Mindfulness training modifies attentional bias to facial emotion and emotional symptoms.
Study Goal
The researchers aimed to investigate the effect of mindfulness training on attention to emotional faces and its role in improving emotional symptoms like anxiety and depression.
Results Summary
Mindfulness training significantly reduced anxiety and depressive symptoms, increased attentional bias toward happy faces, and decreased bias toward sad faces. The improvement in attentional bias toward sad faces partially mediated the effect on depression.
Population
80 non-clinical participants (not diagnosed with emotional disorders).
Effective Dosage
Eight weeks of mindfulness training (specific frequency not detailed).
Duration
Eight weeks, with follow-up assessments at three months post-training.
Interactions
None mentioned
| Intervention | Direction | Endpoint | Population | Dosage | Impact | Claim # |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
mindfulness training | decrease | anxiety symptoms | participants | - | significantly reduced | #1 |
mindfulness training | decrease | depressive symptoms | participants | - | significantly reduced | #2 |
mindfulness training | increase | attentional bias toward happy faces | training group | - | increased | #3 |
mindfulness training | decrease | attentional bias toward sad faces | training group | - | decreased | #4 |
mindfulness training | decrease | depression | participants | - | partially mediated | #5 |
mindfulness training | decrease | anxious symptoms | - | - | can stably reduce | #6 |
mindfulness training | decrease | depressive symptoms | - | - | can stably reduce | #7 |
BACKGROUND: Mindfulness training has been shown to improve emotional symptoms such as anxiety and depressive symptoms. However, its cognitive-behavioral mechanism is still unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of mindfulness training on attention to emotional faces and its role in the improvement in emotional symptoms. METHODS: Eighty participants were recruited and randomly divided into a training group (n = 40) that received eight weeks of mindfulness training and a control group (n = 40) that attended a mindfulness lecture. Before training (T1), immediately after training (T2), and three months after training (T3), all participants were asked to complete the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) to assess their emotional symptoms and a modified dot-probe task to measure their attention to emotional faces. RESULTS: Mindfulness training significantly reduced anxiety and depressive symptoms at both T2 and T3. After training, the attentional bias toward happy faces increased, while the attentional bias toward sad faces decreased in the training group compared with the control group. Mediation analysis showed that the improvement in attentional bias toward sad faces partially mediated the effect of mindfulness training on depression at T2. LIMITATIONS: Our participants were not a clinical sample (i.e., were not diagnosed with emotional disorders), and the time course of attention components was difficult to examine in the present study. CONCLUSIONS: Mindfulness training can stably reduce anxious and depressive symptoms. However, it may have a temporary effect on attentional bias toward facial emotions, which plays a limited role in improving emotional symptoms.