Prior brief meditation reduces distractor inhibition during cognitive interference.
Frontiers in psychology January 1, 2024 Masahiro Fujino, Yuuki Ooishi, Yoshiyuki Ueda et al. 3 citations
Thirty minutes of focused attention or open monitoring meditation reduces the tendency to inhibit distracting face images during a cognitive interference task, as shown by the persistence of the mere exposure effect—where repeated exposure increases preference—only in meditation groups. In a control group, the mere exposure effect disappeared, indicating that distractors were inhibited. A positive correlation between the mere exposure effect and state relaxation, and a negative correlation with state anxiety, were found only in the focused attention meditation group, suggesting different mechanisms for reducing inhibition between the two meditation types.