The executive control network is responsible for deciding between competing inputs, and therefore plays an important role in conflict detection. The orienting network is responsible for attending selectively to a sense modality or a location in space (Petersen and Posner, 2012) by prioritizing attention to a subset of possible inputs. The alerting network maintains a state of vigilance or alertness and is measured as a readiness to attend to important or relevant stimuli when they arise. Researchers have proposed that these three forms of attention are subserved by three separable neural networks (Posner and Petersen, 1990 Fan et al., 2002 Posner and Fan, 2008 Petersen and Posner, 2012). Much of the past research has focused on the effects of mindfulness meditation training on attentional processes, including alerting, orienting, and executive attention. Mindfulness Meditation Improves Attention In turn, this is thought to have long-term positive consequences on attention, body awareness, emotion regulation, and perspectives on the self when mindfulness is trained and practiced over an extended period of time (e.g., Hölzel et al., 2011). One premise in this area of research is that becoming mindful of an internal state or physiological function, such as one’s breath, can hone abilities such as focused attention, working memory, and acceptance. Over the past few decades, a wealth of research has emerged in both academic journals and popular media on the benefits of mindfulness meditation for attention (Sedlmeier et al., 2012), negative mood (Goyal et al., 2014), mental health (Hofmann et al., 2010), addictions (Brewer et al., 2011a Chiesa and Serretti, 2014 Bowen et al., 2014), and many other factors (e.g., creativity Ding et al., 2014). Mindfulness may be used to describe a variety of practices and processes (e.g., van Dam et al., 2018) nevertheless, it is most often defined as a two-component process that includes: (1) attention to present moment experience, coupled with (2) an attitude that is open, non-reactive, and accepting of things as they are (Bishop et al., 2004 Ludwig and Kabat-Zinn, 2008 Kabat-Zinn, 2017). Together, our results support the hypothesis that even brief meditation improves allocation of attentional resources in some novices. Neuroticism moderated both of these effects, and ERPs showed that those individuals lower in neuroticism who meditated for 10 min exhibited a larger N2 to incongruent trials compared to those who listened to a control tape whereas those individuals higher in neuroticism did not. In Study 2, those assigned to listen to a meditation tape performed an ANT more quickly than control participants, with no detriment in performance. In Study 1, participants randomly assigned to listen to a 10-min meditation tape had better accuracy on incongruent trials on a Flanker task, with no detriment in reaction times (RTs), indicating better allocation of resources. We also tested moderation by individual differences in neuroticism and the possible underlying neural mechanisms driving these effects, using ERPs. In two studies, we sought to investigate the effects of a brief, 10-min meditation session on attention in novice meditators, compared to a control activity. However, it is not clear whether these changes depend on long-term practice. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have indicated that this effect could be driven by more efficient allocation of resources on demanding attentional tasks, such as the Flanker Task and the Attention Network Test (ANT). Past research has found that mindfulness meditation training improves executive attention.
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