Meditation Training Supports Attention and Performance During High Cognitive Load

Meditation is increasingly recognized as a structured form of mental training that can induce plastic changes in neural systems supporting attention, cognitive control, and affect regulation. Although prior work links meditation to improved executive functioning, few studies have examined attentional performance under simultaneous cognitive conflict and emotional distraction. This study investigated whether experienced meditators outperform meditation-naive individuals on a modified Stroop task with affective auditory stimuli. Fifty participants (25 meditators, 25 controls) completed a number enumeration Stroop task in which congruent and incongruent trials were presented alongside emotionally salient sounds varying in valence and arousal. Accuracy and response time were analyzed using trial-level mixed-effects models. Results showed that meditators had higher overall accuracy and faster responses than controls. The absence of a Group × Congruency interaction indicates that the advantage was consistent across trial types, suggesting greater baseline attentional stability and more efficient allocation of cognitive resources. Both groups showed slightly higher accuracy on incongruent trials, potentially reflecting increased attentional engagement under conflict or a modest speed-accuracy adjustment. Meditators maintained superior performance despite emotional distraction, supporting the idea that meditation strengthens executive control under cognitive and affective load. These findings highlight the potential of meditation to enhance attentional efficiency and resilience in complex environments. Future longitudinal studies with targeted affective manipulations are needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying these benefits.