ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Descriptive & Survey Study

Authors

Rahmani   J. (*)
Ajilchi   B. (1 )
Zareian   E. (1)






(*) Motor Behavior Department, Physical Education & Sport Sciences Faculty, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran
(1 ) Motor Behavior Department , Physical Education & Sport Sciences Faculty, Allameh Tabataba’i University, Tehran, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Physical Education & Sport Sciences Faculty, In Front of the Olympic Hotel, Hakim Highway West, Tehran, Iran. Postal Code: 1485743411
Phone: +98 (21) 44118632
Fax: +98 (21) 44118629
j.rahmani1000@gmail.com

Article History

Received:  November  5, 2016
Accepted:  February 25, 2017
ePublished:  April 24, 2017

BRIEF TEXT


Cognitive abilities include neural processes involved in the acquisition, processing, maintenance, and use of information [1]. … [2, 3]. One of the psychological factors associated with cognitive executive function is mindfulness [4]. Mindfulness includes an informed awareness and free of judgments of current events [5, 6].

Nejati showed that executive functions, which are part of cognitive abilities, are highly correlated with mind-consciousness [4]. … [7-14]. Mindfulness, also, affects the enhancement of cognitive flexibility [7, 15], attention control, memory, and self-regulation [16], decision making [17, 18], sustained attention [19], and social cognition [20].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between mindfulness and cognitive abilities in athletes' blind veterans.

This descriptive-survey study is a correlational type.

This study was conducted in 2015 in veteran blind men and women in West Azarbaijan and Kurdistan provinces.

104 people were selected using convenience sampling method.

Mindfulness, Attention, and Awareness Scale: The items of this scale are in the cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, physical and other public domains. This scale does not have any subscale. This questionnaire has 15 questions that are scored on the six grade Likert Scale and each statements of “almost always”, “very high”, “somewhat high”, “somewhat low”, “very low”, “almost never” are given the scores of one to 6 respectively. The mentioned scale provides an overall score for mindfulness that ranges from 15 to 90, and a higher score indicates more consciousness. Cronbach's alpha was 0.82 for a student sample and 0.87 for an adult sample [13]. This questionnaire, which was used in Iran for the first time, was given to five psychological experts to use their corrective comments. The questionnaire was approved by the experts and after the introduction of the reforms proposed by them it was used by them and its final form was developed [19]. Also, in another study in Iran, Cronbach Alpha of the Persian version of this scale in a sample of 723 students was reported 0.81 [21]. Cognitive Ability Questionnaire: The cognitive Ability Questionnaire consists of 30 questions, which are based on the five degree Likert Scale. To study the reliability of the test, test-retest method was used that in retest only 23 persons were participated from 50 people. The correlation coefficient between these individuals has been 0.86 and the results of pretest and posttest have had significant relation at the significant level of 0.001. To assess the differential validity of the questionnaire, they compared the two elderly and young groups that the results have indicated that the designed test has necessary validity for to differentiate the cognitive problems of elderly people [22]. Except for questions about sixth factor (social cognition), the rest of questions have reversed scoring. Data analysis was performed using SPSS 22 software. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to examine the relationship between variables, and linear regression analysis was used to predict the cognitive ability score of individuals based on the level of mindfulness.

60.6% of the samples were women. Also, the mean age of samples was 30.54±6.77 years (Table 1). Mean score of mindfulness of athlete veterans was 3.17±0.47 and the mean score of their cognitive abilities was 3.89±0.80. The relationship of mindfulness with cognitive abilities was positive and meaningful except in the inhibitive control, selective attention, and planning components (Table 2). Also, mindfulness could predict 0.438 variance of the cognitive abilities of the blinds (p=0.001).

The results of this study is consistent with the speculation of other scholars, suggest a relationship of mindfulness with a wide range of sustained attention. In spite of previous research that showed the relationship between these two variables in this study, there was no relationship between these two variables in this study, which could be due to the difference in the way research is conducted with previous studies. In this study, mindfulness had a positive and significant relationship with decision making. Considering the effect that emotional state has on the decision making and causes wrong decision, mindfulness helps to recognize emotional states and affects them positively. Therefore, it can be concluded that it has positive effect on decision-making as well [18]. Other researchers have also shown that those who decide with a mindfulness are more likely to make better decision, because they are more aware of feedbacks [17]. Findings showed that there was no significant relationship between mindfulness and planning. In conducted researches, also, there was no significant relationship between mindfulness and planning, and the results of this study were consistent with other studies. … [23-29].

It is suggested that according to the needs of the country’s blind society to cognitive abilities, the necessity of using other variables and its relation with cognitive abilities or other interventions in order to enhance their cognitive abilities should be considered. Also, it is suggested that in the next researches, interventional studies be used instead of the questionnaire.

The limitations of the present study included the lack of research on blind women, in fact, the lack of gender segregation, the limited sample of the whole society, and the conduct of the research using a questionnaire, which itself has an inherent limitation, and the research by interview and semi-experimental has a more objective result.

In blind veterans, there is a significant relationship between mindfulness with a number of cognitive ability components (memory, decision-making, sustained attention, social recognition, and cognitive flexibility). Therefore, regular exercises of mindfulness can strengthen cognitive abilities in blind veterans.

All the friends and loved ones who helped us in this research, the delegations and trainers of the blind sports in provinces of Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan, and the dear blind veterans of these two provinces who gave their valuable time to participate in this research are appreciated.

Non-declared

Information about individuals was kept confidentially and the subjects who were interested in receiving the results of the study were informed by e-mail of these results.

This research is part of the final master's thesis of sports psychology at Allameh Tabataba'i University College of Physical Education and Sports Sciences.

TABLES and CHARTS

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