Can mindfulness inhibit implicit learning?

[0neir0naut]

I'll let the article do the talking: Mindfulness inhibits implicit learning -- the wellspring of bad habits

Consider this: when testing who would do best on a task to find patterns among a bunch of dots many might think mindful people would score higher than those who are distracted, but researchers found the opposite — participants low on the mindfulness scale did much better on this test of implicit learning, the kind of learning that occurs without awareness.

This outcome might be surprising until one considers that behavioral and neuroimaging studies suggest that mindfulness can undercut the automatic learning processes — the kind that lead to development of good and bad habits, says the study's lead author, Chelsea Stillman, a psychology PhD student. Stillman works in the Cognitive Aging Laboratory, led by the study's senior investigator, Darlene Howard, PhD, Davis Family Distinguished Professor in the department of psychology and member of the Georgetown Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery.

Not really sure on my own opinion just yet. But interested in getting others' feedback (especially those of you who practice presence/mindfulness). I have a few questions about the study. For example: how do they rate a person's 'mindfulness'? the participants apparently undertook a test first to gauge their mindfulness - but how can a test gauge mindfulness? This suggests that 'mindfulness' can be gauged through personality/character... which I am interested if it really could be.

Hmmm! Interamesting

 

[Jin]

those who are profiting due to these reality tricks are certainly not going to give it up based on this article ,

also implicit learning is responsible for all the bad habits we have - as stated in the article

so how profitable is implicit learning anyway ?

also as stated in the article - "The very fact of paying too much attention or being too aware of stimuli coming up in these tests might actually inhibit implicit learning," Stillman says. "That suggests that mindfulness may help prevent formation of automatic habits — which is done through implicit learning — because a mindful person is aware of what they are doing."

ok so they are describing a mindful person as the one who is aware of what they are doing ,

does anyone know what to call a person who is not aware of what they are doing - a mad man perhaps

also this article fails to mention conscious learning , and how did mindfull people score in tasks that require conscious learning

would you rather let the pilot fly a jet unconsciously ? seems silly does'nt it ,

we don't need implicit learning , we need conscious learning

 

[Jin]

how do they rate a person's 'mindfulness'? the participants apparently undertook a test first to gauge their mindfulness - but how can a test gauge mindfulness? This suggests that 'mindfulness' can be gauged through personality/character... which I am interested if it really could be.

mindfullness cannot be really gauged , these tests are silly at best

there is no way to really know how aware a person is , perhaps except through there actions in life and sometimes not even that as some mindfull people might choose to meditate in caves doing nothing that is measurable in any way

 

[0neir0naut]

would you rather let the pilot fly a jet unconsciously ? seems silly does'nt it ,

we don't need implicit learning , we need conscious learning

:d Good point. Perhaps relying on implicit learning as a 'good' way to learn is a farce in itself. We end up with people who can automatically respond in an expected situation, but are unable to be 'in the moment' and respond well to non-expected situations through being conscious.

I definitely agree with everything you've said. Especially how 'testing mindfulness' seems presumptuous. They say they used a 'character' test to rate each participant's mindfulness... but mindfulness is not necessarily part of the character. Indeed, I would say 'mindfulness' or 'consciousness' is beyond personality/character. Character is a veil. :shock:

 

[Jin]

Perhaps relying on implicit learning as a 'good' way to learn is a farce in itself. We end up with people who can automatically respond in an expected situation, but are unable to be 'in the moment' and respond well to non-expected situations through being conscious.

I would say 'mindfulness' or 'consciousness' is beyond personality/character. Character is a veil.

i agree with this very much , thanks for putting it in much more insightful words

no matter being accurate , my posts above seem to reek of negativity ,

 

[The Neural]

no matter being accurate , my posts above seem to reek of negativity ,

they very often do, don't they? :?

what's up with that.

 

[The Neural]

Implicit learning is an observation of human behaviour. Not a made up method of learning. So to state that we don't need it, is like saying that evolution/nature/adaptation gave us a shitty utility. Which I am sure you agree is unlikely.

We learn through implicit, and explicit ways. Mindfulness is the human attempt to pay more active, conscious attention to things we usually do not pay attention to (to sounds, visual movements etc, when we ought to be paying attention to the patterns that shift e.g. in that task). It is supposedly a type of dynamic/interacting meditation. It does not imply that not being in mindfulness means that you are "mindless", nor that you are not aware of what you are doing. It's what you choose to be aware of that defines the difference between the state of "mindfulness" and the state of not being in "mindfulness".

That being said, even the most absurd and abstract things can be measured. Certainly, some to an almost non-existent degree (and totally unreliably), but that does not mean that it shouldn't be attempted, nor that it should be completely dismissed. There are some measures of mindfulness, mostly psychometric (qualitative data), which personally I find their content somewhat valid (even though I don't agree with their inferential power at all). We can at least enjoy these measuring attempts, without having to ridicule them, just because we can.

 

[0neir0naut]

That being said, even the most absurd and abstract things can be measured. Certainly, some to an almost non-existent degree (and totally unreliably), but that does not mean that it shouldn't be attempted, nor that it should be completely dismissed. There are some measures of mindfulness, mostly psychometric (qualitative data), which personally I find their content somewhat valid (even though I don't agree with their inferential power at all). We can at least enjoy these measuring attempts, without having to ridicule them, just because we can.

I see what you are saying. I can see how this type of study has its strengths and weaknesses, and I am not meaning to dismiss it entirely. I also see that implicit learning should not be dismissed either, although I feel the excuse of evolution/natural selection giving us this form of learning trait being the one reason to fully validate its usefulness is slightly out of context. Evolution constantly moves, so we could possibly evolve into other forms of more explicit learning in the future. We have relied very heavily on implicit learning, hence why we have a lot of social constructs and behavioural patterns that are 'unconscious' and usually serve to regress rather than progress (habits of prejudice, social constructs of gender roles and being socially compliant with a globalised economic system which does not serve all equally). If we were to become more mindful - as the article itself suggests - bad habits would be more easily shed. But alas, if we are to completely agree with the findings in this study, our ability to implicitly learn may also be shed.

Do you think it is possible to be both mindful/present and implicitly learn, by being aware about shedding mindfulness during certain tasks? :?

 

[brokenChild]

Do you think it is possible to be both mindful/present and implicitly learn, by being aware about shedding mindfulness during certain tasks? :?

philosophizing again are we?

It's very simple, be present, and be aware... not particularly mindful. What I mean here is that if we define "mindful" as "full of mind" or, in other terms, your mind full of background processing of either thinking about today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, or what you have to do at this time or that time or any other number of things that you can think of that occupies the mental space, then you're never fully present where you are, so you can't be totally aware in the task at hand, and so are not fully absorbed in anything that you do. The result is that you end up only living your life on the surface, and never really allowing anything to penetrate deeply into your consciousness.

There are times when mental thinking is necessary in certain tasks, but when you're involved in any given task it would benefit you to be totally present and aware in your involvement, and allow total absorption into the task at hand... this way no matter what you do, you do it totally and to the best of your ability. Doing, and thinking about doing, are two completely different things.

Hope that helped clear it up a little

 

[Global]

I think it makes sense. After all, 'mindfulness' and 'implicit learning' sort of seem like a contradiction anyway. It seems more logical for mindfulness to be paired with explicit learning in which one is very consciously in the learning event.

 

[Jin]

no matter being accurate , my posts above seem to reek of negativity ,

they very often do, don't they? :?

what's up with that.

yes i know , i am not sure why , most probably its the solitude

ok something about implicit learning , if implicit learning is so useful why do we need to learn atall , why spend hours of your life in schools and university , why not implicit learning do it all

i guess because we can only learn mundane and ordinary things through implicit learning , learning through human behaviour is not really the best thing as humans are just humans , and the behaviours instilled by implicit learning only come to the surface when one achieves a higher conscioussness , otherwise these implicit behaviours can never be corrected ,

just like the appendix , implicit learning is something useless being carried over from our ape days

i respectfully disagree about these measuring methods which choose to gauge conciousness

Do you think it is possible to be both mindful/present and implicitly learn, by being aware about shedding mindfulness during certain tasks?

being really present has only increased the level of implicit learning for me , i don't understand what these researchers are doing however from my experience , observation leads to learning ,

yet the researchers have found people learning more without being aware

being present leads to observation , and observation leads to learning
just like newton observed the apple falling and learned about gravity

da vinci and many artists learned the rules of perspective and other values by observing nature and being present

without observing and being present nothing can really be learned ,

anyone who is in disagreement can try a little experiment - go to sleep while the proffesor teaches and when the class is finished , wake up and tell me what did you learn

if implicit learning works , one could learn while sleeping
the truth is implicit learning does not work without observation
and observing correctly is being mindful

infact implicit learning increases with mindfulness , without being aware no learning can happen implicit or explicit , also awareness gives us total control on the learning and what t do wit it , whether to integrate it in our lives or discard it

the whole test designed by the researchers is faulty and doesn't measure anything except how much of this test is a failure

 

[0neir0naut]

philosophizing again are we?

It's very simple, be present, and be aware... not particularly mindful. What I mean here is that if we define "mindful" as "full of mind" or, in other terms, your mind full of background processing of either thinking about today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, or what you have to do at this time or that time or any other number of things that you can think of that occupies the mental space, then you're never fully present where you are, so you can't be totally aware in the task at hand, and so are not fully absorbed in anything that you do. The result is that you end up only living your life on the surface, and never really allowing anything to penetrate deeply into your consciousness.

Haha yes I am. I am feeling more 'mind FULL' today than present. One of those days... questioning the questions; trying to turn answers into words. Sigh.

I see what you're saying. I am inclined to agree. I think the word 'mindful' is one which can be interpreted in many ways, and as I mentioned in the original post - I'm not sure if my idea of 'mindfulness' which is more along the lines of 'presence' can really be gauged through character tests.

Global, yes - semantics are very concrete in scientific research, and it's true that a definition of mindfulness does not work well with the definition of implicit learning.

At any rate, studies like these have there applications and usefulness in certain contexts, but they don't always tell the 'whole story'.

Thanks for all your input! :thumb_up:

 

[Jin]

What I mean here is that if we define "mindful" as "full of mind" or, in other terms, your mind full of background processing of either thinking about today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, or what you have to do at this time or that time or any other number of things that you can think of that occupies the mental space,

mindfulness has a very different definition on the wiki

"Mindfulness as a psychological concept is the focusing of attention and awareness"

Mindfulness - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Mindfulness (Pali: sati,[1] Sanskrit: smṛti; also translated as awareness) "

Mindfulness - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

in the whole post i have been referring to mindfullness the same as awareness,prescence , i hope my post is read keeping that in mind (or not:lol: )

however i understand what your talking about as the mind being full and i agree with that totally , sometimes the words are defined in far more weird ways than they need to be

 

[brokenChild]

Haha yes I am. I am feeling more 'mind FULL' today than present. One of those days... questioning the questions; trying to turn answers into words. Sigh.

Again just be aware of this philosophizing... you can just sit back and watch your mind go through the whole process... in a way, it's generally fruitless, simple watching of the mental process will reveal that to you. It's just an empty mental exercise in thought, a "how to" type of logic.. in other words, it's always oriented with the "thinking about". For example, you can "think about" how to ride a bike for ages... and a thousand and one things and angles can be penetrated from that one act alone;

Do I grab the handle bars? what if I slip? how would I hold my balance? do I put left foot on the pedal first or right foot on the pedal? do I sit on the seat or pedal in a more standing position? What do I do if I come to a speed bump? how do I know if the breaks work? which break do I use first, front or back? when do I use each break, when should I use each break? What do I do if a squirrel runs out? what if I have to suddenly stop?

And the list goes on and on and on... a thousand and one things "about" riding a bike, when the actual act of riding is so much simpler and much more natural and doesn't really require any philosophy to it, you just get on, present and aware, and slowly learn the baby steps of riding a bike... after sufficient amount of time, you've learned the knack of it, and then you can get creative with it once your comfort level is saturated enough with your personal connection to the bike.

That's generally how most philosophies are... always about and about and about, but to know a thing requires direct experience, and then you will see the philosophy is more time consuming and wasteful than just being present and conscious in the experience itself (which is utterly simple) and then growing into it. I think you see what I'm getting at

 

[brokenChild]

mindfulness has a very different definition on the wiki

"Mindfulness as a psychological concept is the focusing of attention and awareness"

Mindfulness - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Mindfulness (Pali: sati,[1] Sanskrit: smṛti; also translated as awareness) "

Mindfulness - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

in the whole post i have been referring to mindfullness the same as awareness,prescence , i hope my post is read keeping that in mind (or not:lol: )

however i understand what your talking about as the mind being full and i agree with that totally , sometimes the words are defined in far more weird ways than they need to be

It really does depend on the perspective of the point, that's why I defined it for that very purpose, but ya it's just a matter of how you look at it. It's important to understand a thing from every angle possible through experience... so, if anything I think the only true way a "philosophy" is fruitful is when coupled with direct experience, but then it's no longer a philosophy but more of a creed (a set of principles); it's not a thinking about how to do something anymore but rather an explanation that comes out of experience

edit-I think I failed to make the distinction between mindful, as defined above from sanskrit, which is the proper definition, and mindFULL as defined above by me, to be full of mind or mentall processing. That should clear it up

 

[The Neural]

Do you think it is possible to be both mindful/present and implicitly learn, by being aware about shedding mindfulness during certain tasks? :?

This is a good question. I think it boils down to the concept of the "bottleneck of attention". There is a certain variable limit (different to all, but still within the same "boundaries" ) of how many "items" and "processes" you can hold in your working memory at any given time. You choose to be "mindful" and pay attention to the colour shifts and the resolution of the tiny dots? You will probably loose some of the other information (in what patterns do the dots change etc).

So generally, to me, being "mindful" as the people who came up with the concept pitch it, it is nothing more than a "guide" for alternative attention. "Pay attention to other things, than the things you are used to paying attention to" so to speak.

@Jin, in your second to last post, you make it abundantly clear that you have not understood the study, nor the definition of mindfulness as it was being discussed. In addition, your negativity (as you have admitted) remained unaltered, and I ask you personally to relax on the badmouthing of other people that you ascribe your personal prejudices and biases to.

if implicit learning works , one could learn while sleeping

Implicit learning happens at wakeful states. Sleeping dampens your attentional mechanisms, so no, you would not learn while sleeping. No one said that, nor implied it. It was your own straw-man argument that you made up in an attempt to dismiss the study, probably.

i respectfully disagree about these measuring methods which choose to gauge conciousness

They never said they measured consciousness.

yet the researchers have found people learning more without being aware
being present leads to observation , and observation leads to learning
just like newton observed the apple falling and learned about gravity

Yes, and I hope you understand it now : Newton went home, and from explicit learning he remembered that a red apple fell of a tree. He implicitly remembered the temperature, the wind, that the sky beyond the tree was blue; things he did not actively "register". That's how you learn "without being aware".

just like the appendix , implicit learning is something useless being carried over from our ape days

Very definitive statement. Our eyes came from our ape days too. Is something being carried on from our ape days a good reason to call it useless?

the whole test designed by the researchers is faulty and doesn't measure anything except how much of this test is a failure

Again, you sound amazingly certain with absolutely no grounds.

And btw people, this is a summary of a study, not the study itself. Very difficult to draw anything from it unless we look at the methods and Jin looks at the introduction to familiarise himself with the terminology, and hopefully he'll realise that not every researcher out there is trying to arrogantly "surpass" the ideologies and beliefs of other people, as he portrays them to do.

 

[Jin]

@Jin, in your second to last post, you make it abundantly clear that you have not understood the study, nor the definition of mindfulness as it was being discussed. In addition, your negativity (as you have admitted) remained unaltered, and I ask you personally to relax on the badmouthing of other people that you ascribe your personal prejudices and biases to.

well i already made it clear that i am going with the definition on wiki , also in the study researchers themselves haven't really defined what they consider mindfulness, however i guess the are going with they wiki definition aswell considering this following quote in the article

- "The very fact of paying too much attention or being too aware of stimuli coming up in these tests might actually inhibit implicit learning," Stillman says. "That suggests that mindfulness may help prevent formation of automatic habits — which is done through implicit learning — because a mindful person is aware of what they are doing."

i guess the researchers also define mindfulness as awareness

i dont understand how you reached the conclusion that i don't understand the definition of mindfulness in the context its being discussed , nor the study

broken made his own definition to outline some things clearly and i very much appreciate that as that definition is far more rational than wiki defines it ,

yet in the original article the researchers have gone with the wiki definition and so have i when i made the original posts , i made that abundantly clear with the two links so people will have an easier time understanding

still you have reached this conclusion , and what up with the "badmouthing" ?

if we cant criticize a research article using our rationality, we'll just have to blindly believe whatever is stated

i don't mind people criticizing me as you've done with the whole post , why can't i criticize the researchers ,

i can't just drop all my rationality and believe whatever i read without the critic in me asking a few questions or making a few counter arguments , and i guess neither can you

i respectfully disagree about these measuring methods which choose to gauge conciousness

They never said they measured consciousness

here is a quote from the article that just proves that - "Two samples of adult participants first completed a test that gauged their mindfulness character trait ,"

i am talking about consciousness the same as awareness/mindfulness in this context (i have already made it clear with my last post , i don't understand what is the confusion regarding the whole definition of what mindfulness/awareness/consciousness , are we really going to get into semantics )

well i have already made my point abundantly clear in the previous posts , i don' really know if there something i can add to make all this more clear

awareness/consciousness/mindfulness is far more effective at helping us learn , whether implict or explicit , not only that it gives us far more control on what we learn , whether to integrate it or not

Very difficult to draw anything from it unless we look at the methods and Jin looks at the introduction to familiarise himself with the terminology,

well if you check out the wiki links and read the article , you'll know the researchers and i are on the same page as far as the definition of mindfulness is concerned , which is the same as being aware

i can't be repeating everything i already wrote , i believe my point is pretty clear

 

[The Neural]

^ you by yourself added the "consciousness" part. Yes, awareness and mindfullness as the researchers (and the wiki) define it are related. Not consciousness. Just because you chose to include it with your interpretation, does not mean that you can use that interpretation to criticise the study. Simple as that.

Mindfulness as a term in psychology exists for quite some time, certainly different from the older definition. So even if you thought that the study was based on the older definition, it may have been wise to first think if there are more than 1 definitions, and which definition a scientific study would have gone forth with testing.

Most importantly, again, this is not a study, but a summary, so before you blatantly claim "the test is a failure", wait until you actually read the study to understand it. We have no idea on their methods, so to pick on their conclusions is a shot in the dark at best.

If you wanna rely on shots in the dark, that's your call, just know that very few people would feel comfortable in a room with you shooting in the dark. Most would urge you to wait for some light, so all can have a say on their perspectives.

P.S. Yes, we should all criticise. There is a difference between constructive criticism, and pompous/arrogant dismissal.

 

[Aegle]

0neir0naut

Thank you for sharing this fascinating article, you might find this self-compassion test interesting as it is inherently linked to mindfulness.

Self-Compassion Test


Much Peace and Kindness

 

[Jin]

I ask you personally to relax on the badmouthing of other people that you ascribe your personal prejudices and biases to

It was your own straw-man argument that you made up in an attempt to dismiss the study,

Yes, we should all criticise. There is a difference between constructive criticism, and pompous/arrogant dismissal

have you seen me use dejectory and leading terms like "badmouthing" , "prejudices" , "straw-man argument" , "pompous/arrogant dismissal" , when i criticize the researchers

not really i simply stated the research is faulty and a failure

while you go on to use these words when criticizing me , i did'nt even criticize you using such dejectory terms

And btw people, this is a summary of a study, not the study itself. Very difficult to draw anything from it unless we look at the methods and Jin looks at the introduction to familiarise himself with the terminology, and hopefully he'll realise that not every researcher out there is trying to arrogantly "surpass" the ideologies and beliefs of other people, as he portrays them to do.

not only that you go on to blame me for not understanding , definitions and terminology , when everything i said is accurate

you say i am shooting in the dark when even what i say is just an opinion on the study

well when you state your opinion , i did'nt say you're shooting in the dark or use some other dejectory term like "pompous/arrogant dismissal"

whats up Neural ?, i guess my negativity has infected you

in this post i have been forced to use the term "dejectory" , which is a leading term in itself yet its only because of continued use of dejectory words on your behalf

you have in these few post termed me as arrogant , pompous , prejudiced ,
and most importantly you have blamed me for not understanding terminology and definitions ,

call me arrogant , pompous and prejudiced - yet don't try to undermine my intellect and understanding

i have been accurate regarding everything i said , i guess its just not enough to be correct these days

and lets not get into the consciousness thing , otherwise i'll have to write more words in this thread which is such a waste of time considering i have already pointed everything out

apologies if this reply automatically defines you as "dejectory" , yet where i am arrogant , pompous and prejudiced , atleast you could carry "dejectory" badge with you

i know no apologies are coming from your side so here is my apology for having honestly pointed out a few things that your posts have defined me as