Matthew S Welhaf

Biographic Data

ID5019728
NAMEMatthew S Welhaf
GIVEN NAMESMatthew S
FAMILY NAMEWelhaf
SIGNATUREWELHAF M S
AFFILIATIONSWashington University in St. Louis
ORCID0000-0002-2826-5268
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS11
TOTAL CITATIONS0
AUTHOR COUNT11
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2015
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX0

  • Can participants authoritatively report on the emotional valence of their mind wandering

    Matthew S Welhaf, Jonathan Banks et al.ARTICLECognition & Emotion2026References: 33

    Individuals might vary in their ability to accurately monitor their ongoing conscious experiences of mind wandering. Such findings have serious implications for understanding the accuracy of participants' ability to report their ongoing thoughts. We extend these previous findings to ask if individuals vary in the ability to accurately monitor and report on the emotional valence of their task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs). Participants completed a sus…

  • Who can strategically modulate mind wandering? A preregistered replication and extension of Seli et al. (2018)

    Open AccessMatthew S Welhaf, Julie M Bugg et al.ARTICLEPsychonomic Bulletin & Review2025

  • Variation in Divergent Thinking, Executive-Control Abilities, and Mind-Wandering Measured in and Out of the Laboratory

    Open AccessRebekah M Rodriguez-Boerwinkle, Matthew S Welhaf et al.ARTICLECreativity Research Journal2025

    Individual differences in executive functions (or executive control abilities) predict variation in creative thinking ability. Relatedly, propensity for mind-wandering-or task unrelated thought-has been gaining attention among creativity scholars, but its effects on creativity remain unclear. The present study conceptually replicates and extends recent laboratory and experience-sampling work to assess the links between individual differences in d…

  • Positively framing mind wandering does not increase mind wandering in older adult s

    Open AccessMatthew S Welhaf, Julie M BuggARTICLEPsychological Research2024

  • A Nomothetic Span Approach to the Construct Validation of Sustained Attention Consistency

    Open AccessMatthew S Welhaf, Michael J KaneARTICLEPsychological Research2024

    The ability to sustain attention consistency is frequently assessed using either objective behavioral measures, such as reaction time (RT) variability, or subjective self-report measures, such as rates of task-unrelated thought (TUT). The current studies examined whether the individual-difference covariation in these measures provides a more construct valid assessment of attention consistency than does either alone. We argue that performance and …

  • Further unpacking individual differences in mind wandering

    Open AccessMatthew S Welhaf, Marc A Astacio et al.ARTICLEConsciousness and Cognition2024

    Executive attention ability predicts task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs). • Not all TUTs might be related to executive attention or impact performance similarly. • We examined two forms of TUTs: Emotional Valence and Awareness during a simple task. • Negatively Valenced TUTs and TUTs with awareness were predicted by executive attention. • The findings highlight the heterogenous nature of mind wandering. Previous work has established a link between exe…

  • Age-Related Differences in Mind Wandering

    Open AccessMatthew S Welhaf, Jonathan Banks et al.ARTICLEThe Journals of Gerontology…2023References: 3

    Focusing on different dimensions of thought content, such as emotional valence, can provide new insight into age-related differences in mind wandering. Older adults' mind wandering reports were less negative and neutral compared to younger adults' reports suggesting a positivity bias for older adults. However, this positivity bias does not seem to affect task performance. We discuss the implications of the findings for mind wandering theories and…

  • Individual differences in dimensions of mind wandering

    Open AccessJonathan Banks, Matthew S WelhafARTICLEPsychological Research2022

  • Keeping Creativity under Control

    Emily Frith, Michael J Kane et al.ARTICLECreativity Research Journal2021

    Increasing research efforts are focused on explaining the cognitive bases of creativity. However, it remains unclear when and how cognitive factors such as intelligence and executive function uniquely contribute to performance on creative thinking tasks. Although a relationship between fluid intelligence (Gf) and creative cognition has been well-documented, the underlying mechanism of this relation is unknown. Here, we test one possible mechanism…

  • Examining the role of emotional valence of mind wandering

    Open AccessJonathan Banks, Jonathan B Banks et al.ARTICLEConsciousness and Cognition2016

  • The protective effects of brief mindfulness meditation training

    Open AccessJonathan Banks, Jonathan B Banks et al.ARTICLEConsciousness and Cognition2015