CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 139Mindfulness and Compassion InterventionsCognitive Abilities and TestingPsychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 71 of the 71 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Differential benefits of mental training types for attention, compassion, and theory of mind

Open access
Trautwein, Fynn-Mathis, Kanske, Philipp, Böckler, Anne, Singer, Tania·2020·Cognition
DOI 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104039PMC PMC6891878
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Mindfulness- and, more generally, meditation-based interventions increasingly gain popularity, effectively promoting cognitive, affective, and social capacities. It is unclear, however, if different types of practice have the same or specific effects on mental functioning. Here we tested three consecutive three-month training modules aimed at cultivating either attention, socio-affective qualities (such as compassion), or socio-cognitive skills (such as theory of mind), in three training cohorts and a retest control cohort (N = 332). While attentional performance improved most consistently after attention training, compassion increased most after socio-affective training and theory of mind partially improved after socio-cognitive training. These results show that specific mental training practices are needed to induce plasticity in different domains of mental functioning, providing a foundation for evidence-based development of more targeted interventions adapted to the needs of different education, labor, and health settings.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104039

Cites

71 of 71 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Figures

Fig. 1 Study design. (a) Timeline of training (colored areas) and data collection (gray areas) for the training and retest control cohorts. The modules were completed in different orders, allowing using these as active control conditions for each other. For practical testing reasons, all cohorts proceeded in a shifted manner, and retest participants were split into two cohorts but are jointly analyzed. Retest cohorts completed the measurements without any training. The full ReSource Design as shown in the figure also included follow-up assessments; however, these are not included in the present investigation. (b) Illustration of core exercises of the three modules: Presence (yellow), Affect (red), Perspective (green). Please refer to the Material and Methods section for details. Figures were adapted from (Singer et al., 2016). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 1 Study design. (a) Timeline of training (colored areas) and data collection (gray areas) for the training and retest control cohorts. The modules were completed in different orders, allowing using these as active control conditions for each other. For practical testing reasons, all cohorts proceeded in a shifted manner, and retest participants were split into two cohorts but are jointly analyzed. Retest cohorts completed the measurements without any training. The full ReSource Design as shown in the figure also included follow-up assessments; however, these are not included in the present investigation. (b) Illustration of core exercises of the three modules: Presence (yellow), Affect (red), Perspective (green). Please refer to the Material and Methods section for details. Figures were adapted from (Singer et al., 2016). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 2 Illustration of behavioral tasks, descriptive data, and model estimates. (a) Illustration of one trial of the cued flanker task that was used to assess attention. (b) Illustration of one trial of the EmpaToM task that was used to assess trial-wise experience of compassion and accuracy of mental state inference (i.e. ToM). Note that this simplified illustration omits fixation periods between the screens and the name of the speaker presented in the beginning of each trial. For details of the tasks, please refer to the methods section. (c-e) Descriptive plots of mean values for attention (difference of correct response proportions in the reorienting and conflict condition minus baseline condition), compassion (mean ratings on a scale from 0 to 6) and ToM (proportion of correct responses in ToM questions) per time point and group. Note that differences between groups at T0 were not significant (F-Test p-values all >.11). The mean values of each individual were used to calculate change scores for each available pair of two consecutive time points, which were used to estimate effects for retest and the three training modules shown in (f-h). In panels (g) and (h), to the right of the dashed lines, estimates are averaged across time intervals as was done to test the main hypotheses for these two measures. Error bars in (f-h) indicate 95% confidence intervals.
Fig. 2 Illustration of behavioral tasks, descriptive data, and model estimates. (a) Illustration of one trial of the cued flanker task that was used to assess attention. (b) Illustration of one trial of the EmpaToM task that was used to assess trial-wise experience of compassion and accuracy of mental state inference (i.e. ToM). Note that this simplified illustration omits fixation periods between the screens and the name of the speaker presented in the beginning of each trial. For details of the tasks, please refer to the methods section. (c-e) Descriptive plots of mean values for attention (difference of correct response proportions in the reorienting and conflict condition minus baseline condition), compassion (mean ratings on a scale from 0 to 6) and ToM (proportion of correct responses in ToM questions) per time point and group. Note that differences between groups at T0 were not significant (F-Test p-values all >.11). The mean values of each individual were used to calculate change scores for each available pair of two consecutive time points, which were used to estimate effects for retest and the three training modules shown in (f-h). In panels (g) and (h), to the right of the dashed lines, estimates are averaged across time intervals as was done to test the main hypotheses for these two measures. Error bars in (f-h) indicate 95% confidence intervals.CC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 3 Differential effects of each module across three outcome measures. Contrasts of training vs. retest effects estimated from standardized change scores of attention, compassion and ToM. Estimates from three different models are shown assessing effects of Presence (T0 to T1 scores), Affect (T0 to T1, T1 to T2, and T2 to T3 scores), and Perspective (T1 to T2 and T2 to T3 scores). Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.
Fig. 3 Differential effects of each module across three outcome measures. Contrasts of training vs. retest effects estimated from standardized change scores of attention, compassion and ToM. Estimates from three different models are shown assessing effects of Presence (T0 to T1 scores), Affect (T0 to T1, T1 to T2, and T2 to T3 scores), and Perspective (T1 to T2 and T2 to T3 scores). Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.CC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 71 references

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Cairncross, 2016, The effectiveness of mindfulness-based therapies for ADHD, Journal of Attention Disorders
  2. Singer, T., Kok, B. E., Bornemann, B., Zurborg, S., Bolz, M., & Bochow, C. A., (2016). The ReSource Project. Background, Design, Samples, and Measurements (2nd ed.). Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences; Leipzig.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 139

Related

Metadata

Authors
Trautwein, F.-M., Kanske, P., Böckler, A., & Singer, T.
Affiliations
  • University of Haifa (IL)
  • Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (DE)
  • University of Würzburg (DE)
  • Max Planck Society (DE)
Corresponding author
Trautwein, Fynn-Mathis
ORCID
Venue
Cognition
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2020-01
Volume
194
Pages
104039
ISSN
0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104039
PMC
PMC6891878
OpenAlex
W2779975816
Cited by
139
References
71
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 16
FWCI
16.05
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Cognition (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • European Research Council (205557)
  • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
  • Seventh Framework Programme
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
Keywords
mindfulness training, meditation, attention training, compassion, theory of mind, socioemotional skills, socio-cognitive skills, neuroplasticity, targeted interventions, cognitive training
MeSH terms
Social Cognition, Psychosocial Intervention, Adult, Attention, Empathy, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Meditation, Young Adult, Theory of Mind, Mindfulness

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review