These are some questions that lie at the heart of Resource Project directed by Prof. Dr. Tanis Singer: - Can we teach people to feel more socially connected? - Can we train social competencies such as compassion through short-secularized mental practices? - Can we widen our circle of compassion to become truly global citizens? - Can we increase resilience and decrease social stress? - Can we improve altruism and cooperative skills? - Can we counteract the negative effects of a distracted mind by mental practices that stabilize the mind and our attention?

1. ReSource Project:
How to Train Mind & Heart
Pof. Dr. Tania Singer
Presented by: Ashraf Rahmani

2. The Story of ReSource Project
Prof. Dr. Tania Singer is a German social neuroscientist and psychologist and world expert on
empathy and compassion. She has a passion for creating bridges between fields that typically never
interact such as linking neuroscience with economics, science with arts or science with spirituality.
She is the founder and principal investigator of the ReSource project.
What is ReSource Project?
o The ReSource Project is a large-scale study on Eastern and Western methods of mental training.
o It is a multi-method and multi-disciplinary study.
o One of the largest scientific studies on the mental trainability of qualities such as mindfulness,
compassion, perspective-taking and pro-social behaviour.
o The name ReSource has two meanings: rediscovering one’s own source and building up resources
for leading a more healthy and balanced life.
o Tania Singer continues to publish the results in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

3. Short History of ReSource Project

4. ReSource Project in Brief
• Timeline of the Project: from 2008 to the present
• Testing Period: 2013-2016
• Publication Period: 2015 to the present
• Number of Participants: > 300 aged 20-55 into four study groups
• Duration of Training: 9 months
• Training Modules: 3x3-month Modules (Presence, Affect, Perspective)
• Skills Taught: Mindfulness & Attention, Body Awareness, Compassion, Empathy, Emotion
Regulation, Social Intelligence, Coping with Stress, Cooperation and Altruism
• 90 different measures: brain scans, questionnaires, computer tasks, economic games, stress
hormones, autonomic and immune markers
• More than 40 published peer-reviewed scientific papers
• More than 200 press interviews, movies, podcasts and talks about the ReSource project

5. Why ReSource Project?
• Our world faces complex challenges such as climate and health crises.
• Despite increased connectivity through technology, we also experience
stress-related diseases, depression, and loneliness.
• To address these issues, we need to develop a broader perspective and
strengthen our mental abilities.
• Building relationships and social competencies are essential for
success in our digital and collaborative society.
• This Project insights into how our brains and social interactions impact
our well-being and overall ability to flourish.

6. What is the Principal Goal of ReSource Project?
Multi-methodological scientific evaluation of the
effects of different types of mental practices on
mental and physical health
brain plasticity
pro-social behaviours

7. What Questions Lie at the Heart of ReSource Project?
• Can we teach people to feel more socially connected?
• Can we train social competencies such as compassion
through short-secularized mental practices?
• Can we widen our circle of compassion to become truly
global citizens?
• Can we increase resilience and decrease social stress?
• Can we improve altruism and cooperative skills?
• Can we counteract the negative effects of a distracted mind
by mental practices that stabilize the mind and our
attention?

8. What is the Design of ReSource Project?
• More than 300 healthy participants were selected aged 20-55.
• Three of the groups were trained on secular meditation practices in three separate, three-month modules:
 Presence: Attention
Affect: Compassion
Perspective: Theory of Mind
• Each module targets specific skills such as attention, compassion, and theory of mind.
• Participants were assigned to one of three training cohorts (TC1, TC2, TC3) or a retest control cohort (RCC). TC1
and TC2 completed all three modules in different orders, acting as active control groups for each other. TC3 only
completed the one three-month-long Affect module to serve as an active control for the Presence Module. The RCC
did not undertake any training modules whatsoever.
• The exercises were initially taught by a total of 17 teachers at the beginning of a given module. Afterward, these
exercises were practiced once a week in smaller groups with two teachers for 20 to 30 minutes on a daily basis with
the support of cellphone application.
• Each module lasted for 3 months and followed this structure: A 3-day intensive retreat, 13 weekly group sessions
with teachers, daily home practice using internet platform and smartphone applications
• Each module lasted approximately 3 months, and assessments were conducted before training and during the last 5
weeks of each module. The assessments included a variety of measures such as MRI paradigms, virtual reality
scenarios, computer paradigms, economical games, measures of autonomic nervous system functioning, biological
measures, questionnaires, and experience sampling. Multiple measures were used at each timepoint.

9. Design of the ReSource Project

10. Timeline and Design

11. What is this article about?
• The article investigates the impact of three consecutive three-
month mental training modules: Presence, Affect, and Perspective.
• It aims to evaluate the differential effects of each module on
attention, compassion, and theory of mind, providing insights for
evidence-based interventions in various contexts.
• It examines the use of rigorous designs with active control
conditions to enable comparisons between different training types.
• It assesses the effectiveness of meditation-based mental training in
developing attention and social-emotional intelligence.

12. Core Exercises of Each Module

13. Presence Module: Training Focus
Basic mindfulness-based attention practices
• Core exercises: breathing meditation and body scan
• Focus on sensations of breathing and systematic body scanning
• Additional exercises: walking meditation, meditations on vision,
sound, taste, and open presence
Training Process
• Participants engaged in daily home practice.
• Weekly sessions with teachers to discuss experiences and challenges
• Last 5 weeks of each module focused on consolidating previous
topics, no new topics introduced.

14. Affect Module: Training Focus
Cultivating care, loving-kindness, compassion, gratitude, difficult
emotions
• Core exercises: Loving-kindness Meditation and Affect Dyad
• Cultivation of love and care towards oneself and others
• Additional exercises: Exploration of emotions, forgiveness
meditation, and development of self-compassion
Training Process
• Participants engaged in daily home practice
• Weekly sessions with teachers to discuss experiences and challenges
• Last 5 weeks of each module focused on consolidating previous
topics, no new topics introduced

15. Perspective Module: Training Focus
Taking perspective on one’s own thoughts and mind, considering
aspects of one’s self and one’s beliefs about other people
• Core exercises: Observing-thoughts Meditation and Perspective
Dyad
• Observing thoughts as mental events without getting involved
• Additional exercises: Taking the perspective of others, reflection on
thoughts, and understanding differences between thoughts and
behavior
Training Process
• Participants engaged in daily home practice
• Weekly sessions with teachers to discuss experiences and challenges
• Last 5 weeks of each module focused on consolidating previous
topics, no new topics introduced

16. Scientific Measures for Assessment
ReSource project instead of just focusing on measuring the
training-related changes on one outcome measure, the project
included 90 different scientific multidisciplinary and multi-
method measure to cover many different aspects of human
nature.

17. Behavioral Outcome Measure
• Attention Performance:
• Used a task to measure attention skills
• Tested how well participants could control their attention and switch between tasks
• Looked at improvements in challenging situations
• Participants had to respond to arrows while ignoring distracting arrows
• Task had 240 trials with different timing and cue conditions
• Compassion and Theory of Mind (ToM) Performance:
• Used a video task to measure social and emotional abilities
• Participants watched short videos and answered questions
• Rated their feelings and compassion for the people in the videos
• Also answered questions about understanding other people's thoughts and feelings
• Had a training session to learn the task
• Measurements:
• Rated compassion for videos with different emotions
• Assessed accuracy and speed in answering questions about understanding others
• Insights:
• Provide information about attention skills, compassion, and understanding others
• Collected data before and after ReSource training

18. Results
• Different types of contemplative practices have distinct effects on attention,
compassion, and ToM.
• Scientist say that gray matter shrinks from age 25. Engaging in attention-
based, mindfulness, socio-emotional, or cognitive mental practices for three
months leads to a gray-matter increase in cortical thickness in specific brain
networks, indicating growth in gray matter.
• The neural networks are independent from each other. Some people can be
good at feeling suffering with another and yet not very good at putting
themselves in the cognitive shoes of another.
• Three months of attention-based mindfulness practice, or compassion-based
practice, or cognitive-taking exercise leads to a significant difference in
brain plasticity, stress, and behavior.
• The order of training modules influenced the effects observed.

19. Results: Training Effects on Attention
• Participants who undertook three months of attention-based
mindfulness exercises developed a greater ability to focus on the
present moment, and the capability to augment their attention and
body awareness, yet this practice did not increase their level of
compassion.
• The Presence Module, which focused on present-moment attention,
improved attention but did not have an impact on compassion or
ToM.

20. Results: Training Effects on Compassion
• The thicker the insula got, the more compassion participants developed after
Affect training.
• Only in the care-based Affect module, where participants explicitly focused their
attention on “opening their heart”, by engaging in compassion, loving-kindness
meditation, and gratitude practices every day, that a very specific effect was seen
in boosting one’s level of compassion.
• The practice of opening the heart will increase altruism and compassion, but it will
not reliably enhance one’s ability to understand the cognitive beliefs of others,
which is a very specific effect based on the sociocognitive Perspective module.
• The Affect Module, which included practices of loving-kindness meditation,
increased both compassion and attention, although at the cost of slower response
times.
• The retest-control cohort that just lived their lives did not become more
compassionate during the course of study.

21. Results: Training Effects on Perspective
• Theory of Mind is the capacity to
take the perspective of another’s
mind, i.e. to understand and
mentalize what other people
think and believe.
• The thicker the gray matter
became in an area known to be
relevant for mentalizing, the
better participants became in
their Theory of Mind scores after
Perspective training.

22. Results

23. The Dalai Lama emphasizes that
global compassion requires two
wings: motivation and compassion on
one side, and intellect, wisdom, and
understanding on the other.
Neuroscience reveals two main
pathways for social understanding in
the human brain: the emotional and
cognitive routes. These pathways
play distinct roles in how we
comprehend and connect with others.

24. Implications and Future Research
• The results indicate that extended mental training can enhance
individual and societal functioning.
• The study emphasizes the significance of selecting the appropriate
type of practice based on the desired outcome.
• The findings have practical implications for the treatment of
psychiatric disorders and deficits in attention and social abilities.
• The study highlights the importance of explicitly cultivating socio-
affective and socio-cognitive qualities to foster compassion.
• The Perspective Module shows promise for improving ToM
performance, but further research is needed to explore its
effectiveness and potential enhancements.

25. Sources and Links
- Trautwein, F. M., Kanske, P., Böckler, A., & Singer, T. (2020). Differential benefits of mental
training types for attention, compassion, and theory of mind. Cognition, 194, 104039.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104039
- Website of the ReSource Project: www.resource-project.org
- Tania Singer’s homepage: https://taniasinger.de/
- Compassion: bridging practice and science: http://www.compassion-training.org/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6891878/
- Movie, Raising Compassion https://taniasinger.de/arts/
- Singer, T. (2018) Perspectives from Contemplative Neuroscience on Power and Care: How
to Train Care and Compassion. In T. Singer and M. Ricard (Ed.), Power and Care: Toward
Balance for Our Common Future-Science, Society, and Spirituality (pp. 63-73). Allary
Editions. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262039529/power-and-care/
- Chapter Author Last Name, First Initial. Middle Initial. (Year Published). Title of chapter
in sentence case. In Editor First Initial, Editor Second Initial, Editor Last Name (Ed.), Title
of book in sentence case (Edition, Volume, Page No.). Publisher Name. URL or DOI