Abstract
Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a topic for scientific research and theories on meditation are becoming ever more specific. We distinguish between what is called focused Attention meditation, open Monitoring meditation, and loving kindness (or compassion) meditation. Research suggests that these meditations have differential, dissociable effects on a wide range of cognitive (control) processes, such as attentional selection, conflict monitoring, divergent, and convergent thinking. Although research on exactly how the various meditations operate on these processes is still missing, different kinds of meditations are associated with different neural structures and different patterns of electroencephalographic activity. In this review we discuss recent findings on meditation and suggest how the different meditations may affect cognitive processes, and we give suggestions for directions of future research.
Highlights
Even though numerous studies have shown meditation to have significant effects on various affective and cognitive processes, many still view meditation as a technique primarily intended for relaxation and stress reduction
This review is primarily focused on focused attention meditation (FAM) and open monitoring meditation (OMM) studies1 and on how these twotypes of meditation are associated with different neural underpinnings and differential effects on attentional control, conflict monitoring, and creativity
Further evidence for improvements in conflict monitoring come from a study investigating the effect of 6-week long FAM trainig on a discrimination task intended to investigate the relationship between attentional load and emotional processing (Menezes et al, 2013)
Summary
Even though numerous studies have shown meditation to have significant effects on various affective and cognitive processes, many still view meditation as a technique primarily intended for relaxation and stress reduction. This review is primarily focused on FAM and OMM studies and on how these two (proto-)types of meditation are associated with different neural underpinnings and differential effects on attentional control, conflict monitoring, and creativity. During FAM the practitioner is required to focus attention on a chosen object or event, such as breathing or a candle flame. To maintain this focus, the practitioner has to constantly monitor the concentration on the chosen event so to avoid mind wandering (Tops et al, 2014). During OMM the focus of the meditation becomes the monitoring of awareness itself (Lutz et al, 2008; Vago and Silbersweig, 2012). Travis and Shear (2010) have pointed out a third meditation category besides FAM and OMM: the automatic self-transcending which trascends FAM and OMM through the absence of both (a) focus and (b) individual control or effort
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