Caitlin Mills
Biographic Data
| ID | 4601635 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Caitlin Mills |
| GIVEN NAMES | Caitlin |
| FAMILY NAME | Mills |
| SIGNATURE | MILLS C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Minnesota |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4498-0496 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Methodological considerations for ecological momentary assessment measures of task-unrelated and freely moving thoughts
The (Un)Conscious Learner
This theoretical article examines the relationship between self‐regulated learning and task‐unrelated thoughts (TUTs) through the lens of metacognition. Grounded in Winne's COPES (conditions, operations, products, evaluations, and standards) model of self‐regulated learning, we propose an interaction model emphasizing metacognitive monitoring and control. This model suggests the metacognitive cycle inherent to self‐regulated learning can increase…
Beyond efficiency
Generative AI (GenAI) promises to reshape education, yet, beyond gains in efficiency and scalability, crucial questions remain regarding its deeper cognitive, epistemic, socio‐emotional and ethical implications for learners. This special section collects emerging empirical evidence from diverse educational settings to examine how interactions with advanced GenAI systems—ranging from intelligent tutors and conversational agents to AI‐generated fee…
Discount Rates Vary Within Individuals Throughout Daily Life in Conjunction With Momentary Changes in Affect
Temporal discounting rate, the extent to which one values immediate rewards over larger future rewards, is typically considered a trait measure, with higher discount rates associated with increased impulsivity. Given increasing lab-based evidence that discount rates may be sensitive to context, including current affect, we developed a novel approach to measure discount rates in daily life. Participants ( N = 116, N obs = 4,112) completed a 7-day …
The shower effect
Creative Minds at Rest
especially in unstructured contexts such as periods of awake rest. Across two studies, the present manuscript tested the hypothesis that creative individuals are more engaged with their idle thoughts and more associative in the dynamic transitions between them. Study 1 captured the real-time conscious experiences of 81 adults as they voiced aloud the content of their mind moment-by-moment across a 10-minute unconstrained baseline period. Higher o…
A novel quantitative assessment of engagement in virtual reality
Sadness facilitates “deeper” reading comprehension
Reading is one of the most common everyday activities, yet research elucidating how affective influence reading processes and outcomes is sparse with inconsistent results. To investigate this question, we randomly assigned participants (N = 136) to happiness (positive affect), sadness (negative affect), and neutral video-induction conditions prior to engaging in self-paced reading of a long, complex science text. Participants completed assessment…
Momentary awareness of body sensations is associated with concurrent affective experience
Affect is thought to be a low-dimensional representation of ongoing body activity. Recent studies have demonstrated that individual differences in the ability to objectively detect one's body activity are related to affective experience, particularly the experience of affective arousal. However, less is known about the role of subjective awareness of body sensations in affective experience, a facet of interoception that has been distinguished fro…
On the relationship between unprompted thought and affective well-being
There is a growing recognition that thoughts often arise independently of external demands. These thoughts can span from reminiscing your last vacation to contemplating career goals to fantasizing about meeting your favorite musician. Often referred to as mind wandering, such frequently occurring unprompted thoughts have widespread impact on our daily functions, with the dominant narrative converging on a negative relationship between unprompted …
Virtual nature experiences and mindfulness practices while working from home during Covid-19
Differential relationships between thought dimensions and momentary affect in daily life
Investigating the appraisal structure of spontaneous thoughts
Involuntary thinking occurs when mental states arise without intention. Such thoughts can take different forms, such as involuntary autobiographical memories (IAM), ruminative thoughts, and unexpected thoughts—all of which are popular areas of study, albeit in somewhat disparate literatures. Despite these mental states sharing a common thread of feeling involuntary in nature, it is nevertheless unclear what separates them phenomenologically. We c…
Advancing theory in the age of artificial intelligence
Daily mindfulness training reduces negative impact of Covid-19 news exposure on affective well-being
Enhanced capacity to switch but not to maintain
More than off-task
Mind wandering during reading
A large proportion of thoughts are internally generated. Of these, mind wandering—when attention shifts away from the current activity to an internal stream of thought—is frequent during reading and is negatively related to comprehension outcomes. Our goal is to review research on mind wandering during reading with an interdisciplinary and integrative lens that spans the cognitive, behavioural, computing and intervention sciences. We begin with t…
How task-unrelated and freely moving thought relate to affect
Much of our knowledge about the correlates of mind-wandering comes from assessing task-unrelated thought. Less is known about the correlates of freely moving thought, a dimension that assesses the degree to which thoughts arise and unfold with low levels of guidance or constraints. Task-unrelated thought is consistently associated with more negative affective valence compared with being on task; however, it is unclear whether freely moving though…
Eye-Mind reader
We zone out roughly 20-40% of the time during reading – a rate that is concerning given the negative relationship between mind-wandering and comprehension. We tested if Eye-Mind Reader – an intelligent interface that targeted mind-wandering as it occurred – could mitigate its negative impact on reading comprehension. When an eye-gaze-based classifier indicated that a reader was mind-wandering, those in a MW-Intervention condition were asked to se…
Being Sad Is Not Always Bad
We investigated how affective states influence expository text comprehension and whether text valence moderates the effects (i.e., mood congruency). In Experiment 1 participants were randomly assigned to a happy or sad affective state (elicited via films) before reading a positive or negative version of a scientific text on animal adaptations. Participants (n = 79) in the sad (film) group had higher scores on deep-reasoning (d = .312) but not sur…
Is an off-task mind a freely-moving mind? Examining the relationship between different dimensions of thought
Influencing the occurrence of mind wandering while reading
Enhanced capacity to switch but not to maintain
Being Sad Is Not Always Bad
We investigated how affective states influence expository text comprehension and whether text valence moderates the effects (i.e., mood congruency). In Experiment 1 participants were randomly assigned to a happy or sad affective state (elicited via films) before reading a positive or negative version of a scientific text on animal adaptations. Participants (n = 79) in the sad (film) group had higher scores on deep-reasoning (d = .312) but not sur…
Influencing the occurrence of mind wandering while reading
Is an off-task mind a freely-moving mind? Examining the relationship between different dimensions of thought
Being Sad Is Not Always Bad
We investigated how affective states influence expository text comprehension and whether text valence moderates the effects (i.e., mood congruency). In Experiment 1 participants were randomly assigned to a happy or sad affective state (elicited via films) before reading a positive or negative version of a scientific text on animal adaptations. Participants (n = 79) in the sad (film) group had higher scores on deep-reasoning (d = .312) but not sur…
Eye-Mind reader
We zone out roughly 20-40% of the time during reading – a rate that is concerning given the negative relationship between mind-wandering and comprehension. We tested if Eye-Mind Reader – an intelligent interface that targeted mind-wandering as it occurred – could mitigate its negative impact on reading comprehension. When an eye-gaze-based classifier indicated that a reader was mind-wandering, those in a MW-Intervention condition were asked to se…
More than off-task
Mind wandering during reading
A large proportion of thoughts are internally generated. Of these, mind wandering—when attention shifts away from the current activity to an internal stream of thought—is frequent during reading and is negatively related to comprehension outcomes. Our goal is to review research on mind wandering during reading with an interdisciplinary and integrative lens that spans the cognitive, behavioural, computing and intervention sciences. We begin with t…
How task-unrelated and freely moving thought relate to affect
Much of our knowledge about the correlates of mind-wandering comes from assessing task-unrelated thought. Less is known about the correlates of freely moving thought, a dimension that assesses the degree to which thoughts arise and unfold with low levels of guidance or constraints. Task-unrelated thought is consistently associated with more negative affective valence compared with being on task; however, it is unclear whether freely moving though…
Daily mindfulness training reduces negative impact of Covid-19 news exposure on affective well-being
Enhanced capacity to switch but not to maintain
Virtual nature experiences and mindfulness practices while working from home during Covid-19
Differential relationships between thought dimensions and momentary affect in daily life
Investigating the appraisal structure of spontaneous thoughts
Involuntary thinking occurs when mental states arise without intention. Such thoughts can take different forms, such as involuntary autobiographical memories (IAM), ruminative thoughts, and unexpected thoughts—all of which are popular areas of study, albeit in somewhat disparate literatures. Despite these mental states sharing a common thread of feeling involuntary in nature, it is nevertheless unclear what separates them phenomenologically. We c…
Advancing theory in the age of artificial intelligence
The shower effect
Creative Minds at Rest
especially in unstructured contexts such as periods of awake rest. Across two studies, the present manuscript tested the hypothesis that creative individuals are more engaged with their idle thoughts and more associative in the dynamic transitions between them. Study 1 captured the real-time conscious experiences of 81 adults as they voiced aloud the content of their mind moment-by-moment across a 10-minute unconstrained baseline period. Higher o…
A novel quantitative assessment of engagement in virtual reality
Sadness facilitates “deeper” reading comprehension
Reading is one of the most common everyday activities, yet research elucidating how affective influence reading processes and outcomes is sparse with inconsistent results. To investigate this question, we randomly assigned participants (N = 136) to happiness (positive affect), sadness (negative affect), and neutral video-induction conditions prior to engaging in self-paced reading of a long, complex science text. Participants completed assessment…
Momentary awareness of body sensations is associated with concurrent affective experience
Affect is thought to be a low-dimensional representation of ongoing body activity. Recent studies have demonstrated that individual differences in the ability to objectively detect one's body activity are related to affective experience, particularly the experience of affective arousal. However, less is known about the role of subjective awareness of body sensations in affective experience, a facet of interoception that has been distinguished fro…
On the relationship between unprompted thought and affective well-being
There is a growing recognition that thoughts often arise independently of external demands. These thoughts can span from reminiscing your last vacation to contemplating career goals to fantasizing about meeting your favorite musician. Often referred to as mind wandering, such frequently occurring unprompted thoughts have widespread impact on our daily functions, with the dominant narrative converging on a negative relationship between unprompted …
Beyond efficiency
Generative AI (GenAI) promises to reshape education, yet, beyond gains in efficiency and scalability, crucial questions remain regarding its deeper cognitive, epistemic, socio‐emotional and ethical implications for learners. This special section collects emerging empirical evidence from diverse educational settings to examine how interactions with advanced GenAI systems—ranging from intelligent tutors and conversational agents to AI‐generated fee…
Discount Rates Vary Within Individuals Throughout Daily Life in Conjunction With Momentary Changes in Affect
Temporal discounting rate, the extent to which one values immediate rewards over larger future rewards, is typically considered a trait measure, with higher discount rates associated with increased impulsivity. Given increasing lab-based evidence that discount rates may be sensitive to context, including current affect, we developed a novel approach to measure discount rates in daily life. Participants ( N = 116, N obs = 4,112) completed a 7-day …
Methodological considerations for ecological momentary assessment measures of task-unrelated and freely moving thoughts
The (Un)Conscious Learner
This theoretical article examines the relationship between self‐regulated learning and task‐unrelated thoughts (TUTs) through the lens of metacognition. Grounded in Winne's COPES (conditions, operations, products, evaluations, and standards) model of self‐regulated learning, we propose an interaction model emphasizing metacognitive monitoring and control. This model suggests the metacognitive cycle inherent to self‐regulated learning can increase…
Psychology (21 works) · Cognitive psychology (17 works) · Mind wandering and attention (14 works) · Cognition (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Developmental psychology (8 works) · Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes (6 works) · Mind-wandering (6 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works)