Hein T. van Schie’s research while affiliated with Radboud University and other places

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Publications (98)


‘Mind-Revealing’ Psychedelic States: Psychological Processes in Subjective Experiences That Drive Positive Change
  • Article
  • Full-text available

September 2024

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139 Reads

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1 Citation

Psychoactives

Rúna F. E. Walther

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Hein T. van Schie

This narrative review explores the utilization of psychedelic states in therapeutic contexts, deliberately shifting the focus from psychedelic substances back to the experiential phenomena which they induce, in alignment with the original meaning of the term “mind-manifesting”. This review provides an overview of various psychedelic substances used in modern therapeutic settings and ritualistic indigenous contexts, as well as non-pharmacological methods that can arguably induce psychedelic states, including breathwork, meditation, and sensory deprivation. While the occurrence of mystical experiences in psychedelic states seems to be the strongest predictor of positive outcomes, the literature of this field yields several other psychological processes, such as awe, perspective shifts, insight, emotional breakthrough, acceptance, the re-experiencing of memories, and certain aspects of challenging experiences, that are significantly associated with positive change. Additionally, we discuss in detail mystical experience-related changes in metaphysical as well as self-related beliefs and their respective contributions to observed outcomes. We conclude that a purely medical and neurobiological perspective on psychological health is reductive and should not overshadow the significance of phenomenological experiences in understanding and treating psychological issues that manifest in the subjective realities of human individuals.

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‘Psychedelic’ as Mind-Revealing: Psychological Processes in the Subjective Experience That Drive Positive Change

July 2024

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127 Reads

This narrative review explores the utilization of psychedelic states in therapeutic contexts, deliberately shifting the focus from psychedelic substances back to the experiential phenomena they induce, in alignment with the original meaning of the term "mind-manifesting." The review provides an overview of various psychedelic substances used in modern therapeutic settings and ritualistic indigenous contexts, as well as non-pharmacological methods that can arguably induce psychedelic states, including breathwork, meditation, and sensory deprivation. While the occurrence of mystical experiences in psychedelic states seems to be the strongest predictor of positive outcomes, the literature of the field yields several other psychological processes, such as awe, perspective shifts, insight, emotional breakthrough, acceptance, re-experiencing of memories, and certain aspects of challenging experiences, that are significantly associated with positive change. We additionally discuss in detail mystical experience related changes in metaphysical as well as self-related beliefs and their respective contributions to observed outcomes. We conclude that a purely medical and neurobiological perspective on psychological health is reductive and should not overshadow the significance of phenomenological experiences in understanding and treating psychological issues that manifest in subjective realities of human individuals.


The Evolutionary Function of Awe: A Review and Integrated Model of Seven Theoretical Perspectives

August 2023

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133 Reads

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8 Citations

Emotion Review

This narrative review aims to contribute to the scientific literature on awe by reviewing seven perspectives on the evolutionary function of awe. Each is presented with accompanying empirical evidence and suggestions for research investigating unanswered questions. Based on the existing perspectives, this review proposes an integrated evolutionary model of awe, postulating the evolutionary selection of awe through three adaptive domains: (1) social cooperation, (2) reflective processing, and (3) signaling suitability as a potential mate.


Altered States of Consciousness During Ceremonial San Pedro Use

December 2022

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236 Reads

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3 Citations

International Journal for the Psychology of Religion

Arne Bohn

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Michiel H. H. Kiggen

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[...]

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Hein T. van Schie

San Pedro, a mescaline containing cactus, has been used for thousands of years and is currently popular as a psychedelic substance in ceremonial retreats in Europe. The current research investigates the consciousness altering effects of San Pedro. Forty-two participants who joined ceremonial psychedelic retreats in the Netherlands were investigated with questionnaires probing 11 dimensions of altered states of consciousness (11D-ASC), ego-dissolution, mystical experiences, and challenging experiences. Results tentatively demonstrate the status of San Pedro as a psychedelic, revealing deviations from normal waking consciousness on all 11 subscales of the 11D-ASC, moderate scores of ego-dissolution, and a complete mystical experience in two thirds of the participants. Furthermore, a consciousness profile of San Pedro was constructed, which revealed that spiritual experiences are strongly expressed in ceremonial San Pedro use. Furthermore, the San Pedro experience is characterized by low levels of disembodiment, anxiety, impaired control and cognition, transcendence of space, and relatively higher levels of physical distress and grief in case of (incidental) challenging experiences. Finally, graph network analysis indicated two separate networks of positive and negative altered states of consciousness. Possible interpretations of these findings are discussed in relation to the ceremonial setting, sympathomimetic effects of San Pedro’s alkaloids and variations in affective valence.


Free will strikes back: Steady-state movement-related cortical potentials are modulated by cognitive control

July 2022

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138 Reads

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1 Citation

Consciousness and Cognition

In psychology and neuroscience, opposition to free will has asserted that any degree of perceived self-control or choice is a mere epiphenomenon which provides no meaningful influence on action. The present research tested the validity of this conclusion by designing a paradigm in which the potential effect of self-monitoring on motor output could be investigated. Using a repetitive finger tapping task that evokes automatic patterns in participants tapping responses, we have obtained evidence that (1) participants may voluntarily reduce the predictability of their tapping patterns (2) by exercising cognitive control that (3) modulates response-locked steady-state movement-related potentials over primary and supplementary motor areas. These findings challenge the most radical accounts of the nonexistence of free will and instead provide support for a more balanced model of human behaviour in which cognitive control may constrain automatic response tendencies in response preparation and action execution.


Fig. 1. Histogram of parents' mouth opening (left graph) and mouth closing (right graph) across time (in seconds) relative to the infant's mouth movements (given event) at timepoint 0. Parents' mouth movements preceding their infants' (parent first) are coloured red, whereas parents' mouth movements following their infants' (parent follow) are coloured green.
Fig. 3. Yule's Q scores for mouth opening (left graph) and mouth closing (right graph) specifying the relation between infants' and parents' mouth movements in the 2-second interval preceding (parent-first, in red) and following (parent-follow, in turquoise) infants' mouth movements. Whiskers reflect standard deviations around the mean.
Fig. 4. Yule's Q scores for mouth opening (left graph) and mouth closing (right graph) in the 2-second interval preceding (parent-first, in red) and following (parent-follow, in turquoise), the infants' mouth movements. Results are presented separately for feeding units in which infant was gazing at the parent and in which the infant was not gazing at the parents face (elsewhere). Whiskers reflect standard deviations around the mean.
Eating in Synch: An investigation of parent-infant behaviour coordination during feeding interactions

February 2022

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95 Reads

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6 Citations

Infant Behavior and Development

During feeding, parents have been described to move their mouth as if they were eating themselves. Such matching of behaviours between parents and their infants during face-to-face interactions represents an example of behavioural synchrony. To date, however, the function of these synchronous eating-like mouth movements by the caregiver remains unexplored. To address this question, two competing hypotheses were tested: 1) the instructional hypothesis proposing that parents make eating-like mouth movements, such as opening and closing their mouth, to demonstrate to their infants what they need to do; 2) the mimicry hypothesis suggesting that parents imitate their infant’s mouth actions to enhance affiliation. To test these hypotheses, we examined the temporal dependencies between parents’ and infants’ mouth movements. We reasoned that parents’ mouth movements would occur before their infants’ if they serve an instructional purpose, but that they would happen after, if parents mimic their infants. Additionally, we expected that parents’ matching mouth movements would be more likely when their infants looked at them in both cases. To examine these hypotheses, fifteen caregivers were observed as they were feeding their six-month-old infants. Time-window sequential analysis was conducted to quantify how likely parents were to display mouth opening and closing before or after their infants did. The results revealed that parents’ mouth movements were more likely to follow infants' movements and are thus in line with the mimicry hypothesis. Interestingly, these mouth movements of parents were independent of infant’s gaze.


Knowledge of Collision Modulates Defensive Multisensory Responses to Looming Insects in Arachnophobes

January 2022

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15 Reads

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3 Citations

Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance

We investigated the role of contextual knowledge in defensive responses to visual stimuli (spiders and butterflies) looming toward the hand. Human participants responded to tactile stimuli delivered to the same hand at 6 possible locations during an insect's approach. Tactile reaction times were faster when looming stimuli were closer to the hand, especially for spiders, and faster when insects loomed on a collision path than on a near-miss path. This latter finding suggests that human reactions to looming stimuli are not merely automatic reflexes but that contextual knowledge about the trajectory of looming objects is included in predicting their impact. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).


Availability of synchronous information in an additional sensory modality does not enhance the full body illusion

September 2021

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155 Reads

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7 Citations

Psychological Research

The Full body illusion (FBI) is an illusion in which participants experience a change in self-location to a body that is perceived from a third-person perspective. The FBI is usually induced through experimenter generated stroking but can also be induced through self-generated stroking. In four experiments (three preregistered) we compared a self-generated stroking induction condition to a self-generated movement condition, where the only difference between conditions was the presence or absence of touch. We investigated whether the illusion reflects an all-or-nothing phenomenon or whether the illusion is influenced by the availability of synchronous information in an additional sensory modality. As a prerequisite, we investigated whether the FBI can also be induced using just self-generated movement in the absence of synchronous touch. Illusion strength was measured through illusion statements. Participants reported an equally strong illusion for both induction methods in Experiments 1, 2 and 3. In the third experiment, we additionally measured the time of illusion onset. Like the illusion strength measures, the illusion onset times did not differ between the two induction methods. In the fourth experiment participants only completed the self-generated movement condition. Again, they reported the FBI, demonstrating that the findings of Experiments 1, 2 and 3 were not dependent on the presence of a condition that used synchronous touch. Together, these findings confirm the hypothesis that the FBI is an all-or-nothing phenomenon and that adding additional multisensory synchronicity does not help to enhance the strength, onset time or onset probability of the illusion.


Playing videogames is associated with reduced awareness of bodily sensations

July 2021

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109 Reads

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4 Citations

Computers in Human Behavior

Interoception, or the process of receiving, accessing and appraising internal bodily signals, is critical for health and well-being. However, people can sometimes become unaware of bodily sensations, for instance when they experience embodiment over a virtual body from a third person perspective (3 PP) during a body illusion. Here, it was investigated to what degree playing videogames in which an avatar is controlled from a 3pp is similarly associated with a reduction in awareness of bodily sensations, and whether such effects are amplified when embodiment over the virtual body is stronger. Watching video on demand was selected as a conservative control condition. 142 participants who frequently played videogames and frequently watched video-on-demand (VoD; at least once a week) in longer sessions (at least 2 h) completed a survey in which they answered questions about reduced awareness of bodily sensations while playing videogames or watching VoD. As predicted, playing videogames was associated with various forms of reduced awareness of bodily signals, such as being unaware of tiredness and getting less sleep, and this reduced awareness was stronger than when people watch VoD. In addition, as predicted, degree of embodiment was positively related to the amount of reduced awareness, and this relation was descriptively stronger for the VG than the VoD condition. These results show that people may indeed become less aware of bodily sensations such as energy level or sleep when they play videogames. Considerations for health are discussed.


The Redundant Signals Effect and the Full Body Illusion: not Multisensory, but Unisensory Tactile Stimuli Are Affected by the Illusion

April 2021

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111 Reads

Multisensory Research

During a full body illusion (FBI), participants experience a change in self-location towards a body that they see in front of them from a third-person perspective and experience touch to originate from this body. Multisensory integration is thought to underlie this illusion. In the present study we tested the redundant signals effect (RSE) as a new objective measure of the illusion that was designed to directly tap into the multisensory integration underlying the illusion. The illusion was induced by an experimenter who stroked and tapped the participant’s shoulder and underarm, while participants perceived the touch on the virtual body in front of them via a head-mounted display. Participants performed a speeded detection task, responding to visual stimuli on the virtual body, to tactile stimuli on the real body and to combined (multisensory) visual and tactile stimuli. Analysis of the RSE with a race model inequality test indicated that multisensory integration took place in both the synchronous and the asynchronous condition. This surprising finding suggests that simultaneous bodily stimuli from different (visual and tactile) modalities will be transiently integrated into a multisensory representation even when no illusion is induced. Furthermore, this finding suggests that the RSE is not a suitable objective measure of body illusions. Interestingly however, responses to the unisensory tactile stimuli in the speeded detection task were found to be slower and had a larger variance in the asynchronous condition than in the synchronous condition. The implications of this finding for the literature on body representations are discussed.


Citations (86)


... As we could appreciate from the evidence presented in this review, many clinical studies have begun to reveal that, when used in controlled settings, psychedelics can have significant positive effects on various mental health conditions [4]. Among all, research has shown that psychedelics can induce altered states of consciousness, leading to enhanced emotional processing, increased introspection and empathy, a sense of interconnectedness, and reduction in negative bias and social withdrawal [5]. These experiences may provide new avenues for treating a range of psychopathological conditions, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance use disorders (SUDs) [6]. ...

Reference:

Uncovering Psychedelics: From Neural Circuits to Therapeutic Applications
‘Mind-Revealing’ Psychedelic States: Psychological Processes in Subjective Experiences That Drive Positive Change

Psychoactives

... That suggests that awe had a clear biological function during our evolution. There is as yet no consensus on what that function precisely was (Keltner, 2024;Lucht & van Schie, 2024), but our discussion of awe as an epistemic emotion suggests that at least part of the function consisted in acquiring knowledge about a situation that goes beyond the bounds of common understanding. ...

The Evolutionary Function of Awe: A Review and Integrated Model of Seven Theoretical Perspectives
  • Citing Article
  • August 2023

Emotion Review

... It's been suggested that set and setting manifest the experiential outcomes (e.g., occurrence of a mystical experience) in a session much more than purely the ingestion of a substance does, which then rather serves as a catalyst of such experiences [49,63]. This is historically mirrored in indigenous peoples' use of psychedelic substances in structured ceremonial rituals that have long acknowledged the importance of context and preparation [49,64,65]. ...

Altered States of Consciousness During Ceremonial San Pedro Use
  • Citing Article
  • December 2022

International Journal for the Psychology of Religion

... In turn, the brain has a specialized fronto-parietal circuit representing multisensory objects and events in a body-centered reference frame when these are near the body [3][4][5]. There is strong experimental evidence demonstrating that PPS plays a key role in defensive behaviors (see [6] for a seminal review) and initial evidence likewise suggests that PPS encoding plays a role in impact prediction [4,7,8]. For instance, stimuli looming toward the body enhance tactile sensitivity at the spatial and temporal location where observers expect impact to occur [9], and PPS enlarges as the speed of incoming stimuli grows [10]. ...

Knowledge of Collision Modulates Defensive Multisensory Responses to Looming Insects in Arachnophobes

Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance

... The processes of eating have also been examined in detail, such as how parents and young infants learn to co-ordinate and synchronise their bodies and utensils over time (Costantini et al., 2018;Negayama, 1993;Parkinson & Drewett, 2001;van Dijk et al., 2009van Dijk et al., , 2018Young & Drewett, 2000). For instance, parents often open their mouth immediately after infants open theirs, in a closely timed manner that suggests bodies are as important as words during mealtimes (Vacaru et al., 2022). Similarly, parents have also been found to use lip-smacks to encourage their infants to open and close their mouths in a chewing movement (Wiggins & Keevallik, 2021b) and to utter gustatory mmms in synchrony with infants' own eating practices (Wiggins, 2019;Wiggins & Keevallik, 2021a). ...

Eating in Synch: An investigation of parent-infant behaviour coordination during feeding interactions

Infant Behavior and Development

... Virtual worlds also afford users to choose their avatars' appearance and identity, which can influence how they perceive and interact with their surroundings. In an international survey of 142 regular users of video games, greater embodiment over an avatar was associated with lower awareness of bodily sensation during gaming sessions [25]. In a sample of 60 women from the UK general population, reducing avatar height during a virtual reality train ride was associated with increased levels of paranoia and negative social comparison [26]. ...

Playing videogames is associated with reduced awareness of bodily sensations

Computers in Human Behavior

... In samples where social media literacy levels are overall high, adolescents' affective responses to social media content and related psychological processes do not seem to depend on possessing this social media literacy. In this regard, research finds that a higher level of advertising social media literacy is not necessarily protective of advertising effects, as young people might not activate and apply their advertising literacy when needed (Hoek et al., 2020). The moderating role of social media literacy may thus be largely unsupported in this study because 'passive' awareness of the positivity bias was assessed instead of 'active' social media literacy application. ...

Inhibitory control moderates the relation between advertising literacy activation and advertising susceptibility

Media Psychology

... The potential for growth in the field of advertising literacy remains significant, deserving more attention from educational and media industries (Arbaiza et al. 2024). From an educational perspective, research has explored various ways to teach advertising literacy in schools and communities, incorporating analysis, creation, and discussion of advertisements (Hoek et al. 2020;Hwang et al. 2018). Integrating advertising literacy into school curricula is vital for fostering critical consumer thinking, especially in the context of influencer marketing. ...

Development and testing of the advertising literacy activation task: an indirect measurement instrument for children aged 7-13 years old

Media Psychology

... We performed linear mixed-effects analysis. It is beneficial to analyze the current data this way, because, with these models, the non-independence of observations nested within participants and balloon trials (i.e., balloon pumps are repeated-measures observations) can be accounted for, the dependent variable does not have to be aggregated at the level of participants or balloon trials, and missing data are treated more suitably than in repeated-measures or mixed analyses of variance [58][59][60] . ...

Event-related brain potentials reflect predictive coding of anticipated economic change

Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience

... The experimenter ensured that the participant looked at the avatar by continuously checking the PC monitor that showed the participant's field of view in real time. Participants were instructed to press a button on the VR controller when they agreed with the statement "I feel like the ball I see is touching my own body" (as in 32 ). Whether or not participants pressed the button, the embodiment period lasted 75 seconds. ...

Availability of synchronous information in an additional sensory modality does not enhance the full body illusion

Psychological Research