Simulated visual hallucinations in virtual reality enhance cognitive flexibility

Abstract

Historically, psychedelic drugs are known to modulate cognitive flexibility, a central aspect of cognition permitting adaptation to changing environmental demands. Despite proof suggesting phenomenological similarities between artificially-induced and actual psychedelic altered perception, experimental evidence is still lacking about whether the former is also able to modulate cognitive flexibility. To address this, we measure participants’ cognitive flexibility through behavioral tasks after the exposure to virtual reality panoramic videos and their hallucinatory-like counterparts generated by the DeepDream algorithm. Results show that the estimated semantic network has a flexible structure when preceded by altered videos. Crucially, following the simulated psychedelic exposure, individuals also show an attenuated contribution of the automatic process and chaotic dynamics underlying the decision process. This suggests that simulated altered perceptual phenomenology enhances cognitive flexibility, presumably due to a reorganization in the cognitive dynamics that facilitates the exploration of uncommon decision strategies and inhibits automated choices.

Balancing novelty and appropriateness leads to creative associations in children

“…When compared to OR, the CR network showed lower ASPL and modularity, which in turn has been linked with higher network flexibility. The CR semantic network configuration has already been linked to both higher levels of CPS abilities ( 15 , 33 ) and cognitive flexibility ( 27 , 48 ). As compared to CR, the RA network significantly decreased in all topological quantifiers.…”

“…Hence, consistent with the associative and executive theories of CPS ( 46 , 31 , 50 ) and empirical results on the adult population, we expect that children's creative associations are characterized by more flexibility as compared to the control conditions. Flexibility can thus be considered as a means of both small-world reconfiguration of the creative semantic network ( 26 , 27 , 33 ) and network robustness when undergoing to targeted attack ( 31 , 27 , 48 ). Crucially, by leveraging distributional analysis, we expected the semantic distance of the creative condition to be in the middle of a continuum ( 29 ) that has its lowest extreme (low semantic distance) in the ordinary condition and the highest one (high semantic distance) in the random condition ( 29 , 15 , 30 , 24 , 34 ).…”

Psychedelic replications in virtual reality and their potential as a therapeutic instrument: an open-label feasibility study

“…Recent developments in VR technology suggest that it could be possible to induce mystical experiences 52,53 and imitate parts of the phenomenology of the psychedelic state 54 . Also, some recent studies have suggested that using psychedelic phenomenology in VR can lead to similar cognitive 55 and neural 56 effects as seen under psychedelic substances. Thus, these recent works raise the intriguing possibility that perhaps the implementation of such phenomenology in VR could be used to confer similar therapeutic benefits to psychedelicaugmented therapy.…”

Can extreme experiences enhance creativity? The case of the underwater nightclub

“… Chirico et al (2018) induced a feeling of awe in participants by immersing them in a 3D virtual reality experience, and found an increase in their creativity scores compared to a control group. Similarly, Rastelli et al (2022) induced a dream-like psychedelic state using VR and found that it increased cognitive flexibility. And more prosaically, but no less impressively, Vohs et al (2013) showed that the experience of a cluttered disordered room increased the creativity of their participants.…”