Humans think and act not only with the brain but also with the heart, lungs, gut, and other viscera, such as the bladder, long regarded as primarily vegetative. A fresh wave of experiments is revealing the role of cardiac-cycle phase and baroreceptor firing in perception and social behavior; respiration-locked neural dynamics in attention and learning; and gastrointestinal rhythms and vagal...
Objectives Recent meta-analyses suggest that mindfulness meditation may enhance prosocial behavior, while evidence regarding moral behavior is still scarce. We combined a randomized controlled mindfulness training design with an ecologically valid moral decision-making task (Temptation to Lie Card Game; TLCG), in which participants were tempted to deceive an opponent to increase their monetary...
The conscious processing of body signals influences higher-order psychological and cognitive functions, including self-awareness. Dysfunctions in the processing of these signals has been connected to neurological and psychiatric disorders characterized by altered states of self-consciousness. Studies indicate that perceiving the body through interoceptive signals ( e.g. , from internal organs...
Humans are unique in their ability to think about themselves and carry a more or less clear notion of who they are in their mind. Here we review recent evidence suggesting that the birth, maintenance, and loss of the abstract concept of 'self' is deeply tied to interoception, the sense of internal physiological signals. Interoception influences multiple facets of the self-concept, cutting...
Summary Bodily self-consciousness, the state of mind that allows humans to be aware of their own body, forms the backdrop for almost every human experience, yet its underpinnings remain elusive. Here we combine an ingestible, minimally invasive capsule with surface electrogastrography to probe if gut physiology correlates with bodily self-consciousness in a sample of healthy men during a...
Abstract Objectives According to the core Buddhist psychology models of the “two arrows of pain” and “co-dependent origination,” pain is the resultant of bodily and mental factors, which can be regulated by meditation states and traits. Here we investigated how pain and the related aversion and identification (self-involvement) experiences are modulated by focused attention meditation (FAM),...
This perspective article provides an overview of the impact of mindfulness meditation (MM) on social and moral behavior. In mindfulness research, prosocial behavior has been operationalized as helping behavior, altruistic redistribution of funds, reparative behavior, or monetary donation. Studies concerning moral behavior are still scarce. Despite inconsistent evidence, several studies found a...
In the rod and frame test (RFT), participants are asked to set a tilted visual linear marker (i.e. a rod), embedded in a square, to the subjective vertical, irrespective of the surrounding frame. People not influenced by the frame tilt are defined as field-independent, while people biased in their rod verticality perception are field-dependent. Performing RFT requires the integration of...
The conscious processing of body signals influences higher-order psychological and cognitive processes, including self-awareness and body image. Dysfunctions in the processing of these signals has been connected to neurological and psychiatric disorders characterized by altered states of self-consciousness. Studies indicate that the process of perceiving the body through interoceptive signals...