Mindfulness meditation and mind wandering

Prior research has suggested that mind wandering is an automatic behavior that reduces both sustained attention and response inhibition. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to improve both attentional processes and reduce automatic behaviors, and thus this study was designed to determine the effects of short-term mindfulness meditation training on mind wandering, sustained attention, and response inhibition. Participants were administered two continuous performance tasks and a word retrieval task over the course of two days, and underwent two training sessions of meditation or focused listening, the latter of which served as a control. Both the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and a series of questions assessing the meditation experience served as manipulation checks. Mind wandering frequency was determined through self-report in response to thought probes administered throughout each continuous performance task. Sustained attention and response inhibition were measured via omission and commission errors during the continuous performance tasks. Results indicated no significant group differences for mind wandering frequency, sustained attention, or response inhibition, although meditation was shown to enhance attentional processing of individual stimuli as seen through the word retrieval task. Lastly, the Meditation intervention was not shown to impact positive or negative affect, but did lead to an increase in calmness.