Scientists develop alarm that goes off when daydreaming

Daydreamers might soon have a way to stay focused.

Scientists from the ATR Brain Information Communication Research Laboratory Group in Japan have developed an alarm designed to go off when it detects your mind wandering.

A new study, published in the journal Neural Networks, suggested that people who use this alarm daydream significantly less.

Researchers wanted to test if using sounds to identify when a person’s mind was wandering helped them realize it was happening and actively try to stop it from happening.

They looked at 36 people under the age of 60 who were given a focus-driven task that required them to press a key every time a number flashed on the screen — unless it was the number three.

Participants were asked how intense their focus was about every 18 seconds to see when their minds started to drift.

The scientist used this self-reported information to identify brain activity when participants had wandering minds and then gave them the 20-minute task again — this time with electrodes placed on their scalps.

Brain activity can help scientists identify when someone starts to lose their focus, researchers noted.

During the second round of the numbers task, 20 of the participants heard an electronic alert when their brain activity showed signs that their mind was starting to wander, while 16 heard noises at random.

Both groups were told that the noises were random and should be ignored. The alarm sounded 35 times on average.

After hearing the alarm, participants whose alarms were based on brain activity had their minds wander less often compared to those who did not have the sound when they started to drift — only daydreaming 44% of the time in the second session. People who did not have the sounds making them aware of their mind wandering reported daydreaming 55% of the time in the second session.

Before and after hearing the alarm, the participants were asked to focus on their breathing for 15 minutes and press a button to indicate each time their mind wandered, with questions asking if their focus was drifting every 60 seconds.

People tend to spend about 25% of their time daydreaming when they should be concentrating — but a set of electrodes on the head and an alarm sound could help keep their focus, the study suggests.

Apart from making people less productive, mind wandering and daydreaming are also linked to mental health issues, according to previous studies.

Dr. Issaku Kawashima, who led the study, said: “Our ultimate goal is to develop neurofeedback training which allows people to manage their mind-wandering in a beneficial manner.”