Investigating the Effect of Mindfulness and Mental Depletion Essay Example

a gap in previous mindfulness studies, which have defined it as complete attention towards present moment external experiences (Chiesa, Calati, & Serretti, 2011).

According to social psychologist Ellen Langer (2000), mindfulness is a state of mind that allows us to actively engage in the present moment, pay attention to new experiences, and be aware of our surroundings. Langer (1989) suggests that engaging in deep thinking processes can improve our ability to notice and recognize different objects, forming her cognitive model of mindfulness. Therefore, it is hypothesized that participants who practice mindfulness will perform better than those in other conditions when completing the inattentional blindness task. This study aims to provide valuable insights into previous research on inattentional blindness. It should be noted that there is limited research on mental depletion, which refers to a state of exhaustion according to the online Psychology Dictionary (2011).

Our research aims to investigate the impact of mental depletion on inattentional blindness and explore the possible connection between mindfulness and mental depletion. We expect that participants in the depletion condition will exhibit more profound cognitive processes. However, there has been limited exploration of the effects of depletion on inattentional blindness and how mindfulness interacts with depletion in relation to these outcomes. Our main objective is to reexamine and further examine the relationship among mental depletion, mindfulness, and inattentional blindness based on current research findings.

Methods and Design:
The study involved two independent variables: level of mindfulness and level of depletion. The dependent variable measured the percentage of participants who noticed a red cross, along with their respective condition. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: no depletion with mindfulness, no depletion without

mindfulness, depletion with mindfulness, or depletion without mindfulness.

The study involved participants who were given the task of writing an easy or hard essay. They then listened to a tape recording with different instructions based on their assigned condition. Afterward, they completed an inattentional blindness task. The number of participants who noticed the red cross in the task was measured and analyzed based on their assigned condition (dependent variable).

Participants:
A total of 808 first year undergraduate Psychology 1B students from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) took part in the study. Among these participants, 576 were female, with an average age of 19.90 and a standard deviation of 3.21. They were all members of predetermined tutorial groups and randomly assigned to two out of the four conditions.

Participants did not receive any benefits from participating in this research, although it later formed part of their assessment. Those excluded were late attenders and absentees.

Materials

The level of depletion was measured by manipulating tasks. Students in the no depletion condition were asked to write an essay describing the buildings, departments, and layout of the UNSW campus as if it was a 'virtual tour'. In the depletion condition, students received the same instructions to describe the UNSW campus; however, they were also instructed to write this essay without using words that contained the letters 'A' or 'N' (e.g. And, Airplane).

The level of mindfulness was measured using a manipulation of tasks. In the mindfulness condition, students were instructed to listen to a 10-minute tape recording focused on contemplating the texture and taste of a sultana. They were asked to perform actions like gently rubbing the sultana across their lips and rolling

it around slowly with their tongue, paying attention to how it feels (Heppner et. al., 2008). On the other hand, in the no mindfulness condition, students sat through a 10-minute recording about the facts of sultanas without tasting or contemplating present sultanas.

After the manipulation, the dependent variable was evaluated by conducting an inattentional blindness test. In this test, the participants were required to count the number of times the white objects bounced off the sides of the screen during a computer task. The main focus of measurement was to determine how many students observed the movement of the red shape on the screen during the test and to identify their corresponding condition.
Procedure
The experiment instructed the participants to perform a writing task, which was categorized as either easy (no depletion condition) or difficult (depletion condition).

Two groups of students were given different tasks to complete. One group was asked to contemplate sultanas by texture and eat them slowly while considering its taste, which is known as the mindfulness condition. The other group listened to a recording about the facts of sultanas, which is known as the no mindfulness condition. After completing their respective tasks, both groups were asked to count the number of times white objects bounced off the screen edges in an inattentional blindness task.

Following this task, both groups had to determine if they had seen an unexpected object in a computer task. Additionally, they looked at pictures of random objects and had to identify which one they had seen.

Results

The purpose behind these experiments was to examine how individual effects of mindfulness and mental depletion impact inattentional blindness. It aimed to determine whether their interaction

influenced the results on inattentional blindness.

After conducting these experiments and analyzing data, it was determined that the results were consistent with all of the hypotheses. Specifically, there were no noticeable differences in inattentional blindness between the depletion and no depletion conditions (F(1,806) = 1.17, p > .05). However, participants in the mindfulness condition had significantly different outcomes compared to those who were not (F(1,806) = 5.62, p > .05). Additionally, the findings supported our last hypothesis by showing no interaction between mindfulness and depletion on inattentional blindness (F(1,806) = 0.91, p > .05). For more details, please refer to Table 1.