Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of brief mindfulness induction on memory bias for emotional stimuli. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups (mindfulness group (n=30) vs. control group (n=30)), and the experiment was conducted for two days at a weekly interval. In the day-1 experiment, treatment was performed according to the group, followed by the photo-learning task. In the photo-learning task, an emotional picture (positive or negative) and a neutral picture were presented at the same time. One week later, in the day-2 experiment, the recognition task was performed. In the recognition task, the participants distinguished between the pictures they had learned in the day-1 experiment and the pictures that they saw for the first time. As a result, in the positive-neutral pair condition, the recognition accuracy of positive pictures in the mindfulness group was significantly higher than that in the control group, but neither group showed any memory bias for positive pictures. In the negative-neutral pair condition, both groups showed a memory bias for negative pictures, but the mindfulness group showed a tendency to decrease the memory bias for negative pictures compared to the control group. These results suggest that brief mindfulness induction improves the overall learning task performance for positive-neutral pairs, while partially reducing memory bias for negative pictures. Finally, the implications and limitations of this study were discussed.