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Bernhard Hommel

12 papers in the library · 528 citations · publishing 2014-2025

Papers

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Microdosing psilocybin and its effect on creativity: Lessons learned from three double-blind placebo controlled longitudinal trials

Neuropharmacology November 2, 2025 Luisa Prochazkova, Josephine Marschall, Michiel van Elk et al. 2 citations

BackgroundTaking very small doses of psychedelics (LSD, truffles) over an extended period became prevalent in Western societies for its alleged cognitive benefit, including enhanced creativity. However, in the absence of robust, double-blind-controlled quantitative studies, such claims remain anecdotal.MethodsHere we present results from 3 double-blind placebo-controlled longitudinal trials...

Cognitive and subjective effects of psilocybin microdosing: Results from two double-blind placebo-controlled longitudinal trials

Neuropharmacology October 17, 2025 Luisa Prochazkova, Josephine Marschall, Dominique P. Lippelt et al. 3 citations

ObjectiveMicrodosing psychedelics has been widely reported to enhance focus and problem-solving, sparking interest in its potential to treat attentional disorders such as ADHD. However, existing studies largely rely on anecdotal evidence and lack adequate placebo control.MethodsThis study contributes to the literature by examining the longitudinal effects of microdosing psilocybin truffles in...

Neural correlates of metacontrol persistence and flexibility induced by creativity and meditation.

Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) October 2, 2025 Weitao Zhang, Zsuzsika Sjoerds, Rebecca Mourits et al.

The neural mechanisms underlying the cognitive metacontrol states of persistence and flexibility are not yet fully understood but are thought to be modulated by frontal and striatal dopamine, respectively. In this study, we attempted to induce persistence and flexibility states by having participants engage in 2 creativity tasks (remote associates task and alternative uses task) and 2...

Social exclusion in a virtual Cyberball game reduces the virtual hand illusion.

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review October 1, 2024 Yingbing Sun, Ruiyu Zhu, Bernhard Hommel et al. 3 citations

Sense of ownership and agency are two important aspects of the minimal self, but how self-perception is affected by social conditions remains unclear. Here, we studied how social inclusion or exclusion of participants in the course of a virtual Cyberball game would affect explicit judgments and implicit measures of ownership and agency (proprioceptive drift, skin conductance responses, and...

The impact of interoceptive accuracy and stimulation type on the out-of-body experience.

Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) August 1, 2023 Ke Ma, Liping Yang, Bernhard Hommel 4 citations

People tend to perceive a virtual body standing in front of them as their own if it is either stroked or moving synchronously with their own real body-the out-of-body experience (OBE). We combined synchrony manipulation with two other factors of theoretical interest: the kind of stimulation, visuotactile stimuli or visuomotor correlations, being synchronised and the interoceptive accuracy (IA)...

Microdosing psychedelics and its effect on creativity: Lessons learned from three double-blind placebo controlled longitudinal trials

June 14, 2021 Luisa Prochazkova, Michiel van Elk, Josephine Marschall et al. 4 citations preprint

Introduction: Microdosing refers to the repetitive administration of tiny doses of psychedelics (LSD, Psilocybin) over an extended period of time. This practice has been linked to alleged cognitive benefits, such as improved mood and creativity, potentiated by targeting serotonergic 5-HT2A receptors and facilitating cognitive flexibility. Nonetheless, in the absence of robust, quantitative and...

The Me-File: An Event-Coding Approach to Self-Representation.

Frontiers in Psychology 2021 Bernhard Hommel 7 citations

Numerous authors have taken it for granted that people represent themselves or even have something like "a self", but the underlying mechanisms remain a mystery. How do people represent themselves? Here I propose that they do so not any differently from how they represent other individuals, events, and objects: by binding codes representing the sensory consequences of being oneself into a...

Altered states of consciousness and creativity

2020 Luisa Prochazkova, Bernhard Hommel

Abstract Increasing evidence suggests that altered states of consciousness (ASC) are associated with both positive and negative effects on components of creative performance, and convergent and divergent thinking in particular. We provide a metacontrol framework that allows characterizing factors that induce ASC in terms of their general impact on the information processing style of problem...

Representing Oneself and Others.

Experimental psychology November 1, 2018 Bernhard Hommel 44 citations

Human beings are assumed to own a concept of their self, but it remains a mystery how they represent themselves and others. I shall develop a theoretical framework, inspired by the Theory of Event Coding, of how people represent themselves and others, how and under which circumstances these two kinds of representations interact and what consequences this has. In a nutshell, I shall argue that...

Exploring the effect of microdosing psychedelics on creativity in an open-label natural setting

Psychopharmacology October 24, 2018 Luisa Prochazkova, Dominique P. Lippelt, Lorenza S. Colzato et al. 181 citations

While this study provides quantitative support for the cognitive-enhancing properties of microdosing psychedelics, future research has to confirm these preliminary findings in more rigorous placebo-controlled study designs. Based on these preliminary results, we speculate that psychedelics might affect cognitive metacontrol policies by optimizing the balance between cognitive persistence and...

The social transmission of metacontrol policies: Mechanisms underlying the interpersonal transfer of persistence and flexibility.

Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews October 1, 2017 Bernhard Hommel, Lorenza S. Colzato

Humans often face binary cognitive-control dilemmas, with the choice between persistence and flexibility being a crucial one. Tackling these dilemmas requires metacontrol, i.e., the control of the current cognitive-control policy. As predicted from functional, psychometric, neuroscientific, and modeling approaches, interindividual variability in metacontrol biases towards persistence or...

Focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness meditation: effects on attention, conflict monitoring, and creativity – A review

Frontiers in Psychology September 23, 2014 Dominique P. Lippelt, Bernhard Hommel, Lorenza S. Colzato 280 citations

Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a topic for scientific research and theories on meditation are becoming ever more specific. We distinguish between what is called focused Attention meditation, open Monitoring meditation, and loving kindness (or compassion) meditation. Research suggests that these meditations have differential, dissociable effects on a wide range of cognitive...