Respond, don't react: The influence of mindfulness training on performance monitoring in older adults.

A randomized controlled trial tested whether mindfulness training improves performance monitoring in healthy older adults, a cognitive function that typically declines with age. Using event-related potentials, the study found that mindfulness participants showed an increased error-related negativity (ERN) response compared to an active control group, but no change in error positivity (Pe). Both groups reported reduced anxiety and less self-judgment of their mental functioning, suggesting subjective benefits from both interventions. The findings support the idea that mindfulness enhances self-regulatory processes, such as learning to respond rather than react, and demonstrate that such effects can be achieved in older adults.

Study at a glance

Abstract

A sizeable body of literature demonstrates positive effects of mindfulness training on brain, behavior, and psychological processes in both novice and expert practitioners as compared to non-meditators. However, only more recently has research begun to examine the specific mechanisms by which mindfulness exerts these effects. In the current study, we used event-related potentials (error-related negativity (ERN), error positivity (Pe)) to test the hypothesis that performance monitoring is one such mechanism. We conducted a randomized controlled trial in healthy older adults (n = 36), relevant because markers of performance monitoring are known to decline with normal aging. Compared to an active control condition, mindfulness participants showed an increase in the ERN, without an increase in the Pe. Participants in both groups reported a reduction in self-report of anxiety and self-judgment of one's own mental functioning, indicating the subjective impression of benefit from each intervention type. The current results are important insofar as they support the purported self-regulatory functions of mindfulness (i.e., learning to respond, not react), as well as demonstrating that such positive effects can be obtained in an older adult sample, both of which have important implications for intervention.