EFFECTS OF ATTENTION TRAINING ON THE DISTRIBUTION
OF ATTENTIONAL RESOURCES
Heleen A. Slagter1, Antoine Lutz1, Larry L. Greischar1, James Davis1,
Andrew D. Francis1, Sander T. Nieuwenhuis2, & Richard J. Davidson1
1University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2Leiden University
Descriptors: attention, attentional blink, meditation
If two targets embedded in an RSVP stream are presented in close temporal
proximity, the second target is often not seen. This ‘‘attentional blink’’ deficit is
S92 SPR Abstracts 2006
thought to reflect competition between stimuli for limited attentional resources,
albeit not an immutable bottleneck, as most participants are able to report both
targets on at least some trials. This study used EEG to examine how the brain
controls the distribution of attentional resources, enablingmore than one event to
be processed at the same time. To this end, effects of intensive attention training,
as cultivated during meditation, on blink task performance were examined. Data
were collected from 17 participants before and after a 3-month retreat during
which they practiced mindfulnessmeditation for approximately 10 hours per day.
24 control participants were also tested twice with a 3-month period between
sessions. As mindfulness meditation cultivates non-reactive sensory awareness,
we predicted that intensive meditation would reduce the attentional blink. Indeed,
practitioners showed a significantly smaller blink at time2 vs. 1 than controls.
Analyses of their ERP data revealed that the P3 to the first target on noblink
trials was reduced in amplitude at time2, suggesting that attention was less
‘‘pulled’’ by the first target, allowing more effective processing of the second
target. As participants were not actively engaged in meditation during the task,
our data may suggest that intensive mental training can result in lasting changes
in attentional processing.