Mindfulness Meditation May Increase Susceptibility to False Memories, New Study Finds
A new study published in Psychological Science reports that a short mindfulness meditation session can make people more likely to confuse imagined events with real ones. Researchers found that participants who completed a 15-minute mindfulness exercise were more prone to falsely recall or recognize items they had only imagined, suggesting an unexpected downside to a practice commonly associated with mental and physical benefits.
The research, led by Brent M. Wilson at the University of California, San Diego, examined how a mindfulness induction—specifically focusing attention on breathing in a nonjudgmental way—affects the ability to determine the origin of memories. The team contrasted mindfulness with a mind-wandering control condition in three experiments using established memory paradigms.
Mindfulness has gained widespread attention in both scientific literature and popular culture. Numerous studies link mindfulness-based interventions to improvements in stress, mood, attention, and various health outcomes, and public figures have promoted the practice. Because mindfulness encourages accepting thoughts and feelings without judgment, the researchers hypothesized this same nonjudgmental stance might reduce the cognitive checks people use to judge whether memories came from external experience or internal imagination.
How the experiments were conducted
Across three controlled experiments with undergraduate participants, the researchers tested whether a brief guided mindfulness exercise altered false-memory susceptibility.
In the first experiment, 153 participants completed a 15-minute guided exercise and then studied a list of 15 words associated with the concept of “trash” (for example: garbage, waste, can, refuse, sewage, rubbish), notably excluding the critical word “trash.” Participants were then asked to recall as many studied words as possible. The mindfulness group was instructed to focus on breathing without judgment, while the control group was asked to let their minds wander freely.
Results from that first test showed a sizable difference: 39% of participants who completed the mindfulness exercise falsely recalled the nonstudied critical word “trash,” compared with 20% of participants who had engaged in mind wandering.
The second experiment involved 140 participants and included a baseline recall task before the guided exercise. This design allowed the researchers to compare false-recall rates before and after the induction. Mindfulness increased the rate of false recall relative to baseline, again indicating a specific effect of the mindfulness induction on susceptibility to false memories.
In the third experiment, 215 participants completed a recognition task framed as a reality-monitoring paradigm: they had to decide whether individual words had actually been presented earlier or were only related to presented words. Both groups were accurate at recognizing words they had actually seen. However, participants who completed the mindfulness exercise were more likely to falsely identify related, nonstudied words as previously presented items, demonstrating reduced reality-monitoring accuracy after mindfulness.
Interpretation and implications
The combined results indicate that mindfulness meditation can alter memory processes involved in source monitoring—the ability to identify whether a memory traces to an external event or internal imagination. After mindfulness training, imagined events appeared more like real experiences, making it harder for people to determine the true origin of their memories.
Brent M. Wilson and his coauthors conclude that while mindfulness produces many documented benefits, its tendency to promote nonjudgmental awareness may also carry an unintended cost: an increased vulnerability to false memories. The finding highlights the importance of understanding both the advantages and limitations of mindfulness practice, particularly in contexts where accurate memory for events is critical.
Co-authors on the study include Laura Mickes (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Stephanie Stolarz-Fantino, Matthew Evrard, and Edmund Fantino (University of California, San Diego). The article, “Increased False-Memory Susceptibility After Mindfulness Meditation,” was published in Psychological Science (online September 4, 2015). DOI: 10.1177/0956797615593705.
Abstract (condensed)
The study tested whether mindfulness meditation increases false-memory susceptibility in three experiments. Participants were randomly assigned to a mindfulness induction (focus on breathing without judgment) or a mind-wandering induction. Although the number of correctly recalled studied items did not differ between conditions, participants in the mindfulness condition were significantly more likely to report critical nonstudied items and showed reduced reality-monitoring accuracy. These findings suggest mindfulness meditation can make memories less reliable by increasing the overlap between imagined and experienced events.