THE EFFECT OF MINDFULNESS MEDITATION ON RECOGNITION MEMORY FOR POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, & NEUTRAL STIMULI

This study aimed to investigate whether mindfulness meditation has an effect on memory. We used free recall and recognition memory tests based on positive, negative, and neutral images to measure memory performance, and compared results between experimental and control conditions. This paper focuses on the recognition memory portion of the study. Our experimental group underwent a brief, single-session mindfulness meditation, and our control group underwent a brief, single-session mind-wandering meditation prior to being presented with the stimuli images. After being presented with the stimuli, participants underwent a distractor task, and then took the free recall and recognition memory tests. We hypothesized that those in the mindfulness condition would remember more positive and neutral images, but less negative images, than those in the mind-wandering condition. Our hypothesis was not supported by our results, which indicated no significant difference in performance on the memory tests between groups.