Individual differences in state and trait mind-wandering influence episodic memory encoding and retrieval dynamics

Mind-wandering is a cognitive state in which attention shifts away from a primary task to unrelated thoughts, often occurring without the individual’s awareness, and there may be both a state and trait component of mind-wandering such that some people may have a higher propensity to mind wander. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between mind-wandering and episodic memory, distinguishing between mind-wandering as a transient state versus a trait, individual differences characteristic. Specifically, through two individual differences experiments involving word list learning tasks, we explored how both state and trait mind-wandering affect overall memory performance and the dynamics of retrieval. Results indicated that state mind-wandering negatively correlated with recall and uniquely predicted memory outcomes. Additionally, participants prone to state mind-wandering showed a decreased likelihood of initiating recall with the first word studied. In contrast, while both state and trait mind-wandering were negatively associated with recall performance, trait mind-wandering did not uniquely influence memory performance. Moreover, evidence suggested that high trait mind-wandering may impair the lag-recency effect, indicating challenges in leveraging temporal contextual cues for memory retrieval. These findings suggest that while in-the-moment mind-wandering can disrupt memory formation, a predisposition towards mind-wandering does not necessarily impair memory ability but may impact the dynamics of retrieval.