Mindfulness, Embodied Knowing, and Imagination: Measurement Methods and Applications in the Health Sciences

A gift of being human is that we each are intrinsically connected, moment to moment, to a unique and lived experience of an inner world. Whether, and how, one attends to this inner world has been studied through the lens of mindfulness and interoception, through methods of embodied knowing found in practices such as the arts, and through imagination as a substrate for aesthetic experience. The nature of these transient phenomena—mindfulness, embodied knowing, imagination—persistently invites scientific curiosity, in that the field understands them as respectively and differentially associated with various health behaviors, such as physical activity, and health outcomes, such as mood. Direct measurement of these phenomena, however, remains elusive by their very nature. While mindfulness has received considerable measurement attention over years of study, imagination and embodied knowing have remained comparatively unexamined in terms of how their physiological and behavioral correlates might be quantified.Advances at the intersection of data science, technology, and embodied knowing have opened new possibilities for this Research Topic. Wearable sensing, neuroimaging, eye-tracking, computer vision, and multimodal analysis now make it possible to quantify behavioral and physiological correlates of inner experience that were, until recently, out of reach. Much prior work has gathered around interoception or conceptual debate. This Research Topic instead brings the question of measurement to the foreground, and underscores embodied knowing and imagination as phenomena worthy of further attention within the measurement literature, rather than as a peripheral concern.Through empirical and phenomenological inquiry, the papers curated as part of this Research Topic aim to extend the available tools for measuring mindfulness, embodied knowing, or imagination, and provide novel examples of their measurement in health applications. Though measuring the ephemeral and highly unique landscape of one’s inner world using technology continues to pose real questions about the boundary between what can be known and what is unknowable, this Research Topic intends to advance measurement of inner-world experience in relation to health outcomes by collating current innovations in the health sciences. Studies that implement novel, multi-modal methods for quantifying behavioral or physiological correlates of these transient phenomena are especially encouraged. So too are studies that examine imaginative and aesthetic experience as warranting the same measurement rigor long afforded to mindfulness. Given that experiences of one’s inner world are often uniquely conveyed through rich, textual description, studies that implement qualitative and mixed methods approaches, including computational approaches to textual and narrative data, will also be welcomed as responsive to this Research Topic.Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:- Measurement innovation: Novel algorithms, wearable sensors, neuroimaging, eye-tracking, computer vision, and multimodal data for quantifying correlates of mindfulness, embodied knowing, and imagination- Neuroscience approaches to mindfulness-based therapies, mind-wandering, and movement-based interventions, in relation to intrapersonal experiences and health- Imaginative and aesthetic correlates: Novel methods for capturing behavioral or physiological correlates of imaginative and aesthetic experience in relation to health and well-being- Embodied practices: Arts, somatics, mindful movement, and aesthetic experience as sources of knowledge about transient phenomena- Clinical applications: Biomarkers, psychological and cognitive health outcomes, and correlates of well-being across populations in relation to inner world experience- Methodological pluralism: Qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and computational-linguistic approaches to characterizing inner world experience- Epistemic questions: Exploring the boundary between what can be measured and what remains ineffableWe welcome original research articles, methods articles, reviews, and perspective pieces. Topic editors: Aston K. McCullough, Brady DeCouto Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85864/mindfulness-embodied-knowing-and-imagination-measurement-methods-and-applications-in-the-health-sciences