Mindfulness practice is used to treat mental and physical symptoms. The problem is that research on the long-term effects and the neural changes involved, correlated with well-being, are inconsistent. The purpose of this review is to create a deeper understanding of mindfulness and its neural correlates related to stress. In mindfulness, one can use focused attention meditation (FA), involving anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), prefrontal cortex (PFC), parietal areas, thalamus, visual cortex, intraparietal sulcus, and amygdala. In open monitoring meditation (OM), ACC, PFC, insula, somatosensory cortex, limbic areas and amygdala are involved. In exposure to a high amount of stress, the grey matter volume decreases in the hippocampus, PFC, and amygdala. Research has also shown that 19 000 hours of mindfulness practice increases activation in areas involved in FA and OM. This increased activation might also enhance the subject’s ability to control emotions. After 44 000 hours of meditation, areas involved in FA showed less activation which might imply that more hours of mindfulness practice involve less cognitive activity and a calmer state of mind. Regardless of hours spent on meditating, a decreased activation in the amygdala and ACC occurs, which correlates with less response towards negative stimuli. The neural changes involved in mindfulness practice was related to less experienced stress and enhanced psychological well-being. For future research, an investigation of the interaction between attentional networks and stress would be of relevance.

No description available.

Syftet med denna avhandling var att undersöka på vilket sätt och i vilken utsträckning blyga personer skiljer sig från icke-blyga personer med avseende på deras attributionsmönster. Resultaten från 3 kvantitativa och 1 kvalitativ studie visar en något annorlunda bild av hur blyghet relaterar till social kognition jämfört med tidigare forskning i området. Följande 4 huvudsakliga slutsatser drogs. (1) Blyga personer har inte nödvändigtvis en snedvriden social kognition eftersom de uppvisade en mindre aktörs–observatörsskillnad jämfört med icke-blyga personer. (2) Det är sannolikt att blyga och självfokuserade personer bedömer sina emotionella reaktioner som orsakade av stabila interna orsaker snarare än mindre stabila interna och externa orsaker. Om blyga personer är mindre självfokuserade så tenderar dessa personer ändå att uppvisa detta attributionsmönster. (3) Blyghet snarare än beteendemässig inhibition har betydelse för vilka orsaker som tillskrivs emotionella reaktioner medan blyghet och beteendemässig inhibition interagerar när det gäller i vilken grad fritt valda orsaker upplevs vara orsakade av interna respektive externa faktorer. En slutsats av dessa resultat är att fortsatt forskning bör fokusera hur människor i sin vardag förklarar sina egna och andra människors beteenden och reaktioner. (4) Mycket blyga personer kan uppleva identitetsförvirring samt kan ha en ambivalent önskan om att vara blyg samtidigt som blygheten försvinner. Trots att dessa resultat pekar på ganska allvarliga konsekvenser av att vara blyg så verkar blyghet generellt betraktas i ett ganska positivt ljus. / The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how and to what degree shy individuals differ from non-shy individuals regarding their attributional patterns. The results from 3 quantitative and 1 qualitative study paint a somewhat different picture of how shyness is associated with social cognition compared to previous research in the field. The following 4 main conclusions were drawn. (1) Being shy does not necessarily imply distorted social cognitions since shy people exhibited less of a self–other difference compared to non-shy people. (2) Being self-focused and shy means that emotional reactions are likely to be perceived as caused by stable internal causes rather than less stable internal and external causes. If shy people are self-focused to a lesser extent there is still a tendency for these individuals to exhibit this attributional pattern. (3) Shyness is more important than behavioral inhibition in determining ascriptions of causes to emotional reactions, whereas shyness and behavioral inhibition interact in determining people’s perceptions of the degree to which freely chosen causes are caused by internal and external factors, respectively. One conclusion of these findings is that future research needs to focus on how people in everyday life really explain their own and other people’s behaviors and reactions. (4) Very shy people can experience identity confusion as well as a conflicting wish to stay shy and to overcome shyness at the same time. Even though these results imply quite severe consequences of being shy, in general shyness seems to be viewed in quite a positive light.

Ungdomar tillhör idag det som kallas den digitala generationen och äruppvuxna i en verklighet där tekniska redskap är en självklarhet.Mobiltelefonanvändning under lektionstid innebär deladuppmärksamhet. Tidigare forskning visar att användning av tekniskaredskap vid inlärning påverkar studenters akademiska prestationnegativt. Gymnasieelever är en sällan undersökt målpopulation isamband med uppmärksamhet och inlärning. Syftet med denna studievar att undersöka om mobiltelefonanvändning vid inlärning påverkargymnasieelevers minnesprestation. Ett experiment bestående av ettfriåtergivningstest och ett läsförståelsetest genomfördes med 49deltagare. Deltagarna som använde delad uppmärksamhet mottog ochsvarade på ett meddelande i sin mobiltelefon under inkodning.Resultatet visade att mobiltelefonanvändning vid inlärning påverkargymnasieelevers minnesprestation negativt vid läsförståelse. Merspecifikt påverkades manliga gymnasieelever mer av deladuppmärksamhet vid läsförståelse. / Adolescents today are part of what is called the digital generation andare raised in a reality where technical instruments are part of everydaylife. Cell phone use in class results in divided attention. Previousresearch has shown that usage of technical instruments during learninghas a negative impact on students’ academic performance. Highschool students are seldom the target population in studies concerningattention and learning. The purpose of this study was to investigatewhether cell phone use during learning affects high school students’memory performance. An experiment including a test of free recalland a test of reading comprehension was conducted with 49participants. The participants in the divided attention conditionreceived and responded to a message in their cell phones at encoding.The results showed that cell phone use during learning had a negativeimpact on high school students’ reading comprehension. Specifically,male high school students’ reading comprehension was more affectedby divided attention.

Background: Based on the assumptions that depersonalization symptoms are relevant for test anxiety maintenance, we examined their frequency, psychological predictors, association with anxiety symptoms, and association with test performance. Sampling and Methods: In Study 1, 203 students rated their test anxiety severity and depersonalization in their last oral examination. In Study 2, we assessed test anxiety 1 week before an oral examination, depersonalization, safety behaviors, self-focused attention, and negative appraisals of depersonalization directly after the examination, and post-event processing 1 week later among 67 students. Results: In Study 1, 47.3% reported at least one moderate depersonalization symptom. In Study 2, test anxiety and negative appraisals of depersonalization significantly predicted depersonalization. Depersonalization was linked to a higher intensity of safety behaviors and post-event processing but not to self-focused attention. It was not related to performance. Conclusion: Results are limited by the non-random sampling and the small sample size of Study 2. However, by showing that depersonalization contributes to the processes the maintenance of test anxiety, the findings confirm that depersonalization – normally understood as an adaptive mechanism to cope with stressful events – can become maladaptive.

No description available.

Meditation has been practiced around the world for thousands of years and has during the past decade become increasingly popular in the Western world. Meditation can be seen as a form of mental exercise and refers to a family of complex emotional and attentional regulatory practices that involves different attentional, cognitive monitoring and awareness processes. Clinical research on meditation has demonstrated that meditation seem to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Recent interest in how meditation affect the human brain and body have lead to an increase in research regarding the neural correlates of meditation, structural changes induced by meditation, and the potential attentional and emotional benefits mediated by meditation. This thesis investigates expert related changes in neural activity, brain structure, and attentional performance induced by focused attention meditation (FAM) and open monitoring meditation (OMM). The research on meditation and the brain is still in its infancy but despite this, there seem to be some converging evidence of meditation’s impact on the human brain and mind. The results from the included studies in this thesis indicates that expert meditators show greater activation in some meditation related brain areas, as well as less activation in other areas when compared to novice meditators. The results also suggest that long-term meditation practice induce some structural changes in the brain and that meditation seem to enhance the practitioners’ attentional control.

臨床研究發現，提高自我注意容易提高個體的負向情緒，反之，提高負向情緒容易觸發個體的自我注意程度，而高自我注意、負向情緒又正是憂鬱者的主要特徵。由於高自我注意跟負向情緒具有負相關，再根據過去文獻分析，推論高自我注意跟負向情緒之間可能具有共變關係。 循著Carver & Scheier的自我調適理論、Pyszczynski & Greenberg的憂鬱者的自我調適維持理論、Higgins的自我落差理論等脈絡前行，並分析有關目標設定、自我效能、憂鬱者對自我表現之主觀感受、自我滿意度等研究後，發現憂鬱者內在傾向於設定自己無法達成的目標，因此容易產生「目標--現況之間具有落差」的現象。本研究主張，差距現象乃是憂鬱者之高自我注意、負向情緒關係的中介因素，並將差距現象區分為客觀差距（事前自我效能評估--目標設定）、主觀差距（事後自我效能評估--主觀感受）。這兩者可能影響自我注意、負向情緒之關係。基於研究興趣，再探討「事前自我效能評估--實際自我效能」差距與「事後自我效能評估--實際自我效能」差距，這兩者並不會影響自我注意、負向情緒之關係。 本研究為了解自我注意、負向情緒、差距現象三者之關係，針對輕度憂鬱、一般大學生，以社交表現（與陌生人初次之談話）為主題，設計兩個實驗，探討（一）自我注意、負向情緒是否具有共變關係。（二）輕度憂鬱大學生在社交方面是否具有差距現象。（三）輕度憂鬱大學生的差距現象，是否為自我注意、負向情緒之共變關係之中介因素。（四）輕度憂鬱大學生的實際社交表現是否受到差距現象的影響。 根據本研究的實驗結果發現： （一）輕度憂鬱大學生之自我注意與負向情緒之間具有負相關，但在實驗操弄的情況下，兩者並沒有明顯共變關係。 （二）輕度憂鬱大學生在社交表現方面，和一般大學生大致相同，沒有顯著的客觀、主觀差距現象。而造成差距現象不明顯的原因，在於憂鬱大學生的社交表現一樣好、一樣受歡迎。然而憂鬱大學生對自己表現之評分較一般大學生為差，顯示憂鬱大學生的社交自信不足。 （三）輕度憂鬱大學生之客觀、主觀差距現象不構成高自我注意與負向情緒之中介因素。然而，憂鬱大學生對自我表現的主觀評價與滿意度確實顯著低於一般大學生，顯出憂鬱者習慣自我貶低的特質。 （四）輕度憂鬱大學生之社交表現並不受客觀、主觀差距現象之影響。 （五）在「事前自我效能評估--實際自我效能」差距與「事後自我效能評估--實際自我效能」差距方面，憂鬱大學生之差距量皆顯著小於非憂鬱大學生，顯示自評的社交實力與實際社交實力仍稍有不同，且一般大學生對自評社交能力的高估情況較顯著，反映出社交自信較憂鬱大學生高。 由於實驗結果並不支持本研究之假設，探討其可能原因為： （一）受試者特性：本研究所抽樣之政大學生之憂鬱程度相當輕微，而且在社交表現上並不比同輩差，因此在社交上之差距現象不明顯，無法看出差距現象是否足以構成自我注意、負向情緒之中介因素。另外，不同受試者具有不同的先天自我注意傾向，可能影響實驗結果。 （二）自我注意的內涵：本實驗操弄之自我注意採用「編故事」方式進行，並不會引發個體的挫折，因此無法引起強烈情緒變動。 （三）實驗測量的問題：以實驗操弄雖能暫時改變個體之情緒與注意力，然而操弄所得的情緒與注意力很容易受到外在干擾而改變、或隨著時間變化而消退。 綜合以上結果與探討，對未來研究之建議如下： 建議未來針對憂鬱症狀較高之憂鬱者，選定不同的實驗作業，在受試者不知情的情況下，利用非紙筆類的測量工具，在數個時間點重覆測量情緒與注意力的變化，再度檢驗差距現象對憂鬱者「自我注意--負向情緒」之共變關係。