Atlanta: Don’t be ashamed if you frequently get engrossed in a series of pleasant thoughts while working or at home as it may be a sign that you are creative and more intelligent, a new study has found.
Those who daydreamt more frequently scored higher on intellectual, creative ability and had more efficient brain systems measured in the MRI machine, the study appeared in Neuropsychologia journal revealed.
According to researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, daydreaming during meetings is not necessarily a bad thing.
"People with efficient brains may have too much brain capacity to stop their minds from wandering," said Eric Schumacher, the psychology professor who helped lead the study.
In the research, scientists put 100 people inside an MRI machine and had them stare at one specific point for five minutes. That allowed them to build up a picture of how their mind works when it's at rest, by examining what parts of the brain were active.
The participants were instructed to focus on a stationary fixation point for five minutes and filled in a questionnaire about how much their mind wandered in daily life. The researchers then used the data to identify which parts of the brain worked in unison.
“The correlated brain regions gave us insight about which areas of the brain work together during an awake, resting state,” Godwin, who was part of the research, said.
Interestingly, the study suggested that the same brain patterns measured during these states are related to different cognitive abilities. Schumacher noted that higher efficiency means more capacity to think, and the mind may wander when performing easy tasks.
Godwin and Schumacher think that the findings open the door for follow-up research to further understand when mind-wandering is harmful, and when it may actually be helpful.
“There are important individual differences to consider as well, such as a person’s motivation or intent to stay focused on a particular task,” Godwin said.
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