Kara Stuart

The present study examined how cultivating conscious awareness through a short-term mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) influences cognitive performance and neural oscillations associated with attention and memory. Participants completed a three-week remotely guided mindfulness training (n = 16) or an active control condition involving relaxing music (n = 17). Groups were matched on baseline affective and attentional traits, and adherence to daily practice was monitored remotely. Participants completed three cognitive tasks indexing key aspects of conscious processing: episodic source memory (item vs. source recognition), working memory (operation span), and inhibitory control (Stroop). In the source-memory task (N = 33), a significant Memory Type × Time × Condition interaction emerged, F(1, 31) = 5.90, p = .021, η² = .16. Both groups improved in overall accuracy, but only the mindfulness group showed significant gains in source memory accuracy, reflecting enhanced conscious monitoring of contextual detail. For working memory (N = 28), a robust main effect of Time on letter-recall accuracy was observed, F(1, 26) = 483.25, p < .001, η² = .95. Although the mindfulness group showed descriptively larger improvements, the Condition × Time interaction was not statistically significant. In the Stroop task (N = 28), a Measure Type × Time × Condition interaction was significant, F(1, 26) = 4.86, p = .037, η² = .16, indicating that improvements in accuracy-based interference were greater in the mindfulness group, suggesting enhanced conscious inhibitory control. Reaction-time interference effects did not differ significantly. EEG analyses revealed that mindfulness training produced pre- to post-intervention increases in theta and alpha power extending into low-beta frequencies at right prefrontal and left parietal scalp sites during source-memory retrieval. These oscillatory changes corresponded with behavioral gains in source accuracy. No reliable EEG effects were observed in the Stroop task, likely due to limited sample size. For the mindfulness group’s working memory task, exploratory analyses indicated modest pre-post increases in frontal-parietal spectral power. Together, the findings suggest that cultivating mindful awareness selectively enhances conscious access to episodic context and accuracy-based control, supported by increased synchronization in frontal-parietal theta-alpha networks. These results highlight mindfulness as a powerful model for studying how shifts in conscious awareness modulate cognition and brain dynamics.

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Behavioral Science at the University of North Texas, specializing in cognitive neuroscience with a focus on autonoetic consciousness and episodic memory. I work in the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab under Dr. Anthony Ryals, where I use behavioral methods, EEG, fNIRS, and eye-tracking to study memory, attention, and the effects of mindfulness-based interventions. I hold a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Psychology and am a recipient of the NIH T-32 G-RISE Fellowship, along with multiple university travel grants that have supported my presentations at national conferences such as Psychonomics and the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. My broader interests include philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, technology, and society, particularly how cognition and emerging technologies mutually shape one another.