Premium
Time perception and the experience of agency in meditation and hypnosis
Author(s) -
Lush Peter,
Dienes Zoltan
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
psych journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 2046-0260
pISSN - 2046-0252
DOI - 10.1002/pchj.276
Subject(s) - volition (linguistics) , psychology , meditation , metacognition , hypnosis , mindfulness , perception , agency (philosophy) , sense of agency , action (physics) , cognitive psychology , psychotherapist , social psychology , cognition , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , physics , theology , alternative medicine , epistemology , pathology , quantum mechanics , neuroscience
Abstract Mindfulness meditation and hypnosis are related in opposing ways to awareness of intentions. The cold control theory of hypnosis proposes that hypnotic responding involves the experience of involuntariness while performing an actually intentional action. Hypnosis therefore relies upon inaccurate metacognition about intentional actions and experiences. Mindfulness meditation centrally involves awareness of intentions and is associated with improved metacognitive access to intentions. Therefore, mindfulness meditators and highly hypnotizable people may lie at opposite ends of a spectrum with regard to metacognitive access to intention‐related information. Here we review the theoretical background and evidence for differences in the metacognition of intentions in these groups, as revealed by chronometric measures of the awareness of voluntary action: the timing of an intention to move (Libet's “W” judgments) and the compressed perception of time between an intentional action and its outcome (“intentional binding”). We review these measures and critically evaluate their proposed connection to the experience of volition and sense of agency.