Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2020
David Martínez-pernía
Cognitive neurorehabilitation relies on theoretical premises from cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience that may limit therapy. This analysis argues that current practice underutilizes body-based resources (embrained therapy), depends solely on subpersonal explanatory models (subpersonal therapy), and neglects patient subjectivity (anti-subjective therapy). To address these limitations, the enactive paradigm is proposed under the term "experiential neurorehabilitation," which reframes neurological sequelae as alterations in the dynamic interaction between body structure and environment, where the meaning of experience is also altered. The goal is recovery of the person's singular, concrete experience encompassing physical and subjective life attributes.
Frontiers in Psychology
November 5, 2019
J. van der Kamp, R. Withagen, Dominic Orth
This theoretical paper argues that mainstream university education, which prescribes and transmits knowledge, conflicts with the core tenets of radical embodied cognitive science. The authors propose an alternative 'weak education' based on the philosophies of Tim Ingold and Gert Biesta, rooted in Dewey's pragmatism and Gibson's ecological approach. They emphasize educating attention and the teacher's participatory role, contrasting with prescriptive pedagogy. Using examples from teaching motor skill learning, they illustrate how weak education aligns with non-prescriptive, non-representational principles. The paper concludes by considering implications for a radical embodied science of motor skill learning, suggesting that teaching should foster exploration and attunement rather than explicit instruction.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 22, 2019
Juliane Eberth, P. Sedlmeier, Thomas Schäfer
Equanimity (reduced emotional reactivity) and insight (altered cognitions) are the two key effects of mindfulness meditation that lead to increased wellbeing, according to a model developed from interviews with meditators and refined using Western research and Buddhist scriptures. The model was pilot-tested with a large sample of meditators and non-meditators, showing acceptable fit and significant differences between the groups on the model's core categories. This work builds on a prior meta-analysis that found positive effects of mindfulness meditation on mindfulness, emotions, self-concept, attention, perception, wellbeing, interpersonal abilities, and personality traits.
Frontiers in Psychology
October 15, 2019
Karin Matko, P. Sedlmeier
Meditation encompasses many different practices, and earlier classification systems failed to capture their diversity. Experienced meditators rated the similarity of 20 popular techniques. Multidimensional scaling revealed two key dimensions—activation and body orientation—that group techniques into seven clusters: mindful observation, body-centered meditation, visual concentration, contemplation, affect-centered meditation, mantra meditation, and meditation with movement. These clusters challenge the common division into focused attention and open-monitoring practices. The findings suggest there is no single "meditation" but rather distinct groups that may produce different effects, and the authors propose a new embodied classification system for future comparative research.
Frontiers in Psychology
September 13, 2019
J. Gibson
Mindfulness is often defined so broadly that it creates confusion and hinders rigorous research. Some of this confusion stems from using mindfulness and meditation interchangeably. All forms of meditation modulate the insula, the brain's hub for interoception (sensing the body's internal state). Interoception may be the primary mechanism behind mindfulness's benefits, and increased interoception from neuroplasticity in the insula may better explain those benefits than mindfulness itself. The article proposes that different meditations require different attentional styles, each offering a unique perspective on complex interoceptive signals. Anchoring scientific findings in the concrete body rather than abstract meditative techniques may clarify the field.
Frontiers in Psychology
June 6, 2019
Virginia Burgdorf, Marianna Dinyáné Szabó, Maree J. Abbott
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 25 studies examined mindfulness interventions delivered in person to parents, aiming to reduce parenting stress and improve youth psychological outcomes. Within-group analyses showed a small post-intervention reduction in parenting stress (g = 0.34), which grew to a moderate reduction at two-month follow-up (g = 0.53), and a small overall improvement in youth outcomes (g = 0.27). Controlled studies found greater parenting stress reductions in mindfulness groups than controls (g = 0.44). Changes in parenting stress predicted changes in youth externalizing and cognitive outcomes, but not internalizing outcomes. The authors note serious risk of bias and caution that methodological weaknesses prevent firm conclusions.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 29, 2019
Jing-Jing Li, Kai Dou, Yu-Jie Wang et al.
Awe, a positive emotion triggered by powerful stimuli beyond one's understanding, is linked to increased prosocial behavior. This occurs through two pathways: enhancing a person's sense of self-transcendent meaning in life and broadening their future time perspective. The findings suggest that experiencing awe can help individuals feel more connected to larger social contexts and foster concern for others.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 24, 2019
Alejandra Vasquez-Rosati, Rodrigo Montefusco-Siegmund, Vladimir Lopez et al.
Negative emotional music slowed reaction times during a task-switching test compared to positive music or silence, but the effect depended on each person's subjective emotional experience. When participants felt hampered by the music, their reaction times were slower and a brain signal called P300 was reduced. The study combined EEG brain monitoring, behavior measures, and detailed interviews about inner experience to show that emotion and cognitive flexibility interact in complex, individual ways.
Frontiers in Psychology
May 17, 2019
Anna Dora Frostadottir, D. Dorjee
Both mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and compassion-focused therapy (CFT) led to significant increases in mindfulness and self-compassion and decreases in rumination, depression, anxiety, and stress in clients with depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. MBCT enhanced mindfulness specifically for people who were initially high in rumination, whereas CFT enhanced mindfulness regardless of the client's rumination level. The findings suggest that both implicit (MBCT) and explicit (CFT) self-compassion instructions produce similar clinical outcomes, with CFT benefiting mindfulness across the board.
Frontiers in Psychology
March 8, 2019
F. Parmentier, M. García-Toro, J. García-Campayo et al.
Mindfulness relates to lower depression and anxiety both directly and indirectly through emotional regulation. In an international non-clinical sample of 1151 adults (meditators and non-meditators), worry, rumination, reappraisal, and suppression mediated the link between mindfulness and depression; for anxiety, suppression was not a mediator. The estimated hours of mindfulness meditation practice did not directly affect depression or anxiety but reduced them indirectly by increasing mindfulness. Worry and rumination were the strongest mediators. The findings suggest that meditation focused on reducing worry and rumination may help lower the risk of clinical depression.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 28, 2019
M. Navarro-Haro, M. Modrego-Alarcón, H. Hoffman et al.
Both a standard mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) alone and the same MBI plus 10 minutes of Virtual Reality DBT® Mindfulness Skills training significantly reduced symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder in primary care patients, with large effect sizes. The combined treatment led to higher treatment completion: 100% of patients in the MBI+VR group finished the program versus 70% in the MBI-only group. Both groups also improved in depression, emotion regulation, mindfulness, and interoceptive awareness. The findings suggest that adding a brief VR component to MBI may improve adherence, though larger randomized controlled trials are needed.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 8, 2019
Erik Monasterio, C. Robert Cloninger
Mountaineering and BASE jumping carry significant risk of injury and death, and reports of reckless disregard and selfishness in these sports are increasing. The Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) measures seven personality dimensions, including Self-Transcendence, which relates to spiritual experiences and altruistic motivation. Research consistently finds that mountaineers and BASE jumpers are adventurous in temperament and highly self-controlled and organized, yet 75–85% of character configurations in these populations show low Self-Transcendence. This article examines how Self-Transcendence may moderate self-destructive and unethical behaviors in these extreme sports.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
J Shashi Kiran Reddy, Sisir Roy
All meditation practices, despite their diverse techniques and cultural origins, ultimately guide practitioners toward the same underlying experience: a natural meditative state, described in spiritual traditions as the goal of meditation. The paper argues that while different practices produce distinct physiological and psychological effects, they share a common purpose and endpoint. The authors offer traditional insights to inform future research on meditation and to encourage contemporary researchers to reconsider how they categorize and study these practices.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Serena Scarpelli, Chiara Bartolacci, Aurora D'Atri et al.
Dream experience is linked to emotional processes and the inner world. REM sleep plays a key role in processing emotional waking-life experiences and consolidating emotional memories. Neuroimaging studies show that neural substrates regulating dreaming and emotional salience in sleep mentation overlap with those controlling emotions during wakefulness. REM theta oscillations are crucial for emotional re-processing and memory processes during REM sleep, while gamma activity relates to emotional processes, dream recall, and lucid dreams. In clinical samples, similar EEG correlates appear with nightmares or dreams. Rehearsing frightening content to change it is a promising treatment for nightmares, and lucid dreams attenuate nightmares.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Ausiàs Cebolla, Rocío Herrero, Sara Ventura et al.
A self-compassion meditation procedure using a virtual reality body swap illusion (the machine to be another system) was compared with a standard audio-only meditation in 16 participants. Both conditions increased positive qualities toward self/others, decreased negative qualities toward self, and improved awareness of mental events and bodily sensations immediately after practice, with no differences between groups. After two weeks of home practice, both groups showed similar meditation frequency and increases in self-care behaviors, though clinical self-care behaviors were significantly higher in the VR group. Lower visual and cutaneous imagery ability moderated the VR condition's effectiveness in increasing adherence, suggesting embodied VR may help those who struggle with mental imagery in compassion-based interventions.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Jan Walleczek, Nikolaus Von Stillfried
A commissioned conceptual replication of earlier double-slit light-interference experiments, which had claimed an anomalous effect of consciousness on quantum measurement, was unable to confirm the original results. Using an advanced meta-experimental protocol with systematic negative controls and a sham-experiment (counterfactual meta-experimentation), the replication identified a false-positive detection rate of 50% in the absence of test subjects. This false-positive effect, indistinguishable from the predicted true-positive effect, was significant and had an effect size within an order of magnitude of the originally claimed consciousness effect. The findings indicate that systematic methodological error, not a consciousness effect, likely explains the earlier results, suggesting skepticism is warranted.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Riccardo Manzotti
A mind-object identity theory is proposed: one's experience of an object is identical with the object itself. The hypothesis is defended by redefining physical objects in terms of relative and actual properties. Cases of misperception like dreams and hallucinations are addressed by redefining the notion of present in relative terms. Both the object and the present are recast as object-relative.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Michael S Chin, Stefanos N Kales
Optimal cognitive performance and the experience of flow—a state of deep immersion—are linked to a specific balance of autonomic nervous system activity. In 48 healthy men, breathing and muscle-contraction exercises were used to shift autonomic states before a Stroop test. Both flow engagement and reaction time followed a U-shaped (inverted for flow) relationship with sympathovagal balance: moderate sympathetic predominance, without being extreme, was associated with the best performance and strongest flow. Extremes of either sympathetic or parasympathetic dominance impaired both subjective experience and objective task speed. The findings support the theory that peak human performance occurs at an optimal, not maximal, level of sympathetic arousal.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Lucrezia Compiani
The self is not an internal entity or a product of brain functions or narratives. Instead, first-person experience is identical to the external objects that, through a physical relation, constitute that experience. This approach, based on the Spread Mind Theory, avoids multiple ontologies and causal foundationalism by treating the self as a bundle of relative objects identical with experiences themselves. The paper proposes a physical ontology grounded in relative existence rather than subjectivity.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Jonathan Nash, Andrew B. Newberg, Bhuvanesh Awasthi
correction
This notice corrects an earlier article. No new findings, arguments, or data are presented.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Jesus Montero-Marin, Maria C Perez-Yus, Ausiàs Cebolla et al.
Focused attention (FA) meditation session length was associated with higher happiness and positive affect and lower depression, negative affect, and emotional overproduction. Compassion meditation (CM) session length was linked to greater positive affect, and CM practice frequency to higher happiness. Lifetime FA practice related to happiness, and lifetime open monitoring (OM) practice to lower emotional overproduction. Religious beliefs and prayer were less relevant than these meditation practices in explaining psychological adjustment. The findings suggest distinct meditation practices may differentially influence well-being through specific practice variables.
Frontiers in Psychology
January 1, 2019
Muwang Ye, Yong Lyu
Electrophysiological recordings identified two neural correlates of visual awareness: visual awareness negativity (VAN) and later positivity (LP). In immediate and delayed detection tasks, VAN amplitude over posterior temporal and occipital areas remained unchanged by task timing, whereas LP amplitude over parietal, posterior temporal, and occipital areas was reduced during delayed detection between 650-850 ms. These findings indicate VAN reflects early visual awareness, while LP represents post-perceptual processes involved in reporting awareness.
Frontiers in Psychology
November 29, 2018
M. Ceruti, L. Damiano
This article traces an alternative line of development from Warren McCulloch's 'experimental epistemology' through cybernetic models—von Foerster's biological computer, Maturana and Varela's autopoietic system, and Varela's emergent selves—that diverges from mainstream computationalism. It argues these models provided a coherent methodological and theoretical path that empowered the biological orientation of McCulloch's approach, laying foundations for contemporary radically embodied theories of mind and consciousness, particularly the Thompson-Varela approach. The authors propose guidelines for future cognitive science and AI research that synthesize how these insights suggest accounting for the biological body's roles in cognitive processes, including consciousness.
Frontiers in Psychology
November 23, 2018
A. Newen
Human self-consciousness requires presupposing a self, but not a fixed metaphysical substance or a purely narrative entity. Instead, an embodied self—flexible and variable—is necessary, best accounted for by a pattern theory of the self. Self-consciousness arises from integrating an embodied, basic affective flow with an intentional object, such as the self as agent or center of imagination, anchored in this embodied self. The pattern theory fits within the predictive coding framework, where self-representation and world-representation develop in parallel, always activated together when interacting with the world.
Frontiers in Psychology
November 5, 2018
Matthias Michel, Stephen M Fleming, Hakwan Lau et al.
A survey of 249 participants, mostly in academia and about 40% experts in consciousness research, assessed views on the field's progress, funding, job opportunities, and scientific rigor. 78% of respondents said scientific research on consciousness has been making progress. However, most perceived obtaining funding and getting a job in consciousness research as more difficult than in other neuroscience subfields. Work in consciousness research was seen as less rigorous than other neuroscience subfields, but this perception was not linked to the perceived difficulty in funding and jobs. Global workspace theory was rated most promising overall (about 28%), while among non-experts integrated information theory (IIT) was most popular (about 22%).