Mindfulness and sensory reaction time in athletes: A comparative correlational study among athletics, cricket and football players
Parthajit Mallick, Ashoke Mukherjee
International Journal of Psychology Research May 1, 2026 DOI: 10.33545/26648903.2026.v8.i5a.187 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Cross-sectional correlational study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1,110 |
| Population | Male inter-college athletes aged 20–25 years from five administrative divisions of West Bengal, India, competing in athletics, cricket, or football |
| Measures | Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), ruler drop test |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key findings | No statistically significant relationship was found between dispositional mindfulness and auditory, visual, or tactile reaction time in athletics, cricket, or football athletes. The authors suggest that mindfulness may not directly influence simple psychomotor response speed, and that its relevance in sport may instead concern higher-order processes such as attentional control, emotional regulation, and sport-specific decision-making under pressure. |
Abstract
The present study examined the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and sensory reaction time among athletes from three sports disciplines: athletics, cricket, and football. A total of 1110 male inter-college athletes aged 20–25 years from five administrative divisions of West Bengal, India, participated in the study. Mindfulness was assessed using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), while auditory, visual, and tactile reaction times were measured through the ruler drop test. A cross-sectional correlational design was adopted, and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to determine the relationship between mindfulness and reaction time variables separately within each sport group. The findings revealed that no statistically significant relationship existed between mindfulness and auditory, visual, or tactile reaction time in athletes, cricket, or football players. The absence of significant associations suggests that dispositional mindfulness may not directly influence simple psychomotor response speed assessed through isolated sensory reaction tasks. Instead, the role of mindfulness in sports may be more relevant to higher-order psychological processes, such as attentional control, emotional regulation, and sport-specific decision-making under pressure. The study contributes to the sport psychology literature by clarifying that the relationship between mindfulness and performance may depend on the complexity and ecological validity of the task being measured. Future studies should employ sport-specific cognitive–motor reaction paradigms to better understand the performance relevance of mindfulness in dynamic sports settings.
Comparable studies
Other cross-sectional and survey studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construct Validity of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire in Meditating and Nonmeditating Samples Experienced meditators and nonmeditating comparison groups | 2008 | Cross-sectional study | |
| Neural Correlates of Dispositional Mindfulness During Affect Labeling Adult participants | 2007 | Observational cross-sectional | n = 27 |
| Assessing mindfulness in children and adolescents: Development and validation of the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure (CAMM). School-aged children and adolescents | 2011 | Cross-sectional validation study | n = 1,413 |
| Mindfulness and self-compassion as predictors of psychological wellbeing in long-term meditators and matched nonmeditators Experienced meditators and demographically matched nonmeditators | 2012 | Cross-sectional study | n = 152 |
| Mechanisms of Action in the Inverse Relationship Between Mindfulness and Psychological Distress Undergraduates | 2008 | Cross-sectional, correlational |