sciencetech-blog

comments

Daydreaming can be good for you and actually boost the brain, researchers have found.

They say that while we daydream, the brain is actually more effective. 

They believe that when we daydream, it is freed up to process tasks more effectively.

The team found daydreaming offers a positive, effect on task performance.

According to the new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a wandering mind can impart a distinct cognitive advantage.

Scientists at Bar-Ilan University were able to show an external stimulus of low-level electricity can literally change the way we think, producing a measurable up-tick in the rate at which daydreams – or spontaneous, self-directed thoughts and associations – occur.

The team found this state offers a positive, simultaneous effect on task performance.

'Over the last 15 or 20 years, scientists have shown that – unlike the localized neural activity associated with specific tasks – mind wandering involves the activation of a gigantic default network involving many parts of the brain,' Prof. Moshe Bar, part of the University's Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center said. 

'This cross-brain involvement may be involved in behavioral outcomes such as creativity and mood, and may also contribute to the ability to stay successfully on-task while the mind goes off on its merry mental way.'

Bar believes that this surprising result might stem from the convergence, within a single brain region, of both the 'thought controlling' mechanisms of executive function and the 'thought freeing' activity of spontaneous, self-directed daydreams.

While it is commonly assumed that people have a finite cognitive capacity for paying attention, Bar said that the present study suggests that the truth may be more complicated.

'Interestingly, while our study's external stimulation increased the incidence of mind wandering, rather than reducing the subjects' ability to complete the task, it caused task performance to become slightly improved. 

'The external stimulation actually enhanced the subjects' cognitive capacity.'

Participants were treated with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive and painless procedure that uses low-level electricity to stimulate specific brain regions.

The key to mind wandering was when this stimulation was applied to the frontal lobes, the team said.

During treatment, the participants were asked to track and respond to numerals flashed on a computer screen. 

They were also periodically asked to respond to an on-screen 'thought probe' in which they reported – on a scale of one to four – the extent to which they were experiencing spontaneous thoughts unrelated to the numeric task they had been given. 

As a point of comparison and in separate experiments, the researchers used tDCS to stimulate the occipital cortex – the visual processing center in the back of the brain. 

They also conducted control studies where no tDCS was used.

While the self-reported incidence of mind wandering was unchanged in the case of occipital and sham stimulation, it rose considerably when this stimulation was applied to the frontal lobes. 

'Our results go beyond what was achieved in earlier, fMRI-based studies,' Bar states. 'They demonstrate that the frontal lobes play a causal role in the production of mind wandering behavior.'