Extending Homeostasis as the Principle of Driving Behavior to the Thought Dynamics Allows Comprehensive Explanation of Mind Wandering

Abstract

Our thoughts are inherently dynamic, often wandering far from the current situation. Mind-wandering (MW), which is these thought transitions, is crucial for understanding the nature of human thought. Although previous research has identified various factors influencing MW, a comprehensive framework integrating these findings remains absent. Here, we propose that homeostasis has the potential to explain MW and validate the idea through simulations by replicating previous findings. We employed a homeostatic reinforcement learning model where independent drives for the task and others were assigned, and drive reduction became a reward and trained under sustained attention to the response task. We confirmed that the model behaves consistently with the empirical results reported in human experiments, suggesting that the model accurately captures the underlying mechanism of MW. Finally, we discuss the behavioral and neurobiological commonality between human thought and animal behavior and the possibility that the same principle, homeostasis, controls these phenomena.