Distinct electrophysiological signatures of
task-unrelated and dynamic thoughts
Julia W. Y. Kama,b,c,1, Zachary C. Irvingd, Caitlin Millse, Shawn Patelc, Alison Gopnikf, and Robert T. Knightc,f
a
Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada; bHotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 4N1,
Canada; cHelen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; dCorcoran Department of Philosophy, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, VA 22904; eDepartment of Psychology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824; and fDepartment of Psychology, University of
California, Berkeley, CA 94704
Edited by Robert Desimone, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, and approved November 18, 2020 (received for review June 11, 2020)
Humans spend much of their lives engaging with their internal
train of thoughts. Traditionally, research focused on whether or
not these thoughts are related to ongoing tasks, and has identified
reliable and distinct behavioral and neural correlates of task-
unrelated and task-related thought. A recent theoretical frame-
work highlighted a different aspect of thinking—how it dynami-
cally moves between topics. However, the neural correlates of
such thought dynamics are unknown. The current study aimed
to determine the electrophysiological signatures of these dynam-
ics by recording electroencephalogram (EEG) while participants
performed an attention task and periodically answered thought-
sampling questions about whether their thoughts were 1) task-
unrelated, 2) freely moving, 3) deliberately constrained, and 4)
automatically constrained. We examined three EEG measures across
different time windows as a function of each thought type: stimulus-
evoked P3 event-related potentials and non–stimulus-evoked alpha
power and variability. Parietal P3 was larger for task-related relative
to task-unrelated thoughts, whereas frontal P3 was increased for
deliberately constrained compared with unconstrained thoughts.
Frontal electrodes showed enhanced alpha power for freely moving
thoughts relative to non-freely moving thoughts. Alpha-power var-
iability was increased for task-unrelated, freely moving, and uncon-
strained thoughts. Our findings indicate distinct electrophysiological
patterns associated with task-unrelated and dynamic thoughts, sug-
gesting these neural measures capture the heterogeneity of our
ongoing thoughts.
task-unrelated thoughts | freely moving thoughts | constrained thoughts |
|
mind wandering EEG
C ognitive neuroscience has reached a consensus that the brain
is not idle at rest (1). This rings intuitively true: When left
alone, our minds rarely stay still. Moreover, recent evidence
suggests that rest is not a homogeneous state (2), nor is the brain
truly “at rest” as it fluctuates across time and contexts (3–6). This
too is intuitive: What is striking is not just that we move from
thought to thought unprompted but also the diverse ways that
trains of thought unfold over time. Sometimes, our thoughts
freely wander between topics. You might remember this morn-
ing’s run, then imagine gardening, then think about the dinner
you’ll cook tonight. Other times, we deliberately constrain our
thoughts and work diligently toward a goal. In a quiet moment,
you might methodically contemplate the results of your latest
experiment. Still other times, our thoughts get stuck on an affec-
tively salient topic, from which it is difficult to break free. You
might worry, over and over, about your niece who is going through
major surgery next week.
Research has traditionally examined the internal train of
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thought in the context of mind wandering. This field has ex-
panded at such a rapid pace that some have dubbed this the “era
of the wandering mind” (7). To date, the vast majority of mind-
wandering research has focused on the static content of individual
thoughts. In particular, mind-wandering studies have primarily
focused on task-unrelated thought (8)—that is, thoughts that are
PNAS 2021 Vol. 118 No. 4 e2011796118
unrelated to an ongoing, typically externally oriented, task (8–10).
In the laboratory, subjects’ thoughts are often unrelated to the
experimental task (9). Task-unrelated thought is also frequent in
everyday life (11), as when a student becomes distracted during a
lecture or while driving.
Recent theories are less task-centric and instead focus on the
dynamics of mind wandering—that is, how internal trains of
thoughts unfold over time (12–17). In particular, the “dynamic
framework” of spontaneous thought distinguishes three subtypes
within the train of thoughts: 1) deliberately constrained, 2) au-
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND
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tomatically constrained, and 3) freely moving thoughts (12, 14).
Constraints on the train of thoughts serve to focus internal at-
tention on a topic for extended periods of time. For example,
deliberately constrained thoughts occur when a person actively
directs her thoughts to goal-relevant information (e.g., when you
contemplate your latest experiment). This type of constraint is
implemented through cognitive control. Automatically constrained
thoughts focus on affectively or personally salient information that
is difficult to disengage from (e.g., when you worry about your niece
who will have surgery). This type of constraint is automatic in
nature and thought to operate largely outside of cognitive control.
In contrast, freely moving thoughts occur when both of these
constraints are weak, allowing the mind to wander with no over-
arching purpose and direction (e.g., when your thoughts drift from a
movie, to gardening, to dinner). Notably, the dynamic framework
Significance
Our minds rarely stay still when left alone. Such trains of
thought, however, may unfold in vastly different ways. Here,
we combined electrophysiological recording with thought sam-
pling to assess four types of thoughts: task-unrelated, freely
moving, deliberately constrained, and automatically constrained.
Parietal P3 was larger for task-related relative to task-unrelated
thoughts, whereas frontal P3 was increased for deliberately
constrained compared with unconstrained thoughts. Enhanced
frontal alpha power was observed during freely moving
thoughts compared with non-freely moving thoughts. Alpha-
power variability was increased for task-unrelated, freely mov-
ing, and unconstrained thoughts. Our findings indicate these
thought types have distinct electrophysiological signatures,
suggesting that they capture the heterogeneity of our ongoing
thoughts.
Author contributions: J.W.Y.K. and Z.C.I. designed research; J.W.Y.K. and S.P. performed
research; J.W.Y.K., C.M., and S.P. analyzed data; and J.W.Y.K., Z.C.I., C.M., S.P., A.G., and
R.T.K. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no competing interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Published under the PNAS license.
1
To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: julia.kam@ucalgary.ca.
This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/
doi:10.1073/pnas.2011796118/-/DCSupplemental.
Published January 18, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011796118 | 1 of 9
 purports that these three subtypes of thoughts are independent of
task relatedness. In other words, task-related and task-unrelated
thoughts can both be deliberately constrained, automatically
constrained, or freely moving. See SI Appendix for further details
about the relationship between dynamic categories.
Empirical research on the dynamics of thought is in its infancy.
Behavioral research has focused on contrasting task-unrelated
thoughts with the other three subtypes of thoughts, with a par-
ticular emphasis on freely moving thoughts. These findings sug-
gest that self-reported freely moving and task-unrelated thoughts
have distinct behavioral markers. For example, studies of mind
wandering in everyday life found that self-reports of freely moving
and task-unrelated thought fluctuate at different rates throughout
the day (11). Consistent with predictions of the dynamic frame-
work, these studies reported that task-unrelated and freely moving
thoughts are only modestly correlated (r < 0.3) and they occurred
independent of each other (8, 11). Specifically, although task-
related thoughts are often deliberately constrained and task-
unrelated thoughts sometimes move freely, the dynamic frame-
work predicts that this is not always the case. In fact, task-related
thoughts can move freely (e.g., when a graphic designer freely
associate ideas for her new website design) or be automatically
constrained (e.g., when someone obsesses over a problem at
work). Task-unrelated thoughts can be deliberately or automati-
cally constrained (e.g., when you construct a grocery list or worry
about your niece’s surgery during a lecture). The only two em-
pirical studies to date have focused explicitly on freely moving
thought (8, 11). Although this provides some initial evidence that
task-unrelated thought is different from dynamic thoughts, no
studies have assessed the neural correlates of dynamic thought
types. The identification of different electrophysiological signa-
tures of these thought types would thus provide important vali-
dation that these categories reflect distinct entities.
In the current study, we examined the electrophysiological
signatures of the four types of thought by recording an electro-
encephalogram (EEG) while participants performed an atten-
tion task. Participants occasionally answered thought-sampling
questions about the nature of their thoughts throughout the task.
Thought sampling is the standard method in mind-wandering
research: Participants are randomly interrupted as they per-
form a laboratory task and answer questions about their imme-
diately preceding thoughts (9, 10). In line with previous studies,
we ask the standard question about whether participants’ thoughts
were task-unrelated (see ref. 8 for a review). In addition, we asked
whether subjects’ trains of thought were freely moving, deliber-
ately constrained, and automatically constrained.
We used electroencephalography because this method has the
temporal resolution necessary to capture the transient changes in
neural activity corresponding to our trains of thoughts, including
stimulus-evoked, task-dependent activity and stimulus-independent,
intrinsic activity. We first examined event-related potentials (ERPs),
which index the electrophysiological response evoked by task-
relevant stimuli. Previous research suggests that task-unrelated
thought attenuates the magnitude of ERP components associ-
ated with sensory (18–20) and cognitive (21–24) processing of
task-relevant stimuli. ERPs therefore provide an electrophysio-
logical signature of when a participant has disengaged from task-
relevant stimuli. We predicted that task-unrelated thoughts would
be associated with a reduced P3 ERP component.
To index stimulus-independent, intrinsic neural activity, we
examined spectral power in the alpha band (8 to 14 Hz) during a
time window after the offset of ERPs, which is unlikely to be
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impacted by stimulus-evoked responses. This segregation of the
poststimulus time window allowed us to disentangle stimulus-
evoked, task-dependent responses captured by ERP compo-
nents in the earlier window and stimulus-independent activity
likely associated with the subject’s ongoing thoughts as captured
by alpha power in the later time window (as illustrated in Fig. 1).
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https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011796118
Alpha-power increases recorded over posterior sites have been
associated with internal attention (23, 25) as well as spontaneous
brain activity recorded at rest that is not elicited by external
stimuli (26, 27). In contrast, frontal alpha has been linked to
creative, divergent thinking (28, 29). Accordingly, we hypothe-
sized that task-unrelated thoughts would be associated with en-
hanced posterior alpha power, whereas freely moving thoughts
would be associated with increased frontal alpha power. Given
that our dynamic thought-sampling questions address variability
within the train of thought over time, we examined the neural
correlates of these thought dynamics by capturing momentary
changes in alpha power (i.e., alpha-power variability) over the
same ERP-free time window. We predicted that freely moving
thought would be associated with increased alpha-power vari-
ability, whereas constrained thought would show reduced alpha-
power variability.
Results
In a simple attention task, participants were presented with left
and right arrows and asked to respond by pressing the left and
right arrow keys on the keyboard, respectively. Throughout the
task, thought probes were presented at the end of each block, in
which participants answered several questions about their thoughts
occurring within the last 10 to 15 s preceding the probe. Partici-
pants were asked to categorize their thoughts by answering the
following questions: 1) Were your thoughts related to the task?; 2)
were your thoughts freely moving?; 3) were your thoughts delib-
erately constrained?; and 4) were your thoughts automatically
constrained? Participants were provided with detailed descriptions
and examples of each type of thought and a training session, as
described in Materials and Methods. Based on their responses, we
examined how frequently each thought type occurred. We also
used their responses to each thought probe to categorize the six
arrow trials preceding the probe into one of the four thought
types. Some trials occurred during a block characterized by task-
related thoughts, for example, whereas other trials occurred dur-
ing a freely moving period. All behavioral (i.e., mean accuracy,
reaction time, and reaction-time variability) and ERP measures
(i.e., frontal and parietal P3) were time-locked to the onset of the
arrows. Alpha power and alpha-power variability were also time-
locked to the same stimulus onset but examined in a later time
window after the offset of the ERP response. To identify the be-
havioral and electrophysiological signatures of each thought type,
all measures were then compared within each of the four thought
types.
Attentional Results. First, we examined the percentage of atten-
tion reports by thought types, as reported in Table 1. Subjects
reported having task-unrelated thoughts more often than task-
related thoughts; however, they reported freely moving thoughts
about as often as thoughts that did not move freely. Further,
subjects also reported more thoughts that were not deliberately
or automatically constrained than constrained thoughts.
Second, in addition to reporting the occurrence of each thought
type, we also implemented post hoc analyses to examine the extent
ERP alpha power & variability
0 0.6 1.8
Time (s)
Fig. 1. EEG measures across the poststimulus time window. We examined
three EEG measures. Stimulus-evoked activity as captured by P3 ERP com-
ponents was examined during the 0- to 0.6-s poststimulus time window.
Alpha power and variability index intrinsic neural activity not impacted by
an external stimulus examined after the offset of P3s during the 0.6- to 1.8-s
poststimulus time window.
Kam et al.
Distinct electrophysiological signatures of task-unrelated and dynamic thoughts
 Table 1. Percentage of attention reports by thought types
Thought types

Task relatedness, % Task-related: 24.5 (3.8) Task-unrelated: 66.4 (4.2)*

Freely moving, % Not free: 41.9 (3.4) Free: 46.5 (4.1)
Deliberate constraints, % Deliberate: 34.4 (3.5) Not deliberate: 57.5 (3.9)*
Automatic constraints, % Automatic: 17.0 (2.4) Not automatic: 76.1 (2.8)*

Mean (and SE) percentages of each condition are shown.

*Indicates significant difference between thought types at P ≤ 0.001.

to which they co-occur. In accordance with the dynamic model
which specifically contrasts task-unrelated thoughts with the other
three dynamic thought types, we correlated the occurrence of task-
unrelated thoughts with freely moving thoughts and deliberately
and automatically constrained thoughts within individuals. These
intraindividual correlations were then tested at the group level
against 0 using the sign test, a nonparametric version of the single-
sample t test. Task-unrelated thoughts correlated positively with
freely moving thoughts (mean ± SE = 0.51 ± 0.05; Z = 4.29, P <
0.001) and automatically constrained thoughts (mean ± SE =
0.27 ± 0.04; Z = 4.03, P < 0.001), and negatively with deliberately
constrained thoughts (mean ± SE = −0.26 ± 0.07; Z = −2.91,
Frontal P3 amplitudes were larger for deliberately constrained
thoughts relative to thoughts that were not deliberately constrained
(in the poststimulus window of 369 to 424 ms). Both of these results
remained significant after statistically controlling for other thought
types, suggesting the observed patterns cannot be attributed to
other thought types. Details of these post hoc control analyses are
reported in SI Appendix. The remaining two thought types did not
reveal significant conditional differences for either ERP compo-
nent. In addition to comparisons within each thought type, we
implemented post hoc analyses to compare the ERP components
between task-unrelated thought and the other three thought types.

PSYCHOLOGICAL AND
Details of these analyses are also reported in SI Appendix.

COGNITIVE SCIENCES
P = 0.004).
Time-Frequency Power and Variability Results. In order to deter-
Behavioral Results. In order to identify the behavioral correlates
mine the neural correlates of thought types independent of
of each thought type, we examined mean accuracy, reaction time,
and reaction-time variability as a function of thought types. The
reaction time measures are shown in Fig. 2. Mean accuracy was A response time mean
high across all conditions (M = 0.95, SE = 0.012). There were no
significant differences in accuracy that survived the Bonferroni 600 * * *
correction between any of the thought types, likely due to the
ceiling effect in accuracy. 500
Mean reaction time across conditions was 500 ms (SE =
400
Time (ms)

12 ms). Reaction time was slower during task-unrelated periods

than during task-related periods (P = 0.018). Freely moving 300
periods were associated with slower reaction time than periods
that were not freely moving (P = 0.013). Reaction time was faster 200
during deliberately constrained periods relative to periods not
deliberately constrained (P = 0.021). However, none of these 100
effects survived when a Bonferroni correction was applied. No
significant difference in reaction time was observed for auto- 0
TR TU F NF D ND A NA
matically constrained thought (P = 0.069).
Reaction-time variability across conditions was 156 ms (SE = Thought Dimensions
14 ms). Increased reaction-time variability was observed during
task-unrelated periods (M = 161 ms, SE = 16 ms) relative to task- B response time variability
related periods (M = 114 ms, SE = 16 ms; P < 0.001; Fig. 2B). 300 ** ** * **
There was more reaction-time variability during freely moving
periods (M = 162 ms, SE = 19 ms) than during periods that were 250
not freely moving (M = 119 ms, SE = 15 ms; P = 0.006). De-
creased reaction time variability was observed during deliber- 200
Time (ms)

ately constrained periods relative to periods not deliberately

constrained (P = 0.017), but the effect did not survive the 150
Bonferroni correction. There was less reaction-time variability 100
during automatically constrained periods (M = 102 ms, SE =
13 ms) than during periods that were not automatically con- 50
strained (M = 152 ms, SE = 16 ms; P = 0.003).
0
ERP Results. To ascertain the impact of thought types on the pro- TR TU F NF D ND A NA
cessing of external stimuli, we examined stimulus-evoked activity as Thought Dimensions
captured by ERPs using time point-by-time point permutation tests.
Fig. 3 presents the ERP waveforms at the predetermined channels Fig. 2. Reaction time. Mean reaction time (A) and reaction-time variability
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relevant for the corresponding ERPs. ERP data analyses focused
on the frontal P3 and parietal P3 mean amplitude measures. We
statistically compared the mean amplitude for each ERP compo-
nent separately for each thought type. Parietal P3 amplitudes were
larger for task-related thoughts compared with task-unrelated
thoughts (in the poststimulus time window of 367 to 432 ms).
(B) are shown separately for each thought type: A, automatically con-
strained; D, deliberately constrained; F, freely moving; NA, not automatically
constrained; ND, not deliberately constrained; NF, not freely moving; TR,
task-related thought; TU, task-unrelated thought. Reaction-time variability
was higher during task-unrelated thoughts, freely moving thoughts, and
thoughts not automatically constrained. Error bars indicate SEM. *P < 0.05
and **P < 0.0125.

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Distinct electrophysiological signatures of task-unrelated and dynamic thoughts https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011796118
 A task-relatedness B freely moving C deliberate constraints D automatic constraints
2 Fz 2 2 2

1 1 1 1

0 0 0 0

-1 -1 -1 -1

-2 -2 -2 -2
-0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Time (s) Time (s) Time (s) Time (s)

3 Pz TR 3 F 3 D 3 A
TU NF ND NA
2 2 2 2

1 1 1 1

0 0 0 0

-1 -1 -1 -1

-2 -2 -2 -2
-0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Time (s) Time (s) Time (s) Time (s)

Fig. 3. Stimulus-evoked P3 event-related potentials. The ERP waveforms at frontal site Fz (Top) and parietal site Pz (Bottom) are shown separately for the
following thought types: (A) task-related thoughts, (B) freely moving thoughts, (C) deliberately constrained thoughts, and (D) automatically constrained
thoughts. Parietal P3 was reduced during task-unrelated thoughts, whereas frontal P3 was enhanced during deliberately constrained thoughts. Solid black
lines indicate the time points of significant conditional differences. Topographic map insets are shown for the P3 during these significant time windows. TR,
task-related; TU, task-unrelated; F, freely moving; NF, not freely moving; D, deliberately constrained; ND, not deliberately constrained; A, automatically
constrained; NA, not automatically constrained.

stimulus-evoked activity, we statistically examined spectral power
in the alpha band between 600 and 1,800 ms poststimulus using
cluster-based permutation tests. Fig. 4 shows the time-frequency
plots for the significant thought types, along with the alpha-
power time series extracted from the cluster of significant elec-
trodes. Our analyses focused on alpha power given its role in
internal attention and divergent thinking. There was a significant
cluster around 1,100 to 1,350 ms over the frontal sites that
showed greater alpha power during freely moving thoughts than
during thoughts that were not freely moving (P = 0.023). This
effect did not survive the conservative Bonferroni correction for
multiple comparisons, but remained significant after statistically
controlling for other thought types.
There were no significant clusters over posterior sites that dif-
ferentiated alpha power between task-related and task-unrelated
thoughts. Given that enhanced posterior alpha power has been
consistently reported during internal attention (23, 25) and spon-
taneous brain activity at rest (26, 27), we implemented post hoc
analysis to directly test our a priori hypothesis of increased posterior
alpha during task-unrelated thought using a traditional approach
with a priori electrode selection, instead of the data-driven ap-
proach of cluster-based permutation tests implemented on all
electrodes. Specifically, we conducted permutation tests at the
single-electrode level to examine conditional differences in posterior
alpha power. The aforementioned studies converged on maximal
alpha power at midline posterior site Oz for task-unrelated thought
relative to task-related thought (23, 25), where alpha power is also
maximal in our data (as shown in SI Appendix, Fig. S1). Accordingly,
we conducted a permutation test to compare the alpha power at
Oz in two time windows (600 to 1,200 and 1,200 to 1,800 ms).
Posterior alpha power was increased during task-unrelated thought
relative to task-related thought during the 1,200- to 1,800-ms time
window (P = 0.037). There were no differences in posterior alpha
during the 600- to 1,200-ms time window (P = 0.255).
Next, we statistically examined variability in whole-brain alpha
activity across time and trials between 600 and 1,800 ms using
permutation tests. Fig. 5 illustrates alpha variability as a function of
thought types. All four thought types showed significant differences.

freely moving not freely moving

50 50 1.5 2
Frequency (Hz)
Frequency (Hz)

Alpha Power (µV2)

40 40

30 30
1
20 20
F
10 10 NF
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0 0
0 0.5 1 1.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 0 0.5 1 1.5
Time (ms) Time (ms) Time (ms)

Fig. 4. Stimulus-independent alpha power. Alpha power averaged across significant electrodes emerging from a cluster-based permutation test for freely
moving thought. Time-frequency representations of low-frequency power are shown (Left and Middle), with the location of the significant cluster of
electrodes and black box outlining time windows of significance. Mean alpha power (shading indicates SEM) for each condition (freely moving and not freely
moving) is displayed (Right), with the gray box highlighting the time window of significance. No significant clusters emerged for other thought types.

4 of 9 | PNAS Kam et al.

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2011796118 Distinct electrophysiological signatures of task-unrelated and dynamic thoughts
 In particular, task-unrelated thought (P = 0.001), freely moving
thought (P = 0.006), thought that was not deliberately constrained
(P = 0.003), and thought that was not automatically constrained
(P = 0.009) showed greater alpha variability than task-related
thought, thought that was not freely moving, deliberately con-
strained thought, and automatically constrained thought, respec-
tively. All these conditional differences remained significant after
statistically controlling for other thought types.
Discussion
One of the most notable discoveries in human neuroscience in
the past few decades is that the brain is active during rest (1).
Early studies primarily associated this resting state with the
brain’s “default network.” Yet it has become clear the brain’s
intrinsic activity and connectivity are heterogeneous: They dy-
namically fluctuate over time (3, 4) and across contexts (5). We
developed self-report questions to study the heterogeneity of our
trains of thought, and established the electrophysiological sig-
natures for four types of thought–task-unrelatedness, free move-
ment, deliberate constraints, and automatic constraints. Our first set
of results concerns stimulus-evoked activity. During task-unrelated
thought, stimulus-evoked parietal P3 was attenuated relative to
task-related thought. Deliberately constrained thought led to an
increased stimulus-evoked frontal P3, relative to thought that
lacked deliberate constraints. Our second set of results concerns
stimulus-independent activity that was measured during a time
window that is unlikely to be impacted by stimulus-evoked re-
sponses. This allowed us to plausibly isolate electrophysiological
activity associated with a subject’s ongoing thoughts from task-
relevant response. We observed that freely moving thought was
linked to greater intrinsic frontal alpha power than thoughts that
are not freely moving. We also observed increased variability in
intrinsic alpha power during task-unrelated thought, freely moving
thought, and unconstrained thoughts. Taken together, our results
suggest that there are distinct neural signatures of task-unrelated
and dynamic thoughts.
Freely moving thought was associated with increased frontal
alpha power and alpha-power variability. Both measures were
obtained during a time window unlikely to be impacted by external
stimuli, which suggests that these measures reflect intrinsic activity
associated with freely moving thoughts. Freely moving thought
showed increased variability in alpha power. This suggests that the
cognitive variability of freely moving thought parallels neural
variability, particularly in the form of alpha-power fluctuations.
** ** * **
4 internally oriented task-unrelated thoughts. In our study, the
Alpha Power Variability
3 however, our planned post hoc analysis focusing on the posterior
2 relative to task-related thought. Notably, task-unrelated thoughts
1
0 the ongoing task are not. Due to this lack of experimental con-
TR TU F NF D ND A NA
Thought Dimensions
Fig. 5. Stimulus-independent alpha-power variability. Alpha-power vari-
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ability across the 600- to 1,800-ms time window is shown separately for each
thought type. Alpha-power variability was higher during task-unrelated
thoughts, freely moving thoughts, and unconstrained thoughts. TR, task-
related; TU, task-unrelated; F, freely moving; NF, not freely moving; D, de-
liberately constrained; ND, not deliberately constrained; A, automatically
constrained; NA, not automatically constrained. Error bars indicate SEM.
*P < 0.05, and **P < 0.0125.
Kam et al.
Distinct electrophysiological signatures of task-unrelated and dynamic thoughts
Our results are also consistent with recent resting-state func-
tional MRI (fMRI) findings suggesting that functional connec-
tivity between resting-state networks fluctuates over time (4).
Given that freely moving thought is conceptually independent
from task-relatedness, it is unsurprising that the former did not
predict differences in the magnitude of task-evoked parietal P3.
Our finding that freely moving thought is associated with in-
creased frontal alpha power should be interpreted with caution;
although this was a planned comparison that remained signifi-
cant after controlling for other thought types, this effect did not
survive our conservative method of correction for multiple com-
parisons. This pattern is consistent with previous studies that have
implicated frontal alpha activity in creativity (28). For example,
increased frontal alpha was observed during creative idea gener-
ation (30) and in highly creative individuals relative to less creative
individuals (31). Furthermore, noninvasive stimulation of frontal
alpha enhanced performance on a creativity task (29). Creativity
involves the generation of novel ideas and associations (28)
through a divergent thought process that is theoretically similar to
the free movement of thoughts going from topic to topic (12, 32).
Increased frontal alpha during freely moving thought and during
creativity may therefore provide a signature of relatively uncon-
strained thinking. Taken together, these findings suggest that the
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND
COGNITIVE SCIENCES
dynamic characteristics of our thoughts may be directly reflected
in our electrophysiological measures.
In our study, task-unrelated thoughts reduced stimulus-evoked
parietal P3. This is consistent with our prediction that task-
unrelated thoughts would uniquely disrupt stimulus-evoked ac-
tivity associated with task performance. This prediction flows from
the decoupling model, which proposes the attenuation of external
processing is necessary for supporting task-unrelated thoughts
(33). In particular, task-unrelated thought recruits executive re-
sources, which enables our disengagement from an external task
via top–down control, resulting in the disruption of responses to
external stimuli. Accordingly, our finding of a decreased parietal
P3 evoked by visual stimuli thus validates our self-reported mea-
sure of task-unrelated thought, and is consistent with previous
reports of a reduction in parietal P3 amplitude during task-
unrelated thoughts (21, 22, 34).
Given that posterior alpha power has been shown to increase
during cognitive states similar to task-unrelated thoughts, such as
attentional lapses (23), internally oriented attention (25), or rest
(26), we predicted an increase in posterior alpha power during
task-unrelated thoughts. These past findings suggest that poste-
rior alpha not only reflects top–down inhibitory control of ex-
ternal inputs (35) as shown in traditional studies of selective
attention but also serves as an electrophysiological signature of
cluster-based permutation tests did not yield significant clusters;
midline site in which alpha power is typically maximal (23)
revealed increased alpha power during task-unrelated thought
also led to an increase in alpha-power variability. This is likely
because task-related thought in the current study is highly con-
strained by the restrictive nature of our experimental task (i.e., the
left arrow versus the right arrow), whereas thoughts unrelated to
straints, task-unrelated thoughts can move to different topics and
contents, which may have contributed to increased alpha-power
variability.
Although there was a positive correlation between occurrence
of task-unrelated thoughts and freely moving thoughts, we ob-
served a number of differences between these two thought types.
For example, task-unrelated and freely moving thoughts occurred
at different rates (66 vs. 47%). Furthermore, our results revealed
different electrophysiological patterns between these two thought
types. Whereas task-unrelated thinking was primarily associated
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 with changes in stimulus-evoked ERPs, freely moving thought was
primarily associated with changes in intrinsic alpha power. These
measures also remained significant after controlling for other
thought types. Therefore, our findings indicate that task-unrelated
thought and freely moving thought are uniquely characterized by a
different set of electrophysiological features. These results provide
support for the dynamic model, which proposed that task-
unrelated and freely moving thoughts are distinct (12).
Deliberately and automatically constrained thoughts were ac-
companied by some overlapping patterns of electrophysiological
activity and some patterns that differed. Later frontal P3 was
enhanced during deliberately constrained thoughts compared with
thoughts that were not deliberately constrained. Previous studies
have found that cognitive control engages midline frontocentral
regions (36), suggesting this enhanced frontal P3 during deliber-
ately constrained thoughts may subserve cognitive control. This
interpretation is consistent with the dynamic model’s conceptual-
ization of deliberately constrained thoughts as goal-oriented and
implemented through top–down control (12). We did not observe
any differences in stimulus-evoked P3 amplitudes as a function of
automatically constrained thoughts.
In terms of stimulus-independent activity, both deliberately and
automatically constrained thoughts were accompanied by reduced
alpha-power variability. In other words, alpha-power variability
decreased for both types of constrained thought and increased for
freely moving thoughts. Similarly, reaction-time variability de-
creased for both types of constrained thought and increased for
freely moving thought. Both results support the dynamic model’s
prediction that constrained thought is the opposite of freely
moving thought (12). These findings suggest that variability in our
cognitive states manifests in the variability of both behavioral and
electrophysiological measures. Future work may explore whether
other measures of neural dynamics differentiate between delib-
erate and automatic constraints.
The primary contribution of our paper is the identification of
electrophysiological signatures of four thought types: task-unrelated,
freely moving, deliberately constrained, and automatically con-
strained. An important question for future research is how these
dynamic categories relate to task-unrelated thought. Our behav-
ioral results provide initial evidence about the relationship be-
tween task-unrelated thought and dynamic categories. We found
that occurrence of task-unrelated thought positively correlated
with freely moving and automatically constrained thoughts,
whereas deliberately constrained thought showed the opposite
pattern. Notably, task unrelatedness did not show a one-to-one
mapping with any of the dynamic categories, explaining less than
26% variance in any of these categories. These observed patterns
are consistent with predictions of the dynamic framework (12) for
two reasons. First, task-unrelated thoughts can be freely moving,
deliberately constrained, or automatically constrained. Second,
although task-related thoughts are often deliberately constrained,
they can also be automatically constrained (e.g., when you obsess
over a problem at work) or even freely moving (e.g., when you
freely associate ideas for a new research project). Interestingly, we
found that the correlation between task-unrelated and freely
moving thought is stronger than in previous studies conducted in
everyday life (8, 11). This may be because experimental tasks are
more structured and therefore more likely to constrain free
movement (37). For instance, thoughts about the arrow task in our
study are less conducive to free movement; in contrast, everyday
tasks are more likely to require creative idea generation, allowing
for our thoughts to move freely between disparate ideas (12, 32).
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Future work could overcome limitations of the current study by
building a larger dataset with sufficient data points per thought
type, which enables examining the interactions between task-
unrelated thoughts and the three subtypes of dynamic thoughts,
including more fine-grained analyses such as contrasting task-
unrelated thoughts that are freely moving and not freely moving.
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Our methods for measuring the dynamics of thought are po-
tentially applicable to many fields of psychology. The dynamic
thought-sampling methods could be used to test theoretical links
between various psychological phenomena and dynamic thought
types. Clinical conditions have been hypothesized to involve high
rates of freely moving (e.g., attention deficit hyperactivity disor-
der) or automatically constrained thought (e.g., depression and
obsessive compulsive disorder) (12). Developmental psychologists
have argued that children may learn better than adults in certain
contexts, due to their free and associative style of thinking (38, 39).
All these fields may benefit from a better understanding of, and a
better ability to measure, the dynamics of thinking.
William James said that “the natural tendency of attention
when left to itself is to wander to ever new things” (40). We
prefer to think that attention has multiple “natural tendencies”:
Sometimes it moves freely, sometimes we direct it, and sometimes
it gets “stuck.” Our study shows that those thought types have
distinct behavioral and electrophysiological signatures. These
findings suggest that the heterogeneity of thought is reflected in
the brain.
Materials and Methods
Participants. Forty-five individuals (13 females and 32 males; M = 20.1 y, SD =
1.83) participated in the study. Three participants had missing data due to
technical difficulties (with two subjects missing EEG data and one missing
behavioral data). Another three participants’ EEG data files were corrupted.
These six individuals were excluded from analysis, resulting in a sample of
39. All participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and did not
have neurological disorders. They provided written informed consent, and
were paid for their participation. The study was approved by the Institu-
tional Review Board at the University of California, Berkeley.
Task Paradigm and Experimental Procedure. Participants performed a simple
attention task, in which they were required to press the left and right arrow
keys on the keyboard when they saw left and right arrows, respectively. Both
arrows were made of black solid lines and presented in a randomized order
with equal probability. Each stimulus was presented for 2,000 ms, with a
randomly jittered interstimulus interval between 200 and 800 ms during
which a fixation cross was presented. All stimuli (i.e., arrows and fixation
cross) were displayed at the center of a cathode-ray tube monitor, where
participants were asked to keep their eyes fixated at all times. Stimulus
presentation was controlled by E-Prime 2.0 (Psychology Software Tools). The
task consisted of 840 trials, and lasted ∼40 min.
Throughout the task, thought probes were presented at the end of each
block, in which participants answered several questions about their thoughts
occurring within the last 10 to 15 s preceding the probe. As mentioned, some
of these questions were designed to capture subtypes of thoughts proposed
in the dynamic framework of spontaneous thought (12, 14). Participants
were asked to categorize their thoughts by responding on a 7-point Likert
scale for the following questions: 1) Were your thoughts related to the task?
; 2) were your thoughts freely moving?; 3) were your thoughts deliberately
constrained?; and 4) were your thoughts automatically constrained? Only
the first two questions have been asked in previous studies (8, 19).
To ensure that participants understood the meaning of these questions,
they completed a training session at the beginning of the experiment. We
provided definitions and example scenarios of each thought type, as shown in
Table 2. Following this, participants were given new example scenarios that
they were likely to encounter during the experiment and asked to answer
the thought probe questions based on the scenario. If they answered any
questions incorrectly, experimenters would provide the correct answer and
explain the reason. Experimenters proceeded to the next question only after
the subjects showed full understanding of the question and correct re-
sponse. One example scenario is as follows:
While performing the attention task, a student can’t stop thinking
about whether they got a good grade on their test yesterday. “Did I
get question 3 wrong?” they think, picturing their answer. “What if I
didn’t pass? I knew I should have studied more!!”
In this example, the student would categorize their experience as task-
unrelated and automatically constrained because they cannot stop thinking
about the test but neither freely moving nor deliberately constrained.
Kam et al.
Distinct electrophysiological signatures of task-unrelated and dynamic thoughts
 At the end of each block, participants provided a response to each of these
four questions characterizing the type of thoughts they experienced in the
prior 10 to 15 s. Their responses were dichotomized into two groups, sep-
arating responses on the lower end (1 to 3) and upper end (5 to 7) of the Likert
scale and discarding the middle response (4). For instance, their response to
the first question would be categorized as task-related (responses 1 to 3),
task-unrelated (responses 5 to 7), or discarded if they responded 4 on the
Likert scale. This is consistent with previous studies that also used a 7-point
Likert scale for thought-sampling questions (41, 42). We used their responses
to each thought probe to label the six trials (∼15 s) preceding the probe. This
15-s window was chosen for several reasons. First, this time window has
been consistently used in neuroimaging studies involving experience sam-
pling (20, 41, 43, 44). Second, theoretical frameworks have purported that
attention can fluctuate at a slow timescale on the order of tens of seconds
(45). This is supported by fMRI and intracranial EEG studies reporting slow
fluctuations in spontaneous rest activity [<0.1 Hz (46, 47)] as well as EEG
studies reporting signatures of task-unrelated thoughts are observed for up
to 20 s (23). Finally, this time window allowed us to maximize the number of
trials included to create a reliable average while maintaining a reasonable
validity of the participants’ report. There was a total of 35 blocks, and each
block consisted of 18 to 30 trials (mean = 24, equivalent to ∼1 min per block).
EEG Data Acquisition and Preprocessing. EEG was recorded continuously from
64 active, preamplified Ag/AgCl electrodes mounted on a cap according to
the extended 10-20 layout using the BioSemi ActiveTwo System. Vertical and
thought types: task-related versus task-unrelated, freely moving versus not
freely moving, deliberately constrained versus not deliberately constrained,
and automatically constrained versus not automatically constrained. All ERPs
were quantified by the mean amplitude measure relative to a 200- to 0-ms
prestimulus baseline. The frontal P3 mean amplitude was measured over
midline frontal sites (Fz, F1, F2), whereas the parietal P3b mean amplitude
was measured over midline parietal sites (Pz, P1, P2). The time window of
analysis spanned from 0 to 600 ms poststimulus, which marks the offset of
the stimulus-evoked response.
Alpha power: Non–stimulus-evoked activity. To assess neural activity not influ-
enced by stimulus-evoked responses, we examined mean spectral power as
well as variability in spectral power as a function of thought types in a later
time window after the offset of the stimulus-evoked response (as shown in
Fig. 1). Spectral decomposition was conducted across a −1-s prestimulus to
3-s poststimulus time window for each trial, using fast Fourier transforms
using a Hanning window for frequencies between 2 and 30 Hz at 1-Hz steps.
Each trial was then baseline-corrected by subtracting and dividing by
the average power in the prestimulus interval from −300 to −100 ms. As
stimulus-evoked activity subsided ∼600 ms after stimulus presentation and
the shortest trial duration is 1,800 ms, our analysis focused on 600 to
1,800 ms following stimulus presentation. Conditional differences observed
in this poststimulus-evoked time window measure spontaneous activity as-
sociated with thought types that are not impacted by stimulus-evoked re-
sponses. Given the role of the alpha band in internal attention and creative
thinking as previously mentioned, our analysis focused on the alpha band

horizontal eye movements were recorded from electrodes above and below
the right eye and two electrodes placed at the right and left outer canthi.
Data were amplified and digitized at 512 Hz.
EEG data were bandpass-filtered between 1 and 50 Hz, and referenced
offline to the average of the two mastoid electrodes. Independent compo-
nent analysis was used to correct for ocular and muscle artifacts. Data de-
composition was performed using the fastICA toolbox in EEGLAB, and
artifactual components were manually detected based on component time
course, topography, and power spectral density. Electrodes with excessively
noisy signals were interpolated from neighboring electrodes using spherical
spline interpolation (48). Continuous EEG data were segmented into 4,000-
ms epochs, beginning at 1,000 ms prior to stimulus onset. Each trial was
visually inspected for remaining artifacts, which were removed from sub-
sequent analyses. Common average reference was then applied to the data
prior to analysis. EEG data preprocessing and analysis were performed using
EEGLAB (49) and FieldTrip (50) within Matlab (MathWorks).
EEG Data Quantification.
ERP: Stimulus-evoked activity. For stimulus-evoked activity, we examined the
P3 event-related potentials in a time window immediately following stim-
ulus onset (as shown in Fig. 1). EEG signals were bandpass-filtered at 1 to 20
Hz. Only artifact-free and correct trials were included in the analysis. These
trials were averaged separately within participants as a function of their
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND
COGNITIVE SCIENCES
(8 to 14 Hz).
To examine mean spectral power, we extracted alpha power across the
poststimulus-evoked activity window (600 to 1,800 ms) for all artifact-free
and correct trials for each thought type. We used the cluster-based per-
mutation test to determine whether alpha power differed within thought
types and, if so, to depict the time course of these differences. This data-
driven approach has the advantage of not having to presume the region or
time window in which conditional differences may emerge. For each elec-
trode, we averaged alpha power across trials yielding one time series per
thought type. Each subject’s alpha-power time series for all electrodes were
then submitted to a cluster-based permutation test to determine differences
between thought types.
To examine variability within participants, we focused on change over time
and across trials. We extracted the relative change in alpha power across the
poststimulus-evoked activity window (600 to 1,800 ms) for all electrodes for
each participant. In keeping with the cluster-based permutation tests that
considered all electrodes, we did not restrict our analyses to focal regions
and instead considered all electrodes. For each electrode, we assessed fluc-
tuations in spectral power over the designated time window by computing
the SD in alpha power across the time window for that electrode, yielding
one variability value per trial. We then computed the SD of these values
across trials. This variability across time and trial, averaged across electrodes,
was compared between thought types.

Table 2. Definitions and examples of each thought type

Thought types Definitions and examples

Task unrelatedness Definition: Thoughts unrelated to an ongoing task.

Freely moving
Deliberately constrained
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Example: You might think about plans for the weekend as you are
completing an assignment.
Definition: Thoughts that drift from one thing to another without
focusing on anything for an extended period of time.
Example: You imagine yourself having dinner this evening, then
wonder if you’ve been eating too much fast food recently, then
notice a smudge on the computer screen, then remember that you
have to do laundry tonight.
Definition: Thoughts that are focused on an overarching goal; when
distracted from that goal, you bring your thoughts back on track.
Example: You might be actively focusing on the experimental task
and ensuring that nothing else is going through your mind.

Automatically constrained
Definition: Thoughts that are drawn to something and difficult to
disengage from, whether or not you’re actively thinking about
them.
Example: You might be thinking over and over again about a fight
you just had with your housemate.

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 Statistical Analyses. Given that no experimental manipulations were placed
on the subjects to facilitate specific thought types, there is a wide range of
responses across individuals on each thought type. In order to implement the
repeated-measures design of the experiment, all statistical analyses included
only subjects who reported experiencing all four thought types, and spe-
cifically both ends of the spectrum of each thought type (i.e., task-related or
task-unrelated; freely moving or not; deliberately constrained or not; au-
tomatically constrained or not). This yielded a final sample of 24 partici-
pants. This approach allowed us to examine differences across these thought
types within an individual.
For attentional measures, we first conducted nonparametric pairwise
comparisons to determine if occurrence rates differed within each thought
type. In accordance with the dynamic model which specifically contrasts task-
unrelated thoughts with the other three dynamic thought types, we also
implemented post hoc analyses to examine the extent to which task-
unrelated thoughts and the three subtypes of dynamic thought types co-
occurred. To do so, we implemented Pearson correlations to assess the co-
occurrence of task-unrelated thoughts with freely moving thoughts and
deliberately and automatically constrained thoughts within individuals.
These intraindividual correlations were converted to the standardized rho
values and tested at the group level. To determine whether they were sig-
nificantly different from 0, we used the sign test, a nonparametric version of
the single-sample t test.
For behavioral measures, we focused on accuracy as well as reaction time
mean and variability for accurate trials only. Each measure was compared
between each of the four thought types using separate Wilcoxon signed-rank
tests, the nonparametric version of the paired-samples t test. Although these
are all planned comparisons, we implemented the conservative approach of
Bonferroni correction on the resulting P values of these analyses to correct
for multiple comparisons. Given the comparisons of four thought types in
our study, the critical alpha was set to 0.05/4 = 0.0125. These analyses reflect
differences in behavioral markers of different thought types.
For ERP measures, we examined differences between each of the four
thought types in the amplitude of the frontal P3 and parietal P3 ERP com-
ponents using the time point-by-time point permutation test. In particular,
for each time point in the 0- to 600-ms poststimulus time window, trials
containing the ERP waveform time series were shuffled between two con-
ditions reflecting opposite ends of the same thought type (e.g., task-related
and task-unrelated), and tested using a dependent-samples t test. Based on
1,000 random permutations, P values of the observed difference were cal-
culated as the proportion of random permutations that yielded a larger
effect than the observed experimental effect. Conditional differences were
considered as significant if the P values that were below 0.05 lasted for a
minimum of 50 consecutive milliseconds. This duration threshold far exceeds
the minimum number of consecutive time points necessary for a time series
to be considered as significantly different from 0 (51). This permutation test
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was performed separately for the frontal and parietal P3 ERP components.
Similar to the behavioral measures, we applied the same Bonferroni-
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impact of engaging in certain thought types on the cognitive processing of
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dependent-samples t test. Based on 1,000 random permutations, P values of
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mutations that yielded a larger effect than the observed experimental ef-
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variability analyses. This variability measure reveals neural activity unfolding
across time and trials outside of the stimulus-evoked time window. All sta-
tistical analyses were performed using Matlab.
Data Availability. Data and code reported in this article have been deposited
in the Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience database
(https://crcns.org; accession no. K0N8780K) (53).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. Many thanks to our participants for their time and
effort in our study. We also appreciate useful feedback from Kalina
Christoff, Alan Shen, and Chandra Sripada during study conceptualization.
Z.C.I., C.M., and J.W.Y.K. were supported by the Templeton Foundation.
J.W.Y.K. was also supported by the James McDonnell Foundation and the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. A.G. was
supported by DARPA Machine Common Sense, the John Templeton Founda-
tion, and the Bezos Foundation. R.T.K. was supported by National Institute of
Neurological Disorders and Stroke Grant NS21135.
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