Training novice practitioners to reliably report their meditation experience using shared phenomenological dimensions

Abstract

Empirical descriptions of the phenomenology of meditation states rely on practitioners' ability to provide accurate information on their experience. We present a meditation training protocol that was designed to equip naive participants with a theoretical background and experiential knowledge that would enable them to share their experience. Subsequently, novices carried on with daily practice during several weeks before participating in experiments. Using a neurophenomenological experiment designed to explore two different meditation states (focused attention and open monitoring), we found that self-reported phenomenological ratings (i) were sensitive to meditation states, (ii) reflected meditation dose and fatigue effects, and (iii) correlated with behavioral measures (variability of response time). Each of these effects was better predicted by features of participants' daily practice than by desirable responding. Our results provide evidence that novice practitioners can reliably report their experience along phenomenological dimensions and warrant the future investigation of this training protocol with a longitudinal design.

Keywords: Demand characteristics; Desirable responding; First-person; Meditation; Mindfulness; Neurophenomenology; Phenomenology; Self-reports; Training.

Fig. 1

Four interrelated metrics were used to assess commitment to home practice.

Fig. 2

The neurophenomenological experiment MIMOSA, the self-report data of which is used in the current article. A. Hierarchical structure of the experiment. After an initial resting state period (RS), the experiment was divided into 2 sessions, with a 5–20 min break in between. Each session was divided into 2 sequences: one of FA (focused attention) and one of OM (open monitoring), presented in a randomized order. Therefore, there were 4 different combinations for the state order across the experiment: FA-OM-FA-OM (illustrated here), OM-FA-OM-FA, FA-OM-OM-FA, OM-FA-FA-OM; state order was counterbalanced across each group of participants. Each sequence consisted of 4 blocks: a first 7 min block of “meditation only” (block 0) followed by three ∼6 min long blocks of “meditation + task” with dynamic stimuli (blocks 1-2-3). During the “meditation only”, a white disk was displayed on a black background and participants were instructed to either use it as a support of their attention (in the case of FA) or to maintain their gaze on it (in OM blocks). During subsequent blocks, participants had to maintain the state induced in block 0, while going through 41 trials of a visual conscious report task. B. One trial of the task. During the task, a black-and-colored checkerboard was continuously displayed at the center of the screen. Each trial consisted of a series of checkerboard reversals, the last color of which was systematically deviant from the previous ones of the series (passive color oddball paradigm). A trial lasted 3–7 reversals. In 36 of the 41 trials, a Gabor patch set at threshold contrast was flashed for 50 ms, any time between the second and the last reversal. At the end of the trial, a question mark prompted the participant to report whether they had consciously seen it or not. C. After each of the 17 blocks of the experiment, participants rated 6 different dimensions of their experience using a Likert item.

Fig. 3

Effects of meditation states on three dimensions of experience reported by the participants. Both novice and expert groups reported greater Aperture of the attentional field during OM compared to RS and FA. Experts also reported greater Stability and Clarity during meditation compared to RS, but not novices. All ratings were given on a scale ranging from 1 to 7. RS: resting-state; FA: focused attention; OM: open monitoring. Errors bars are 95% confidence intervals. Significance levels: ^*: p < .05; ^**: p < .01; ^***: p < .001; ^****: p < .0001.

Fig. 4

Evolution of self-reported Stability and Clarity in novices during the four blocks of the first meditation sequence. (a) There was a two-stage temporal pattern; namely, a boost of Stability from block 0 to block 1 (Δ = 0.64, 95% CI [0.03, 1.25], p = .036), followed by fatigue in subsequent blocks (Stability: Δ = −0.68, 95% CI [−1.29, −0.07], p = .023; Clarity: Δ = −0.68, 95% CI [−1.20, −0.16], p = .005). Ratings of the RS block are indicated in grey next to block 0. (b) This fatigue effect was reduced in those novices who engaged the most in focus (left) but not in open (right) styles of meditation. Errors bars are 95% confidence intervals. Significance levels: ^*: p < .05; ^**: p < .01.

Fig. 5

Self-reports from novices appear to be functionally relevant. (a) The variability of response time correlates negatively with self-reported stability. In novice participants, it also correlates negatively with clarity, but significantly less so, indicating that these two dimensions are properly differentiated by novices. (b) Functional differentiation of stability and clarity was higher in those novice participants with the highest amount of practice (right), while intensity of practice was not a reliable predictor (left). Errors bars are 95% confidence intervals. Significance levels: ^*: p < .05; ^**: p < .01; ^***: p < .001.