Notes on:

Mrazek, M. D., Franklin, M. S., Phillips, D. T., Baird, B., & Schooler, J. W. (2013): Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering

1 What?

Study the impact of mindfulness excercises to gre reading-comprehension results and working memory capacity (wmc) measure.

2 Why?

• Previous study by the same author found that mind wandering during a vigilance task can be reduced by brief mindfulness excercises (Mrazek, Smallwood, and Schooler 2012).
• I’m about to take the gre. I need to read this 🤣

3 How?

• Randomized control trial where 48 students (14 male, 34 female; mean age = 20.83 years, sd = 2.05) were randomly assigned to a mindfulness class or a nutrition class.
• Classses met for 45 minutes \(\times\) 4 times/week \(\times\) 2 weeks, and were taught by “professionals with extensive teaching experience in their respective fields”
• The gre tests used in this trial has been modified to exclude vocabulary-focused questions, thus should only be interpreted as reading-comprehention tests.
• wmc was assessed via the widely used operation span task (ospan)

4 And?

Relative to the nutrition program, mindfulness training led to improved accuracy on the gre, \(F(1, 46) = 5.609\), \(p = .02\), higher wmc, \(F(1, 46) = 3.954\), \(p = .05\), and less probe-caught mind wandering, \(F(1, 46) = 8.241\), \(p = .006\), self-caught mind wandering, \(F(1, 46) = 3.956\), \(p = .05\), and retrospectively self-reported mind wandering during testing, \(F(1, 46) = 5.337\), \(p = .03\).

5 References