Abstract
Objectives
It has been demonstrated that long-term mindfulness programs have beneficial effects on cognitive functioning. However, research findings to date regarding the impact of a brief mindfulness exercise are mixed. Moreover, evidence is scarce regarding the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying brief mindfulness exercises. This study aimed to investigate the effects of a brief mindfulness exercise on cognitive processing using behavioral measures and the P3 component of event-related brain potentials.
Method
Forty-eight healthy young adults were randomly assigned to either a brief mindfulness group or a sitting control group. The mindfulness group performed a 20-min session of mindfulness exercise while the control group remained seated for the same length of time. The Flanker task with electroencephalography recording was completed before and after the treatments.
Results
The mindfulness group showed a higher response accuracy and a smaller P3 amplitude at the post-test relative to the pre-test across Flanker conditions, whereas no such changes were observed in the control group. The response time and P3 latency did not change across the groups. These results suggest that a brief mindfulness exercise prompts more accurate responses and reduces attentional resources during the Flanker task, indicating more efficient cognitive processing.
Conclusions
A brief mindful exercise in novices could enhance the accuracy of cognitive performance and calm the neural response in P3. The current study demonstrates that the benefits of mindfulness extend to short sessions and provides a possible explanation for the neural mechanisms driving these benefits.
Preregistration
This study is not preregistered.
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Data Availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Masahiro Fujino for providing his mindfulness audio clip and all the participants who took part in the experiment.
Funding
This work was supported by funding to M.A. and H.K. from Graduate School of Human and Socio-Environmental Studies, Kanazawa University.
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Mohamed Aly: data curation, formal analysis, visualization, conceptualization, methodology, writing — original draft. Tomoko Ogasawara: conceptualization, data curation, methodology, visualization. Keita Kamijo: visualization, supervision, writing — review and editing. Haruyuki Kojima: conceptualization, data curation, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, resources, supervision, visualization, writing — review and editing.
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This study was approved by Research Ethics Committee, Institute of Human and Social Sciences, Kanazawa University.
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Aly, M., Ogasawara, T., Kamijo, K. et al. Neurophysiological Evidence of the Transient Beneficial Effects of a Brief Mindfulness Exercise on Cognitive Processing in Young Adults: An ERP Study. Mindfulness 14, 1102–1112 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02120-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02120-9