The Effect of Two Sessions Meditative Interventions on Attention Performance

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate whether two sessions of brief mindfulness focused attention manipulation improves the three attention networks: alerting, orienting and conflict monitoring. 52 novice meditators were randomly assigned to two groups: meditation training and a control relaxation training. Subjects were tested with performance measures of attentional ability before and after the interventions, and with a self-report measure of affect after the first intervention. The results did not support the expectations that mindfulness-based attention training is related to more efficient attentional performance on the Attention Network Test, as compared to the relaxation training group. Results are further discussed and directions for future research are suggested.