Self-regulation of attentional stance facilitates induction of meditative states

Abstract

This study is focused on the novel concept of the origin or seat of the attentional spotlight, the bodily location at which the attended information is felt to impinge. Existing research on the seat of attention, also described as self-location or egocenter, shows that it can be situated in various ways within the experienced body space (Hanley et al., 2020), and that differences in its location have measurable impact on cognitive skill, emotional temperament, and self-construal, as well as social and moral attitudes (Adam et al., 2015; Fetterman et al., 2020; Fetterman & Robinson, 2013). A recent study by Hartelius et al. (2022) showed that this aspect of attention can be volitionally self-regulated into various internal attentional stances, and that these stances are relatively stable as demonstrated by robust within-subject inter-run correlations of EEG-measured patterns of brain activation for each stance; trials with 8 participants showed that most stances were associated with a unique cortical activation pattern in one or more frequency bands. This study also demonstrated that some attentional stances—that is, locations of the seat of attention—can be objectively associated with specific positive emotional states, suggesting that control of attentional stance should provide direct management of specific cognitive and emotional resources. This suggestion is supported by an earlier study with endurance athletes demonstrating that a discrete attentional stance was associated with each of two tasks: a) reading a news story, and b) experiences of a flow state during athletic endurance practice (Hartelius, 2015; Marolt-Sender, 2014).