The Consistency across Vigilance and Reading Tasks of Individual Differences in the Occurrence of Task-Unrelated and Task-Related Images and Thoughts

Abstract

The production of task-unrelated (TUITs) and task-specific (TST) images and thoughts during vigilance, a shallow information processing task, and during reading, a semantic task requiring deep processing, was examined in thirty-nine 17- to 75-year-old men and women. High positive correlations resulted (p < .01) between the vigilance and the reading tasks on the likelihood of having both deliberate and unintentional TUITs. However, relatively low between-task correlations resulted for TST frequency. The results indicate that low and high TUIT frequency individuals in the reading task will also have, respectively, low and high TUIT frequencies in the vigilance task. Thus, support for the notion of stable individual differences in TUIT production is indicated. No between-task consistency was evident for TST frequency. TST production may be more directly influenced by the immediate task, as opposed to an individual cognitive capacity for processing information.