that the costs and benefits of mind wandering in IS learning depend, in part, upon its content, whether it's technology-related or non-technology-related. Specifically, the results suggest that the congruence between the content of mind wandering experience and focus of attention determines the outcomes of such experience. Essay 3 examines the extent to which individuals' focus of attention and mind wandering influence IS decision making performance at different levels of task complexity. The research model is tested using a laboratory experiment in the context of B2C e-commerce. Drawing upon unconscious thought theory and executive control theory of mind wandering, the results show that under a low task complexity condition, focus of attention and mind wandering do not have any significant effects on performance accuracy. Under a medium task complexity condition, focus of attention leads to higher performance accuracy, but mind wandering does not have a significant effect on performance accuracy. However, under high task complexity, both focus of attention and mind wandering lead to higher performance accuracy. Mind wandering also negatively influences performance efficiency under all levels of IS task complexity.

My dissertation begins with the central crisis of Jane Eyre, in which Jane flees Thornfield Hall after her failed marriage, is unable to find work, and almost dies of exposure and starvation on the moors. She finds herself asking "What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I could do nothing and go nowhere!" I suggest that this passage, and others that echo it in Villette and works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and George Eliot can be read in terms of early Victorian anxieties over middle-class women's inability to support themselves should they need to. Most literary criticism on women and work focuses on the end of the century, which saw an explosion of the topic in public debate and literature of the time; in my work, I explore how these discussions and anxieties about women's work were developing much earlier than is usually discussed. While the fin-de-siècle figure of the New Woman characteristically moves through urban landscapes in ways that emphasize her independence (alone, on bicycles, on buses, to and from places of work and her own domicile), earlier middle-class Victorian women walk out of domestic spaces that are not their own, and any brief sense of freedom is swiftly followed by a sense of desperation or need. These women wander through economic landscapes in ways that point to their profound state of dependence and their inability to support themselves. Given that women are still, today, the first economic victims of a recession, I am interested in tracing how women writers started responding to this vulnerability almost as soon as it became visible with the establishment of an industrial economy and the rise of the middle class in early- and mid-Victorian England. While some extant criticism examines Victorian gender and economics in literature on a text-by-text basis, I propose a comprehensive model with four modes for understanding how woman move through economic and physical landscapes in Victorian fiction: 1) in a mode of desperation that points to a fundamental problem with middle-class women's vulnerable economic position (Bronte's Jane Eyre and Villette); 2) in a mode of learning to better understand their limited but relative privilege compared to working-class women (Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh); 3) in a problematized mode of successful self-reinvention, prompted by economic aspirations, that poses a danger to conventional social hierarchy and therefore marks the woman as errant or evil (sensation fiction, Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Aurora Floyd); and 4) in a mode of self-revelation in which a woman comes to realize how her own perpetual state of dependence has affected her choices (Eliot's Daniel Deronda and Middlemarch). Desperation, comprehension, problematic self-invention, revelation: Victorian women's wanderings consistently point to, through the movement of the woman's body, the ways that the woman is an economic subject, perhaps before she is anything else.

<p>Social media and mobile technology now provide consumers with the opportunity to continuously document or reflect on their moment-to-moment internal and external experiences. For instance, "tweets" are often written while one is consuming some experience, just as other forms of social media may be used in their respective ways for documentation or reflection while an experience is unfolding. But what effect does verbal documentation or reflection have on consumers' enjoyment of their time? The authors propose that when consumers can verbally document or reflect about topics other than the current experience, increased mind wandering can occur, which can help lead to reduced enjoyment. Testing the theoretical model through five experiments, the authors show that verbal documentation or reflection during an experience can reduce enjoyment, regardless of whether that experience is generally enjoyable or generally unenjoyable. However, the same effect does not occur when consumers are specifically asked to verbally document or reflect only about the experience they are taking part in. Verbal documentation or reflection right after an experience ends, which does not increase mind wandering during the experience, can lead to increased enjoyment when consumers are specifically asked to verbally document or reflect only about the experience they just took part in. Implications for the use of social media for verbal documentation and reflection by consumers and marketing managers are discussed.</p> / Dissertation