Mindfulness (2011) 2:143153 DOI 10.

1007/s12671-011-0053-6

ORIGINAL PAPER

Short-Term Training in Loving-Kindness Meditation Produces a State, But Not a Trait, Alteration of Attention
Christopher J. May & Michelle Burgard & Melissa Mena & Imran Abbasi & Noah Bernhardt & Samantha Clemens & Eve Curtis & Eben Daggett & Jaimie Hauch & Kayla Housh & Alison Janz & Amber Lindstrum & Kimberly Luttropp & Rebecca Williamson

Published online: 13 April 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011

Abstract While mindfulness meditation has been associated with enhanced attentional abilities, the consequences of loving-kindness meditation for attention have not previously been investigated. We examined the trait and state effects of 8 weeks of training in loving-kindness meditation (LKM) on the attentional blink. The attentional blink is a period of time in which a target stimulus is less likely to be detected if it follows too quickly (approximately 500 ms) after a previously detected target. For the two experiments reported here, a group of participants trained in LKM by meditating for approximately 15 min per day, four days per week, for 8 weeks. Experiment 1 utilized a pre-post design, with a non-meditating control group, to examine whether this training reduced the attentional blink. No differences were found. However, in an exploratory analysis, meditators did exhibit increases in two facets of mindfulness measured by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire: observation and descriptiveness. In experiment 2, we tested for a state effect of LKM by having trained meditators practice LKM immediately prior to the attentional blink task. Here, meditators had a significantly reduced blink size compared to control participants. To establish that this reduction was caused by the combination of LKM training with pre-task meditation, we analyzed the data in experiment 2 with respect to one of our previous works, which reported that the practice of LKM immediately prior to the attentional blink task in
C. J. May (*) : M. Burgard : M. Mena : I. Abbasi : N. Bernhardt : S. Clemens : E. Curtis : E. Daggett : J. Hauch : K. Housh : A. Janz : A. Lindstrum : K. Luttropp : R. Williamson Department of Life Sciences, Carroll University, 100 N. East Ave, Waukesha, WI 53186, USA e-mail: cmay@carrollu.edu

those without meditation training did not reduce the blink magnitude. This analysis also revealed a significant difference. Therefore, training in LKM, coupled with its practice immediately prior to an attention task, caused a state reduction in the attentional blink. These results are the first to demonstrate that LKM, an emotion-focused practice, influences cognitive processing. Keywords Meditation . Loving-kindness . Metta . Attentional blink . Mindfulness

Introduction Research into the psychological and physiological effects of mindfulness meditation has burgeoned in recent years; however, other types of meditation, such as loving-kindness meditation, have received relatively little attention. Mindfulness meditation is primarily a cognitive practice (Wallace and Shapiro 2006), in which the practitioner cultivates bare attentionthe ability to notice thoughts, emotions, and sensations without any accompanying mental discursiveness. Loving-kindness meditation (LKM), on the other hand, is an emotion-focused meditation designed to cultivate affective balance, which is considered an important skill born of contemplative practice (Ekman et al. 2005; Wallace and Shapiro 2006). Research on emotion-focused meditations, which includes compassion meditationa practice similar to LKM, has naturally focused on their consequences for emotion and psychological health. For example, LKM (also referred to as Metta meditation) has been shown to increase self-compassion (Shapiro et al. 2005; Shapiro et al. 2007), positive emotion, mindfulness, life purpose, and social support (Fredrickson et al. 2008), as well as social connectedness (Hutcherson et al. 2008). Furthermore, LKM

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reduces pain, distress, and anger (Carson et al. 2006), symptoms of illness (Fredrickson et al. 2008), and alleviates negative symptoms of schizophrenia (Johnson et al. 2009). Compassion meditation both reduces psychological distress and improves immune function (Pace et al. 2009). Only two studies to date, however, have examined the influence of an emotion-focused meditation on a classically cognitive process. Carter et al. (2001) found that, in contrast to an attention-focused meditation (one-pointed meditation), compassion meditation did not influence the rate of percept switching in a binocular rivalry paradigm undertaken by Tibetan monks. Burgard and May (2010) found that LKM, practiced by participants with no meditation training, did not reduce the attentional blink, which is a measure of the temporal dynamics of attention. Nonetheless, because emotions influence cognition (Isen 1987), emotion-focused meditations like LKM should have cognitive consequences. Attention, in particular, is modulated by affect (Basso et al. 1996 cited in Fredrickson 1998; Compton et al. 2004; Derryberry and Tucker 1994; Fredrickson and Branigan 2005; Gasper and Clore 2002; Rowe et al. 2007; Srinivasan et al. 2009). As discussed more fully below, because LKM increases positive affect and mood (Fredrickson et al. 2008; Hutcherson et al. 2008), it should therefore have consequences for attention. Indeed, these consequences may be similar to those of mindfulness meditation for one measure of attention, the attentional blink (Slagter et al. 2007; van Leeuwen et al. 2009). The attentional blink is a reduced ability to detect a target stimulus if it appears too quickly (~100500 ms) after a previously detected target stimulus (Raymond et al. 1992). The attentional blink is observed in rapid serial visual presentation paradigms, wherein participants are asked to identify two targets embedded within a stream of distractor stimuli. The temporal distance between the two targets is a function of how many intervening distractor stimuli there are (this is referred to as a trials lag; see Fig. 1). Olivers and Nieuwenhuis (2006) advanced two

Fig. 1 Attentional blink stimuli. Each letter or digit appeared for 50 ms, with a 50-ms inter-stimulus interval. The first target (T1) always appeared in the 9th position. The second target (T2) appeared on 50% of trials, in either the 12th position (lag 3) or the 17th position (lag 8)

hypotheses to explain the decreased probability of detecting a second target when it occurs at short lags: the overinvestment hypothesis and the positive affect hypothesis. According to the former, attending to a rapidly presented stream of stimuli gives all stimuli, targets and distractors alike, increased access to a higher, competitive, and limited capacity processing stage. Distracter stimuli that gain access prevent access by target stimuli, thereby interfering with the consolidation necessary for target detection. The overinvestment hypothesis implies that reducing attentional investment in the incoming stream of stimuli should decrease distractor interference and increase the proportion of correctly identified second targets. This prediction has been confirmed in experiments that employ mental distraction (Olivers and Nieuwenhuis 2005), increased cognitive load (Olivers and Nieuwenhuis 2006), and instructions to concentrate less (Olivers and Nieuwenhuis 2006). The positive affect hypothesis is a particular instantiation of the overinvestment hypothesis. Accordingly, positive affect distributes attention (e.g., see Dreisbach and Goschke 2004; Srinivasan et al. 2009), resulting in lower attentional investment in the ongoing stream of stimuli in an attentional blink task. Like manipulations to decrease attentional investment, positive affect inductions reduce the attentional blink (Jefferies et al. 2008; Olivers and Nieuwenhuis 2006). In addition, higher levels of dispositional positive affect predict a reduced attentional blink (MacLean et al. 2010). Similarly, LKM should attenuate the attentional blink since LKM increases positive affect and mood (Fredrickson et al. 2008; Hutcherson et al. 2008). LKM involves progressively directing feelings of loving-kindness to the mental images of selected people. To start this meditation, the practitioner calls to mind the image of a loved one, and then direct intentions toward that person. For example, the meditator may silently repeat phrases such as May you be well, May you be happy, and May you be free from suffering. While repeating these phrases, the meditator focuses on the intentionality and emotion behind them, attempting to generate the genuine desire that their loved one be well, happy, and free from suffering. In extended versions of this practice, the meditator progressively changes the object of focus from a loved one, to oneself, to a neutral figure, to a person that typically evokes negative emotions (for more, see Salzberg 1995). In previous work looking at the influence of LKM on the attentional blink, we failed to find an effect (Burgard and May 2010). There, participants without prior LKM training followed a guided meditation file for 10 min before beginning the attentional blink task. This 10 min of LKM likely induced some positive affect, as Barnhofer et al. (2010) found that 15 min of guided LKM produced a shift in EEG laterality toward a pattern associated with positive

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affect (see Tomarken et al. 1992). However, this change in affect may have been either too weak to influence attentional processing or not adequately sustained throughout the task. Recent research indicates that the effects of compassion meditation (which is similar to LKM, but rather than directing loving-kindness to specific people, is nonreferential) are training-time dependent. For example, Lutz et al. (2004) found that compassion mediation was associated with significant increases in gamma EEG band power, which is associated with attention (for a review, see Ward 2003), in novices following just 1 week of training (1 h/day). A substantially larger increase in gamma power was observed in monks. Furthermore, participants with 1 week of training in compassion meditation showed a significant increase of activity during meditation in the anterior cingulate/medial prefrontal cortex of the brain (Lutz et al. 2008a). This increase was also substantially larger in monks. Because the effects of compassion meditation are training-time dependent, we assume that the effects of LKM may be as well. Therefore, while a single session of LKM failed to reduce the attentional blink (Burgard and May 2010), training in LKM may. We further hypothesized that a training-related reduction in the attentional blink would be mediated by increased positive affect, per Oliver and Nieuwenhuis (2006) positive affect hypothesis. In addition to theoretical reasons for hypothesizing that LKM improves attention, there is practical motivation for this work as well. Anecdotally, some beginning meditators find LKM to be easier than mindfulness meditation, since LKM involves less antagonism with normal discursive thinking. While not thinking is not the goal of mindfulness meditation, this is a common misconception. Mindfulness meditation emphasizes the cultivation of bare attention, where the practitioner notices thoughts but does not engage them. Success with bare attention requires practice and perseverance through the frustration of being swept away by thoughts. In contrast, LKM prompts the practitioner to become engrossed in particular thoughts. If LKM training reduces the attentional blink, LKM may make attentional changes more accessible. In experiment 1, we investigated whether training in LKM produced trait changes in attention, reflected in a reduced attentional blink. We further examined if changes were mediated by changes in affect. Finally, we conducted an exploratory analysis of the effects of LKM on mindfulness. Fredrickson et al. (2008) found that LKM increased positive emotions, which in turn increased mindfulness, as measured by the Mindfulness and Awareness Scale (Brown and Ryan 2003). However, the relationship between LKM and facets of mindfulness (described below) has not previously been studied. In experiment 2, we examined whether LKM, practiced immediately prior to

the attentional blink task by those with LKM training, produced state changes in attention.

General Method Participants All participants were college students at a small, midwestern university. Participants in the meditation group (N=13, Mage =22.08, 76.9% female) were students in a psychology course, led by the first author (CJM), in which this research was conducted. They were research assistants for this project. Enrollment in this course determined the sample sizes. This design was motivated by the intensive time commitment required of meditators and served to incentivize adherence to the training regimen. No course outcome, including grades, was linked to adherence to training; however, meditators were aware that if they did adhere to the training program, and a significant effect were found, they may be co-authors on a manuscript. This design reasonably raises concerns that our results may be attributable to motivational and knowledge differences between groups. However, several recent studies have found that reductions in the attentional blink are caused by decreased engagement in the task (Arend et al. 2006; Olivers and Nieuwenhuis 2005; Olivers and Nieuwenhuis 2006; Taatgen et al. 2009). Thus, if the meditation group were more engaged in the attentional blink task, this additional engagement would cause a change in blink magnitude in the opposite direction from our hypothesis that meditation reduces the blink size. In the Results and Discussion Section, we use data on T1 detection to argue against differential motivation. There is also no evidence that the size of the attentional blink can be moderated by knowledge of the task. Indeed, those with extensive familiarity with the attentional blink still produce the standard attentional blink curve (Braun 1998). Participants in the control group (N=14, Mage =23.21, 78.6% female) were volunteers solicited from ongoing psychology courses. Control participants were informed that they would be participating in a study on meditation being conducted as part of the first authors course. Participants volunteered on the condition that they were able to come in for testing at two time periods. To determine if there were differences between the meditation and control groups, both were administered three paper and pencil surveys: the Big Five Inventory (BFI; Benet-Martinez and John 1998; John et al. 1991; John et al. 2008), the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al. 2006), and the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson et al. 1988). All three tests are well validated. For the BFI, FFMQ, and PANAS,

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respectively, see John et al. (2008), Baer et al. (2008), and Watson et al. (1988). Surveys were administered in counterbalanced order. The BFI assessed individuals on five personality dimensions: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness. To examine differences between the meditation and control groups, we used a non-parametric test, the KolmogorovSmirnov (K S) test, because Levenes test for equality of variances was significant for both extraversion, F(1, 25)=4.25, p=.05, and neuroticism, F(1, 25)=8.52, p=.01. The KS test revealed that the meditation group was significantly less neurotic, Z=1.27, p=.04 than the control group. While neuroticism is associated with an increased attentional blink (MacLean and Arnell 2010), we did not find a significant effect in experiment 1 (this confound is addressed more in the General Discussion Section). In experiment 2, two outliers on the attentional blink were removed from the data analysis. As a result, there was no difference on neuroticism between groups (all other questionnaire analyses yielded the same results reported here). The FFMQ measures five dimensions of mindfulness: observing (I pay attention to sensations such as the wind in my hair or the sun in my face), describing (Im good at finding words to describe my feelings), acting with awareness (When I do things, my mind wanders off and Im easily distracted), non-judging (I criticize myself for having irrational or inappropriate emotions), and nonreactivity (In difficult situations, I can pause without immediately reacting; Baer et al. 2006). Since scores on the observe facet deviated from a normal distribution (ShapiroWilk=.968, p=.05), we again used the KS test to examine group differences. No significant differences were found on any of the five facets. The PANAS asked participants to rate the amount of positive affect (e.g., excited, enthusiastic, and active) and negative affect (e.g., distressed, nervous, and ashamed) they felt in the past week. Positive affect was calculated by summing participant responses to the ten positive affect terms. Negative affect was similarly calculated. ANOVAs revealed no significant differences between groups on either positive or negative affect. Meditation Training Participants in the meditation condition were introduced to LKM through a 15-min guided meditation led by the first author (CJM). CJM has been a meditator for 8 years and has received instruction in multiple types of meditation, including LKM, from multiple teachers at multiple meditation centers and meditation retreats. In this introduction, meditators were instructed to first imagine their breath entering their heart as they inhaled and exiting their heart as

they exhaled (this portion of the LKM was adapted from Tiller et al. 1996). After a few minutes, meditators were asked to bring to mind the image of a loved one, someone who naturally evokes feelings of love. In keeping with traditional instruction, meditators were asked not to select the image of a significant other. They were also told that if they had difficulty selecting a person, they could use a pet. After calling to mind the image of someone who naturally evoked loving feelings, meditators were instructed to direct three intentions to that mental image: May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering. The importance of the intentions behind the words, rather than the words themselves, was stressed. Meditators were told that it is normal for their minds to wander at some point during this practice, and that when they have noticed their mind wander, they should bring their attention back to directing intentions. After approximately 5 min, meditators were instructed to shift their mental image to an image of themselves. Then, they directed the same three intentions to themselves by changing the pronoun: May I be well. May I be happy. May I be free from suffering. After approximately another 5 min, meditators were asked to resume imagining that their breath was emanating from their heart area. Meditators were also provided with an mp3 audio guided meditation file (http://marc.ucla.edu/mpeg/ 05_Loving_Kindness_Meditation.wma). Subsequently, meditators could either meditate without guidance, or follow the mp3 file. Meditators were instructed to practice LKM for at least 15 min per day, four days a week, for 8 weeks. Meditators kept a time log to track their total meditation time. On average, participants meditated 485.15 min (SD=71.31).

Materials An attentional blink task was created with SuperLab 4.0. Trials consisted of the rapid serial visual presentation of either 14 or 19 stimuli (presented in black font on a grey background; Fig. 1). Within this stream of stimuli, one or two targets could appear. The first target (T1) was a random number between 2 and 9, always appearing in the 9th position. The second target (T2), an X, appeared on 50% of trials. T2 was presented either in the 12th position (lag 3) or in the 17th position (lag 8). All remaining stimuli were randomly selected letters (without replacement) in the set A though Z (excluding B, I, O, Q, S, and X). SuperLab 4.0 synchronizes the onset and offset of stimuli with the respective onset and offset of the monitors refresh cycle. Stimuli were presented on a monitor with a refresh rate of 60 Hz or 16.666 ms (Dell Dimension 9200 Desktop PC running Windows XP). Letters/digits were presented for 3 cycles,

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or 49.998 ms, with an inter-stimulus interval of 50 ms. On lag 3 trials, T2 appeared 300 ms after the onset of T1, well within the range in which the attentional blink occurs, whereas on lag 8 trials, T2 appeared 800 ms after the onset of T1, well outside of the attentional blink window (Shapiro et al. 1997). After each trial, participants were asked to identify which number appeared (T1; participants were instructed to guess if they did not know) and whether an X (T2) appeared. After answering the second question, there was an inter-trial interval varying between 200 and 300 ms. Participants completed four blocks of 52 trials, each containing 13 lag 3 trials, 13 lag 8 trials, and 26 trials without a T2. Participants electrocardiogram (ECG) was recorded while they completed the attentional blink. Recordings were taken from three leads, placed in a Lead II configuration, connected to an MP35 psychophysiology recording platform (Biopac Systems, Inc.). All ECG data were filtered offline with a 0.535-Hz band-pass finite impulse response filter. Heart rate variability (HRV) was derived from participants ECG, as practices similar to LKM have been shown to increase HRV (McCraty et al. 1995; McCraty et al. 1998). We used two measures of HRV, sympathovagal balance and cardiac coherence. Both measures of HRV were computed using Biopacs AcqKnowlege 4.0 software, which generates the power spectral density from a Fast Fourier Transform of the heart rate (R-R interval). Sympathovagal balance was defined as the ratio between high frequency (0.150.5 Hz) and low frequency (0.040.15 Hz) power. Cardiac coherence was defined as the low-frequency power divided by the sum of the very low-frequency (0.010.04 Hz) and high-frequency power (Tiller et al. 1996).

Results and Discussion Pre-test Attentional Blink Analyses We began the analysis of the attentional blink by looking for differences in T1 detection. A difference between groups in T1 detection might indicate differential engagement in the task. A non-significant difference would provide evidence against the influence of any demand characteristics possibly arising because the meditation group doubled as the experimenters. Both groups data deviated from a normal distribution (ShapiroWilkcontrol group =.665, p<.001; Shapiro Wilkmeditation group =.897, p=.013), making a non-parametric procedure the most appropriate test. A KS test found no significant differences between groups at pre-test. The attentional blink is defined as the difference in detection accuracy of T2, given the correct detection of T1 (T2|T1), between long and short lags of T2. The meditation groups data deviated from a normal distribution on the short interval trials (ShapiroWilk=.863, p=.04), and the control groups data deviated from a normal distribution on the long trial intervals (ShapiroWilk=.974, p=.01). Therefore, we employed a non-parametric test for repeated measures, the Wilcoxon signed-rank, with lag interval as the repeated measure. There were significant differences between lag intervals for both the control group (Z=3.3, p<.001) and the meditation group (Z=3.04, p<.001). At lag 8, the control group detected an average of 76% (SD=16.6%) of T2|T1, whereas in the lag 3 trials, they only detected an average of 48.9% (SD=18.6%) of T2|T1. Meditators, at lag 8, detected an average of 82.9% (SD=8.3%) of T2|T1, and in lag 3 trials, an average of 55.4% (SD=20.9%) of T2|T1. This difference between lag intervals for both groups is the attentional blink. To examine differences between groups, we computed an attentional blink metric by subtracting T2| T1 accuracy on lag 3 trials from T2|T1 accuracy at lag 8. A t test showed no difference between groups; both exhibited similar attentional blinks at pre-test. Post-test Attentional Blink Analyses As with the pre-test, a KS test of T1 again revealed no significant differences. At post-test, T2|T1 data from both the meditation and control groups data deviated from a normal distribution at lag 8 (ShapiroWilkmeditation group =.828, p=.02; Shapiro Wilkcontrol group.703, p<.001). A Wilcoxon signed-ranks test revealed significant differences between lag interval for both controls (Z=3.11, p<.001) and meditators (Z=2.83, p=.001). As at pre-test, both groups exhibited an attentional blink. Meditators detected 62.1% (SD=26.5%) of T2|T1 at short lag interval trials, and 87.43% (SD=7.8%) at long lag interval trials. Control participants averaged a T2|T1

Experiment 1 Method Participants were tested at two time points (henceforth, pretest and post-test), spaced approximately 8 weeks apart. Between the pre- and post-tests, participants in the mediation condition practiced LKM. At pre-test, all participants first filled out the BFI, FFMQ, and PANAS. Participants only completed the FFMQ and PANAS at posttest to examine changes in mindfulness and affect, respectively. ECG leads were attached after participants completed the questionnaires. Before beginning the attentional blink task, participants were given the option to practice with trials that did not appear in the experiment (only a minority of participants practiced at post-test). Once participants felt comfortable, they then began the attentional blink task.

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detection accuracy of 56.9% (SD=16.6%) and 79.8% (SD= 15.2%) on short and long lag interval trials, respectively. A t test of the derived attentional blink metric (long minus short interval accuracies) of the two groups showed no significant difference. Just as at pre-test, both groups exhibited similar attentional blinks. Pre-post Analyses Finally, we examined changes across pre- and post-tests with a 2 (condition)2 (time) mixed factorial ANOVA of these attentional blink scores. There were no significant main effects or interactions. Because the observe facet of the FFMQ was not normally distributed at pre-test, we examined FFMQ changes between pre- and post-tests using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. No significant changes on any of the five facets were found for the control group. Meditators, however, exhibited significant changes on the observe (Z =2.32, p= .02) and describe (Z= 2.5, p=.01) subscales. Specifically, meditators were both more observant and more descriptive at post-test compared to pre-test (Fig. 2). Meditation time did not significantly correlate with either dimension. Note that while the significant differences on the observe and describe sub-scales may have resulted from response biassince the meditators were also the experimenterswe do not believe this is the case. The lack of change on the acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reactivity sub-scales is contraindicative, as response bias should universally inflate all sub-scale scores. We also do not believe these results stemmed from co-intervention bias. All course readings related to mindfulness and meditation were done before the pre-test administration of the FFMQ. We would expect co-intervention bias, if present, to be reflected in different pre-test FFMQ scores from the control group, which was not the case.

For the PANAS, a 2 (condition)2 (time) mixed factorial ANOVA of positive affect revealed a significant main effect for Condition, F(1, 25)=4.36, p=.043. There was neither a significant effect for Time, nor a ConditionTime interaction. Meditators had higher positive affect (M=37.81, SD= 8.29) than the control group (M=33, SD=7.99). A post hoc paired-samples t test of meditators positive affect confirmed that there was no change from pre- to post-tests, t (12)=1.08, p=.3 (uncorrected for multiple comparisons). Thus, any changes in the attentional blink could not be mediated by changes in positive affect, contrary to our hypothesis. A 2 (condition)2 (time) mixed factorial ANOVA of negative affect showed no significant main effects and no interaction for positive affect. There was, however, a significant interaction for negative affect, F(1,25)=4.56, p=.04. Meditators negative affect decreased between the two time periods, from 20.15 (SD=5.18) at pre-test to 17.23 (SD= 3.88) at post-test, as the control groups negative affect increased from 19.21 (SD=4.58) to 21.07 (SD=4.63). We further analyzed this interaction with a post hoc paired-samples t test of the meditators negative affect. There was not a significant difference, t(12)=1.68, p=.12 (one-tailed, Bonferroni corrected for two comparisons). Therefore, as with positive affect, meditators evinced no significant change in negative affect. In recording the ECG, improper connections and excessive movement artifact necessitated the elimination of several participants heart rate data. After this pruning, ECG data remained for ten in the meditation group and eight in the control group at pre-test. At post-test, ECG data remained for 12 in the meditation group and 11 in the control group. Data from nine in the meditation group and all eight in the control group were available for a repeated measures ANOVA. No significant differences were found in either sympathovagal balance or cardiac coherence between groups at pre-test. Contrary to our expectations, there were also no significant differences at post-test, nor did a repeated measures ANOVA reveal a change between testing periods. This is consistent with the lack of affect change indicated by the PANAS. Discussion Eight weeks of LKM training did not alter the attentional blink or affect. There was no difference between groups on the attentional blink, nor was there a difference between pre- and post-tests in positive affect to mediate any blink difference that may have been found. As such, experiment 1 failed to support our hypotheses. However, LKM training did significantly alter facets of mindfulness. Meditators scored significantly higher on the observe and describe sub-scales of the FFMQ. The

Fig. 2 Means (with standard error bars) of meditators and control participants difference scores (post-test minus pre-test) on sub-scales of the five factor mindfulness questionnaire (FFMQ)

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increased propensity for meditators to be aware of their surroundings (observe) is consistent with effects achieved with mindfulness meditation (e.g., Moore and Malinowski 2009). We speculate that this increase may be caused by the first portion of meditators LKM, where they focused on their breath emanating from their heart. This practice tends to increase awareness of both the breath and the heart beat. In contrast, the remainder of the LKM is more actively directed, so we would not expect that portion to increase the propensity for observation. Increases on the describe sub-scale are directly related to the primary activity in LKM, using words to evoke and sustain emotions. While LKM training did not produce trait changes in affect or attention, state changes may be induced immediately following LKM practice since meditation does produce state brain changes (Lutz et al. 2004; Lutz et al. 2008a). We investigated this possibility in experiment 2.

Two outliers among the meditation group on the attentional blink metric were identified using PASWs (SPSS) box plot rule. These outliers (see Fig. 3) were discarded from all analyses in experiment 2. A significant difference in the attentional blink would indicate that LKM produced a state change in attention. We further sought to establish that this state change required the previous 8 weeks of LKM training. Previously, we established that LKM, practiced immediately before the attentional blink task in mediation-nave participants, does not reduce the blink (Burgard and May 2010). Here, we analyzed the present data with respect to that in Burgard and May (2010). If the meditators in experiment 2 showed a reduced attentional blink compared to the meditators in Burgard and May (2010), then a state reduction in blink magnitude can be attributed to a more effective LKM, resulting from participants 8 weeks of meditation training. We report this analysis at the conclusion of the Results and Discussion Section. Results and Discussion

Experiment 2 Method Data collection for experiment 2 began approximately 1 week after the final data collection day in experiment 1. Control participants from experiment 1 were asked to come back for a third round of testing. They were informed that a follow-up study to experiment 1 was being conducted. All participants in the meditation and control groups were the same as in experiment 1there was no attrition. As such, all participants had equal numbers of exposure to the attentional blink task. Participants experienced a 1- to 2week interval between their completion of the post-test attentional blink task in experiment 1 and the attentional blink task in experiment 2. Immediately prior to beginning the attentional blink, meditators were instructed to meditate (either self-guided or with the mp3 audio file) for 10 min. All experimenters left the testing room for this period so that meditators could focus on their practice. The control group did not meditate. ECG was recorded during LKM for the meditation group. After LKM, meditators completed the attentional blink task, with ECG being continuously recorded. Only seven participants in the meditation group had sufficiently artifact-free ECG data during both their meditation session and the attentional blink task. Therefore, we did not analyze potential differences between these two recording conditions. Because control participants did not meditate, they began the attentional blink task immediately after the ECG leads were attached. Sympathovagal balance and cardiac coherence were used to measure changes in affect, as in experiment 1. We again began analysis of the attentional blink by first probing for differences in T1 detection. Both groups data deviated from a normal distribution (ShapiroWilkcontrol group =.643, p<.001; ShapiroWilkmeditation group =.836, p=.001), prompting the use of a non-parametric test. The KS test found no significant differences between groups in T1 detection. In examining T2|T1 differences, the control group deviated from a normal distribution on long-interval trials (ShapiroWilk=.66, p<.001). Therefore, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test of the differences between short and long lag interval trials was employed, demonstrating

Fig. 3 Histogram of the number of meditators and control participants in different bins of attentional blink scores (representing the difference in accuracy of T2|T1 detection between lag 8 and lag 3 trials). All bins have a range of 10, with the bin number marking each category corresponding to the lowest value for that bin. The two outliers in the meditation group can be seen in the rightmost bins

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significant differences for both the control group (Z=3.1, p=.002) and the meditation group (Z=2.8, p=.005). As in experiment 1, both groups exhibited an attentional blink. On the attentional blink metric (long lag interval trials minus short lag interval trials), the meditation group deviated from a normal distribution (ShapiroWilk=.8, p=.01). A consequent KS test of attentional blink scores revealed a significant difference between groups, Z=1.27, p=.04 (onetailed, Bonferroni adjusted for two comparisons). Consistent with our hypothesis, therefore, meditators had a significantly smaller attentional blink (M=10.5%, SD=9.7%) than control participants (M=22%, SD=16%). To examine the influence of training on this attentional blink state effect, we compared the current results with those reported in Burgard and May (2010). A direct comparison between the meditation groups data with the meditation groups data in Burgard and May (2010), however, would confound reductions in the attentional blink with a practice effect. Participants in experiment 2 completed the attentional blink task three times (the first two occurring in experiment 1) compared to just once for the participants in Burgard and May (2010). To correct for this, we estimated the size of a practice effect by subtracting the attentional blink scores for the control group in experiment 2 from their scores at pre-test in experiment 1. This practice effect estimate (5%) was then subtracted from each of the attentional blink scores of the meditation group in Burgard and May (2010; equivalently, this estimate could be added to the meditation groups data in experiment 2). A KS test between these practice effect-corrected attentional blink scores, and the attentional blink scores of the trained meditators revealed a significant effect, Z=1.52, p=.01 (one-tailed, Bonferroni corrected for two comparisons; Fig. 4). Meditators in Burgard and May (2010) had an average attentional blink magnitude of 27% (SD=14.7%), while the participants in experiment 2 had a blink magnitude of 10% (SD=10%). Thus, 8 weeks of LKM training decreased the attentional blink, when the task was undertaken shortly after a period of meditation. The same experiment with participants who did not train in LKM did not have this effect (Burgard and May 2010). Due to excessive artifact, ECG data from several participants were again excluded from analysis (remaining n=9 meditators while meditating, n=9 meditators during the attentional blink, and n=10 control participants during the attentional blink). There were no differences in sympathovagal balance or cardiac coherence between groups or between the two conditions of recording for meditators. Contrary to our expectations, but consistent with experiment 1, we have no evidence of a change in affect as a result of LKM.

Fig. 4 Mean attentional blink scores (with standard error bars) under four different conditions: no loving-kindness meditation (LKM) prior to completing the AB (no LKM, no training; experiment 1 pre-test data), LKM followed by completion of the AB, without having previously practiced LKM (LKM, no training; practice effect adjusted data from Burgard and May 2010), completion of the AB without a preceding LKM, following 8 weeks of LKM practice (no LKM, training; experiment 1 post-test data), and LKM just prior to completion of the AB, following 8 weeks of LKM practice (LKM, training; experiment 2 data)

General Discussion Eight weeks of training in loving-kindness meditation produced a state, but not a trait, change in attention, as measured by the attentional blink. Experiment 1 failed to find a reduced attentional blink in those that had trained in LKM for 8 weeks. However, when those same practitioners meditated immediately before the attentional blink task in experiment 2, which was conducted shortly after experiment 1, they did have a significantly reduced attentional blink. In meditation-nave participants, we previously found that LKM did not produce a state reduction in the attentional blink (Burgard and May 2010). The attentional blink of meditators in experiment 2 was significantly smaller than the attentional blink of meditators in Burgard and May (2010). Thus, the state effect we observed in experiment 2 can be attributed to the effects of 8 weeks of LKM training. This is consistent with documented physiological state effects, including increased gamma power (Lutz et al. 2004) and increased activity in the anterior cingulate/medial prefrontal cortex (Lutz et al. 2008a) during meditation with just 1 week of training. Experiment 2 is the third study to date, following Slagter et al. (2007) and van Leeuwen et al. (2009), to demonstrate that meditation can reduce the attentional blink. This is the first study to show that LKM influences attention. Interestingly, the blink reduction reported here occurred after far less meditation training than that undertaken by participants in Slagter et al. (2007). Their participants completed a 3-month mindfulness meditation retreat, which involved 1012 h of

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meditation per day. At 10 h per day, retreatants meditated for approximately 840 h each. Participants in experiment 2 achieved similar results in less than 1% of this time (8.09 h; note that whether their results stemmed from a state or trait effect was not evaluated and remains unclear). Our results, however, are agnostic about the underlying mechanism(s) that produced them. Olivers and Nieuwenhuis (2006) positive affect hypothesis predicts that an increase in positive affect would reduce the attentional blink. Since LKM can increase positive affect, we hypothesized that this increase would mediate a decreased attentional blink. However, no significant increase in positive affect was found in experiment 1, and experiment 2 found no differences in the ECG, which can register increases in positive affect (McCraty et al. 1995; McCraty et al. 1998). Additional measures of positive affect in future studies are necessary to better establish the presence/absence of mediation. Alternatively, our results may be mediated specifically by changes in attention, rather than affect. While LKM is an emotion-focused meditation, attention may still be trained. As the practitioner is directing intentions such as May you be well and May you be happy, their attention will inevitably wander, and they must bring it back to directing intentions. LKM may share mechanisms, then, with reductions in the attentional blink found in Slagter et al. (2007) and van Leeuwen et al. (2009). What these mechanisms are remain to be established. Mindfulness is one possibility. However, while experiment 1 demonstrated that 8 weeks of LKM training enhanced practitioners propensity to be observant, as well as increased their ability to label emotions, these changes in mindfulness did not reduce the attentional blink. Experiment 2 did not assess state changes in mindfulness. Further examination of the relationships between attention and mindfulness is required. Comparative contemplative research would help delineate the mechanisms underlying an improved attentional blink and would also provide much needed data on the time course of meditation-induced physiological and behavioral changes. While mindfulness meditation and LKM have been associated with a reduced attentional blink, focused attention meditation (see Lutz et al. 2008b) has not been. This may reflect either a lack of research or null findings. In focused attention meditation, the practitioner attempts to keep their attention on an object of focus, such as the breath. When the meditator notices that their attention has wandered, they are to bring it back to the breath. This type of meditation might cause an overinvestment of attention (see Olivers and Nieuwenhuis 2006) on attentional blink stimuli, thereby increasing the attentional blink. Alternatively, focused attention meditation may increase attentional control, such that meditators can more effectively choose not to invest as much attention to stimuli. Future work

comparing four cohortsmindfulness meditators, focused attention meditators, loving-kindness meditators, and appropriate controlswould help determine whether attentional control, attentional investment ability, affect, facets of mindfulness, and/or other variables are responsible for observed reductions in the attentional blink. Comparative contemplative research such as this would also help elucidate the time course of physiological and behavioral changes. Long-term meditation, such as that undertaken by monks, is clearly associated with sizeable physiological and behavioral changes (Brefczynski-Lewis et al. 2007; Carter et al. 2001; Lutz et al. 2004; Lutz et al. 2008a). Shorter-term meditation, even as little as 45 days (Tang et al. 2009; Zeiden et al. 2010), is as well. The physiological changes demonstrated with 1 week of meditation by Lutz et al. (2004) and Lutz et al. (2008a) suggest that the results of experiment 2 may be replicated with less training. In short, the rate at which effects accrue is unclear. This is underscored by Carmody and Baer (2008), who found that meditation time is weakly to moderately correlated with several outcome variables. These results suggest non-linear growth patterns, which may be meditation-type dependent. For more arguments regarding the importance of comparative contemplative research, see Dorjee (2010). Future work may also address limitations of the present research. For example, participants were not randomly assigned to the meditation or control groups. Because participation in the meditation group required a significantly higher time and effort investment than the control group, we incentivized adherence to the LKM training program by yoking it to a course. While there were no group differences in experiment 2 in age, gender, personality dimensions, or initial mindfulness and affect, a more rigorous experimental design should be employed in future studies. In experiment 1, those in the meditation group had lower neuroticism scores on the Big Five Inventory, relative to the control group. Since neuroticism is associated with a larger attentional blink (MacLean and Arnell 2010), the null effect reported in experiment 1 is confounded with this personality difference, though we do not expect that a significant difference would have otherwise arisen. Finally, there was a gender imbalance in both groups, wherein approximately 3/4 of the participants were female. Gender differences have not been reported with respect to the attentional blink; however, the relationship between gender and meditation is unknown. LKM may be easier/harder, more/less efficacious for males. Other individual differences besides gender may also mediate or moderate the effects of meditation. For example, Barnhofer et al. (2010) found that scores on the Ruminative Responses Scale moderated meditation-induced shifts in EEG laterality for different types of meditation. Specifically, brooders had a higher shift with mindfulness

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Mindfulness (2011) 2:143153 Braun, J. (1998). Vision and attention: the role of training. Nature, 393, 424425. Brefczynski-Lewis, J. A., Lutz, A., Schaefer, H. S., Levinson, D. B., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(27), 1148311488. Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefits of being present: mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822848. Burgard, M., & May, C. J. (2010). The effect of positive affect induction via metta meditation on the attentional blink. Journal for Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis, 7(1), 815. Carmody, J., & Baer, R. A. (2008). Relationships between mindfulness practice and levels of mindfulness, medical and psychological symptoms and well-being in a mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 31, 2333. doi:10.1007/s10865-007-9130-7. Carson, J. W., Keefe, F. J., Lynch, T. R., Carson, K. M., Goli, V., Fras, A. M., et al. (2006). Loving-kindness meditation for chronic low back pain. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 23(3), 287304. doi:10.1177/0898010105277651. Carter, O. L., Presti, D. E., Callistemon, C., Ungerer, Y., Liu, G. B., & Pettigrew, J. D. (2001). Meditation alters perceptual rivalry in Tibetan Buddhist monks. Current Biology, 15(11), R412. Compton, R., Wirtz, D., Pajoumand, G., Claus, E., & Heller, W. (2004). Association between positive affect and attentional shifting. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 28(6), 733744. Derryberry, D., & Tucker, D. M. (1994). Motivating the focus of attention. In P. M. Neidenthal & S. Kitayama (Eds.), The hearts eye: emotional influences in perception and attention (pp. 167 196). San Diego: Academic. Dorjee, D. (2010). Kinds and dimensions of mindfulness: why it is important to distinguish them. Mindfulness, 1, 152160. doi:10.1007/s1267-010-0016-3. Dreisbach, G., & Goschke, T. (2004). How positive affect modulates cognitive control: reduced perseveration at the cost of increased distractibility. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 343353. Ekman, P., Davidson, R., Ricard, M., & Wallace, A. (2005). Buddhist and psychological perspectives on emotions and well being. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(2), 5963. Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300319. Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Cognition and Emotion, 19(3), 313332. Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 10451062. doi:10.1037/a0013262. Gasper, K., & Clore, G. L. (2002). Attending to the big picture: mood and global versus local processing of visual information. Psychological Science, 13, 3440. Hutcherson, C. A., Seppala, E. M., & Gross, J. J. (2008). Lovingkindness meditation increases social connectedness. Emotion, 8 (5), 720724. doi:10.1037/a0013237. Isen, A. M. (1987). Positive affect, cognitive processes, and social behavior. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 20, 203253. James, W. (1918). The principles of psychology, Vol. 1. New York: Holt. Jefferies, L. N., Smilek, D., Eich, E., & Enns, J. T. (2008). Emotional valence and arousal interact in attentional control. Psychological Science, 19(3), 290295. John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., & Kentle, R. L. (1991). The big five inventoryversions 4a and 54. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Personality and Social Research.

meditation, while non-brooders responded more to LKM. Since EEG laterality is associated with affect (Tomarken et al. 1992), and affect is associated with the attentional blink (Olivers and Nieuwenhuis 2006), the attentional blink may be mediated by an interaction between meditation type and rumination. This hypothesis reinforces our earlier call for comparative contemplative research. The present results may have significant practical implications. Attentional changes were produced with relatively little trainingapproximately 8 h. These changes were produced by a technique that is anecdotally easier for some and documented to be more efficacious for those that do not have a tendency to brood (Barnhofer et al. 2010). For those with attentional difficulties (e.g., attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder), LKM may be a more appropriate initial intervention than mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation, or other attention-intensive tasks, may then build on the gains from practice of LKM. LKM may thus facilitate and complement existing emphases in mindfulnessbased cognitive therapy, capitalizing on LKMs ability to reduce pain, distress, and anger (Carson et al. 2006) while increasing self-compassion (Shapiro et al. 2005; Shapiro et al. 2007), positive emotion, mindfulness, life purpose, social support (Fredrickson et al. 2008), and social connectedness (Hutcherson et al. 2008). To the extent that the state attentional changes produced by LKM are applicable outside of the attentional blink paradigm, this relatively short-term training may be beneficial in non-clinical settings as well. As William James (1918) said, Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit (p. 402).

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