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Mind wandering as data augmentation: How mental travel supports abstraction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2020

Myrthe Faber Open the ORCID record for Myrthe Faber [Opens in a new window]
Myrthe Faber*
Affiliation:
Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboudumc, Kapittelweg 29, 6525 EN, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. m.faber@donders.ru.nl
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Abstract

Gilead et al. state that abstraction supports mental travel, and that mental travel critically relies on abstraction. I propose an important addition to this theoretical framework, namely that mental travel might also support abstraction. Specifically, I argue that spontaneous mental travel (mind wandering), much like data augmentation in machine learning, provides variability in mental content and context necessary for abstraction.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 43 , 2020 , e130
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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