Absorption

Absorption was defined by Tellegen (1987) as a cognitive restructuring of the self and of ego boundaries, involving narrowed or focused attention, and a departure from everyday modes of thought.  An informal content analysis by Tellegen and Atkinson (1974) indicated that absorption has a number of different elements, including:

• responsiveness to engaging stimuli;
• responsiveness to "inductive" stimuli
• imagistic thought;
• vivid, suggestive images;
• cross-modal experiences (e.g., synesthesia);
• absorption in thoughts and imaginings;
• re-experiencing the past;
• expanded awareness; and
• altered consciousness.

• Neuroticism 
• Extraversion 
• Agreeableness 
• Conscientiousness 
• Openness to Experience.

• Richness of fantasy life
  
•  Aesthetic sensitivity 
• Awareness of inner feelings 
• Need for variety in actions
  
• Intellectual curiosity 
• Liberal value systems

• Intellectance means having intellectual as opposed to practical interests -- or, if you will, giving the appearance of being intelligent, which is not necessarily the same thing as actually being intelligent.
• Culturedness includes having a variety of high-culture interests. -- or, at least, presenting oneself that way to others
  

Actually, research from my laboratory indicates that Openness to Experience is actually composed of three dimensions which are conceptually and empirically quite different from each other.

• Absorption proper, consisting of absorption, rich fantasy life, aesthetic sensitivity, and awareness of inner feelings.
• Socio-Political Liberalism, consisting of intellectual curiosity, openness to unusual ideas, variety in thought and action, and liberal value system.
• Intellectance, consisting of an inquiring intellect and culturedness.

Absorption, intellectance, and liberalism are probably not closely tied together -- they appear to fall together in analyses of the "Big Five" personality traits for psychometric reasons that are, frankly, boring. The important point is that people can get absorbed in experiences and activities even if they don't have particular intellectual leanings, and even if they're not particularly liberal in their political and social attitudes! 

• Reading, and, as a child, being read to, becoming intensely involved in the story line, identifying with the characters, feeling the emotions depicted on the page.
• Drama, including acting as well as viewing from the audience.
• Sensory stimulation, including nature, art, music, and direct sensory experience (such as odors or tastes).
• Adventure, including both physical and mental "space travel".

• Character identification, in which the reader sees him- or herself in one of the characters (usually, but not necessarily, the protagonist)
  
• Empathic identification, in which the reader is able to predict what the character will do next.

Hilgard also identified a number of characteristics of involved readers, who are especially susceptible to the book-reading fantasy.

• They are strongly influenced by the power of words.
• They are not passive readers, but actively open to the influence by the text.
• They take pleasure in the experience of book-reading.
• They have vivid mental imagery, especially in the visual domain.
• While they are reading, they are able to suspend critical processes which might interfere with getting involved in the story.
• The book-reading fantasy is time-limited. 
  
• They might read a chapter a day, and then close the book and do something else.
• When they were read to at night as children, the reader would come to the end of a chapter, or maybe the book, and then say "It's time to sleep now" and turn out the light.

• Ludic reading is playful, and stands outside the reader's ordinary life.
• Ludic reading absorbs the reader -- or, in Nell's terms, the "player" completely.
• Ludic reading is unproductive, in the sense that it does not serve the reader's vocational or other extrinsic goals.
• As with Hilgard's time-limitations, ludic reading is circumscribed by space and time -- it is reserved for a particular place, like a favorite chair, and a favored time, such as right before sleep.
  

• Flow is a "focused and ordered state of consciousness" during which the person's "mental energy flows effortlessly".
• In other words, task performance is automatic -- or, at least, is experienced as automatic.
  
• The subject's task must be congruent with her or her personal goals.
• Flow contrasts with what Csikszentmihalyi calls psychic entropy, in which the task conflicts with the subject's existing intentions, and prevents their execution.
  
• It occurs when there is a perfect match between the subject's skills and the demands of the task he is performing.
• If the task demands less, then the subject may get bored.
• If the task demands more, then the subject may get frustrated.

• at the lowest level are physiologic needs, such as hunger and thirst.
• Then safety needs, such as for clothing and shelter.
• Then belongingness and love needs, such as for friends and intimate relationships.
• Then esteem needs, such as for competence, approval, and status.
• Then, after all these other needs have been satisfied, there are self-actualization needs, having to do with achievement of the individual person's unique potential. 
  
• Self actualization is associated with what Maslow called B-values (where the "B" stands for "Being"), such as perfection, justice, beauty, and truth.

Achievement of self-actualization gives rise to the peak experience, which Maslow describes in almost mystical terms: "the experience or the object tends to be seen as a whole, as a complete unit, detached from relations, from possible usefulness, from expedience and from purpose".  In such a state, Maslow thought, the subject experiences a "unity of consciousness" in which "the whole world is seen as... a single rich live entity".

Maslow trained as an experimentalist (at Wisconsin, under Harry Harlow, doing research on rhesus monkeys no less), but when it came to studying the peak experience, all he could do was fall back on subjects' self-reports of "the most wonderful experience" in their lives, which were then coded impressionistically to yield the characteristics of the peak experience described above.

More recently, UCB's Dacher Keltner and his colleagues have developed a method for studying the related experience of awe (Keltner & Haidt, 2004).  In one study, for example, Shiota et al. (2007) exposed subjects to the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton on the UCB campus.  This procedure was successful in eliciting feelings of awe in many subjects. 

Link to Faculty Lecture by Dacher Keltner on "The Evolution of the Sublime: The Science of Awe" (09/05/2014).  Apparently there are different kinds of awe.  Usually, researchers focus on a positive form of awe, but there is also a negative (threat-based) awe.  And while awe is often elicited in natural settings, there is also a non-nature form of awe. 

As Keltner and his colleagues note, nature is particularly likely to inspire awe.  Here are two extracts from the writings of early visitors to the Yosemite Valley, taken from The National Parks: America's Greatest Idea (2009) by David Duncan and Ken Burns, based on Burns's PBS film of the same name.  (Image: "Yosemite Valley", 1868, by Albert Bierstadt, on view at the Oakland Museum of California.)

Early in 1851, during the frenzy of the California Gold Rush... the Mariposa Battalion... came to a narrow valley surrounded by towering granite cliffs, where a series of waterfalls dropped thousands of feet to reach the Merced River on the valleuy's floor.  One of the men, a young doctor named Lafayette Bunnell, found himself transfixed by the vista.  "As I looked, a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being," he wrote, "and I found my eyes in tears with emotion.  I said with some enthusiasm... "I have here seen the power and glory of a Supreme Being: the majesty of His handy-work is in that 'Testimony of the Rocks'".

James Mason Hutchings, leader of a group of tourists(!) in 1855, wrote of their experience of viewing Yosemite Falls:

Descending towards the Yo-Semite Valley, we came upon a high point clear of trees, from whence we had our first view of the singular and romantic valley; and as the scene opened in full view before us, we were almost speechless with wondering admiration at its wild and sublime grandeur....  If man ever feels his utter insignificance at any time, it is when looking upon such a scene of appalling grandeur.

Now, that's awe!

Perhaps even more dramatic, but less accessible to mere mortals, is what is known as the overview effect, an "intense state of self-transcendent awe and wonder" experienced by astronauts when they view the Earth (the "Big, Blue Marble") from space -- an "explosion of awareness", as described by astronaut Edgar Mitchell.  The term was coined by White (1987), who collected anecdotal reports of the effect (the famous image on the left, entitled "Earthrise", was taken by astronaut William Anders in 1968).  See also the article by Yaden et al. (Psychology of Consciousness, 2016)

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Dacher Keltner, Evolution of the Sublime: Toward a Science of Awe - See more at: http://psychology.berkeley.edu/watch-our-videos#sthash.fDO2kFot.dpuf

Dacher Keltner, Evolution of the Sublime: Toward a Science of Awe - See more at: http://psychology.berkeley.edu/watch-our-videos#sthash.fDO2kFot.dpuf

Absent-Mindedness

• Forgetfulness: "a tendency to let go from one's mind something known or planned, for example, names, intentions, appointments, and words".
• Distractibility: "mainly in social situations or interactions with other people such as being absentminded or easily disturbed in one's focused attention".
• False Triggering: "interrupted processing of sequences of cognitive and motor actions".

Mindwandering

In a series of studies that combine daydreaming with absent-mindedness, Jonathan Schooler and his colleagues (2002) have developed a method for studying lapses of attention that occur during reading -- what is commonly called "zoning out".  Much like the Antrobus studies, the subjects are asked tor read an attention-demanding text, and then report instances of mind-wandering -- either self-caught, or in response to a probe from the experimenter.  One of the most interesting findings of these experiments is that subjects are often unaware of their mind-wandering.  Obviously, they're aware of mind-wandering when they catch it and report it themselves.  But apparently, subjects do not always realize that their minds have wandered from the assigned text until the probe draws their attention to it.

Based on findings such as these, Smallwood and Schooler (2006) have pointed to a paradox: mind-wandering is not just a matter of "zoning out.  Rather, attention has become decoupled from the subject's primary task, and shifted to the subject's own personal goals.  As in the Antrobus experiments, mind-wandering decreases during controlled processing, which consumes attentional resources.  But it increases with practice, as the subject becomes skilled at the task -- making more resources available.  This is the paradox: mind-wandering is more likely to occur, the more the subject is skilled at what he is doing.  Still, Smallwood and Schooler argue that mind-wandering occurs unconsciously: subjects have no conscious intention to shift attention away from the task at hand, and they are often not aware that such a shift has occurred.

• Automatic, which hold attention on some content by virtue of its affective or sensory salience.  Weak automatic constraints permit a great deal of spontaneous thought, in the form of dreaming, mind-wandering, or creative thinking.
  
• Controlled, which require deliberate effort on the part of the subject.  Strong automatic constraints are lie at the heart of obsessive and ruminative thought.

The Default-Mode Network in the Brain

Research on daydreaming, mind-wandering, and "zoning out" reminds us that the brain is always active -- even when it's not engaged in a particular mental activity.  This may seem obvious, but it wasn't always so self-evident.  As Raichle (210a, 210b) points out, historically, psychology and neuroscience have entertained two quite different views of brain function.

• One view, associated with C.S. Sherrington (1906), is the brain as reflex.  According to this view, the brain lies dormant until activated by some environmental stimulus.  Although this is a very old view, it is implicit in contemporary functional neuroimaging studies, which identify brain regions activated by various stimuli, or tasks, by "subtracting out" baseline activity.
• The opposing view, associated with Hans Berger (1929), the inventor of the electroencephalogram, is of the brain in constant activity.  Berger discovered that the EEG showed brain activity even when subjects were at rest: what was initially known as the "Berger rhythm", or now as alpha activity. 

Sherrington's view dominated neuroscience for a long time.  You can see the effect pf this assumption in what might be called the standard paradigm for cognitive neuroscience.  Consider, for example, the paradigm employed in countless studies of functional brain-imaging.  Subjects are asked to perform some sort of task (like viewing pictures of familiar faces), and the experimenter records the activity of the brain while the subject is so engaged.  The experimenter also records brain activity during a control condition -- either a baseline in which the subject isn't performing any particular task, or in which the subject is performing some contrasting task (like viewing pictures of unfamiliar faces).  Brain activity in the control condition is subtracted from that in the experimental condition, to yield a pattern of activity that is specific to the task assigned ot the subject.  Especially when the comparison is between the experimental task and the baseline, it seems to me that the underlying (if often tacit) assumption is during the baseline condition the subject isn't thinking about anything at all.  Or, put another way, the brain is only active when subjects are engaged in some task.

More recently, however, neuroscientists have come to appreciate Berger's view, that the brain is intrinsically active.  The assumption of pure insertion -- that brain activity is instigated by external stimuli -- is now understood to be incorrect.  Some regions of the brain are active even during control tasks when subjects are resting with their eyes closed, or simply maintaining fixation on a visual target.  These regions are de-activated when the subject engages in goal-directed activity.  

So, in fact, there are two modes of brain activity:

• task-positive, associated with active task engagement and an undistracted focus of attention.
• task-negative, when the brain is not otherwise engaged, and the subject is engaged in daydreaming or mind-wandering.

In fact, Raichle and his colleagues (2001, 2010) have argued that task-negative activity entails a specific pattern of activation, which he calls the default-mode network (DMN).  Depicted in the slide at the left, the DMN consists of medial portions of the temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the medial, lateral, and inferior portions of the parietal cortex.  The slide at the right compares brain activity in the "default mode" with activity under other conditions.

• The areas comprising the DMN show decreased activity when a subject is performing an attention-demanding task.
• And increased activity when subjects are resting quietly, with eyes closed but awake.

Actually, Christoff et al. have identified two, maybe three, default-mode networks -- or perhaps three somewhat dissociable components of a single big DMN.

• First, there is the Core Default Mode Network (DN_CORE), mediating internally oriented cognition, including areas of the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC), the posterior cingulate cortex ((PCC0, and the posterior inferior parietal lobule (pIPL).
• Then there appears to be a Medial Temporal Lobe DMN (DN_MTL), mediating memory and imagination (mental simulation), conisting of the hippocampal formation (HF), the parahippocampal cortex (PHC), and projections to the cortex from the MTL.
• And then there is yet another DFN, labeled DN_SUB3,whose function is currently unknown, but which includes the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), the lateral temporal cortex (LTC), the temporopolarcortex (TPC), and the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG).  But if we don't know it's function, how, do we know it's part of the DMN?  Because it behaves like the DMN.  That is, these areas show decreased activity when performing a task, and/or increased activity when resting.

Here's the kind of evidence that Christoff et al. obtained in support of these distinctions.  They employed an experience-samlpling technique, asking subjects to report what they were thinking about while brain activity was recorded with fMRI.   Activity in DN_CORE and DN_SUB3 increased increased during periods of task-unrelated thought, and internally-oriented thought, while activity in DN_MTL increased when deliberate constraints on thought were weak.  Interestingly, when activity in DN_MTL increased, subjects were unaware that they were engaged in task-unrelated thought.  This is reminiscent of Schooler's claim that, sometimes, subjects are unaware that they are daydreaming. 

Based on their research, Christoff et al. (2016) mapped out the interactions between various networks involved in attention and mindwandering.  For example, the DN_MTL and the sensorimotor areas serve as sources of variablity in thought content (based on memory or perception, respectively).  At the same time, the salience networks, the dorsal attention network (DAN), and DN_CORE automatically constrain the output of DN_MTL and the sensorimotor areas, increasing the stability of thought.  Similarly, the frontoparietal control network (FPCN) is a source of deliberate constraint on thought.  The interactions among these networks give rise to various kinds of thinking.

• In "spontaneous thought", otherwise known as daydreaming or mindwandering, activity in the DN_MTL increases the variability in  the stream of and encounters few constraints from either the salience network or the FPCN.
• In automatically constrained thought, as in obsessive ruminations, the salience networks and DN_CORE exert relatively strong constraints on the stream of thought, despite the person's attempts to consciously control them
• In deliberately constrained thought, otherwise known as ordinary task-oriented thinking, the influences of DN and the slaience networks are relatively weak, while the constraints imposed by the FPCN are relatively strong.,
  

Be that as it may, Raichle's fundamental point is well taken -- the brain is active all the time, not just when it's been stimulated -- though it's a little sad that we needed brain-imaging to be convinced of that!.  And it's interesting that the "default mode" is not just some level of overall background brain activity, involving the cerebral cortex as a whole, but rather a specific network of brain regions.  However, I think it's a mistake to identify the DMN with daydreaming or mind-wandering -- simply because daydreaming and mind-wandering are mental activities as well.  When you're daydreaming, your thinking about the content of your daydream.  Even when you're engaged in mind-wandering, your mind is wandering from one idea or image to another.  There's always content.  Apparently, the DMN is the neural basis of that spontaneous thinking.

Apparently related to the DMN is an extremely slow, spontaneously occurring brain-wave  -- less than 0.1 Hz, compared to 1-4 H for the low-frequency delta activity discussed in the lectures on Sleep and Dreams, and named, appropriately enough, infra-slow activity (ISA), which is observed when organisms (including humans) are in the resting state.  A study by Raichle and his colleagues (Mitra et al., Neuron, 2018) found that the ISA, like delta activity, was observed when mice were resting (literally in a hammock!), but disappeared when they were anesthetized -- suggesting that ISA has something to do with consciousness.  In an interview ("Thinking Slow" by Tanya Lewis, Scientific American, 07/2018) Raichle offered an oceanographic analogy: ISA is like a groundswell, running underneath visible waves; task-specific activity, reflected in higher-frequency brain waves, then is like whitecaps, which are formed from the groundswell.  Maybe.  Or maybe ISA is just another brain wave.  

Discovery of the DMN signals a victory for Berger over Sherrington, but it also has implications for the identification of functional specializations in the brain.  Consider, again, the standard paradigm for cognitive neuroscience, discussed above.  In such studies, the researcher is interested in identifying the neural module, or system, that performs some function -- such as recognizing a face.  In fMRI, subjects are scanned while they're performing the task in question, and they're also scanned while performing some control task - -such as recognizing a word or describing a face.  The brain activity recorded while performing the control task is subtracted out of the brain activity recorded while performing the target task, leaving only the activity that is specific to performing the target task.  This subtractive method is, essentially, the same one used by Donders in his 19th-century reaction time studies aimed at decomposing mental processes, and by Sternberg for the same purpose at the dawn of the cognitive revolution in the 1960s. 

But it's obvious that the identification of some functional specialization depends entirely on what's been subtracted out.  If you're interested in the neural system that recognizes faces, you'll get different results if your control task involves recognizing words, than you would if your control task involves recognizing faces.  The implication is that, if you want to accurately delineate the DMN, you have to pay just as much attention to the control task as you do in standard functional neuroimaging experiments.

It seems to me that, in order to identify the true default mode network (TDMN), we'd need to find a network which is active when the subject is thinking of nothing at all, and deactivated when the subject is thinking of anything at all.  Ideally, the experiment to identify the TDMN would contrast three different states:

• task-positive (pick a task, any task);
• daydreaming or mind-wandering (which is also a task)
• task-negative, meaning that the subject isn't thinking about anything at all.

Only one minor detail: how to get subjects to think about nothing.  In fact, that's precisely the goal of certain Eastern meditative traditions, to which we now turn.

Link to Lecture Supplement on Meditation