Mindfulness Therapy and its Effects on Working Memory and Prospective Memory

Abstract

Purpose: Mindfulness therapy is an increasingly popular practice that involves acute awareness of the present moment (Fletcher & Hayes, 2005). Recent research has also shown that practitioners show improvements in a range of cognitive skills (Mrazek, Franklin, Phillips, Baird, & Schooler, 2013). In particular, individuals in past literature have shown significant benefits in their working memory when practicing (Mrazek et al., 2013). Working memory is a cognitive ability that has also been correlated with an individual’s prospective memory during high stress situations (Jha, Stanley, Kiyonaga, Wong, & Gelfand, 2010). This raises the question; can mindfulness therapy impact both your working memory and prospective memory? Searching this can lead to potential benefits in aiding individuals with memory deficits. In particular, elders who suffer from dementia are more prone to prospective memory loss (Zimmermann & Meier, 2006). Therefore, if benefits of mindfulness therapy are supported in this study, further research could be performed for the elder population.

Methods: Participants were 65 undergraduate students from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The students were evaluated for their level of mindfulness practice by a survey followed by three computerized exams. All individuals received two lexical decision tasks in randomized order, followed by the automated operation span task. These tasks measured the individuals’ ability to briefly retain information (working memory capacity) as well as completing a future task (prospective memory).

Results: Results from this study showed support for previous working memory research suggesting that mindfulness therapy has a significant correlation with higher working memory (Mrazek et al., 2013). The research also showed that regular engagement in mindfulness also results in notable changes in how we complete future intentions, prospective memory. In particular it was displayed that individuals who practice specifically meditation have an improved focal prospective memory and a reduced ability in nonfocal prospective memory.

Conclusion: All individuals who practice mindfulness displayed a better working memory compared to those who do not. Individuals who explicitly practice meditation also have a change in their prospective memory. Those who practice meditation showed an improvement in their focal cues but a noteworthy impairment in their nonfocal cues. This suggests that those who practice meditation are so focused on the present that it impacts their ability to perform certain nonfocal future tasks. These findings are discussed in a larger framework of applications to individuals with declining cognitive abilities and/or high prospective memory demands (e.g., medication adherence).