Cognitive processing
August 4, 2026
Roberto Sá Pereira
This paper examines the claim that the phenomenal "for-me-ness" is the core feature of every conscious experience. Any conscious episode is intrinsically given as mine, and this mineness, while non-reflective and non-cognitive, belongs to the personal and phenomenal level. The compatibility checks for the for-me-ness thesis comes from cases such as depersonalization, schizophrenia, infancy and...
Cognitive processing
May 1, 2026
Kazem Haghnejae Azar
This article investigates the emergence of cognitive systems as properties arising from chemical processes, elucidating how cognitive capabilities evolve through the dynamic progression of these systems. Employing the Dynamic Kinetic Stability (DKS) framework, the study traces the evolutionary trajectory from simple chemical reactions to complex cognitive behaviors, emphasizing the emergence of...
Cognitive processing
April 22, 2026
M Bodea
Biological consciousness is the product of millions of years of evolution, being deeply rooted in the neural architecture of living organisms. It emerges from the interplay of sensory processing, memory, emotion, and metacognition, with the human brain being its most complex known expression. Synthetic consciousness, on the other hand, remains a theoretical construct, an aspiration rather than...
Cognitive processing
August 1, 2024
Jerome A Feldman
The classical mind-body problem persists as one of the deepest scientific mysteries. Despite the grand claims of the new AI, some of the most basic facts of human vision cannot be explained by current or proposed theories of brain structure and function. This paper reviews some well-known mysteries including the neural binding problem, blind sight, subjective experience and prosthetics. There...
Cognitive processing
February 1, 2024
Miles Rooney
3 citations
The nature of music improvisation continues to provide an interesting showcase of the multifaceted and skilful ways we engage with and act within our environments. Improvising musicians are somehow able to generate musical material in real time that adaptively navigates musical situations. In this article I explore the broader aspects of improvised activity-such as our bodily interactions with...
Cognitive processing
February 1, 2023
Antonio Benítez-burraco, Ines Adornetti, Francesco Ferretti et al.
13 citations
Recent research has proposed that certain aspects of psychosis, as experienced in, e.g., schizophrenia (SCZ), but also aspects of other cognitive conditions, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and synesthesia, can be related to a shattered sense of the notion of self. In this paper, our goal is to show that altered processing of self can be attributed to an abnormal functioning of...
Cognitive processing
November 1, 2018
Laxmi Shaw, Aurobinda Routray
Due to the presence of nonlinearity and volume conduction in electroencephalography (EEG), sometimes it's challenging to find out the actual brain network from neurodynamical alteration. In this paper, two well-known time-frequency brain connectivity measures, namely partial directed coherence (PDC) and directed transfer function (DTF), have been applied to evaluate the performance analysis of...
Cognitive processing
August 1, 2018
Giorgio Marchetti
In this article, I argue that consciousness is a unique way of processing information, in that: it produces information, rather than purely transmitting it; the information it produces is meaningful for us; the meaning it has is always individuated. This uniqueness allows us to process information on the basis of our personal needs and ever-changing interactions with the environment, and...
Cognitive processing
August 1, 2017
Pascal L Faber, Frederick Travis, Patricia Milz et al.
Two phases of Transcendental Meditation (TM)-transcending and undirected mentation-were compared to each other and to task-free resting using multichannel EEG recorded from 20 TM practitioners. An EEG microstate analysis identified four classes of microstates which were labeled A, B, C and D, based on their similarity to previously published classes. For each class of microstates, mean...
Cognitive processing
February 1, 2016
Andrew A Fingelkurts, Alexander A Fingelkurts, Tarja Kallio-Tamminen
Using theoretical analysis of self-consciousness concept and experimental evidence on the brain default mode network (DMN) that constitutes the neural signature of self-referential processes, we hypothesized that the anterior and posterior subnets comprising the DMN should show differences in their integrity as a function of meditation training. Functional connectivity within DMN and its...
Cognitive processing
February 1, 2015
Pascal L Faber, Dietrich Lehmann, Lorena R R Gianotti et al.
Meditation is a self-induced and willfully initiated practice that alters the state of consciousness. The meditation practice of Zazen, like many other meditation practices, aims at disregarding intrusive thoughts while controlling body posture. It is an open monitoring meditation characterized by detached moment-to-moment awareness and reduced conceptual thinking and self-reference. Which...
Cognitive processing
November 1, 2013
Jui-Feng Tsai, Shaw-Hwa Jou, WenChun Cho et al.
Increased alpha and theta activities in electroencephalography (EEG) have been found during various forms of meditation. However, advanced stage of meditation drew less attention to date. We aimed at exploring EEG characteristics during advanced meditation. Bilateral absolute alpha and theta EEG powers were recorded when a single meditator at rest, exercising breath meditation, and reaching the...
Cognitive processing
May 1, 2011
Christina F Lavallee, Mathew D Hunter, Michael A. Persinger
Previous researchers have studied meditation practices as a means to understand consciousness as well as altered states of consciousness. Various meditation techniques, such as Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Qigong, have been explored with source localization tools; however, the concentrative meditation technique has yet to be fully studied in this manner. The current study demonstrates...
Cognitive processing
February 1, 2010
Fred Travis, David A F Haaga, John Hagelin et al.
Activation of a default mode network (DMN) including frontal and parietal midline structures varies with cognitive load, being more active during low-load tasks and less active during high-load tasks requiring executive control. Meditation practices entail various degrees of cognitive control. Thus, DMN activation patterns could give insight into the nature of meditation practices. This 10-week...
Cognitive processing
February 2010
Shruti Baijal, Narayanan Srinivasan
Brain oscillatory activity is associated with different cognitive processes and plays a critical role in meditation. In this study, we investigated the temporal dynamics of oscillatory changes during Sahaj Samadhi meditation (a concentrative form of meditation that is part of Sudarshan Kriya yoga). EEG was recorded during Sudarshan Kriya yoga meditation for meditators and relaxation for...
Cognitive processing
February 2010
Klaus B Baerentsen, Hans Stødkilde-Jørgensen, Bo Sommerlund et al.
Meditation is an ancient spiritual practice, which aims to still the fluctuations of the mind. We investigated meditation with fMRI in order to identify and characterise both the "neural switch" mechanism used in the voluntary shift from normal consciousness to meditation and the "threshold regulation mechanism" sustaining the meditative state. Thirty-one individuals with 1.5-25 years...
Cognitive processing
February 2010
Angela Tagini, Antonino Raffone
The nature of the 'self' and self-referential awareness has been one of the most debated issues in philosophy, psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Understanding the neurocognitive bases of self-related representation and processing is also crucial to research on the neural correlates of consciousness. The distinction between an 'I', corresponding to a subjective sense of the self as a...
Cognitive processing
February 1, 2010
Antonino Raffone, Narayanan Srinivasan
Many recent behavioral and neuroscientific studies have revealed the importance of investigating meditation states and traits to achieve an increased understanding of cognitive and affective neuroplasticity, attention and self-awareness, as well as for their increasingly recognized clinical relevance. The investigation of states and traits related to meditation has especially pronounced...
Cognitive processing
November 1, 2009
Alexander A Fingelkurts, Andrew A Fingelkurts
To figure out whether the main empirical question "Is our brain hardwired to believe in and produce God, or is our brain hardwired to perceive and experience God?" is answered, this paper presents systematic critical review of the positions, arguments and controversies of each side of the neuroscientific-theological debate and puts forward an integral view where the human is seen as a...
Cognitive processing
May 1, 2009
Andrew A Fingelkurts, Alexander A Fingelkurts, Carlos F H Neves
10 citations
To build a true conscious robot requires that a robot's "brain" be capable of supporting the phenomenal consciousness as human's brain enjoys. Operational Architectonics framework through exploration of the temporal structure of information flow and inter-area interactions within the network of functional neuronal populations [by examining topographic sharp transition processes in the scalp...
Cognitive processing
December 1, 2006
Alain Cardon
Nowadays for robots, the notion of behavior is reduced to a simple factual concept at the level of the movements. On another hand, consciousness is a very cultural concept, founding the main property of human beings, according to themselves. We propose to develop a computable transposition of the consciousness concepts into artificial brains, able to express emotions and consciousness facts....
Cognitive processing
December 1, 2005
Robert A Wilson
While memory is conceptualized predominantly as an individual capacity in the cognitive and biological sciences, the social sciences have most commonly construed memory as a collective phenomenon. Collective memory has been put to diverse uses, ranging from accounts of nationalism in history and political science to views of ritualization and commemoration in anthropology and sociology. These...