Spontaneous Thought as an Unconstrained Memory Process.

Autor: Mildner JN; Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. Electronic address: jmildner@princeton.edu., Tamir DI; Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Trends in neurosciences [Trends Neurosci] 2019 Nov; Vol. 42 (11), pp. 763-777. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 Oct 15.
DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2019.09.001
Abstrakt: The stream of thought can flow freely, without much guidance from attention or cognitive control. What determines what we think about from one moment to the next? Spontaneous thought shares many commonalities with memory processes. We use insights from computational models of memory to explain how the stream of thought flows through the landscape of memory. In this framework of spontaneous thought, semantic memory scaffolds episodic memory to form the content of thought, and drifting context modulated by one's current state - both internal and external - constrains the area of memory to explore. This conceptualization of spontaneous thought can help to answer outstanding questions such as: what is the function of spontaneous thought, and how does the mind select what to think about?
(Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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