Cognitive Processing
February 2010
Klaus B. Bærentsen, 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 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
December 16, 2009
B Rael Cahn, Arnaud Delorme, John Polich
Long-term Vipassana meditators sat in meditation vs. a control rest (mind-wandering) state for 21 min in a counterbalanced design with spontaneous EEG recorded. Meditation state dynamics were measured with spectral decomposition of the last 6 min of the eyes-closed silent meditation compared to control state. Meditation was associated with a decrease in frontal delta (1-4 Hz) power, especially...
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 2006
Giulio Benedetti
In this article, the author presents a new methodology for the study of two fundamental components of consciousness, that is thought and language. The fundamental presupposition that forms the basis of this methodology is that thought is not simply a passive "reflection" of an external "reality", but also (and especially) something active, i.e. that the fundamental components of thought are...
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
January 18, 2006
Introduction to the special section: the extended mind and the foundations of cognitive science.
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...