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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Mindfulness
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1346839

Mindfulness and mechanisms of attention in a neutral and palatable food context

Provisionally accepted
Zsofia Logemann Zsofia Logemann 1,2Anna Veres-Székely Anna Veres-Székely 2,3Zsolt Demetrovics Zsolt Demetrovics 2,4Alexander Logemann Alexander Logemann 5*
  • 1 Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
  • 2 Institute of Psychology, ELTE, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
  • 3 MTA-ELTE Lendület Adaptation Research Group, Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
  • 4 Centre of Excellence in Responsible Gaming, University of Gibraltar, Gibraltar, Gibraltar
  • 5 Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Mindfulness has been associated with benefits on cognitive processes, including attention. However, the exact relationship between mindfulness, components of attention, and the role of reward context has not yet been fully elucidated, which is relevant, especially in the context of addiction. In the current study, we specifically evaluated the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and the balance between voluntary (top-down), and stimulus-driven (bottom-up) attention. In addition, we explored whether the relationship was mediated by asymmetry of frontal brain activity, an index of approach tendencies, and varies as a function of reward context. In total, 95 participants (30 male, 65 female) with a mean age of 25.87 (SD = 7.38) participated. Resting-state electrophysiological activity was recorded using EEG, and participants were assessed on dispositional mindfulness, and performed the visuospatial cueing (VSC) task, which indexed voluntary-and stimulus-driven attention in a neutral and palatable food (reward) context. In the endogenous VSC task, a central cue signals the likely location of a Mindfulness and mechanisms of attention 2 subsequent target. The validity effect represents the benefit of valid cueing relative to the costs of invalid cueing in terms of response time. Results showed that dispositional mindfulness was associated with a reduced validity effect, plausibly reflecting a combination of reduced voluntary attention and increased stimulus-driven attention, irrespective of condition. The relationship between dispositional mindfulness and visuospatial attention could not be explained by asymmetry of frontal brain activity.

    Keywords: mindfulness, attentional bias, Attention, Reward, palatable food, EEG

    Received: 30 Nov 2023; Accepted: 24 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Logemann, Veres-Székely, Demetrovics and Logemann. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Alexander Logemann, Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.