Looking inside the black box of mindfulness meditation: Investigating attention and awareness during meditation using the mindful awareness task (MAT).

Training attention and awareness in mindfulness meditation is theorized to be essential for the cultivation of mindfulness and its salutary outcomes. Yet, the empirical foundation for this central premise in mindfulness science is surprisingly small due to a limited methodological capacity to measure attention and awareness during mindfulness meditation. Accordingly, we set out to measure and study these processes in a laboratory study ( = 143, 76.

Simulating thoughts to measure and study internal attention in mental health.

Our mind's eye and the role of internal attention in mental life and suffering has intrigued scholars for centuries. Yet, experimental study of internal attention has been elusive due to our limited capacity to control the timing and content of internal stimuli. We thus developed the Simulated Thoughts Paradigm (STP) to experimentally deliver own-voice thought stimuli that simulate the content and experience of thinking and thereby experimental study of internal attentional processes.

A Pilot Study of Cognitive Impairment in Longstanding Electroconvulsive Therapy-treated Schizophrenia Patients Versus Controls.

Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), though reliable and effective, is controversial due to its media portrayal as a treatment with severe side effects. Electroconvulsive therapy is mainly given to patients suffering from affective disorders and treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Although past research assessed the amount and duration of memory loss due to ECT, little is known about its influence on cognition for patients suffering from schizophrenia, whose cognitive decline is an inherent part of their illness.