Task-unrelated Thoughts And Heart Rate Variability: A Systematic Review And Meta-analysis - Info and Reading Options

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This is a protocol of a systematic review and two meta-analyses that focus on the relationship between task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) and heart-rate variability (HRV) - the first one verifying this relation in the studies measuring TUT through classical self-report questionnaires and the second one through experience sampling methods. Thoughts that are unrelated to one's current task comprise a substantial part of our cognitive activity (Kane et al., 2007). Depending on their characteristics, the role they play, the context in which they are studied, and the preferences of particular researchers, the terms used to describe them include daydreaming, mind-wandering, spontaneous thoughts, rumination, repetitive negative thinking, worry, and many others (Barnett & Kaufman, 2020). The differences and relations between the listed cognitive processes are not unanimously understood, which contributes to the complexity of investigating their role in our lives. To address this problem, Seli (et al. 2018) proposed the family resemblance approach, in which those processes are treated as one broad, heterogeneous construct while recognizing the wide dispersion of gradable characteristics of its particular designata. Drawing from this proposition, we use an umbrella term “Task unrelated thoughts”—originally proposed by Giambra (1989)—to describe all thoughts that are not related to the current activity undertaken by the subject. Although TUTs have many adaptive functions (Baer et al., 2021; Stawarczyk et al., 2011; Smallwood et al., 2013; Immordino-Yang et al., 2012), their effects on our daily functioning can also be detrimental (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010; Marchetti et al., 2014; Soffer-Dudek & Somer, 2018). To explore the consequences of TUTs and their particular characteristics and subtypes, we focus on analyzing the link between them and heart rate variability—a popular psychophysiological variable, used as an indicator of autonomic nervous system activation and regulation (Shaffer & Ginsberg, 2017). Previous studies (i.e., Ottaviani et al., 2016) suggest the existence of a link between TUT occurrence and changes in HRV. The existing literature also contains information on differing effects that particular TUT types may have on HRV (i.e. Ottaviani et al., 2013). At the same time, the overwhelming majority of studies analyzing the link between TUTs and HRV only focus on singular subtypes of thoughts. The meta-analysis by Ottaviani (et al., 2016) explored the psychophysiological concomitants (including changes in HRV) of perseverative cognition. Although this source gives us information on the role of a broader group of TUT types and its relation to changes in HRV, it only focuses on the thoughts characterized by negative emotional valence and repetitive feature. To the best of our knowledge, there are no existing syntheses focusing on the relationship between HRV and task-unrelated thoughts in their full spectrum. We plan to fill this gap in the literature by systematically reviewing articles containing data on the relationships between HRV and (any type of) TUTs, using meta-analytical techniques to study the link between the two phenomena and investigate the potential moderating role that differentiated TUT types may play in it.

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