Τρίτη 30 Νοεμβρίου 2010
Barclay James Harvest - The World Goes On
See the gambler make a stand
Holds a lifetime in his hand
Win the game or lose control
But the world goes on forever
Life's a circle, I recall
Shadows played upon the wall
You pay the piper to call the tune
And the song goes on forever
And when all the words have gone
There's the thought to carry on
Just like a bird that sings
Leave it all behind and spread your wings
You can leave it all behind - spread your wings
Lay me down
Saw the road move on before me
Times when I was tired and lost my way
Looking at life and strangely for the first time
Thinking that I could stay here
But the world moves on forever
And when all the words have gone
There's the thought to carry on
Just like a bird that sings
Leave it all behind and spread your wings
You can leave it all behind - spread your wings
Δευτέρα 29 Νοεμβρίου 2010
Κυριακή 28 Νοεμβρίου 2010
Παρασκευή 26 Νοεμβρίου 2010
Τετάρτη 24 Νοεμβρίου 2010
John Lennon- Mind Games
We're playing those mind games together,
Pushing barriers, planting seeds,
Playing the mind guerilla,
Chanting the Mantra peace on earth,
We all been playing mind games forever,
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil.
Doing the mind guerilla,
Some call it the search for the grail,
Love is the answer and you know that for sure,
Love is flower you got to let it, you got to let it grow,
So keep on playing those mind games together,
Faith in the future outta the now,
You just can't beat on those mind guerillas,
Absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind,
Yeah we're playing those mind games forever,
Projecting our images in space and in time,
Yes is the answer and you know that for sure,
Yes is the surrender you got to let it, you got to let it go,
So keep on playing those mind games together,
Doing the ritual dance inn the sun,
Millions of mind guerrillas,
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel,
Keep on playing those mind games forever,
Raising the spirit of peace and love, not war,
(I want you to make love, not war, I know you've heard it before)
Τρίτη 23 Νοεμβρίου 2010
Banking on predictability, the mind increases efficiency
MADISON — Like musical compression saves space on your mp3 player, the human brain has ways of recoding sounds to save precious processing power.
To whittle a recording of your favorite song down to a manageable pile of megabytes, computers take advantage of reliable qualities of sounds to reduce the amount of information needed. Collections of neurons have their own ways to efficiently encode sound properties that are predictable.
"In perception, whether visual or auditory, sensory input has a lot of structure to it," said Keith Kluender, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Your brain takes advantage of the fact that the world is predictable, and pays less attention to parts it can predict."
Along with graduate student Christian Stilp and assistant professor Timothy Rogers, Kluender co-authored a study published in this week's (Nov. 22) early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing listeners can become effectively deaf to sounds that do not conform to their brains' expectations.
The researchers crafted an orderly set of novel sounds that combined elements of a tenor saxophone and a French horn. The sounds also varied systematically in onset — from abrupt, like the pluck of a violin string, to gradual, like a bowed string. These sounds were played in the background while test subjects played with Etch-a-Sketches.
After a little more than seven minutes, listeners completed trials where they were asked to identify one sound in a set of three that was unlike the other two.
Distinguishing sounds that varied in instrument and onset in the same way they had just heard was a simple matter. But sounds that didn't fit — with, say, more pluck and not enough saxophone — were completely lost to the listeners. They could not correctly identify one of the non-conforming sounds as the odd one among three examples.
"They're so good at perceiving the correlations between the orderly sounds, that's all they hear," says Kluender, whose work is funded by the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. "Perceptually, they've discarded the physical attributes of the sounds."
The results jibe well with theoretical descriptions of an efficient brain, and the researchers were able to accurately predict listener performance using a computational model simulating brain connections.
"The world around us isn't random," Stilp says. "If you have an efficient system, you should take advantage of that in the way you perceive the world around you. That's never been demonstrated this clearly with people."
To avoid having to carefully take in and remember every last bit of visual or audible stimulus it encounters, the mind quickly acquaints itself with the world's predictability and redundancy.
"That's part of why people can understand speech even in really terrible conditions," Kluender says. "You can press your ear to the wall in a cheap apartment and make out a conversation going on next door even though the wall removes two-thirds of the acoustic information. From just small pieces of sounds, your brain can predict the rest."
###
To whittle a recording of your favorite song down to a manageable pile of megabytes, computers take advantage of reliable qualities of sounds to reduce the amount of information needed. Collections of neurons have their own ways to efficiently encode sound properties that are predictable.
"In perception, whether visual or auditory, sensory input has a lot of structure to it," said Keith Kluender, a psychology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Your brain takes advantage of the fact that the world is predictable, and pays less attention to parts it can predict."
Along with graduate student Christian Stilp and assistant professor Timothy Rogers, Kluender co-authored a study published in this week's (Nov. 22) early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing listeners can become effectively deaf to sounds that do not conform to their brains' expectations.
The researchers crafted an orderly set of novel sounds that combined elements of a tenor saxophone and a French horn. The sounds also varied systematically in onset — from abrupt, like the pluck of a violin string, to gradual, like a bowed string. These sounds were played in the background while test subjects played with Etch-a-Sketches.
After a little more than seven minutes, listeners completed trials where they were asked to identify one sound in a set of three that was unlike the other two.
Distinguishing sounds that varied in instrument and onset in the same way they had just heard was a simple matter. But sounds that didn't fit — with, say, more pluck and not enough saxophone — were completely lost to the listeners. They could not correctly identify one of the non-conforming sounds as the odd one among three examples.
"They're so good at perceiving the correlations between the orderly sounds, that's all they hear," says Kluender, whose work is funded by the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. "Perceptually, they've discarded the physical attributes of the sounds."
The results jibe well with theoretical descriptions of an efficient brain, and the researchers were able to accurately predict listener performance using a computational model simulating brain connections.
"The world around us isn't random," Stilp says. "If you have an efficient system, you should take advantage of that in the way you perceive the world around you. That's never been demonstrated this clearly with people."
To avoid having to carefully take in and remember every last bit of visual or audible stimulus it encounters, the mind quickly acquaints itself with the world's predictability and redundancy.
"That's part of why people can understand speech even in really terrible conditions," Kluender says. "You can press your ear to the wall in a cheap apartment and make out a conversation going on next door even though the wall removes two-thirds of the acoustic information. From just small pieces of sounds, your brain can predict the rest."
###
Παρασκευή 12 Νοεμβρίου 2010
U of M researchers find learning in the visual brain
A team of researchers from the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts and College of Science and Engineering have found that an early part of the brain's visual system rewires itself when people are trained to perceive patterns, and have shown for the first time that this neural learning appears to be independent of higher order conscious visual processing.
The researchers' findings could help shape training programs for people who must learn to detect subtle patterns quickly, such as doctors reading X-rays or air traffic controllers monitoring radars. In addition, they appear to offer a resolution to a long-standing controversy surrounding the learning capabilities of the brain's early (or low-level) visual processing system.
The study by lead author Stephen Engel, a psychology professor in the College of Liberal Arts, is published in the Nov. 10 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
"We've basically shown that learning can happen in the earliest stages of visual processing in the brain," Engel said.
The researchers looked at how well subjects could identify a faint pattern of bars on a computer screen that continuously decreased in faintness. They found that over a period of 30 days, subjects were able to recognize fainter and fainter patterns. Before and after this training, they measured brain responses using EEG, which records electrical activity along the scalp produced by the firing of neurons within the brain.
"We discovered that learning actually increased the strength of the EEG signal," Engel said. "Critically, the learning was visible in the initial EEG response that arose after a subject saw one of these patterns. Even a tiny fraction of a second after a pattern was flashed, subjects showed bigger responses in their brain."
In other words, this part of the brain shows local "plasticity," or flexibility, that seems independent of higher order processing, such as conscious visual processing or changes in visual attention. Such higher order processing would take time to occur and so its effects would not be seen in the earliest part of the EEG response.
Engel says these finding may also help adults with visual deficits such as lazy eye by accelerating the development of training procedures to improve the eye's capabilities.
###
The paper, "Perceptual Learning Increases the Strength of the Earliest Signals in Visual Cortex," was co-authored by Min Bao, Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts, and Bin He, Lin Yang and Christina Rios, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Science and Engineering.
The researchers' findings could help shape training programs for people who must learn to detect subtle patterns quickly, such as doctors reading X-rays or air traffic controllers monitoring radars. In addition, they appear to offer a resolution to a long-standing controversy surrounding the learning capabilities of the brain's early (or low-level) visual processing system.
The study by lead author Stephen Engel, a psychology professor in the College of Liberal Arts, is published in the Nov. 10 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
"We've basically shown that learning can happen in the earliest stages of visual processing in the brain," Engel said.
The researchers looked at how well subjects could identify a faint pattern of bars on a computer screen that continuously decreased in faintness. They found that over a period of 30 days, subjects were able to recognize fainter and fainter patterns. Before and after this training, they measured brain responses using EEG, which records electrical activity along the scalp produced by the firing of neurons within the brain.
"We discovered that learning actually increased the strength of the EEG signal," Engel said. "Critically, the learning was visible in the initial EEG response that arose after a subject saw one of these patterns. Even a tiny fraction of a second after a pattern was flashed, subjects showed bigger responses in their brain."
In other words, this part of the brain shows local "plasticity," or flexibility, that seems independent of higher order processing, such as conscious visual processing or changes in visual attention. Such higher order processing would take time to occur and so its effects would not be seen in the earliest part of the EEG response.
Engel says these finding may also help adults with visual deficits such as lazy eye by accelerating the development of training procedures to improve the eye's capabilities.
###
The paper, "Perceptual Learning Increases the Strength of the Earliest Signals in Visual Cortex," was co-authored by Min Bao, Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts, and Bin He, Lin Yang and Christina Rios, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Science and Engineering.
Study finds the mind is a frequent, but not happy, wanderer
People spend nearly half their waking hours thinking about what isn’t going on around them
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they're doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. So says a study that used an iPhone web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects' thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.
The research, by psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University, is described this week in the journal Science.
"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind," Killingsworth and Gilbert write. "The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost."
Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn't going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain's default mode of operation.
To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone web app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.
"Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities," says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. "This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present."
Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.
"Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people's happiness," Killingsworth says. "In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged."
The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person's happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person's mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.
Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects' mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.
"Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to 'be here now,'" Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science. "These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."
This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.
Killingsworth and Gilbert's 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.
More than 5,000 people are now using the iPhone web app the researchers have developed to study happiness, which can be found at www.trackyourhappiness.org.
###
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- People spend 46.9 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they're doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy. So says a study that used an iPhone web app to gather 250,000 data points on subjects' thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their lives.
The research, by psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University, is described this week in the journal Science.
"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind," Killingsworth and Gilbert write. "The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost."
Unlike other animals, humans spend a lot of time thinking about what isn't going on around them: contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or may never happen at all. Indeed, mind-wandering appears to be the human brain's default mode of operation.
To track this behavior, Killingsworth developed an iPhone web app that contacted 2,250 volunteers at random intervals to ask how happy they were, what they were currently doing, and whether they were thinking about their current activity or about something else that was pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
Subjects could choose from 22 general activities, such as walking, eating, shopping, and watching television. On average, respondents reported that their minds were wandering 46.9 percent of time, and no less than 30 percent of the time during every activity except making love.
"Mind-wandering appears ubiquitous across all activities," says Killingsworth, a doctoral student in psychology at Harvard. "This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present."
Killingsworth and Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, found that people were happiest when making love, exercising, or engaging in conversation. They were least happy when resting, working, or using a home computer.
"Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people's happiness," Killingsworth says. "In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged."
The researchers estimated that only 4.6 percent of a person's happiness in a given moment was attributable to the specific activity he or she was doing, whereas a person's mind-wandering status accounted for about 10.8 percent of his or her happiness.
Time-lag analyses conducted by the researchers suggested that their subjects' mind-wandering was generally the cause, not the consequence, of their unhappiness.
"Many philosophical and religious traditions teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and practitioners are trained to resist mind wandering and to 'be here now,'" Killingsworth and Gilbert note in Science. "These traditions suggest that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."
This new research, the authors say, suggests that these traditions are right.
Killingsworth and Gilbert's 2,250 subjects in this study ranged in age from 18 to 88, representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and occupations. Seventy-four percent of study participants were American.
More than 5,000 people are now using the iPhone web app the researchers have developed to study happiness, which can be found at www.trackyourhappiness.org.
###
Πέμπτη 4 Νοεμβρίου 2010
Instant Karma - John lennon
Instant Karma's gonna get you,
Gonna knock you right on the head,
You better get yourself together,
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead,
What in the world you thinking of,
Laughing in the face of love,
What on earth you tryin' to do,
It's up to you, yeah you.
Instant Karma's gonna get you,
Gonna look you right in the face,
Better get yourself together darlin',
Join the human race,
How in the world you gonna see,
Laughin' at fools like me,
Who on earth d'you think you are,
A super star,
Well, right you are.
Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun,
Well we all shine on,
Ev'ryone come on.
Instant Karma's gonna get you,
Gonna knock you off your feet,
Better recognize your brothers,
Ev'ryone you meet,
Why in the world are we here,
Surely not to live in pain and fear,
Why on earth are you there,
When you're ev'rywhere,
Come and get your share.
Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun,
Yeah we all shine on,
Come on and on and on on on,
Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah-.
Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun,
Yeah we all shine on,
On and on and on on and on.
Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.
Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.
Well we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.
Yeah we all shine on,
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.
Positive psychological changes from meditation training linked to cellular health
Public Release: 3-Nov-2010
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Positive psychological changes that occur during meditation training are associated with greater telomerase activity, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Francisco. The study is the first to link positive well-being to higher telomerase, an enzyme important for the long-term health of cells in the body.
The effect appears to be attributable to psychological changes that increase a person’s ability to cope with stress and maintain feelings of well-being.
"We have found that meditation promotes positive psychological changes, and that meditators showing the greatest improvement on various psychological measures had the highest levels of telomerase," said Clifford Saron, associate research scientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain.
"The take-home message from this work is not that meditation directly increases telomerase activity and therefore a person’s health and longevity," Saron said. "Rather, meditation may improve a person’s psychological well-being and in turn these changes are related to telomerase activity in immune cells, which has the potential to promote longevity in those cells. Activities that increase a person’s sense of well-being may have a profound effect on the most fundamental aspects of their physiology."
The study, with UC Davis postdoctoral scholar Tonya Jacobs as lead author, was published online Oct. 29 in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology and will soon appear in print. It is a product of the UC Davis-based Shamatha Project, led by Saron, one of the first long-term, detailed, matched control-group studies of the effects of intensive meditation training on mind and body.
“This work is among the first to show a relation between positive psychological change and telomerase activity. Because the finding is new, it should serve to inspire future studies to replicate and extend what we found,” Jacobs said.
Elizabeth Blackburn, professor of biology and physiology at UCSF, is a co-author of the paper. Blackburn shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for discovering telomeres and telomerase. Other co-authors include UCSF colleagues Elissa Epel, associate professor of psychiatry; assistant research biochemist Jue Lin; and Owen Wolkowitz, professor of psychiatry.
Telomeres are sequences of DNA at the end of chromosomes that tend to get shorter every time a cell divides. When telomeres drop below a critical length, the cell can no longer divide properly and eventually dies.
Telomerase is an enzyme that can rebuild and lengthen telomeres. Other studies suggest that telomerase activity may be a link between psychological stress and physical health.
The research team measured telomerase activity in participants in the Shamatha Project at the end of a three-month intensive meditation retreat.
Telomerase activity was about one-third higher in the white blood cells of participants who had completed the retreat than in a matched group of controls.
The retreat participants also showed increases in such beneficial psychological qualities as perceived control (over one's life and surroundings), mindfulness (being able to observe one's experience in a nonreactive manner) and purpose in life (viewing one's life as meaningful, worthwhile and aligned with long-term goals and values). In addition, they experienced decreased neuroticism, or negative emotionality.
Using statistical modeling techniques, the researchers concluded that high telomerase activity was due to the beneficial effects of meditation on perceived control and neuroticism, which in turn were due to changes in mindfulness and sense of purpose.
The Shamatha Project is the most comprehensive longitudinal study of intensive meditation yet undertaken.
The intensive meditation retreat took place at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colo. The study included 30 participants each in the retreat and control groups. Participants received ongoing instruction in meditation techniques from Buddhist scholar, author and teacher B. Alan Wallace of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. They attended group meditation sessions twice a day and engaged in individual practice for about six hours a day.
A control group of 30 people matched for age, sex, education, ethnicity and meditation experience was assessed at the same time and in the same place, but did not otherwise attend meditation training at that time.
The Shamatha Project has drawn the attention of scientists and Buddhist scholars alike, including the Dalai Lama, who has endorsed the project.
Saron and his colleagues are now analyzing and publishing other findings from the project. In a paper published this summer in Psychological Science, Katherine MacLean, a recent UC Davis Ph.D. graduate now at Johns Hopkins University, reported that meditators were better at making fine visual distinctions and sustaining attention over a long period.
The group’s next research article, currently in press in the journal Emotion, will describe a meditation-related reduction in impulsive reactions, which was linked in turn to enhancement in positive psychological functioning. UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Baljinder Sahdra is the lead author on that paper.
Additional co-authors on the current paper are: UC Davis graduate students Stephen Aichele, Anthony Zanesco and Brandon King; Sahdra, Associate Professor Emilio Ferrer and Distinguished Professor Phillip Shaver from the UC Davis Department of Psychology; consulting scientist Erika Rosenberg from the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain; and from UC Irvine, graduate student David Bridwell of the Department of Cognitive Science.
Major support for the Shamatha Project comes from the Fetzer Institute and the Hershey Family Foundation. Additional support comes from numerous private foundations including the Baumann Foundation; the Tan Teo Charitable Foundation; the Yoga Research and Education Foundation; and individual donors. Individual researchers also received fellowship and other support from the National Science Foundation; the Social Sciences, Humanities Research Council of Canada; and the Barney and Barbro Fund.
About UC Davis
For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has more than 32,000 students, more than 2,500 faculty and more than 21,000 staff, an annual research budget that exceeds $679 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.
Psychoneuroendocrinology
Positive psychological changes that occur during meditation training are associated with greater telomerase activity, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Francisco. The study is the first to link positive well-being to higher telomerase, an enzyme important for the long-term health of cells in the body.
The effect appears to be attributable to psychological changes that increase a person’s ability to cope with stress and maintain feelings of well-being.
"We have found that meditation promotes positive psychological changes, and that meditators showing the greatest improvement on various psychological measures had the highest levels of telomerase," said Clifford Saron, associate research scientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain.
"The take-home message from this work is not that meditation directly increases telomerase activity and therefore a person’s health and longevity," Saron said. "Rather, meditation may improve a person’s psychological well-being and in turn these changes are related to telomerase activity in immune cells, which has the potential to promote longevity in those cells. Activities that increase a person’s sense of well-being may have a profound effect on the most fundamental aspects of their physiology."
The study, with UC Davis postdoctoral scholar Tonya Jacobs as lead author, was published online Oct. 29 in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology and will soon appear in print. It is a product of the UC Davis-based Shamatha Project, led by Saron, one of the first long-term, detailed, matched control-group studies of the effects of intensive meditation training on mind and body.
“This work is among the first to show a relation between positive psychological change and telomerase activity. Because the finding is new, it should serve to inspire future studies to replicate and extend what we found,” Jacobs said.
Elizabeth Blackburn, professor of biology and physiology at UCSF, is a co-author of the paper. Blackburn shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for discovering telomeres and telomerase. Other co-authors include UCSF colleagues Elissa Epel, associate professor of psychiatry; assistant research biochemist Jue Lin; and Owen Wolkowitz, professor of psychiatry.
Telomeres are sequences of DNA at the end of chromosomes that tend to get shorter every time a cell divides. When telomeres drop below a critical length, the cell can no longer divide properly and eventually dies.
Telomerase is an enzyme that can rebuild and lengthen telomeres. Other studies suggest that telomerase activity may be a link between psychological stress and physical health.
The research team measured telomerase activity in participants in the Shamatha Project at the end of a three-month intensive meditation retreat.
Telomerase activity was about one-third higher in the white blood cells of participants who had completed the retreat than in a matched group of controls.
The retreat participants also showed increases in such beneficial psychological qualities as perceived control (over one's life and surroundings), mindfulness (being able to observe one's experience in a nonreactive manner) and purpose in life (viewing one's life as meaningful, worthwhile and aligned with long-term goals and values). In addition, they experienced decreased neuroticism, or negative emotionality.
Using statistical modeling techniques, the researchers concluded that high telomerase activity was due to the beneficial effects of meditation on perceived control and neuroticism, which in turn were due to changes in mindfulness and sense of purpose.
The Shamatha Project is the most comprehensive longitudinal study of intensive meditation yet undertaken.
The intensive meditation retreat took place at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, Colo. The study included 30 participants each in the retreat and control groups. Participants received ongoing instruction in meditation techniques from Buddhist scholar, author and teacher B. Alan Wallace of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. They attended group meditation sessions twice a day and engaged in individual practice for about six hours a day.
A control group of 30 people matched for age, sex, education, ethnicity and meditation experience was assessed at the same time and in the same place, but did not otherwise attend meditation training at that time.
The Shamatha Project has drawn the attention of scientists and Buddhist scholars alike, including the Dalai Lama, who has endorsed the project.
Saron and his colleagues are now analyzing and publishing other findings from the project. In a paper published this summer in Psychological Science, Katherine MacLean, a recent UC Davis Ph.D. graduate now at Johns Hopkins University, reported that meditators were better at making fine visual distinctions and sustaining attention over a long period.
The group’s next research article, currently in press in the journal Emotion, will describe a meditation-related reduction in impulsive reactions, which was linked in turn to enhancement in positive psychological functioning. UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Baljinder Sahdra is the lead author on that paper.
Additional co-authors on the current paper are: UC Davis graduate students Stephen Aichele, Anthony Zanesco and Brandon King; Sahdra, Associate Professor Emilio Ferrer and Distinguished Professor Phillip Shaver from the UC Davis Department of Psychology; consulting scientist Erika Rosenberg from the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain; and from UC Irvine, graduate student David Bridwell of the Department of Cognitive Science.
Major support for the Shamatha Project comes from the Fetzer Institute and the Hershey Family Foundation. Additional support comes from numerous private foundations including the Baumann Foundation; the Tan Teo Charitable Foundation; the Yoga Research and Education Foundation; and individual donors. Individual researchers also received fellowship and other support from the National Science Foundation; the Social Sciences, Humanities Research Council of Canada; and the Barney and Barbro Fund.
About UC Davis
For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has more than 32,000 students, more than 2,500 faculty and more than 21,000 staff, an annual research budget that exceeds $679 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.
Quotes from Albert Einstein
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
"The only real valuable thing is intuition."
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
"The only real valuable thing is intuition."
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
Τετάρτη 3 Νοεμβρίου 2010
BENOIT MANDELBROT
"Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line."
BENOIT MANDELBROT
1924 — 2010
BENOIT MANDELBROT
1924 — 2010
Δευτέρα 1 Νοεμβρίου 2010
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