278 papers in the library · 33 citations · publishing 2018-2026
PsyArXiv June 15, 2022 Fangfang Li, Xiaojie Zhang preprint
How the mind works is the ultimate mystery for human beings. This paper proposed a framework to solve it. We call it the self-programming system. The self-programming system can learn, store and apply the functions of bodies, external tools, and even the mind itself uniformly. However, due to the generality of the mind, traditional scientific methods are not suitable for validating a theory of...
PsyArXiv June 1, 2022 Giulio Ruffini, Edmundo Lopez-Sola preprint
We present a unifying framework to study consciousness based on algorithmic information theory (AIT). We take as a premise that ``there is experience'' and focus on the requirements for structured experience (S)--- the spatial, temporal, and conceptual organization of our first-person experience of the world and of ourselves as agents in it. Our starting point is the insight that access to good...
PsyArXiv May 21, 2022 Betül Tatar, Rebeka Pazmanyova, Esther K. Papies preprint
PurposeBrief mindfulness-based interventions have received great research attention, including in the domain of anxiety. However, quantitative studies do not provide in-depth accounts of how brief mindfulness is experienced. In this qualitative study, we explored how non-meditator undergraduate students learn brief mindfulness and apply it to anxiety-provoking aspects of COVID-19. MethodsWe...
PsyArXiv May 17, 2022 Anna MacKinnon, Ivan Sedov, Katherine Silang et al. preprint
Poor sleep quality during pregnancy is prevalent, commonly persists into the postpartum period, and has been associated with poor maternal and child outcomes including risk of preterm birth and postpartum depression. Pregnant individuals are hesitant to take medication leaving many without evidence-based treatments for sleep problems. Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to improve...
PsyArXiv May 1, 2022 Navjot Singh Gadda preprint
Consciousness appears to be an emergent property of some complex, nonlinear system in the brain. According to the integrated information theory of consciousness (IIT), a complex system composed of numerous integrated processing elements can be conscious due to the existence of a global, system-level integration of that complexity, which is associated with a specific level of information known...
PsyArXiv April 12, 2022 Remington Mallett, Laura Sowin, Rachel Raider et al. preprint
Therapies focused on lucid dreaming could be useful for treating various sleep disorders and other conditions. Still, one major roadblock is the paucity of systematic information on the consequences of attempting these sorts of dreams. The current study sought to quantify positive and negative aspects of seeking lucid dreams, describe their phenomenology in detail, and identify features...
PsyArXiv March 15, 2022 Deanna M Kaplan, Matthias R Mehl, Steven Cole et al. preprint
Objective: Extensive research suggests that short-term meditation interventions may hold therapeutic promise for a wide range of psychosocial outcomes. In response to calls to subject these interventions to more methodologically rigorous tests, a randomized controlled trial tested the effectiveness of a mindfulness meditation intervention and a compassion meditation intervention against an...
PsyArXiv February 19, 2022 Tianhong Tim Qiu, Emily Nielsen, Emma Guimaraes et al. preprint
The dual-process theory of thinking defines a heuristic-based System I which trades-off precision and accuracy in favour of speed. It is prone to consistent range of error modes formalized as cognitive biases. In contrast, System II is slower, requires deliberate engagement but can work through complex problems with lower error. Mindfulness research points to positive improvements in...
PsyArXiv February 7, 2022 George H Denfield, Evan J. Kyzar preprint
Philosophy of mind has made substantial progress on biologically-rooted approaches to understanding the mind and subjectivity through the enactivist perspective, but research on subjectivity within neuroscience has not kept apace. Indeed, we possess no principled means of relating experiential phenomena to neurophysiological processes. Here, we present the Nested States Model as a framework to...
PsyArXiv January 31, 2022 Daniel R. Berry, Katie Rodriguez, Virginia Tasulis et al. preprint
Objectives: Mindful attention deployment has been found to have practical benefits for a range of interpersonal outcomes including prosocial action and emotion. Recently, theory has posited that contemplative training that incorporates mindful attention may enhance intergroup compassion. Method: Here, we conduct a selective narrative review, drawing on the Buddhist concept skillful means to ask...
PsyArXiv January 9, 2022 Dirk E. M. Geurts, Hanneke E.m. den Ouden, Lotte Janssens et al. preprint
Background: Control over the tendency to make or withhold responses based on contextual Pavlovian information, might play a key role in understanding impulsivity/hyperactivity in ADHD. Here we set out to assess (1) the understudied relation between Pavlovian inhibitory control and hyperactivity/impulsivity in adults with ADHD and (2) whether this inhibition can be enhanced by mindfulness based...
PsyArXiv November 29, 2021 Tianhong Tim Qiu, John Paul Minda preprint
A growing proportion of the population is engaging in recreational psychedelic use. Psychedelics are uniquely capable of reliably occasioning mystical experiences in ordinary humans without contemplative or religious backgrounds. While clinical research has made efforts to characterize psychedelic experiences, comparably little is understood about how humans naturalistically engage with...
PsyArXiv November 17, 2021 Camilo Miguel Signorelli, Joaquin Diaz Boils preprint
An algebraic interpretation of multilayer networks is introduced in relation to conscious experience, brain and body. The discussion is based on a network model for undirected multigraphs with coloured edges whose elements are time-evolving multilayers, representing complex experiential brain-body networks. These layers have the ability to merge by an associative binary operator, accounting for...
PsyArXiv October 6, 2021 David Rose 2 citations preprint
Enactivism is a major research programme in the philosophy of perception. Yet its metaphysical status is unclear, since it is claimed to avoid both idealism and realism yet still has aspects of both within it. One attempt to solve this conundrum is based on the fusion of enactivism with phenomenology and the mathematical concept of symmetry breaking (Moss Brender, 2013). I suggest this is not...
PsyArXiv September 25, 2021 Adrian Kent preprint
Tononi et al.'s "integrated information theory" (IIT) postulates rules for assigning measures Phi and qualia types Q of consciousness to classical information networks. We consider whether IIT is compatible with Darwinian evolution. We argue that an IIT-like theory that assigns consciousness to physical systems by relatively simple mathematical rules poses extraordinary ?ne-tuning problems.For...
PsyArXiv September 21, 2021 preprint
Zoomed out? Depersonalization is Related to Increased Digital Media Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown
PsyArXiv August 28, 2021 Sepehrdad Rahimian preprint
Recent advances in Neural sciences have uncovered countless new facts about the brain. Although there is a plethora of theories of consciousness, it seems to some philosophers that there is still an explanatory gap when it comes to a scientific account of subjective experience. In what follows, I will argue why some of our more commonly acknowledged theories do not at all provide us with an...
PsyArXiv August 17, 2021 Giuseppe Pagnoni, Fausto Taiten Guareschi preprint
The theoretical framework of active inference proposed by Karl Friston is currently one of the more actively developed research areas in neuroscience. According to this theory the brain adapts its synaptic activity and architecture in such a way that it de facto comes to mirror the causal structure of events that the organism both encounters and actively induces in its environment. In this...
PsyArXiv August 12, 2021 Nicholas Martin Rosseinsky preprint
In the flagship journal Science, Melloni et al. recently claimed to offer a way of making the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness easier. In fact, in their chosen analytical setting, the hard problem is impossible, and their claims simply further muddy the already-opaque waters in the mainstream field of conscious-experiential science.
PsyArXiv July 31, 2021 preprint
The commonsense view is that a lucid dream starts when the dreamer realizes that they are currently dreaming. The notion of realization, however, has been accepted at face value, with little consideration of whether the dreamer realizes that they are dreaming in the sense of actual reasoning, or if it is a mere epiphenomenon of lucid dream initiation. This article offers a solution to this...
PsyArXiv July 30, 2021 Sarah J. Bolognino, Tyler L. Renshaw, Mary L. Phan preprint
Objectives: Mindful breathing meditation (MBM) and loving-kindness meditation (LKM) are common components of effective mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). This pilot study examined the differential effects of MBM and LKM on purported therapeutic process variables and mental health outcomes via component analysis. Methods: The research design was a randomized controlled trial with four...
PsyArXiv July 8, 2021 Chris Letheby preprint
In this précis I summarise the main ideas of my book Philosophy of Psychedelics . The book discusses philosophical issues arising from the therapeutic use of classic psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and LSD. The book is organised around what I call the Comforting Delusion Objection to psychedelic therapy: the concern that this novel and promising treatment relies essentially on the...
PsyArXiv June 8, 2021 Philip Davies preprint
The purpose of this paper is to argue that (1) that the hard problem of consciousness is concerned with subjective experience; (2) subjective experience arises from the measure of absolute quantities directly by our senses; (3) objective experience, on the other hand, arises from the measure of relative quantities which are invariant to perception; (4) only relative quantities can be shared...
PsyArXiv May 18, 2021 Axel Cleeremans, Catherine Tallon-Baudry preprint
Why would we do anything at all if the doing was not doing something to us? In other words: What is consciousness good for? Here, reversing classical views, according to many of which subjective experience is a mere epiphenomenon that affords no functional advantage, we propose that the core function of consciousness is precisely to enable subject-level experience. “What it feels like” is...
PsyArXiv May 11, 2021 Elizaveta Solomonova, Claudia Picard-Deland, Iris L Rapoport et al. preprint
Background: An upsurge in dream and nightmare frequency has been noted since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and research shows increases in levels of stress, depression and anxiety during this time. Growing evidence suggests that dream content has a bi-directional relationship with psychopathology, and that dreams react to new, personally significant and emotional experiences. The first...