The Impact of a Single Session of Mindfulness Meditation on the Attentional Blink in Non-Meditators

<p>Attentional resources are limited therefore a stimulus can go undetected if it closely follows another target by 200-500ms. This phenomenon is known as the attentional blink. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to be beneficial in target detection and in decreasing the attentional blink. Since there is no standard for the type of meditation or duration of practice that leads to attention benefits, this study compares the two most popular types of meditation in a group of non-meditators: focused attention and open monitoring meditation. This study utilized an attentional blink paradigm to measure if a single session of mindfulness meditation can improve target detection capabilities. The focused attention group decreased their attentional blink, shown in improved T2 detection whereas the open monitoring group did not however this change was not significant. This finding suggests that focused attention meditation can improve participants’ ability to distribute attentional resources effectively to multiple targets, but a longer session and/or more participants will be necessary to have confidence in this conclusion.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

Master

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Cognitive Neuroscience

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Klopsis, Arielle L

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Tony Ro

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Valerie Shafer

• Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Mindfulness
• Focused Attention
• Open Monitoring
• Attentional Blink
• Non-meditators

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3830

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-4885