"How" web searches change under stress.

To adjust to stressful environments, people seek information. Here, we show that in response to stressful public and private events the high-level features of information people seek online alter, reflecting their motives for seeking knowledge. We first show that when people want information to guide action they selectively ask "How" questions. Next, we reveal that "How" searches submitted to Google increased dramatically during the pandemic (controlling for search volume). Strikingly, the proportion of these searches predicted weekly self-reported stress of ~ 17K individuals. To rule out third factors we manipulate stress and find that "How" searches increase in response to stressful, personal, events. The findings suggest that under stress people ask questions to guide action, and mental state is reflected in features that tap into why people seek information rather than the topics they search for. Tracking such features may provide clues regrading population stress levels.

Intentionality of Self-Generated Thought: Contributions of Mind Wandering to Creativity.

Studies suggest that internally oriented cognitive processes are central to creativity. Here, we distinguish between intentional and unintentional forms of mind wandering and explore their behavioral and neural correlates. We used a sample of 155 healthy adults from the mind-brain-body dataset, all of whom completed resting-state fMRI scans and trait-level measures of mind wandering. We analyzed intentional and unintentional mind wandering tendencies using self-report measures. Next, we explored the relationship between mind wandering tendencies and creativity, as measured by a divergent thinking task. Finally, we describe patterns of resting-state network connectivity associated with mind wandering, using graph theory analysis. At the behavioral level, results showed a significant positive association between creativity and both intentional and unintentional mind wandering. Neuroimaging analysis revealed higher weighted degree connectivity associated with both forms of mind wandering, implicating core regions of the default network and the left temporal pole. We observed topological connectivity differences within the default network: intentional mind wandering was associated with degree connectivity in posterior regions, whereas unintentional mind wandering showed greater involvement of prefrontal areas. Overall, the findings highlight patterns of resting-state network connectivity associated with intentional and unintentional mind wandering, and provide novel evidence of a link between mind wandering and creativity.

Individual differences in information-seeking.

Vast amounts of personalized information are now available to individuals. A vital research challenge is to establish how people decide what information they wish to obtain. Here, over five studies examining information-seeking in different domains we show that information-seeking is associated with three diverse motives. Specifically, we find that participants assess whether information is useful in directing action, how it will make them feel, and whether it relates to concepts they think of often. We demonstrate that participants integrate these assessments into a calculation of the value of information that explains information seeking or its avoidance. Different individuals assign different weights to these three factors when seeking information. Using a longitudinal approach, we find that the relative weights assigned to these information-seeking motives within an individual show stability over time, and are related to mental health as assessed using a battery of psychopathology questionnaires.