Investigating the impact of mindfulness meditation training on working memory: a mathematical modeling approach

Marieke K van Vugt, Amishi P Jha, Marieke K van Vugt, Amishi P Jha

Abstract

We investigated whether mindfulness training (MT) influences information processing in a working memory task with complex visual stimuli. Participants were tested before (T1) and after (T2) participation in an intensive one-month MT retreat, and their performance was compared with that of an age- and education-matched control group. Accuracy did not differ across groups at either time point. Response times were faster and significantly less variable in the MT versus the control group at T2. Since these results could be due to changes in mnemonic processes, speed-accuracy trade-off, or nondecisional factors (e.g., motor execution), we used a mathematical modeling approach to disentangle these factors. The EZ-diffusion model (Wagenmakers, van der Maas, & Grasman, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 14:(1), 3-22, 2007) suggested that MT leads to improved information quality and reduced response conservativeness, with no changes in nondecisional factors. The noisy exemplar model further suggested that the increase in information quality reflected a decrease in encoding noise and not an increase in forgetting. Thus, mathematical modeling may help clarify the mechanisms by which MT produces salutary effects on performance.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic of the visual working memory paradigm
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
(a and b) Changes in the means (a) and variance (b) of z-transformed response times (RTs) for the mindfulness training (MT) and control groups. Error bars reflect the standard errors of the means. (c) Correlation between variance in RTs and hours of MT experience at T1, the start of the retreat
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Overall changes in the (a) boundary separation and (b) drift rate parameters of the EZ-diffusion model for the MT and control groups. Error bars reflect the standard errors of the means

References

    1. Baer R, Smith GA, Hopkins J, Krietemeyer J, Toney L. Using self-report assessment methods to explore facets of mindfulness. Assessment. 2006;13:27–45. doi: 10.1177/1073191105283504.
    1. Bogacz R, Brown E, Moehlis J, Holmes P, Cohen JD. The physics of optimal decision making: A formal analysis of models of performance in two-alternative forced-choice tasks. Psychological Review. 2006;113:700–765. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.113.4.700.
    1. Brown KW, Ryan RM. The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2003;84:822–848. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.84.4.822.
    1. Brunner E, Puri ML. Nonparametric methods in factorial designs. Statistical Papers. 2001;42:1–52. doi: 10.1007/s003620000039.
    1. Chambers R, Lo BCL, Allen NB. The impact of intensive mindfulness training on attentional control, cognitive style, and affect. Cognitive Therapy and Research. 2008;32:303–322. doi: 10.1007/s10608-007-9119-0.
    1. Chan D, Woollacott M. Effects of level of meditation experience on attentional focus: Is the efficiency of executive or orientation networks improved? Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 2007;13:651–657. doi: 10.1089/acm.2007.7022.
    1. Downing CJ. Expectancy and visual–spatial attention: Effects on perceptual quality. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance. 1988;14:188–202. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.14.2.188.
    1. Goldin PR, Gross JJ. Effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder. Emotion. 2010;10:83–91. doi: 10.1037/a0018441.
    1. Green CS, Bavelier D. Exercising your brain: A review of human brain plasticity and training-induced learning. Psychology and Aging. 2008;23:692–701. doi: 10.1037/a0014345.
    1. Green CS, Pouget A, Bavelier D. Improved probabilistic inference as a general learning mechanism with action video games. Current Biology. 2010;20:1573–1579. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2010.07.040.
    1. Jha AP. Tracking the time-course of attentional involvement in spatial working memory: An event-related potential investigation. Cognitive Brain Research. 2002;15:61–69. doi: 10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00216-1.
    1. Jha AP, Krompinger J, Baime MJ. Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. 2007;7:109–119. doi: 10.3758/CABN.7.2.109.
    1. Jha AP, Stanley EA, Kiyonaga A, Wong L, Gelfand L. Examining the protective effects of mindfulness training on working memory and affective experience. Emotion. 2010;10:54–64. doi: 10.1037/a0018438.
    1. Kahana MJ, Sekuler R. Recognizing spatial patterns: A noisy exemplar approach. Vision Research. 2002;42:2177–2192. doi: 10.1016/S0042-6989(02)00118-9.
    1. Kozhevnikov M, Louchakova O, Josipovic Z, Motes MA. The enhancement of visuospatial processing efficiency through Buddhist deity meditation. Psychological Science. 2009;20:645–653. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02345.x.
    1. Lutz A, Slagter HA, Dunne JD, Davidson RJ. Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2008;12:163–169. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2008.01.005.
    1. Lutz A, Slagter HA, Rawlings NB, Francis AD, Greischar LL, Davidson RJ. Mental training enhances attentional stability: Neural and behavioral evidence. Journal of Neuroscience. 2009;29:13418–13427. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1614-09.2009.
    1. Madden DJ, Spaniol J, Costello MC, Bucur B, White LE, Cabeza R, et al. Cerebral white matter integrity mediates adult age differences in cognitive performance. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2009;21:289–302. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2009.21047.
    1. Mitchell M. An introduction to genetic algorithms. Cambridge: MIT Press; 1996.
    1. Müller J, Dreisbach G, Goschke T, Hensch T, Lesch K-P, Brocke B. Dopamine and cognitive control: the prospect of monetary gains influences the balance between flexibility and stability in a set-shifting paradigm. European Journal of Neuroscience. 2009;26:3661–3668. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2007.05949.x.
    1. Palmer J, Ames CT. Measuring the effect of multiple eye fixations on memory for visual attributes. Perception & Psychophysics. 1992;52:295–306. doi: 10.3758/BF03209146.
    1. Pantelis PC, van Vugt MK, Sekuler R, Wilson HR, Kahana MJ. Why are some people’s names easier to learn than others? The effects of similarity on memory for face–name associations. Memory & Cognition. 2008;36:1182–1195. doi: 10.3758/MC.36.6.1182.
    1. Ratcliff R. A theory of memory retrieval. Psychological Review. 1978;85:59–108. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.85.2.59.
    1. Ratcliff R. A diffusion model account of response time and accuracy in a brightness discrimination task: Fitting real data and failing to fit fake but plausible data. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2002;9:278–291. doi: 10.3758/BF03196283.
    1. Ratcliff R, Thapar A, Gomez P, McKoon G. A diffusion model analysis of the effects of aging in the lexical-decision task. Psychology and Aging. 2004;19:278–289. doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.19.2.278.
    1. Ratcliff R, Thapar A, McKoon G. The effects of aging on reaction time in a signal detection task. Psychology and Aging. 2001;16:323–341. doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.16.2.323.
    1. Ratcliff R, Thapar A, McKoon G. A diffusion model analysis of the effects of aging on recognition memory. Journal of Memory and Language. 2004;50:408–424. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2003.11.002.
    1. Ratcliff R, Thapar A, McKoon G. Aging, practice, and perceptual tasks: A diffusion model analysis. Psychology and Aging. 2006;21:353–371. doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.21.2.353.
    1. Shepard RN. Toward a universal law of generalization for psychological science. Science. 1987;237:1317–1323. doi: 10.1126/science.3629243.
    1. Slagter HA, Lutz A, Greischar LL, Francis AD, Nieuwenhuis S, Davis JM, Davidson RJ. Mental training affects distribution of limited brain resources. PLoS Biology. 2007;5:e138. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0050138.
    1. Smith PL, Ratcliff R. An integrated theory of attention and decision making in visual signal detection. Psychological Review. 2009;116:283–317. doi: 10.1037/a0015156.
    1. Spaniol J, Madden DJ, Voss A. A diffusion model analysis of adult age differences in episodic and semantic long-term memory retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 2006;32:101–117. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.32.1.101.
    1. Sternberg S. High-speed scanning in human memory. Science. 1966;153:652–654. doi: 10.1126/science.153.3736.652.
    1. Tang, Y.-Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., et al. (2007). Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 17152–17156. doi:10.1073/pnas.0707678104
    1. Tang Y-Y, Posner MI. Attention training and attention state training. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2009;13:222–227. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2009.01.009.
    1. van den Hurk PAM, Giommi F, Gielen SC, Speckens AEM, Barendregt HP. Greater efficiency in attentional processing related to mindfulness meditation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 2010;63:1168–1180. doi: 10.1080/17470210903249365.
    1. van Ravenzwaaij D, Oberauer K. How to use the diffusion model: Parameter recovery of three methods: EZ, fast-dm, and DMAT. Journal of Mathematical Psychology. 2009;53:463–473. doi: 10.1016/j.jmp.2009.09.004.
    1. van Vugt MK, Schulze-Bonhage A, Sekuler R, Litt B, Brandt A, Baltuch G, Kahana MJ. Intracranial electroencephalography reveals two distinct similarity effects during item recognition. Brain Research. 2009;1299:33–44. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2009.07.016.
    1. van Vugt, M. K., Sekuler, R., Wilson, H. R., & Kahana, M. J. (2011). Electrophysiological correlates of similarity-based interference in visual working memory (submitted).
    1. Voss A, Rothermund K, Brandtstädter J. Interpreting ambiguous stimuli: Separating perceptual and judgmental biases. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 2008;44:1048–1056. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2007.10.009.
    1. Wagenmakers E-J, Brown S. On the linear relation between the mean and the standard deviation of a response time distribution. Psychological Review. 2007;114:830–841. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.114.3.830.
    1. Wagenmakers E-J, van der Maas HLJ, Grasman RPPP. An EZ-diffusion model for response time and accuracy. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 2007;14:3–22. doi: 10.3758/BF03194023.
    1. Wenk-Sormaz H. Meditation can reduce habitual responding. Advances in Mind-Body Medicine. 2005;21:33–49.
    1. Wilson HR, Loffler G, Wilkinson F. Synthetic faces, face cubes, and the geometry of face space. Vision Research. 2002;42:2909–2923. doi: 10.1016/S0042-6989(02)00362-0.
    1. Zeidan F, Johnson SK, Diamond BJ, David Z, Goolkasian P. Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training. Consciousness and Cognition. 2010;19:597–605. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.014.

Source: PubMed

Sponsoren und Mitarbeiter

Krankheiten

Drogeninterventionen

3
Abonnieren