Mindful Text Comprehension: Meditation Training Improves Reading Comprehension of Meditation Novices

Abstract

Objectives: Research on the effects of meditation practice on reading performance is a new and promising field of research. However, the evidence on whether meditation improves reading comprehension and/or speed in continuous reading is inconclusive. The present work addresses this question. Method: For the present longitudinal study, undergraduate students (n = 52) participated in a 6-week mindfulness meditation course or an active control condition. We assessed reading comprehension and speed before and after the intervention/control condition, as well as emotion regulation, sustained attention, and personality traits. Results: Reading comprehension improved significantly after the meditation intervention (B = 2.15, t = 3.47, p = 0.002, d = 0.69), but reading speed did not change, contrary to our expectations. The control group showed no significant changes in either text comprehension or reading speed. Further, we found that meditation led to better attention capacity. Improved attention was positively associated with improved reading comprehension in the meditation group, though attention capacity did not mediate the effect on text comprehension. While we found that meditation can increase the acceptance of one’s own emotions and decrease emotional overload, these covariates did not affect comprehension performance. Conclusions: The present work shows that mindfulness meditation improves attention capacity and text comprehension. However, mindfulness meditation does not affect reading speed. Finally, we confirmed that meditation can help in emotion regulation. Preregistration: This study is not preregistered.