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Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention
Open accessAbstract
The ability to focus one’s attention underlies success in many everyday tasks, but voluntary attention cannot be sustained for extended periods of time. In the laboratory, sustained-attention failure is manifest as a decline in perceptual sensitivity with increasing time on task, known as the vigilance decrement. We investigated improvements in sustained attention with training (~5 hr/day for 3 months), which consisted of meditation practice that involved sustained selective attention on a chosen stimulus (e.g., the participant’s breath). Participants were randomly assigned either to receive training first ( n = 30) or to serve as waiting-list controls and receive training second ( n = 30). Training produced improvements in visual discrimination that were linked to increases in perceptual sensitivity and improved vigilance during sustained visual attention. Consistent with the resource model of vigilance, these results suggest that perceptual improvements can reduce the resource demand imposed by target discrimination and thus make it easier to sustain voluntary attention.
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“Another important constituent that has emerged in the literature is that mindfulness and other meditations improve internal awareness and that developed capacity has led to increased clarity of mental processes leading to improvements in meta-awareness (Cahn and Polich, 2006; MacLean et al., 2010; Raffone and Srinivasan, 2010; Schmalzl et al., 2015).”
From Mindfulness, Interoception, and the Body: A Contemporary Perspective (2019) · cites this paper as MacLean et al., 2010
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
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“Open monitoring is also believed to involve higher-order meta-awareness (MacLean et al., 2010; Schmalzl et al., 2015) enabling an objective witnessing of one’s stream of thoughts and experiences.”
From Mindfulness, Interoception, and the Body: A Contemporary Perspective (2019) · cites this paper as MacLean et al., 2010
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In the citing paper
“Mindfulness practices have been associated with benefits for coping with stress, anxiety, and depression [23,25,26,27], improving compassion and increasing prosocial (e.g., helping or relationship-promoting) behaviors [28,29,30], bolstering attention and working (e.g., short-term) memory [31,32], improving self-regulatory abilities (e.g., self-control) [33], and supporting physical health [34,35,”
From Being in the moment so you can keep moving forward: Mindfulness and rumination mediate the relationship between attachment orientations and negative conflict styles (2020) · cites this paper as [32]
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“Engaging in formal mindfulness training reduces depressive symptoms and rumination while improving sustained attention (e.g., Chambers, Lo, & Allen, 2008) and perceptual sensitivity (e.g., MacLean et al., 2010).”
From United we stand: emphasizing commonalities across cognitive-behavioral therapies. (2013) · cites this paper as MacLean et al., 2010
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“empirical evidence also suggests that arousal is generated during specific meditative practices. For instance, the generation of arousal during meditation has been observed in Hindu Tantric practices (e.g., [121, 122]) as well as in several Vajrayana practices (e.g., [27, 28])”
From The Influence of Buddhist Meditation Traditions on the Autonomic System and Attention (2015) · cites this paper as [121]
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Jaiswal, S., Nan, J., Purpura, S. R., Manchanda, J. K., Garcia-Pak, I. H., Ramanathan, D., Chuss, D., Rana, D. T., Beck, E., Insel, P. A., et al. (2025) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0330290
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Self-citationPaying attention: cost of cumulative life stress is for older adults only
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РАЗВИТИЕ ЭМОЦИОНАЛЬНОГО ИНТЕЛЛЕКТА СТУДЕНТОВ-ПСИХОЛОГОВ СРЕДСТВАМИ МЕДИТАЦИЙ ОСОЗНАННОСТИ
Dolgova, V. I., Витальевна, Б. О., & Мамедова, У. Н. (2025) · Вестник Южно-Уральского государственного гуманитарно-педагогического университета · doi:10.25588/cspu.2025.190.6.015
Microbreak activities and safety behavior: the roles of absorption and work-related rumination
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College Students’ Capacity to Be Alone and Short Video Indulgence: Chain Mediation and Intervention
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“This suggests that the effect of mindfulness-based intervention is sustained, possibly because the participants continued regular but less intense mindfulness practice after the intervention ended (MacLean et al., 2010).”
The Psychological and Physiological Mechanisms of Meditation
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What’s Important Now: The Foundational Role of Mindfulness Training in Performance
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“Research has shown that mindfulness meditation can improve the efficiency of attention processes, resulting in better cognitive flexibility and performance (MacLean et al. 2010).”
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“Indeed, studies suggest that mindfulness meditators can experience increases in perceptual sensitivity (e.g., MacLean et al., 2010).”
Wang, S., Feng, S., Feng, J., & Lipowska, M. (2026) · European Journal of Integrative Medicine · doi:10.1016/j.eujim.2026.102779
Stakeholder Self awareness and Willpower: Exploring Spirituality in the Workplace
Shinde, U. (2016) · International Journal of Business and Applied Social Science · doi:10.33642/ijbass.v2n2p7
Metadata
- Authors
- MacLean, K. A., Ferrer, E., Aichele, S. R., Bridwell, D. A., Zanesco, A. P., Jacobs, T. L., King, B. G., Rosenberg, E. L., Sahdra, B. K., Shaver, P. R., Wallace, B. A., Mangun, G. R., & Saron, C. D.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Davis (US)
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Corresponding author
- MacLean, Katherine A.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2010-05-11
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 829-839
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC3132583
- OpenAlex
- W2151443397
- Cited by
- 623
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 97 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 52 · 2019: 43 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 53 · 2016: 47 · 2015: 47 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 40 · 2012: 33
- FWCI
- 18.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Research Bank (Australian Catholic University) (submittedVersion)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Fetzer Institute
- National Institutes of Health (5r01mh055714-13)
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH055714)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Mind wandering and attention
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue
- Keywords
- meditation training, sustained attention, vigilance decrement, perceptual discrimination, perceptual sensitivity, visual discrimination, selective attention, attentional fatigue, mindfulness
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Arousal, Attention, Discrimination, Psychological, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Visual Perception, Meditation, Young Adult
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