Examining the Efficacy of Mindfulness Training to Enhance Attention in Normal Aging

The ability to sustain attention by inhibiting competing distracting processes represents a core attentional function that underpins complex cognitive operations which are known to slow and become increasingly susceptible to interference with age. Mindfulness has emerged as a training technique purportedly capable of enhancing attentional control and may provide protective benefits for older adults against agerelated cognitive decline (ARCD). Although evidence of the attentional benefits arising from mindfulness practice continues to grow, studies examining aging cohorts are lacking. This thesis examines the efficacy of mindfulness to enhance attention and affect in healthy older adults, as indexed by both behavioural and electrophysiological measures of performance. In order to accurately assess mindfulness by means of testable hypotheses, a comprehensive theoretical model of mindfulness capable of describing the attentional processes activated by this practice together with the pathways through which attentional and affective outcomes are achieved is required. In addition, a standardised set of instructions translated from this model is required to assess outcomes arising from this practice. Chapter 2 of this thesis presents a detailed cognitive model of mindfulness along with a standardised technique capable of activating the core processes of mindfulness in isolation from additional factors. Mindfulness-based interventions commonly used to date combine mindfulness with ancillary techniques such as psychoeducation or relaxation techniques, limiting their ability to draw causal inferences regarding observed outcomes. Here a standardised technique translated from a theoretical model is presented for use in longitudinal RCTs.Submitted in the fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of the Sunshine Coast, 2019