Meditation may fine-tune control over attention

However, a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that attention does not have a fixed capacity - and that it can be improved by directed mental training, such as meditation.

Seeing and mentally processing something takes time and effort, says psychology and psychiatry professor Richard Davidson of the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and the Waisman Center. Because a person has a finite amount of brainpower, paying close attention to one thing may mean the tradeoff of missing something that follows shortly thereafter. For example, when two visual signals are shown a half-second apart, people miss the second one much of the time.

"The attention momentarily goes off-line," Davidson says. "Your attention gets stuck on the first target, then you miss the second one." This effect is called "attentional blink," as when you blink your eyes, you are briefly unaware of visual signals.

But, he adds, the ability to occasionally catch the second signal suggests that this limitation is not strictly physical, but that it may be subject to some type of mental control.

Led by postdoctoral fellow Heleen Slagter, Davidson's research group in the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior recruited subjects interested in meditation to study whether conscious mental training can affect attention. "Meditation is a family of methods designed to facilitate regulation of emotion and attention," says Davidson.

The new study, which appears online May 8 in the journal PLoS Biology, examined the effects of three months of intensive training in Vipassana meditation, which focuses on reducing mental distraction and improving sensory awareness.

Volunteers were asked to look for target numbers that were mixed into a series of distracting letters and quickly flashed on a screen. As subjects performed the task, their brain activity was recorded with electrodes placed on the scalp. In some cases, two target numbers appeared in the series less than one-half second apart - close enough to fall within the typical attentional blink window.

The research group found that three months of rigorous training in Vipassana meditation improved people's ability to detect a second target within the half-second time window. In addition, though the ability to see the first target did not change, the mental training reduced the amount of brain activity associated with seeing the first target.

"The decrease [of brain activity associated with the first target] strongly predicted the accuracy of their ability to detect the second target," Davidson says.

The results of the study show that devoting fewer neural resources to the first target leaves enough left over to attend to another target that follows shortly after it, he says.

Because the subjects were not meditating during the test, their improvement suggests that prior training can cause lasting changes in how people allocate their mental resources.

"Their previous practice of meditation is influencing their performance on this task," Davidson says. "The conventional view is that attentional resources are limited. This shows that attention capabilities can be enhanced through learning."

The finding that attention is a flexible skill opens up many possibilities, says Davidson. For example, he suggests, "Attention training is worth examining for disorders with attentional components, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder."

Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Pre-school program shown to improve key cognitive functions, self-control
An innovative curriculum for pre-schoolers may improve academic performance, reduce diagnoses of attention deficient hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and close the achievement gap between children from poor families and those from wealthier homes, according to research led by a Vancouver neuroscientist who is an expert in the development of cognitive function.
Older adults not more distractible, research shows
Despite previous research suggesting that older adults are more distractible, new research shows they are no more distractible than younger adults when asked to focus their attention on their sense of sight or sound, or when asked to switch their attention from one sense to the other.
No escape from the bullies
It happens in school, at work, physically, verbally, even by email and text — now researchers at The University of Nottingham say there’s no escape in the virtual world.
Review: MiBook is cheap, colorful e-book reader
(AP) -- Electronic books are the persistent wallflowers of the gadget world. Consumers have snubbed them again and again in favor of a 500-year-old technology: ink printed on paper.
More shoppers bought online Monday but spent less
(AP) -- Online spending at U.S. retailers on Monday jumped 15 percent over with the comparable day a year ago to $846 million, comScore said Thursday, as consumers sought out bargains in a tough economy.
Texas time warp? State criticized for mental care
(AP) -- For more than a century, thousands of mentally disabled Americans were isolated from society, sometimes for life, by being confined to huge state institutions. In at least one place, they still are.
EEGs show brain differences between poor and rich kids
University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown for the first time that the brains of low-income children function differently from the brains of high-income kids.
Who's most likely to be swept away?
If you think the person most likely to be involved in an avalanche this winter will be a young hot-dogger who doesn't know any better, think again.

Meditation may fine-tune control over attention

Related stories:

News discussion: