The Effects of Meditative Elements in Games on Focused Attention

Meditation has proven health benefits on various cognitive abilities, including attention. However, past research has primarily focused on relatively traditional meditation training that requires guided lengthy practice over a period of time. An alternative approach is the short-term application of simple meditative elements, such as meditative music, meditative breathing, and meditative movements. This study investigated meditative elements' impacts on focused attention through a meditative game `PAUSE' on 32 participants. Performances in the Six-letter Cancellation Task (SLCT) were assessed both before and after a meditation session as a measurement for participants' level of Focused Attention. Data were analyzed using one-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson's correlation test and a paired-sample t-test on Nvivo. The Result suggests significant improvements on focused attention from pre-test to post-test sessions. And such improvements have no correlations with the participants' age, gender and the duration of the meditative practice.