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- All Subjects: EEG
- Creators: Presson, Clark
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
- Resource Type: Text
Description
The effects of meditation on attention control have been widely studied in recent years. However, the methodological flaws of many of these studies raise serious concerns on the validity of meditation training as a cognitive enhancer. This study investigated the near and far transfer effects of mindfulness meditation training on attention control when a stringent experimental design was implemented. Participants in the experimental group practiced meditation for three twenty-minute sessions, and participants in the active control group listened to an audio book about meditation for similar times. No significant effect of meditation on change in performance on cognitive tasks was found. This study suggests that short-term mindfulness meditation training does not result in increased attention control.
ContributorsPatel, Sachi Rajul (Author) / Brewer, Gene (Thesis director) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
The premise of the embodied cognition hypothesis is that cognitive processes require emotion, sensory, and motor systems in the brain, rather than using arbitrary symbols divorced from sensorimotor systems. The hypothesis explains many of the mechanisms of mental simulation or imagination and how they facilitate comprehension of concepts. Some forms of embodied processing can be measured using electroencephalography (EEG), in a particular waveform known as the mu rhythm (8-13 Hz) in the sensorimotor cortex of the brain. Power in the mu band is suppressed (or de-synchronized) when an individual performs an action, as well as when the individual imagines performing the action, thus mu suppression measures embodied imagination. An important question however is whether the sensorimotor cortex involvement while reading, as measured by mu suppression, is part of the comprehension of what is read or if it is arises after comprehension has taken place. To answer this question, participants first took the Gates-MacGinitie reading comprehension test. Then, mu-suppression was measured while participants read experimental materials. The degree of mu-suppression while reading verbs correlated .45 with their score on the Gates-MacGinitie test. This correlation strongly suggests that the sensorimotor system involvement while reading action sentences is part of the comprehension process rather than being an aftereffect.
ContributorsMarino, Annette Webb (Author) / Glenberg, Arthur (Thesis director) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Blais, Chris (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Previous research demonstrated the overall efficacy of an embodied language intervention (EMBRACE) that taught pre-school children how to simulate (imagine) language in a heard narrative. However, EMBRACE was not effective for every child. To try to explain this variable response to the intervention, the video recordings made during the four-day intervention sessions were assessed and emotion was coded. Each session was emotion-coded for child emotions and for child-researcher emotions. The child specific emotions were 1) engagement in the task, this included level of participation in the activity, 2) motivation/attention to persist and complete the task, as well as stay focused, and 3) positive affect throughout the session. The child-researcher specific emotions were 1) engagement with each other, this involved how the child interacted with the researcher and under what context, and 2) researcher’s positive affect, this incorporated how enthusiastic and encouraging the researcher was throughout the session. It was hypothesized that effectiveness of the intervention would be directly correlated with the degree that the child displayed positive emotions during the intervention. Thus, the analysis of these emotions should highlight differences between the control and EMBRACE group and help to explain variability in effectiveness of the intervention. The results did indicate that children in the EMBRACE group generally had a significantly higher positive affect compared to the control group, but these results did not influence the ability for the child to effectively recall or moderate the EEG variables in the post-test. The results also showed that children who interacted with the researcher more tended to be in the EMBRACE group, whereas children who did not interact with the researcher more frequently were in the control group, showing that the EMBRACE intervention ended up being a more collaborative task.
ContributorsOtt, Lauren Ruth (Author) / Glenberg, Arthur (Thesis director) / Presson, Clark (Committee member) / Kupfer, Anne (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05