Differential effects of focused attention and open monitoring meditation on varied prospective memory tasks.
Tongxuan Dang, Yingying Chen, Xinran Chen, Jiaqun Gan, Yunfei Guo
The Journal of general psychology November 5, 2026 DOI: 10.1080/00221309.2026.2754782 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Mixed-design experiment Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 108 |
| Population | Participants assigned to focused attention, open monitoring, control, and baseline groups |
| Intervention | Open monitoring meditation |
| Topics | Meditation |
| Keywords | Prospective memory Cue focality Focused attention meditation Mindfulness meditation Open monitoring meditation |
| Key findings | Focused attention meditation primarily enhanced prospective memory under the low-overlap condition, whereas open monitoring meditation facilitated prospective memory under both high-overlap and dual-stimuli conditions. The authors argue the two techniques cultivate different cognitive skills and thus benefit prospective remembering differently, with OM showing stronger benefits in high-overlap and more complex stimulus contexts. |
Abstract
Mindfulness meditation can help individuals consciously maintain their attention on present stimuli. This form of mental training incorporates both focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM) techniques. These distinct methods cultivate separate cognitive skills related to awareness, suggesting their impact on various categories of prospective remembering could differ significantly. This study recruited 108 participants and adopted a 4 (groups: FA group, OM group, control group, baseline group) × 3 (types: high-overlap, low-overlap, dual-stimuli) mixed experimental design to investigate whether FA and OM have different effects on different types of prospective memory. The results showed that FA primarily enhanced prospective memory performance under the low-overlap condition, whereas OM significantly facilitated prospective memory under both high-overlap and dual-stimuli conditions. The results indicated that there are variations in the enhancement of prospective memory between FA and OM. FA meditation primarily facilitates prospective memory under conditions of low processing overlap, whereas OM meditation shows stronger benefits in contexts characterized by high processing overlap and increased stimulus complexity.
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 |