Meditation is often praised for improving focus, but what exactly changes in the mind? This theme explores how contemplative practice influences attention regulation, reduces mind-wandering, and strengthens executive control. These studies illuminate the cognitive mechanisms behind staying present—and the costs of failing to do so.
Papers in this Theme
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Mindfulness enhances cognitive functioning: a meta-analysis of 111 randomized controlled trials
A meta-analysis of 111 studies shows that mindfulness training improves attention, memory, and cognitive flexibility, with the strongest benefits for accuracy-based tasks and those experiencing mental health challenges.
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A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind
This paper investigates the emotional impact of mind wandering, utilizing a phone app to collect real-time data from thousands of participants worldwide, revealing that mind-wandering occurs frequently across various activities and is associated with decreased happiness. The findings suggest that the content of one's thoughts has a more significant influence on happiness than the nature of the activity being performed, highlighting the cognitive and emotional costs of not living in the moment.
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Meditation leads to reduced default mode network activity beyond an active task.
This study compares activity in the default mode network (DMN) between meditation and an active task, for both meditators and non-meditators. The paper finds evidence that suppression of DMN processing may represent a central neural process in long-term meditation, and suggest that meditation leads to relatively reduced DMN processing beyond that observed during active cognitive tasks.
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Tracking the train of thought from the laboratory into everyday life: An experience-sampling study of mind wandering across controlled and ecological contexts
This paper measures the propensity for people to mind wander in both laboratory settings and every day life. The authors find that the propensity to mind wander is a stable cognitive characteristic, representing an individual dif- ference that is reliable across time, activities, and contexts, consistent with the idea that mind wandering represents a failure of executive control.
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Deconstructing the effects of concentration meditation practice on interference control: The roles of controlled attention and inflammatory activity
Meditation is known to boost attention, but how it achieves this isn't fully clear. This study explored how intensive meditation affects attention control and inflammation, revealing that participants on a three-month retreat significantly improved their ability to stay focused amid distractions. Surprisingly, meditation did not reduce automatic reactions to distractors, and participants with higher inflammation had weaker attention control. These findings underscore improved controlled attention as a primary benefit of meditation and suggest inflammation independently impacts cognitive function.