In recent decades, psychological research on the effects of mindfulness-based interventions has greatly developed and demonstrated a range of beneficial outcomes in a variety of populations and contexts. Yet, the question of how to foster subjective well-being and happiness remains open. Here, we assessed the effectiveness of an integrated mental training program The Art of Happiness on psychological well-being in a general population. The mental training program was designed to help practitioners develop new ways to nurture their own happiness. This (...) was achieved by seven modules aimed at cultivating positive cognition strategies and behaviors using both formal and informal practices. The program was conducted over a period of 9 months, also comprising two retreats, one in the middle and one at the end of the course. By using a set of established psychometric tools, we assessed the effects of such a mental training program on several psychological well-being dimensions, taking into account both the longitudinal effects of the course and the short-term effects arising from the intensive retreat experiences. The results showed that several psychological well-being measures gradually increased within participants from the beginning to the end of the course. This was especially true for life satisfaction, self-awareness, and emotional regulation, highlighting both short-term and longitudinal effects of the program. In conclusion, these findings suggest the potential of the mental training program, such as The Art of Happiness, for psychological well-being. (shrink)

: Creativity, mostly ignored in Western philosophy due to its supposed mysteriousness, has recently become a respected research topic in psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. We discuss how in science the approach has mainly been to describe creativity as an information-based process, coherently with a computational view of the human mind started with the cognitive revolution. This view has produced progressively convincing models of creativity, up to current artificial neural network systems, vaguely inspired by biological neural processing, but already competing (...) with human creativity in several fields. These successes suggest that creativity might not be an exclusively human function, but actually a way of functioning of any natural or artificial system implementing the creative process. We conclude by acknowledging that the information-based view of creativity has tremendous explanatory and generative power, but we propose a thought experiment to start discussing how it actually leaves out the experiential side of being creative. Keywords: Creative Cognition; Cognitive Neuroscience; Computational Creativity; Generative Algorithms; Cognitive Science La creatività come processo basato sull’informazione Riassunto: La creatività, spesso ignorata dalla filosofia occidentale per la sua presunta oscurità, in tempi recenti è diventata un rispettabile oggetto di ricerca per la psicologia, la neuroscienza e l’intelligenza artificiale. Vogliamo illustrare il modo in cui lo sguardo scientifico sia rivolto prevalentemente a considerare la creatività come processo information-based, coerentemente con la prospettiva computazionale sulla mente umana aperta dalla rivoluzione cognitiva. Questa prospettiva ha prodotto modelli della creatività sempre più convincenti, fino agli attuali sistemi di reti neurali artificiali, vagamente inspirati al processamento biologico neurale, ma già competitivi rispetto alla creatività umana in molti ambiti. Questi successi suggeriscono che la creatività possa non essere una funzione esclusivamente umana ma in effetti un modo di funzionare di un sistema naturale o artificiale capace di implementare il processo creativo. In conclusione, pur riconoscendo come il considerare la creatività come processo information-based possieda grande potere esplicativo e generativo, proporremo un esperimento mentale per aprire una discussione sul come questa prospettiva non copra in effetti il lato esperienziale dell’essere creativo. Parole chiave: Cognizione creativa; Neuroscienza cognitiva; Creatività computazionale; Algoritmi generativi; Scienza cognitiva. (shrink)