Mind wandering is a universal phenomenon in which our attention shifts away from the task at hand toward task-unrelated thoughts. Despite it inherently involving a shift in mental set, little is known about the role of cognitive flexibility in mind wandering. In this article we consider the potential of cognitive flexibility as a mechanism for mediating and/or regulating the occurrence of mind wandering. Our review begins with a brief introduction to the prominent theories of mind wandering—the executive failure hypothesis, the decoupling hypothesis, the process-occurrence framework, and the resource-control account of sustained attention. Then, after discussing their respective merits and weaknesses, we put forward a new perspective of mind wandering focused on cognitive flexibility, which provides an account more in line with the data to date, including why older populations experience a reduction in mind wandering. After summarizing initial evidence prompting this new perspective, drawn from several mind-wandering and task-switching studies, we recommend avenues for future research aimed at further understanding the importance of cognitive flexibility in mind wandering.

走神是一种普遍现象，在这种现象中，我们的注意力会从手头的任务转移到任务——无关的想法上。尽管它本质上涉及思维定势的转变，但人们对认知灵活性在走神中的作用知之甚少。在这篇文章中，我们考虑了认知灵活性作为调节和/或调节思维游荡发生的机制的潜力。我们的回顾首先简要介绍了思维游荡的主要理论——执行失败假说、脱钩假说、过程-发生框架和资源-控制帐户的持续关注。然后，在讨论了各自的优缺点之后，我们提出了一种新的以认知灵活性为中心的思维游荡视角，它提供了一个更符合迄今为止数据的解释，包括为什么老年人口思维游荡会减少。在总结了从几项思维游荡和任务转换研究中得出的引发这一新观点的初步证据后，我们推荐了未来研究的途径，旨在进一步了解认知灵活性在思维游荡中的重要性。