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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Combining Behavior and EEG to Study the Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Episodic Memory

Combining Behavior and EEG to Study the Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Episodic Memory

Published on: May 11, 2020

Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention.

Amism P Jha¹, Jason Krompinger, Michael J Baime

¹Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. apjha@psych.upenn.edu

Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience

|August 4, 2007

Summary

Mindfulness training enhances attention by improving specific subsystems. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) boosts orienting, while retreats improve alerting and conflict monitoring.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Neuroscience
Psychology

Background:

Mindfulness involves present moment awareness.
Attention comprises distinct alerting, orienting, and conflict monitoring subsystems.
The impact of different mindfulness training (MT) types on these subsystems is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how two distinct mindfulness training programs affect the alerting, orienting, and conflict monitoring attentional subsystems.
To compare the effects of an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course with a 1-month intensive mindfulness retreat.

Main Methods:

Participants were assessed using the Attention Network Test (ANT) before and after training.
Two groups received MT: MBSR (meditation-naive) and intensive retreat (experienced meditators).
A control group of meditation-naive individuals received no training.

Main Results:

Before training, retreat participants showed better conflict monitoring.
After MBSR, participants improved in orienting.
Retreat participants showed enhanced exogenous alerting, while conflict monitoring did not differ between groups post-training.

Conclusions:

Mindfulness training can selectively enhance specific attentional functions.
MBSR improves endogenous orienting, whereas intensive retreats foster receptive attentional skills, enhancing exogenous alerting.
Different MT approaches may yield distinct benefits for attentional networks.