Although meditation and mindfulness practices are widely discussed in the scientific literature, there is little formal theory about the cognitive mechanisms that comprise it. Here we begin to develop such a theory by creating a computational cognitive model of a particular type of meditation: focused attention meditation. This model was created within Prims, a cognitive architecture similar to...

Forty-nine mother–infant dyads participated in the study. Mothers were observed during free play with their infants to assess their attention-directing strategies. Infants were observed during the Bayley to assess their focused attention abilities. Assessments were made when infants were 10 and 18 months. Whereas consistently high levels of maintaining over time were modestly associated with be...

We have shown before that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children suffer from deficits of sustained attention, while divided, selective and distributed attention is largely spared. The present study explores whether these deficits can be ameliorated by unconscious priming of attention. Sixty children diagnosed with ADHD participated, their age ranged between eight and twelve ye...

Brain imaging research has begun to characterize the neurocognitive processes that cigarette smokers utilize to cope with cue-elicited craving. Presently, however, it remains unclear whether distinct neural substrates support different types of coping. We sought to address this knowledge gap by examining neural responses associated with self-focused and other-focused coping techniques. Fifty-se...