Mind wandering impairs performance through task demands rather than executive functions

Mind wandering – a spontaneous shift in attention away from a task – has been consistently associated with impaired cognitive task performance, often attributed to disruptions in executive functioning. In this study, we conducted three experiments to replicate and extend previous work by examining how mind wandering interacts with three core executive functions: inhibition (Experiment 1: Sustained Attention to Response Task , n = 55), updating (Experiment 2: Random n-back Task, n = 52) and shifting (Experiment 3: Number-Letter Task, n = 54). If mind wandering is closely related to executive functioning, it was expected that mind wandering would impair performance on trials requiring these functions, reflected in lower accuracy and increased reaction time variability. Our findings partly confirmed this: Mind wandering was associated with a stronger reduction in accuracy in executive trials involving inhibition and shifting. However, in the updating task, where executive and non-executive trials were matched in difficulty, mind wandering reduced accuracy in both executive and non-executive trials, with stronger evidence for an effect in non-executive trials. Notably, the executive trials in the inhibition and shifting tasks were inherently more difficult than their non-executive counterparts. These findings suggest that the observed performance decrements may be more closely tied to task difficulty than to executive trials per se.