scholarly journals Investigating Mindful Awareness from Moment-to-Moment in Meditation: The Mindful Awareness Task (MAT)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuval Hadash ◽  
Liad Ruimi ◽  
Amit Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Attention Regulation ◽  
Mindful Awareness ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Behavioral Paradigm ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
Empirical Foundation ◽  
Fundamental Mechanism

Buddhist and contemporary psychological theories propose that training attention and awareness in mindfulness meditation is a fundamental mechanism of mindfulness, essential for producing its salutary effects. Yet, the empirical foundation for this central idea in mindfulness science is surprisingly small due to a limited methodological capacity to measure attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation. Accordingly, we set out to study these processes (N = 143) via a novel behavioral paradigm measuring the objects and temporal dynamics of mindful awareness during meditation – the Mindful Awareness Task (MAT). Using this paradigm, we empirically characterized attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation. We provide novel behavioral evidence indicating that, as long-theorized, attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation are related to previous mindfulness meditation practice, attitudinal qualities of mindfulness, attention regulation, and mental health. We found that in contrast to widely held assumptions, sustained attention and executive functions, as measured via common cognitive-experimental tasks, may not be meaningfully related to the cognitive capacities trained and expressed in mindfulness meditation. Furthermore, we found that the accuracy of self-reported mindfulness is, paradoxically, dependent on behaviorally measured capacities for mindful awareness. Collectively, our behavioral findings reveal that, as long-theorized, attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation may indeed be fundamental to the practice, cultivation, and salutary functions of mindfulness. Findings indicate that the MAT paradigm may overcome significant limitations of extant measurement methods, and thereby enable future scientific insights into attention and awareness in mindfulness meditation and their salutary effects.

scholarly journals State Mindfulness Scale (SMS)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liad Ruimi ◽  
Yuval Hadash ◽  
Galia Tanay ◽  
Amit Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Present Moment ◽  
Psychometric Study ◽  
Mindful Awareness ◽  
State Mindfulness ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Bodily Sensations ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

The Satipatṭhāna Sutta describes mindfulness as a mental state characterized by the objects of mindful awareness (i.e., what experience a person attends to) and mental qualities of that mindful awareness (i.e., how a person attends to experience). In contemporary psychology, mindfulness is often similarly conceptualized as a trait or a state characterized by two components: attention of physical/bodily and mental present moment experience (i.e., what experience a person attends to) and a mental attitude characterized by curiosity and acceptance of present moment experience (i.e., how a person attends to experience) (Bishop et al., 2004; Lindsay & Creswell, 2017). Integrating these canonical and contemporary theoretical perspectives, Tanay and Bernstein (2013) developed the State Mindfulness Scale (SMS). The SMS is a 21-item self-report measure designed to assess state mindfulness. More specifically, the SMS is designed to quantify subjective levels of present moment attention to and awareness of two domains of experiential events or objects of which one may be mindful, bodily sensations and mental events, during a specific period of time (e.g., past 15 minutes) and context (e.g., mindfulness meditation or other activity). In this chapter, we review the theoretical foundations, development, initial validation and subsequent psychometric study of the SMS. We also describe the SMS administration and scoring, and briefly, the limitations and possible next steps for the psychometric study of the SMS and the measurement of state mindfulness more broadly.

scholarly journals Mindfulness Meditation Training and Self-Referential Processing in Social Anxiety Disorder: Behavioral and Neural Effects

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Goldin ◽  
Wiveka Ramel ◽  
James Gross
Keyword(s):  
Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Social Anxiety Disorder ◽  
Stress Reduction ◽  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Attention Regulation ◽  
Referential Processing ◽  
Brain Behavior

This study examined the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on the brain–behavior mechanisms of self-referential processing in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Sixteen patients underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while encoding self-referential, valence, and orthographic features of social trait adjectives. Post-MBSR, 14 patients completed neuroimaging. Compared to baseline, MBSR completers showed (a) increased self-esteem and decreased anxiety, (b) increased positive and decreased negative self-endorsement, (c) increased activity in a brain network related to attention regulation, and (d) reduced activity in brain systems implicated in conceptual-linguistic self-view. MBSR-related changes in maladaptive or distorted social self-view in adults diagnosed with SAD may be related to modulation of conceptual self-processing and attention regulation. Self-referential processing may serve as a functional biobehavioral target to measure the effects of mindfulness training.

A Framework for Interactive Mindfulness Meditation Using Attention-Regulation Process

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kavous Salehzadeh Niksirat ◽  
Chaklam Silpasuwanchai ◽  
Mahmoud Mohamed Hussien Ahmed ◽  
Peng Cheng ◽  
Xiangshi Ren
Keyword(s):  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Attention Regulation ◽  
Regulation Process

scholarly journals Rhesus Monkeys Have a Counting Ability and Can Count from One to Six

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1011
Author(s):  
Weiming Sun ◽  
Baoming Li ◽  
Chaolin Ma
Keyword(s):  
Rhesus Monkeys ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Model Animal ◽  
Behavioral Paradigm ◽  
Behavioral Evidence ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Right

Counting ability is one of the many aspects of animal cognition and has enjoyed great interest over the last couple of decades. The impetus for studying counting ability in nonhuman animals has likely come from more than a general interest in animal cognition, as the analysis of animal abilities amplifies our understanding of human cognition. In addition, a model animal with the ability to count could be used to replace human subjects in related studies. Here we designed a behavioral paradigm to train rhesus monkeys to count 1-to-6 visual patterns presented sequentially with long and irregular interpattern intervals on a touch screen. The monkeys were required to make a response to the sixth pattern exclusively, inhibiting response to any patterns appearing at other ordinal positions. All stimulus patterns were of the same size, color, location, and shape to prevent monkeys making the right choice due to non-number physical cues. In the long delay period, the monkey had to enumerate how many patterns had been presented sequentially and had to remember in which ordinal position the current pattern was located. Otherwise, it was impossible for them to know which pattern was the target one. The results show that all three monkeys learned to correctly choose the sixth pattern within 3 months. This study provides convincing behavioral evidence that rhesus monkeys may have the capacity to count.

Music, musicality, “musilanguage”

2008 ◽  
Vol 12 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 197-218
Author(s):  
Mario Baroni
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Musical Development ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Musical Structures ◽  
Musical Activity ◽  
The Impact

The aims of this article are to select, to summarise, and to critically discuss the principal topics presented in the papers of this special issue. Two main themes have been developed: the first makes reference to the origins of music, with a comparison of anthropological conceptions (the origins of mankind) with psychological conceptions (the musical development of infants). Particular attention is given to the “musilanguage” theory proposed by Steven Brown in 2000. The second main theme is related to the impact of theories of “origins” on what musicology today thinks of as the nature and sense of music. In order to provide concrete arguments pertaining to these topics, a section of the article is devoted to the main relationships between primordial proto-musical behaviours and adult musical activity. The presence of pre-verbal, “multimodal”, affective, interactive and ritual aspects of proto-musical behaviour, thought of as the more important characteristics of musical phenomena, has been considered as common both to anthropological and psychological theories and to their impact on today's conceptions of music. Three specific topics are discussed: proto-narrativity, musicality, and the relationships between musical structures and temporal dynamics.

LPCD framework: Analytical tool or psychological model?

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Danks
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Mathematical Framework ◽  
Bayesian Decision ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Psychological Model ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Bayesian Decision Making

AbstractThe target article uses a mathematical framework derived from Bayesian decision making to demonstrate suboptimal decision making but then attributes psychological reality to the framework components. Rahnev & Denison's (R&D) positive proposal thus risks ignoring plausible psychological theories that could implement complex perceptual decision making. We must be careful not to slide from success with an analytical tool to the reality of the tool components.

Effects of Monetary Incentives on Task Switching

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 216-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kleinsorge ◽  
Gerhard Rinkenauer
Keyword(s):  
Task Switching ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
General Level ◽  
Monetary Incentives ◽  
Switch Costs ◽  
Expectancy Effect ◽  
Reward Expectancy ◽  
Trial Basis

In two experiments, effects of incentives on task switching were investigated. Incentives were provided as a monetary bonus. In both experiments, the availability of a bonus varied on a trial-to-trial basis. The main difference between the experiments relates to the association of incentives to individual tasks. In Experiment 1, the association of incentives to individual tasks was fixed. Under these conditions, the effect of incentives was largely due to reward expectancy. Switch costs were reduced to statistical insignificance. This was true even with the task that was not associated with a bonus. In Experiment 2, there was a variable association of incentives to individual tasks. Under these conditions, the reward expectancy effect was bound to conditions with a well-established bonus-task association. In conditions in which the bonus-task association was not established in advance, enhanced performance of the bonus task was accompanied by performance decrements with the task that was not associated with a bonus. Reward expectancy affected mainly the general level of performance. The outcome of this study may also inform recently suggested neurobiological accounts about the temporal dynamics of reward processing.

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