This week, I decided to look at an article that discusses neuroplasticity, mind fitness, and military effectiveness. This article was extremely interesting discussing how important mind training is and it can be used to “improve self-regulation, enhance attention skills, increase flexibility in awareness and attention, decrease reactivity, cultivating emotional and social intelligence, and enhance values clarification and integrity.” (Stanley, 2010) Obviously these are all very essential for soldiers in combat especially attention, in order to affectively make decisions, carry out orders, and be aware of the dangerous environment and possible threats.
One way in which Stanley (2010) defines mind fitness is increasing the capacities of mental agility, emotional intelligence, improved attention and memory, and more. Mind fitness is carried out through means of meditation, yoga, and mindfulness. “It allows an individual to experience even very strong emotions with greater objectivity and less reactivity, which serves to counter our habitual tendency to avoid or deny difficult emotional states” (Stanley, 2010). The most important aspect of mind fitness is the idea of muscle memory. This idea is that through repetition, certain thoughts and actions that were second hand responses become the initial response. For example, when I played volleyball my coach consistently drilled techniques into our brains through repetition. Some of the most important aspects of volleyball is foot work. By practicing footwork many times a day, the footwork that previously felt foreign to me became second nature- I did not have to even think about it. The military wants its soldiers to have certain skills and reactions that are so imprinted within their brains that it becomes the initial response. This soldiers may make quick decisions and response correctly. An interesting thought the article provided was that we develop muscle memory with 300 repetitions and muscle mastery with 3,000 repetitions.
Another interesting aspect the article discusses is the fact that the military is already unknowingly implementing mindfulness within its training. This implementation is seen in teaching soldiers how to fire a weapon. “Soldiers learning how to fire the M–16 rifle are taught to pay attention to their breath and synchronize the breathing process to the trigger finger’s movement, “squeezing” off the round while exhaling. This synchronization has two effects. The gross motor effect is to steady the soldier’s aim, so that the round is more likely to hit its target. But this training also has the more subtle psychological effect of helping to steady the soldier’s concentration and heart, to offer something concrete to focus on as bullets are whizzing past. It provides an anchor in the midst of very trying physical and psychological conditions” (Stanley, 2010). I have learned how to shoot a gun, however I have never considered mindfulness training such as this. The article further suggests that this mindfulness training can be done with everyday tasks such as basketball or even doing the dishes. Mindfulness is a truly amazing phenomenon that can help individuals to increase their attention and focus while optimizing their potential to achieve goals. Another benefit of mindfulness is that it helps individuals to not act on impulse, but rather to access the gap between intention and action, so that all decisions and resulting behavior can be deliberate and intentional. This is not only important in the military but for all individuals. Many people tend to react on impulse rather than assessing the situation. Mindfulness can lead to analyzing the situation to produce the best possible outcome.
Overall mindfulness is a great tool for increasing attention and other important aspects, especially for military personnel. An increase in attention can be obtained through meditation, mindfulness training, yoga, and more. Attention increases may also prove beneficial for overall quality of life as we learn to assess a situation rather than to react on impulse and it may help improve our memory and relationships.
Terms: meditation, mindfulness, attention, mental agility, emotional intelligence, yoga, muscle memory, concentration, impulse, repetition
Stanley, E. (2010). Neuroplasticity, mind fitness, and military effectiveness. U.S. Army Field Manual 3
24/U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3–33.5
I picked this article on attention because it compares two different forms of meditation and how they both help to improve attention in different ways. I thought it would be interesting because it gives a good run down of how each form of meditation affects the brain neurologically as well as what areas of the brain are affected by meditation which is something I am really interested in. This source starts out by introducing one of the most basic forms of meditation which is focused-attention meditation (FAM). FAM participants focus all of their attention on a specific object or bodily sensation and the idea of this form of meditation is that whenever something distracts them they return their attention to that one object or sensation. When this is mastered you are able to achieve a state where you are free from all distraction. The long-term effect of FAM is that it greatly benefits attentional control. It also creates a higher level of activity in the right thalamus which has been found to contain many of the attention processes.
Studies have shown interesting data on attention-control and time spent meditating. Practitioners with 10,000-24,000 hours of practice showed a more significant amount of activation in the areas of the brain related to attention. This was in comparison to beginners with little to no experience. An interesting twist is that in practitioners with over 44,000 hours of experience there is actually less activation in the attention-related areas of the brain. This makes sense because at first meditation activates your brain at higher rates because it’s a newer skill, but as the skill is acquired and becomes natural your brain doesn’t have to focus on it as much and the stimulation decreases again. FAM is correlated with a much lower emotional reactivity level which allows experts to remain in a focused state and maintain their emotional stability. So if you compared a beginner and an expert that were both in this meditative state, you would find that the expert has used their dorsolateral frontal region and their right IFG more than the novice does in an attempt to maintain their emotional balance.
Another form of meditation is loving-kindness meditation (LKM). This form of meditation places an emphasis on the idea of universal love and compassion. It works to create the feeling of equality and to try and decrease other people’s pain in order to show compassion. One way to think about LKM is to image a human and then flow unconditional love and kindness towards that human. The hope is that eventually everything you do will be with love and compassion and this helps practitioners enter a focused state.
Studies were done on the effects of LKM and researchers found that LKM practitioners have a much higher level of sensory-perceptual processes as well as affective responses than beginners. Also if you practice LKM long-term it can help to enhance your sensitivity of other people’s emotions, or improve your empathy. Studies show that different forms of meditation actually have effects specific to meditation on neural activity. They also show that depending on the form of meditation, they can affect the plasticity in different, specific areas of the brain.
I didn’t realize before reading this source how different forms of meditation can affect your brain in so many different ways. I know there are different ways to meditate but I thought that they all probably affect you in the same ways. This source has shown evidence just between two types of meditation that there are large differences in what areas of your brain are actually affected.
For the attention blog this week, I found the article (2012) “Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Three Individuals with Aphasia.” The focus of this study was to find evidence to suggest that people with aphasia (PWA) may have deficits in attention stemming from the inefficient allocation of resources. Aphasia is a disorder caused by damage to the parts of the brain that control language. It can make it hard for you to read, write, and say what you mean to say.
There is a lack of treatment options for improving attention in aphasia. Mindfulness meditation is shown to improve attention in neurologically intact individuals and may prove effective in increasing attention in PWA. For the three PWA, divided attention was measured using a non-linguistic divided attention task. Visual inspection of the data was used to determine changes in performance (sense of effort, reaction time and accuracy, language) over time. There were no observable changes in the performance on the sense of effort or language measures; however, measures of reaction time may indicate mindfulness meditation improved efficiency of task completion. The three subjects with aphasia reported feeling more ‘relaxed’ and ‘peaceful’ after mindfulness meditation training than before.
I find this study interesting because it shows how mindfulness can positively affect the brain, although the mind, or consciousness, is said to be a separate entity from the brain. Even for those with a disorder in the brain, mindfulness meditation can help improve their symptoms by increasing attention. More research needs to be conducted to find the bridge between the mind and the brain/body and rid the mind-body problem.
Key terms: attention; mindfulness meditation; aphasia; consciousness; mind-body problem
Orenstein, E., Basilakos, A., & Marshall, R. (2012). Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on three individuals with aphasia. International Journal Of Language & Communication Disorders, 47(6), 673-684. doi:10.1111/j.1460-6984.2012.00173.x
This week I looked at a study that was conducted at the “Laboratory for Body and Mind” at Dalian University, “Laboratory for Mental Health” at the Chinese Academy of Science, Center for Social and Organizational Behavior, and the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences. This study was not only analyzing previous mediation studies, but they also conducted their own study. They used previous studies to understand meditation effects on the brain, and supplemented their own study to understand meditation effects on behavior. This study not only focuses on attention, but also analyzes how attention effects intelligence. They found significant improvements in multiple content areas between their experimental and control groups. Their study consisted of a total of 80, healthy undergrad participants, currently attending Dalian University of Technology. None of the participants had prior experience with mediation, although all had expressed an interest. They randomly assigned 40 participants to both the control, and experimental groups; and began their distinction to understand the meditative effects.
This article looks at how integrative body-mind training (IBMT) impacts attention. They found a positive correlation between their control group, and experimental group; with the experimental group experiencing “significant improvement…after training (p.005). (pg 17153)” The experimental group was composed of 40 undergrad Chinese students that received 3 months of IBMT training with a coach. The control group consisted of 40 students who were the same number, and length of groups sessions however, they did not have a coach, and received instructions form a CD. They were observed by a coach through closed circuit TV. Both groups showed activation in attention related brain regions, however the experimental group saw greater activation. The experimental group not only saw better attention activation in the cortex, but also experienced better self-regulation of emotion. This was not the case for the control group. This experiment relied on Attention Network Test (ANT), and Ravin’s Matrices to test intelligence. They determined that the experimental group that had received an increased score on their ANT test relating to attention, also received a higher Ravin’s score of intelligence. “Sort-term IBMT can improve the Raven’s score in the experimental group, although only marginally more so than in the control group. (pg 17153)” Overall they concluded that IBMT is an effective way for improving “self-regulation in cognition, emotion, and social behavior.” They found consistences within the belief that meditation in the form of IBMT training improved awareness, and quality of “moment-to-moment” awareness (pg 17155). In this study they also tested stress between experimental and control groups finding that the experimental group saw lower cortisol levels after being subjected to stress inducing situations.
Tang, Yi-Yuan., Ma, Yinghua, Wang, Jungong, Fan, Yaxin, Feng, Shigang, Lu, Qilin, Yu, Qingbao, Sui, Danni, Rothbart, Marry K., Fan, Ming, Posner, Michael I. 2007. “Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation.” PNAS; 104(43) 17152-17156.
For today’s blog, we were asked to find an article related to attention. I just searched for articles using the terms meditation and attention and stumbled upon something pretty interesting. I found an abstract to an article depicting a relationship between meditation, attention, and hypnotic susceptibility. According to this study, sustained attention was positively correlated with susceptibility to hypnosis. I thought this topic was really interesting because I personally have gone to see hypnotists, both in high school and in college. I was never able to be hypnotized when I went. I always wondered why it was that I was unable to be hypnotized, even once. I had heard previously that people are unable to be hypnotized if they do not trust the hypnotist. I didn’t feel like I was really distrustful of the hypnotists, though I might have been skeptical of their ability, seeing as I could never be hypnotized previously. There are probably a number of reasons that could explain why I was unable to be hypnotized in the past, but from what this article says, it might be due to the fact that I had a low attention span. Before I started meditating, I had a terribly small ability to focus. The subjects in the study performed two 15-minute meditation exercises and two attention related tasks then underwent 3 tasks assessing hypnotic susceptibility. The meditation measures of attention correlated with hypnotizability, meaning increased attention is necessary in order to be hypnotized.
Unfortunately for me, the full article was unavailable unless I paid for it, so I tried to look for similar articles. Another article I found looked at the relationship between sustained attentional ability and hypnotic susceptibility. This article was interesting because it said attention was a multi-faceted construct and thus attempted to break it down by using many different measures: attentional control, word pairs, mental imagery, absorption, music meditation intrusions, signal detection intrusions, and reversible figures. One thing I find unsatisfying about the attentional control measure is that it was measured via a self-report questionnaire. I feel like some sort of task would better measure attention control, though I understand the lack of time or resources available during this study to include another task.
Of all these measures, it was found that hypnotic susceptibility was only significantly correlated with absorption. According to psychology, absorption is a personality trait in which a person becomes absorbed in his or her own mental imagery, like fantasizing. Thus it makes sense that the more likely someone is to be absorbed in their own fantasies the more likely they are to be hypnotized. They have a predisposition to be mentally engaged in a false reality.
I really would have liked to read the full first article to see how meditation related to hypnotic susceptibility, but I can infer that meditation increased attention and therefore increased hypnotic susceptibility as well. I wonder now that I have been practicing mediation, which has in other aspects of my life increased by ability to attend to things, if I would be able to be hypnotized.
Terms: meditation, attention, hypnotic susceptibility, absorption
Link to full article: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=33f7a373-3258-4780-812c-0971784e7b5c%40sessionmgr198&hid=115
I found an article that discussed mindfulness in patients with aphasia. It was an incredibly small study that focused on three patients with aphasia. The researchers discussed that meditation had previously been shown to be incredibly effective in increasing attention in those who do not have neurological disorders. The three participants were around the age of 50 and had aphasia’s that ranged from mild to moderate. The researchers found that there was actually no difference in divided attention tasks in language. It is possible, however, that meditation played a role in increasing processing speed and the patients reported feeling more relaxed. The researchers speculated that they would need more time with meditation to see more benefits in regards to attention. The study itself was 9 weeks long with different levels/lengths of meditation taking place at different times. The participants were often left to meditate by themselves on their own time which may have been a confound.
I found the results of this study to be disappointing. I think it is important to realize though that meditation is not a cure all and is only able to do so much. While meditation has been shown to create changes in the brain, when a brain is as damaged as it is in someone with aphasia it may not work as well. I would be interested to see follow up studies that explore this idea more because it may have the potential to help these patients. At the very least, these patients are still getting the other benefits such as relaxation and overall higher wellbeing.
For this assignment I had originally aimed towards researching meditation treatments for ADHD. However after finding out that research was limited in the area and previous articles were lame I went into EBSCO and searched Meditation treatments for learning disabilities. ADHD is a learning disability as you may already know but by searching this vs. ADHD it provided me with a much larger selection of articles. So after reading through multiple abstracts I came across an article that I believed could relate to me, my diagnosis, and things/situations I sometimes lack due to my LD. The article I chose was named, “Mindfulness Meditation May Lessen Anxiety, Promote Social Skills, and Improve Academic Performance Among Adolescents with Learning Disabilities” by James Beauchemin, Tiffany L. Hutchins, and Fiona Patterson.
This article indicated that mediation practice may serve as an effective technique for lowering levels of anxiety (as we have learned already), enhance social skills, as well as further develop individuals perceptions of their self. The abstract explains that research in meditation linking to stress and academic performance is available. However, there is very little research relating to the topic of meditation and its effects on social skills, anxiety, and academic performance within individuals suffering from a learning disability. This study (if I understood it correctly) consisted of the participation of 8-12 individuals from four different high schools who had been previously diagnosed with a learning disabilities who also had high levels of academic anxiety, problems interacting with others, and low levels of academic performance. This article aims to understand and further explain the fact that meditation may reduce anxiety, increase attention, and hopefully lead to improved social skills in individuals with learning disabilities. For this study I came to the understanding that of all other forms of meditation being considered, mindfulness meditation (MM) was the one used. Reason being, it has shown to reduce levels of anxiety, provide a better understanding and acceptance of self, and enhance awareness. Used for this study was the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) in a test-retest form, The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) which was also test-retest form, also used was an post intervention questionnaire in the form of a three likert type scale.
The study consisted of a minimum of 10 minuet mediation session at the start of each class and persisted for five weeks. Of course the study consisted of a control group as well. The findings of this study were relevant to what they had hypothesized. Their results shown to be consistent with the “cognitive interference model”. There had also been consistent reports by parents and teachers of the individuals participating in the study of positive detailed recordings of students progress as well as the students self reports. There for it is believed that mindfulness meditation does in fact improve social skills, lower levels of stress, and improve performance in individuals with a diagnosed learning disability. Even though this study ended with the results they were looking for it was made clear that more information and research is needed within this area of study to fully understand and back up the results of these conclusions. I enjoyed this article because it revealed new information (social skills) and its relation to meditation practice. There for it was easier for me to keep focus!
Terms: ADHD, learning disability (LD), mindfulness meditation (MM), Social Skills Rating System (SSRS), The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), test-retest, cognitive interference model
Something that has always interested me about meditation is how each session seems to last so much longer than it does in reality. The study that I looked at aimed to see how the attentional focus of meditation would affect perception of time. There were two groups, a control who funny enough listened to The Hobbit and the meditation group that listened to a mindfulness and body recording. Before listening to the recording each group observed a short and long duration of time and then recorded their estimate of how long it was. This test was repeated after the audio recording intervention. What the researchers found was that the meditation group was more likely to underestimate the amount of time that had passed. Previous theories believe that the more aroused a person increases the amount of heartbeats, causing the perception of more time passing than really is. However, while the researchers weren’t able to test their theory directly, they believe that this is not the case with meditation because arousal should decrease. They also theorize that this underestimation could be due to attention skills increasing and speeding up temporal processing. I found this study really interesting to see how consistent change in perception in time was in meditators since it’s something that many of us anecdotally notice.
For this week’s blog, I read a study on Meditation improving meditation and memory. This study focused on undergraduates GRE scores. The study had two groups: one group that went to a meditation class class for 45 minutes a day, four days per week for two weeks. The other group did the same but instead went to the nutrition class. Each participant took the GRE before they started the class and two weeks after. Along with the GRE’s the students were given tests that required students focus and attention. For the mediation class, the students would be in a room with cushions in a circle. They were taught how to meditate and meditation posture. They were instructed to think about the taste of their favorite fruit, their breathing or a recording that the class will listen to. Those who were in the medication class were also given homework to meditate for at least 10 minutes per day. After the two weeks each students retook the GRE. Those who were enrolled in the nutrition classes scored did not improve. The students who were in the meditation class made progress on their attention tests and scored up to 70 points more on their GREs. The study points out that people are willing to pay thousands of dollars on GRE prep courses but meditation is free!!
This article confirms what we have been reading and researching all semester. Meditation is beneficial in many ways including attention. This article really made me think more about the affects of meditation. With the GREs are looming around the corner I can use all the help I can get. Not only will meditation potentially improve my score and attention, it's overall very calming and a stress reliever.
The attention blog was a little hard to do because searching for an article was a little difficult. It was hard to find a credible research article that wasn’t just some blog reporting that they could pay attention better because of their meditation. While I believe that self-report is important, I was looking for something a little bit more concrete. I ended up finding an older article that pertains to meditation and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactive disorder). The meditation in this article is similar to transcendental meditation (from now on known as TM) and had participants use the mantra “one”. The article goes on to say that TM is the most common form of meditation (maybe now aside from yoga) that is practiced in the United States. The popularity is due to its relative simplicity and small learning curve in comparison to some of the other forms of meditation.
The study had a control group (participants who were randomly selected to be on a waiting list), an experimental group (participants who were told to meditation two times a day for 20 minutes), and another group practicing another form of relaxation to show the difference between meditation and relaxing. The relaxation group practiced muscle relaxation similar to what we talked about in class. The participants were asked to do muscle relaxation by tightening their muscles, holding it for a little bit, and then releasing and letting their muscles relax. The control group of people on the waiting list didn’t change their behavior over the course of the study.
Twenty four subjects were selected and most were referred by school psychologists and special education teachers. A few of the participants’ responded to an ad in the paper. Participants were screened out and were only accepted if they met the following prerequisites; (1) They were male between the ages of seven and twelve, (2) they met the requirements for ADHD as defined by the DSM-III, (3) they were rated as hyperactive by either their parents or legal guardian, (4) were free from neurological disease of psychosis, (5) had informed consent from parent or legal guardian. In order to have enough participants for this experiment, participants were allowed to be able to be taking medication. The only limitation of this was that these participants were not completely randomly assigned to the three groups; rather they were organized to have even numbers within each of the 3 groups.
The results show that the meditation had an effect on participant’s attention as well as other measures of test anxiety and impulsivity. Not only was the TM meditation in lowering impulsivity and test anxiety, the muscle relaxation had a similar effect. There was also a test of locus of control which did not show any significant difference between the three groups. The results did show that both the meditation and muscle relaxation groups assisted with test anxiety which in turn allowed students to answer test questions more accurately and with fewer careless mistakes. This study conflicts with previous work that stated that hyperactivity and a relaxed state were incompatible.
This week we had to find an article on attention. I found an article from the creators of headspace the app that talked about attention and how meditation can help to improve it. They cited a few articles in the article that I also read. The first one doesn’t deal with how mediation affects attention but that the lack of self-discipline impaired students IQ scores. The original article that this came from though was about how mediation can help attention because it helps us to become more self-disciplined which in turn helps us to be able to focus better. This article discussed that the ability to have self-discipline was one of the biggest predictors of IQ scores from beginning of the year till the end. Another part that the headspace article talked about was how people spend more than $3billion a year on “smart drugs” they don’t talk about what these drugs are but I would guess probably adhd medication. An article that they cited that I found interesting was about a study that was done with military personal and discovered that stress reduces our working memory capacity. So the more stress we have there is a decrease in ones ability to have working memory and pay attention to crucial information. They also cited a few more articles that talked about the difference between long-term meditators and short-term meditators, with their ability to have better attention. They found that even short-term meditation could improve an individual’s ability to maintain attention. Although long-term meditators did perform better the ST meditators still performed much better than was previously thought. The article did cite some relevant material but basically it was just a bit to then get people to sign up for headspace and a 10 day trail that they are doing.
terms: meditation, adhd, stress, working memory, self-disipline
In searching for an article about sleep and meditation I stumble on this one. While it may have sleep in the title I feel it relates more to attention and how meditation increases attention. This study examines whether meditation improves performance on psychomotor vigilance tasks (PVT). The secondary purpose of the study was to examine if meditation change the amount of sleep needed but this did not yield conclusive results.
Psychomotor vigilance tasks (PVT) are measures of reaction time to a stimulus, such as a light flashing on a screen. For this study participants were measured on a PVT before and after a 40 bout of either meditation, nap, or a controlled activity (often just holding a conversation to stay awake). The study was a within subjects cross over design with two days of testing on each category. It also included one night of sleep deprivation followed by meditation to measure the effects of meditation as a possible sleep substitute. The PVT test was administered before the activity, 10 minutes after, and one hour later, all measuring reaction time.
Subjects were college students from the University of Kentucky. The participants had no experience with meditation prior to the experiment. They were then instructed on the basics of meditation focusing of breathing. On days of PVT testing participants were assigned to one of the variable groups and instructed to do said activity, done in a quite room, for 40 minutes.
The results of the study showed improvement in reaction time of the PVT after meditation. This, however, was only for the post-test conducted 10 minutes after meditation. After one hour reaction time had returned to the baseline. This indicates short-term benefits for meditation effects on attention. The quicker reaction time indicates a higher level of focus and quicker response. Response time also improved under the condition of sleep deprivation followed by a meditation session. These results can be contrast to the other conditions, after a 40 minute nap reaction times slowed and after a neutral condition reaction time stayed the same.
This study showed definitive improvement after a session of mediation. One of the major issues I take with this study is that it did not use experienced meditators. It shows short-term results for novice meditators. I think it would be interesting to conduct a study comparing reaction time of experienced meditators to those of novice and non-meditators. This could be done under normal sleep conditions and under sleep deprivation to compare results.
Terms: meditation, PVT, reaction time, attention, sleep deprivation
Kaul, P., Passaflume, J., Sargent, C., & O’Hare, B. (2010). Meditation acutely improves psychomotor vigilance, and may decrease sleep need. Behavior And Brain Functions: BBF, 647. doi: 10.1186/1744-9081-6-47
For this blog I wanted to look up something more related to a child’s attention than anything. There are a lot of studies out there on children with ADHA and how meditation can help with their symptoms, but this one stuck out to me the most. Sahaja Yoga Meditation as a Family Treatment Program for Children with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder. This was an experiment done because of the growing popularity of non-medicine related treatments for children with ADHD.
Parents and children participated in a 6-week program of twice-weekly clinic sessions and regular meditation at home. Pre- and post-treatment assessments included parent ratings of children’s ADHD symptoms, self-esteem and child–parent relationship quality. The method they used for treatment was Sahaja Yoga Meditation which is a combination exercise of yoga, deep breathing skills and meditation. The children were then separated in to these groups: Children with no prior medication, children with ADHD medication, Children with reduced dosage of ADHD medication, and children with same dosage of ADHD medication.
All were then put in to the six week trial of Sahaja yoga meditation, and results were gathered after the one week, three week, and six week mark. The results of this trial program indicated that Sahaja Yoga Meditation has potential as a promising therapy for children with ADHD, when it is offered to a family treatment approach and in combination with existing medical treatment. The results showed in every group increases in the preferred behavior, and family members stated that they had better relationships because of it. The biggest increase was in the combination of medicine and therapy groups. The only issue I had with this study was the lack of control group, but even the author goes over this fact and they plan to do it again with the added control group for a better comparison.
Terms: Attenion, meditation, ADHD, relationships, therapy http://www.sahajvidya.org.uk/_Find_a_meeting/Medical_and_Scientific/adhd.pdf
For this blog I searched for how meditation relates to attention. I found a brief study conducted by the University of California Santa Barbara. Researchers had 48 undergraduate students take either a mindfulness meditation class or a nutrition class. For two weeks, classes met for 45 minutes, four times per week. They were taught by professionals with extensive teaching experience in their respective fields. The meditation class emphasized the posture and mental strategies of focused-attention meditation. It required participants to integrate mindfulness into their daily activities and to complete 10 minutes of daily meditation outside of class. Each mindfulness class included 10 to 20 minutes of mindfulness exercises requiring focused attention to some aspect of sensory experience. The nutrition program, on the other hand, covered topics in nutrition science and applied strategies for healthy eating. They were also assigned to log their daily food intake, but they were not required to make any specific dietary changes.
The students participating in both the mindfulness and nutrition classes took the GRE, memory tests, and tests of distractibility before and after the two-weeks of class. I don’t quite fully understand exactly what they did in the memory and distractibility tests but participants counted their "task-unrelated thoughts" while doing things that required concentration. Scores improved in the mindfulness-trained group, but not the nutrition-trained group. The meditation group’s average GRE verbal score went from 460 to 520. They also improved on tests of working memory and focus. This study convinced me probably more than anything that meditation is very effective. Because the study dealt with tests scores, especially a test like the GRE, it really resonated with me. I will definitely be meditating religiously for a few weeks before I take big tests. Right now it’s kind of difficult to convince myself to take time to meditate because I feel so much pressure to study for finals, but I’m am trying my best to squeeze it in in between study groups. I also liked this article because it was succinct and to-the-point making it easy and quick to read which was very refreshing.
Source:
Mrazek, M., Franklin, M., Phillips, D., Baird, B., & Schooler, S. (20013). Mindfulness training improves working memory capacity and GRE performance while reducing mind wandering. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797612459659
For the longest time, attention was that as a stagnant ability. Researchers thought that attention could not be trained to either become more enduring (i.e., longer lasting) or more flexible. For example, human attention is naturally more attuned to global phenomena than local phenomena. In other words, it is easier to see the forest than the trees and easier to see the tree than the leaves.
Recently, research has indicated that video games, of all things, have the potential to improve attention to become both more enduring and more flexible. However, the gains in attention are moderated by potential for addiction and increased aggression, neither of which are desirable traits. That being said, meditation offers a fairly reasonable compromise with its ability to improve both forms of attention without the additional ramifications of increased video game usage. Meditation is also a more inclusive practice as one does not need remarkable dexterity or eyesight to practice, so even the elderly can begin incorporating it into their lives.
To demonstrate the efficacy of meditation on improving attention, the researchers used sixteen participants in the study. Eight of the participants were Buddhist monks who had been practicing meditation for years while the other eight, controlled for both age and educational factors, had never practiced meditation before. The monks practiced focused attention (FA) meditation where the meditators attend to a very narrow list of items, such as breath, while ignoring distracters. The researchers then measured their performance on a specific attention task. The results indicated that the meditators completed their task much more quickly than the non-meditators, thereby confirming the authors’ hypothesis that meditation improves attention.
This finding is particularly important because of the immense abundance of information and sensory processing available at any given moment, especially with the advent of the internet age. With all this information available at our fingertips, it is especially difficult to focus on any one thing. Research demonstrates this may cause problems in certain relationships because we are not attuned and cannot attune to the people we are with.
Additionally, this affects our ability to learn quickly and poses difficult for instructors to capture our attention. Meditation may allow us to look at the big picture, then identify the important details (trees) and then focus in on them in a relatively quick period of time. When we develop that attention, we can then maintain it for longer periods of time. Again, this supports my belief that meditation could and should be incorporated into our educational system as it is our youth with whom the problem needs most addressed. My generation is particularly adept at multi-tasking, but has significant trouble focusing in on any given item.
This week’s reading blog topic was attention. Tang et al., (2007) suggested that months to years of intensive and systematic meditation training can improve attention. Groups randomly assigned to 5 days of meditation practice with the integrative body-mind training method shows significantly better attention and control of stress than a similarly chosen control group given relaxation training. The training method comes from traditional Chinese medicine and incorporates aspects of other meditation and mindfulness training.
I thought this article was very interesting because it mentioned a different style of meditation, integrative body-mind training. Integrative body-mind training was developed in the 1990s, and its effects have been studied in China since 1995. Based on the results from hundreds of adults and children ranging from 4 to 90 years old in China, integrative body-mind training practice improves emotional and cognitive performance and social behavior. Integrative body-mind training achieves the desired state by first giving a brief instruction period on the method called initial mind setting and its goal is to induce a cognitive or emotional set that will influence the training. The method stresses no effort to control thoughts, but instead a state of restful alertness that allows a high degree of awareness of body, breathing, and external instructions from a compact disc. It stresses a balance state of relaxation while focusing attention. Thought control is achieved gradually through posture and relaxation, body-mind harmony, and balance with the help of the coach rather than by making the trainee attempt an internal struggle to control thoughts in accordance with instruction.
Training in this method is followed by 5 days of group practice, during which a coach answers questions and observes facial and body cues to identify those people who are struggling with the method. The trainees concentrate on achieving a balanced state of mind while being guided by the coach and the compact disc that teaches them to relax, adjusting their breathing, and use mental imagery. Tang et al. (2007) used a random assignment of 40 Chinese undergraduates to an experimental group and 40 to a control group for 5 days of training 20 minutes per day. The experimental group was given a short term of integrative body-mind training. Training was presented in a standardized way by compact disc and guided by a skillful integrative body-mind training coach. Because of their significance the coaches generally have several years of experience with integrative body-mind training. The control group was given a form of relaxation training very popular in the West.
The two groups were given a battery of tests 1 week before training and immediately after the final training session. A standard computerized attention test measured orienting, alerting, and the ability to resolve conflict (executive attention). The Attention Network Test involves responding to an arrow target that is surrounded by flankers that point either in the same or opposite direction. Cues provide information on when a trial will occur and where the target will be. The Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrix, which is a standard culture fair intelligence test; an assay of mood state, the Profile of Mood States (POMS); and a stress challenge of a mental arithmetic task were followed by measures of cortisol and secretory IgA. All of these are standard assays scored objectively by people blind to the experimental condition.
Compared with the control group, the experimental group of 40 undergraduates Chinese students given 5 days of 20-min integrative training showed greater improvement in conflict scores on the Attention Network Test, lower anxiety, depression, anger, and fatigue, and higher vigor on the Mood State scale, a significant decrease in stress-related cortisol, and an increase in immunoreactivity. These results provide a convenient method for studying the influence of meditation training by using experimental and control methods similar to those used ti test drugs or other interventions.
Tang, Y. Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., Yu, Q., Sui, D., Rothbart, M., Fan, M., & Posner, M. I. (2007). Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(43), 17152-17156.
Terms: meditation training, attention, integrative body-mind training, control of stress, Chinese meditation, Attention Network Test, Profile of Mood States
This week, I decided to look at an article that discusses neuroplasticity, mind fitness, and military effectiveness. This article was extremely interesting discussing how important mind training is and it can be used to “improve self-regulation, enhance attention skills, increase flexibility in awareness and attention, decrease reactivity, cultivating emotional and social intelligence, and enhance values clarification and integrity.” (Stanley, 2010) Obviously these are all very essential for soldiers in combat especially attention, in order to affectively make decisions, carry out orders, and be aware of the dangerous environment and possible threats.
One way in which Stanley (2010) defines mind fitness is increasing the capacities of mental agility, emotional intelligence, improved attention and memory, and more. Mind fitness is carried out through means of meditation, yoga, and mindfulness. “It allows an individual to experience even very strong emotions with greater objectivity and less reactivity, which serves to counter our habitual tendency to avoid or deny difficult emotional states” (Stanley, 2010). The most important aspect of mind fitness is the idea of muscle memory. This idea is that through repetition, certain thoughts and actions that were second hand responses become the initial response. For example, when I played volleyball my coach consistently drilled techniques into our brains through repetition. Some of the most important aspects of volleyball is foot work. By practicing footwork many times a day, the footwork that previously felt foreign to me became second nature- I did not have to even think about it. The military wants its soldiers to have certain skills and reactions that are so imprinted within their brains that it becomes the initial response. This soldiers may make quick decisions and response correctly. An interesting thought the article provided was that we develop muscle memory with 300 repetitions and muscle mastery with 3,000 repetitions.
Another interesting aspect the article discusses is the fact that the military is already unknowingly implementing mindfulness within its training. This implementation is seen in teaching soldiers how to fire a weapon. “Soldiers learning how to fire the M–16 rifle are taught to pay attention to their breath and synchronize the breathing process to the trigger finger’s movement, “squeezing” off the round while exhaling. This synchronization has two effects. The gross motor effect is to steady the soldier’s aim, so that the round is more likely to hit its target. But this training also has the more subtle psychological effect of helping to steady the soldier’s concentration and heart, to offer something concrete to focus on as bullets are whizzing past. It provides an anchor in the midst of very trying physical and psychological conditions” (Stanley, 2010). I have learned how to shoot a gun, however I have never considered mindfulness training such as this. The article further suggests that this mindfulness training can be done with everyday tasks such as basketball or even doing the dishes. Mindfulness is a truly amazing phenomenon that can help individuals to increase their attention and focus while optimizing their potential to achieve goals. Another benefit of mindfulness is that it helps individuals to not act on impulse, but rather to access the gap between intention and action, so that all decisions and resulting behavior can be deliberate and intentional. This is not only important in the military but for all individuals. Many people tend to react on impulse rather than assessing the situation. Mindfulness can lead to analyzing the situation to produce the best possible outcome.
Overall mindfulness is a great tool for increasing attention and other important aspects, especially for military personnel. An increase in attention can be obtained through meditation, mindfulness training, yoga, and more. Attention increases may also prove beneficial for overall quality of life as we learn to assess a situation rather than to react on impulse and it may help improve our memory and relationships.
Terms: meditation, mindfulness, attention, mental agility, emotional intelligence, yoga, muscle memory, concentration, impulse, repetition
Stanley, E. (2010). Neuroplasticity, mind fitness, and military effectiveness. U.S. Army Field Manual 3
24/U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3–33.5
file:///C:/Users/us-splinraa/Downloads/Chapt18.pdf
I picked this article on attention because it compares two different forms of meditation and how they both help to improve attention in different ways. I thought it would be interesting because it gives a good run down of how each form of meditation affects the brain neurologically as well as what areas of the brain are affected by meditation which is something I am really interested in. This source starts out by introducing one of the most basic forms of meditation which is focused-attention meditation (FAM). FAM participants focus all of their attention on a specific object or bodily sensation and the idea of this form of meditation is that whenever something distracts them they return their attention to that one object or sensation. When this is mastered you are able to achieve a state where you are free from all distraction. The long-term effect of FAM is that it greatly benefits attentional control. It also creates a higher level of activity in the right thalamus which has been found to contain many of the attention processes.
Studies have shown interesting data on attention-control and time spent meditating. Practitioners with 10,000-24,000 hours of practice showed a more significant amount of activation in the areas of the brain related to attention. This was in comparison to beginners with little to no experience. An interesting twist is that in practitioners with over 44,000 hours of experience there is actually less activation in the attention-related areas of the brain. This makes sense because at first meditation activates your brain at higher rates because it’s a newer skill, but as the skill is acquired and becomes natural your brain doesn’t have to focus on it as much and the stimulation decreases again. FAM is correlated with a much lower emotional reactivity level which allows experts to remain in a focused state and maintain their emotional stability. So if you compared a beginner and an expert that were both in this meditative state, you would find that the expert has used their dorsolateral frontal region and their right IFG more than the novice does in an attempt to maintain their emotional balance.
Another form of meditation is loving-kindness meditation (LKM). This form of meditation places an emphasis on the idea of universal love and compassion. It works to create the feeling of equality and to try and decrease other people’s pain in order to show compassion. One way to think about LKM is to image a human and then flow unconditional love and kindness towards that human. The hope is that eventually everything you do will be with love and compassion and this helps practitioners enter a focused state.
Studies were done on the effects of LKM and researchers found that LKM practitioners have a much higher level of sensory-perceptual processes as well as affective responses than beginners. Also if you practice LKM long-term it can help to enhance your sensitivity of other people’s emotions, or improve your empathy. Studies show that different forms of meditation actually have effects specific to meditation on neural activity. They also show that depending on the form of meditation, they can affect the plasticity in different, specific areas of the brain.
I didn’t realize before reading this source how different forms of meditation can affect your brain in so many different ways. I know there are different ways to meditate but I thought that they all probably affect you in the same ways. This source has shown evidence just between two types of meditation that there are large differences in what areas of your brain are actually affected.
Terminology: attention, meditation, neural activity, plasticity, focused attention meditation, right thalamus, dorsolateral frontal region, emotional stability, loving-kindness meditation
Lee, T. C., Mei-Kei, L., Wai-Kai, H., Tang, J. Y., Yin, J., Kwok-Fai, S., & ... Hamed, S. (2012). Distinct Neural Activity Associated with Focused-Attention Meditation and Loving-Kindness Meditation. Plos ONE, 7(8), 1-11. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040054
For the attention blog this week, I found the article (2012) “Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Three Individuals with Aphasia.” The focus of this study was to find evidence to suggest that people with aphasia (PWA) may have deficits in attention stemming from the inefficient allocation of resources. Aphasia is a disorder caused by damage to the parts of the brain that control language. It can make it hard for you to read, write, and say what you mean to say.
There is a lack of treatment options for improving attention in aphasia. Mindfulness meditation is shown to improve attention in neurologically intact individuals and may prove effective in increasing attention in PWA. For the three PWA, divided attention was measured using a non-linguistic divided attention task. Visual inspection of the data was used to determine changes in performance (sense of effort, reaction time and accuracy, language) over time. There were no observable changes in the performance on the sense of effort or language measures; however, measures of reaction time may indicate mindfulness meditation improved efficiency of task completion. The three subjects with aphasia reported feeling more ‘relaxed’ and ‘peaceful’ after mindfulness meditation training than before.
I find this study interesting because it shows how mindfulness can positively affect the brain, although the mind, or consciousness, is said to be a separate entity from the brain. Even for those with a disorder in the brain, mindfulness meditation can help improve their symptoms by increasing attention. More research needs to be conducted to find the bridge between the mind and the brain/body and rid the mind-body problem.
Key terms: attention; mindfulness meditation; aphasia; consciousness; mind-body problem
Orenstein, E., Basilakos, A., & Marshall, R. (2012). Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on three individuals with aphasia. International Journal Of Language & Communication Disorders, 47(6), 673-684. doi:10.1111/j.1460-6984.2012.00173.x
This week I looked at a study that was conducted at the “Laboratory for Body and Mind” at Dalian University, “Laboratory for Mental Health” at the Chinese Academy of Science, Center for Social and Organizational Behavior, and the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences. This study was not only analyzing previous mediation studies, but they also conducted their own study. They used previous studies to understand meditation effects on the brain, and supplemented their own study to understand meditation effects on behavior. This study not only focuses on attention, but also analyzes how attention effects intelligence. They found significant improvements in multiple content areas between their experimental and control groups. Their study consisted of a total of 80, healthy undergrad participants, currently attending Dalian University of Technology. None of the participants had prior experience with mediation, although all had expressed an interest. They randomly assigned 40 participants to both the control, and experimental groups; and began their distinction to understand the meditative effects.
This article looks at how integrative body-mind training (IBMT) impacts attention. They found a positive correlation between their control group, and experimental group; with the experimental group experiencing “significant improvement…after training (p.005). (pg 17153)” The experimental group was composed of 40 undergrad Chinese students that received 3 months of IBMT training with a coach. The control group consisted of 40 students who were the same number, and length of groups sessions however, they did not have a coach, and received instructions form a CD. They were observed by a coach through closed circuit TV. Both groups showed activation in attention related brain regions, however the experimental group saw greater activation. The experimental group not only saw better attention activation in the cortex, but also experienced better self-regulation of emotion. This was not the case for the control group. This experiment relied on Attention Network Test (ANT), and Ravin’s Matrices to test intelligence. They determined that the experimental group that had received an increased score on their ANT test relating to attention, also received a higher Ravin’s score of intelligence. “Sort-term IBMT can improve the Raven’s score in the experimental group, although only marginally more so than in the control group. (pg 17153)” Overall they concluded that IBMT is an effective way for improving “self-regulation in cognition, emotion, and social behavior.” They found consistences within the belief that meditation in the form of IBMT training improved awareness, and quality of “moment-to-moment” awareness (pg 17155). In this study they also tested stress between experimental and control groups finding that the experimental group saw lower cortisol levels after being subjected to stress inducing situations.
Tang, Yi-Yuan., Ma, Yinghua, Wang, Jungong, Fan, Yaxin, Feng, Shigang, Lu, Qilin, Yu, Qingbao, Sui, Danni, Rothbart, Marry K., Fan, Ming, Posner, Michael I. 2007. “Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation.” PNAS; 104(43) 17152-17156.
Terms: Attention, Stress, Cortisol, IBMT, ANT, Ravin’s Matrices, Self-Regulation,
For today’s blog, we were asked to find an article related to attention. I just searched for articles using the terms meditation and attention and stumbled upon something pretty interesting. I found an abstract to an article depicting a relationship between meditation, attention, and hypnotic susceptibility. According to this study, sustained attention was positively correlated with susceptibility to hypnosis. I thought this topic was really interesting because I personally have gone to see hypnotists, both in high school and in college. I was never able to be hypnotized when I went. I always wondered why it was that I was unable to be hypnotized, even once. I had heard previously that people are unable to be hypnotized if they do not trust the hypnotist. I didn’t feel like I was really distrustful of the hypnotists, though I might have been skeptical of their ability, seeing as I could never be hypnotized previously. There are probably a number of reasons that could explain why I was unable to be hypnotized in the past, but from what this article says, it might be due to the fact that I had a low attention span. Before I started meditating, I had a terribly small ability to focus. The subjects in the study performed two 15-minute meditation exercises and two attention related tasks then underwent 3 tasks assessing hypnotic susceptibility. The meditation measures of attention correlated with hypnotizability, meaning increased attention is necessary in order to be hypnotized.
Unfortunately for me, the full article was unavailable unless I paid for it, so I tried to look for similar articles. Another article I found looked at the relationship between sustained attentional ability and hypnotic susceptibility. This article was interesting because it said attention was a multi-faceted construct and thus attempted to break it down by using many different measures: attentional control, word pairs, mental imagery, absorption, music meditation intrusions, signal detection intrusions, and reversible figures. One thing I find unsatisfying about the attentional control measure is that it was measured via a self-report questionnaire. I feel like some sort of task would better measure attention control, though I understand the lack of time or resources available during this study to include another task.
Of all these measures, it was found that hypnotic susceptibility was only significantly correlated with absorption. According to psychology, absorption is a personality trait in which a person becomes absorbed in his or her own mental imagery, like fantasizing. Thus it makes sense that the more likely someone is to be absorbed in their own fantasies the more likely they are to be hypnotized. They have a predisposition to be mentally engaged in a false reality.
I really would have liked to read the full first article to see how meditation related to hypnotic susceptibility, but I can infer that meditation increased attention and therefore increased hypnotic susceptibility as well. I wonder now that I have been practicing mediation, which has in other aspects of my life increased by ability to attend to things, if I would be able to be hypnotized.
Terms: meditation, attention, hypnotic susceptibility, absorption
Link to full article: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=33f7a373-3258-4780-812c-0971784e7b5c%40sessionmgr198&hid=115
I found an article that discussed mindfulness in patients with aphasia. It was an incredibly small study that focused on three patients with aphasia. The researchers discussed that meditation had previously been shown to be incredibly effective in increasing attention in those who do not have neurological disorders. The three participants were around the age of 50 and had aphasia’s that ranged from mild to moderate. The researchers found that there was actually no difference in divided attention tasks in language. It is possible, however, that meditation played a role in increasing processing speed and the patients reported feeling more relaxed. The researchers speculated that they would need more time with meditation to see more benefits in regards to attention. The study itself was 9 weeks long with different levels/lengths of meditation taking place at different times. The participants were often left to meditate by themselves on their own time which may have been a confound.
I found the results of this study to be disappointing. I think it is important to realize though that meditation is not a cure all and is only able to do so much. While meditation has been shown to create changes in the brain, when a brain is as damaged as it is in someone with aphasia it may not work as well. I would be interested to see follow up studies that explore this idea more because it may have the potential to help these patients. At the very least, these patients are still getting the other benefits such as relaxation and overall higher wellbeing.
Terms: aphasia, mindfulness, meditation, wellbeing, relaxation, attention
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=c609ffc5-09af-4414-9a9b-65bf25918f06%40sessionmgr4005&vid=2&hid=4112
For this assignment I had originally aimed towards researching meditation treatments for ADHD. However after finding out that research was limited in the area and previous articles were lame I went into EBSCO and searched Meditation treatments for learning disabilities. ADHD is a learning disability as you may already know but by searching this vs. ADHD it provided me with a much larger selection of articles. So after reading through multiple abstracts I came across an article that I believed could relate to me, my diagnosis, and things/situations I sometimes lack due to my LD. The article I chose was named, “Mindfulness Meditation May Lessen Anxiety, Promote Social Skills, and Improve Academic Performance Among Adolescents with Learning Disabilities” by James Beauchemin, Tiffany L. Hutchins, and Fiona Patterson.
This article indicated that mediation practice may serve as an effective technique for lowering levels of anxiety (as we have learned already), enhance social skills, as well as further develop individuals perceptions of their self. The abstract explains that research in meditation linking to stress and academic performance is available. However, there is very little research relating to the topic of meditation and its effects on social skills, anxiety, and academic performance within individuals suffering from a learning disability. This study (if I understood it correctly) consisted of the participation of 8-12 individuals from four different high schools who had been previously diagnosed with a learning disabilities who also had high levels of academic anxiety, problems interacting with others, and low levels of academic performance. This article aims to understand and further explain the fact that meditation may reduce anxiety, increase attention, and hopefully lead to improved social skills in individuals with learning disabilities. For this study I came to the understanding that of all other forms of meditation being considered, mindfulness meditation (MM) was the one used. Reason being, it has shown to reduce levels of anxiety, provide a better understanding and acceptance of self, and enhance awareness. Used for this study was the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) in a test-retest form, The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) which was also test-retest form, also used was an post intervention questionnaire in the form of a three likert type scale.
The study consisted of a minimum of 10 minuet mediation session at the start of each class and persisted for five weeks. Of course the study consisted of a control group as well. The findings of this study were relevant to what they had hypothesized. Their results shown to be consistent with the “cognitive interference model”. There had also been consistent reports by parents and teachers of the individuals participating in the study of positive detailed recordings of students progress as well as the students self reports. There for it is believed that mindfulness meditation does in fact improve social skills, lower levels of stress, and improve performance in individuals with a diagnosed learning disability. Even though this study ended with the results they were looking for it was made clear that more information and research is needed within this area of study to fully understand and back up the results of these conclusions. I enjoyed this article because it revealed new information (social skills) and its relation to meditation practice. There for it was easier for me to keep focus!
Terms: ADHD, learning disability (LD), mindfulness meditation (MM), Social Skills Rating System (SSRS), The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), test-retest, cognitive interference model
Something that has always interested me about meditation is how each session seems to last so much longer than it does in reality. The study that I looked at aimed to see how the attentional focus of meditation would affect perception of time. There were two groups, a control who funny enough listened to The Hobbit and the meditation group that listened to a mindfulness and body recording. Before listening to the recording each group observed a short and long duration of time and then recorded their estimate of how long it was. This test was repeated after the audio recording intervention. What the researchers found was that the meditation group was more likely to underestimate the amount of time that had passed. Previous theories believe that the more aroused a person increases the amount of heartbeats, causing the perception of more time passing than really is. However, while the researchers weren’t able to test their theory directly, they believe that this is not the case with meditation because arousal should decrease. They also theorize that this underestimation could be due to attention skills increasing and speeding up temporal processing. I found this study really interesting to see how consistent change in perception in time was in meditators since it’s something that many of us anecdotally notice.
Kramer, R. S., Weger, U. W., & Sharma, D. (2013). The effect of mindfulness meditation on time perception. Consciousness And Cognition, 22846-852. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2013.05.008
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?sid=d215dcac-93ef-4966-9483-7b81ed500e11%40sessionmgr4001&vid=1&hid=4205&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=edselp&AN=S1053810013000792
For this week’s blog, I read a study on Meditation improving meditation and memory. This study focused on undergraduates GRE scores. The study had two groups: one group that went to a meditation class class for 45 minutes a day, four days per week for two weeks. The other group did the same but instead went to the nutrition class. Each participant took the GRE before they started the class and two weeks after. Along with the GRE’s the students were given tests that required students focus and attention. For the mediation class, the students would be in a room with cushions in a circle. They were taught how to meditate and meditation posture. They were instructed to think about the taste of their favorite fruit, their breathing or a recording that the class will listen to. Those who were in the medication class were also given homework to meditate for at least 10 minutes per day. After the two weeks each students retook the GRE. Those who were enrolled in the nutrition classes scored did not improve. The students who were in the meditation class made progress on their attention tests and scored up to 70 points more on their GREs. The study points out that people are willing to pay thousands of dollars on GRE prep courses but meditation is free!!
This article confirms what we have been reading and researching all semester. Meditation is beneficial in many ways including attention. This article really made me think more about the affects of meditation. With the GREs are looming around the corner I can use all the help I can get. Not only will meditation potentially improve my score and attention, it's overall very calming and a stress reliever.
Terms: mediation, attention, GREs, mindful, breathing
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/study-meditation-improves-memory-attention/275564/
The attention blog was a little hard to do because searching for an article was a little difficult. It was hard to find a credible research article that wasn’t just some blog reporting that they could pay attention better because of their meditation. While I believe that self-report is important, I was looking for something a little bit more concrete. I ended up finding an older article that pertains to meditation and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactive disorder). The meditation in this article is similar to transcendental meditation (from now on known as TM) and had participants use the mantra “one”. The article goes on to say that TM is the most common form of meditation (maybe now aside from yoga) that is practiced in the United States. The popularity is due to its relative simplicity and small learning curve in comparison to some of the other forms of meditation.
The study had a control group (participants who were randomly selected to be on a waiting list), an experimental group (participants who were told to meditation two times a day for 20 minutes), and another group practicing another form of relaxation to show the difference between meditation and relaxing. The relaxation group practiced muscle relaxation similar to what we talked about in class. The participants were asked to do muscle relaxation by tightening their muscles, holding it for a little bit, and then releasing and letting their muscles relax. The control group of people on the waiting list didn’t change their behavior over the course of the study.
Twenty four subjects were selected and most were referred by school psychologists and special education teachers. A few of the participants’ responded to an ad in the paper. Participants were screened out and were only accepted if they met the following prerequisites; (1) They were male between the ages of seven and twelve, (2) they met the requirements for ADHD as defined by the DSM-III, (3) they were rated as hyperactive by either their parents or legal guardian, (4) were free from neurological disease of psychosis, (5) had informed consent from parent or legal guardian. In order to have enough participants for this experiment, participants were allowed to be able to be taking medication. The only limitation of this was that these participants were not completely randomly assigned to the three groups; rather they were organized to have even numbers within each of the 3 groups.
The results show that the meditation had an effect on participant’s attention as well as other measures of test anxiety and impulsivity. Not only was the TM meditation in lowering impulsivity and test anxiety, the muscle relaxation had a similar effect. There was also a test of locus of control which did not show any significant difference between the three groups. The results did show that both the meditation and muscle relaxation groups assisted with test anxiety which in turn allowed students to answer test questions more accurately and with fewer careless mistakes. This study conflicts with previous work that stated that hyperactivity and a relaxed state were incompatible.
Terms: meditation, transcendental meditation, muscle relaxation, attention, ADHD
This week we had to find an article on attention. I found an article from the creators of headspace the app that talked about attention and how meditation can help to improve it. They cited a few articles in the article that I also read. The first one doesn’t deal with how mediation affects attention but that the lack of self-discipline impaired students IQ scores. The original article that this came from though was about how mediation can help attention because it helps us to become more self-disciplined which in turn helps us to be able to focus better. This article discussed that the ability to have self-discipline was one of the biggest predictors of IQ scores from beginning of the year till the end. Another part that the headspace article talked about was how people spend more than $3billion a year on “smart drugs” they don’t talk about what these drugs are but I would guess probably adhd medication. An article that they cited that I found interesting was about a study that was done with military personal and discovered that stress reduces our working memory capacity. So the more stress we have there is a decrease in ones ability to have working memory and pay attention to crucial information. They also cited a few more articles that talked about the difference between long-term meditators and short-term meditators, with their ability to have better attention. They found that even short-term meditation could improve an individual’s ability to maintain attention. Although long-term meditators did perform better the ST meditators still performed much better than was previously thought. The article did cite some relevant material but basically it was just a bit to then get people to sign up for headspace and a 10 day trail that they are doing.
terms: meditation, adhd, stress, working memory, self-disipline
In searching for an article about sleep and meditation I stumble on this one. While it may have sleep in the title I feel it relates more to attention and how meditation increases attention. This study examines whether meditation improves performance on psychomotor vigilance tasks (PVT). The secondary purpose of the study was to examine if meditation change the amount of sleep needed but this did not yield conclusive results.
Psychomotor vigilance tasks (PVT) are measures of reaction time to a stimulus, such as a light flashing on a screen. For this study participants were measured on a PVT before and after a 40 bout of either meditation, nap, or a controlled activity (often just holding a conversation to stay awake). The study was a within subjects cross over design with two days of testing on each category. It also included one night of sleep deprivation followed by meditation to measure the effects of meditation as a possible sleep substitute. The PVT test was administered before the activity, 10 minutes after, and one hour later, all measuring reaction time.
Subjects were college students from the University of Kentucky. The participants had no experience with meditation prior to the experiment. They were then instructed on the basics of meditation focusing of breathing. On days of PVT testing participants were assigned to one of the variable groups and instructed to do said activity, done in a quite room, for 40 minutes.
The results of the study showed improvement in reaction time of the PVT after meditation. This, however, was only for the post-test conducted 10 minutes after meditation. After one hour reaction time had returned to the baseline. This indicates short-term benefits for meditation effects on attention. The quicker reaction time indicates a higher level of focus and quicker response. Response time also improved under the condition of sleep deprivation followed by a meditation session. These results can be contrast to the other conditions, after a 40 minute nap reaction times slowed and after a neutral condition reaction time stayed the same.
This study showed definitive improvement after a session of mediation. One of the major issues I take with this study is that it did not use experienced meditators. It shows short-term results for novice meditators. I think it would be interesting to conduct a study comparing reaction time of experienced meditators to those of novice and non-meditators. This could be done under normal sleep conditions and under sleep deprivation to compare results.
Terms: meditation, PVT, reaction time, attention, sleep deprivation
Kaul, P., Passaflume, J., Sargent, C., & O’Hare, B. (2010). Meditation acutely improves psychomotor vigilance, and may decrease sleep need. Behavior And Brain Functions: BBF, 647. doi: 10.1186/1744-9081-6-47
For this blog I wanted to look up something more related to a child’s attention than anything. There are a lot of studies out there on children with ADHA and how meditation can help with their symptoms, but this one stuck out to me the most. Sahaja Yoga Meditation as a Family Treatment Program for Children with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder. This was an experiment done because of the growing popularity of non-medicine related treatments for children with ADHD.
Parents and children participated in a 6-week program of twice-weekly clinic sessions and regular meditation at home. Pre- and post-treatment assessments included parent ratings of children’s ADHD symptoms, self-esteem and child–parent relationship quality. The method they used for treatment was Sahaja Yoga Meditation which is a combination exercise of yoga, deep breathing skills and meditation. The children were then separated in to these groups: Children with no prior medication, children with ADHD medication, Children with reduced dosage of ADHD medication, and children with same dosage of ADHD medication.
All were then put in to the six week trial of Sahaja yoga meditation, and results were gathered after the one week, three week, and six week mark. The results of this trial program indicated that Sahaja Yoga Meditation has potential as a promising therapy for children with ADHD, when it is offered to a family treatment approach and in combination with existing medical treatment. The results showed in every group increases in the preferred behavior, and family members stated that they had better relationships because of it. The biggest increase was in the combination of medicine and therapy groups. The only issue I had with this study was the lack of control group, but even the author goes over this fact and they plan to do it again with the added control group for a better comparison.
Terms: Attenion, meditation, ADHD, relationships, therapy
http://www.sahajvidya.org.uk/_Find_a_meeting/Medical_and_Scientific/adhd.pdf
For this blog I searched for how meditation relates to attention. I found a brief study conducted by the University of California Santa Barbara. Researchers had 48 undergraduate students take either a mindfulness meditation class or a nutrition class. For two weeks, classes met for 45 minutes, four times per week. They were taught by professionals with extensive teaching experience in their respective fields. The meditation class emphasized the posture and mental strategies of focused-attention meditation. It required participants to integrate mindfulness into their daily activities and to complete 10 minutes of daily meditation outside of class. Each mindfulness class included 10 to 20 minutes of mindfulness exercises requiring focused attention to some aspect of sensory experience. The nutrition program, on the other hand, covered topics in nutrition science and applied strategies for healthy eating. They were also assigned to log their daily food intake, but they were not required to make any specific dietary changes.
The students participating in both the mindfulness and nutrition classes took the GRE, memory tests, and tests of distractibility before and after the two-weeks of class. I don’t quite fully understand exactly what they did in the memory and distractibility tests but participants counted their "task-unrelated thoughts" while doing things that required concentration. Scores improved in the mindfulness-trained group, but not the nutrition-trained group. The meditation group’s average GRE verbal score went from 460 to 520. They also improved on tests of working memory and focus. This study convinced me probably more than anything that meditation is very effective. Because the study dealt with tests scores, especially a test like the GRE, it really resonated with me. I will definitely be meditating religiously for a few weeks before I take big tests. Right now it’s kind of difficult to convince myself to take time to meditate because I feel so much pressure to study for finals, but I’m am trying my best to squeeze it in in between study groups. I also liked this article because it was succinct and to-the-point making it easy and quick to read which was very refreshing.
Terms: meditation, mindfulness, attention, sensory experience, concentration, distractibility, memory
Source:
Mrazek, M., Franklin, M., Phillips, D., Baird, B., & Schooler, S. (20013). Mindfulness training improves working memory capacity and GRE performance while reducing mind wandering. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797612459659
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.proxy.lib.uni.edu/pmc/articles/PMC3351800/
For the longest time, attention was that as a stagnant ability. Researchers thought that attention could not be trained to either become more enduring (i.e., longer lasting) or more flexible. For example, human attention is naturally more attuned to global phenomena than local phenomena. In other words, it is easier to see the forest than the trees and easier to see the tree than the leaves.
Recently, research has indicated that video games, of all things, have the potential to improve attention to become both more enduring and more flexible. However, the gains in attention are moderated by potential for addiction and increased aggression, neither of which are desirable traits. That being said, meditation offers a fairly reasonable compromise with its ability to improve both forms of attention without the additional ramifications of increased video game usage. Meditation is also a more inclusive practice as one does not need remarkable dexterity or eyesight to practice, so even the elderly can begin incorporating it into their lives.
To demonstrate the efficacy of meditation on improving attention, the researchers used sixteen participants in the study. Eight of the participants were Buddhist monks who had been practicing meditation for years while the other eight, controlled for both age and educational factors, had never practiced meditation before. The monks practiced focused attention (FA) meditation where the meditators attend to a very narrow list of items, such as breath, while ignoring distracters. The researchers then measured their performance on a specific attention task. The results indicated that the meditators completed their task much more quickly than the non-meditators, thereby confirming the authors’ hypothesis that meditation improves attention.
This finding is particularly important because of the immense abundance of information and sensory processing available at any given moment, especially with the advent of the internet age. With all this information available at our fingertips, it is especially difficult to focus on any one thing. Research demonstrates this may cause problems in certain relationships because we are not attuned and cannot attune to the people we are with.
Additionally, this affects our ability to learn quickly and poses difficult for instructors to capture our attention. Meditation may allow us to look at the big picture, then identify the important details (trees) and then focus in on them in a relatively quick period of time. When we develop that attention, we can then maintain it for longer periods of time. Again, this supports my belief that meditation could and should be incorporated into our educational system as it is our youth with whom the problem needs most addressed. My generation is particularly adept at multi-tasking, but has significant trouble focusing in on any given item.
Terms: focused attention meditation, attention
This week’s reading blog topic was attention. Tang et al., (2007) suggested that months to years of intensive and systematic meditation training can improve attention. Groups randomly assigned to 5 days of meditation practice with the integrative body-mind training method shows significantly better attention and control of stress than a similarly chosen control group given relaxation training. The training method comes from traditional Chinese medicine and incorporates aspects of other meditation and mindfulness training.
I thought this article was very interesting because it mentioned a different style of meditation, integrative body-mind training. Integrative body-mind training was developed in the 1990s, and its effects have been studied in China since 1995. Based on the results from hundreds of adults and children ranging from 4 to 90 years old in China, integrative body-mind training practice improves emotional and cognitive performance and social behavior. Integrative body-mind training achieves the desired state by first giving a brief instruction period on the method called initial mind setting and its goal is to induce a cognitive or emotional set that will influence the training. The method stresses no effort to control thoughts, but instead a state of restful alertness that allows a high degree of awareness of body, breathing, and external instructions from a compact disc. It stresses a balance state of relaxation while focusing attention. Thought control is achieved gradually through posture and relaxation, body-mind harmony, and balance with the help of the coach rather than by making the trainee attempt an internal struggle to control thoughts in accordance with instruction.
Training in this method is followed by 5 days of group practice, during which a coach answers questions and observes facial and body cues to identify those people who are struggling with the method. The trainees concentrate on achieving a balanced state of mind while being guided by the coach and the compact disc that teaches them to relax, adjusting their breathing, and use mental imagery. Tang et al. (2007) used a random assignment of 40 Chinese undergraduates to an experimental group and 40 to a control group for 5 days of training 20 minutes per day. The experimental group was given a short term of integrative body-mind training. Training was presented in a standardized way by compact disc and guided by a skillful integrative body-mind training coach. Because of their significance the coaches generally have several years of experience with integrative body-mind training. The control group was given a form of relaxation training very popular in the West.
The two groups were given a battery of tests 1 week before training and immediately after the final training session. A standard computerized attention test measured orienting, alerting, and the ability to resolve conflict (executive attention). The Attention Network Test involves responding to an arrow target that is surrounded by flankers that point either in the same or opposite direction. Cues provide information on when a trial will occur and where the target will be. The Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrix, which is a standard culture fair intelligence test; an assay of mood state, the Profile of Mood States (POMS); and a stress challenge of a mental arithmetic task were followed by measures of cortisol and secretory IgA. All of these are standard assays scored objectively by people blind to the experimental condition.
Compared with the control group, the experimental group of 40 undergraduates Chinese students given 5 days of 20-min integrative training showed greater improvement in conflict scores on the Attention Network Test, lower anxiety, depression, anger, and fatigue, and higher vigor on the Mood State scale, a significant decrease in stress-related cortisol, and an increase in immunoreactivity. These results provide a convenient method for studying the influence of meditation training by using experimental and control methods similar to those used ti test drugs or other interventions.
Tang, Y. Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., Yu, Q., Sui, D., Rothbart, M., Fan, M., & Posner, M. I. (2007). Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(43), 17152-17156.
Terms: meditation training, attention, integrative body-mind training, control of stress, Chinese meditation, Attention Network Test, Profile of Mood States