The neural correlates of ongoing conscious thought
Jonathan Smallwood,
Adam Turnbull,
Hao-ting Wang,
Nerissa S.P. Ho,
Giulia L. Poerio,
Theodoros Karapanagiotidis,
Delali Konu,
Brontë Mckeown,
Meichao Zhang,
Charlotte Murphy,
Deniz Vatansever,
Danilo Bzdok,
Mahiko Konishi,
Robert Leech,
Paul Seli,
Jonathan W. Schooler,
Boris Bernhardt,
Daniel S. Margulies,
Elizabeth Jefferies
Affiliations
Jonathan Smallwood
Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA; Corresponding author
Adam Turnbull
Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England; University of Rochester School of Nursing, Rochester, NY, USA
Hao-ting Wang
University of Sussex, Brighton, England
Nerissa S.P. Ho
Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England
Giulia L. Poerio
Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, England
Theodoros Karapanagiotidis
Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England
Delali Konu
Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England
Brontë Mckeown
Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England
Meichao Zhang
Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England
Charlotte Murphy
Department of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales
Deniz Vatansever
Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Danilo Bzdok
Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Mahiko Konishi
Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et de Psycholinguistique, Department d'Etudes Cognitives, ENS, PSL University, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France
Robert Leech
Kings College, London, England
Paul Seli
Kings College, London, England
Jonathan W. Schooler
Department of Psychology, duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Boris Bernhardt
Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Daniel S. Margulies
Centre Nationale de la Researche Scientifique, Institute du Cerveau et de la Moelle epiniere, Paris, France
Elizabeth Jefferies
Department of Psychology / York Imaging Centre, University of York, York, England
Summary: A core goal in cognitive neuroscience is identifying the physical substrates of the patterns of thought that occupy our daily lives. Contemporary views suggest that the landscape of ongoing experience is heterogeneous and can be influenced by features of both the person and the context. This perspective piece considers recent work that explicitly accounts for both the heterogeneity of the experience and context dependence of patterns of ongoing thought. These studies reveal that systems linked to attention and control are important for organizing experience in response to changing environmental demands. These studies also establish a role of the default mode network beyond task-negative or purely episodic content, for example, implicating it in the level of vivid detail in experience in both task contexts and in spontaneous self-generated experiential states. Together, this work demonstrates that the landscape of ongoing thought is reflected in the activity of multiple neural systems, and it is important to distinguish between processes contributing to how the experience unfolds from those linked to how these experiences are regulated.
