title: The mindful eye: Smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements in meditators and non-meditators.
abstract: This study examined the effects of cultivated (i.e. developed through training) and dispositional (trait) mindfulness on smooth pursuit (SPEM) and antisaccade (AS) tasks known to engage the fronto-parietal network implicated in attentional and motion detection processes, and the fronto-striatal network implicated in cognitive control, respectively.
  
  
  
  Sixty healthy men (19-59years), of whom 30 were experienced mindfulness practitioners and 30 meditation-naïve, underwent infrared oculographic assessment of SPEM and AS performance. Trait mindfulness was assessed using the self-report Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ).
  
  
  
  Meditators, relative to meditation-naïve individuals, made significantly fewer catch-up and anticipatory saccades during the SPEM task, and had significantly lower intra-individual variability in gain and spatial error during the AS task. No SPEM or AS measure correlated significantly with FFMQ scores in meditation-naïve individuals.
  
  
  
  Cultivated, but not dispositional, mindfulness is associated with improved attention and sensorimotor control as indexed by SPEM and AS tasks.
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), Department of Psychology, London, UK; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. Electronic address: v.kumari@sovhealth.com.
authors.forename: Veena
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kumari
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), Department of Psychology, London, UK.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Antonova
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), Department of Psychology, London, UK.
authors.forename: Bernice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), Department of Psychology, London, UK.
authors.forename: Aseel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hamid
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), Department of Psychology, London, UK.
authors.forename: Eva Machado
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Hernandez
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), Department of Neuroimaging, London, UK.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schmechtig
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
authors.forename: Ulrich
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Ettinger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D019122:Meditation; D008875:Middle Aged; D064866:Mindfulness; D011698:Pursuit, Smooth / Q000502:physiology*; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Antisaccade; Attention; Control; Dispositional mindfulness; Intra-individual variability; Meditation; Mindfulness