The present study investigated the effects of cognitive load on the temporal focus of mind wandering. Participants performed a cognitive-load task under three load conditions (0 back, 1 back, 2 back). During each condition, thought sampling was conducted to measure task-unrelated thoughts. When a thought probe was presented, participants responded what they were just thinking. The results showed that future-related thoughts were reduced with increasing cognitive-load. On the other hand, past-related thoughts were not reduced under moderate cognitive-load but were under high cognitive-load. This indicates that future-related thoughts require additional resources. Furthermore, future-related thoughts were more prevalent than past-related thoughts under low cognitive-load. These findings may indicate that a future prospective bias is important for survival.
