Reducing Choice-Blindness? An Experimental Study Comparing Experienced Meditators to Non-Meditators.
Léa Lachaud, Baptiste Jacquet, Jean Baratgin
European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education November 6, 2022 DOI: 10.3390/ejihpe12110113 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational comparison of two groups in an online experimental task Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Adults naive to mindfulness meditation (control group) and experienced mindfulness meditators |
| Intervention | Mindfulness meditation |
| Measures | Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Choice-blindness Decision-making Experienced meditators Meditation effects |
| Key findings | Experienced mindfulness meditators were more likely than controls to detect at least one of three covert reversals of their choices. The authors report that higher Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory scores did not contribute to this difference; only the practice of mindfulness meditation itself did, which they suggest may reflect better introspective access and control of reasoning processes acquired through practice rather than the dispositional mindfulness trait. |
Abstract
The mindfulness trait is an intrinsic characteristic of one's disposition that facilitates awareness of the present moment. Meditation has proven to enhance situational awareness. In this study, we compared the performance of participants that were split into two groups depending on their experience in mindfulness meditation (a control group naive to mindfulness meditation and a group of experienced mindfulness meditators). Choice-blindness happens when people fail to notice mismatches between their intentions and the consequences of decisions. Our task consisted of decisions where participants chose one preferred female facial image from a pair of images for a total of 15 decisions. By reversing the decisions, unbeknownst to the participants, three discrepancies were introduced in an online experimental design. Our results indicate that the likelihood of detecting one or more manipulations was higher in the mindful group compared to the control group. The higher FMI scores of the mindful group did not contribute to this observation; only the practice of mindfulness meditation itself did. Thus, this could be explained by better introspective access and control of reasoning processes acquired during practice and not by the latent characteristics that are attributed to the mindfulness trait.
Comparable studies
Other experimental studies on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Cancer patients (clinical intervention study) | 2003 | Mixed methods: scale development, correlational, quasi-experimental, laboratory, experience-sampling, and clinical intervention study | |
| Loving-kindness meditation increases social connectedness. | 2008 | Controlled laboratory experiment | |
| Mindfulness and mind-wandering: Finding convergence through opposing constructs. | 2012 | Two studies: correlational study and experimental study | |
| Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence | 2009 | Experimental study | |
| Mindfulness meditation and substance use in an incarcerated population. Incarcerated population | 2006 | Quasi-experimental with treatment-as-usual control condition |
Citations in the library
Cited by 14
- Psychedelic Experience October 26, 2023
- Mechanics of Mindfulness: Investigating Metacognitive Beliefs as a Pathway of Effect on Anxiety and Depression. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education June 12, 2025
- Attention Psychedelic Experience October 26, 2023
- Well-Being Psychedelic Experience October 26, 2023
- Creativity Psychedelic Experience October 26, 2023
and 9 more in the library
Cites 21
- The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003
- Using Self-Report Assessment Methods to Explore Facets of Mindfulness Assessment January 27, 2006
- Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 2004
- Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012
- Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering Psychological Science March 28, 2013
and 16 more in the library