Meditators and non-meditators on sustained and executive attentional performance

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the mindfulness construct and the mental health benefits associated with mindfulness-based programmes, the relation between mindfulness and its proposed core component attention was studied. Buddhist and Western mindfulness meditators were compared with non...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mental health, religion & culture
Authors: Josefsson, Torbjörn (Author) ; Broberg, Anders (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Taylor & Francis 2011
In: Mental health, religion & culture
Further subjects:B Meditation
B Attention
B Mental Health
B Mindfulness
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:In order to gain a deeper understanding of the mindfulness construct and the mental health benefits associated with mindfulness-based programmes, the relation between mindfulness and its proposed core component attention was studied. Buddhist and Western mindfulness meditators were compared with non-meditators on tasks of sustained (SART) and executive (the Stroop Task) attention. Relations between self-reported mindfulness (FFMQ) and sustained and executive attention were also analysed. No significant differences were found between meditators and non-meditators either in sustained or executive attention. High scores on the FFMQ total scale and on Describe were related to fewer SART errors. High scores on Describe were also related to low Stroop interference. Mindfulness meditators may have an increased awareness of internal processes and the ability to quickly attend to them but this type of refined attentional ability does not seem to be related to performance on attention tests requiring responses to external targets.
ISSN:1469-9737
Contains:Enthalten in: Mental health, religion & culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13674670903578621