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A Real-Time Mind Wandering Intervention during Reading
Mind wandering is a ubiquitous phenomenon that occurs when attention shifts from external stimuli toward internal, self-generated thoughts. In the context of reading, it has been estimated to occur approximately 20-40% of the time (Feng, D’Mello, & Graesser, 2013; Mills, D’Mello, & Kopp, 2015). Mind wandering can have a cascading detrimental effect on reading comprehension, starting with breakdowns at the perceptual level and ending with an overall impaired conceptual understanding of a text (Smallwood, 2011). However, little is known about whether interventions can help prevent these cascading negative effects. My dissertation project developed and tested a real-time intervention for mind wandering using self-explanation practices to target deep-level comprehension processes. The goal of this dissertation was to cause a breakdown in the cascading negative effects of mind wandering during reading by detecting its occurrence in real-time and intervening by strengthening an individual’s understanding of the text. An eye-gaze based mind wandering detector was used to establish whether a person is mind wandering during reading. When this was the case, the person was asked to self-explain and potentially re-read parts of the text in order to improve their conceptual understanding of what they just read. The experimental condition was compared against two yoked-control conditions: (1) a Self-Explanation control condition that received the exact same reading conditions and interventions regardless of their mind wandering and (2) a Content-Break control that received breaks from the reading that were yoked location-wise to the interventions in the experimental condition (but did not receive the self-explanations). Results indicate that mind wandering-sensitive interventions indeed promoted better long-term conceptual comprehension compared to the Self-Explanation yoked control, particularly for parts of the texts where there was no intervention. However, contrary to predictions, the experimental condition did not exhibit higher comprehension scores compared to the Content-Break condition.
History
Date Modified
2017-06-05Defense Date
2016-06-27Research Director(s)
Sidney D`MelloDegree
- Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Level
- Doctoral Dissertation
Program Name
- Psychology