Agentic aspects of attentional disengagement.

Abstract

Moments of inattention are commonly experienced by most people in everyday life. While some of these inattentive episodes occur inadvertently, others are the result of an individual's choices. Here we characterize the aspects of inattention over which individuals have agency, with a specific consideration of the inattentive state of mind wandering (i.e., off-task thought). Our research on this topic has revealed several general principles that underpin people's agency over their inattention to a task at hand. First, people have nuanced awareness of their inattentive episodes, reporting various degrees of both spontaneous and deliberate moments of inattention, even during tasks in which they agree to be attentive. Second, spontaneous and deliberate bouts of attentional disengagement have distinct correlates and underlying mechanisms. Third, people have considerable control over the degree of their inattention and are able to regulate it skillfully on command and strategically in response to situational demands. Fourth, people have reliable memories of prior moment-to-moment changes in their inattention. And finally, individuals are able to accurately forecast how their inattention might change in an upcoming task. These principles suggest an agentic view of inattention, according to which people are imperfect but intelligent managers of their attentional engagement and disengagement. We discuss the wide-ranging implications of this view on prior and future studies of attentional disengagement, the interpretability of performance in cognitive tasks, and strategies that can be implemented to reduce inattention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).