Browsing by Author "Cosmelli, Diego"

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    An Introduction to Creativity and the Wandering Mind
    (Academic Press, 2020) Preiss Contreras, David Daniel; Cosmelli, Diego; Kaufman, James C.
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    Assessing Subjective Processes and Vulnerability in Mindfulness-based Interventions: A Mixed methods Exploratory Study
    (2021) Medeiros, Sebastian; Crempien, Carla; Vasquez Rosati, Alejandra; Duarte, Javiera; Andreu, Catherine; Langer, Alvaro, I; Ibaceta, Miguel; Silva, Jaime R.; Cosmelli, Diego
    Context . Research in the contemplative field has focused on trainable capacities that foster self-regulation and integration. From a psychological perspective, mindfulness and personality research has largely grown with a categorical approach that explores the relationship between personality traits and mindfulness skills in clinical contexts. > Problem . There is still a gap in our understanding of the subjective processes that occur through contemplative learning. Moreover, a dimensional personality approach that acknowledges personality functioning and individual vulnerability has not formed part of the discussion in the field. > Method . We used a mixed methods framework to explore change and learning mechanisms among six participants in an eight-week mindfulness-based intervention. Pre- and post-intervention measurements were registered, including a micro-phenomenological interview (MPI) to explore first-person experience in dealing with difficulty, self-reported personality functioning, symptoms, and mindfulness skills, and heart rate variability, to relate self-reporting and phenomenological accounts. > Results . Multiple levels of observation seem to be sensitive to capturing change and processes occurring in mindfulness-based interventions. The MPI analysis points to greater awareness and embodied care as central mechanisms. Personality functioning correlates with autonomic activity during critical phases of the MPI. Conceptual and experiential understanding of new forms of relating to experience are exemplified through a case study. > Implications . This exploratory study contributes to scientific and clinical understanding of healing mechanisms of mindfulness practice. Taking vulnerability into account can help refine therapeutic strategies and clinical sensitivity. The results support more skillful ways of guiding and inquiring in mindfulness practices. Future research should explore subtler levels of experiential and physiological regulatory processes using larger samples, particularly with participants who experience difficulties during practice. > Constructivist content . This work contributes to the development of Francisco Varela's neurophenomenology project and his scientific interest in contemplative practices as tools for the study of consciousness.
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    Attending to the heart is associated with posterior alpha band increase and a reduction in sensitivity to concurrent visual stimuli
    (Society for Psychophysiological Research, 2017) Villena González, Mario; Moenne Vargas, Cristóbal Matías; Lagos, Rodrigo A.; Alliende Correa, Luz María; Billeke, Pablo; Aboitiz, Francisco; López Hernández, Vladimir; Cosmelli, Diego
    Attentional mechanisms have been studied mostly in specific sensory domains, such as auditory, visuospatial, or tactile modalities. In contrast, attention to internal interoceptive visceral targets has only recently begun to be studied, despite its potential importance in emotion, empathy, and self-awareness. Here, we studied the effects of shifting attention to the heart using a cue-target detection paradigm during continuous EEG recordings. Subjects were instructed to count either a series of visual stimuli (visual condition) or their own heartbeats (heart condition). Visual checkerboard stimuli were used as attentional probes throughout the task. Consistent with previous findings, attention modulated the amplitude of the heartbeat-evoked potentials. Directing attention to the heart significantly reduced the visual P1/N1 amplitude evoked by the attentional probe. ERPs locked to the attention-directing cue revealed a novel frontal positivity around 300 ms postcue. Finally, spectral power in the alpha band over parieto-occipital regions was higher while attending to the heart-when compared to the visual task-and correlated with subject's performance in the interoceptive task. These results are consistent with a shared, resource-based attentional mechanism whereby allocating attention to bodily signals can affect early responses to visual stimuli.
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    Attending to the Stream of Consciousness: a Methodological Challenge
    (Springer-Verlag, 2009) Cosmelli, Diego; Aboitiz, Francisco; Cosmelli, Diego
    Attention is usually conceptualized, and empirically approached, as a matter of selection, information reduction, and performance enhancement. In this context, a wealth of experimental approaches have been developed to study sustained attention, selective attention, orienting, divided attention, conflict resolution, and so on. However, much less importance has been traditionally accorded to a more intimate yet pervasive aspect of attention: how it continuously shifts and moves within the stream of consciousness — the ongoing flow of perceptions, thoughts, images, and feelings we all experience during any normal day. In this chapter we survey some of the traditional ways in which attention is experimentally studied while pointing out some limitations and potential interests these approaches have for the study of attention in the stream of consciousness. We highlight, based on a phenomenological approach to its dynamics, one crucial aspect of attention that has been systematically neglected, and that could have important consequences for its study. Taking into account the spontaneous nature of attentional shifts during the stream of consciousness leads us to consider recent developments in brain imaging, experimental psychology, and signal analysis that are beginning to establish a framework for the scientific study of this elusive phenomenon.
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    Attentional and meta‐cognitive processes underlying mind wandering episodes during continuous naturalistic reading are associated with specific changes in eye behavior
    (2022) Oyarzo, Pablo; Preiss Contreras, David Daniel; Cosmelli, Diego
    Although eye movements during reading have been studied extensively, their variation due to attentional fluctuations such as spontaneous distractions is not well understood. Here we used a naturalistic reading task combined with an attentional sampling method to examine the effects of mind wandering—and the subsequent metacognitive awareness of its occurrence—on eye movements and pupillary dynamics. Our goal was to better understand the attentional and metacognitive processes involved in the initiation and termination of mind wandering episodes. Our results show that changes in eye behavior are consistent with underlying independent cognitive mechanisms working in tandem to sustain the attentional resources required for focused reading. In addition to changes in blink frequency, blink duration, and the number of saccades, variations in eye movements during unaware distractions point to a loss of the perceptual asymmetry that is usually observed in attentive, left-to-right reading. Also, before self-detected distractions, we observed a specific increase in pupillary diameter, indicating the likely presence of an anticipatory autonomic process that could contribute to becoming aware of the current attentional state. These findings stress the need for further research tackling the temporal structure of attentional dynamics during tasks that have a significant real-world impact.
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    Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence of Enhanced Performance Monitoring in Meditators
    (2017) Andreu, Catherine I.; Moenne Vargas, Cristóbal Matías; López Hernández, Vladimir; Slagter, Heleen A.; Franken, Ingmar H. A.; Cosmelli, Diego
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    Chapter 5 - Imagination and mind wandering: two sides of the same coin? A brain dynamics perspective
    (2020) Villena González, Mario; Cosmelli, Diego; D. Preiss, David; Cosmelli, Diego; Kaufman, James C.
    The renewed interest in mind wandering has produced a wealth of knowledge about brain mechanisms underlying the generation of spontaneous thoughts and stimulus-independent cognition. However, how this phenomenon relates to the more classically defined imagination, with which it shares several key phenomenological and psychological features, remains largely unexplored. Here, we discuss whether and how imagination relates to mind wandering and whether they depend on similar brain mechanisms. We pay particular attention to the spontaneous/deliberate contrast in both these phenomena and the importance of considering thought contents, modality, temporality, and emotional valence when studying stimulus-independent cognition. We draw from recent advances in brain connectivity studies to analyze the role that the brain's default mode network (DMN) might have in articulating these two pervasive aspects of human mental life. It appears that such an integrative process is likely to depend on a highly dynamical DMN, one that cannot be reduced simply to a resting state or self-related network. Ultimately, this challenges the idea that mind wandering and imagination are substantially different processes and suggests that it might be worth looking at them as part of the same type of self-generated mental activity.
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    Compared to self-immersion, mindful attention reduces salivation and automatic food bias
    (2017) Baquedano, Constanza; Vergara, Rodrigo; López Hernández, Vladimir; Fabar, Catalina; Cosmelli, Diego; Lutz, Antoine
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    Creativity and the Wandering Mind: Spontaneous and Controlled Cognition
    (Academic Press, 2020) Barnett, Paul Joseph; Kaufman, James C.; Barr, Nathaniel; Beaty, Roger; Seli, Paul; Zedelius, Claire M.; Schooler, Jonathan W.; Palmiero, Massimiliano; Villena González, Mario; Cosmelli, Diego; Prochazkova, Luisa; Hommel, Bernhard; Jay Lynn, Steven; Polizzi, Craig; Miskovic, Vladimir; Aksen, Damla; Woolley, Jacqueline D.; Bunce, Louise; Boerger, Elizabeth A.; Whitebread, David; O’Sullivan, Lisha; Russ, Sandra W.; Beghetto, Ronald A.; Schuh, Kathy L.; Dobson, Charles; Christoff, Kalina; Preiss, David D.; Colm Hogan, Patrick; Preiss Contreras, David Daniel; Cosmelli, Diego; Kaufman, James C.
    Creativity and the Wandering Mind: Spontaneous and Controlled Cognition summarizes research on the impact of mind wandering and cognitive control on creativity, including imagination, fantasy and play. Most coverage in this area has either focused on the negative consequences of mind wandering on focused problem solving or the positive effect of mindfulness, but not on the positive consequences of mind wandering. This volume bridges that gap. Research indicates that most people experience mind wandering during a large percentage of their waking time, and that it is a baseline default mode of brain function during the awake but resting state. This volume explores the different kinds of mind wandering and its positive impact on imagination, play, problem-solving, and creative production.
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    Dynamics of a neuromodulator: I. The role of dopaminergic signaling in goal-directed behavior
    (Springer-Verlag, 2009) Aboitiz, Francisco; Aboitiz, Francisco; Cosmelli, Diego
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    ECOCAM, un Sistema Computacional Adaptable al Contexto para Promover Estrategias de Cálculo Mental: Características de su Diseño y Resultados Preliminares
    (2014) Leger, Paul; Gálvez, Grecia; Inostroza, Milton; Cubillos, Lino; Luci, Gina; Tanter, Éric; Cosmelli, Diego; Soto Andrade, Jorge
    Basado en nuestro trabajo previo sobre estrategias cognitivas para el cálculo mental, presentamos el diseño de un sistema computacional adaptable al contexto, denominado ECOCAM, que apunta a promover estrategias de cálculo mental en alumnos de educación básica. Realizamos un primer testeo de nuestra propuesta a través de la implementación concreta de ECOCAM para promover una estrategia de sumas, a saber la de “trasvasije”, mediante un experimento piloto y estudio de casos, con niñas y niños en varios niveles de educación básica. Discutimos los resultados y las implicaciones para un desarrollo futuro e implementación de ECOCAM.
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    Effects of a brief mindfulness-meditation intervention on neural measures of response inhibition in cigarette smokers
    (2018) Andreu, Catherine I.; Cosmelli, Diego; Slagter, Heleen A.; Franken, Ingmar H. A.
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    Emotional Influences on Cognitive Flexibility Depend on Individual Differences: A Combined Micro-Phenomenological and Psychophysiological Study
    (2019) Vásquez Rosati, Alejandra; Montefusco Siegmund, Rodrigo; López, Vladimir; Cosmelli, Diego
    Imagine a scenario where you are cooking and suddenly, the contents of the pot start to come out, and the oven bell rings. You would have to stop what you are doing and start responding to the changing demands, switching between different objects, operations and mental sets. This ability is known as cognitive flexibility. Now, add to this scenario a strong emotional atmosphere that invades you as you spontaneously recall a difficult situation you had that morning. How would you behave? Recent studies suggest that emotional states do modulate cognitive flexibility, but these findings are still controversial. Moreover, there is a lack of evidence regarding the underlying brain processes. The purpose of the present study was, therefore, to examine such interaction while monitoring changes in ongoing cortical activity using EEG. In order to answer this question, we used two musical stimuli to induce emotional states (positive/high arousal/open stance and negative/high arousal/closed stance). Twenty-nine participants performed two blocks of the Madrid Card Sorting Task in a neutral silence condition and then four blocks while listening to the counterbalanced musical stimuli. To explore this interaction, we used a combination of first-person (micro-phenomenological interview) and third-person (behavior and EEG) approaches. Our results show that compared to the positive stimuli and silence condition, negative stimuli decrease reaction times (RTs) for the shift signal. Our data show that the valance of the first emotional block is determinant in the RTs of the subsequent blocks. Additionally, the analysis of the micro-phenomenological interview and the integration of first-and third-person data show that the emotional disposition generated by the music could facilitate task performance for some participants or hamper it for others, independently of its emotional valence. When the emotional disposition hampered task execution, RTs were slower, and the P300 potential showed a reduced amplitude compared to the facilitated condition. These findings show that the interaction between emotion and cognitive flexibility is more complex than previously thought and points to a new way of understanding the underlying mechanisms by incorporating an in-depth analysis of individual subjective experience.
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    Empirical basis for the development of adaptative interfaces : behavioral and neurophysiological evidences of decision-making and expertise development in a sequencial choice scenario.
    (2017) Moenne Vargas, Cristóbal Matías; Mery Quiroz, Domingo; Cosmelli, Diego; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Escuela de Ingeniería
    En el día a día nuestra interacción con interfaces computacionales está llena de situaciones en las cuales pasamos de ser usuarios inexpertos a expertos mediante la repetición de una misma tarea. En muchas de estas interacciones debemos aprender a encontrar una ruta, dentro de una secuencia de decisiones y acciones, la cual nos lleva al resultado buscado. Por ejemplo, cuando retiramos dinero de un cajero automático, las elecciones son presentadas paso a paso y una secuencia específica de acciones debe ser realizada en orden de obtener el resultado deseado. Entonces, a medida que nos hacemos expertos en el uso de estas interfaces, ¿es posible identificar estrategias especificas de búsqueda aprendizaje? De ser así, ¿podemos usar esa información para predecir acciones futuras? Además de comprender mejor los procesos cognitivos que subyacen a la toma de decisiones secuencial, esto podría permitir construir interfaces adaptativas que puedan facilitar la interacción en diferentes momentos de la curva de aprendizaje. Aquí abordamos la pregunta de modelar el comportamiento de toma de decisiones secuencial usando una interfaz visual simple representada por un árbol de decisión binario (por sus siglas en inglés BDT) de cuatro niveles. Registramos datos conductuales de participantes voluntarios mientras tratan de resolver la tarea. Utilizando un enfoque basado en el modelo oculto de Markov, que se capitaliza la estructura jerárquica del comportamiento, luego modelamos el desempeño de los participantes durante la interacción. Nuestros resultados muestran que una partición del espacio del problema en un pequeño grupo de estrategias estereotipadas y relacionadas jerárquicamente pueden capturar potencialmente una serie de comportamientos de b´usqueda. Esto nos permite seguir c´omo los participantes aprendeny desarrollan habilidades en el uso de la interfaz. Más aún, usando una Mezcla de Expertos basadas en las estrategias, somos capaces de predecir el comportamiento de los participantes que aprenden la tarea. Además, usando indicadores conductuales derivados de nuestro modelamiento, somos capaces de capturar la compleja estructura de los procesos de aprendizaje y desarrollo de expertise presente en los registros de Electroencéfalograma (EEG) de los participantes, revelando a nivel cerebral las diferentes etapas del proceso de toma de decisión a través de Potenciales Relacionados a Eventos (pos sus siglas en inglés ERP). Nuestra meta a largo plazo es informar acerca de la construcción de interfaces que puedan establecer una conversación dinámica con sus usuarios, en orden de facilitar la interacción con ellas.
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    Enhanced response inhibition and reduced midfrontal theta activity in experienced Vipassana meditators
    (Springer Nature Limited, 2019) Andreu, Catherine I.; Palacios García, Ismael José; Moenne Vargas, Cristóbal Matías; López Hernández, Vladimir; Franken, Ingmar; Cosmelli, Diego; Slagter, Heleen
    Response inhibition - the ability to suppress inappropriate thoughts and actions - is a fundamental aspect of cognitive control. Recent research suggests that mental training by meditation may improve cognitive control. Yet, it is still unclear if and how, at the neural level, long-term meditation practice may affect (emotional) response inhibition. The present study aimed to address this outstanding question, and used an emotional Go/Nogo task and electroencephalography (EEG) to examine possible differences in behavioral and electrophysiological indices of response inhibition between Vipassana meditators and an experience-matched active control group (athletes). Behaviorally, meditators made significantly less errors than controls on the emotional Go/Nogo task, independent of the emotional context, while being equally fast. This improvement in response inhibition at the behavioral level was accompanied by a decrease in midfrontal theta activity in Nogo vs. Go trials in the meditators compared to controls. Yet, no changes in ERP indices of response inhibition, as indexed by the amplitude of the N2 and P3 components, were observed. Finally, the meditators subjectively evaluated the emotional pictures lower in valence and arousal. Collectively, these results suggest that meditation may improve response inhibition and control over emotional reactivity.
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    Estrategias cognitivas para el cálculo mental
    (2011) Gálvez, Grecia; Cosmelli, Diego; Leger, Paul; Mena Lorca, Arturo; Tanter, Eric; Flores, Ximena; Luci, Gina; Montoya, Soledad; Soto-Andrade, Jorge; Cubillos, Lino
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    Estudio de la interacción de estados emocionales, corporales y la flexibilidad cognitiva : aproximaciones en primera y tercera persona
    (2018) Vásquez Rosati, Alejandra; Cosmelli, Diego; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Escuela de Psicología
    Nuestra conducta está constantemente adaptándose al cambiante ambiente y necesitamos responder flexiblemente a sus demandas. Requerimos la habilidad de inhibir lo que estamos haciendo para responder a otras demandas, cambiar entre estímulos, operaciones y set mentales.Esta habilidad es conocida como flexibilidad cognitiva. Recientes hallazgos sugieren que estados emocionales modulan la flexibilidad cognitiva, sin embargo estos aun son controversiales. Mas aun,no existe evidencia sobre si esta modulación afecta la actividad cortical o si la utilización de una acción motora para responder a las demandas ambientales se relaciona con estos estados emocionales.Nuestra hipótesis es que estados emocionales positivos que promueven una sensación general de apertura corporal facilitarán la flexibilidad cognitiva. De manera contraria, los estados emocionales negativos que promueven una sensación general de clausura corporal la dificultarán.Estos efectos se verán detectados en los costos de cambio al compara los ensayos de repetición versus los ensayos de cambio de regla. Y también se verá reflejado en los correlatos electrofisiológicos. Para responder a estas preguntas se llevaron a cabo tres estudios. En primer lugar, se validó y caracterizó la respuesta emocional a los estímulos musicales diseñados para esta tesis(positivo/alta activación/apertura corporal y negativo/alta activación/cierre corporal). En segundo lugar, utilizamos estos dos estímulos emocionales para inducir un estado emocional en los participantes, para que luego realizaran una tarea de flexibilidad cognitiva. Y en tercer lugar,exploramos la integración de una acción motora para responder a la tarea (extensión y flexión del brazo) posterior a la inducción emocional. Todas las aproximaciones experimentales incluyeron la entrevista micro-fenomenológica para explorar la experiencia de los participantes.Nuestro principal resultado fue que los estados emocionales negativos facilitan la flexibilidad cognitiva, reflejado en una disminución de los tiempos de respuesta en relación a las condiciones de silencio y positiva. Adicionalmente, el análisis de la entrevista microfenomenológicay la integración de los datos en primera- y tercera-persona mostraron que la disposición emocional generada por la música podía facilitar o dificultar la realización de la tarea independiente de la valencia emocional de ésta. Cuando la disposición emocional dificultaba la tarea, los tiempos de respuesta fueron mas lentos y el P300 presentó una menor amplitud alcompararlos con la disposición emocional facilitadora.
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    Examining the influence of mind wandering and metacognition on creativity in university and vocational students
    (2016) Preiss, David; Cosmelli, Diego; Grau Cárdenas, Valeska Valentina; Ortiz, D.