title: Dispositional mindfulness and the wandering mind: Implications for attentional control in older adults.
abstract: Age-related cognitive decline brings decreases in functional status. Dispositional mindfulness, the tendency towards present-moment attention, is hypothesized to correspond with enhanced attention, whereas mind-wandering may be detrimental to cognition. The relationships among mindfulness, task-related and task-unrelated thought, and attentional control performance on Go/No-Go and Continuous Performance tasks were examined in older adults. Dispositional mindfulness was negatively associated with task-unrelated thought and was positively associated with reactive control, but not proactive control or Go/No-Go performance. Although mind-wandering was not directly associated with performance, task-unrelated thought mediated the mindfulness-proactive control relation. Fewer task-unrelated thoughts were associated with lower proactive control. Interestingly, this effect was moderated by working memory such that it was present for those with low-average, but not high, working memory. This study highlights the importance of dispositional mindfulness and mind-wandering propensity in accounting for individual differences in attentional control in older adults, providing important targets for future cognitive remediation interventions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, 1835 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, United States.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fountain-Zaragoza
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, 1835 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, United States.
authors.forename: Allison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Londerée
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, 1835 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, United States.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Whitmoyer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, 1835 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, United States. Electronic address: prakash.30@osu.edu.
authors.forename: Ruchika Shaurya
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Prakash
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D064866:Mindfulness / Q000379:methods*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis
keywords: Attentional control; Dispositional mindfulness; Individual differences; Mind-wandering; Older adults