What Does Fidgeting Body Language Really Mean? Do We Fidget When We’re Bored Or Mentally Taxed?
Christopher Philip
As someone interested in reading others, we may wonder what predictive values are associated with specific nonverbal cues. For the current purpose, we look at nonverbal fidgeting and its link to mind wandering or boredom.
It’s been well understood that fidgeting is common in those suffering from ADHD and restless children. However, the link between motor restlessness or fidgeting and mental restlessness in normal healthy adults is not well studied.
Toward improving this knowledge a team of researchers led by Paul Seli and his colleagues, University of Waterloo in their first study, used a Wii Balance Board as a measure of “extraneous movements” or fidgeting to track episodes of mind wandering with respect to task performance.
In the second study mind wandering as measured via fidgeting was tracked using “though probes” while participants performed on a metronome response task (MRT) which requires them to synchronize button pressing with specific tones.
The first study found that mind wandering was indeed linked to increases in fidgeting as well as variability in response to the MRT. In the second study, the results went further showing that only deep mind wandering was linked to increases in fidgeting whereas task-related responses variability increased even during mild mind wandering.
The researchers concluded that mind wandering is associated with specific costs. These costs result in weaker primary-task performance and secondary-task goals such as controlling fidgeting.
So why is the control of the body by preventing fidgeting so important to controlling the mind?
According to the current though, fidgeting and concentration are two different, but in some instances of learning, related activities.
Let’s take listening to a boring lecture as an example. We know that sitting in a lecture hall is mentally taxing because it requires us to pay attention to often complex and novel ideas while simultaneously inhibiting bodily movement. However, since both require mental resources any deficit seen in controlling fidgeting should naturally predict deficits in controlling the mind. Thus, fidgeting is a visible indication that the mind is suffering and wandering.
“This is because,” say the researchers “during mind wandering, fewer executive-control resources will be directed toward these tasks and full maintenance of the tasks will therefore not be possible.”
In other words, as mind wandering increases due to increased demand required to concentrate, bodily movements or fidgeting, will also increase because both require attention related resources.
The specific details of the theory regarding the process of fidgeting and mind wandering are not important to our current aim, what is important is that fidgeting is predicative of mind wandering. The more fidgeting is apparent, the more taxing concentration is proving to be.
In short, if one is able to hold their body still, they are showing that it is also easy for them to concentrate. A fidgeting body is a body that is mentally taxed and can not cope with the current mental challenges.
Image Credit: Ryan Tyler Smith
Resources
Seli, Paul; Jonathan S. A. Carriere; David R. Thomson; James Allan Cheyne, Kaylena A. Ehgoetz Martens, and Daniel Smilek. Restless Mind, Restless Body Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. American Psychological Association. 2019. 40(3): 660-668. 0278-7393/14/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0035260