Mindfulness and false memories: state and dispositional mindfulness does not increase false memories for naturalistic scenes presented in a virtual environment

Abstract

Mindfulness attracted increased research interests in the last decade, reporting an overall beneficial effect of this practice on cognitive performances. Nevertheless, recently a possible detrimental impact of mindfulness has been underlined. While the effect of mindfulness on memory remains under-explored, recent studies have observed an increased false-memory susceptibility after mindfulness practice. A possible explanatory mechanism has been suggested, related to the nature of the studied material. For semantically related information, mindfulness would increase false memories; however, the addition of rich perceptual information could prevent this detrimental effect. The present study aimed to verify this hypothesis by testing the impact of state mindfulness induced by a short meditation session, and dispositional mindfulness on the production of false memory for pictorial material presented in a complex virtual environment. We employed a virtual reality version of the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm (DRM), a classical protocol to induce false memories. Contrary to previous studies, we did not observe any effect of mindfulness on false or correct memories (free recall and recognition) after a short mindfulness practice session compared to a control condition. Nonetheless, we found a beneficial effect of mindfulness practice on memory sensitivity. Additionally, we reported a positive and negative effect of dispositional mindfulness on memory outcomes. While the Non-Reactivity facet was associated with overall better memory performances, we observed an association between the Acting with Awareness facet and an increased recollection of lures. We discuss these findings in line with a recent proposal on the link between mindfulness and episodic memory.

The Influence of Focused Attention and Open Monitoring Mindfulness Meditation States on True and False Memory

“…Whilst previous work addressing mindfulness meditation influences on false memory have employed memory retrieval tasks involving recognition (Baranski & Was, 2017 ) or recognition and recall (Ayache et al, 2022 ; Rosenstreich, 2016 ; Sherman & Grange, 2020 ; Wilson et al, 2015 ) tests, in the present work, we assessed true and false memory retrieval based on recall and recognition tests as false memory in the DRM task has been shown to be robust under recall and recognition retrieval conditions (Coburn et al, 2021 ).…”

“…Thus, it was apparent that mindfulness meditation can increase false and true memory rates. This contradiction was explained as occurring when reduced attention allocation at encoding reduces semantic activation of the critical item together with mindfulness meditation increasing reliance on semantic level information at the recall stage (Ayache et al, 2022 ; Knott & Dewhurst, 2007 ).…”

“…The effects of mindfulness meditation on increased false memory have been difficult to reproduce with work also reporting either decreased (Baranski & Was, 2017 ; Calvillo et al, 2018 ) or no difference in false memory incidence (Ayache et al, 2022 ; Baranski & Was, 2017 ; Meeks et al, 2019 ; Sherman & Grange, 2020 ) from mindfulness meditation. Divergence in reported findings might arise from inconsistent methodologies employed in this research.…”

“…Divergence in reported findings might arise from inconsistent methodologies employed in this research. For example, studies have differed with respect to whether mindfulness meditation was experience before (Ayache et al, 2022 ; Meeks et al, 2019 ; Rosenstreich, 2016 ; Sherman & Grange, 2020 ; Wilson et al, 2015 ) or after (Baranski & Was, 2017 ; Calvillo et al, 2018 ). Another potential issue might relate to the use of mind-wandering as a control condition (e.g.…”

“…Whilst most false memory studies have involved brief, single-session mindfulness meditation, which would relate to mindfulness state effects on false memory, in Rosenstreich ( 2016 , Experiment 1), participants in the mindfulness meditation group completed 5 weeks of mindfulness training prior to encoding, where meditation training might have contributed to changes in trait mindfulness. Since high levels of trait mindfulness have been associated with increased true and false memory formation (Ayache et al, 2022 ; Yeh & Lu, 2017 ), trait mindfulness needs to be considered as an individual difference that independently influences true and false memory recall. Individual differences in trait mindfulness might also influence the extent to which a mindfulness state is established by a meditation technique resulting in disparate effects the meditation technique on false memory.…”