AG Heinzelmann, 06.06.2025 Involuntary Inattention: Cognitive Failure or Rational Behavior

Recording

In our daily lives, our thoughts tend drift away from the here-and-now from time to time towards inner thoughts and feelings. Sometimes we are aware of our own inattention but sometimes we do not realize that we are mentally “somewhere else” until someone asks us where our thoughts are. Previous research has shown that allowing our minds wander can detrimentally affect performance in currently ongoing tasks, not only cognitively demanding tasks but also everyday activities such as reading, listening, or driving. However, given that mind wandering is such a common phenomenon, we – and also other researchers – hypothesize that mind wandering can also be considered a rational behavior. Functional mind wandering may allow us to better plan for the future, to solve pending complex or creative problems, or to regulate our emotions. In this talk, I propose and provide evidence in favor of a cognitive flexibility view on mind wandering which assumes that mind wandering, when being adjusted appropriately to situational demands, may be a feature and not (only) a bug of our cognitive system.

Jan Rummel is Professor of General Psychology and Cognitive Self‑Regulation at Heidelberg University. Rummel’s research focuses on future‑oriented cognition, metacognition, remembering and forgetting, mind‑wandering, and the psychology of climate action. He received his PhD in Psychology from Marburg in 2011, held post‑doctoral and pre‑doctoral posts at the universities of Mannheim and Marburg, including a visiting fellowship at Furman University, and directed the Heidelberg junior research group “Cognition and Attention Regulation”. His work appears in outlets such as Journal of Memory and Language, Review of General Psychology, and Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.