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This study examined the effects of distraction on college students' depressive tendencies caused by interpersonal stress, focusing on attentional control, mindfulness, and distraction skills. We conducted a web-based survey of college students （N＝267; mean age＝19.66 years, SD＝1.40） that administered scales assessing attention control, mindfulness, distraction skill, and depressive tendencies. An analysis of covariance was conducted to examine a model in which attentional control alleviates depressive tendencies by increasing mindfulness, which infiuences distraction skills. Multiple regression analyses of attentional control and mindfulness effects on distractor skills revealed that "Non-reactivity" in mindfulness affects distraction skills. In contrast, "observing" promoted reliance on distraction, suggesting that increased mindfulness and attentional control are essential to prevent dependence on distraction. Future studies need to implement mindfulness meditation interventions to increase attentional control and mindfulness and elaborate changes in each variable and the relationships among the variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine whether there was a difference in mind-wandering tendencies between creative professionals and general workers in each of the four existing mind-wandering tendency scales. A total of 523 participants (269 creative professionals and 254 general workers) were surveyed via the Web. The subsequent analysis was conducted based on the responses of all 523 participants (mean age 45.43 years, SD = 13.31). The results showed that creative professionals had significantly higher scores than general workers on the Daydream Frequency Scale (DDFS), Mind Wandering-Deliberate (MW-D) scale, and Mind Wandering-Spontaneous (MW-S) scale. On the other hand, there was no significant difference in the scores on the Mind-Wandering Questionnaire (MWQ). These results indicate that the mind-wandering tendency is associated not only with creativity exhibited by ordinary people but also with high creativity at the professional level. In addition, we discuss the possibility that a certain degree of attentional control may be required for high creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how interacting with an animal-type therapy robot improved executive attention, emotional regulation, and resilience. We divided the participants (N = 41) into the animal-robot group that interacted with a therapy robot named Paro (n =14), the human-robot group that interacted with a human-type robot named Robi (n=12), and a control group that did not interact with a robot (n＝15). The participants in the animal and human-robot groups interacted with the robots eight times in 10 weeks. The participants also completed scales assessing executive attention and emotional regulation before and after these interactions and a scale assessing resilience during the interaction. The results showed that the attentional control score, a subscale of executive attention, increased significantly in the post-interaction compared to the pre-interaction period. The interaction between groups and periods showed that emotional regulation improved in the animal-type robot group after the interaction. However, there was no significant difference in resilience scores between the groups. These results indicate that interacting with the animal-type therapy robot PARO enhanced emotional regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mindfulness is described as a process of bringing a certain quality of attention to moment-by-moment experience. Levels of attention functions have been suggested to predict individual differences in mindfulness. The present study examines how aspects of attention functions are associated with dispositional mindfulness. University students (N=74) completed the Attention Network Test (Fan et al., 2002) and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer et al., 2006). The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed an interaction between orienting attention and alerting attention which predicted mindfulness. Simple slope analysis showed that higher orienting attention was associated with higher mindfulness when alerting attention was low-level. On the other hand, higher orienting attention was associated with lower mindfulness when alerting attention was high-level. These results indicate that attention functions are predictors of mindfulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mindfulness training (MT) is growing in popularity as an intervention for generalized anxiety disorders and worry. Theoretical studies suggest that the effectiveness of MT may be mediated by attentional control, mindful awareness, and decentering. However, research has not explicitly examined how these possible mediators predict worrying. We conducted Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with cross sectional data (N = 376). We compared multiple models and found that models which used attentional control as an exogenous variable had a better fit than those using it as a mediator. Moreover, SEM revealed that the effect of attentional control on worry was completely mediated by enhancing dispositional mindfulness and decentering. These results suggest that the working mechanism of MT for decreasing worry involves increased attentional control as the chief vehicle for bringing about alternative ways to relate to one's internal process (mindfulness and decentering), which in turn leads to ameliorated worrying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In visual search situations, it is known that not only bottom-up factors relative to the presented stimulus display but also top-down factors, which include foreknowledge about the target or observers' strategies for the task, have an influence on search performance. The present study examines how top-down attentional control settings affect the visual search process by using the within-dimension facilitation (WDF) and the inter-trial facilitation (ITF) effects. In Experiment 1 we showed the WDF effect using foreknowledge about the target-defining dimension within one block. In Experiment 2 we found the ITF effect using foreknowledge about the target-defining dimension in every trial. These results suggest that search performance is improved both top-down attentional setting using foreknowledge and inter-trial priming by repetition of target-defining dimensions, and they are interactive. Furthermore, the influence of the priming effect strongly appeared when observers had an attentional setting every trial. These results show that the magnitude of bottom-up inter-trial priming effects depends on the top-down attentional setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]