“Mind the trap”: Mindfulness Practice Associated with Reduced Cognitive Rigidity

1. “Mind the trap”: Mindfulness Practice Associated with Reduced Cognitive Rigidity Jonathan Greenberg Under the supervision of Prof. Nachshon Meiran

2. Learning from experience is often crucial for our adaptive functioning and survival

3. May experience hinder adaptive responding? Rigidity “…The tendency to form and perseverate in the use of mental and behavioral sets” (Schultz & Searman, 2002, pp. 1)

4. Rigidity may play a key role in psychopathology: • Suicidal Ideation • Depression • Mania • Eating disorders • OCD • Alcoholism • ADHD

5. A method for decreasing such rigidity may be of value regarding treatment of these and other conditions

6. Mindfulness Practice • “Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994)

7. Mindfulness associated with alleviation of symptoms in: • Suicidal tendencies • Depression • Mania • Eating disorders • OCD • Alcoholism • ADHD • Psoriasis • PTSD • Chronic pain • Cancer • Heart desease • GAD

8. Mindfulness and cognitive rigidity: • Stroop Task • Nonsensical sentence completion (Hayling task) • Verbal fluency

9. The present study Mindfulness practice Rigidity Overcoming recently formed habits

10. Hypothesis: Mindfulness meditators will exhibit lower levels of rigidity than non-meditators, due to more of a “Beginners mind”.

11. Participants • 12 Long term mindfulness meditators • 9.32 years of practice on average • Practicing 4 hours a week on average • 13 “Pre-meditators” • Non-meditators who are registered for their 1st mindfulness retreat • Equivalent in age, academic degree, academic abilities (PET score)

12. Eisntellung water jar task: • “Please solve the following problems. Try to solve rather quickly, yet make sure you use the shortest and simplest solution”. (Luchins, 1942)

17. Eisntellung water jar task • 6 “set” trials • 3 “critical” or “trap” trials • 2 “extinction” trials • Rigidity score - 1 point for each: • Long solution on a “critical” or “extinction” trial • “Extinction” trial solved in more than 90 seconds

18. RESULTS

19. (p<0.01)

20. Long term meditation associated with reduced rigidity • Willing and able to let go of habits, and utilize alternatives when appropriate

21. Mindfulness and treatment of psychiatric symptoms • Many conditions characterized by a stereotyped or undifferentiated view of the environment • “Things always go wrong”’ • “There is no other way” • “The world is dangerous, I must always be alert and prepared” • Need for “un-learning” thought patterns and responses

22. Current Work • Randomized experimental study design • 8 week mindfulness intervention • Participators vs. waiting list • Pre-intervention: Alphabet maze • Post-intervention: Water Jar task

23. Alphabet maze (Cowen, Wiener, & Hess, 1953)

24. Thanks: • Prof. Nachchson Meiran • Thank you for listening

26. Self reported measures

27. Hayling Task “Please complete the sentence with an unrelated, nonsensical word as quickly as possible”: “The captain decided to stay with the sinking…” • Paperclip? (e.g Heeren,Van Broeck, & Philippot, 2009)

28. Stroop Task: “Please name the colour of the ink”: Congruent Condition Green Yellow Red Blue Incongruent Condition Green Yellow Red Blue (Moore, & Malinowski, 2009)

29. Verbal Fluency “Say as many words as you can think of beginning with the letters F, A, and S” (e.g Zeidan, et al, 2010; Heeren,Van Broeck, & Philippot, 2009)