The Influence of Concentrative Meditation Training on the Development of Attention Networks during Early Adolescence

Abstract

We investigate if concentrative meditation training (CMT) offered during adolescent development benefits subsystems of attention using a quasi-experimental design. Attentional alerting, orienting, and conflict monitoring were examined using the Attention Network Test (ANT) in 13–15 year old children who received CMT as part of their school curriculum (CMT group: N = 79) vs. those who received no such training (control group: N = 76). Alerting and conflict monitoring, but not orienting, differed between the CMT and control group. Only conflict monitoring demonstrated age-related improvements, with smaller conflict effect scores in older vs. younger participants. The influence of CMT on this system was similar to the influence of developmental maturity, with smaller conflict effects in the CMT vs. control group. To examine if CMT might also bolster conflict-triggered upregulation of attentional control, conflict effects were evaluated as a function of previous trial conflict demands (high conflict vs. low conflict). Smaller current-trial conflict effects were observed when previous conflict was high vs. low, suggesting that similar to adults, when previous conflict was high (vs. low) children in this age-range proactively upregulated control so that subsequent trial performance was benefitted. The magnitude of conflict-triggered control upregulation was not bolstered by CMT but CMT did have an effect for current incongruent trials preceded by congruent trials. Thus, CMT's influence on attention may be tractable and specific; it may bolster attentional alerting, conflict monitoring and reactive control, but does not appear to improve orienting.

Contemplative Education: A Systematic, Evidence-Based Review of the effect of Meditation Interventions in Schools

“…Schonert-Reichl and Lawlor (2010) speculated that developmental changes between preadolescents and early adolescents might account for the different effects of meditation upon general self-concept after meditation. Baijal et al (2011) also found age-related effects of meditation upon conflict monitoring. Warner's (2005) study was sensitive to developmental effects and used two different variants of TM with two different age groups: TM was used with students over the age of 10, while Words of Wisdom was used with students who were aged 10 or younger.…”

“…Hence, an educated guess from the adult neuroscience research must be made to suggest that meditation can change the brain of students in ways that increase cognitive function and emotional regulation. This educated guess is supported by the evidence that school-based meditation programmes have found outcomes showing improved cognitive function and emotional regulation (Baijal et al 2011;Schonert-Reichl and Lawlor 2010). Detailed evidence from the three strands of research that have been integrated to build the School-Based Meditation Model will be presented below.…”

“…Undoubtedly, attention is vital for student success, and it has been linked to academic performance (Lan et al 2011), social competence (Fredricks et al 2004) and well-being. Baijal et al (2011)) examined the effects of a long-term daily Concentrative Meditation Programme in 13-to 15-year-old students of a public secondary school in India and sourced a control group of students from a nearby public school that had a similar socioeconomic and educational background but had not undertaken any meditation. In comparison to the non-meditating group, those students who attended the CMT school had higher scores on attentional alerting (d=0.41), alerting accuracy (d=0.34) and conflict monitoring accuracy (d=0.39).…”

Female but not male young heavy drinkers display altered performance monitoring

“…We know of no papers assessing the possibility of developmental change in conflict adaptation effects during this period. However, several papers chart the development of conflict adaptation effects in childhood and adolescence (e.g., Baijal et al, 2011;Kray et al, 2012) and the decline of conflict adaptation with aging (e.g., Monti Fig. 5.…”

Mindfulness and Cognitive Functions: Toward a Unifying Neurocognitive Framework

“…These processes are in particular measured by the Attentional Network Test (ANT) (Fan et al 2002) and its modifications (see Di Francesco et al 2017), with some differential findings based on duration and type of meditation practice (e.g., Baijal et al 2011;Jha et al 2007;Tang et al 2007;van den Hurk et al 2009). Sustained attention tasks have also been used for cognitive performance assessment associated to mindfulness training (Jha et al 2017;Lutz et al 2009).…”