The mindful eye: Smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements in meditators and non-meditators

Kumari, Veena; Antonova, Elena; Wright, Bernice; Hamid, Aseel; Hernandez, Eva Machado; Schmechtig, Anne; Ettinger, Ulrich

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2016.10.008

Cited by 21 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…A recent study of meditators and non-meditators showed that cultivated mindfulness is associated with fewer saccadic intrusions in SPEM. One could conceivably argue that cannabis has a similar effect for patients with psychosis through similar cognitive and attentional processes, thereby normalising SPEM 45 . It is worth noting, however, that the Kumari and colleagues findings were related to saccadic intrusions during SPEM, finding no difference in SPEM velocity between meditators and non-meditators and, therefore, does not suggest that SPEM velocity, as indexed in our study is of itself is a measure of cultivated mindfulness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eye movements in patients in early psychosis with and without a history of cannabis use

et al. 2021

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It is unclear whether early psychosis in the context of cannabis use is different from psychosis without cannabis. We investigated this issue by examining whether abnormalities in oculomotor control differ between patients with psychosis with and without a history of cannabis use. We studied four groups: patients in the early phase of psychosis with a history of cannabis use (EPC; n = 28); patients in the early phase of psychosis without (EPNC; n = 25); controls with a history of cannabis use (HCC; n = 16); and controls without (HCNC; n = 22). We studied smooth pursuit eye movements using a stimulus with sinusoidal waveform at three target frequencies (0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 Hz). Participants also performed 40 antisaccade trials. There were no differences between the EPC and EPNC groups in diagnosis, symptom severity or level of functioning. We found evidence for a cannabis effect (χ2 = 23.14, p < 0.001), patient effect (χ2 = 4.84, p = 0.028) and patient × cannabis effect (χ2 = 4.20, p = 0.04) for smooth pursuit velocity gain. There was a large difference between EPC and EPNC (g = 0.76–0.86) with impairment in the non cannabis using group. We found no significant effect for antisaccade error whereas patients had fewer valid trials compared to controls. These data indicate that impairment of smooth pursuit in psychosis is more severe in patients without a history of cannabis use. This is consistent with the notion that the severity of neurobiological alterations in psychosis is lower in patients whose illness developed in the context of cannabis use.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eye movements in patients in early psychosis with and without a history of cannabis use

et al. 2021

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“…Other studies have reported a relation between mindfulness meditation expertise and reduction of mind-wandering episodes, with mind-wandering being assessed both in terms of frequency and intensity through thought-probes and self-reports methods [107], or indexed by deactivation of the DMN in neuroimaging studies [108]. Moreover, it has recently been found that expert meditators show better attention and ocular sensorimotor control than novices during smooth pursuit and antisaccade tasks [109], a finding in line with the suggestion that attention and eye movement processes could involve functionally overlapping brain areas [110].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spontaneous eye movements during focused-attention mindfulness meditation

et al. 2019

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Oculometric measures have been proven to be useful markers of mind-wandering during visual tasks such as reading. However, little is known about ocular activity during mindfulness meditation, a mental practice naturally involving mind-wandering episodes. In order to explore this issue, we extracted closed-eyes ocular movement measurements via a covert technique (EEG recordings) from expert meditators during two repetitions of a 7-minute mindfulness meditation session, focusing on the breath, and two repetitions of a 7-minute instructed mind-wandering task. Power spectral density was estimated on both the vertical and horizontal components of eye movements. The results show a significantly smaller average amplitude of eye movements in the delta band (1–4 Hz) during mindfulness meditation than instructed mind-wandering. Moreover, participants’ meditation expertise correlated significantly with this average amplitude during both tasks, with more experienced meditators generally moving their eyes less than less experienced meditators. These findings suggest the potential use of this measure to detect mind-wandering episodes during mindfulness meditation and to assess meditation performance.

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“…Eye movement has also been previously employed in studies to evaluate meditation attention. Kumari et al used infrared oculography to examine mindfulness meditation, particularly performance during smooth pursuit eye movements, antisaccade tasks, and prosaccade tasks [38]. They measured eye closure, obtained electroencephalograms during focused breathing, and extracted eye-movement-derived ocular data from electroencephalogram signals instead of using a standard multielectrode electrooculography montage to monitor ocular data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Eye Tracking to Assess Gaze Concentration in Meditation

Chang

Chueh²

2019

Sensors

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An important component of Heart Chan Meditation is gaze concentration training. Here, we determine whether eye tracking can be used to assess gaze concentration ability. Study participants (n = 306) were requested to focus their gaze on the innermost of three concentric circles for 1 min while their eye movements were recorded. Results suggest that participants with high scores on gaze concentration accuracy and precision had lower systolic blood pressure and higher sleep quality, suggesting that eye tracking may be effective to assess and train gaze concentration within Heart Chan Meditation

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The mindful eye: Smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements in meditators and non-meditators

Abstract: Cultivated, but not dispositional, mindfulness is associated with improved attention and sensorimotor control as indexed by SPEM and AS tasks.

Cited by 21 publications

References 65 publications

Eye movements in patients in early psychosis with and without a history of cannabis use

Eye movements in patients in early psychosis with and without a history of cannabis use

Spontaneous eye movements during focused-attention mindfulness meditation

Using Eye Tracking to Assess Gaze Concentration in Meditation

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