Daydreaming as a Function of Cueing and Task Difficulty

Abstract
The effects of demand characteristics and task difficulty upon the reported frequency of daydreaming were investigated. 71 Ss who performed 2 memory tasks of varying difficulty served in one of two control groups and an experimental group. Contrary to expectation, a suppression of daydreams occurred when Ss were cued that a report of daydreams was to be investigated. However, in line with our hypothesis a more difficult memory task resulted in a reduction in the amounts of reported daydreaming.