AMA VICDOC Winter 2025 - Magazine - Page 9
Now, a team of neuroscientists and
philosophers from Europe and Monash
University have published a paper in the
journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences
compiling of what we know about mind
blanking, including insights from their
own work observing people’s brain activity.
“During wakefulness, our thoughts
transition between different contents.
However, there are moments that
are seemingly devoid of reportable
content, referred to as mind blanking,”
the team says.
While they say it remains unclear
what these blanks represent, author
Dr Jennifer Windt of Monash
University’s Centre for Consciousness
and Contemplative Studies says a mind
blank is more likely to occur when the
brain is in a high- or low-arousal state.
KEY FINDINGS FROM THE
RESEARCH INCLUDE:
> Mind blank frequency varies greatly
between different people, but a person
experiences the phenomenon about
5-20 per cent of the time on average.
> Common experiences defined as ‘mind
blanking’ include lapses of attention,
memory issues and a cessation of
inner speech, among others.
> Mind blanks tend to happen toward
the end of long, sustained attention
tasks like exams and after sleep
deprivation or intense physical exercise
but are also a typical waking state.
> Children with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
report mind blanking more
frequently than neurotypical people.
> During mind blanks after sustained
attention tasks, people’s heart rates
and pupil sizes decreased and their
brains showed lower signal complexity
— a state typically observed in
unconscious people. During the blank,
they observed disruptions in sensory
processing and slow, sleep-like EEG
waves. The authors describe these
states in which parts of a person’s brain
appear asleep as “local sleep episodes”.
The researchers speculate that the
common factor between different forms
of blanking may be related to changes in
arousal levels, leading to a malfunction
of key cognitive mechanisms such as
memory, language or attention.The
researchers propose a framework that
describes mind blanking as a dynamic
group of physiologically driven experiences
mediated by arousal states, or a person’s
state of physiological “vigilance”.
Monash
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VI CD O C WI NTER 2025
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