Mindful Awareness Related to Working Memory Capacity and Response Inhibition

Objectives: This study investigated the associations among trait mindfulness, working memory capacity (WMC), and response inhibition. Mindfulness and WMC are thought to involve goal maintenance while resolving competing responses (inhibition), and studies have indeed found associations among mindfulness, WMC, and response inhibition. However, previous studies focused primarily on behavioral inhibition and many failed to differentiate components of mindfulness (awareness and acceptance). This study examined how self-reported mindfulness (awareness and acceptance) related to performance on tasks of WMC and multiple types of response inhibition (i.e., behavioral inhibition, interference control, and cognitive inhibition). Methods: Sixty-seven undergraduate students (75% female) received extra credit for participation. Measures included the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale (measuring awareness and acceptance), Hayling Task (cognitive inhibition), go/nogo task (behavioral inhibition), Attention Network Test (interference control), n-back task (WMC), and Automated Reading Span Task (WMC). Results: Higher self-reported awareness was related to stronger performance on two measures of WMC (r =.29; r =.32) and multiple measures of response inhibition, including behavioral inhibition (r = -.25), interference control (r = -.25), and cognitive inhibition (r = -.28); response inhibition and WMC accounted for 22% and 16% of the variance in awareness respectively. No relations were found between self-reported acceptance and cognitive performance. Conclusions: Overall, this study found that the Mindfulness component of higher awareness (but not the component of acceptance) was related to stronger WMC and response inhibition. Because Mindfulness, WMC, and response inhibition are related in unique ways to healthy functioning and wellbeing; learning about how they interact increases scientific understanding, and suggests a direction for potential interventions to target these areas.