The Effect of Mindfulness and Cell Phone Distractions on Mind Wandering
Date
2018
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Haverford College. Department of Psychology
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eng
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Open Access
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Abstract
The goal of this study is to examined factors that influence mind wandering, predicting that technology, specifically cell phone distractions, will cause a person to mind wander more and mindfulness will reduce a person’s susceptibility to mind wandering even with a technological distraction. Fifty subjects, all undergraduate students, participated in a sustained attention to response task (a go/no-go task) and had their brain waves measured using an EEG machine to look at their P300 peak, a peak related to attention. Half of participants received a phone call during the task and half did not. The participants listened to an audio clip before participating in the task, with half of participants primed with mindful breathing and the other half listened to a control audio. All participants answered self-report questions assessing mind wandering. Contrary to prediction, receiving a cell phone call decreased the amount of errors a person made on the sustained attention to response task. Also, the mindfulness prime caused a person’s P300 peak to increase between the two blocks which was contrary to the hypothesis.