The Effects of Meditation and Meditative Practices on the Attentional Blink Effect

Abstract

Investigating the moderating effects of meditation on our cognition has become a popular area of study. Much of this research suggests that extensive experience with meditation leads to a variety of benefits, including enhanced performance on tasks that measure selective attention. The present study used the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation task to investigate the influence of meditation on temporal selective attention, measured by the attentional blink (AB) effect. In Experiment 1, it was hypothesized that experienced meditators would produce a reduced AB effect when compared to novice meditators. Although both groups produced an AB effect, there was no difference in the size of the effect across the two groups. Experiment 2 was designed to test whether a brief bout of meditation completed just prior to the RSVP task would produce a reduced AB effect compared to a brief control thought exercise. Similar to the first experiment, both groups produced an AB effect, but there was no difference in the size of the AB effect across groups. These results are considered using the overinvestment hypothesis and alongside previous research that has demonstrated modulations of the AB effect using meditation.