Mindfulness and Working Memory
Disciplines
Psychology
Abstract (300 words maximum)
As millions of students enter academic institutions, there is a greater need to find habits that benefit them in their studies. We hypothesized that by entering a mindful state students would be in a better position to absorb the material that they would soon after memorize. Twenty-five students participated in an online test to determine this effect, with roughly half (N = 11) listening to a video instructing them to induce mindfulness. The control group (N = 14) experienced no intervention. All participants watched a video that showed them a series of 9 low-affect, 3-syllable words with a 2 second interval between each. Affect was measured by the Affective Norms for English Words list (Bradley & Lang, 1999). An independent samples t-test found no significant difference between those who experienced the mindfulness intervention (M = 5.18) and those who did not (M = 4.64). The lack of significance could be due to the low sample size and the lack of a controlled environment, but the results indicate that meditating before a working memory task does not have a significant impact on its success.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
RCHSS - Psychological Science
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Christina Salnaitis
Mindfulness and Working Memory
As millions of students enter academic institutions, there is a greater need to find habits that benefit them in their studies. We hypothesized that by entering a mindful state students would be in a better position to absorb the material that they would soon after memorize. Twenty-five students participated in an online test to determine this effect, with roughly half (N = 11) listening to a video instructing them to induce mindfulness. The control group (N = 14) experienced no intervention. All participants watched a video that showed them a series of 9 low-affect, 3-syllable words with a 2 second interval between each. Affect was measured by the Affective Norms for English Words list (Bradley & Lang, 1999). An independent samples t-test found no significant difference between those who experienced the mindfulness intervention (M = 5.18) and those who did not (M = 4.64). The lack of significance could be due to the low sample size and the lack of a controlled environment, but the results indicate that meditating before a working memory task does not have a significant impact on its success.