David Stawarczyk obtains a position of Research associate from FNRS at ULiège

David Stawarczyk, doctor in psychology specialized in neuroscience, becomes a F.R.S.-FNRS Research associate (Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research) within the research unit PsyNCog (Faculty of Psychology, Logopedics and Educational Sciences) at the University of Liege. His research focuses on the "mind wandering ".

M

ind wandering occurs when we try to focus on a task, but our attention becomes distracted by our own thought and we start thinking about things that are not directly related to the activity we are doing. An example of mind-wandering is when a student starts to think about his or her weekend outing while listening to a lecture. David Stawarczyk studies the impact of this phenomenon on the tasks we are performing. He also examines the content of these thoughts. Most of the time, we are not thinking about past or imaginary things during mind-wandering, but rather about upcoming things that we have to do in the very short term, later in the day or the next day. So mind wandering can be useful because it allows us to plan for the future.

David Stawarczyk's project is also to examine the extent to which some thoughts are better remembered than others. In order for the plans related to our future activities that we imagine during our mind wandering episodes to be useful, we need to be able to remember them at the appropriate time. If you plan parts of your afternoon while driving to work in the morning, you will have to be able to remember the content of those thoughts later in the day to help you guide your actions when managing your schedule.

David Stawarczyk uses different techniques to investigate the mind wandering. The first is a behavioral one: people perform a repetitive computerized task that is interrupted at various times by a question that asks them if they were fully focused on the task or if they were thinking about something else just before the interruption. If their mind was wandering, people describe the content of their thoughts. By later asking people to recall as many as possible of the thoughts they had  during the computerized task, this allows David Stawarczyk to determine the features of the mind-wandering episodes that are remembered in comparison to those that are forgotten. The second technique is magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. This state-of-the-art neuroimaging technique can determine which areas of the brain are activated when we experience thoughts that we are later able to remember.

“Mind wandering accounts for a significant portion of our daily thoughts, around 30%” explains David Stawarczyk. “Understanding what it is could help us maximize the beneficial aspects of mind wandering while decreasing its negative aspects. Mindfulness meditation can help people have more control over their thoughts. It can be interesting, not to suppress mind wandering, but to successfully realize before it's too late that we are no longer focused on our original task.” In addition, there are physiological markers that can detect when we begin to wander in thoughts. The goal is to develop devices in cars that can detect when drivers are wandering in thoughts. There would be an alarm that would tell people that they are losing focus, which could prevent accidents. In this regard, David Stawarczyk has already collaborated with the ULiège Phasya spin-off to determine which ocular parameters could help determine the presence of mind wandering and drowsiness. This collaboration has already led to the publication of an article in the journal Biological Psychology in 2020 and our researcher plans to further develop this more practical aspect of his research during his tenure as a qualified researcher. 

* David Stawarczyk was invited by the editors of this book to write a chapter on his research. Stawarczyk, D. (2018). Phenomenological Properties of Mind-Wandering and Daydreaming: A Historical Overview and Functional Correlates. In K. R. C. Fox & K. Christoff (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Spontaneous Thought (pp. 193-214). Oxford University Press.

About David Stawarczyk

David Stawarczyk pursued his entire academic career at the University of Liège. After studying psychology and neuroscience, he completed his doctoral thesis on mind wandering at the ULiège during a mandate as an FNRS candidate. He then obtained a mandate as a research fellow, still at the FNRS. After that, David Stawarczyk did a post-doc at the Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri. He then became a researcher and lecturer at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. Finally, in October 2022, David Stawarczyk was awarded the mandate of FNRS Research associate. “I will finally be able to have a stable position in Liège and to set up projects for a longer term than a year or two. The other goal is also to start my own lab by submitting grants for PhD students or possibly post-docs.”

An article written by Lola Barnabé, intern at the Communication Service of the ULiège