Pay Attention to Me: Group Identity and Mind-Wandering in Text Communication

EasyChair Preprint 3868

Abstract

Task-unrelated thought (TUT) occurs frequently in our daily lives, but we know little about how it influences our communication. The current study explores how frequently our minds wander during text-based computer-mediated communication and how group membership impacts this rate. Participants reported TUT once every two minutes on average, but this rate was lower when participants perceived talking with an ingroup member. More frequent TUT was also related to more frequent topic shifting across all conditions.

Keyphrases: attention, computer-mediated communication, group membership, mind wandering, participant reported mind wandering, social identity

@booklet{EasyChair:3868,
  author    = {Alexander Colby and Ian Gliser and Laura Allen and Caitlin Mills},
  title     = {Pay Attention to Me: Group Identity and Mind-Wandering in Text Communication},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 3868},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}