Investigating the influence of meditation style and practitioner experience on change blindness using a flicker-paradigm.

Change blindness engenders an inability to detect changes made to a visual scene and has negative implications for areas such as road safety and eye-witness memory. Therefore, it’s important to find ways of reducing change blindness to create a safer society. One way this might be achieved is through the practice of meditation. Regular practice of meditation may reduce the effects of change blindness by expanding a practitioner’s consciousness and brain potential over time. This study compared the influence of practitioner experience and medi- tation style- Transcendental Meditation (TM) or Mindfulness-based Meditation (MBM), on change blindness susceptibility. Forty-six participants (30 female and 16 male) with a com- bined mean age of 42 years old, were assigned to two experimental groups depending on the pre-existing meditation style they practiced. Both groups completed an identical experimen- tal task known as a flicker-paradigm where they had to identify changes made to various images. A two-way independent ANOVA revealed a significant effect of meditation style and experience on change-detection reaction times- (F(1,42) =7.22, p < 0.05, = .147), with long-term transcendental meditation practitioners recording faster reaction times (mean = 5927.73, SD = 606.92) on average than long-term mindfulness-based practitioners (mean = 10949.92 SD = 984.72). These results support the contention that long-term practice of transcendental meditation is more effective at reducing change blindness than long-term practice of mindfulness-based meditation.

Consciousness-Based Education

Consciousness-based education balances academic challenge with students' ability to master the material (1) using a block system to spread academic work across the semester, (2) teaching strategies to connect individual lectures to larger discipline principles, and (3) incorporating Transcendental Meditation practice into the curriculum. Brain integration and constructive thinking were compared in 27 freshman/senior pairs involved in consciousness-based university education. As seniors, these subjects had higher levels of brain integration, associated with emotional stability and success in life, and higher global constructive thinking, associated with work success and stable personal and social relationships. These variables typically do not change during college.

Innovation, Creativity, and Brain Integration

The heart of creative thinking is the incubation stage, in which ideas freely move on a subconscious level going beyond the limits of the problem space to create new solutions. The incubation stage might be fostered through meditation practices that lead to transcending, such as the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique that cultures greater brain integration in which the brain functions more as a whole. Higher brain integration is seen during the TM session within a few weeks of practice, and after the TM session with regular practice over time. Higher brain integration is associated with higher creativity and greater success in life. Adding the experience of transcending to enhance incubation of creative ideas is innovation from the inside. Training in transcending could be part of forward-looking graduate programs to help their graduates thrive in an ever-changing workspace landscape, and could be a workplace skill to support better performance in many professions.

Transcendental Meditation in the Treatment of Mental and Physical Conditions

The Transcendental Meditation technique (TM) is a process of transcending from the active mind to the silent mind, creating a feeling of well-being that many people describe as blissful. As the mind settles, the body becomes deeply rested, as indicated by reductions of physiological stress markers. The meditator typically experiences expanded inner awareness, which corresponds to marked slowing of the breath and increased brain wave (EEG) coherence, a measure of brain integration that is associated with higher levels of creativity. This chapter reviews work on the effects of TM in major areas of human functioning such as physical and psychological health, considers its impact on behavior, and examines some of the processes through which TM has its effects. The literature suggests that regular TM practice can help defuse the stresses and strains accrued during the day. Through regular practice, the body begins to function in a more stress-free, efficient, and resilient way outside of meditation. Well-controlled studies indicate that TM results in improvements in physical health (e.g. it reduces hypertension and cardiovascular disease), and psychological health (e.g. it reduces anxiety, depression, and anger), as well as influencing people’s behavior (e.g. reductions in drug, alcohol, and cigarette use, as well as in recidivism).