Mindfulness enhances cognitive functioning: a meta-analysis of 111 randomized controlled trials

Background: Currently no comprehensive meta-analysis of MBI efficacy on global and unique cognitive subdomains exist. Method: Examined the effects of MBIs on global cognition and 15 cognitive subdomains. Inclusion criteria: meditation naïve participants; randomized controlled trial; outcome included one objective or subjective cognitive functioning measure; primary focus was teaching mindfulness skills. Exclusion criteria: inadequate data; one-session; control condition contained any MBI component. Robust variance estimation and moderator analyses controlling for presence of treatment fidelity were conducted. Results: One-hundred-and-eleven RCTs (n = 9,538) met eligibility criteria. MBIs had small-to-moderate significant effects on global cognition, executive attention, working memory accuracy, inhibition accuracy, shifting accuracy, sustained attention, and subjective cognitive functioning (vs. waitlist/no-treatment, g = 0.257–0.643; vs. active controls, g = 0.192–0.394). MBIs did not impact executive functioning (EF) latency indices, verbal fluency, processing speed, episodic memory, and cognitive error. Treatment effects were stronger for those with elevated psychiatric symptoms vs. healthy controls, and medical samples, studies with complete-case (vs. intention-to-treat) analysis, face-to-face (vs. self-guided) delivery, and non-standard (vs. standard MBI). Conclusion: MBIs consistently yielded small-to-moderate yet practically meaningful effect sizes on global cognition and six cognitive subdomains that captured accuracy vs. latency-based indices of EF and sustained accuracy.