The Effects of a Mindfulness Induction on the Brain's Response to Performance Errors

The current study aimed to investigate the effects of a\ud mindfulness induction on the brain’s response to performance\ud errors, specifically whether a mindfulness induction would affect\ud cognitive performance and the neural correlates of performance\ud monitoring. Three neural correlates of performance monitoring\ud were examined: the errorrelated\ud negativity (ERN), error\ud positivity (Pe), and errorrelated\ud alpha suppression (ERAS). The\ud mindfulness induction was intended to induce mindful\ud awareness via a short audio clip with meditative breathing\ud exercises, whereas the control condition simply listened to an\ud educational audio clip on mindfulness. All participants then\ud completed a Stroop test while EEG was recorded. The groups\ud showed similar performance on the Stroop test, and ERN and\ud Pe amplitudes did not differ across groups. However, alpha power was marginally different across groups, where those in\ud the mindfulness condition showed higher alpha power following\ud correct trials than error trials. Moreover, several different\ud measures of individual differences, including awareness level,\ud anxiety level, worry level, and mindfulness experience level were\ud associated with these neural correlates. The results may reflect\ud the idea that neural responses to errors are affected differently\ud by a mindfulness induction and are predicted by various\ud measures of individual differences in complex ways