Letting your mind wander can sometimes improve learning, research suggests

When people let their minds wander during tasks that require attention and active thinking, it can hurt how well they learn and perform the tasks. But there are more passive kinds of learning that require less attention. Péter Simor, from Eötvös Loránd University, and colleagues explored how mind wandering influences learning in tasks requiring little attention in their paper published in The Journal of Neuroscience.