Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews
September 1, 2021
Ruben E Laukkonen, Heleen A Slagter
183 citations
Deconstructive meditation can profoundly change the mind by reducing the brain's tendency to generate predictions based on past experience. The predictive processing framework suggests that meditation disengages anticipatory processes, gradually decreasing counterfactual and temporally deep cognition until all conceptual processing falls away, unveiling a state of pure awareness. Three main meditation styles—focused attention, open monitoring, and non-dual—lie on a single continuum, each relinquishing increasingly ingrained habits of prediction, including the predicted self. This deconstruction permits insights by making these processes available to introspection. The framework is consistent with empirical and neurophenomenological evidence and highlights the top-down plasticity of the predictive mind.
International journal of clinical and health psychology : IJCHP
January 1, 2023
Fabio Giommi, Prisca R Bauer, Aviva Berkovich-Ohana et al.
70 citations
Rigidity, or inflexibility, is a core feature of transdiagnostic processes underlying many mental health disorders. The pattern theory of self (PTS) defines the self as a dynamic, nonlinear pattern of multiple interacting processes. Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) can reduce rigid, habitual self-patterns, thereby improving mental health. MBIs alter psychological and behavioral aspects of the self-pattern and can shift the entire self-pattern as a gestalt. Neuroscientific evidence shows that the phenomenology of the self is reflected in cortical networks, and meditation alters these networks. Combining PTS and neuroscientific findings may deepen understanding of psychopathology and improve diagnosis and treatment.
Progress in brain research
January 1, 2023
Ruben E Laukkonen, Matthew D Sacchet, Henk Barendregt et al.
56 citations
Meditation practitioners report being able to induce a total absence of consciousness lasting up to seven days, known as cessation or nirodha samāpatti. Unlike sleep, individuals in this state cannot be woken by external stimulation, experience no sense of time or tiredness, and have a stiff rather than relaxed body. Emerging from cessation is said to produce profound effects such as sudden clarity, openness, and insights. This paper outlines the historical context, presents preliminary data from two labs, sets a research agenda, and provides an initial framework for understanding these experiences. It integrates classical Buddhist concepts of nirodha and nirodha samāpatti into current cognitive-neurocomputational and active inference frameworks of meditation.
PsyArXiv
November 17, 2020
Ruben Eero Laukkonen, Heleen A Slagter
17 citations
preprint
A unifying account of deconstructive meditation under the predictive processing view is offered. The brain makes predictions based on past experience, and deconstructive meditation disengages anticipatory processes, gradually reducing counterfactual temporally deep cognition until all conceptual processing falls away, unveiling a state of pure awareness. Three main styles of meditation (focused attention, open monitoring, and non-dual) are placed on a single continuum, where each technique relinquishes increasingly engrained habits of prediction, including the predicted self. This deconstruction can permit certain insights by making these processes available to introspection. The framework is consistent with empirical and (neuro)phenomenological evidence and illuminates the top-down plasticity of the predictive mind.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2024
Ruben E Laukkonen, Evan Lewis-Healey, Luca Ghigliotti et al.
A novel multivariate spatial filter called Rhythmic Entrainment Source Separation can extract steady-state visual evoked potentials from EEG data to quantify perceptual switch rates during binocular rivalry without requiring self-reports. This method may be valuable for studying consciousness in contexts where self-reports are problematic or impossible. The analyses also indicate that no-report conditions may affect attention deployment and thereby neural correlates, an important consideration for consciousness research.
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews
October 1, 2023
Ruben E Laukkonen, Margaret Webb, Carola Salvi et al.
Feelings of insight help people select ideas from the stream of consciousness by capturing attention and generating intuitive confidence, enabling fast action under uncertainty. This 'Eureka heuristic' is explained through active inference: implicit restructuring via Bayesian reduction produces a higher-order prediction error (the content of insight), while dopaminergic precision-weighting of that error accounts for the confidence, pleasure, and attentional capture (the feeling of insight). The account aligns with the phenomenology, accuracy, and neural unfolding of insight, as well as its effects on belief and decision-making. Dangers include the formation and entrenchment of false beliefs and vulnerability of insights under psychoactive substances and misinformation.