Frontiers in Psychology
May 19, 2016
Katarina L. Shebloski, James M. Broadway
2 citations
A commentary on a study about psilocybin and time perception argues that the original work's conclusions may be overstated. The commentary suggests that the reported effects of psilocybin on time perception could be influenced by other factors, such as changes in attention or working memory, rather than a direct alteration of an internal clock. It calls for more rigorous controls in future research to isolate the specific cognitive mechanisms affected by psychedelics.
Frontiers in Psychology
March 11, 2026
Filippo Dellanoce
1 citation
A novel therapeutic approach called 'amplified psychoanalysis' integrates MDMA-assisted therapy with traditional psychoanalytic treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A single-case clinical narrative of a patient named Ygg illustrates how MDMA-induced altered states of consciousness may facilitate access to unconscious material and help overcome therapeutic impasses. The patient experienced more direct access to and processing of previously avoided memories and affects. The combination may be particularly promising for OCD, where traditional approaches often face limitations. Enhanced emotional processing, a strengthened therapeutic alliance, and improved access to traumatic memories are identified as putative processes of change. The approach requires systematic investigation with larger samples and formal outcome measures.
Frontiers in Psychology
February 11, 2026
Bettina Habelt
1 citation
Event-related beta oscillations, which are brain rhythms time-locked to tasks, are an underused but promising biomarker for evaluating treatments like brain stimulation and neurofeedback. Evidence from a rat model of alcohol addiction shows that both psilocybin and targeted electrical stimulation shift dominant beta activity from higher to lower sub-bands during an auditory oddball task, suggesting sub-band-specific analyses may indicate treatment efficacy. Despite this potential, systematic studies of beta sub-bands for diagnosing and treating neurological and psychiatric disorders remain scarce. The author proposes that event-related beta oscillations could help assess neuromodulatory interventions in both preclinical and clinical settings.
Frontiers in Psychology
November 25, 2025
Lars‐gunnar Lundh, Lo Foster
1 citation
People have a need to feel embodied—to experience having a body as both an object that can be perceived and evaluated and as a subjective, felt body. This felt embodiment is crucial for developing self-identity, interpersonal relations, wellbeing, and flourishing. The paper argues that experiences of feeling embodied serve as important motives: embodiment motivation drives people to feel their body in its vitality, capacities, expressiveness, as part of wholesome environments, and in pleasurable contact with others, while disembodiment motivation drives people to avoid or reduce bodily self-experiences due to pain or discomfort. The paper outlines a new research area on embodiment motivation.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 29, 2025
Long Wang, Xiaoyan Zhang, Lei Pan et al.
1 citation
A randomized controlled trial tested mindfulness-based music therapy (MBMT) in senior college students. The intervention group received six weekly 40-minute MBMT sessions plus homework over six weeks. Compared to a control group, the MBMT group showed significantly lower depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and higher sleep quality and resilience post-intervention. The authors suggest MBMT may be incorporated into curricula to enhance mental health and well-being.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 24, 2025
Elizaveta Solomonova, Jared R. Lindahl, Ian Gold et al.
1 citation
Delusion-like ideation (DLI) occurs in psychopathology and among the general population, and meditation can trigger such experiences. Based on interviews with over 100 Buddhist meditation practitioners and experts, this mixed-methods study establishes a typology of eight types of DLI, reports their relative frequencies, and identifies impacts and treatment outcomes. Four case studies illustrate risk factors, trajectories, outcomes, and appraisals. Responses to DLI depend on type, duration, severity, impact, and appraisals by meditators, teachers, and psychiatrists. Some DLI phenomenology reflects Buddhist meditation cultures; although normalized in certain contexts, meditation experts consider DLI a potential "red flag" requiring monitoring or intervention. Explanatory models include environmental conditions of retreats, attention and sensory attenuation, and DLI as a cultural idiom of distress.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 17, 2025
Michail Elpidoforou, Antonios Boultadakis, John Parissis et al.
1 citation
Dance-based interventions fall into three distinct categories with different goals, facilitators, and target populations. Dance therapy (DT), dance movement psychotherapy (DMP), or dance movement therapy (DMT) is a psychotherapeutic modality delivered by registered dance-movement therapists to address mental health needs. Adapted dance (AD) or inclusive dance (ID) is led by certified dance educators trained in special education, focusing on artistic expression, recreation, and social inclusion for individuals with disabilities. Therapeutic dance (TD) or dance as therapy (DaT) is facilitated by registered healthcare practitioners with dance training to improve or relieve disease symptoms or side effects of medical care in clinical populations. Clear terminology is essential for designing interventions, defining outcomes, and establishing professional standards.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 17, 2025
Peter Bablis, Ryan R. Day, Sophia Bablis et al.
1 citation
Chronic stress contributes to the onset and persistence of musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions by affecting twelve physiological systems. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) mitigate these stress effects through improved attention regulation, interoceptive awareness, and reduced catastrophising. The Neuro-Emotional Technique (NET) is highlighted as a practitioner-facilitated hybrid-MBI that targets unresolved emotional stress patterns and aligns with the biopsychosocial model. Contraindications via red and yellow flag considerations are noted, emphasising careful patient selection. The review argues that incorporating MBIs as adjuncts to conventional therapies can support recovery, foster resilience, and advance patient-centred MSK care.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 30, 2025
Winnie Zhuang, Laura Michaelson, Sona Dimidjian et al.
1 citation
A breath counting task can serve as a valid behavioral measure of mindfulness in children aged 9–13 years, capturing aspects of mindfulness distinct from those measured by self-report questionnaires. In a sample of 109 children, breath counting showed psychometric properties similar to those of adults and was positively associated with cognitive control performance, but unrelated to self-reported mindfulness. Among 67 children who completed 1–2 weeks of daily audio-based mindfulness exercises, breath counting improved significantly, whereas self-reported mindfulness did not. The findings indicate that behavioral measures like breath counting may be more sensitive to training impacts than self-reports, and both types of measures are recommended for future research.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 22, 2025
Pascal Michael, Pauline Fritz, Olivia Gosseries et al.
1 citation
Near-death experiences (NDEs), which involve mystical-type content during life-threatening situations, are not well studied in acute medical care. This article argues for more comprehensive NDE research in emergency and critical care settings, citing reasons such as experiencers' awareness of surroundings and the need for patient support due to NDEs' profound psychological impacts. The authors suggest incorporating identification of NDEs into management plans and propose that exploring NDE incidence and their subsequent impact in acute settings may lead to favorable clinical outcomes.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Jian Peng, Longjun Jing, Peng Wang et al.
1 citation
Among 315 novice athletes in Changsha, China, mindfulness was negatively correlated with cognitive anxiety, while flow and self-rated performance also showed negative links to cognitive anxiety. Cognitive anxiety mediated the relationship between flow and self-rated performance, and together flow and cognitive anxiety acted as a chain mediator between mindfulness and self-rated performance. The findings suggest that for novice athletes, flow and reduced cognitive anxiety may be key mechanisms through which mindfulness improves how they perceive their own performance. Coaches can use mindfulness practices to help novices in suboptimal competitive states enhance performance perception, aiding their transition to elite roles.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Shuting Liao, Anbang Hu
1 citation
Mindfulness is linked to better stress self-management among university teachers largely through higher resilience and greater use of cognitive reappraisal. A survey of 287 university teachers in Hunan Province, China, tested a model based on Conservation of Resources theory. Mindfulness was positively associated with resilience and cognitive reappraisal. Resilience was positively related to cognitive reappraisal and stress self-management. Cognitive reappraisal was also positively associated with stress self-management. Resilience and cognitive reappraisal together explained the link between mindfulness and stress self-management. Mindfulness, resilience, and cognitive reappraisal together explained 43% of the variance in stress self-management. The findings suggest that mindfulness-based activities combined with resilience training and emotion-regulation routines may support well-being among university faculty.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Yintu Bao, Jianqian Sun, Xiaochuan Zhang
1 citation
College students who completed six weeks of either mindfulness training or high-intensity interval training showed reduced depression and anxiety, with mindfulness training producing a significant improvement in psychological health immediately after the intervention. Both types of training improved the accuracy of response inhibition (the ability to stop an unwanted response) to a similar degree, but neither affected the speed of that inhibition. Mindfulness training was more effective than HIIT at improving interference inhibition accuracy (the ability to ignore distracting information), though neither training affected the speed of interference inhibition. The improvements in depression and anxiety were maintained at a six-week follow-up, but differences between the groups were no longer statistically significant, possibly due to the small sample size and short intervention period.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Bruno Forti
1 citation
A new theory of consciousness, the Extended Information Theory (EIT), proposes that the simplest forms of experience are not sensations but perceptions where qualitative aspects have relational significance. Phenomenal analysis of early visual experience reveals a nested Hierarchy of Spatial Belongings, indicating that conscious contents extend into the space they belong to. This extension allows immediate knowledge of structural aspects of the physical world. Functionally, consciousness handles extended information, unlike non-conscious systems that process point-like information, potentially overcoming computational limitations. The theory differs from classical integration-based theories by emphasizing the integration of information about stimulus structure.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Marc Wittmann, Carlos Montemayor, Mauro Dorato
1 citation
Building on the Stoic concept of self-regulation, this paper argues that contemporary findings from psychology and cognitive neuroscience do not refute free will but instead support and refine a Stoic view of it. Contrary to classical interpretations of Libet-type experiments, which are often cited to deny free will, the authors contend that such evidence undermines the idea that humans are passive recipients of spontaneous desires. Instead, people possess the capacity to regulate actions proactively by cultivating deliberate, voluntary intentions. Freedom arises from a meta-cognitive, hierarchical second-order will that can causally override first-order desires or impulsive habits. Choices are not entirely predetermined by upbringing or circumstances; they emerge from the capacity to reflect upon and respond to those influences, making the self a self-determined free agent.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Claudia Russo, Luciano Romano, Davide Clemente et al.
1 citation
Adolescents who watched a 360-degree VR video of multi-ethnic youths practicing mindfulness in a natural setting felt more restored and, in turn, reported a stronger sense of global identity—feeling connected to humanity as a whole—compared to those who watched a VR video of multi-ethnic youths playing volleyball in the same environment. The indirect effect of the mindfulness video on global identity through restorativeness was significant. The study involved 94 Italian adolescents randomly assigned to one of the two VR conditions. These findings highlight restorativeness as a key mechanism linking brief mindfulness exposure in a virtual natural environment to global identity salience during adolescence.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Adala M Prevost, Michal George, Melike M Fourie
1 citation
Eight weeks of compassion-based meditation in a White South African sample was associated with increased life satisfaction, reduced stress, greater compassion for outgroups, less desire for social distance, reduced racial prejudice, more intergroup contact, and stronger support for collective action and restitutive government policies. Participants also reported broadened compassion and affiliation with strangers, indicating enhanced self-transcendence. These results suggest that compassion meditation may improve intergroup relations in post-apartheid South Africa, though the pilot study lacked a control group and a randomized controlled trial is needed.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Diane Joss, Joseph Rosansky, Paula Gardiner et al.
1 citation
Among people with opioid use disorder receiving buprenorphine, those who also took part in a 24-week online mindfulness-based intervention showed a specific chain of symptom improvement linked to their history of adverse childhood experiences (ACE). Higher ACE severity was associated with greater reductions in self-critical rumination by week 8, which then predicted reduced pain catastrophizing by week 16, and less pain interference by week 24. This pathway was not seen in a matched recovery support control group. Both groups experienced significant reductions in depression, anxiety, and other symptoms, but only in the mindfulness group did ACE severity predict changes in self-critical rumination, suggesting this may be a key target for treatment.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Ana Rita Soares, Sandra Soares, Tânia Brandão et al.
1 citation
A meditation app (Med@Med) designed for Portuguese medical students was tested with 147 students. The main motivations for using the app were to experience meditation (33%), reduce stress or anxiety (25%), or establish a daily routine (16%). Students who received daily messages in plain language summarizing scientific benefits of meditation were more likely to keep using the app. After meditating, students reported increased joy and decreased fear and sadness. Use of the app was linked to improved emotional regulation and lower emotional distress and anxiety compared to age-matched students who did not use the app.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Thurston Lacalli
1 citation
Consciousness likely evolved from simpler antecedents, raising the question of how unified experience arises from basic beginnings. This is simplified if conscious contents combine constitutively, allowing natural selection to adjust their balance incrementally. The text contrasts two models: a conventional non-modular, fully integrated consciousness, and a modular, local, constitutive model where integration occurs non-consciously. In the modular model, a broadcast signal's amplitude at its source matters more than propagation distance, though it fails to explain how localized signals become globally perceived. Integrative models risk misdirecting attention to structures and processes unrelated to conscious sensation production.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Serena Paese, Andrea Schiavio
1 citation
A four-week mindfulness course that includes body-centered meditation, meditation on thoughts, and affect-centered meditation can enhance wellbeing, boost emotional balance, and reduce the occurrence of music performance anxiety. Qualitative data from 12 musicians who participated in two short mindfulness courses and provided diary entries and open-ended responses support these benefits. The findings suggest that these meditation types positively impact musicians' wellbeing and performance skills, though further research is warranted to explore additional methods.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Egbert Haverkamp, Erik Olsman, Branislava Ćurčić-blake et al.
1 citation
Prayer, one of the most widespread religious practices, may work psychologically like human attachment bonds, which are strongly linked to mental health. This systematic review of 44 studies examined brain activity during Christian prayer and during activation of the attachment system in adults. Evidence showed convergence between prayer and neural areas involved in social cognition, specifically the default mode network and theory of mind regions. No significant differences emerged between prayer and attachment in brain regions linked to emotion regulation, but findings diverged for the aversion module, particularly in the insula. The shared cognitive and affective dimensions suggest prayer could be integrated into psychotherapy, though more research is needed.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Jian Sun
1 citation
A two-tier model of abduction resolves a tension in Peirce's philosophy: perception is involuntary yet resembles reasoning. The model distinguishes abductive insight (spontaneous hypothesis generation) from abductive reasoning (conscious conceptual endorsement). Integrated with Predictive Processing, perceptual gestalt formation is abductive insight, while perceptual judgment is abductive reasoning. The framework extends to emotion: Barrett's theory of constructed emotion instantiates the same architecture, where core affect is abductive insight into interoceptive signals and emotional categorization is abductive reasoning. This synthesis reveals how conceptual operations shape affective experience and suggests emotion regulation interventions targeting either core affect or emotional categorization.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 18, 2024
Mariza van Wyk, Mark Solms, Gosia Lipinska
1 citation
A new method uses sentiment analysis to objectively measure moment-by-moment positive and negative emotions in dream reports. In a pilot study of 14 dream reports collected after overnight sleep monitoring, researchers applied a sentiment-analysis tool (VADER) to generate continuous emotion ratings across each dream. They developed six novel emotion indicators, including the number of emotional peaks and troughs, overall emotion intensity, and an emotion gradient showing the direction of emotional change. Five of these six indicators correlated with sleep, mood, or personality measures linked to dreaming and emotion regulation. The findings suggest these indicators may serve as proxies for emotion regulation processes within dreams, offering a foundation for future research with larger samples.
Frontiers in Psychology
March 12, 2024
Terje Sparby, Dirk Cysarz, David Hornemann V. Laer et al.
1 citation
Attentional control has two basic aspects: directing attention to different objects is experienced as easy and a sign of freedom, while sustaining attention on a chosen object is difficult because mind-wandering is inevitable. This raises the question of whether we are fundamentally unfree. An introspective study with six people performing various attention tasks over a month examined whether it is possible to experience the source of attention—the subject enacting freedom through attention. Common and contrasting experiences are reported, forming a basis for discussing the method of introspection and how to handle conflicting reports.