Brief mindfulness-based meditation enhances the speed of learning following positive prediction errors
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology January 17, 2024 Marius Golubickis, Lucy B G Tan, Parnian Jalalian et al. 5 citations
Brief mindfulness-based meditation accelerates learning from positive outcomes and increases exploratory decision-making under uncertainty. In a probabilistic selection task with computational modeling, participants who meditated showed faster learning rates after positive prediction errors, a greater tendency to explore rather than exploit choices, and more cautious responses compared to a no-meditation control condition. These effects reveal how even short meditative practices can shape learning and decision-making processes, suggesting potential for mindfulness-based interventions to reduce biases in social-cognitive functioning.