See this latest Psyche article written by our project scientist, Dr. Madeleine Gross, as she describes her atypical salience model of creativity in an engaging piece targeted for all audiences to enjoy!

See the latest Time Health Psychology article featuring Professor Schooler on the topic of creative idea generation during seemingly mindless activities, and the potential role of the hypnagogic state!

META Lab researchers and Dr. Schooler present newest findings and ongoing projects on creativity (pictured), mindfulness, and mind-wandering at the annual SPSP conference:

Ortega, J.R., Gross, M.E., Schooler, J.W. (2024) The Virtuous Cycle of Creativity: Exploring the impact of art on cognitive judgments and divergent thinking [Poster]. Society for Personality and Social Psychology Conference, San Diego, CA.

“It’s an existence proof that we can set out to discover new findings and replicate them at a very high level,”--read more on META Lab's work on the decline effect and other topics of science reproducability! 

See this news blitz from Nature on META Lab's newest paper and learn how we're working to improve how different fields in experimental psychology can successfully replicate each other’s work by following best practices.

META Lab researcher Tam Hunt's May 2023 Taormina Science of Consciousness (TSC) conference presentation.

In this ConnectIONS Live member video, IONS Scientist Arnaud Delorme, PhD, interviewed Dr. Schooler, check out his view on how to bridge the objective/subjective divide and how consciousness might relate to the physical universe. (Original interview held Nov 2022)

How does curiosity play out in the mind and our lives? Read Dr. Schooler's take and see how META Lab's ongoing research is unfolding.

See META Lab's work in this idea piece on what psychological and brain sciences tell us about breakthroughs!

Check out Technology, Mind, and Behavior's special video feature recapping META Lab's 2022 publication examining the effects of the Finding Focus app on adolescents' self-reported focus and emotional regulation!

Are there different kinds of mind-wandering?  What is the difference between mind-wandering and mindfulness?  What is the link between creativity and curiosity? In this episode, Dr. Schooler bridges research and everyday life to navigate the world of creative neuroscience.

The Daily Beast features META Lab's work on "[how our] mind’s regular resting state can be the source of creativity and inspiration—and also a ton of stress and anxiety too." Check out Dr. Schooler's thoughts in the article!

Feeling creative and clever in the shower? Check out this article featuring Dr. Schooler's thoughts, and META Lab's 2019 study on creativity in physicists and writers during active mind-wandering. 

In this interview, Luis Cásedas talks with Dr. Schooler about some currently highly active research areas that he and his team are contributing to move forward, from mindfulness and how to apply it in the classroom, to mind-wandering and its multiple facets, to consciousness and the development of an emergent theory to explain it. The interview closes with Dr. Schooler offering advice to starting researchers aiming to launch their scientific career.

Dr. Joe Dispenza interviews Professor Jonathan Schooler, discussing mindfulness, resonance, coherence, biological upgrades, fractals, and more.

Dr. Schooler and Jonathan Smallwood insights on the levels of mind-wandering, and why it may occur.

The field of metascience has gained increasing momentum in recent years as concerns about research reproducibility have fueled a larger vision of how the lens of science can be directed toward the scientific process itself. Metascience, also known as metaresearch or the science of science, attempts to use quantifiable scientific methods to elucidate how science works and why it sometimes fails.

Article Link

Take a moment to be present in the moment.

Daydreaming about an interesting idea can yield creative insights, a process Jonathan Schooler calls mind-wondering, rather than mind-wandering.

Link to Podcast

A powerful determinant of self-regulation—our ability to do the things we know we should do—is how we interpret effort.

A new theory of consciousness

Dr. Michael Mrazek and the CMHP Mindful Education Initiative were featured in the latest Time Magazine special edition: The New Mindfulness

An excerpt from the article:

"Mrazek and his team are developing an online program using mindfulness practices to increase academic achievement in high schoolers. 

Aha! moments of inspiration seem to come from nowhere – but the counterintuitive key to a creative brain is to defocus your thoughts

Keep your mind from 'zoning out' on the road

At first glance, you might think happiness and a sense of meaningfulness in life go hand in hand. However, numerous studies challenge this assumption – and some even suggest it’s rare for the two to co-exist.

Article Link

From Vincent Van Gogh on through Kanye West, the figure of the broody, tortured artist looms large in the popular imagination. But research suggests that the key to creativity has little to do with angst. In researching my book The Happiness Track, I found that the biggest breakthrough ideas often come from relaxation.

It’s not that stressful to hide something from people, but it is stressful to think about it all the time.

No smartphone, no Netflix, no laptop—and we mean it

Wired

There’s a reason some people say they get their best ideas when they’re running. A new study from researchers at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and published in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that a clear mind—free of too much chatter—is a more creative one.

But we’re better off believing in it anyway.

The Wall Street Journal

"The Infancy Of Meta-Science"

UC Santa Barbara Annual Reports

Drexel professor’s new book reveals the science behind those “eureka” moments

CNN

The advice is as maddening as it is inescapable. It’s the default prescription for any tense situation: a blind date, a speech, a job interview, the first dinner with the potential in-laws. Relax. Act natural. Just be yourself.

Bridging the Gaps

Huffington Post

 Exposure to information that diminishes free will, including brain-based accounts of behavior, seems to decrease people's support for retributive punishment

How is it that an activity considered a lapse in attention can bring about benefits believed to result only from the strict exercise of cognitive control? Let's hear it for daydreaming!

Prevention

New York Times

Science Channel

APS: Association for Psychological Science

Huffington Post

Women's Health Magazine

The New Yorker

The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times