Effect of Brief Focused Attention Meditation on Theory of Mind

Background: The ability to infer and understand the mental states of others termed as Theory of Mind, is an intrinsic part of social interaction. Most efforts have been made to study disorders related to ToM i.e. depletion in ToM and considerably less is known about variables that may enhance ToM. Further, effects of meditation have been studied extensively in domains of Attention and Emotional regulation, yet only few studies have studied effect of meditation on ToM. In current study, brief intervention methodology was used to access effects of meditative practice on Theory of Mind. Two groups were formed, first group consisted of subject who were treated with a particular type of meditation termed as Focused Attention meditation and second group was treated with a pseudo meditation. Treatment used was of 20-minute duration in both groups and subjects of both groups were without any prior long term experience in any form of meditation. Result: After that subject self-reported mindfulness, attention and awareness via MAAS- state scale and then participated in a ToM experiment called YONI task, to access any changes in their ability to do ToM, for both cognitive ToM and affective ToM. The results indicated that brief Focused Attention meditation enhanced both Cognitive ToM and Affective ToM.