PsyCh journal
March 1, 2019
Sylvie Droit-Volet, Michaël Dambrun
72 citations
People often describe time as passing quickly or slowly. This article examines how judgments of time passage relate to judgments of physical durations, including during meditation when consciousness is altered. The authors distinguish between the "self-time perspective," "self-duration" (internal duration), and "world-duration" (external duration). They link self-time perspective to the narrative self and self-duration to the minimal self, a connection supported by qualitative analysis of testimonials from four meditators. Awareness of self-duration is tied to awareness of the embodied self; when bodily consciousness decreases, the subjective experience of internal time changes. The mechanisms by which the sense of self disappears and one feels outside time during meditation remain unclear.
PsyCh journal
March 1, 2019
Brice Martin, Nicolas Franck, Anne Giersch
14 citations
People with schizophrenia often describe disruptions in their sense of time, such as a loss of time continuity, alongside other distortions of self-experience like inner emptiness and confusion between self and others. Phenomenologists interpret these as a breakdown of the temporal structure of consciousness, possibly due to difficulty retaining past information and predicting future events. Experimental psychology supports this, showing deficits in predicting sequences of events at the millisecond level. However, the authors reflect on the limits of both phenomenological and experimental approaches and caution against premature conclusions about the underlying mechanisms, aiming instead to deepen understanding of schizophrenia.
PsyCh journal
December 1, 2024
Yan Bao, Bin Zhou, Xinchi Yu et al.
2 citations
A patient blind in part of the visual field due to damage to the visual cortex reports conscious vision for moving, but not stationary, stimuli in the blind area. This completion effect is perceptual, not conceptual, and likely relies on spared representations in the striate cortex. fMRI shows brain activation only for moving stimuli, but on the same side of the brain as the stimulus rather than the opposite side, indicating a shift to the wrong hemisphere. This shift, explained by an imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory interactions between the striate cortices after injury, reveals neuroplasticity and offers new insights into visual system function and consciousness.
PsyCh journal
February 1, 2024
Chunxia Sun, Jiajin Tong, Xin Qi et al.
2 citations
Taking 7-minute micro-breaks for either breathing or meditation practices can reduce perceived stress and improve emotional states. In a study with 59 undergraduates, both activities led to lower anxiety and fatigue, and increased serenity and active emotion. The findings suggest that even brief, low-dose interventions during short breaks can be effective for stress management.
PsyCh journal
July 6, 2025
Qianguo Xiao, Chenyu Li, Chen Chen et al.
Two studies examined how mindfulness relates to willingness to help others, focusing on moral identity and moral disengagement as mediators, and comparing young adolescents (12–15 years) with young adults (18–24 years). A cross-sectional survey of 271 college students and 229 middle school students found that in adolescents, moral identity mediated the link between dispositional mindfulness and prosocial willingness, whereas in adults, moral disengagement was the primary mediator. An experiment with 105 young adults and 142 young adolescents tested short mindfulness inductions (with or without ethical elements). In adolescents, these inductions significantly affected moral identity, moral disengagement, and prosocial willingness, with mediation effects; in adults, no significant effects appeared. The findings suggest age-specific psychological mechanisms, indicating that mindfulness programs for adolescents should account for developmental differences in moral psychology.