Brief body-scan meditation practice improves somatosensory perceptual decision making.
Consciousness and Cognition March 1, 2013 Laura Mirams, Ellen Poliakoff, Richard J Brown et al.
A brief body-scan mindfulness meditation training reduced the misperception of touch and increased tactile sensitivity in healthy participants, compared with a control group that listened to a recorded story. Sixty-two participants completed a somatic signal detection task before and after the intervention. The meditation group reported fewer false perceptions of near-threshold vibrations that were not actually present. This suggests that the nature of interoceptive attention matters for perceptual accuracy, and body-scan meditation might help reduce misperception of physical symptoms in people with medically unexplained symptoms.