Abstract:

"Mind-wandering" tends to occur in reading and other activities where vigilance may be low. It refers to the experience of thoughts not remaining on a single topic or task in which people were asked to engaged. However, since it is difficult to induce and control "Mind-wandering" under laboratory conditions, this issue was laid aside for quite a long time until 1990s. The present review focused on theoretical hypotheses and influencing factors of "Mind-wandering" in reading. Firstly, three main hypotheses of mind wandering in reading were summarized respectively: executive-control theory, control-failure hypothesis and attentional decoupling hypothesis. Secondly, main influencing factors of "Mind-wandering" in reading were also considered. These factors were divided into three categories: reading mode variables, reading material variables, and subject variables. To reveal the mechanisms of "Mind-wandering" further, more work on reducing the limitations of methodology still need to be done in the future.

Key words: mind wandering, reading, control-failure, attentional decoupling, meta-awareness