The effects of mindfulness meditation on mechanisms of attentional control in young and older adults: a preregistered eye tracking study.
eNeuro July 7, 2025 Andy Jeesu Kim, Keran Chen, Ying Tian et al.
Thirty days of guided mindfulness meditation using a mobile app improved the speed of saccadic eye movements (overt orienting of attention) in adults, but did not reduce distractibility or enhance goal-directed attentional control beyond repeated task practice. The benefits were similar across young, middle-aged, and older adults, and no changes appeared in self-report mindfulness questionnaires. The findings suggest that short-term mindfulness practice can modulate cognition in ways detectable by eye tracking but not by self-report, and that age does not moderate these effects.