Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Institute of Cognitive Science and Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, with support from Templeton Foundation and the Brain and Behavioral Research Foundation, have released a mobile app to study how people’s minds wander.

Called Where’s My Mind?, the application is currently only available for Android users, prompting them at random intervals each day with questions about their thoughts. Those who download the app will be asked to describe their mental state, mood, and level of focus.

“We’ve had an interest in studying the psychology of internal thought for quite a while,” Jessica Andrews-Hanna, director of the Neuroscience of Thought and Emotion Lab at CU Boulder’s Institute of Cognitive Science said in a statement. “Internal thoughts are important because they can be the source of inspiration, happiness or planning, but can also fuel anxiety and stress. Little research has been done in this area thus far.”

After using the app for some time, users will be able to view patterns in their own thoughts and access data on how much their mind wanders in a certain period of time. On the other hand, researchers will get to use this data to study different forms of mind wandering.

“We are keeping track of how people respond to the app in their everyday lives, which allows us to establish norms and baselines that could prove extremely useful,” said Joanna Arch, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at CU-Boulder.

[Via: mobihealthnews]