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
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
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.
Frontiers in Psychology
November 23, 2023
Laura Moral-Bofill, Andrés López de la Llave, M. C. Pérez-Llantada
A high level of flow state in performing musicians is best predicted by the three conditions of the flow condition-experience model—skill-challenge balance, clear goals, and clear feedback—along with the performing situation, together explaining 78% of the variance and correctly classifying 90.8% of cases in a binary logistic regression of 163 musicians aged 18–65. Gender, age, dedication, musical style, and instrument showed no significant association. The authors emphasize the importance of performers' intrinsic reasons for dedicating themselves to music and suggest future research include personality variables.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 19, 2023
Hideya Koshino, Mariko Osaka, Tetsuya Shimokawa et al.
Older adults show altered brain network dynamics during working memory tasks. The Default Mode Network (DMN) typically deactivates during task execution and coactivates with the Frontal Parietal Network (FPN) during task preparation. Compared to younger adults, older adults exhibited reduced DMN activity during preparation and reduced DMN deactivation during execution, but higher FPN activation during execution. Functional connectivity was weaker within the DMN and FPN, and between these networks, in older adults. These connectivity reductions may underlie age-related cognitive decline.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 15, 2023
Louise Devillers-Réolon, J. Temprado, Rita Sleimen-Malkoun
A 15-minute mindfulness meditation session, involving breathing and open monitoring, improved the ability of both meditation-naïve and experienced participants to maintain an anti-phase bimanual coordination pattern at maximal speed and to delay or suppress the spontaneous transition to an in-phase pattern. Both groups also showed improved attentional performance and motor inhibition scores after meditation, but not after an active control condition (listening to a documentary podcast). No effects were found on perceptual inhibition, and the increase in motor inhibition did not statistically mediate the improvements in bimanual coordination control. The findings suggest acute motor benefits from a single meditation session regardless of prior meditation experience.
Frontiers in Psychology
April 26, 2023
Bassam Khoury, Viktoriya Manova, Lena Adel et al.
A proposed theoretical model suggests that mindfulness meditation training improves interpersonal relationships by increasing self-awareness, self-regulation, and prosociality, which in turn enhance the quality of interactions and socioemotional support provided to others. Better support then boosts the recipient's emotion regulation. A study protocol aims to validate this tri-process model using a multiphasic longitudinal design with 640 participants randomized into 480 dyads. The work has theoretical and social implications for developing more effective interpersonal mindfulness programs.
Frontiers in Psychology
February 15, 2023
Fuming Xu, Wanling Zhu, Qian Chen et al.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 12 articles (16 samples, total N = 10,940) found that mindfulness is negatively correlated with both anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. The random-effects model showed a correlation of −0.330 between mindfulness and anxiety, and −0.353 between mindfulness and depression, both statistically significant. Study region and the mode of action of mindfulness significantly moderated these relationships, while sample type did not. The findings support the idea that mindfulness may buffer against pandemic-related mental health difficulties.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 24, 2023
Maria Beckman, Stig Poulsen, Manoj K. Doss et al.
This editorial introduces a Research Topic on the role of set and setting in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. It argues that the effects of psychedelic substances are profoundly shaped by the psychological state of the individual (set) and the physical, social, and cultural environment (setting), rather than being purely pharmacological. The editorial emphasizes that understanding and optimizing these contextual factors is crucial for both safe clinical practice and the design of future research. It calls for more systematic investigation into how set and setting influence therapeutic outcomes, and highlights the need to integrate these insights into training and clinical protocols to maximize the potential benefits and minimize risks of psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 19, 2023
Kunhua Lee, Yu-Xuan Lee, Yu-Tung Cheng
An online survey of 344 respondents in Taiwan examined how fear of COVID-19 relates to mental health through mindfulness. Using structural equation modeling, the authors found that orientation to experience—specifically the nonjudgment and nonreactivity facets—mediated the link between fear of COVID-19 and mental health outcomes. The results suggest that fear of COVID-19 may affect how people relate to their experiences, which in turn influences depression and anxiety. The authors propose that nonjudgment and nonreactivity play key roles in emotion regulation and recommend future experimental and longitudinal studies to confirm these mechanisms.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 6, 2023
Jun Yu Li, Can Xu, Keyan Wan et al.
A meta-analysis of 11 studies found that mindfulness-based interventions help alleviate anxiety among Chinese college students. The results support the use of these interventions for treating and preventing anxiety in this population.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2023
Jocelyn Shealy McGee, Christine Katzenmeyer, Stephanie Clintonia Boddie et al.
Collective labyrinth walking with a shared intention, a social contemplative practice, cultivated multiple forms of connectedness—intrapersonal, interpersonal, transpersonal, and with the labyrinth itself—among 461 participants from 19 countries who walked on World Labyrinth Day 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Practitioners reported transcendent qualities such as boundlessness, ultimacy, and positive emotions, and gained insights for compassionate action. The findings suggest that this practice can contribute to individual and group flourishing during times of distress. Most participants were women in middle to later life from the United States.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2023
Hannah Jennet Gibbs, Anna Czepiel, Hauke Egermann
Shared flow, an optimal balance between challenge and ability during group action, was studied in Javanese gamelan performance, where musicians must coordinate. Measuring heart rate and skin conductance continuously, the study examined associations between flow states, physiological synchrony, and gamelan playing in advanced and beginner groups playing traditional pieces and improvising. Factor analysis identified two dimensions of shared flow: Awareness and Absorption. Inter-subject correlation showed greater physiological synchrony during traditional playing for experienced musicians and during improvisation for beginners. Linear mixed models revealed positive associations between synchronized physiology and shared flow during improvisation, but negative associations during traditional playing, regardless of experience. The work demonstrates methods for quantifying shared flow in music-making.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2023
Stefano Vincini
Ordinary language across cultures describes shared mental states as belonging to more than one person, but modern Western thought assumes this is illusory or metaphorical—a stance called Cartesian eliminativism. The paper argues the opposite may be true, proposing a "straightforward view" that explains how individuals assemble and experience shared mental states as unitary wholes with distributed components. Focusing on developmental science, the view explains early shared emotions, goals, and attention using only domain-general associative processes, making it more parsimonious than current theories that require multi-level recursive mindreading or special phenomenal qualities. The approach offers a reductionist, non-eliminativist alternative for cognitive scientists.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2023
Thurston Lacalli
Many theories of consciousness are silent about evolution, making it hard to assess their applicability across species and evolutionary time. A conceptual "consciousness machine" helps examine how ontology and evolution produce consciousness with distinct contents. A key divide is whether consciousness requires electromagnetic field effects, as in neurophysical theories, or whether neural connectivity and information flow suffice, as in algorithmic theories. For consciousness to evolve non-randomly, a link to behavior is needed. An EM field scenario can produce distinct contents without agency, suggesting agency is a developmental, not evolutionary, issue requiring real-time feedback and learning each generation. This splits the problem of evolved consciousness into two: explaining conscious experience and explaining agency.
Frontiers in Psychology
December 21, 2022
Daniela Ramirez-Duran, Helen Stokes, Margaret L. Kern
Regular Ashtanga Yoga practitioners (137 participants) conceptualize five dimensions of wellbeing—physical, emotional, psychological, social, spiritual—in ways that partly align with existing models and partly extend them. Word count and reflexive thematic analysis yielded four themes per dimension. A higher-level analysis identified shared meanings grouped into five topics: freedom from and managing suffering, a positive and integrated sense of self, equanimity and steadiness, the self in relation to others and the world, and meta-awareness. Each dimension was portrayed as multileveled, with three levels of human functioning: foundational (coping and recovery), optimal (personal development and growth), and contemplative/transcendental (transpersonal). The authors propose a preliminary model informed by this empirical work and previous theory, suggesting that the continuousness of themes across dimensions reinforces the importance of embodiment and transcendence in wellbeing frameworks.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 30, 2022
John Burton, Austin Ratner, Timothy Cooper et al.
This commentary argues that the integration of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy with psychodynamic approaches offers a promising avenue for enhancing therapeutic outcomes. The author contends that psychedelics can facilitate access to unconscious material, potentially deepening the psychodynamic work and leading to more profound and lasting change. The piece discusses theoretical convergences between the two modalities, suggesting that combining them may address limitations of each when used alone. It calls for further research and clinical exploration into this integrated model, emphasizing the need for careful consideration of set, setting, and therapeutic relationship.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 20, 2022
Hani Malik, Carrie Amani Annabi
Mindfulness practice reduces emotional exhaustion and depersonalization while improving mood, stress responses, and vigor in physicians. It also increases self-awareness, compassion, and empathy. A scoping review of 31 studies found that mindfulness benefits mental health and well-being, but the research often overlooks healthcare leadership, systems-level culture, and practices. The review suggests that a mindful and compassionate physician leader is crucial for addressing practice gaps, prioritizing staff mental health, and fostering innovation.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 20, 2022
Marcin Koculak, Michał Wierzchoń
Complexity measures, especially those from Integrated Information Theory, have been useful for distinguishing different states of consciousness (e.g., awake versus asleep) but have rarely been applied to studying the specific content of conscious experience. This paper argues that investigating how complexity relates to what we are conscious of is essential for understanding the role of information-theoretic measures in consciousness research. The authors outline how conscious content could be experimentally operationalized and how basic testable hypotheses can be formulated without relying on the formal apparatus of IIT. Such an approach could improve understanding of which aspects of consciousness complexity captures and facilitate comparisons between different theories of consciousness.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 14, 2022
Yuchao Li, Jinghui Chen, Baoxia Chen et al.
Mindfulness meditation reduces depression during pregnancy. A meta-analysis of 10 randomized controlled trials with 658 participants found a positive effect (standardized mean difference = −0.786). Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy was the most effective intervention. The best results came from programs lasting less than 4 weeks, applied throughout pregnancy, with expert guidance fewer than 6 times per week for sessions under 60 minutes, plus daily 30-minute homework. High heterogeneity across studies was partly due to different depression measurement tools, notably the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Mindfulness meditation can help prevent and reduce pregnancy depression and may serve as an auxiliary clinical treatment.
Frontiers in Psychology
August 18, 2022
Hui-Rong Guo, Jun-Ru Wang, Ya-Li Wang et al.
Combining mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) with medication more effectively prevents recurrence of major depressive disorder (MDD) in convalescent patients than medication alone. Over one year, 12.31% of patients receiving MBCT plus medication experienced recurrence, compared with 29.23% taking medication alone. Both groups showed improved depression and quality-of-life scores, but the MBCT group had significantly greater reductions in depression severity and larger changes in stress-related hormones (corticotrophin-releasing hormone, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and cortisol). The intervention and the change in depression scores each significantly predicted recurrence risk.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 15, 2022
Nike Walter, Thilo Hinterberger
Self-organized criticality (SOC) is a property of neural systems that may serve as a unifying framework for theories of consciousness. A review of 71 publications from 1998 to 2021 found that annual citations increased steadily; original articles made up 50.7% and reviews or theoretical articles 43.6%. Human data were reported in 16 studies, animal data in 7, and computational models in 12. EEG/MEG studies used diverse analytical tools—detrended fluctuation analysis, pair correlation function, neuronal avalanche parameters, and spectral exponent—to assess criticality. Critical dynamics align with global workspace theory and integrated information theory, but the small number of experimental studies and heterogeneity of methods limit generalizability.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 4, 2022
Ozan Bahcivan, Tania Estapé, Jose Gutierrez-Maldonado
A pilot randomized controlled trial compared a 20-minute mindfulness-based therapy (MBST) with a cognitive disputation technique (a form of CBT) in 173 breast cancer patients. Immediately after the session, the MBST group showed significantly greater improvements in anxiety, depression, anxiety-trait, self-efficacy for managing chronic disease, hopefulness, and blood oxygen saturation, all with large effect sizes. The authors suggest MBST may reduce psychotherapy session time and support treatment adherence, but note that longer-term efficacy requires future trials.
Frontiers in Psychology
June 30, 2022
Jutta M Tobias Mortlock, Alison Carter, Dawn Querstret
A pilot Team Mindfulness Training (TMT) program, blending individual mindfulness meditation with collective mindfulness principles, was compared to a standard 8-week MBSR program in high-stress military work populations. TMT was no less effective at improving individual stress management skills and may better build collective capacity to handle stress and unexpected difficulty. The results suggest interdependence between individual and collective mindfulness development. The study argues for moving beyond individually focused, clinically adapted mindfulness training toward a prosocial, team-oriented approach in workplaces.
Frontiers in Psychology
June 28, 2022
X. Tian, Li-Juan Yi, Chengdong Liang et al.
A meta-analysis of 17 studies (1,680 patients) found that the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program significantly reduced cancer-related fatigue and negative psychological states, enhanced positive psychological states, and improved sleep quality in lung cancer patients. Evidence for overall quality of life improvement showed a trend toward significance. The authors recommend MBSR as part of rehabilitation for lung cancer patients.