Short Term Effects of Meditation versus Relaxation on Cognitive Functioning

King and Coney compared the cognitive performances of 27 experienced meditators and 27 non-meditators immediately following their respective meditation or relaxation sessions in order to find the short term effects of meditation on cognitive functions. A battery of seven tests were used to measure cognitive performance and results showed there was no significant difference between the performance of the meditation group and the relaxation group in any of the seven tests. 

Summary:

The practice of meditation is said to improve concentration, reduce the meditator's vulnerability to distractions, and open their mind by relinquishing expectations and preconceptions. The meditator should minimize goal directed mental activity and increase non-judgmental reasoning. The authors reflect on the literature that posits physiological reactions to meditation that may alter cognitive functions, such as increased activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. 

The pre- and post-tests attempted to measure the participants' general intelligence, verbal fluency, spatial reasoning, spatial memory, verbal memory, verbal short term memory, and spatial short term memory. Between the pre- and post-tests, the meditation group participated in mindful meditation for twenty minutes while the other group relaxed in a quiet setting. The meditating group was instructed to attempt the deepest meditation mindset they could within this time frame while the relaxation group was instructed to match the meditation group's physical stature, sitting upright with their eyes closed, but to resist falling asleep. This occurred at their respective testing desks. All participants took the post-tests in the same order as they had taken the pre-test and results were calculated in the same way. 

Pre-test results show that the two groups were well-matched on abilities from the start. Post-test results showed almost parallel changes in performance between the two groups, both by individual test and multivariate analysis. Interestingly, some post-test results showed a decline in performance, albeit small. Finally, the research found a negative correlation between the amount of experience the meditators had with their test results in two of the tests, though the authors proved a stronger negative correlation between results and age,  which is to be expected since cognitive functions are known to decline with age, suggesting this is what drove the scores down rather than increased experience meditating. Overall neither technique, meditation or relaxation, had a significant effect on cognitive performance, except for in two tests, the spatial reasoning and spatial short term memory tests.

Critique:

The authors carefully detail their testing measurements and their efforts to mitigate biases or false results. Beyond explaining the tests themselves, they explain how they administered the test, making their research more easily replicated. Still, the authors admit that the way they split test questions for pre- and post-test use may have made an uneven distribution in terms of difficulty, skewing the performance results. Because both groups took the same tests in the same order, this would not effect the comparative results.

The authors posit three potential reasons the meditation group did not display better cognitive performance in the study: 1. the group did not achieve a similar altered state to those in previous research, 2. the test measures were insensitive to the type of change meditation induces, and 3. the tests were unable to capture the rapidly diminishing effects of short term meditation. Some members of the meditating group did report being unable to reach their normal "depth" of meditation, though this is subjective and difficult if not impossible to compare across the group. No matter what the cause, the results show little promise for the intelligence community as it is unlikely meditation could be successfully used to improve analysis if the setting of meditation so easily disturbs results, the effects are limited to very narrow cognitive functions, or the effects last such a short amount of time. 

Source: 

King, G. and Coney, J. (2006). Short term effects of meditation versus relaxation on cognitive functioning. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 38(2), 200-215. 

Brain Training Game Improves Executive Functions and Processing Speed in the Elderly: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Summary:
The authors conducted a study involving 32 participants, all of whom were elderly individuals that volunteered to participate in the study.  This study took place in Miyagi prefecture, Japan from March to April 2010.  The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of brain training, particularly video games, on the elderly through a double blind experiment.

The participants were split into to different groups, which played a different game (Brain Age or Tetris).  The games were played for five days a week, for four weeks.  Each of the five weekdays, the participants played for 15 minutes; the Brain Age participants recorded both their title and the score they received while the Tetris group recorded just their score.  Participants in the Brain Age groups participated in a number of games that were both simple to preform as well as activated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.  The Tetris groups was used as a control group, which looked largely at the positive effect that playing a game had compared to a game that used and stimulated various parts of the brain.

The four cognitive functions that were measured fell under four different categories; global cognitive status, executive function, attention, and processing speed.  A number of cognitive tests were applied to the participants to measure the various levels of cognition both prior and following the four weeks of engaging in activities.

The study found that the scores for the games improved from the initial test to the final test in both groups.  The results of this study further support previous research that indicates the application of games increases the cognitive abilities of elderly individuals.  Therefore, there is a positive correlation between the playing of brain games and the cognitive function of elderly individuals.

Critique:
This study demonstrates the effectiveness of brain training. particularly in elderly individuals.  The study was effective in the sense that a number of individuals were sampled, and they were randomly placed into two different groups, one of which was a control group.  This provided a base of information in which data from playing mind games and just playing electronic video games and allowed the researchers to compare the two elements.

This is relevant to the intelligence community because it presents a different mindset for increasing cognition level, which potentially provides a different perspective on techniques and tools to use in the workplace to increase cognition levels.

Source:
Nouchi, R., Taki, Y., Takeuchi, H., Hashizume, H., Akitsuki, Y., Shigemune, Y., Sekiguchi, A., Kotozaki, Y., Tsukiura, T., Yomogida, Y., & Kawashima, R. (2012). Brain training game improves executive functions and processing speed in the elderly: A randomized controlled trial. PLoS ONE, 7(1), 1-9. Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f895ac4a-8a3c-4692-9582-bed455513110%40sessionmgr104&vid=1&hid=101