Domain-Specific Enhancement of Metacognitive Ability Following Meditation Training

Contemplative mental practices aim to enable individuals to develop greater awareness of their own cognitive and affective states through repeated examination of first-person experience. Recent cross-sectional studies of long-term meditation practitioners suggest that the subjective reports of such...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. General 2014-10, Vol.143 (5), p.1972-1979
Main Authors: Baird, Benjamin, Mrazek, Michael D, Phillips, Dawa T, Schooler, Jonathan W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Awareness
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Cognition. Intelligence
Cognitive Ability
Cognitive psychology
Comparative analysis
Cross-Sectional Studies
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Introspection
Judgment
Male
Meditation
Meditation - psychology
Memory
Metacognition
Miscellaneous
Neuropsychological Tests
Perceptions
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Training
Young Adult
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Contemplative mental practices aim to enable individuals to develop greater awareness of their own cognitive and affective states through repeated examination of first-person experience. Recent cross-sectional studies of long-term meditation practitioners suggest that the subjective reports of such individuals are better calibrated with objective indices; however, the impact of mental training on metacognitive ability has not yet been examined in a randomized controlled investigation. The present study evaluated the impact of a 2-week meditation-training program on introspective accuracy in the domains of perception and memory. Compared with an active control group that elicited no change, we found that a 2-week meditation program significantly enhanced introspective accuracy, quantified by metacognitive judgments of cognition on a trial-by-trial basis, in a memory but not a perception domain. Together, these data suggest that, in at least some domains, the human capacity to introspect is plastic and can be enhanced through training.
ISSN:0096-3445
1939-2222
DOI:10.1037/a0036882