False Memories and Mindfulness Meditation

Abstract

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to increase false memory susceptibility (Wilson et al., 2015). Prior studies assessing this effect have primarily employed the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm - a procedure using studied word lists, which elicit memory errors related to semantic associations (Roediger & McDermott, 1995). The present study aimed to evaluate the dominant theory - which attributes the enhanced false memories after mindfulness meditation to source monitoring errors triggered by the nonjudgmental approach to thoughts promoted within these meditations (Wilson et al., 2015). The proposed mechanism was isolated and tested by comparing mindfulness meditation to another form of meditation, that promotes critical engagement with one's thoughts, while enhancing external validity by employing a misinformation paradigm. This approach better reflects real-world false memory formation than traditional word-list methods. A total of 74 participants were randomly assigned to one of two meditation conditions (mindfulness vs. analytical), that differed only in their approach to engaging with passing thoughts - either nonjudgmental, consistent with mindfulness meditation in prior studies, or critically analytical. After meditating, participants read a narrative, and were exposed to misleading post-event information through suggestively phrased multiple-choice questions, which were designed to induce false memories. 48 hours later, they returned to take a final open-ended memory test, assessing their memory of the original narrative. Contrary to the source monitoring explanation, the results did not indicate significant differences in memory performance between the two meditation groups. Possible explanations for these results and suggestions for future research are discussed.