The Effect of Brief Mindfulness Induction on Memory Bias for Emotional Stimuli

This study aimed to investigate the effect of mindfulness induction on memory bias for emotional stimuli. In total, 60 college students were assigned randomly to either mindfulness group or control group. Experiments were conducted on two separate days with a one-week interval in between. In day-1 experiment, mindfulness group proceeded in the order of education and treatment, while control group proceeded with the treatment phase without prior education. Participants in mindfulness group were instructed to observe, without judgment, the thoughts, feelings, and body sensations that arose when they heard the sound coming from the computer. Participants in control group were only informed that the sound was coming from the computer, and no special instructions were given. after treatment for each group, learning task was conducted. In learning task, picture stimuli were presented as either a positive-neutral stimulus pair or negative-neutral stimulus pair, rather than as a single stimulus. A week later, in day-2 experiment, a recognition task was conducted. In recognition task, participants were asked to distinguish between the pictures they had seen in the day-1 experiment and the pictures they were seeing for the first time. Recognition accuracy and memory bias index were calculated according to results of recognition task.