The most exciting thing to me about the exploration of meditation as a possible means to increase mindfulness and reduce mind wandering is that it is a practical approach to a problem everyone experiences. Unlike some of the studies we've looked at in this class on mind wandering and vigilance many of this weeks readings proposed that through meditation individuals could train certain aspects of their mind and behavior to better handle attention demanding situations. Eastern practices often receive a lot of skepticism but meditation is a very popular activity, and therefore makes it an perfect area of study. The question, however, remains whether or not the practice is actually effective and accomplishes what it says it does.
Based on past meditation experiences and on the introductory class that I attended I certainly believe that meditation relates to the training of attention. In a way it is almost counter intuitive. One may think that practicing vigilance tasks or altering environments to better suit the attention demanding task is the way to go. However this weeks reading explore the benefits of meditation. Often practiced in a calm and peaceful environment with no pressure to be correct or achieve perfection meditation seems to a way into gaining more control over our minds.
The class I went to was a lot like some of the other meditation that I have done. We sat in comfortable sitting postions on the floor and we were instructed to focus on our breathing. Not to try and controle our breathing or change it but to take note of it and clear our minds of anything else. To some extent I would say that this meditation practice is a combination of Focused Attention (FA) and Open Monitoring (OM) Meditation as described by Lutz et. al. in Attention Regulation and Monitoring in Meditation. This paper provides a very solid background for thinking about the psychological benefits of meditation. Thought this piece is not an experiment it contains a lof of scientific thought about types of meditiation as "regulatroy training regime for the mind" (Lutz, et. al.163)
Lutz first breaks down the two main types of meditation mentioned before FA and OM. He then discusses more of what the possible connection between meditation and sustained attention training might be. The authors note that it is generally agreed upon that ability to focus attention requires a lot of skills like monitoring ability, detecting distraction, redirecting the energy associated with that distraction, etc. They propose "that the specific neural systems associated with conflict monitoring and sustaining attention, are involved in inducing and sustaining a state of FA meditation (Lut, 164). The authors also predict that meditation training will also produce long term changes in brain function.
There were several interesting findings in the research the authors presented. First is the inverted U shape curve that expert meditators showed in brain scans. For a certain period of time, the more time individuals have spent in meditation, the more the brain regions associated with monitoring were activated-then the activation decrease. Once they reach a critical point scans actually indicated less activation. This implies (thought not empirically proven) that concentrative meditation may lead to the de-habituation of a task. This means that the task is no longer being hevily and automatically processed by the brian. This type of meditation is also associalted with a decrease in reaction to certain emotions. The control of this activation may be a partial cause of this trend. Additionally it is possible that with time individuals no longer need to excerpt as much energy to and as many resources as a more novice person.
One of the most interesting aspects of the study was that "OM meditatios showed superior performance on a sustained attention task in comparison with FA meditator when the stimulus was unexpected." There was no difference between the groups when the stimulus was expected. This says a lot about what each type of mediation trains the individual to do. In FA meditation you must focus on one thing and you must be aware when your attention slips elsewhere. This is an exciting possibility regarding what kind of training and what kind of tasks people working on different jobs/ in different positions might need.
It is also possible that there is a confound. Perhaps there is some third variable that is no being caught. It hard to tell in studies like this what the cause of certain brian activity patterns are. People who meditate do not do so simply for the cognitive development opportunities. They do it because it gives them a sense of peace and is a possible way to de-stress. Isn't it possible that the reason performance is so much better has to do with factors influenced by meditation but not the meditation itself. A further question that I have about this paper is the assertion that it is possible to determine brian activity during non mediation. The fact of the matter is that meditation is really just practice in going about attentional tasks in a certain way. It involves peace and calm and rational paced thought. Perhaps individuals who have reached a certain level of meditational experience go about all tasks in the way they go about meditation. Like learning a skill and then applying it to all your work. It is not even necessarily done consciously. This would make it difficult to test these individuals in a non meditative environment.
MacLean et. al.'s article Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention had some very interesting things to say about meditation as a means of training your mind. One interesting piece of theory that motivated this study is that "some forms of training can improve performance on untrained attention tasks" (MacLean, 829). This is interesting because it seems contradictory to some of the research we had previously read about habituation and participants becoming too familiar with a task to be interested in it. The intention of this statement is that certain types of training that hone in on skills needed for cognitive tasks can later help improve performance on those cognitive tasks. This is a bit opposed to my earlier statement about it being somehow different from simply practicing an attention demanding task. While it does very much change what meditation is, I do think that this duality - it's ability to both train for an attention demanding task while not placing the individual in the same stress inducing circumstances - very interesting.
This study made predictions about what type of help meditation training could provide in attention decrements. Using the theory that one of the main causes of vigilance decrement is hight resource demands, MacLean et. al. proposed that meditation would specifically help with this aspect of the decrement "by reducing the demands associated with discriminating difficult targets" (MacLean, 830). The study they ran seems remarkably costly not only for them but for their participants. This is my major concern with the design of the experiment All of the participants who were a part of the experiment had to pay approximately $5,000 for their own room and board at one of two centers. This is regardless of whether or not they were selected for the experimental group. this severely limits the pool from which the experimenters were testing. They account for handedness and psychological criteria when randomly assigning the two conditions but factors like soci-economic status, cultural background, etc are absent. Perhaps these criteria play a much larger role in how the participants responded to the meditation.
thought the various things that the experimenters tested for get complex, they concluded that training- related impprivements in perception can decrease resource demands and thus improve performance. However it is my opinion that the design of the study did less to test the value of meditation and more to test the significance of discrimination and perceptual difficulty on attention demanding task. With that aside this does fall in line with what I experienced during my meditation session. I do think that meditating for longer periods of time would make an individual feel more at ease with the load of a task. Once calm and centered they may find themselves more prepared to work calmly through a task.
The final article of the week, "Mindfulness Training Affects Attention - OR Is It Attentional Effort", designed a study that more carefully explored this mindedness. They had participants randomly assigned to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction condition (MBSR), non-mindfulness stress reduction (NMSR), or an inactive control group. They hypothesized that the MBSR condition would improve sustained attention and were proven correct by their experiment. Their tests indicated that mindfulness meditation and nonjudgmental attitude are both important elements of MBSR. Overall I thought this was an excellent experiment that really broke down the experimental evidence that it was looking for.
However one thing that again bothered me, just as it had in other studies, is the fact that there is no discussion about the possible cultural and social aspects of meditation and how that may affect results. By reaching out to participants to take part in a study on mediation the pool was only filled with people who were interested in and thought that meditation might be useful or at least fun to try. They was no exploration of what perception may do to influence participation or ability. I met someone at my class who had gone to meditation classes before and was talking to another individual about how she just couldn't get a hang of the meditation. The way the studies are described seems to indicate that everyone succeeded and enjoyed their sessions. Were there any people who felt they "couldn't" do it? And if so...what does that mean about their mindfulness and attentional abilities.
Overall really enjoyed this topic and I do thing meditation is a useful way to try and help individuals with sustained attention development. While we have evidence that certain tasks are much more difficult to attend to, sometimes there is no way around that. The task that inspired vigilance studies - the radar blips- were and in some instances are still very important systems. They may be small amendments that can be made to reduce the demands on the individual attending to it, but the job and the apparatus are what they are.
- References:
Baer, Ruth A., Smith, Gregory T., Hopkins, Jaclyn., Kreitemeyer, Jennifer., Toney, Leslie. Using Self- Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness. (2006) Assessment 13 27-45.
Jensen, Gade Christian., Vangkilde, Singe., Frokjaer, Vibe., Hasselbalch, Steen G. Mindfulness Training Affects Attention - OR Is It Attentional Effort? (2012). Journal of Experimental Psychology 141 106-123.
Lutz, Antoine., Slagter, Heleen A., Dunne, John D., Davidson, Richard J. Attention Regulation and Monitoring in Meditation. (2008). Trends in Cognitive Science 12 163-170.
- MacLean, Katherine A., Ferrer, Emilio, Aichele, Stephen R., Bridwell, David A.
Zanesco Anthony P., Jacobs, Tonya L., King, Brandon G., Rosenberg, Erika L.,
Sahdra, Baljinder K., Shaver, Phillip R., Wallace, B. Alan., Mangun, George R., Saron, Clifford D. Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention.
- (2010). Psychological Science 21 829-830.
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