Although I'm a fan of meditation, and actually do think it increases focus, I think the experiment they conducted is not very scientific:<p>>Headed by Katherine MacLean at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, the study measured the volunteers’ attention skills by showing them a succession of vertical lines flashed up on a computer screen. They then had to indicate, by clicking a mouse, whenever there was a line shorter than the rest. As the retreat progressed, MacLean and her colleagues noted that the volunteers became progressively more accurate and found it increasingly easy to stay focused on the task for long periods.<p>I feel like I could also get better at it just by practicing... At least I think they should have benchmarked the experiment by comparing to people not meditating 5 hours a day, this is just inductive reasoning to me.<p>This being said, I love meditating and have found it to bring lots of good benefits to me. I find that focus can be trained in better ways, but meditation is great at making me enjoy the present moment, and take my time more.