Meditators and non-meditators on sustained and executive attentional performance

Abstract

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the mindfulness construct and the mental health benefits associated with mindfulness-based programmes, the relation between mindfulness and its proposed core component attention was studied. Buddhist and Western mindfulness meditators were compared with non-meditators on tasks of sustained (SART) and executive (the Stroop Task) attention. Relations between self-reported mindfulness (FFMQ) and sustained and executive attention were also analysed. No significant differences were found between meditators and non-meditators either in sustained or executive attention. High scores on the FFMQ total scale and on Describe were related to fewer SART errors. High scores on Describe were also related to low Stroop interference. Mindfulness meditators may have an increased awareness of internal processes and the ability to quickly attend to them but this type of refined attentional ability does not seem to be related to performance on attention tests requiring responses to external targets.

Keywords:

• attention
• meditation
• mental health
• mindfulness

Notes

Notes

1. FA meditation is defined as “voluntary focusing attention on a chosen object in a sustained fashion” (Lutz et al., 2008, p. 163).

2. Throughout this article, for sake of clarity, the term alerting attention will be referred to as sustained attention and conflict monitoring will be referred to as executive attention.

3. Stroop interference is a term used for the performance cost in reaction time between two Stroop conditions; the incongruent condition and a control condition. Stroop facilitation is another term used to reflect the difference in reaction time between a congruent and a neutral condition. While the former has been shown to slow down the process, the latter sometimes speeds it up (MacLeod, 2005).