Jonathan Smallwood (born 13 October 1975) is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at

Queen's University at Kingston Queen's University at Kingston, commonly known as Queen's University or simply Queen's, is a public university, public research university in Kingston, Ontario, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Queen's holds more than of land throughout Ontario and ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, Canada. His research uses the tools of

cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the Biology, biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental ...

to investigate the process by which the brain self generates thoughts not arising from perception, such as during the experience of

mind-wandering Mind-wandering is broadly defined as thoughts unrelated to the task at hand. Mind-wandering consists of thoughts that are task-unrelated and stimulus-independent. This can take the form of three different subtypes: positive constructive daydreaming ...

and

daydreaming Daydreaming is a stream of consciousness that detaches from current external tasks when one's attention becomes focused on a more personal and internal direction. Various names of this phenomenon exist, including mind-wandering, fantasies, a ...

. For the last two years he has been recognised as one of the world's most highly cited scientists.

Biography

Education

The grandson of

Joey Smallwood Joseph Roberts Smallwood (December 24, 1900 – December 17, 1991) was a Newfoundlander and Canadian politician. He was the main force who brought the Dominion of Newfoundland into Canadian Confederation in 1949, becoming the first premier of ...

's cousin, Jonathan "Jonny" Smallwood earned his BA (1996) and PhD (2002) from The University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. He was a lecturer in psychology at

Glasgow Caledonian University Glasgow Caledonian University, informally GCU, Caledonian or Caley (), is a public university in Glasgow, Scotland. It was formed in 1993 by the merger of The Queen's College, Glasgow (founded in 1875) and Glasgow Polytechnic (originally Glasg ...

(2002–2004) before traveling to the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

as a post-doctoral researcher (2004–2006). From 2006 to 2008 he was a lecturer in psychology at the

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen (abbreviated ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; ) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bis ...

, after which Smallwood returned to North America to work with Jonathan Schooler as an assistant project scientist at the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

. From 2011 to 2013 he was a senior researcher at the

Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences The Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences is located in Leipzig, Germany. The institute was founded in 2004 by a merger between the former Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig and the Max Planck Institu ...

in the Department of Social Neuroscience. In August 2013 he joined the psychology department psychology at the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

and in August 2018, he was promoted to professor. Since July 2020 he holds a professorship at

Academic career

Smallwood has been a pioneer in the development of experience sampling methods and their integration with cognitive neuroscience methodologies, for example in the study of

.Smallwood, J. & Schooler, J.W. (2006). The Restless Mind. Psychological Bulletin, 132(6), 946-958.

Work

Smallwood proposes the decoupling hypothesis, referring to the observation that individuals report having no memory of what happened in the surrounding environment while preoccupied with their thoughts.Smallwood, J., Obonsawin, M.C., & Heim, D. (2003) Task Unrelated Thought: the role of distributed processing. Consciousness and Cognition. 12(2), 169-189. In 2006, the publication of "The Restless Mind" discussed a psychological framework for controversies characterizing cognitive neuroscience research into mind-wandering through the end of the decade.

References

External links