Journal of Psychopharmacology
February 1, 2022
Isabel Wießner, Marcelo Falchi-Carvalho, Lucas Oliveira Maia et al.
43 citations
A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study gave 24 healthy volunteers 50 micrograms of LSD or an inactive placebo and tested creativity near the drug's peak using multiple tasks. LSD changed creativity in three ways: it increased novelty, surprise, originality, and semantic distances (pattern break); decreased utility, convergent thinking, and marginally elaboration (disorganization); and increased symbolic thinking and ambiguity (meaning). The findings suggest LSD shifts cognitive resources away from normal patterns toward new ones, and that LSD-induced symbolic thinking might aid psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
December 13, 2020
Madeleine E. Gross, Anna Smith, Yvette M. Graveline et al.
37 citations
People spend much of their lives engaged in stimulus-independent thoughts (SITs), such as dreaming and waking thoughts not tied to immediate surroundings, which can feel similar to stimulus-dependent thoughts (SDTs) driven by external input. Using a 7-day smartphone-based experience-sampling procedure where participants reported whether their current thoughts were stimulus dependent or independent and rated qualitative aspects like topic jumping, the results show substantial distinctiveness among dreaming, waking SITs, and SDTs, with significant differences between at least two of the three mental states across every measured variable.
Consciousness and Cognition
February 1, 2025
Anusha Garg, Shivang Shelat, Madeleine E. Gross et al.
13 citations
Thinking aloud while letting the mind wander does not substantially alter the stream of consciousness compared to thinking silently. In two studies with 111 and 102 participants, people who verbalized their ongoing thoughts showed no significant differences in meta-awareness or how often their topics shifted. Of 21 thought qualities and 18 content topics examined, only three qualities (private thoughts, mind blanking, and session difficulty) and one topic (partner, intimacy, love, and sexual matters) differed between conditions. Cognitive load also did not differ. The findings indicate that the Think Aloud method is a reliable and minimally reactive tool for studying the natural flow of thoughts in task-absent settings.
Philosophy and the Mind Sciences
May 5, 2025
Joshua R. Ortega, Madeleine E. Gross, Jonathan W. Schooler
1 citation
People who are highly fantasy-prone, absorptive, or hypnotizable often have waking thoughts that feel bizarre or dreamlike, suggesting a continuity between dreaming and waking thoughts that may vary by individual. The personality trait transliminality—linked to heightened awareness of subliminal material—was hypothesized to predict this continuity. In a week-long experience-sampling study of undergraduates, transliminality did not predict overall continuity of thought. Exploratory analyses indicated it predicted greater continuity in bizarreness, but this did not survive correction for multiple comparisons. Transliminality was positively associated with waking thoughts that were more bizarre, interesting, and novel. The findings advance understanding of how personality relates to thought phenomenology and suggest avenues for research on well-being, creativity, and behavior.