Within the subject of psychological research, mindfulness-based meditation has garnered attention for its potential to enhance various cognitive processes. Building on this foundation, a new study, published in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, explored the impact of mindfulness meditation on instrumental learning—a fundamental aspect of decision-making where behaviors are strengthened or weakened by their consequences.

For their study, researchers recruited 60 participants with minimal to no prior meditation experience, and were randomly assigned to a meditation group or a control group. The meditation group received 5-minute guided meditation on mindful breathing; the control group engaged in a 5-minute task of solving a puzzle. Following these activities, the subjects participated on a Probabilistic Selection Task, the primary experimental task where it was designed to simulated decision-making under uncertainty.

Using a computational modeling, researchers investigated how the brief mindfulness-based meditation influences differed from the non-meditation group learning under conditions of uncertainty. The results revealed three key effects:

1. Accelerated learning: Participants who underwent mindfulness meditation demonstrated a quicker rate of learning following positive prediction errors compared to those in the control group.
2. Preference for exploration: Mindfulness meditation also led to a preference for exploring different choices rather than exploiting familiar ones, highlighting a more adventurous approach to decision-making.
3. Increased caution: Additionally, participants in the mindfulness group exhibited greater response caution, suggesting a more deliberate and thoughtful decision-making process.

These findings shed light on the intricate mechanisms through which meditative experiences impact learning and decision-making. Moreover, these positive benefits are experienced even when the meditation period was brief.

It may be important to set aside time daily for mindfulness-meditation no matter how brief to improve one’s productivity and quality of life.

M Golubickis et al. Brief mindfulness-based meditation enhances the speed of learning following positive prediction errors. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2024). https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218241228859