Mindfulness enhances cognitive functioning: a meta-analysis of 111 randomized controlled trials.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Existing research lacks a comprehensive meta-analysis on mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) and their impact on global and specific cognitive functions.
• Understanding the precise cognitive domains affected by MBIs is crucial for optimizing their application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically evaluate the efficacy of MBIs across global cognition and 15 distinct cognitive subdomains.
• To identify moderators that influence MBI effectiveness in cognitive enhancement.

Main Methods:

• Conducted a meta-analysis of 111 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 9,538 meditation-naïve participants.
• Included studies measuring objective or subjective cognitive functioning, with a primary focus on mindfulness skills training.
• Employed robust variance estimation and moderator analyses, controlling for treatment fidelity.

Main Results:

• MBIs demonstrated small-to-moderate significant effects on global cognition, executive attention, working memory accuracy, inhibition accuracy, shifting accuracy, sustained attention, and subjective cognitive functioning.
• No significant impact was observed on executive functioning latency indices, verbal fluency, processing speed, episodic memory, or cognitive error.
• Treatment effects were more pronounced in individuals with elevated psychiatric symptoms, medical samples, and for face-to-face delivery.

Conclusions:

• MBIs yield consistently small-to-moderate, practically meaningful effect sizes on global cognition and key cognitive subdomains.
• The benefits are particularly evident in accuracy-based measures of executive function and sustained attention, rather than latency-based measures.