ArticleFrontiers in psychology2016
How Do Theories of Cognition and Consciousness in Ancient Indian Thought Systems Relate to Current Western Theorizing and Research?
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Stage 2 Registered Report: Anomalous perception in a Ganzfeld condition - A meta-analysis of more than 40 years investigation.F1000Research · 2021Pooled it
- The Rhythmic Embodied Perception Framework of breath, brain, and perception.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Review
- Clinical practice guidelines - An overview of cognitive remediation for various neuropsychiatric disorders.Indian journal of psychiatry · 2025Article
- Composition of yoga-philosophy based mental traits (Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Reducing and deducing the structures of consciousness through meditation.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Rhythmic Chanting and Mystical States across Traditions.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Event-related potential and behavioural differences in affective self-referential processing in long-term meditators versus controls.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
- Inner Experience - Direct Access to Reality: A Complementarist Ontology and Dual Aspect Monism Support a Broader Epistemology.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- What Is Meditation? Proposing an Empirically Derived Classification System.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- A Correlation Study between Tri-Guna and Emotional Style: A Theoretical Approach toward Developing a Working Model to Integrate Tri-Guna with Affective Neuroscience and Well-Being.International journal of yogaArticle
- Effectiveness of Yoga as a Complementary Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa: A Systematic Review.International journal of yogaReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Unknown to most Western psychologists, ancient Indian scriptures contain very rich, empirically derived psychological theories that are, however, intertwined with religious and philosophical content. This article represents our attempt to extract the psychological theory of cognition and consciousness from a prominent ancient Indian thought system: Samkhya-Yoga. We derive rather broad hypotheses from this approach that may complement and extend Western mainstream theorizing. These hypotheses address an ancient personality theory, the effects of practicing the applied part of Samkhya-Yoga on normal and extraordinary cognition, as well as different ways of perceiving reality. We summarize empirical evidence collected (mostly without reference to the Indian thought system) in diverse fields of research that allows for making judgments about the hypotheses, and suggest more specific hypotheses to be examined in future research. We conclude that the existing evidence for the (broad) hypotheses is substantial but that there are still considerable gaps in theory and research to be filled. Theories of cognition contained in the ancient Indian systems have the potential to modify and complement existing Western mainstream accounts of cognition. In particular, they might serve as a basis for arriving at more comprehensive theories for several research areas that, so far, lack strong theoretical grounding, such as meditation research or research on aspects of consciousness.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.