Mindfulness and False-Memories: The Impact of Mindfulness Practice on the DRM Paradigm

Abstract

Mindfulness practice is the cultivation of awareness to the present moment and has been shown in recent years to have beneficial effects on cognition. However, to date, the data regarding the impact of mindfulness on memory--and specifically on memory distortions--is scarce and incomplete. The present study was aimed to examine whether mindfulness practice would have an effect on true and false memories. To this end, the effect of mindfulness meditation practice on memory performance was examined in two experiments in which false memories were provoked using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). In Experiment 1, college students were randomly divided into either a 5-week mindfulness-practice group (n = 29) or a waitlist control group (n = 22). In Experiment 2, college students were randomly divided into either a brief mindfulness session (n = 21) or a mind-wandering control group (n = 19). The results indicated that mindfulness increased the recognition of true memories with no effect on spontaneous false-memories, yet increased the rate of provoked false-memories. These findings are discussed in terms of memory sensitivity and response bias, and it is argued that mindfulness may have a lesser effect on encoding processes than previously suggested.

Relationship between Trait Mindfulness and False Memory: A Bilingual Deese-Roediger-McDermott Paradigm

“…However, this conclusion is contradicted by findings from studies on mindfulness-based interventions [42,35]. We propose that being nonjudgmental should not reduce one's discriminability, because an essential component of the practice of mindfulness is increased attentiveness to sensory and perceptual stimuli and experiences.…”

“…Two recent studies have reported increased false memory in a DRM paradigm task after mindfulness training [42,35], whesreas others indicate otherwise [8,10,12,25].…”

“…Additionally, Rosenstreich [35] published a study examining the effect of mindfulness-based interventions on false memory. He originally hypothesized that mindfulness-based interventions increase true memory and reduce false memory.…”

Loneliness, Mindfulness, and Academic Achievements: A Moderation Effect among First-Year College Students

“…Loneliness has been argued to be intimately related to cognitive deficiencies, such as difficulty in attention disengagement [39] and heightened memory attunement toward social information [40]. Hence, mindfulness may reduce the cognitive effects of loneliness by increasing memory [26,41] and attention [42], or by reducing the role of emotions in the processes of perception and decision making [43].…”

“…The second study was conducted about a month later and was aimed to examine the impact of mindfulness practice on memory. Specifically, students participated in mindfulness workshops in which they acquired the basics of mindfulness meditation practice, and they were compared with control participants in various memory measures [26]. We combined data from both studies along with the students' mean grades at the end of the first semester (i.e.…”