When there is noise on Sherlock Holmes: mind wandering increases with perceptual processing difficulty during reading and listening

Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications

Table 1 Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for the mind-wandering and comprehension variables, separately for each experimental condition

Variable	Visual presentation format		Auditory presentation format
Variable	No-noise	Noise	No-noise	Noise
Mind wandering [%]	15.82 (13.71)	21.53 (22.18)	18.65 (17.56)	27.92 (23.28)
Fact-based comprehension [0–12]	9.98 (1.98)	8.65 (2.36)	9.07 (2.34)	7.74 (2.71)
Inference-based comprehension [0–2]	1.52 (0.66)	1.25 (0.73)	1.36 (0.66)	1.13 (0.70)

Values in brackets indicate the scale of the measure. Mind-wandering values were aggregated across all 18 assessment points. Values for fact-based comprehension are based on the twelve fact-based questions that refer to specific events distributed across the whole story. Values for inference-based comprehension are based on the two inference-based questions that require the integration of many story events