Laurence J. Kirmayer, MD, FRCPC, FCAHS, FRSC is James McGill Professor and Director, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University. He is Editor-in-Chief of Transcultural Psychiatry, and Director of the Culture & Mental Health Research Unit at the Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry, Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, where he …
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Catherine Kerr
Catherine Kerr, PhD was director of translational neuroscience at the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown University. Her neuroscience research focused on neural dynamics underlying embodied attention and the sense of touch. Her team was the first to publish results showing how embodied attention changes cortical rhythms in the “touch cortex” (primary somatosensory cortex) and how …
Cognitive Ecology: Implications for Contemplative Science
In this lecture, I argue that the embodied sociocultural setting of contemplative practices should not be thought of as the outer context for contemplative mental processes conceived of as being in the head. Rather, context is constitutive: the embodied sociocultural setting isn’t outside of the primary cognitive phenomena; it’s part of them. Contemplative neuroscience is …
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2016 Summer Research Institute
The 2016 Mind and Life Summer Research Institute (MLSRI) will be devoted to the theme of context, and its relevance for basic mental processes as well as effects of contemplative practices. Findings from the cognitive and social sciences, humanities, and philosophy increasingly suggest that context shapes mind in fundamental ways. With regard to contemplative studies, practices that were once embedded within traditional religious cultures are now being widely disseminated across a variety of globalized, largely secular settings. Contextual factors impact the very course and outcome of these practices, and if not carefully considered, even well-intended efforts can lead to unsatisfactory or incomplete results.
Carol Worthman
Carol Worthman is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology at Emory University (Atlanta), where she also directs the Laboratory for Comparative Human Biology. After taking a dual undergraduate degree in biology and botany at Pomona College, Dr. Worthman took her PhD in biological anthropology at Harvard University, having also studied endocrinology at UCSD and …
2017 Summer Research Institute
The 2017 Mind & Life Summer Research Institute gives attention to scientific, humanistic and first-person contemplative perspectives on intersubjectivity and social connectivity. Plenary presentations, workshops and small group discussions explore interrelational human dynamics, including how we relate to ourselves and others, and to community and strangers. Faculty from across a multitude of disciplines present research findings on the meditative cultivation of pro-social emotions, intergroup dynamics, social and embodied cognition, cognitive ecology, implicit bias and social justice.
Michael Lifshitz
I am interested in the plasticity of human consciousness. My research investigates practices that aim to transform subjective experience—from meditation and hypnosis to placebos, prayer, and contemplative therapies. I work from an interdisciplinary perspective, combining cognitive, neurobiological, and phenomenological approaches to shed light on mechanisms of self-regulation in both health and pathology. I completed my …
Plasticity of the Social Brain: Effects of a One-year Mental Training Study on Social Connectedness, Compassion, Theory of Mind, Social Stress, and the Body
In the last decades, plasticity research has suggested that training of mental capacities such as attention, mindfulness and compassion is effective and leads to positive changes in socio-affective and cognitive functions. Tania Singer will show first results of the ReSource Project, a large-scale multi-methodological one-year secular mental training program in which participants were trained in …
Tania Singer
Tania Singer is a professor of social neuroscience and psychology and heads the Max Planck Society’s Social Neuroscience Lab in Berlin, Germany. After her PhD in psychology at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development in 2000, she worked at the Wellcome Centre for Imaging Neuroscience, at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London, and held the …
Evan Thompson
Evan Thompson is a writer and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he is also an Associate Member of the Department of Asian Studies and the Department of Psychology (Cognitive Science). He works on the nature of the mind, the self, and human experience. His work combines cognitive science, philosophy of …
