Cited by 187Mindfulness and Compassion InterventionsEmbodied and Extended CognitionPhilosophy and Theoretical Science

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 181 of the 189 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind

Open access
Laukkonen, Ruben E., Slagter, Heleen A.·2021·Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

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.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.06.021

Cites

181 of 181 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

8 of the 189 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. Berkovich-Ohana, 2017, A typology of altered states according to the consciousness state space (CSS) model: a special reference to subjective time, J. Conscious. Stud., 24, 37
  2. Deane, 2020, Dissolving the self, Philos. Mind Sci., 1, 2
  3. Henin, 2019, Statistical learning shapes neural sequence representations [Preprint], Neuroscience
  4. Limanowski, 2020, Attenuating oneself, Philos. Mind Sci., 1, 6
  5. Maturana, 1991, vol. 42
  6. Suzuki, 1961, vol. 309
  7. Wallace, 1999, The Buddhist tradition of Samatha: methods for refining and examining consciousness, J. Conscious. Stud., 6, 175

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 187

Metadata

Authors
Laukkonen, R. E., & Slagter, H. A.
Affiliations
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
Corresponding author
  • Laukkonen, Ruben E.
  • Slagter, Heleen A.
Venue
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021-09
Volume
128
Pages
199-217
ISSN
0149-7634 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3160885204
Cited by
187
References
189
Citations by year
2026: 31 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 55 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 8
FWCI
3.65
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
  • PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
European Research Council (679399)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
Keywords
meditation, predictive processing, predictive mind, anticipatory processing, self, focused attention, pure awareness, self-reflection, neurophenomenology, no-report paradigm
MeSH terms
Attention, Brain, Cognition, Humans, Phylogeny, Meditation

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review