Different types of meditation—focused attention, open monitoring, and loving-kindness or compassion—produce distinct effects on cognitive processes such as attentional selection, conflict monitoring, divergent thinking, and convergent thinking. These meditations are associated with different neural structures and patterns of brain activity, though exactly how they operate on these processes remains unclear. This review discusses recent findings and suggests how each meditation type may affect cognition, offering directions for future research.
Microdosing psychedelics may enhance cognitive performance by improving the balance between cognitive persistence and flexibility, according to preliminary quantitative findings. The authors speculate that psychedelics affect cognitive metacontrol policies, optimizing this balance. However, they emphasize that future research with rigorous placebo-controlled designs is needed to confirm these initial results. The study provides support for cognitive-enhancing properties but remains preliminary.