Frontiers in Psychology
September 23, 2020
Christopher M. Wegemer
Self-transcendence negatively predicted depressive symptoms and neuroticism, while perspective-taking and materialism were positively associated with these outcomes. Self-transcendence moderated the relationship between perspective-taking and depressive symptoms; perspective-taking was not statistically related to depressive symptoms for participants with higher self-transcendence. Person-centered analyses identified five profiles of self-structure: Selfless, Selfless Materialist, Interdependent Insider, Self-centered Non-materialist, and Self-centered. The Selfless cluster was associated with low levels of depressive symptoms and neuroticism, whereas the Self-centered cluster was associated with high levels. The profiles complicate the traditional dichotomy between selflessness and self-centeredness.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 15, 2020
Patama Gomutbutra, Nalinee Yingchankul, Nipon Chattipakorn et al.
A meta-analysis of 8 randomized controlled trials with 479 adults found that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) significantly increased peripheral brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) compared to no intervention. Both exercise-based and meditation-based MBIs raised BDNF levels, with no significant difference between the two types. Participant age and total hours of MBI practice did not correlate with the size of the BDNF increase. The findings are based on a small number of heterogeneous studies, suggesting but not confirming that MBIs can boost BDNF.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 11, 2020
P. Condon, John Makransky
Meditation programs adapted for modern settings often lose traditional contextual factors that support well-being. Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT) aims to recover those factors by drawing on Tibetan Buddhism in dialogue with caregivers, other contemplative traditions, and scientific theories. SCT is designed to help people cultivate increasingly unconditional, inclusive, and sustainable care for self and others, flexibly meeting diverse modern needs. The article provides an overview of SCT meditations, including contemplative and scientific theories that highlight important features, and generates novel hypotheses from this dialogical process.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 8, 2020
J. Groarke, Michael J. Hogan
A new scale measuring eudaimonic functions of music listening was developed and validated. The scale comprises three factors: Transcendence, Flow, and Peak Experience. Contrary to expectations, eudaimonic music listening functions were not associated with higher wellbeing (higher positive affect, lower negative affect, higher life satisfaction); instead, they were linked to greater emotional experience generally. The brief seven-item scale is intended for research on music listening benefits, music selection preferences, and experimental and developmental effects of music on psychological outcomes.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 1, 2020
Bethany J. Jones, Sukhmanjit Kaur, Michele Miller et al.
An 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course improved psychological well-being, sleep quality, athletic coping skills, and rowing performance in collegiate women rowers. The intervention group, which added MBSR to regular training, showed better results on a 6,000-meter ergometer test compared to a control group that only did athletic training. Improvements in coping skills, well-being, and sleep were linked to increased mindfulness. The findings suggest mindfulness training may enhance non-precision aspects of athletic performance and could benefit student athletes' quality of life and performance.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 31, 2020
C. Conversano, Rebecca Ciacchini, G. Orrú et al.
A systematic review of 58 studies examined mindfulness and compassion in health care professionals (HCPs), who face high burnout and compassion fatigue risks. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) improved and maintained mindfulness and self-compassion, and reduced burnout, depression, anxiety, and stress. Mindfulness-related trainings improved mindfulness and self-compassion but did not affect compassion fatigue. Compassion-related interventions improved self-compassion, mindfulness, and interpersonal conflict. Mindfulness reduced negative affect and compassion fatigue, while compassion satisfaction may relate to positive affect. The authors suggest combining structured mindfulness and compassion training to enhance effects and improve comparability across future studies.
Frontiers in Psychology
July 3, 2020
D. Perrin, K. Michaelian, A. Sant'Anna
This philosophical paper proposes that the feeling of pastness in episodic remembering is a form of epistemic feeling, building on psychological research on metacognitive feelings. The authors argue that a feeling-based metacognition is involved in episodic remembering and develop an integrated view that addresses the feeling's status as a feeling, its content, and its relationship to the first-order memories it accompanies. They draw on conceptual and empirical reasons to support treating this phenomenology as an epistemic feeling, offering a new philosophical account of autonoetic consciousness.
Frontiers in Psychology
March 25, 2020
I. Hasson-Ohayon, A. Gumley, H. Mcleod et al.
Metacognition—the ability to know, monitor, and adjust one's own beliefs, memories, and behaviors—is often studied as an individual cognitive process. This review argues that metacognition is also fundamentally intersubjective: people know and reflect upon themselves and others through connections with other people. Reviewing research on metacognition in schizophrenia using an integrative model that assesses metacognition within personal narratives, the authors discuss how disturbances in intersubjective experience and metacognitive capacity mutually influence one another. Disruptions in metacognition may be more deeply understood as disruptions in relatedness with others. The paper explores how metacognition and intersubjectivity each affect mental health and discusses implications for treatments targeting metacognition.
Frontiers in Psychology
March 12, 2020
Scott Sinnett, Joshua Jäger, Sarah Morgana Singer et al.
People often report sharper perception during peak performance, but it is unclear whether this reflects real changes in sensory processing or memory bias. This study tested 27 athletes and musicians on a temporal order judgement task before and after a sports or music performance over three sessions. Participants rated their flow experience—a state of high focus, low distractibility, altered time sense, and enjoyment. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated that higher subjective flow during performance was associated with better post-performance task accuracy compared to pre-performance. The findings suggest flow may modulate temporal processing and spatial attention, offering a more complete account of perception during high-level performance.
Frontiers in Psychology
February 11, 2020
Elizabeth A Hoge, Hannah E. Reese, Isabelle A. Oliva et al.
Mindfulness-based interventions are effective for many psychological conditions, but how they work is not well understood. This study examined whether changes in negative interpretation bias—measured by a homophone task—explain the link between mindfulness and anxiety in adults with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Forty-two participants completed measures before and after Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction. Contrary to expectations, no indirect relationship was found between baseline mindfulness and anxiety through negative interpretation bias. Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction did reduce negative interpretation bias from before to after treatment, but changes in mindfulness did not relate to changes in anxiety through changes in interpretation bias. Overall, the results offer minimal support for the proposed pathway.
Frontiers in Psychology
February 7, 2020
Seoyeon Kwak, So-yeon Kim, Dahye Bae et al.
A 4-day intensive meditation retreat improved executive attention and increased neural activity in brain regions supporting attention networks. In a randomized trial, 23 meditators and 14 relaxation retreat participants performed the attention network test during fMRI before and after the intervention. The meditation group showed significantly better behavioral performance on executive control and increased activation in the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Activity in the right ACC predicted individual behavioral conflict levels. Alerting and orienting networks also showed enhanced activity after meditation. The findings suggest short-term meditation can strengthen attention networks at the neural level and may benefit those at risk of cognitive deficits.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 21, 2020
Francesco Chirico, Manoj Sharma, Salvatore Zaffina et al.
A randomized trial with 50 teachers and support staff at a Catholic school tested a prayer-based program to prevent burnout. Over two months, participants received two 30-minute sessions weekly combining individual Christian prayer and prayer-reflection focus groups. At the four-month follow-up, emotional exhaustion dropped from 16.80 to 4.92, depersonalization from 3.72 to 0.60, and psychological impairment from 10.08 to 2.04, while job satisfaction rose from 45.96 to 77.00. Effect sizes ranged from moderate to large. The authors suggest prayer may be as effective as meditation or other mind-body techniques for reducing occupational stress.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 10, 2020
Joachim Keppler
Declarative memory functions are inextricably linked with phenomenal awareness because the brain acts as a write–read head interacting with the zero-point field (ZPF) specified by stochastic electrodynamics. The ZPF is hypothesized to be an immanently sentient medium whose field modes each carry a phenomenal nuance; phase-locked coupling of modes forms a ZPF information state that amalgamates elementary shades of consciousness into a complex state. Conscious memory processes differ from unconscious ones by features of many-body quantum systems such as long-range coherence and attractor formation, supported by empirical evidence.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Jesus Montero-Marin, Marta Puebla-Guedea, Paola Herrera-Mercadal et al.
correction
A correction notice for a previously published article on Vipassana meditation, personality, positive psychology, retreat, and wellbeing. The notice states that the original article's DOI is 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01935 and provides a correction to that work. No findings, methods, or results are presented.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Sabrina Venditti, Loredana Verdone, Anna Reale et al.
Mindful practices such as mindfulness meditation, Vipassana, Yoga, Tai Chi, and Quadrato Motor Training can positively impact well-being by inducing a state of inner silence, which counteracts the negative effects of environmental noise and relieves stress-related symptoms. These practices act as emotional and attentional regulatory activities that increase self-awareness. The positive outcomes rely on physiological and biochemical activities, and recent research has begun to investigate the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms influenced by these practices, which regulate gene activity in real time without modifying the DNA sequence.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Brigitte Holzinger, Lucille Mayer, Isabel Barros et al.
The Dreamland Questionnaire (DL-Q), a new instrument for analyzing dream content, was validated against the established Hall and van de Castle Coding System (HVDC). Twenty-two participants provided written dream reports and completed the DL-Q, yielding 30 dreams for comparison. Correlations between the two measures were high for dominant characters, pleasantness of dream content, and body-related experiences. Some DL-Q items showed low correlations, and others could not be directly compared because the HVDC lacked equivalent items. The DL-Q demonstrates satisfactory validity and reliability for assessing dream criteria and may serve as a useful tool for clinical and research purposes, though further validation is needed for certain items.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Frederick Travis, Jonathan Nash, Niyazi Parim et al.
The fMRI procedure itself—lying in a noisy, confined tube—alters both subjective experience and brain activity during Transcendental Meditation (TM), potentially confounding results from fMRI studies of meditation. Twenty-three TM practitioners (11 short-term, averaging 2.2 years; 12 long-term, averaging 34.8 years) underwent eyes-closed rest and TM practice in three conditions: sitting upright, lying supine, and lying inside a simulated fMRI tube with 110 dB recordings. During the simulated fMRI condition, participants reported shallower meditation and greater agitation. Skin conductance decreased least in that condition. Frontal and parietal EEG power decreased from sitting to simulated fMRI in alpha2 through gamma bands. The default mode network was more active during TM when sitting compared to the simulated fMRI condition.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Victor A. F. Lamme
Vision progresses through four stages: fully invisible, subjectively invisible, unattended, and clearly visible. Feature extraction, categorization, and some visual inference occur during full and subjective invisibility. Perceptual organization functions like grouping and figure-ground segregation operate during both inattention and full visibility. Perceptual organization is central to the transition from unconscious to conscious seeing. This has implications for Recurrent Processing Theory, Higher Order Thought Theory, Integrated Information Theory, and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Hendry F Chame, Ahmadreza Ahmadi, Jun Tani
Primary intersubjectivity—a non-mentalist, pre-theoretical form of social understanding present in early human life—can be studied through human-robot interaction. Using active inference from the free-energy principle, the authors propose an open-source neural robotics library (NRL) and a demonstration program (VCBot) that allow people to experience embodied dyadic interaction. A case study suggests this approach can deepen understanding of social cognition and contribute to developmental psychology, educational technology, and cognitive rehabilitation.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Thomas Fuchs
The mind-body problem is reframed as the 'body-body problem': the relation between the lived, subjective body and the physiological, objective body. Circularity is proposed as a concept to explain how phenomenology of lived experience connects with the dynamics of organism-environment interactions, linking enactive approaches with ecological psychology. This circularity is developed in three forms: (1) the circular structure of embodiment via homeostatic and sensorimotor cycles linking brain, body, and environment; (2) circular causality between parts and whole within the organism and the organism-environment system; and (3) circularity of process and structure in development and learning, where subjective experience as sense-making...
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Francesca Strappini, Marialuisa Martelli, Cesare Cozzo et al.
Multiple realizability—the idea that the same mental property can arise from different neural substrates—has long been debated. Evidence from visual crowding shows that object recognition can be restored by increasing spacing between parts, whether in agnosic foveal vision, peripheral vision, or various patient groups. Comparing stroke patients, posterior cortical atrophy patients, strabismic amblyopia cases, and unimpaired subjects tested in the periphery reveals that restored recognition (integration) describes visual performance similarly across all cases, despite differing etiologies and neural correlates. This similarity in psychological function across diverse neural bases provides empirical support for the Multiple Realization Thesis, challenging psychoneural type-identity theory and reductionism.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Helen Y. Weng, Mushim P. Ikeda, Jarrod A Lewis-Peacock et al.
Mindfulness and compassion meditation are thought to promote prosocial behavior, but prior research has lacked diversity, limiting generalizability. To address this, researchers propose Intersectional Neuroscience, a framework that adapts research procedures to be inclusive of underrepresented groups through community engagement and individualized multivariate methods. Partnering with a diverse U.S. meditation center, they adapted fMRI screening and recruitment to include racial/ethnic minorities, gender and sexual minorities, people with disabilities, neuropsychiatric disorders, and lower-income individuals. They scanned 15 diverse meditators (80% racial/ethnic minorities, 53% gender and sexual minorities) and used individualized machine learning on fMRI data to decode mental states during breath-focused meditation. All participants' unique brain patterns were recognized significantly above chance. This demonstrates feasibility of inclusive neuroscience to develop individualized neural metrics of meditation.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Giulia Piredda, Michele Di Francesco
A weak conscientialist mark of the mental based on transparent access can prevent the overextension of the mind (cognitive bloat) without identifying the mental with the conscious. This proposal connects the evaluation of criteria for extending the mind to the search for a mark of the mental, building on Clark and Chalmers' original criteria and earlier work by the authors. The concept of transparency vindicates consciousness's role in defining what is mental while avoiding the problem of cognitive bloat.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Tom Froese, Guillermo U Ortiz-Garin
Enactive cognitive science and ecological psychology both hold that active movement is important for perception, but disagree on whether agency plays an instrumental or a constitutive role. The authors propose a novel double-participant experimental setup to isolate agency as the key variable distinguishing active from passive bodily movement. They pilot this setup with a psychological study of width discrimination using the Enactive Torch, a haptic sensory substitution device. The results showed no evidence favoring constitutive agency over instrumental agency. However, debriefing revealed that several participants used cognitive strategies not relying on spatial perception. The approach is a viable direction for future research, but greater care is needed to establish the desired first-person experience.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
Michael D Kirchhoff, Julian Kiverstein
A familiar, culturally constructed environment can feel like home, while culture shock makes that feeling vanish. This paper argues that such 'phenomenal attunement'—a taken-for-granted structure of conscious experience—is not produced by internal neural processes alone in a single moment. Instead, it is constituted over time through repeated cycles of embodied engagement with the world, guided by cultural practices. Because these cycles involve the environment and culture, not just the brain, an essential part of conscious experience is extended beyond skin and skull. The argument challenges the near-consensus that consciousness must be internally constituted, even among proponents of the extended mind theory.