Mortality salience research has played a central role in understanding responses to death awareness and existential threat. At the same time, relatively little research has examined whether long-term contemplative practice may shape affective, cognitive, and implicit responses to mortality-related stimuli. The present study investigated these processes in long-term contemplative practitioners...
Folk attributions of consciousness to non-human systems often reveal what may be termed double bias. Within the standard distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, non-human animals often receive low attributions of consciousness despite convergent behavioral and neurobiological evidence treated as relevant to subjective experience. By contrast, disembodied artificial intelligence...
Abstract Objectives The main objective of the present study was to explore the effects of different types of meditation on the neurophysiologic mechanisms of pain processing. Method EEG responses to electric median nerve stimulation were recorded in short-term and long-term meditators (STM, LTM) during rest and three forms of meditation engaging attentional and affective regulation in different...
The present study applied spectral Granger causality (GC) analysis to EEG recordings obtained during focused attention meditation (FAM), open monitoring meditation (OMM), and loving kindness meditation (LKM) in highly experienced meditators. The aim of the investigation was to characterize distinct connectivity signatures associated with each meditation style by examining the strength,...
Mindfulness can be understood as the mental ability to focus on the direct and immediate perception or monitoring of the present moment with a state of open and nonjudgmental awareness. Descriptions of mindfulness and methods for cultivating it originated in eastern spiritual traditions. These suggest that mindfulness can be developed through meditation practice to increase positive qualities...
Abstract Terror Management Theory posits that awareness of mortality typically elicits defensive responses, yet emerging evidence suggests that meditation may promote adaptive outcomes. This study examined whether long-term Sufi meditation—a contemplative practice emphasizing direct engagement with death—is associated with reduced existential defensiveness and altered prosocial orientation...
Selective attention, visual short-term memory (VSTM), and visual consciousness are longstanding core domains in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Recent findings using partial report and change detection paradigms suggest that VSTM involves multiple stages, each engaging distinct attentional processes. Crucially, the interplay between selective attention and VSTM lies at the heart of...
The objective of the present study was to characterize the effects of long-term meditation (LTM) on directed connectivity patterns during resting-state and meditative brain states. Specifically, it was aimed to identify major cortical sources of information flow and target regions of information influx, and to reveal which frequency-specific oscillatory networks are critically involved in...
ABSTRACT The present study applied spectral Granger causality analysis to electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings obtained during Focused Attention Meditation (FAM), Open Monitoring Meditation (OMM), and Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) in highly experienced meditators. The aim of the investigation was to uncover distinct connectivity signatures associated with each meditation style by...
The study of animal consciousness has gained new prominence, driven by progress in neuroscience, cognitive ethology, and philosophy of mind (e.g., Andrews et al., 2024;Ehret and Romand, 2022;Bayne et al., 2024;Grinde, 2024). This special issue brings together diverse contributions (i.e., empirical, theoretical, and conceptual) that propose new ways to think about the nature and evolution of...
Objectives The main objective of the present study was to explore the effects of different types of meditation on the neurophysiologic mechanisms of pain processing.
seeks to explore classic debates in consciousness science, such as distinguishing between the most promising contemporary theories of consciousness, while also offering fresh perspectives and new insights into the progress of this field, including current reflections on its connection to artificial intelligence. One of the most debated issues in consciousness research concerns its neural...
The study of consciousness spans a vast array of domains, including perceptual awareness, cognition and metacognition, executive control, selfhood, sleep and dreaming, emotional competence, and empathy. It concerns both healthy states (e.g., meditation, aging, spiritual experiences) and pathological conditions (e.g., epilepsy, neglect syndromes, locked-in syndrome, minimally conscious states,...
The experience of pain is a combined product of bottom-up and top-down influences mediated by attentional and emotional factors. Meditation states and traits are characterized by enhanced attention/emotion regulation and expanded self-awareness that can be expected to modify pain processing. The main objective of the present study was to explore the effects of long-term meditation on neural...
While the beneficial impacts of meditation are increasingly acknowledged, its underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. We examined the electrophysiological brain signals of expert Buddhist monks during two established meditation methods known as Samatha and Vipassana, which employ focused attention and open monitoring technique. By combining source-space magnetoencephalography...
In the last decades, research on animal consciousness has advanced significantly, fueled by interdisciplinary contributions. However, a critical dimension of animal experience remains underexplored: the self. While traditionally linked to human studies, research focused on the self in animals has often been framed dichotomously, distinguishing low-level, bodily, and affective aspects from...
While the beneficial impacts of meditation are increasingly acknowledged, its underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. We examined the electrophysiological brain signals of expert Buddhist monks during two established meditation methods known as Samatha and Vipassana, which employ focused attention and open-monitoring technique. By combining source-space magnetoencephalography...
Abstract For many centuries, scholars and philosophers from wisdom traditions in different cultures have reported and discussed non-self states of consciousness. These states can be both short-term (state, transitory) and long-term (trait, lasting) conditions. However, in psychology, the importance of a healthy self is usually emphasized, and some theorists have dismissed the idea of “selfless”...
Concepts of empathy, sympathy and compassion are often confused in a variety of literatures. This article proposes a pattern-theoretic approach to distinguishing compassion from empathy and sympathy. Drawing on psychology, Western philosophy, affective neuroscience, and contemplative science, we clarify the nature of compassion as a specific pattern of dynamically related factors that include...
BackgroundThe investigation of mindfulness meditation practice, classically divided into focused attention meditation (FAM), and open monitoring meditation (OMM) styles, has seen a long tradition of theoretical, affective, neurophysiological and clinical studies. In particular, the high temporal resolution of magnetoencephalography (MEG) or electroencephalography (EEG) has been exploited to...
In conclusion, this collection addresses many fundamental issues that have emerged over the last few years in the quest to understand consciousness, including problems related to self-awareness and the implications of recent neuropsychological studies. Even if these articles open up more scientific questions than they answer, they can contribute to the debate around the methodological...
Abstract In this paper, we address core insights from Buddhist psychology about mind-body phenomena and the self, and we relate such insights to the notion of the self-pattern developed in the pattern theory of self. We emphasize the dynamic, temporal and enactive characteristics of the self-pattern, consistent with the core Buddhist notion of non-self. Although there is no one-to-one mapping...
Neuroimaging studies have provided evidence that extensive meditation practice modifies the functional and structural properties of the human brain, such as large-scale brain region interplay. However, it remains unclear how different meditation styles are involved in the modulation of these large-scale brain networks. Here, using machine learning and fMRI functional connectivity, we...