[acb-hsp] Mindfulness Training Boosts Test Scores

[peter altschul]

Only a Few Weeks of Mindfulness Training Boosts Test Scores for 
Memory and Reading Comprehension
  Tom Jacobs April 2, 2013
  Studies reporting the benefits of mindfulness training keep 
rolling inbnot quite with the regularity of those distracting 
thoughts that keep popping up in your head, but at a good clip 
nonetheless.  The latest, from a team at the University of 
California, Santa Barbara, reports even a short, two-week course 
in focusing the mind can lead to immediate, tangible results: 
higher scores on tests measuring reasoning and comprehension.
  "Our results suggest that cultivating mindfulness is an 
effective and efficient technique for improving cognitive 
function, with wide-reaching consequences," a research team led 
by psychologist Michael Mrazek writes in the journal 
Psychological Science.
  The researchers describe a study featuring 48 undergraduates 
(14 male, 34 female).  They were randomly chosen to spend two 
weeks in a four-day-per-week class on cultivating mindfulness, or 
an alternative course focusing on good nutrition.
  Among other things, the mindfulness students took part in 
regular exercises that involved "focused attention to some aspect 
of sensory experience," such as eating a piece of fruit.
  They were also trained in the art of ignoring or dismissing 
thoughts of past experiences or future concerns by continually 
refocusing on the present moment.  To reinforce this training, 
they were assigned to meditate for 10 minutes daily outside of 
class.
  At the beginning and conclusion of the study, all the 
participants took two tests.  One was a modified version of the 
verbal-reasoning section of the GRE, a standard test for 
application into graduate school.  Mrazek and his colleagues 
describe it as "an assessment of reading comprehension."
  The second measured working memory capacity, the all-important 
ability to hold information in your mind while you process and 
apply it.  Participants were asked to remember clusters of three 
to seven letters while performing an unrelated task.
  The results: the nutrition instruction "did not cause changes 
in performance or mind-wandering," the researchers write.  In 
contrast, the mindfulness training led to bsignificant 
improvements in performanceb on both tests.
  Specifically, "the change in GRE accuracy from mindfulness 
training led to an average improvement analogous to 16 percentile 
points," Mrazek and colleagues write.  Ommmmmazing!
  The researchers tie these improvements directly to a better 
ability to focus on the questions at hand, especially among those 
students "who had been prone to mind wandering." Using several 
methods, they determined those who had taken the mindfulness 
training were better able to maintain their attention on the 
material.
  "This is the most complete and rigorous demonstration that 
mindfulness can reduce mind-wandering, one of the clearest 
demonstrations that mindfulness can improve working memory and 
reading, and the first study to tie all this together to show 
that mind-wandering mediates the improvements in performance," 
Mrazek said, according to a UCSB media release.
  As we reported a few days ago, one way to improve test scores 
is to believe you already have the answers.  If tricking yourself 
in that way proves problematic, this study points to a different, 
and potentially quite effective, method.
  If you're spending 10 hours a day studying for that law- or 
medical-school exam, it'd be wise to carve out 10 minutes to 
meditate.