Mindfulness meditation experience is associated with increased ability to monitor covert somatosensory attention
Stephen Whitmarsh, Ole Jensen, Henk Barendregt preprint
Mindfulness meditation involves intentionally regulating attention to the present moment, relying on metacognitive functions to monitor attentional focus. This study tested whether meditation experience enhances the ability to track moment-by-moment fluctuations in attention. Participants maintained somatosensory attention to either hand while MEG recorded alpha activity in primary somatosensory regions. Self-reported attention levels corresponded with contralateral alpha power. Expert meditators (over 1000 hours of practice) showed a different pattern from novices and controls: their self-reported attention corresponded with alpha power over a longer time interval, and low-attention trials exhibited distinctive alpha suppression, suggesting greater attentional control through enhanced moment-by-moment monitoring.