ORIGINAL PAPER

The Influence of a Brief Mindfulness Exercise on Encodingof Novel Words in Female College Students

Kristin K. Bonamo & John-Paul Legerski &Katie B. Thomas

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Abstract Based on research associating mindfulness withimprovements in well-being, attention, and memory process-es, brief mindfulness exercises may be helpful in enhancingthe encoding of novel semantic information. We used aSwahili-English word pair association task to examine wheth-er engaging in a brief mindfulness exercise enhanced theencoding of Swahili-English word pairs, thus improvinglong-term recall. Female undergraduate students at a midwest-ern university (N=136) were randomly assigned to one ofthree conditions: engaging in a 20-min body scan meditation,a 45-min body scan meditation, or a no-treatment controlgroup prior to learning Swahili-English word pairs. Analysesof variance showed significantly more words recalled bymembers of the 20-and 45-min groups compared to membersof the control group. A separate analysis of variance showedno difference in the level of state mindfulness across groups.However, a follow-up analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)controlling for symptoms of depression and anxiety, attentionproblems, and trait mindfulness showed that compared to thecontrol group, self-reported mean levels of state mindfulnesswere significantly higher after the meditation exercise for the20-min group, with no difference between the control and 45-min group. No group differences were found across the threegroups on changes in self-report ratings of state anxiety.

Keywords Mindfulness . Attention . Learning . Long-termmemory

Introduction

A number of research studies have shown that mindfulnesstraining has led to improvements in learning among middleand high school students (Benson et al. 2000; Beaucheminet al. 2008; Crumley and Schutz 2011; Franco et al. 2010).Numerous explanations regarding the causal mechanisms un-derlying these improvements have been posited, but researchindicates that the impact of mindfulness on attention andmemory processes may be a key component as mindfulnesshas been associated with better sustained attention, improvedswitching, and cognitive inhibition or suppressing secondaryprocessing (Anderson et al. 2007; van Vugt and Jha 2011; Jhaet al. 2010).

Research has also demonstrated that mindfulness has animpact on the proposed subsystems of attention: orienting,alerting, and executive control (Chan and Woollacott 2007;Jha et al. 2007; Van den Hurk et al. 2010). These findingsindicate that individuals who engage in mindfulness medita-tion are more efficient and accurate in attention-based tasksand specifically that they may have an advantage in flexibilityof cognition compared to nonmeditators. Following previousresearch that found improvements in sustained attentionresulting from regular practice or training in attention (Greenand Bavelier 2008), MacLean et al. (2010) found that trainingin meditation can enhance perceptual abilities by freeing upresources that could then be used to expand sustained atten-tion. This ability to shift available resources also adds supportto other research showing improvements in working memoryfollowing meditation practice.

The link between mindfulness and attention may also bemediated via stress reduction and emotion regulation.Numerous studies on mindfulness and meditation have dem-onstrated associations between mindfulness training and re-ductions of stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms (Jain

K. K. Bonamo : J.<P. Legerski (*) :K. B. ThomasDepartment of Psychology, University of North Dakota,319 Harvard St. Stop 8380, Grand Forks, ND 58202, USAe-mail: johnpaul.legerski@email.und.edu

MindfulnessDOI 10.1007/s12671-014-0285-3

et al. 2007; Zeidan et al. 2010). Improved self-regulation ofmood requires the ability tomaintain emotional stability, focusattention on the task at hand, and minimize distractions fromunpleasant thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Furthermore,mindfulness may also improve attention due to minimizingperceived stress and psychological symptoms of anxiety anddepression, which can all interfere with cognitive processes(Goldin and Gross 2010; Ortner et al. 2007).

The improvements in attention that have been demonstrat-ed with mindfulness also likely benefit memory. Attention isan important component of encoding and recall, supportingworking memory in complex tasks such as learning andcomprehension (Chiesa et al. 2011). Working memory, orone’s ability to concurrently hold and perform operationsupon information, can become taxed and compromised byintrusive thoughts, moods, and external distractions(Baddeley et al. 2009). Attention and working memory workin concert, as researchers have found that a lower workingmemory capacity increases susceptibility to interference(Kane and Engle 2000). Although the act of engaging inattentional breathing and other related mindfulness strategiestaxes workingmemory (van den Hout et al. 2011), the benefitsto working memory can be observed following mindfulness-enhancing training and activities (Jha et al. 2010; van Vugtand Jha 2011).

Working memory is an important precursor to long-termmemory (Baddeley et al. 2009), and as such, a few studieshave examined the association between mindfulness-based practice and long-term recall of information.Neuropsychological studies have provided convergingevidence for changes in the brain associated with im-proved memory resulting from mindfulness practice,including increased cerebral blood flow in subjects withmemory loss and increased gray matter density in the hippo-campus following mindfulness training (Hölzel et al. 2011;Newberg et al. 2010).

In one of the few studies examining long-term recall,researchers had an experimental group participate in a 12-min focused breathing exercise prior to being presented withten positive (e.g., “friend”), ten negative (e.g., “murder”), andten neutral (e.g., “door”) words (Alberts and Thewissen 2011).Following a 20-min delay after being introduced to the wordlist, the mindfulness and control groups recalled the samenumber of words; however, participants in the mindfulnessgroup recalled a significantly smaller amount of negativewords. A similar study, but with a longer phase of meditationtraining (i.e., 30 min, three times per week, for 12 weeks),found different results (Roberts-Wolfe et al. 2012). In thiscase, the meditators recalled significantly more positive wordscompared to the control group, with no difference in overallrecall or negative words.

Another recent study compared demographically matchedexperienced meditators to nonmeditators on several measures

of attention and verbal memory to assess for entrencheddifferences (Lykins et al. 2012). While they found no differ-ences on any of the attention measures, there were significantdifferences on measures of short-term and long-term memoryusing the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT). This as-sessment involves five learning trials of a list of 16 words,followed by another list of 16 words to create interference.After the interference, short-delay recall of the first list wasassessed, and then long-term recall was assessed following a20-min delay. Experienced meditators scored higher on short-delay free recall and cued recall as well as long-term freerecall. This suggests that experienced meditators have advan-tages in verbal memory processes. The authors also note thatmore research on mindfulness and short- and long-term mem-ory is necessary, with no previous research looking at suchmeasures.

Although a substantial amount of research on mindfulnessand learning has been published, much of this work involvesexpert meditators or novices who go through extensive multi-week trainings (Carmody et al. 2009; Goldin and Gross 2010;Kerr et al. 2011). In many of these studies, “brief” interven-tions are considered 8 weeks or less. There exists less researchon changes in state mindfulness, memory, and learning fol-lowing a single administration of a mindfulness exercise. Thefew studies published using single administration, however,have demonstrated promising results. After only 8 min ofmindful breathing, college students have displayed reducedmind wandering during a sustained attention task when com-pared to students in a relaxation and reading control groups(Mrazek et al. 2012). Another study used a single 12-minmindful breathing exercise, compared to a no-treatment con-trol, on memory for emotional words and found significantlyfewer negative words recalled for the mindfulness group(Alberts and Thewissen 2011). Even a 5-min mindful eatingexercise (i.e., instruction on eating two raisins and noticing thesensory experiences as if it was the first time eating a raisin)has been shown to reduce the negative effects on math per-formance associated with induced stereotype threat (Wegeret al. 2011).

Current Study

While emerging research has shown mindfulness to directlyand indirectly improve attention and recall, there is limitedresearch evaluating brief mindfulness applications in thecontext of improving long-term recall of novel words, espe-cially among adult learners. We designed a single-sessionbrief mindfulness intervention using body scan meditation toaddress the gaps in the literature noted above. The goal ofthe current study was to evaluate whether engaging in a briefmindfulness exercise, a single-session abbreviated body scanmeditation, improved learning. An assessment of learningnovel words using Swahili-English word pairs was selected

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to address this goal. This assessment procedure has beennormed by Nelson and Dunlosky (1994) and has been usedin a number of studies on encoding and retrieval (Finn andRoediger 2011; Potts and Shanks 2012; Pyc and Rawson2007). There were a number of advantages in using thisprocedure. Swahili is a language relatively few participantsin college samples have exposure to. Furthermore, theSwahili used in the assessment is readable for Englishspeakers but is not Latin based and has words that wereselected for their neutral characteristics (e.g., goti=knee,punda=donkey, chakula=food).

A body scan activity was selected because previous researchusing this exercise has shown that it can induce state mindful-ness (e.g., Cropley et al. 2007; Carmody and Baer 2008;Ostafin and Kassman 2012). A 45-min body scan was selectedbecause it is the standard length of meditation in Kabat-Zinn’smindfulness-based stress reduction program (1994). The 20-min body scan was also included to assess whether a brieferduration, one that could be more easily implemented in class-rooms and related settings, may be sufficient to improve learn-ing. Because previous findings indicate that mindfulness im-proves executive functioning and working memory (Jha et al.2010; van Vugt and Jha 2011), we predicted that the groupsparticipating in both the 20-min and 45-min body scan exer-cises before learning Swahili-English word pairs would dem-onstrate a higher number of Swahili words learned than themembers of the no-treatment control group. We postulated thatif a single administration of mindfulness training demonstratedimprovements in long-term recall, this could have importantimplications for interventions designed to enhance academicperformance, given that long-term recall is a common methodof testing knowledge acquisition.

Method

Participants

Participants were recruited from the population of undergrad-uates attending a midwestern university through flyers, in-class sign-up sheets, and online via the web-based humansubject pool management software program SONA systemsused on many college campuses. Participants recruited frompsychology courses were offered a choice between extracredit and US$10; non-psychology students receivedUS$10. Five cases were excluded from analysis due to rea-sons known to be unrelated to the outcome measures (i.e.,missing an assessment form in packets), resulting in a total of136 women participants, Mage=19.46 (SD=2.41) and agerange 18–42 years. Of the participants, 5 % reported theirethnicity as Native American, 2.9 % as Asian-American,1.5 % as Black or African-American, 2.2 % as PacificIslander, and 94.1 % as White.

Measures

Several paper-and-pencil assessments were included in thisstudy: two outcome measures, four covariates, and a demo-graphic survey. They are described in detail below.

Mindfulness Scale The Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS)was used as an outcome variable to assess for group differ-ences in mindfulness-related qualities at posttreatment. TheTMS is a 13-item measure created to assess for state qualitiesof mindfulness following meditation practice (Lau et al.2006). Respondents answer items such as “I experiencedmyself as separate from my changing thoughts and feelings”on a 5-point scale of agreement ranging from 0 (“not at all”) to4 (“very much”). The TMS demonstrated good internal con-sistency with an alpha coefficient of 0.86, scores that arecomparable to what was reported by test developers (Lauet al. 2006).

State-Trait Anxiety Inventory The State-Trait AnxietyInventory (STAI) consists of two 20-item scales; one tomeasure state anxiety and one to measure trait anxiety(Spielberger 1985). The state scale of the STAI was used asan outcome variable to examine changes in immediate feel-ings of anxiety during the testing administration, whereas thetrait scale was used as a covariate to control for long-termenduring anxiety. The state measure includes items that mea-sure how a respondent feels at the moment, e.g., “I feelupset,” while the trait measure targets more consistent generalfeatures, e.g., “I lack self-confidence.” Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (“not at all”) to 4 (“verymuch”) for the state measure, and 1 (“almost never”) to 4(“almost always”) on the trait measure. In the current study,the state and the trait measures had internal consistenciesranging from 0.93 to 0.94; both are congruent with pastresearch (Barnes et al. 2002).

Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale,NIMH The Center for Epidemiologic Studies DepressionScale (CES-D) was used as a potential covariate to controlfor symptoms of depression, which have been demonstrated toaffect memory (Burt et al. 1995). The CES-D is a 20-iteminventory to assess for symptoms of depression over the pastweek (Radloff 1977). Items such as “I felt I was just as good asother people” and “I felt sad” are rated on a 4-point frequencyscale ranging from 1 (“rarely or none of the time/less than1 day”) to 4 (“most or all of the time/5–7 days”). Internalconsistency was high (α=0.90), which is congruent with otherresearch (Radloff 1977).

Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale Symptom Checklist The AdultADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1) was given to controlfor existing attention and ADHD symptoms among

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participants. Although the ASRSwas developed as an 18-itemchecklist to assess for ADHD symptoms in adults, researchhas shown that six specific questions from the measure are themost predictive of symptoms consistent with ADHD (Kessleret al. 2007). These six items were included in the currentstudy. Examples of these items include “How often do youhave problems remembering appointments or obligations?”and “How often do you feel overly active and compleed to dothings, like you were driven by a motor?”. Responses are on a5-point frequency scale from 0 (“never”) to 5 (“very often”).The ASRS demonstrated good internal consistency reliability(α=0.69), which is generally within the range of other studies(Adler et al. 2006; Kessler et al. 2007).

Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire The Five FacetMindfulness Scale (FFMQ) was included as a covariate tocontrol for varying levels of experience and trait mindfulness.The FFMQ is a 39-item self-report measure consisting ofstatements regarding facets of mindfulness (e.g., “When Ihave distressing thoughts or images I am able just to noticethem without reacting”) rated on a scale of 1 (“never or veryrarely true”) to 5 (“always true”). It was designed using afactor analysis of existing measures of mindfulness. The au-thors identified observing, nonreactivity, nonjudging, describ-ing, and acting with awareness as the five factors that contrib-ute to an overall trait-like mindfulness score. The full scalescore was used in the current study. The factors showed goodinternal consistency of 0.86, similar to the ranges found inother studies (Baer et al. 2006).

Demographic Questionnaire The demographic questionnaireincluded items to report age, gender, race, ethnicity, previousand current psychological diagnoses, and current medications.

Procedures

Data was collected with individual participants or in smallgroups, ranging from two to five participants (single partici-pant=23 %, group of two=26.7 %, group of three=36.9 %,group of four=10.7 %, group of five=2.7 %) depending onhow many students signed up for a given time slot. Theconsent and all testing procedures were administered by theprimary investigator or upper-level undergraduate and gradu-ate research assistants who received human subjects researcheducational training authorized by the UND InstitutionalReview Board. All the participants in a time slot were ran-domly assigned to the same condition, either the 20-min bodyscan group (n=46), the 45-min body scan group (n=51), orthe no-treatment control group (n=39). After completing theconsent procedure, all participants completed the demograph-ic questionnaire, the CES-D, both components of the STAI,the ASRS, and the FFMQ. Following completion of self-report measures, participants assigned to group 1 listened

and followed instructions in a recorded 20-min body scanmeditation. Group 2 listened and followed instructions in arecorded 45-min body scan meditation. The body scan med-itation instructions for both recordings were read by the sameactor, and the content of the two body scans were very similar,with fewer and shorter pauses in the 20-min version and lessdetail in the different areas of the body (e.g., the 20-minversion calls attention to all of the fingers of each handcollectively, whereas the 45-min scan focuses on each fingerindividually). Both versions are made available to the publicvia the UCSD Center for Mindfulness website as MP3s(http://health.ucsd.edu/specialties/mindfulness/mbsr/Pages/audio.aspx). The recordings were played to participantsthrough external computer speakers.

In an attempt to replicate a typical academic setting, datawere collected on campus in classrooms. Classrooms wereempty, with only the participants and research assistants pres-ent, and classroom doors were shut. No additional effort wastaken to minimize noises that would be expected to occur in atypical academic environment (e.g., bells ringing betweeninstructional periods, people talking in the hallway and walk-ing to class). Although we did not control for or measure thesepotential environmental disruptions, conditions were random-ly assigned and we expect these potential distractions were nogreater than those that can be expected during other researchstudies collected on college campuses. For the two mediationgroups, participants listened to the body scan instruction whilein a seated position at a classroom desk, rather than lyingdown.

Following the meditation, groups 1 and 2 viewed 20Swahili-English word pairs from those normed by Nelsonand Dunlosky (1994). For the control condition, participantsdid not engage in a mindfulness activity and viewed the 20word pairs immediately after completing the first set of as-sessments. To minimize demand characteristics, the study wasadvertised as a foreign language study. Participants had noexpectation of engaging in a meditation until they arrived atthe study; at which point, they were informed that they may ormay not engage in a mindfulness activity. A no-treatmentcontrol group, in which participants were administered theSwahili-English word pairs after completing the consent pro-cedures and initial questionnaires, was used as a group com-parison for this study in lieu of an active control condition.Wehad hoped that this no-treatment control condition wouldmore closely approximate a typical classroom learning expe-rience where little or no preparative activities are engaged inprior to learning.

The 20 Swahili-English word pairs were randomly present-ed one at a time in a Qualtrics presentation that automaticallytransitioned to a new pair after 10 s. The amount of time pairswere presented, and the number of words used is based onprevious research (Cepeda et al. 2009; Grimaldi et al. 2010).Following the encoding task, all three groups completed basic

Mindfulness

arithmetic for 1 min to interrupt potential rehearsal efforts. Thearithmetic problems were selected from an academic skills-building website (www.homeschoolmath.net). In the recallphase, all participants were presented (via Qualtrics) withthe Swahili terms from the pairs they learned earlier. Theywere given 10 s to free recall and write down the English wordtranslation of each Swahili word. The duration betweenlearning the Swahili words and being tested was the sameacross the three groups. Following presentation of all 20Swahili words, the state portion of the STAI was completedagain to assess for changes from baseline, and the TMS wascompleted to identify any group differences in statemindfulness at the end of the process. Finally, participantswere debriefed on the intent of the study and offeredinformation for accessing results at the conclusion of thestudy. Data were then collected and entered twice byundergraduate and graduate research assistants and cross-checked for accuracy.

Results

In addition to recall, measures of depressive symptoms, stateand trait anxiety, attentional difficulties, and mindfulness mea-sures were incorporated into the study. These measures wereincluded to control for within-group differences that mayaffect attention and memory and to test whether depressiveand anxiety symptoms may moderate the associations be-tween mindfulness and test performance. Trait mindfulnesswas not included as an independent variable because previousresearch has failed to find a relationship between trait mind-fulness and state mindfulness (Thompson and Waltz 2007).Similarly, our results showed that state and trait measures werenot correlated (see Table 1). Graphic and statistical analysesfor univariate and multivariate outliers were conducted, using

boxplots, stem-and-leaf, and Mahalanobis distance. When itwas determined that outliers were valid and entered correctlyand therefore should remain in the analyses, they were adjust-ed to the extrememinimum/maximum value depending on thedirection of the outlier. In order to meet normality assump-tions, a square-root transformation was applied to CES-D andSTAI (state-time 1), and a log10 transformation was applied toSTAI (trait).

Means reported are for untransformed data; correlationsused transformed data. Bivariate correlations and means forthe variables identified are presented in Table 1. Three stateanxiety scores are represented in Table 1; reflecting stateanxiety scores include time 1 scores, time 2 scores, and thedifference between state anxiety at time 1 and time 2.Although the difference score was included as a dependentvariable in the analyses of variance (ANOVAs) that follow,initial ANOVA results revealed that the difference betweentime 1 and time 2 state anxiety scores showed no main effectof time (F=.289, p=.59), no main effect of group (F=.25,p=.78), and no interaction between time and group (F=1.45,p=.24). The state anxiety scores at time 1 and time 2 areconsistent with student group samples, with approximately15 % scoring in the clinically significant range (Knight et al.1983; Eisenberg et al. 2007). Participants also demonstratedADHD symptomology at levels found in the general popula-tion according to established clinical cutoff scores (Kessleret al. 2007). Also noteworthy, measures of depression, traitanxiety, attention difficulties, and trait mindfulness did notcorrelate with measures of word recall, state anxiety, andmindfulness (Table 1).

In addition to word recall as the primary outcome variable,two additional analyses with measures of state anxiety andmindfulness were included as outcome variables. It was ex-pected that improvements in word recall across groups wouldcoincide with increases in state mindfulness and reduction in

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations among variables

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Total Sample

1. Group – – –

2. Recall 7.22 4.30 −.28** –

3. CES-D 9.50 8.86 −.12 .04 –

4. State anxiety (T1) 32.19 9.98 −.09 .10 .73** –

5. State anxiety (T2) 32.20 10.05 .02 .07 .60** .78** –

6. State anxiety (T2-T1) − 0.22 6.23 −.16 .25** .21* .32** −.32** –

7. Trait anxiety 35.37 10.97 −.06 .09 .74** .81** .68** .19* –

8. Trait mindfulness 129.99 16.01 .10 −.03 −.53** −.51** −.54** .02* −.64** –

9. State mindfulness 27.40 8.43 .18* −.16 .01 −.07 −.08 .07 −.05 .08 –

10. Attention 8.31 3.57 −.03 −.02 .42** .39** .30** .19* .38** −.43** .06

*p<.05; **p<.01

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state anxiety. Because of unequal sample size, post hocTukey-Kramer tests were conducted to compare meditationgroups to the control and to determine whether there weresignificant differences between the 20-min and 45-min bodyscan conditions (Hayter 1984).

Analyses of Group Differences

Following removal of nonsignificant covariates, three separateanalyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to analyzedata to measure differences in English word recall, statemindfulness, and state anxiety levels. Each ANOVA wasfollowed with an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) to eval-uate potential effects of covariates. Furthermore, listwise de-letion was used to address instances of missing data.

Word Recall The first ANOVAwas conducted to compare theeffect of engaging in a body scan meditation on learning, asmeasured by recall of English translations of Swahili words,across the three groups: 20-min body scan (group 1), 45-minbody scan (group 2), and no body scan (i.e., control, group 3)conditions. A preliminary ANCOVA found measures of de-pression and anxiety and attention problems, and trait mindful-ness were not significantly related to recall (FCES-D (1,121)=0.32, p=.57, r=0.00; FSTAI-T (1,121)=1.35, p=.25, r=0.01;FFFMQ (1,121)=0.32, p=.57, r=0.00; FASRS (1,121)=0.01,p=.98, r=0.00). Therefore, these variables were removed andanalysis proceeded with an ANOVA. Results showed that therewas a main effect of group (F (2,123)=6.29, p<.01, 2=0.07).Findings from post hoc Tukey-Kramer comparisons demon-strated that those in the 20-min body scan condition recalledsignificantly more words than the control (p<.01) and those inthe 45-min group recalled significantly more words comparedto the control (p<.05). The 20-min and 45-min groups were notsignificantly different from each other (p=.71). Means associ-ated with these analyses, and the ANOVAs that follow can beseen in Table 2. Although each covariate individually did notaccount for a significant amount of variance, a follow-upANCOVAwas conducted to assess for effects of all covariates,collectively. Swahili-English recall score was significantly dif-ferent between groups, F (2,121)=4.91, p<.01, 2=0.01. Usingpairwise comparisons with Bonferroni adjustment, the 20-mingroup recalled significantly more English translations than thecontrol group (p<.01); however, the 45-min did not reachsignificance in comparison to the control group (p=.06).Again, the 20-min and 45-min group were not significantlydifferent from each other (p=1.0).

State Mindfulness While not reaching significance, therewas a trend towards an effect of group on state mindfulness(F (2,132)=2.60, p=.08). Again, a follow-up ANCOVAwasconducted including measures of depression and anxietysymptoms, trait mindfulness, and self-report attention

problems. As with recall, the covariates were not significantlyrelated to state mindfulness (FCES-D (1,120)=0.34, p=.56, r=0.00; FSTAI-T (1,120)=0.52, p=.47, r=0.00; FFFMQ (1,120)=0.69, p=.33, r=0.01; FASRS (1,120)=0.71, p=.40, r=0.01).When these nonsignificant covariates were included, howev-er, the state mindfulness score showed a statistically signifi-cant difference between different groups, F (2,120)=4.10,p=.02, with a small effect, ώ2=0.05 (Kirk 1996). The onlysignificant difference between groups was between the 20-min and the control group (p=.02). There was no significantdifference between the 45-min and the control group (p=.11)nor between the two meditation groups (p=1.0).

State Anxiety The effect of group on changes in state anxietyscore was not significant (F (2,128)=2.22, p=.11, showingthat the difference in the change in state anxiety score after thebrief mindfulness exercise for the control group was notstatistically different than the change in state anxiety for eitherthe 20-min or 45-min mediation groups, nor were they differ-ent from each other. Trait mindfulness and attention difficul-ties were not significantly related to state anxiety differencescores (FFFMQ (1,119)=3.77, p= .06, r=0.03; FASRS

(1,119)=.01, p=.93, r=0.00). Including covariates for traitanxiety, attention problems, and trait mindfulness, there wasagain no main effect of group (F (2, 119)=2.50, p=.09. Thecovariate of trait anxiety was significantly related to stateanxiety (FSTAI-T (1,119)=7.39, p<.01, r=0.06 (small effectsize)). An additional ANCOVAwas conducted including onlytrait anxiety; results were consistent with previous analyseswith no main effect (F=2.27, p=.11).

Discussion

The present study predicted that a brief mindfulness interven-tion would increase the number of English words free recalled

Table 2 Mean recall, state mindfulness, and change in state anxietyscores

Control 20-min bodyscan

45-min bodyscan

Recall (n=39) (n=46) (n=51)

M 5.28 8.35* 7.69*

SE 0.58 0.62 0.62

State mindfulness (n=39) (n=45) (n=51)

M 25.10 28.78 28.10

SE 1.18 1.08 1.20

Difference in state anxiety (n=39) (n=43) (n=49)

M −1.95 0.40 .37

SE 0.87 0.91 0.84

*Mean scores greater than controls (p<.05), based on Tukey-Kramer testresults following ANOVAs

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when newly learned Swahili words were presented. Our find-ings supported this hypothesis, showing that participants ineither the 20-min or the 45-min body scan meditation condi-tion recalled more words than the control group. Althougheffect size for the newly learned Swahili words ANOVAwasrelatively small, participants in the 20-min group recalledapproximately 10 % more words than the control group. Toput this into context, according to accepted grading practicesused in many academic settings, a 10 % increase in perfor-mance on a given assignment would result in moving thestudent’s score up a full letter grade.

We included the TMS to measure changes in state mind-fulness as a validity check to assess whether differences inperformances on the word pair task coincided with actualdifferences in state mindfulness. The results of the currentstudy indicate that the 20-min body scan performed as expect-ed following a single brief mindfulness practice session butonly when accounting for the nonsignificant covariates mea-suring depression and anxiety symptoms, attention problems,and trait mindfulness. In the future, additional measures ofmood and affect in the moment (e.g. PANAS; Watson et al.1988), and other state measures, may more clearly identifyindividual differences. Also note that the TMS was adminis-tered after the participants were shown English-Swahili wordpairs rather than immediately following the body scan exer-cise. Differences in state mindfulness might have been morepronounced had we given the TMS immediately following thebody scan exercise.

The TMS scores from the 45-min condition were notdifferent than the control condition in any analysis.Although previous research has shown that mindfulness prac-tice can impact state mindfulness (e.g., Lau et al. 2006;Carmody et al. 2008), this finding suggests that not all mind-fulness exercises may have the same effects. One possibleexplanation for the potentially lower rating of mindfulnessamong the 45-min body scan group is that the longer proce-dure may have had a tendency to elicit nonmindful andunhelpful reactions among some participants, e.g., drowsi-ness, boredom, and concerns about time. Similarly, partici-pants might have become physically uncomfortable fromremaining in a sitting position for a longer period of time.Although we failed to include an exit interview polling par-ticipants on their reactions to the mindfulness exercise, on anumber of occasions, the primary investigator and researchassistants observed participants becoming restless, sleepy, orirritated by the duration of the meditation practice during the45-min body scan condition.

Although both the 20-min and the 45-min groups displayedmore recall of novel words, researchers and clinicians maywant to consider using a 20-min rather than a 45-min mind-fulness exercise. In addition to the failure of the 45-minexercise to significantly impact state mindfulness, the 20-minexercise is more efficient and thus may be more appropriate

for academic and clinical settings where busy students andclients may be more likely to engage in the exercise.

The concept of “brief” mindfulness exercises used acrossthe literature range widely in the duration of administrationtime from as brief as 5 min (Weger et al. 2011) to several days(Zeidan et al. 2010) and to as long in duration as several weeksor more (van Vugt and Jha 2011). These variations in durationmay in part explain some of the discrepancies in findings acrossstudies (MacLean et al. 2010; van Vugt and Jha 2011; Roberts-Wolfe et al. 2012). While we found that both the 20-min and45-min exercises had an effective impact on recall, additionalresearch may be useful in determining the optimal duration tofacilitate improvement in long-term memory processing.

While this study has shown that a brief mindfulness exer-cise can improve learning of new words, more research isneeded to better understand the underlying mechanismsthrough which mindfulness exercises enhance performance.Although it was suspected that a reduction of state anxietywould be one such mechanism, there was no support for thisin the data. There are a number of possible explanations forthis finding. One possible explanation is that the participantswe recruited were simply not anxious enough. Most of theresearch that links anxiety and mindfulness has used clinicalsamples with individuals who meet criteria for an anxietydisorder (Kabat-Zinn et al. 1992; Goldin and Gross 2010;Hofmann et al. 2010), whereas the majority of the currentsample reported anxiety within the low to moderate range.Future studies in this area might be able to find differences inanxiety scores across the groups after recruiting participantswith more variable and severe levels of anxiety.

Another explanation for the lack of changes in anxietyscores is that the body scan might have addressed anxietysymptoms that were not captured on the STAI. This measureevaluated general aspects of state anxiety rather than specificanxiety and concerns related to performance. Researchers inthe future are encouraged to include measures designed toevaluate test anxiety, such as the Test Anxiety Inventory(Spielberger 1980) or Benson’s Revised Test Anxiety Scale(Benson et al. 1992), to identify potential reductions in anxietyspecific to academic performance.

An additional explanation is that mindfulness practice mayenhance performance on recall in ways that are independent ofanxiety reduction, such as increased attention. Although wefound the ASDS v1.1 score, a self-report measure of attentionwas not significant as a covariate of performance on the word-pair task, it would be helpful in future studies to include a briefmeasure of attentional performance or imaging data (e.g.,fMRI to monitor changes in attention that coincide withmindfulness meditation and encoding of novel information).This could be used to evaluate whether improved performanceis mediated by enhance attention via the brief mindfulnessexercise. Without such measures, it is uncertain exactly whichmechanisms contributed to differences in recall scores.

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A broad limitation of this study is that it was conductedwith the general student body. It would be useful to replicatethese findings in a community sample. Furthermore, this studyutilized a very brief gap of a few minutes between introducingnovel words and assessing recall. Although a 1-min simplemath task was included to reduce effects of rehearsal, addi-tional research would be needed to ascertain whether thebenefits of mindfulness exercise prior to encoding would beseen over a longer duration (e.g., 3 h, 1 day, 1 week). Inaddition, the current study was conducted only with females.Future research is needed with an adequate sample size ofmale participants to discount or strengthen these preliminaryfindings; this is crucial to understanding if mindfulness prac-tice has the same impact on men as it does on women.

Another limitation of this study is that we did not incorpo-rate an active control condition in the design. Although theduration between learning the Swahili words and being testedwas the same across the three groups, the control group beganthe process of learning the words relatively sooner than theother two groups. This use of a nontreatment control condi-tion, however, many have introduced nonspecific effects oftime, such as acclimating to the classroom setting, that mighthave influenced performance in unforeseen ways. Additionalstudies incorporating a control activity of the same duration asthe body scan will address potential effects of time and de-mand characteristics.

Finally, the mindfulness practice was administered prior tolearning new words, with the assumption that the exercisewould enhance the encoding of new information. Analysisof the measure of state mindfulness showed, however, thatdifferences in mindfulness were observed, when controllingfor depression, anxiety, attention problems, and trait mindful-ness, even after the delay of learning the new words. It isunclear from the current design whether there may have beena carryover effect, with the mindfulness practice exercise notonly influencing the encoding but also lingering to influencethe recall on novel words as well. Additional research onmindfulness and learning is needed to delineate how briefmindfulness exercises might separately influence encodingand recall, particularly since differences in recall are apparenteven when not controlling for other factors. A study compar-ing groups engaged in a mindfulness activity prior to encodingand/or prior to recall might be helpful in this regard. Thiscould provide information regarding at what point in thelearning process a mindfulness exercise may be most benefi-cial as well as determining whether there is an additive effectof practicing prior to learning and prior to recall (e.g., beforean exam). Moreover, a repeated measure after a delay couldhelp determine whether the effects of longer meditations lastlonger than brief exercises.

Researchers have identified the need for more research onthe benefits of mindfulness to long-term memory and learning(Crumley and Schutz 2011; Lykins et al. 2012). This study

begins to address this need, and findings provide additionalsupport for the cognitive benefits of mindfulness, namely, inimprovements in long-term memory in the context of learningnovel information. Additionally, it was demonstrated thatthere were increases in recall and higher state mindfulnessafter a single body scanmeditation, highlighting the efficiencyof such interventions. Finally, there is no consistency in theduration of mindfulness exercises used across existing studiesin the research and clinical literature. By including two differ-ent meditation durations, it was found that there are potentiallyimportant differences that have not been previously examined.In order to increase understanding and successful implemen-tation of mindfulness strategies, this research provides severaldirections for continuing research.

These results have important clinical and academic impli-cations. Althoughmore research is needed, similar brief mind-fulness exercises may be used to enhance learning for collegestudents. The 20-min body scan is relatively easily utilizedand can be administered in classrooms and group settings withminimal training. The prerecorded exercises, which are in thepublic domain, can easily be disseminated by teachers, edu-cational specialists, school counselors, and/or directly to stu-dents via MP3 available on university websites or elsewhere.The results also have important implications for researchers,as they indicate that benefits of mindfulness practice may beachieved following an experimentally induced brief 20-minbody scan exercise and in fact may actually be more effectiveunder certain conditions (e.g., in a classroom setting) than a45-min exercise.

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