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 …
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neuroscience
Helen Weng
Helen Y. Weng, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist, and her research focuses on the neural mechanisms of how meditation practices may improve social behavior and mental health. Her current work involves adapting research methodology to increase diverse representation in the neuroscience of meditation from a social justice perspective. This includes using community engagement …
Neurological Identities: Challenging the Brain as the Locus of Difference
As cognitive neuroscience steps up its focus on neurological distinctions between different ‘kinds of people,’ patient populations, cultural groups and social categories have begun to be understood in terms of brain-based differences. These differences are often articulated in terms of structural or functional differences, as visualized through neuroimaging techniques. In this talk, Suparna Choudhury will …
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Suparna Choudhury
Suparna Choudhury is Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Culture, Mind & Brain Program at the Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University, where she works on the adolescent brain at the intersection of anthropology and cognitive neuroscience. Trained originally as a neuroscientist, Suparna has worked as a researcher in London, Paris, Berlin, and …
2018 Summer Research Institute
The 2018 Mind & Life Summer Research Institute extends the arc from the 2016 and 2017 programs that addressed themes of context, social connectivity, and intersubjectivity by engaging critical topics relevant to cultural difference and human diversity. The weeklong immersive program will examine social and psychological patterns, both implicit and explicit, to discuss how difference is constructed at personal, interpersonal, and socio-structural levels. Scientific, humanistic, and first-person contemplative perspectives will give attention to processes of othering and how we can overcome conflict by embracing difference.
Helen Weng: Using Science to Spread a Message of Compassion, Equity, and Inclusion
In late 2019, Helen Weng, PhD was honored with the Mind & Life Institute Annual Service Award. The award is given to individuals who are distinguished by the breadth and depth of their involvement with Mind & Life, and who embody its core values of compassion, integrity, curiosity, inclusion, and excellence. Below is a tribute …
Breaking Habits: Self-Transcendence and Health Behavior Change
What promotes adaptive attitude and behavior change? In this talk, it will be proposed that self-transcendence, or the drive to care for the well-being of others beyond self-interests, is key to increasing receptivity to change. Psychological and neurocognitive mechanisms of self-transcendence that help make people more open to change in the domains of social attitudes …
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Mental Habits, Prediction Machines, and Controlled Hallucinations
Just as behavioral habits define our behavioral lives, mental habits define our psychological lives. Mental habits can be thought of as the perceptual, emotional, and cognitive processes that shape and bias how we perceive self, others, and the world. This talk will describe a view of mental habits from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience, focusing …
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Measuring, Understanding, and Changing Mental Habits
This presentation will first explore possible domains of mental habits, including personality, social interaction, identity, emotion, mind wandering, and contemplative practice. From the perspective of grounded cognition, the question will be raised as to how “mental” are mental habits, given that they appear to be strongly grounded in external situations (and conversely that physical habits …
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Clifford Saron
Clifford Saron is a research scientist at the Center for Mind and Brain and MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis. He received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1999. In the early 1990s, he coordinated field research investigating Tibetan Buddhist mind training under the auspices of the …
