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Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open
Journal article
From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind
Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, Vol.128, pp.199-217
09/2021
PMID: 34139248
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Source: InCites
Abstract
Highlights
•Predictive processing provides a novel theoretical window on meditation.
•Deconstructive meditations progressively reduce temporally deep processing.
•Insight experiences arise during meditation due to Bayesian model reduction.
•Meditation deconstructs self models by reducing abstract processing.
•Non-dual awareness or pure consciousness is the ‘here and now’.
How profoundly can humans change their own minds? In this paper we offer a unifying account of deconstructive meditation under the predictive processing view. We start from simple axioms. First, the brain makes predictions based on past experience, both phylogenetic and ontogenetic. Second, deconstructive meditation brings one closer to the here and now by disengaging anticipatory processes. We propose that practicing meditation therefore gradually reduces counterfactual temporally deep cognition, until all conceptual processing falls away, unveiling a state of pure awareness. Our account also places three main styles of meditation (focused attention, open monitoring, and non-dual) on a single continuum, where each technique relinquishes increasingly engrained habits of prediction, including the predicted self. This deconstruction can also permit certain insights by making the above processes available to introspection. Our framework is consistent with the state of empirical and (neuro)phenomenological evidence and illuminates the top-down plasticity of the predictive mind. Experimental rigor, neurophenomenology, and no-report paradigms are needed to further understanding of how meditation affects predictive processing and the self.
Details
- Title
- From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind
- Creators
- Ruben E. Laukkonen - Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamHeleen A. Slagter - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
- Publication Details
- Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, Vol.128, pp.199-217
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- Grant note
- This work was supported by an ERC starting grant (679399) to H.A.S.
- Identifiers
- 991013062213702368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Health
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article