The consistently observed age-accompanied diminution in mind-wandering stands seemingly opposed to accounts that present mind-wandering as a failure of executive control. This study examined the impact of aging on the frequency and phenomenology of mind-wandering and investigated distinct variables mediating age-related differences in unintentional and intentional mind-wandering. Thirty-four younger and 34 healthy older adults completed a neuropsychological test battery and contrast change detection task embedded with experience sampling probes asking participants to discriminate the nature of their thoughts. Results revealed age-related decreases in unintentional and intentional mind-wandering, but equivalent task accuracy. Parallel mediations demonstrated that older adults reduced their unintentional mind-wandering through having less anxiety and greater task engagement than younger adults. Despite the evidence of age-related decline on cognitive function tests, neither executive function nor task demand variables further contributed to the model. Our results adjudicate between competing theories, highlighting the roles of affective and motivational factors in unintentional mind-wandering. Intentional mind-wandering showed no significant associations with the neuropsychological measures; however, intentional mind-wandering was associated with more false alarms, which was mediated by greater reaction time variability (RTV). In the context of the exploitation/exploration framework, we suggest that younger adults were more inclined to intentionally mind-wander, indexed by increased RTV, while preserving comparable performance accuracy to older adults. Conversely, older adults exploited greater task focus, marked by reduced RTV, with less bias toward, or resources for, exploration of the mind-wandering space. Therefore, dispositional and strategic factors should be considered in future investigations of mind-wandering across the lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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年轻人和躁动不安，年迈且专注的人：徘徊的频率和现象学的年龄差异。

一贯观察到的随心所欲的年龄流失现象似乎与将心智流失视为行政控制失败的说法背道而驰。这项研究检查了衰老对流浪现象发生频率和现象的影响，并研究了介导无意识和有意流浪现象中与年龄有关的差异的独特变量。三十四名年轻人和三十四名健康的成年人完成了神经心理测试电池和对比度变化检测任务，其中嵌入了经验采样探针，要求参与者辨别他们思想的本质。结果显示，与年龄相关的无意和有意的游荡减少了，但任务准确性却相当。平行调解表明，与年轻人相比，老年人通过减少焦虑和更大的任务投入而减少了他们的无意识游荡。尽管有证据表明认知功能测试中年龄相关的下降，但执行功能和任务需求变量均未进一步促进该模型的发展。我们的研究结果在竞争理论之间进行了评判，突出了情感和动机因素在无意识的游荡中的作用。有意识的游荡与神经心理测验无显着相关性。然而，故意的思想游荡与更多的虚假警报相关，这是由更大的反应时间可变性（RTV）介导的。在开发/探索框架的背景下，我们建议年轻人更倾向于有意识地游荡，通过提高RTV来索引，同时保持与老年人可比的性能精度。相反，老年人利用更大的任务重点，其特征是RTV减少，对探索游荡空间的偏见或资源更少。因此，在以后对整个人生过程中的游荡心理进行调查时，应考虑处置和战略因素。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。