From context to connectomes: understanding differences in ongoing thought in the laboratory and daily life

Previous work indicates that ongoing thought varies between contexts and that the adaptive nature of different features of thought depends on the context in which they emerge. However, prior investigations have primarily examined specific features of thought in a limited range of laboratory tasks. In doing so, they do not consider the multidimensional and heterogeneous nature of thought, nor reflect the many and varied situations we encounter in everyday life. Accordingly, a core aim of this thesis was to use Multidimensional Experience Sampling (MDES) to empirically map different patterns of thought across a wider range of situations to build a more comprehensive account of context-dependent cognition. In parallel, this thesis capitalises on contemporary methods to map differences in thought to differences in neural architecture to understand the distributed mechanisms supporting different forms of thought, allowing us to go beyond describing experiences. By examining MDES data collected before and during the UK’s first COVID-19 lockdown, Study 1 highlights that daily activities play an important role in shaping patterns of thought and that differences in age moderate thought-situation relationships. By examining MDES data collected in the laboratory while watching videos and in daily life during the COVID-19 pandemic, Study 2 identified a generalisable pattern of socio-emotional and future-directed problem-solving that consistently emerges under conditions of uncertainty. Finally, Study 3 suggests that past-related thought and problem-solving at rest differentially predict the relative functional integration and segregation of unimodal systems (visual and sensorimotor). This thesis, therefore, demonstrates the utility of MDES for building a comprehensive account of cognition since it can be used to understand between- and within-person differences in ongoing thought across a wide range of situations, understanding that can be leveraged in the future to understand how thought-situation relationships contribute to aspects of wellbeing and how the brain supports these experiences.