New Perspectives on Mind-Wandering

In the last decade, a great variety and volume of scholarly work has appeared on mind-wandering, a mental process involving a vast range of human life, connected with ＂first-person perspective＂ and ＂personhood＂, submental thinking, mental autonomy, etc. While different and emerging features that flow into and out of one another (second field, mental travel, visual imagery, inner speech, unspecific memory, autobiographical memory, fantasies, introspection, etc.) and negative and positive approaches seem to describe mind-wandering, we offer an interdisciplinary theoretical and empirically informed and informative overview on mind-wandering studies and methodologies oriented toward the educational field. The aim is to transform and enrich the debate on mind-wandering but also to show how theoretical arguments and research findings could inform the teaching-learning context.

This groundbreaking book, moves along three representations of developed scientific knowledge: imaginary lines, circles and spirals. The first section, ＂The Lines＂, develops new lines of inquiry on attention (selective and sustained) and mind-wandering, the influence of age and mind-wandering, embodiment, consciousness and experience and mind-wandering. In the second section, the ＂Circles＂, groups of Chapters on the same topic, methodology (tasks and measurement), intervention (auditory beat stimulation and mindfulness practices) and creativity, recreate a dance of interacting parts in which there are always profitable, decisive and retroactive exchanges between the information that each group or author activates. The last section, ＂The Spirals＂, critically discusses the absence of a unified theoretical perspective, in the pedagogical field, attentive both to the processes of emergence and the interactions between parts.

Nadia Dario is a Postdoc at the ASLAN lab at CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Université Lyon 2. She has a Ph.D in Philosophy and Science of Education from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and has worked with Lab Red ＂Laboratorio di Ricerca Educativa e Didattica＂ in Ca’ Foscari University and has written on ＂FORMAZIONE & INSEGNAMENTO. European Journal of Research on Education and Teaching＂. Her previous research interests were time estimation (prospective memory), emotions and decision making, taking into account the implications in learning-teaching contexts. She has also worked on didactics for competences and her training was centered on General Pedagogy and Psychology of Education. Her research interests are generative processes for developing praxis and research on education. Presently, she is concentrating her research on mind-wandering and visual-marginalia. She is collaborating with Center of Excellence, IBEF (Ideas for the Basic Education of the Future - International Network on Innovative Learning, Teaching Environments and Practices) and GRIS (Gruppo di Ricerca sulle Interazioni Sociali - Laboratorio di Psicologia ＂Giovanni Abignente＂) with Professors Giuseppina Marsico and Luca Tateo.

Luca Tateo is Professor of Theory, Epistemology and Methodology of Qualitative Research at the Department of Special Needs Education. University of Oslo, Norway. HeHis research interests are the study of imagination as higher psychological function, the cultural psychology of education, and the epistemology and history of psychological sciences in order to reflect upon the future trends of psychological research and related methodological issues. He is editor in chief of the book series ＂Innovations in qualitative research＂, IAP and co-editor in chief of the peer-reviewed journal ＂Human Arenas. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Psychology, Culture, and Meaning＂, Springer.