Being There: Implications of Neuroscience and Meditation for Self-Presence in Virtual Worlds
Carrie Heeter, Marcel Allbritton
Journal For Virtual Worlds Research October 30, 2015 DOI: 10.4101/jvwr.v8i2.7164 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that presence in virtual worlds is a dynamic internal process of sustained directed attention grounded in bodily sensations, and that meditation can enhance this capacity. |
Abstract
New discoveries in neuroscience show that the human brain and body work together to experience and evaluate emotions and thoughts and to create a felt sense of presence in the material (or virtual) world. The brain engenders (creates) bodily feelings that represent emotions and thoughts. By directing attention to present moment bodily sensations we experience embodied presence. Practicing meditation increases the capacity and propensity to experience embodied presence. Virtual worlds are experienced by the human system that is deeply grounded in bodily sensations. In this essay we explore the implications of neuroscience and meditation for designing and studying self-presence in virtual worlds. We explain how presence is a dynamic, ongoing internal process that is the active result of sustained directed attention.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on meditation, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mindfulness: A proposed operational definition. | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mechanisms of mindfulness | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (S-ART): a framework for understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness | 2012 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 8
- Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience August 13, 2007
- Patterns of Brain Activity Supporting Autobiographical Memory, Prospection, and Theory of Mind, and Their Relationship to the Default Mode Network Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience July 6, 2009
- Interoception, contemplative practice, and health Frontiers in Psychology June 9, 2015
- Mindfulness meditation training alters cortical representations of interoceptive attention Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience June 11, 2012
- Mindfulness starts with the body: somatosensory attention and top-down modulation of cortical alpha rhythms in mindfulness meditation Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2013
and 3 more in the library