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OOPS! Now, why did I do that?

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Welcome!

OOPS! is a web site dedicated to discovering the absent and wandering mind and some of its consequences.

In this site we provide examples, often entertaining, of mind-wandering and its consequences, some essays on inattention, and an opportunity to contribute to our understanding of the causes and consequences of mind-wandering.


The Daily Oops!

In March 2002, Britney Spears almost burned down the New York apartment. "Brit had left a candle burning in front of an air vent [and gone shopping]," her mother, Lynne, recalled. "The wall caught on fire, and the fire department had to come to put it out... This is the second time this has happened. Brit left a candle burning in her bathroom in our Louisiana home [and] caught her bathroom on fire."
"Well," [salon.com]'s Amy Reiter quipped, "we can only assume she had her reasons for lighting a match in there...."

- Anecdotage.com

There are a number of ways you can contribute to OOPS!:

Do you have any interesting anecdotes about your own or other’s absent-mindedness? If so you can tell us about them here.
We also have a number of questionnaires and behavioral assessments of attention and its failures as well as a number of related measures. You can help us by participating in our research here.