Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering
@article{Mrazek2013MindfulnessTI, title={Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering}, author={Michael D. Mrazek and Michael S. Franklin and Dawa T. Phillips and Benjamin Baird and Jonathan W. Schooler}, journal={Psychological Science}, year={2013}, volume={24}, pages={776 - 781} }
Given that the ability to attend to a task without distraction underlies performance in a wide variety of contexts, training one’s ability to stay on task should result in a similarly broad enhancement of performance. In a randomized controlled investigation, we examined whether a 2-week mindfulness-training course would decrease mind wandering and improve cognitive performance. Mindfulness training improved both GRE reading-comprehension scores and working memory capacity while simultaneously…
806 Citations
Brief Mindfulness Breathing Exercises and Working Memory Capacity: Findings from Two Experimental Approaches
- PsychologyBrain sciences
- 2021
It is suggested that a single session of mindful practice may not be sufficient to enhance working memory capacity, as shown in the results of two experiments.
Taming a wandering attention: short-form mindfulness training in student cohorts
- PsychologyFront. Hum. Neurosci.
- 2014
Results suggest that while short-form MT did not bolster working memory task performance, it may help curb mind wandering and should, therefore, be further investigated for its use in academic contexts.
Mindfulness, Attention, and Working Memory
- Psychology
- 2015
The human mind relies on a set of processes to guide moment-to-moment experience. These processes include attention and working memory. Interest in cognitive training results from the knowledge that…
Brief Mindfulness Meditation Training Reduces Mind Wandering: The Critical Role of Acceptance
- PsychologyEmotion
- 2017
In one of the first experimental mindfulness training dismantling studies to-date, it is shown that training in acceptance is a critical driver of mindfulness-training reductions in mind wandering, which suggests that acceptance skills may facilitate emotion regulation on boring and frustrating sustained attention tasks that foster mind wandering.
The protective effects of brief mindfulness meditation training
- PsychologyConsciousness and Cognition
- 2015
Online-based Mindfulness Training Reduces Behavioral Markers of Mind Wandering
- Psychology
- 2017
It is estimated that people spend almost half their waking hours lost in stimulus-independent thought, or mind wandering, which in turn has been shown to negatively impact well-being. This has…
A More Rigorous Examination of the Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Working Memory Capacity
- Psychology
- 2018
Working memory is a core cognitive system that is thought to support many forms of complex cognition. Mindfulness meditation has shown promise in improving the functioning of the working memory…
The Effects of a Mindful Listening Task on Mind-Wandering
- Psychology
- 2016
Mind-wandering has been linked to reductions in mood as well as performance decrements on a variety of tasks, including reading comprehension. The present study sought to evaluate whether the…
Meditation training influences mind wandering and mindless reading.
- Psychology
- 2016
It is challenging for individuals to maintain their attention on ongoing cognitive tasks without being distracted by task-unrelated thought. The wandering mind is thus a considerable obstacle when…
The effects of adaptive working memory training and mindfulness meditation training on processing efficiency and worry in high worriers.
- PsychologyBehaviour research and therapy
- 2017
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 27 REFERENCES
The Impact of Intensive Mindfulness Training on Attentional Control, Cognitive Style, and Affect
- PsychologyCognitive Therapy and Research
- 2007
To evaluate the impact of an intensive period of mindfulness meditation training on cognitive and affective function, a non-clinical group of 20 novice meditators were tested before and after…
Examining the protective effects of mindfulness training on working memory capacity and affective experience.
- PsychologyEmotion
- 2010
Findings suggest that sufficient MT practice may protect against functional impairments associated with high-stress contexts, and that MT-related improvements in WMC may support some but not all of MT's salutary effects.
The role of mind-wandering in measurements of general aptitude.
- PsychologyJournal of experimental psychology. General
- 2012
It is proposed that mind-wandering is associated with performance on tests of working memory capacity and fluid intelligence, thereby partially explaining both the reliable correlations between these tests and their broad predictive utility.
Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention
- PsychologyPsychological science
- 2010
Improvements in visual discrimination are linked to increases in perceptual sensitivity and improved vigilance during sustained visual attention, suggesting that perceptual improvements can reduce the resource demand imposed by target discrimination and thus make it easier to sustain voluntary attention.
Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory: a meta-analysis
- PsychologyPsychonomic bulletin & review
- 2015
It is concluded that short-term cognitive training on the order of weeks can result in beneficial effects in important cognitive functions as measured by laboratory tests.
Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners
- PsychologyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2007
In age-matched participants, using functional MRI, it was found that activation in a network of brain regions typically involved in sustained attention showed an inverted u-shaped curve in which expert meditators (EMs) with an average of 19,000 h of practice had more activation than novices, but EMs with anAverage of 44,000H had less activation.
Meta-awareness, perceptual decoupling and the wandering mind
- PsychologyTrends in Cognitive Sciences
- 2011
Experience sampling during fMRI reveals default network and executive system contributions to mind wandering
- PsychologyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2009
An fMRI study that used experience sampling to provide an online measure of mind wandering during a concurrent task revealed a number of crucial aspects of the neural recruitment associated with mind wandering, highlighting the value of combining subjective self-reports with online measures of brain function for advancing the understanding of the neurophenomenology of subjective experience.