Developing Attention and Decreasing Affective Bias: Towards a Cross-Cultural Cognitive Science of Mindfulness
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that advances in cognitive science of consciousness can deepen understanding of mindfulness meditation's functions in traditional and clinical contexts. |
Abstract
The study of consciousness was banished from respectable science with the rise of behaviorism in the early 20th century. Beginning in the 1980s, however, researchers in cognitive science began to return to the topic (e.g., Baars, 1988; Chalmers, 1996; Crick & Koch, 1990; Dennett, 1991), In recent decades, there has been an explosion of research on the neurophysiological processes underlying conscious experience (Tononi & Koch, 2008), as well as the ways in which attention (Mole, Smithies, & Wu, 2011) and emotion (Barrett, Mesquita, Ochsner, & Gross, 2007) shape conscious experience. We think that this research climate is beneficial for understanding the nature and benefits of mindfulness meditation because advances in the cognitive science of consciousness provide an important but as yet underused resource for deepening our understanding of how contemplative attentiontraining practices function in traditional Buddhist and modern clinical contexts. Mindfulness meditation is traditionally said to be part of a process of “awakening” (bodhi). In keeping with this idea, many teachers characterize mindfulness as involving one’s becoming more conscious of subtle bodily stimuli and emotional C H A P T E R 3
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
Cited by 2
Cites 21
- On a confusion about a function of consciousness Behavioral and Brain Sciences June 1, 1995
- How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action From a Conceptual and Neural Perspective Perspectives on Psychological Science October 14, 2011
- Consciousness, accessibility, and the mesh between psychology and neuroscience. Behavioral and Brain Sciences December 1, 2007
- Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources PLoS Biology May 4, 2007
- What does mindfulness really mean? A canonical perspective Contemporary Buddhism May 1, 2011
and 16 more in the library