Conversation with Dr. Schooler, essayist Leslie Jamison, and Lily Tyson from the Colin McEnroe show on daydreaming, why we do it, and how you can use it to lead a richer life.
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.
Many artists are haunted by the specter of creative burnout, but research suggests that the best way to overcome barriers to creativity may be to accept them as part of the process. Dr. Schooler weighs in on the role of mind wandering, or mind-wondering in this process.
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!
This NY Times newsletter gives insight on what researchers, including Dr. Schooler, have to say about how letting your mind wander can benefit the brain.
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.
A deep dive into the roots of how evolutionary psychology may explain why magical thinking is so central to love and what META Lab Researchers have to say on the matter.
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.
What is creativity, exactly? This APA Newsletter features the psychologists and neuroscientists who are exploring where creativity comes from and how to increase your own.
The 2021 edition of Clarivate Analytics’ Highly Cited Researchers List includes the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department’s own Jonathan Schooler. The Highly Cited Researchers List is composed of researchers whose publications rank in the top 1% of citations by field and publication year. He also appeared on the list in 2017, 2018, and 2020, making this his fourth appearance. Congratulations, Prof. Schooler!
UCSB News covers the META Lab's found success in a new program to address those four themes, which stand out as struggles for the majority of high school students in the United States. A new, evidence-based, online course that provides students with personalized attention training is being developed at the Center for Mindfulness & Human Potential (CMHP). Check out the article for discussion on how the course teaches students to focus their minds and manage their emotions so they can succeed academically.
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.
Wanna learn more about META Lab's funded research on imagination? The John Templeton Foundation's Imagination Institute---a Philadelphia think tank that for the last two years has been tapping an array of talent for insight into the creative process--is hoping ultimately to come up with an “imagination quotient.” Three dozen scientific investigators at 16 institutions, including Dr. Schooler, have been awarded Templeton grant funding related to the project. But can imagination really be quantified?
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.
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.
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.
Therapists now have the ability to track their patients’ progress between therapy visits with Mobile Therapy, a recently launched web-based dashboard and mobile application, one researcher told Healio.com/Psychiatry.
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.
A study found that people prefer electric shocks to time alone with their thoughts.
In the rush of everyday life, many people say they crave a moment of solitude, but a startling new study finds that people don’t really enjoy spending even 10 minutes alone with their thoughts.
Exposure to information that diminishes free will, including brain-based accounts of behavior, seems to decrease people's support for retributive punishment
If you find yourself in a creative slump, scientists have a suggestion: Take a walk.
People generate more creative ideas when they walk than when they sit, according to new research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.
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!
