Abstract
This study provides evidence supporting the operation of a novel cognitive process of a somatic seat of attention, or ego-center, whose somatic location is under voluntary control and that provides access to differential emotional resources. Attention has typically been studied in terms of what it is directed toward, but it can also be associated with a localized representation in the body image that is experienced as the source or seat of attention—an aspect that has previously only been studied by subjective techniques. Published studies of this phenomenon under terms such as egocenter or self-location suggest that the seat of attention can be situated in various ways within the experienced body, resulting in what are here referred to as different attentional stances. These studies also provide evidence that changes in attentional stance are associated with differences in cognitive skill, emotional temperament, self-construal, and social and moral attitudes, as well as with access to certain states of consciousness. In the present study, EEG results from multiple trials of each of 11 specific attentional stances confirmed that patterns of neural activity associated with the voluntarily control of attentional stances can be reliably measured, providing evidence for a differential neural substrate underlying the subjective location of the seat of attention. Additionally, brain activation patterns for the attentional stances showed strong correlations with EEG signatures associated with specific positive emotional states and with arousal, confirming that differential locations of the seat of attention can be objectively associated with different emotion states, as implied in previous literature. The ability to directly manage the seat of attention into various attentional stances holds substantial potential for facilitating access to specific cognitive and emotional resources in a new way.
Highlights
This study describes the body region where attention is directed from as the seat of attention, to distinguish it from what attention is directed toward, which is the target of attention
Just as one’s perspective on objects in the environment changes while walking through a forest or down a city block, a change in the seat of attention creates a shift in attentional perspective, resulting in a different attentional stance—a variable that has been shown to affect state of consciousness, emotional temperament, self-construal, and social and moral attitudes
Transitions between attentional stances typically required
Summary
The sense that there is a beam of attention emanating from oneself to the object of attention (such as a chair) was so strong in the classical era that philosophers understood it as a beam of light emanating from the eyes and reflecting back information about the object of regard. Self-Regulation of Seat of Attention experiments in the modern era Such concepts are all metaphorical imagery for neural excitation processes in the brain, with a target in the neural representation of the location of objects in space, that is enhanced by a directed neural process under the voluntary control of the location of interest. This kind of focal attention has typically been studied in terms of what it is directed toward, but the hypothesis for the present study is that this beam is perceived to have an adjustable source in the body from which it emanates, like a fireman holding their hose over the shoulder or down by the waist. Just as one’s perspective on objects in the environment changes while walking through a forest or down a city block, a change in the seat of attention creates a shift in attentional perspective, resulting in a different attentional stance—a variable that has been shown to affect state of consciousness, emotional temperament, self-construal, and social and moral attitudes
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