Frontiers in Psychology
September 3, 2026
Yukun Mei, Jiyu Li, Sarawadee Phuchomsri
Buddhist meditation is widely studied in relation to mindfulness, emotion regulation, compassion, and well-being, yet it is often operationalized as an attentional or stress-reduction technique detached from the ethical and cultural conditions of practice. This article develops the ethical-cultural training ecology model, a Hypothesis and Theory framework that treats Buddhist meditation as a...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 3, 2026
Bongsu Kang, Chang-Eop Kim
Research on AI consciousness has largely focused on whether AI systems are conscious and how humans attribute consciousness to them. Yet large language models (LLMs) increasingly function as consciousness attributors, generating judgments about whether and to what degree other entities are conscious. We introduce model-generated consciousness attribution as an object of empirical...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 1, 2026
Zhihao Gong, Kai Qiu, Xue Feng
Background In recent years, China has continued to strengthen arts education reform and the development of aesthetic education. The training regimen for dance majors is characterized by high intensity, high repetition, precise error correction, and continuous assessment; the stress resulting from these factors can affect their physical and mental wellbeing. Understanding the internal mechanism...
Frontiers in Psychology
September 1, 2026
Devendra Singh
BackgroundTrauma recovery among tribal adolescent girls and young women in Northeast India remains poorly understood, particularly for those with dissociative disorders. Existing frameworks rely on Western paradigms that do not account for the cultural, spiritual, and environmental realities of tribal communities.MethodsUsing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study examined...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 31, 2026
Swapan Samanta
ProblemA persistent observation troubles both positive psychology and contemplative science: people suffer in the midst of success. The wealthy report emptiness; the deeply loved report captivity; the lucid report paralysis; the renunciate remains seized by the identity of renouncing. Existing wellbeing frameworks—utility theory, composite indices, PERMA—explain this poorly because they share a...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 28, 2026
Alessio Matiz, Sara Sorella, Giuseppe Pagnoni et al.
Introduction Although meditation practice encompasses both intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions, the differential effects of individual versus group meditation settings (IS vs. GS) remain largely unexplored. This study aimed to reduce this gap by comparing the effects of a mindfulness meditation session performed in the two settings, focusing in particular on mind-wandering (MW) dynamics....
Frontiers in Psychology
August 26, 2026
Mario S. Staller, Swen Koerner
From "Uneasy Stasis" to Observation Formats Cleeremans et al.'s (2025) review article offers a comprehensive, up-to-date self-description of consciousness science: it organizes the field's central theoretical approaches, reconstructs key methodological and institutional developments, and discusses the ethical, clinical, and societal implications of possible "success" in understanding and...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 26, 2026
Weiqiang Qi, Xi Li, Xinyue Liang et al.
Background Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been demonstrated to enhance emotional functioning, but little is known regarding the brief mindfulness training’s effects on various psychological symptoms and positive psychological resources in the long term, especially when compared to both passive and active control conditions. This study aimed to examine the effects of brief...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 26, 2026
Maitri Patel, Navin Kumar
Spiritual bypassing — using spirituality to avoid unresolved psychological difficulty — has been studied almost entirely in Western samples. This conceptual paper asks whether the construct travels to Indian contexts and proposes a culturally situated alternative. The method is immanent critique: existing formulations are examined against their own stated aims to identify the assumptions they...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 24, 2026
Jian-Nor Shih
The rapid growth of AI companionship has raised urgent questions about the psychological mechanisms underlying human-AI relationships. This paper investigates why and how users construct and become entrenched in relationships with AI. Drawing on the Consciousness-Only school of Buddhist psychology, this paper applies the three-natures framework and eight-consciousnesses model. According to this...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 24, 2026
Aarsh Ojas Parasar Pandey
Background Autonomic dysregulation is increasingly recognized as a central mechanism complicating psychotherapeutic work across anxiety, trauma-related, and mood disorders. Persistent hyperarousal (sympathetic activation) or hypoarousal (persistent parasympathetic activation or shutdown/ dissociation) may put clients out of their “window of tolerance,” thus limiting access to cognitive,...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 19, 2026
Antonio Chella
The possibility of sentient artificial intelligence has moved from speculative philosophy to a practical interdisciplinary problem for AI, robotics, and human-robot interaction. Large language models, multimodal agents, and embodied robots can now produce first-person reports, maintain dialogue, use tools, act through sensors and effectors, and participate in socially meaningful contexts. These...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 11, 2026
Jessica Vanessa Yépez-Verduga, Carolina Daysi Villacís-Macías
Introduction: Mindfulness-based interventions have gained increasing relevance as complementary strategies for addressing attentional, behavioral, and emotional difficulties in individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This study aimed to systematically map and analyze the scientific evidence on mindfulness-based interventions in populations with ADHD, focusing on their...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 11, 2026
Don Kuiken, Ming-Ni Lee
Introduction The continuing impact of spontaneously recalled dreams sometimes depends upon the same kind of unfolding semantic complexity that literary scholars attribute to poetic literary metaphors. Methods We present the results of two online studies of impactful dreams (i.e., nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams) that reinforce this account. Results In both Study 1 (N =...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 10, 2026
Pragya Mishra, Susan L. Prescott, Alan C. Logan
Criminal sentencing attitudes can reflect psychological dispositions concerning agency, hierarchy, blame, and rehabilitation. This exploratory pilot examined whether established contemplative practice is associated with a less punitive profile and whether legal professionals show differences following a four-week Anapana programme. Ninety adults participated in three cohorts: experienced...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 10, 2026
Sofía Walsen, Covadonga Chaves, Constanza Baquedano
IntroductionPremenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a cyclically recurring psychobiological condition affecting up to 47.8% of women of reproductive age, with considerable impact on daily functioning, quality of life and a documented economic burden linked to work absenteeism. Despite its prevalence, PMS remains substantially undertreated, and pharmacological approaches are often associated with...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 5, 2026
Giancarlo di Gennaro, A. Tomasini, Enrico Michele Salamone
Recent advances in theoretical physics suggest that time may exhibit a richer, potentially multidimensional structure, challenging classical linear conceptions. This Perspective develops a conceptual framework for understanding altered temporal experience in epilepsy, where seizures-driven by hypersynchronous neuronal activity and disrupted network synchronization-produce both clinical...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 5, 2026
Swapan Samanta
This article introduces the Somatic Codification Hypothesis (SCH), a theoretical framework that models the karaṇa system of the Nāṭyaśāstra —the foundational Sanskrit treatise on performance—as a systematic codification of pre-reflective, stimulus-driven bodily responses, alongside, rather than in place of, its established expressive, devotional, and aesthetic readings. The claim advanced here...
Frontiers in Psychology
August 3, 2026
Maitri Patel, Navin Kumar
Spiritual bypassing, referred to as the use of spiritual beliefs or practices to avoid unresolved psychological distress, is well represented in the etic (researcher- or outsider-derived) literature but has not previously been examined through a qualitative synthesis centered on lived experiences. This meta-ethnography addresses that gap. Using Noblit and Hare’s seven-phase approach alongside...
Frontiers in Psychology
July 30, 2026
Lena Erdmann, Barbara Breitenstein, Maria Badanova et al.
BackgroundResearch suggests that high ventilation breathwork (HVB) improves mental health by reducing experiential avoidance (EA) through altered states of consciousness (ASCs). The present study examined whether EA during participants’ most recent breathwork session predicted mental well-being afterward. Additionally, the study examined the relationships between EA, ASCs, emotional...
Frontiers in Psychology
July 29, 2026
Alison King, Darryl Gray
Organisational Transitions in Awareness: A Framework of Access, Coordination, and Regulation presents a testable organisational framework for understanding awareness across biological and artificial systems. The paper distinguishes graded transitions in awareness based on the organisational capacities of access, coordination, and regulation, generating experimentally testable predictions across...
Frontiers in Psychology
July 29, 2026
Lawrence Fischman
I treat Proust’s Á la Recherche du Temps Perdu as a fictional case history centered around dynamic tension between dissociation, memory, and creativity. I argue that three pivotal breakthroughs of long dissociated memories and feelings in Proust’s novel result from thawing within a dyadically-determined dissociative process, not simply the chance triggering of involuntary memories as the...
Frontiers in Psychology
July 29, 2026
Alison King, Darryl Gray
Consciousness research often uses overlapping terms such as consciousness, awareness, conscious access, subjective experience, reportability, selfhood, and metacognition. This conceptual compression can make it difficult to distinguish different awareness-related processes or to identify which capacities are preserved, disrupted, or restored across altered states. This paper proposes an...
Frontiers in Psychology
July 28, 2026
Hercules Morais, Débora Regina de Aguiar, Matheus Hissa Lourenço Ferreira et al.
BackgroundMindfulness-based artistic–contemplative interventions, including auditory “sound pills,” have increasingly been investigated using neurophysiological measures such as electroencephalography (EEG) to promote psychological well-being and attentional regulation. However, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these interventions remain poorly understood.MethodsThis pilot,...
Frontiers in Psychology
July 23, 2026
Shoichi Shiota, Takahiro Ohitokata, Hiroshi Harada
BackgroundSelf-esteem and gratitude are important psychological constructs associated with children’s socio-emotional development and well-being. Previous studies have suggested that yoga may be associated with emotional regulation, attentional stability, and prosocial functioning. However, few studies have examined whether participation in school-based yoga programs is associated with changes...