Objectives

Goal-direct actions require integrating processing of stimuli and responses, which is why close stimulus-response bindings have to be created. However, the strength of these bindings can be modified. The metacontrol state model (MSM) hypothesizes that this can be achieved through mindfulness meditation. Yet, the cognitive processes underlying possible effects of meditation on S-R bindings remain unexplored.

Methods

We examined the effects of a brief bout of focused attention (FA) meditation on S-R bindings using a standard event file task measuring S-R bindings. This was done in a within-subject (crossover) design, where each participant (novice to meditation) was examined at two separate appointments (with and without meditation before the task).

Results

We found that 15 min of a single bout of FA meditation was enough to restrict the retrieval of S-R bindings to relevant information as indexed by decreased partial overlap costs.

Conclusion

These findings support the MSM framework suggesting that FA meditation induces a top-down biasing of processes toward cognitive persistence. Importantly, however, the effects of FA meditation were only evident when there was prior experience with the task. This shows close similarities to effects in pharmacological and brain stimulation studies and suggests that FA meditation modulates gain control principles in information processing. Moreover, effects of FA meditation were restricted in its duration since FA meditation modulated the retrieval of S-R bindings only in the early phases of the event file task. In novices, effects of short-term FA meditation are thus relatively fragile and only induce some finer adjustments in processing strategy.

中文翻译：

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短期集中注意冥想限制了对相关信息的刺激反应绑定的检索。

目标

目标直接行动要求对刺激和反应的处理进行整合，这就是为什么必须创建紧密的刺激-反应绑定的原因。但是，可以更改这些绑定的强度。元控制状态模型（MSM）假设这可以通过正念冥想来实现。然而，冥想对SR结合可能产生的潜在影响的认知过程仍未探索。

方法

我们使用测量SR绑定的标准事件文件任务检查了针对SR绑定的短暂回合聚焦（FA）冥想的效果。这是在受试者内部（交叉）设计中完成的，每个参与者（冥想的新手）在两次单独的约会（任务进行前有或没有冥想）下接受检查。

结果

我们发现，一次FA冥想的15分钟就足以限制SR绑定对相关信息的检索，而这些信息是通过减少部分重叠成本来索引的。

结论

这些发现支持MSM框架，表明FA冥想会导致自上而下的偏向认知持久性的偏向。重要的是，FA冥想的效果只有在有此任务的先前经验时才显而易见。这显示出与药理学和脑刺激研究的效果非常相似，并且表明FA冥想可调节信息处理中的增益控制原理。此外，FA冥想的效果在其持续时间内受到限制，因为FA冥想仅在事件文件任务的早期阶段才调节SR绑定的检索。因此，对于新手来说，短期FA冥想的效果相对脆弱，只会在加工策略上带来一些更精细的调整。