Best Paper Award for the 11th International Conference on Augmented Cognition, in the context of HCI International 2017, 9 - 14 July 2017, Vancouver, Canada

Certificate for Best Paper Award of the 11th International Conference on Augmented Cognition
conferred to

Manesh Girn, Caitlin Mills, Eric Laycock (University of British Columbia, Canada),
Melissa Ellamil (Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany),
Lawrence Ward and Kalina Christoff (University of British Columbia, Canada)

for the paper entitled

"Neural Dynamics of Spontaneous Thought: An Electroencephalographic Study"

Presented in the context of
HCI International 2017
9 - 14 July 2017, Vancouver, Canada

Paper Abstract
"Spontaneous thinking is a ubiquitous aspect of our mental life and has increasingly become a hot topic of research in cognitive neuroscience. To date, functional neuroimaging studies of spontaneous thought have revealed general brain recruitment centered on a combination of default mode network and executive regions. Despite recent findings about general brain recruitment, very little is known about how these regions are recruited dynamically over time. The current research addresses this gap in the literature by using EEG to investigate the fine-grained temporal dynamics of brain activity underlying spontaneous thoughts. We employed the first-person reports of experienced meditators to index the onset of spontaneous thoughts, and examined brain electrical activity preceding indications of spontaneous thought onset. An independent component analysis-based source localization procedure recovered sources very similar to those previously found with fMRI (Ellamil et al. in NeuroImage 136:186–196, 2016). In addition, phase synchrony analyses revealed a temporal trajectory that begins with default network midline and salience network connectivity, followed by the incorporation of language and executive regions during the period from thought generation to appraisal."

The full paper is available through SpringerLink, provided that you have proper access rights.