Meditation and attention: A controlled study on long-term meditators in behavioral performance and event-related potentials of attentional control

• Meditators and matched controls performed the ANT with EEG recordings.
• Meditators exhibited higher parietal P3 amplitude and made fewer error responses.
• These effects are irrespective of reaction time.

Meditation practice involves attention regulation, and thus is thought to facilitate attention control mechanisms. Studies on meditation techniques using a behavioral measurement of the Attention Network Test (ANT) have shown enhanced attention control, but neural features remain unknown. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral data from twenty long-term meditators were examined, compared to data obtained from twenty matched controls. Results showed that meditators made fewer error responses than controls, especially during the incongruent target condition, suggesting higher accuracy in executive attention control among meditators. The P3 amplitude in the parietal area remained constant in the congruent and incongruent target conditions among meditators, indicating a higher parietal P3 amplitude during the incongruent target condition relative to matched controls. The findings that meditators exhibited fewer error responses on the ANT and a lack of parietal P3 modulation irrespective of reaction time are discussed in the context of attentional resource allocation.