According to the attentional resources account, mind wandering (or “task-unrelated thought”) is thought to compete with a focal task for attentional resources. Here, we tested two key predictions of this account: First, that mind wandering should not interfere with performance on a task that does not require attentional resources; second, that as task requirements become automatized, performance should improve and depth of mind wandering should increase. Here, we used a serial reaction time task with implicit- and explicit-learning groups to test these predictions. Providing novel evidence for the attentional resource account's first prediction, results indicated that depth of mind wandering was negatively associated with learning in the explicit, but not the implicit, group, indicating that mind wandering is associated with impaired explicit, but not implicit, learning. Corroborating the attention resource account's second prediction, we also found that, overall, performance improved while at the same time depth of mind wandering increased. From an implicit-learning perspective, these results are consistent with the claim that explicit learning is impaired under attentional load, but implicit learning is not. Data, analysis code, manuscript preparation code, and pre-print available at osf.io/qzry7/.

根据注意力资源的说明，思维游荡（或“与任务无关的思想”）被认为与注意力资源争夺注意力资源。在这里，我们测试了此帐户的两个主要预测：首先，思维游荡不应该干扰不需要注意力资源的任务的执行；第二，随着任务要求的自动化，性能应得到改善，思想流浪应增加。在这里，我们使用带有隐性和显性学习组的串行反应时间任务来测试这些预测。为注意力资源账户的首次预测提供了新颖的证据，结果表明，心理游荡深度与显性组的学习负相关，但与隐性群体的学习无负相关，这表明心理游荡与显性障碍，但不是隐性的学习。证实注意力资源账户的第二个预测，我们还发现，总体而言，性能有所提高，而思维深度却在增加。从内隐学习的角度来看，这些结果与声称在注意力负荷下显性学习受到损害的说法是一致的，而内隐学习则不是。数据，分析代码，手稿准备代码和预印本可在osf.io/qzry7/获得。