Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2026
Sharon Vaisvaser
Aesthetic experiences are rooted in the body and can evoke deep emotions, supporting development, mental health, and well-being. This conceptual review integrates neuroaesthetics and psychodynamic approaches to show how aesthetic experiences arise from a dynamic interplay between anticipation and surprise, generating prediction errors that drive exploration, curiosity, and meaning-making. These processes engage neural systems for sensorimotor processing, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge integration. In psychotherapy, aesthetic moments emerge through embodied interactions and creative arts, enabling pre-symbolic impressions to be transformed into symbolic, thinkable experience. Therapist and patient co-create a shared field that expands peripersonal space, deepens connection, and helps integrate unrepresented aspects of self, supporting emotional regulation, mentalization, neural plasticity, and corrective learning.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2026
Isabella Langwei, Bin Li
Whether a group has collectively experienced an optimal state—like flow or effervescence—has been judged by individual reports, leaving unclear how the group itself could recognize such an experience. An analysis of bisosilin, the evaluative term Bunun singers use to decide whether their ritual polyphonic chant pasibutbut is complete, shows that recognition depends not on anyone's internal feeling but on achieving a specific relational configuration of sonic alignment, bodily coordination, and shared intentional orientation. The study argues that collective optimal experience is not generated first and then recognized; generation and recognition are structurally inseparable. Two models are proposed: a three-layer body grammar specifying necessary conditions, and a process-uncertainty-alignment model describing a nonlinear transition called critical convergence at which the experience is established as a structural event, not an internal state.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2026
Leonardo Christov-Moore, Félix Schoeller, Mathilda Von Guttenberg et al.
A guided loving kindness meditation combined with chills-inducing music enhances mood, self-transcendence, emotional breakthrough, and psychological insight more than meditation alone. In a randomized online study with 398 participants, loving kindness meditation increased connectedness to others compared to a mindfulness-based control, while adding chills-inducing music to either meditation boosted self-transcendence, mood, emotional breakthrough, and psychological insight. The experience of aesthetic chills during meditation predicted these positive effects. Individual traits like absorption, interoceptive awareness, and vividness of internal imagery also independently contributed to specific outcomes such as ego-dissolution and connectedness. Chills augmentation appears a viable method for deepening contemplative practices.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2026
Federica Mauro
Well-being is proposed as a dynamically maintained viability corridor defined by hierarchically organized prior expectations about preferred affective and interoceptive states, rather than a fixed scalar quantity. Homeostasis maintains vital variables within viable bounds, while allostasis predictively achieves stability under changing conditions. Affective experience is described in information-theoretic terms: arousal as information gain from prediction error and prior uncertainty, valence following an inverted-U relationship. Health is reconceptualized as metastable attunement—a dynamic balance between stability and exploration. Happiness reflects regulation proceeding better than expected at acceptable energetic cost; eudaimonia emerges from alignment of action with identity-level priors; psychological richness reflects epistemic exploration expanding the generative model.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Christopher Gutland, Huan Liu
Liangkang Ni's work identifies deep parallels and divergences between Edmund Husserl's phenomenology and Yogācāra Buddhism, particularly in doctrines like consciousness-only, store-consciousness, and self-consciousness. Ni reads Husserl's own reflections on Buddhism and reconstructs genetic and structural parallels between Husserl's genetic phenomenology and Yogācāra concepts. The article provides conceptual clarification and theoretical integration aimed at informing contemporary debates in consciousness studies, rather than offering new empirical data.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
William Brennan, Melissa Field, Catherine Schon et al.
The EMBARK training program for session monitors in clinical trials of psychedelic treatments was developed iteratively by Cybin, Inc. The program has been used in two completed and three ongoing clinical trials. This article describes the three phases of development, including core components, successes, lessons learned, and rationale for changes. The most recent iteration, EMBARKCT, used in Phase 3 trials, incorporates artificial intelligence with expert human oversight to identify when session monitors need additional support and training. Recommendations for the field are also discussed.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Tiankai Liang, Minkai Sun, Seiko Goto
Chinese Buddhist meditation traditions that incorporate nature observation and literary creation can enhance relaxation beyond traditional rock meditation. In two experiments at a Buddhist temple, participants observing a water landscape showed longer observation duration, greater heart rate reduction (from 78.1 to 72.4 beats per minute), and improved mood, particularly reduced depression-dejection, compared to forest or rock landscapes. Adding a poetry-creation task in the water landscape further optimized relaxation and cognitive engagement. The findings suggest that integrating water landscapes and poetry composition into meditation practices may offer evidence-based approaches for mental health interventions.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Herbert W Harris
Consciousness, especially the subjective, ineffable quality of experience known as qualia, can be better understood by combining phenomenology with neuroscience. Drawing on Thomas Nagel's question about what it is like to be something and Husserlian phenomenology, the paper proposes that predictive error coding (PEC) offers a neuroscientific model for this integration. PEC treats the brain as an active inference system that continuously generates and updates predictions about sensory inputs. The concept of "query acts" is introduced to describe the brain's interrogative engagement with sensory information, linking phenomenological intentionality with predictive mechanisms.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Xuanlin He, Qiao Zheng, Haijiao Li
A brief mindfulness meditation session (10 minutes) before listening to Chinese pop music enhanced aesthetic attitudes and aesthetic judgment in musically trained college students, but did not significantly change positive or negative mood or trait mindfulness. The study compared 63 Chinese music students randomly assigned to a mindfulness meditation group or a music-only listening group. For Chinese Folk music specifically, the meditation group also reported richer emotional experiences. Aesthetic attitudes were strongly linked to emotional experiences, suggesting they may be a new dimension of musical aesthetic emotion processing. The mindfulness group also reported greater attention, altered time perception, and reduced bodily control while listening.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Guy C Brown
The built environment consists mostly of objects that are simplified, cartoon-like versions of concepts—such as chairs, rooms, and streets—designed by minds to be easily recognized and understood by other minds. These reified concepts have flat, homogeneous surfaces in geometric shapes with few colors and textures, making them easy to identify. They are organized within a Cartesian grid that aids perception, location, and memory. Simple concepts nest within complex ones (e.g., rooms within houses within cities), guiding behavior within society's externalized mind. Non-conceptual components are actively removed, creating low information entropy and the illusion that reality is entirely conceptual. This framework applies to design, architecture, aesthetics, and phenomenology.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Camilo Rincón-Unigarro, Silvia Da Costa-Dutra, María-José Cisneros-Rodríguez et al.
Participating in the 2023 Carnaval de Negros y Blancos in southwestern Colombia, a festive event blending African, Andean, and European traditions, was associated with stronger identification with the local community, the nation, and all of humanity. Surveying 163 participants (dancers, players, and other artists), the quality of the collective experience—termed collective effervescence—predicted these identifications, even after accounting for sociodemographic factors and how many days people attended. The emotion of awe specifically mediated the link between collective effervescence and both community identity and parochial altruism, but not national or all-of-humanity identity. The findings suggest that a local multicultural celebration can foster superordinate identities, partly through self-transcendent emotions like awe.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Qian-Qian Kong, Harmi Izzuan Bin Baharum
Among 561 Chinese university English learners, self-transcendence values positively predicted cooperative attitudes, which in turn mediated cooperative behaviors. Emotional intelligence and foreign language enjoyment also positively contributed to cooperative attitudes and behaviors. However, emotional intelligence and foreign language enjoyment negatively moderated the link between self-transcendence values and cooperative attitudes, suggesting an inhibitory role in that value-to-attitude pathway. The findings extend the Value-Attitude-Behavior model to second language learning, showing a complex interplay between personal values and affective factors in shaping cooperation.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Mikel Jimenez, Antonio Prieto, Pedro R Montoro et al.
Research on unconscious perception has faced persistent methodological challenges since the late 19th century. This review discusses key difficulties in demonstrating perception without awareness, examining how objective versus subjective measures of awareness produce different awareness thresholds and lead to alternative experimental approaches. New methodologies include regression-based Bayesian modeling, sensitivity vs. awareness curves from General Recognition Theory, the liminal-prime paradigm, and two-interval forced choice designs. The authors emphasize the need for brain-based approaches and highlight promising studies in this area, along with the role of individual differences and frameworks such as predictive coding and active inference. These advances aim to address challenges in demonstrating cognition without awareness.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Rithika Menon, T S Saranya
A systematic review of 20 studies found that mindfulness-based interventions, particularly Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), consistently improve mental health and quality of life in individuals diagnosed with breast cancer. Participants showed significant reductions in anxiety, depression, and emotional distress, along with enhanced quality of life, despite variations in session number and duration across studies. The review concludes that integrating mindfulness practices into cancer care can help address the psychological challenges of diagnosis and treatment, and recommends standardizing protocols and studying long-term effects.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2025
Enas Mohamed, Arlene Katz, Nashaw Jafari et al.
Meditation practices from the Inner Engineering program, which includes Shambhavi Mahudra Kriya (alternate nostril breathing, AUM chanting, breath awareness, and postural yoga) along with guided meditation and reflective writing, support emotional regulation, cognitive reappraisal, and positive affect. These benefits contribute to healthier interpersonal relationships by enhancing self-awareness, resilience, and empathy. The program is described as a non-religious, scalable intervention that may help manage emotional reactivity and strengthen relationships, thereby addressing relationship difficulties that are a major source of anxiety and social withdrawal.
Frontiers in Psychology
November 25, 2024
Minkyung Jo, Eunha Kim, Jaeyeon Lee
Both virtual reality (VR)-based and traditional imagery-based guided meditation significantly reduced heart rate, galvanic skin response, and negative affect among South Korean adults. No significant differences in these stress measures emerged between the two groups. However, participants in the VR condition reported higher concentration levels during meditation, especially those new to meditation. Qualitative feedback indicated VR-based meditation was more effective at inducing positive emotions like calmness and enjoyment. VR-guided meditation shows promise for enhancing concentration, particularly for novice meditators.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 1, 2024
Madeleine Fink, Kira Schmidt, Axel Kowalski et al.
Both mindfulness therapy and neurofeedback (EEG-biofeedback) can alter how cancer patients' brains process emotional images, as measured by early posterior negativity (EPN), a brain response reflecting very early attention to emotional stimuli. In a randomized trial with 42 cancer patients, 10 sessions of either intervention produced distinct effects: neurofeedback increased EPN for negative images, suggesting a confrontational processing style, while mindfulness therapy increased EPN for positive images, indicating a refocusing of attention toward positive content. The interventions modulated emotional processing differently, though further research is needed to isolate the effects from other factors.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 19, 2024
Meltem Yavuz Serçekman
The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program shows immediate and lasting benefits that evolve over three years. Right after the 8-week program, stress drops and awareness rises. One year later, participants report greater inner calm, better coping, and improved relationships. After three years, effects include a mindful lifestyle, more compassion and kindness, and ongoing personal growth. Barriers and facilitators to maintaining practice were identified, offering guidance for program design and individual engagement.
Frontiers in Psychology
June 4, 2024
A. V. D. Schoot, J. Wilpert, J. V. Horn et al.
A 4-week neuromeditation training using EEG neurofeedback to increase awareness and control over restless brain states was tested for feasibility and usability in eight adult forensic outpatients with impulse control problems. The training was added to treatment as usual, predominantly cognitive behavioral therapy. Despite some obstacles, patients and therapists rated the training sufficiently usable and feasible. Suggestions for improvement are offered to support implementation and future trials of neuromeditation in offender treatment.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 2, 2024
B. Neri, A. Callara, N. Vanello et al.
Concentrative meditation produces more numerous and marked changes in EEG power than analytical meditation, mainly increasing theta, alpha, and beta frequency ranges. Twenty-three Tibetan Buddhist monks and geshes from Sera-Jey Monastery in India participated in ecological EEG recordings within the monastery, performing analytical or concentrative meditation sessions at their best after a 5-minute baseline. The collaboration with the monastic community helped identify expert meditators and clarify differences between meditation types, addressing the limitation that heterogeneity of practices often hinders generalization of meditation research.
Frontiers in Psychology
March 5, 2024
June Borge Doornich, Helen Miller Lynch
A semi-systematic literature review of 19 articles published between 2000 and 2021, supplemented by leadership and neuropsychology research, proposes a framework identifying three core qualities that develop from mindfulness practice in leaders: attention, awareness, and authenticity—termed the three pillars of mindful leaders. The review argues that to gain these qualities, leaders must integrate regular mindfulness meditation into their daily routine. The framework aims to provide a coherent account of leadership qualities derived from mindfulness, addressing a gap in the research literature.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2024
Sharon Vaisvaser
The self is a multi-layered construct with bodily, mental, subjective, objective, spatial, and temporal dimensions, supported by integrated hierarchical brain processes. This conceptual analysis interweaves neural mechanisms and network configurations underlying self-experience, its deviations in psychopathology, and implications for Creative Arts Therapies (CATs). The predictive processing account of brain function is discussed regarding selfhood and consciousness. CATs generate aesthetic experiences and creative processes that touch upon and connect layers of self-experience, nurturing the sense of self. The epistemic affordance of CATs enables creating updated self-models of the body in the world. The relational therapeutic encounter involves intersubjective brain synchronization through verbal, non-verbal, and aesthetic means.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2024
Burkhard Peter
Hypnosis is examined across its 250-year history, from Franz Anton Mesmer's animal magnetism to modern applications in psychotherapy, psychosomatics, and medicine. Imagination was recognized as essential as early as 1784. Hypnosis contributed to psychoanalysis but was abandoned by Freud after 1900. Techniques combining imagination and relaxation integrate findings from cognitive psychology. The debate continues whether hypnosis is a special state of consciousness or normal social interaction. Experiments depend on hypnotizability; difficult phenomena like paralysis or hallucinations occur only in highly hypnotizable subjects, yet moderately hypnotizable individuals also benefit. Imaging studies confirm these are not mere compliance.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2024
Rose E Guingrich, Michael S A Graziano
Whether artificial intelligence is conscious matters less than the fact that users can perceive it as conscious, because this perception may carry over into how they treat other people. When AI is viewed as having a humanlike mind, schemas activated during human-AI interaction become congruent with those used in human-human interaction, potentially altering social behavior. The argument focuses on humanlike social AI such as chatbots, voice assistants, and social robots. The paper reviews evidence from human-computer interaction and psychology, then proposes schema activation as a mechanism to test whether consciousness perception drives such carry-over effects. The authors suggest regulating how AI is built or treated, not because AI is sentient, but because of the downstream effects on human relationships.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2024
Ken Mogi
Consciousness may enable certain cognitive capacities that unconscious processing and current AI systems cannot replicate, such as flexible attention, handling novel contexts, integrated sensory cognition, and embodied decision-making. While large language models exhibit intelligent behavior without consciousness, and some conscious states lack intelligence, suggesting a dissociation between the two, human conscious processing appears uniquely suited for ad hoc judgments. The author proposes 'conscious supremacy'—analogous to quantum supremacy—to identify computations that require consciousness within practical time and resource limits. This framework has implications for AI alignment, where human and machine computations must be coordinated.