PhD defence

Metacontrol in the Brain

• W. Zhang

Date

Wednesday 3 July 2024

Time

15:00 - 15:45 hour

Address

Academy Building
Rapenburg 73
2311 GJ Leiden

Supervisor(s)

• Prof.dr. B. Hommel
• dr. Z. Sjoerds

Summary

To cope with environmental changes, humans need to adjust their cognitive control states to meet different challenges. Two important cognitive control states are cognitive persistence and cognitive flexibility. Persistence is a state of maintaining stable attention, while flexibility is a state where attention can switch freely. These two states are antagonistic to each other; one cannot switch attention flexibly while being focused, and one cannot focus on a single stimulus while switching attention flexibly. Our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying these cognitive control states is still limited. Therefore, in this paper, we used two brain science research techniques, EEG and fMRI, to study brain activities associated with these two states. To induce these states, the dissertation employed two creative thinking tasks, namely convergent thinking and divergent thinking, and two meditation techniques, focused attention meditation and open monitoring meditation. The results discuss EEG and fMRI indicators related to these states, providing preliminary evidence for research in this field.

PhD dissertations

Approximately one week after the defence, PhD dissertations by Leiden PhD students are available digitally through the Leiden Repository, that offers free access to these PhD dissertations. Please note that in some cases a dissertation may be under embargo temporarily and access to its full-text version will only be granted later.

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