Cognitive homeostasis: Boredom as a drive for optimal engagement

Abstract

Boredom is the feeling of wanting but failing to engage the mind. The first part of this thesis proposes a theory that casts boredom as a signal of suboptimal utilization of cognitive resources. Homeostasis is used as an analogy that frames the in-the-moment feeling of boredom as a deviation from optimal engagement. It also offers an allostatic account for chronic boredom (i.e., trait boredom proneness) and briefly explores potential neural indicators of both boredom and cognitive engagement before considering related processes of meaning making. This model of boredom characterizes the experience as a dynamic response to both internal and external exigencies and leads to testable hypotheses for both the nature of the state and the trait disposition to experience the state frequently and intensely. Furthermore, it casts a more general hypothesis that humans strive to optimally engage with their environs, in order to maintain a kind of cognitive homeostatic set point. The second part of the thesis consists of a study, its replication, and an experiment derived from the theory. The study is resting on a prominent model of affective regulation suggesting that interoceptive signals are used to predict the affective outcomes of intended actions paired with recent neuroimaging work implicating the anterior insular cortex in boredom. Results showed strong relations with boredom proneness and attention to interoceptive signals. Data also showed that high boredom prone individuals tend to struggle to make sense of interoceptive signals. The experiment that followed made use of a heartbeat counting task to objectively test interoceptive accuracy as a function of boredom proneness. Heart rate variability was also measured while inducing moods of boredom and interest. While poor performance did not correlate with chronic boredom, induced state boredom triggered a higher stress response as indicated by cardiac vagal tone. These results characterize state boredom as a physiological stressor that fits well within the model proposed as a push to restore cognitive homeostasis by prompting the agent to find a more positively valenced endeavour.