Martha Henson

​

A PhD research project presentation delivered at the monthly CSN Meeting, Tuesday 24th February 2026. 

​

The Patañjalayogaśāstra states that "the purpose of yoga is to stop the turnings of the mind". Similar aims for meditation are found in other historical texts such as the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā and the Buddhist Pāli Canon, whilst in contemporary contemplative practices the idea that one should quiet the "monkey mind" is widespread. Given what we know about the human mind today, it is probable that these "mind turnings" refer to inner speech. Modern accounts suggest some long-term meditators have indeed been able to achieve a silencing of their inner speech as a permanent effect of their practice. However, the cognitive sciences do not necessarily agree with these traditions that inner speech is unhelpful chatter and best abandoned. Despite the centrality of inner speech to the internal experience of most humans, it is still not well understood (Fernyhough, 2016), but its usefulness is generally assumed. Suggested functions for it include a means for conscious reasoning, forming memories or allowing different brain areas to communicate with each other (Langland-Hassan & Vicente, 2018). If that is the case, perhaps meditators are actually harming themselves by eradicating it. If they are not, however, it could overturn the current scientific assumption of utility. Either way, the experiences of meditators present a new source of evidence in a field that often struggles to answer questions about interior phenomena. My research takes an interdisciplinary approach, examining canonical texts, modern accounts of meditation experience and existing research within the cognitive sciences. ​

​​​

Available to view here: https://youtu.be/tK_DuXqcxig

Dr Quinton Deeley

​

​An overview of the current research projects in the Cultural and Social Neuroscience Research Group presented at the monthly CSN meeting, Tuesday 24th February 2026.​​​

​

Available to view here: https://youtu.be/NLxV6QWYkio

Dr Quinton Deeley

​

A talk delivered at the Science of Suggestion Seminar Series, Tuesday 14th June 2022. 

​

Suggested effects in hypnosis, functional neurological and dissociative symptoms, and religiously recognised states of revelation, mediumship, and possession, all involve alterations in the control, ownership, or awareness of mental contents and actions. This suggests that shared cognitive and brain processes may contribute to all of these phenomena. Yet case histories and vignettes show how these alterations in experience and behaviour also vary in important respects. Here we consider  the ways in which control, ownership, and awareness of mental contents and actions can vary, and the family of cognitive and brain processes involved in them.  We discuss how  (i) intense emotional investment (cathexis) in ideas and beliefs can produce profound changes in related experience even in the absence of high hypnotisability, providing insights into the genesis of functional symptoms and religious experience; (ii) prior beliefs and experiences can radically affect responses to ambient stimuli, including suggestions in hypnosis.

​

Available to view here: https://scisugg.wordpress.com/

Dr Quinton Deeley

 

A lecture delivered at the British Neuropsychiatry Association Annual Conference, 26th May 2022

 

Notions of criminal responsibility presuppose that a person can be held morally and legally accountable for acts which are freely chosen. Philosophical accounts of free will – of intended actions under individual control – provide a framework for analysing the components of freely chosen actions. Philosophers have explored the notion of free will in light of causal determinism, examining whether or how a person ‘could have done otherwise’ in specific circumstances such that they can be considered truly responsible for their actions. In this talk we consider these philosophical analyses and their relevance for neuropsychiatric assessment of offenders. In so doing we will also explore how evolving neuropsychiatric insights into the control of behaviour, and its impairment in specific disorders, has implications both for philosophical accounts of free will and notions of criminal responsibility. 

 

Available to view here: https://youtu.be/25QMZNElqFo

Dr Quinton Deeley

 

A lecture delivered at the Maudsley Philosophy Group meeting, Thursday, 11th November 2021.

 

QAnon, an internet conspiracy theory that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping paedophiles, is one of many conspiracy theories that have rapidly spread through the US and more widely. In this seminar we will consider what motivates such apparently irrational beliefs, how they propagate so quickly, and what they reveal about the social and political influences on how people interpret the world. In doing so we will explore the history of the anti-Semitic blood libel, the social anthropology of witchcraft, the cognitive neuropsychiatry of delusions, social media and coalitional cognition, conspiracism as political strategy, and a consequent tilt from realism to perspectivism in our implicit epistemology.

​

Available to view here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOBRb1qdxG0