Search Here

A new meditation designed to boost a person compassion, altruism and empathic awareness  is steadily rising in popularity; the program can help significantly improve a person's ability to read the facial expressions of others, finds a study published by Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

The meditation protocol, known as Cognitively-Based Compassion Training, or CBCT, was developed at Emory by study co-author Lobsang Tenzin Negi and is a new take on "mindfulness" which generally refers to an increase in a persons attention span, being aware of your thoughts and feelings in a non-judgmental capacity and increases overall cognitive well-being.

CBCT includes these mindfulness elements, the practice focuses more specifically on training people to analyze and reinterpret their relationships with others.

"The idea is that the feelings we have about people can be trained in optimal ways," Negi explains. "CBCT aims to condition one's mind to recognize how we are all inter-dependent, and that everybody desires to be happy and free from suffering at a deep level."

The study participants were healthy adults without any prior meditation experience and who reported having trouble connecting with loved one's, ranging from their kids to spouses/partners or parents. Thirteen participants randomized to CBCT meditation completed regular weekly training sessions and at-home practice for eight weeks. Eight others did not receive meditation but were scheduled to take classes that covered mind-body subjects that focused on exercise and destressors and the effects they had on a persons well-being.

All participants received fMRI scans while completing a modified version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test which consists of black-and-white photographs that show just the eye region of people making various expressions. Those being tested must judge what the person in the photograph is thinking or feeling.

Results showed that majority of the meditation group experience a 5 percent increase in their ability to identify correctly the expressions not-shown while the control group with no meditation showed no increase and in fact most experienced a decrease in accuracy compared to when they first took the test.

"It's an intriguing result, suggesting that a behavioral intervention could enhance a key aspect of empathy," says lead author Jennifer Mascaro, a post-doctoral fellow in anthropology at Emory University. "Previous research has shown that both children and adults who are better at reading the emotional expressions of others have better relationships."