Frontiers in Psychology
November 10, 2021
B. Baars, Natalie Geld, R. Kozma
Global Workspace Theory (GWT), originally a psychological theory of conscious cognition from the 1980s, has evolved into Global Workspace Dynamics (GWD) based on modern neuroscientific evidence. The theory views consciousness as arising from highly integrated, widespread cortico-thalamic activity. This paper corrects misunderstandings, particularly the claim that the prefrontal cortex (PfC) is not causally involved in enabling consciousness. The authors argue that brain evidence now compellingly shows PfC participates in the visual conscious stream. They also clarify that GWT does not assert PfC is essential for conscious vision, nor does it deny a role for the prefrontal lobe. Additionally, they address misconceptions about metacognition within the Global Workspace family of theories, noting that Baars described two varieties of metacognition implied by GWT in 1988.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 30, 2021
Arndt Büssing
People who frequently experience awe and gratitude tend to be older, have higher wellbeing, and meditate or pray more often, while those with the lowest awe/gratitude scores are the youngest and have the lowest wellbeing. Gender also influences these perceptions. Triggers of awe fall into four categories: Nature, Persons, Unique Moments, and Aesthetics, Beauty, and Devotion. Some triggers produce admiration, while others may more profoundly shift attitudes and behaviors. Awe perceptions are a perceptive aspect of spirituality relevant to both religious and non-religious individuals, contributing to interconnectedness, prosocial behavior, mindful awareness, meaning in life, and wellbeing.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 8, 2021
Cynthia J. Price, Helen Y. Weng
Emotions involve both implicit bodily signals and explicit narratives, and distress can arise when these levels are not integrated. Therapists often specialize in either body-based (e.g., massage, physical therapy) or narrative-based approaches (e.g., psychotherapy) and may lack skills that bridge both. The authors propose a framework called somatic reappraisal, which uses mindful interoceptive awareness—focused, nonjudgmental attention to inner body sensations—to bring unconscious bodily experiences into conscious awareness. This process allows emotions to become more vivid and granular, enabling new, adaptive associations between feelings, meanings, and memories. A clinical vignette illustrates the approach in psychotherapy, and an example script for mindfulness groups is provided. The framework is intended for clinicians treating conditions that may benefit from greater embodied awareness.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 4, 2021
Teppei Kosugi, Akira Ninomiya, Maki Nagaoka et al.
Eight weeks of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, followed by two monthly classes, improves both cognitive and affective aspects of subjective well-being and eudaimonic well-being in healthy community residents with initially low life satisfaction. Cognitive well-being and mindfulness skills improved significantly by 8 weeks, and these gains continued through the 16-week follow-up. Positive affect and eudaimonic well-being showed significant improvement only at 16 weeks. The order of improvement was cognitive, then positive affective, then eudaimonic well-being.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 3, 2021
Niklas Bergmann, Eric Hahn, Inge Hahne et al.
In people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, higher levels of mindfulness are associated with better quality of life in the domains of physical health, psychological well-being, and environment. Depression, but not anxiety, appears to explain part of this link: mindfulness may improve quality of life partly by reducing depressive symptoms. The findings suggest that mindfulness could be a useful therapeutic process for treating schizophrenia spectrum disorders, though longitudinal studies are needed to confirm causal pathways.
Frontiers in Psychology
August 17, 2021
Fiamma Cavallero, Michael C. Gold, Eric Tirrell et al.
Combining mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) guided audio exercises with daily transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) sessions for major depressive disorder proved largely unfeasible. Of 29 depressed patients who started, 17 completed the 5-week protocol and 12 dropped out. Reasons for discontinuation included inability to meditate in the treatment setting and induction of negative mood states. TMS percussive sensations and clicking sounds hindered concentration on the audio narrator. Some patients felt overwhelmed, increased pressure, anxiety, or aggravation trying to meditate during TMS. The findings highlight numerous feasibility issues with delivering MBCT via guided audiotapes concurrently with TMS.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 21, 2021
Xiaolin Liu, Yong Liu, Huijuan Shi et al.
A single 10-minute mindfulness meditation session before and during listening to Chinese classical folk instrumental music changed how non-musically trained adults experienced the music. The meditation decreased negative emotional responses to happy and sad music and reduced positive emotional responses to calm music, while also promoting more beautiful musical experiences and enhancing body awareness, making the music seem to pass faster. No significant differences were found between the meditation and control groups on general mood or most mindfulness facets, except for non-judging of inner experience. The results suggest that even brief mindfulness practice can alter aesthetic emotional processing of music.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 16, 2021
Lori R. Kogan, Cori Bussolari
This study tested whether a virtual body scan mindfulness exercise, during which participants held their dog or a pillow/blanket, could reduce stress and anxiety for both participants and facilitators. Significant differences in pre/post-State Anxiety Assessment scores were found for both groups. The results are discussed within the framework of the human-animal bond, suggesting that this intervention may be a useful virtual tool for mental health support during the COVID-19 pandemic, when telehealth services expanded to meet increased needs.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 16, 2021
Álex Escolà-Gascón, Neil Dagnall, Josep Gallifa
The English adaptation of the Multivariable Multiaxial Suggestibility Inventory-2 (MMSI-2) is a valid and reliable questionnaire for assessing anomalous phenomena. Based on 613 English adults, the inventory has five macrofactors: Clinical Personality Tendencies, Anomalous Perceived Phenomena, Incoherent Manipulations, Altered States of Consciousness, and Openness. Clinical Personality Tendencies, Incoherent Manipulations, and Altered States of Consciousness together predicted 18.3% of the variance in anomalous experiences. Reliability was acceptable for some factors and excellent overall, but the authors recommend further research to improve the model's predictive quality.
Frontiers in Psychology
April 30, 2021
P. Halligan, D. Oakley
Consciousness, the private subjective experience of being aware of thoughts, feelings, and actions, is often intuitively seen as the controller of human behavior. However, cognitive neuroscience over the past 30 years suggests that executive functions typically attributed to consciousness are actually carried out by fast, efficient non-conscious brain systems outside awareness. The authors argue that subjective awareness lacks causal influence and is merely the experience of being aware, not an agent that generates or controls actions. They propose that a scientific account of human psychology should be based on the biophysical causal dependency of prior neural processes, recognizing that most brain processes occur without any discernible change in subjective awareness.
Frontiers in Psychology
April 1, 2021
Sabina Baltruschat, Antonio Cándido, Antonio Maldonado et al.
Dispositional mindfulness and emotion regulation are closely linked and both improve with long-term meditation practice, yet the neural basis of dispositional mindfulness independent of emotion regulation had not been identified. Using a novel brain structural network analysis, researchers examined relationships between structural networks and dispositional mindfulness measured by the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), while accounting for emotion regulation difficulties. Different brain regions were associated with each scale: MAAS scores related to bilateral hippocampus and parahippocampal and fusiform gyri; FFMQ total scores related to right insula, bilateral amygdala, and the same gyri. These results suggest that the two instruments measure different characteristics involving different brain systems, though areas linked to emotional reactivity and semantic processing generally relate to dispositional mindfulness regardless of instrument.
Frontiers in Psychology
March 22, 2021
Mohamed Al-Refae, Amr Al-Refae, Melanie Munroe et al.
A 4-week mindfulness and self-compassion smartphone app (Serene) reduced depressive symptoms and improved decisiveness, self-compassion, and emotional regulation compared to a wait-list control group. Moderate between-group differences were observed for depressive symptoms (d = -0.43), decisiveness (d = 0.34), and self-compassion (d = 0.6), with improvements in self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness, and decreases in self-judgment, isolation, and overidentification. A small between-group difference was found for emotional regulation (d = 0.28). The intervention group also showed moderate within-group decreases in stress (d = -0.52) and anxiety (d = -0.47).
Frontiers in Psychology
February 17, 2021
Ping Liu, Xiaofeng Wang, Dan Li et al.
Adolescents in China who prioritized self-transcendence and openness to change values reported less depression and loneliness, while those who prioritized self-enhancement and conservation values reported more depression and loneliness. Four value clusters emerged: self-focus, other-focus, anxiety-free, and undifferentiated. Adolescents in the anxiety-free cluster had the lowest depression and loneliness, whereas those in the other-focus cluster had the highest. Regional differences appeared only for depression: adolescents in Shanghai reported higher depression than those in Qingdao.
Frontiers in Psychology
February 4, 2021
S. Lavy, Maya Benish‐Weisman
Character strengths are positive traits considered to be values in action that translate moral values into beneficial behaviors. This paper first outlines theoretical links between character strengths and Schwartz's value theory, then tests whether the character strength of gratitude serves as a pathway from self-transcendence values to prosocial behavior and peer acceptance. In two adolescent samples (9th and 11th graders), most pathways were significant, offering initial support for the model. However, in one sample the indirect path from self-transcendence values to prosocial behavior was only marginally significant, indicating a need for further research on how character strengths connect values to social outcomes.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Birgitta Dresp-Langley
Physical field theories can mathematically describe interactions in space-time, but they cannot account for consciousness, which lacks spatial dimensionality and cannot be fully captured by any operational definition. Drawing on research into meditation, expanded consciousness, chronic pain, healthy aging, and eudaimonic well-being, consciousness is proposed as a source of potential energy without spatial dimensions, producing observable changes over time. It may have evolved to help humans cope with unprecedented adversity, potentially including the conscious choice of extinction when planetary survival becomes untenable.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Carlotta Langer, Nihat Ay
The Integrated Information Theory offers a quantitative way to study consciousness and can be applied to neural networks. An embodied agent controlled by such a network interacts with its environment, involving morphological computation in goal-directed action and integrated information within the controller, the agent's brain. This article combines methods to examine information flows among and within the body, brain, and environment of an agent. In a simple experimental setup, the optimal policy for goal-directed behavior is calculated using the planning as inference method, where the information-geometric em-algorithm optimizes the likelihood of the goal.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Ramana V. Vishnubhotla, Rupa Radhakrishnan, Kestas Kveraga et al.
An intensive 8-day Samyama meditation program increased resting-state functional connectivity between the salience network and the default mode network in 13 meditators compared to 4 controls. Increased connectivity within the salience network correlated with improvements in self-reported mindfulness scores. During focused breathing, meditators showed lower intra-network connectivity in specific networks. The findings suggest that Samyama, an intensive silent meditation program, favorably alters brain network connectivity and is associated with enhanced mindfulness.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Iana Bashmakova, Olga Shcherbakova
A two-week program of open monitoring meditation did not improve creativity in metaphor production or cognitive flexibility compared with an active control (listening to a narrative about house plants) or a passive control (no task). No significant differences emerged between groups on any measure, and no link was found between metaphor creativity and cognitive flexibility. The results highlight challenges in using meditation as a cognitive enhancement tool and point to methodological issues in meditation research and the measurement of creativity and cognitive flexibility.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Jürgen Krüger
The brain's energy supply cannot sustain continuous neural processing of all constant objects we perceive, so it limits resources to changes. Neural activity is thus temporally discontinuous, mirroring the role of time in fundamental physical equations. This Hypothesis proposes that the transition from neural activity to conscious experience reflects a phenomenal 'solution': time-constant entities are 'filled-in' via integration, even though neural data only captures changes. Qualia serve as 'initial conditions' for this integration, and phenomenal identity (versus high similarity) relates to qualia. Inattentive vision appears rich because percepts accumulate over time, while attentive perception relies on present signals. Experimental support includes transient neural responses to sustained stimuli, filling-in, and change blindness.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Dimitri Van der Linden, Mattie Tops, Arnold B Bakker
Flow, a state of full task engagement with reduced self-referential thinking, is important for performance and well-being but its neurocognitive basis is unclear. This mini-review argues that the brain's locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system, which regulates task engagement versus disengagement through different modes of norepinephrine release, may underlie flow. Both flow and the LC-NE system require a match between skill and challenge to sustain attention. Psychophysiological indicators of LC-NE activity, such as pupil diameter and arousal, are sensitive to flow, and both flow and LC-NE-mediated task engagement follow an inverted U-shape with arousal. Understanding the LC-NE system's role could unify empirical findings on flow.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
David Harris Smith, Guido Schillaci
Creativity in the arts and in engineering both aim to bring something new into the world through counterfactual thinking, but they differ in motivations and constraints: engineers solve practical problems, while artists enrich the world aesthetically and conceptually. An artist and a roboticist analyze the creative problem of building artificial consciousness in a robot, exploring disciplinary differences, the reasons for pursuing such a project, and how an illusionist theory of consciousness shifts ethical debates. They discuss theories of consciousness, practical implementation approaches, and the role of creativity in developing artificial consciousness.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Christine D Wilson-Mendenhall, John D. Dunne
Emotional granularity—the ability to make fine-grained distinctions in one's feelings—is linked to healthy emotionality, but it is unclear whether it can be intentionally cultivated. Drawing on shared features of Buddhist philosophy and modern constructionist theory, the authors hypothesize that contemplative practices, particularly mindfulness-style practices originating in Buddhist traditions, may improve granularity. The paper outlines theoretical foundations and specific practices that could bolster this skill, then proposes future directions for empirical testing.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Karin Matko, Peter Sedlmeier, Holger C Bringmann
Adding ethical education to mantra meditation produced the largest increases in well-being, while combining meditation with physical yoga reduced stress the most. In an eight-week program with 42 healthy adults who had no regular yoga or meditation practice, those who received meditation plus ethical education showed well-being gains (Tau-U = 0.30/0.23), followed by meditation plus physical yoga (Tau-U = 0.12). Meditation alone showed no change in well-being (Tau-U = 0.07). Stress decreased most with meditation plus physical yoga (Tau-U = -0.40) but increased slightly with meditation alone (Tau-U = 0.17). These results indicate that combining meditation with other yoga components produces differential and incremental benefits.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2021
Gabriella Conti, Orla Doyle, Pasco Fearon et al.
A demonstration study assessed the feasibility of Quiet Time (QT), a classroom-based Transcendental Meditation intervention, in two pilot settings in the United Kingdom and Ireland, targeting children in middle childhood. In the UK, 89 students participated: sixth graders received QT, while fifth graders used the Headspace app. In Ireland, 100 fifth- and sixth-grade students from two schools participated: one received QT, the other served as a control. Recruitment and retention were high, and the intervention was accepted by students, parents, and teachers. Implementation fidelity was lower in the UK due to a later start and test preparation. Suggestive evidence indicates that QT improved working memory in both settings and, in Ireland, improved the ability to control responses. The results inform a future larger randomized controlled trial.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 1, 2020
A. Pesonen, J. Lipsanen, R. Halonen et al.
During the sixth week of COVID-19 lockdown, a crowdsourcing survey of 4,275 respondents found that people slept substantially more (54.2%) but reported an average increase in awakenings (28.6%) and nightmares (26%) compared to before the pandemic. Analysis of dream content from 811 respondents using computational network and cluster analysis identified 33 dream clusters, including 20 bad dream clusters, 55% of which were pandemic-specific (e.g., Disease Management, Disregard of Distancing, Elderly in Trouble). Dream-association networks were more accentuated for those reporting increased perceived stress, introducing novel, collectively shared COVID-19 bad dream contents.