title: Mindfulness reduces habitual responding based on implicit knowledge: evidence from artificial grammar learning.
abstract: Participants were unknowingly exposed to complex regularities in a working memory task. The existence of implicit knowledge was subsequently inferred from a preference for stimuli with similar grammatical regularities. Several affective traits have been shown to influence AGL performance positively, many of which are related to a tendency for automatic responding. We therefore tested whether the mindfulness trait predicted a reduction of grammatically congruent preferences, and used emotional primes to explore the influence of affect. Mindfulness was shown to correlate negatively with grammatically congruent responses. Negative primes were shown to result in faster and more negative evaluations. We conclude that grammatically congruent preference ratings rely on habitual responses, and that our findings provide empirical evidence for the non-reactive disposition of the mindfulness trait.
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Radboud University, Faculty of Science, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Institute for Computing and Information Sciences, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: stephen.whitmarsh@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Whitmarsh
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Uddén
authors.forename: Henk
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Barendregt
authors.forename: Karl Magnus
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Petersson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D064866:Mindfulness; D010551:Personality; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Artificial grammar; Implicit learning; Meditation; Mindfulness