Mar
29
2021

Calming the Mind in Motion

Speaker: Dr. Anthony Zanesco

Time: 12:00 pm
Location:
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Description: Mind wandering is a pervasive and ubiquitous experience. Our attention commonly drifts away from what we are doing in the moment to other internal thoughts and experiences. This can be disruptive when attention is critical for performance. But mind wandering can also be an opportunity for deeper awareness and recognition of one’s own patterns of attention and thought. This presentation will describe research on mind wandering and dynamic patterns of attention and thought characterizing one’s moment to moment experience during task performance. Connecting to these themes is emerging research on mindfulness meditation as one approach for learning to calm and stabilize attention and recognize when it has wandered. The second part of the presentation will describe findings on intensive meditation training during residential retreats, and shorter-form mindfulness programs, supporting…

About Speaker

Dr. Anthony Zanesco is a Postdoctoral Associate in the laboratory of Dr. Amishi Jha in the Psychology Department at the University of Miami. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Davis, under the mentorship of Dr. Clifford Saron.

Dr. Zanesco’s research aims to understand the dynamics of attention, mind wandering, and spontaneous thought through examination of variability and systematic change in cognitive task performance over time, self-reported experience, and the electrophysiological dynamics of evolving brain states. He uses experience sampling methods to capture attentional lapses and spontaneous thought in situ, and dynamic and multivariate analytic methods to understand their complex temporal patterns and connect them to spontaneous activity in the brain.

One main arm of his research to date has been investigations of the effects of mindfulness and meditation training on the attentional abilities of practitioners. This has involved several longitudinal and randomized controlled studies demonstrating behavioral, self-reported, and electrophysiological evidence for increased perceptual processing and sustained attention following standardized mindfulness interventions and longer-term meditation retreats.