Mindfulness meditation, time judgment and time experience: Importance of the time scale considered (seconds or minutes)
Sylvie Droit-Volet, Magali Chaulet, Frédéric Dutheil, Michael Dambrun
PLoS One October 18, 2019 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223567 (opens in new tab) via OpenAlex
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractMindfulness meditation alters time perception in opposite directions depending on the interval length. In two experiments, participants who meditated for 15 minutes underestimated intervals of 15 to 50 seconds but overestimated intervals of 2 to 6 minutes, compared to a control exercise. Across all durations, meditation made time feel as though it passed faster. The meditation exercise increased present-moment awareness and happiness while reducing anxiety. Statistical analyses showed that present-moment focus mediated the effect on time estimates for long durations. The opposing effects are explained by different cognitive mechanisms: attention for short intervals and memory for long intervals.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Controlled experiment Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Intervention | Mindfulness meditation |
| Duration | 30-min meditation or control exercise, with first 15 minutes before judgments |
| Topics | Anxiety Meditation |
| Keywords | Time perception Duration music |
| Citations | 22 |
| Key finding | Mindfulness meditation leads to underestimation of short intervals (15–50 s) and overestimation of long intervals (2–6 min), with participants always reporting time passing faster during meditation. |
Abstract
This manuscript presents two studies on the effect of mindfulness meditation on duration judgment and its relationship to the subjective experience of time when the interval durations are on the second or the minute time scale. After the first 15 minutes of a 30-min meditation or control exercise, meditation-trained participants judged interval durations of 15 to 50 s or 2 to 6 min, during which they performed either a mindfulness meditation exercise or a control exercise. The participants' scores on the self-reported scales indicated the effectiveness of the meditation exercise, as it increased the level of present-moment awareness and happiness and decreased that of anxiety. The results showed an underestimation of time for the short interval durations and an overestimation of time for the long intervals, although the participants always reported that time passed faster with meditation than with the control exercise. Further statistical analyses revealed that the focus on the present-moment significantly mediated the exercise effect on the time estimates for long durations. The inversion in time estimates between the two time scales is explained in terms of the different mechanisms underlying the judgment of short and long durations, i.e., the cognitive mechanisms of attention and memory, respectively.