Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Conscious Cogn. 2021 Apr;90:103101. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2021.103101. Epub 2021 Mar 11.
Sustaining attention for extended periods of time is associated with negative affect and this increase in negative affect is related to poorer task performance. Trait mindfulness has been shown to be associated with better sustained attention performance. This may be because trait mindfulness is associated with better attention ability or better emotion regulation ability.
The present research aims to replicate previous findings and better understand why trait mindfulness is associated with better sustained attention performance.
Participants responded to self-report questionnaires assessing their trait mindfulness, attentional control, and experiential avoidance. Next, participants performed a sustained attention task, during which they also reported their subjective feelings of discomfort and boredom. Finally, participants reported their retrospective discomfort and boredom after the task.
We replicated and extended previous findings by showing that the relationship between trait mindfulness and sustained attention performance was mediated by negative affect experienced during the task. Moreover, the correlation between trait mindfulness and sustained attention disappeared when controlling for experiential avoidance, but remined when controlling for attention control.
Our results suggest that trait mindfulness is associated with sustained attention because of enhanced emotion regulation and that enhancing affective regulation would be an effective strategy for improving sustained attention performance.
长时间保持注意力与负面情绪有关，而这种负面情绪的增加与较差的任务表现有关。特质正念已被证明与更好的持续注意力表现相关。这可能是因为特质正念与更好的注意力能力或更好的情绪调节能力有关。
本研究旨在复制先前的发现，并更好地理解为什么特质正念与更好的持续注意力表现相关。
参与者回答了自我报告问卷，评估了他们的特质正念、注意力控制和体验回避。接下来，参与者进行了一项持续注意力任务，在此期间，他们还报告了自己的主观不适和无聊感。最后，参与者在任务结束后报告了他们的回顾性不适和无聊感。
我们通过证明特质正念与任务期间体验到的负面情绪之间的关系是持续注意力表现的中介，复制并扩展了先前的发现。此外，当控制体验回避时，特质正念与持续注意力之间的相关性消失，但当控制注意力控制时，相关性仍然存在。
我们的结果表明，特质正念与持续注意力有关，因为它增强了情绪调节，而增强情感调节将是提高持续注意力表现的有效策略。
