DOES MINDFULNESS MEDITATION IMPACT MEMORY? Brett Davidson, Leonardo Landaverde-Umana INTRODUCTION • • • • RESULTS Mindfulness is defined as accepting and viewing the present moment—positive or negative—without judgment, bias, or commentary (Bishop et al., 2004; Blackmore & Troscianko, 2018). Previous research has demonstrated that short mindfulness exercises prior to a stressful task can increase psychological benefits (Geisler et al., 2018), memory performance (Lloyd et al., 2016), and shortterm academic performance. Given that memory and good cognitive functioning are important factors to academic performance, our study investigated whether a brief mindfulness meditation intervention could improve memory performance when compared to a relaxation group (i.e., classical relaxation music). Females have been more responsive to mindfulness meditation in previous research (Rojiani et al., 2017). Hypotheses: • 1) The mindfulness group will have higher memory performance than the relaxation group. 2) There will be no main effect for gender. • 3) There will be an interaction whereby females will outperform males in the mindfulness group, but there will be no gender difference in the relaxation group. • A 2 (group) x 2 (sex) betweensubjects factorial ANOVA was conducted to evaluate the impact of the mindfulness meditation session and gender on memory performance. As seen in Table 1, the only statistically significant difference was for DV1. Contrary to our hypothesis, the classical relaxation music group recalled a higher percentage of words for original list items than the mindfulness group (Figure 1). DISCUSSION Table 1 Two-Way Analyses of Variance for Original List Item, Unrelated Lure Item, and Related Lure Item. F p η2p Group 7.62 .009 .18 Sex 0.03 .854 .00 Group x Sex 0.03 .856 .00 DV2: Unrelated Lure Group 1.20 .280 .03 Sex 0.59 .448 .02 Group x Sex 1.35 .254 .04 DV3: Related Lure Group 0.69 .413 .02 Sex 0.87 .358 .02 Group x Sex 0.87 .358 .02 40 participants (18 males, 22 females) were recruited via direct recruitment in-person and online via KPU’s research pool. • Nine-minute Waking Up Guided Meditation on YouTube. • Mindfulness Group: • Nine-minute audio of classical relaxation music on Males: Ethnicity = 7.5% Caucasian, 7.5% Asian Indian, 2.5% YouTube. Asian, 5% South Asian Indian, 5% Other Year of study = 73% Y1/2, 27% Y3/4 • CogLab False Memory Task Females: Ethnicity = 17.5% Asian Indian, 5% South Asian Indian, • DV 1 – Original List Item (% words recalled) 5% Other Year of study = 45% Y1/2, 55% Y3/4 • DV 2 – Unrelated Lure Item (% words recalled) •Relaxation Group: Males: Ethnicity = 5% Caucasian, 5% Asian Indian, 5% Asian, 2.5% South Asian Indian Year of study = 57% Y1/2, 43% Y3/4 Females: Ethnicity = 15% Caucasian, 10% Asian Indian, 2.5% Other Year of study = 82% Y1/2, 18% Y3/4 n M age SD Mindfulness Group Males 11 21.3 3.8 Females 11 20.8 2.1 Males 7 24.4 12.2 Females 11 21.3 3.13 Relaxation Group • DV 3 – Related Lure Item (% words recalled) Procedure • • Participants were randomly assigned to the inperson mindfulness meditation or relaxation session. Participants then completed the false memory task using a computer. In this task, 15 words were shown – each was presented for one second. After this, a list of words with three categories was presented (original list words, related lure words, and unrelated lure words) in which participants chose original items. There were six trials in total. Figure 1. Means and Standard Deviations for Memory Performance. Mindfulness Relaxation 100 90 Mean % Recalled for Items • Materials The present study attempted to show that a brief mindfulness intervention can lead to better memory performance. However, our data did not support our hypotheses. • A main effect for original item recall was observed, but opposite to our original prediction: the relaxation group recalled a higher percentage of items than the mindfulness group. • One possible reason is that the relaxation music had a calming effect on the mind, therefore memory resources were more accessible. DV1: Original Item METHODS Participants • 80 Limitations: • Small sample size: Due to the historic COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to collect more data. • Different settings: Because of room availability, we were forced to use different rooms. In these rooms, the noise levels varied, which may have impacted participants’ performance. Furthermore, time of day may have impacted participants’ memory performance. Future Direction: A longitudinal study of mindfulness with regular practice is recommended to assess memory. REFERENCES Bishop, S. R., Lau, M., Shapiro, S., Carlson, L., Anderson, N. D., Carmody, J., Segal, Z. V., Abbey, S., Speca, M., Velting, D., & Devins, G. (2004). Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11(3), 230–241. https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.bph077 Blackmore, S., & Troscianko, E. T. (2018). Consciousness: An introduction (3rd ed.). Routledge. 70 60 Geisler, F. C. M., Bechtoldt, M. N., Oberländer, N., & SchachtJablonowsky, M. (2018). The benefits of a mindfulness exercise in a performance situation. Psychological Reports, 121(5), 853–876. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294117740135 50 40 Lloyd, M., Szani, A., Rubenstein, K., Colgary, C., & PereiraPasarin, L. (2016). A brief mindfulness exercise before retrieval reduces recognition memory false alarms. Mindfulness, 7(3), 606–613. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671016-0495-y 30 20 10 0 Original Item Unrelated Related Item Item Memory Performance Note. High scores for original list item are good, low scores for related lure items are good, and low scores for unrelated lure items are good. Rojiani, R., Santoyo, J. F., Rahrig, H., Roth, H. D., & Britton, W. B. (2017). Women benefit more than men in response to college-based meditation training. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00551 This poster was created for Applied Research Methods I (PSYC 3400). Special thanks to Dr. Shayna Rusticus for recommending this submission and for her guidance and assistance.