Cognitive shuffle

The cognitive shuffle is a cognitive strategy in which one thinks about a neutral or pleasant target for a short period of time (normally every 5–15 seconds) and then switches to thinking about an unrelated target.{{Cite web |title=A design-based approach to sleep-onset and insomnia: Super-somnolent mentation, the cognitive shuffle and serial diverse imagining |url=https://www.sfu.ca/~lpb/tr/Beaudoin-2014-the-cognitive-shuffle-super-somnolent-mentation.pdf}} Serial diverse imagining (SDI) is a type of cognitive shuffling in which people switch between imagining various concrete images, such as persons, places, actions, and/or scenes.{{Cite web |title=Serial Diverse Imagining Task: A New Remedy for Bedtime Complaints of Worrying and Other Sleep-Disruptive Mental Activity |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300004607}} However, practitioners are instructed not to relate mental images with each other. A variation of SDI involves imagining oneself drawing a target person, place, things, action, and/or scene (analogous to Pictionary).

Beaudoin views cognitive shuffling as a new form of meditation in that it involves deliberate control of mentation, involving meta-cognition in general and meta-cognitive control in particular.{{Cite web |date=March 2013 |title=The possibility of super-somnolent mentation: A new information-processing approach to sleep-onset acceleration and insomnia exemplified by serial diverse imagining |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265850076 |access-date=September 25, 2023 |website=researchgate.net}}

Beaudoin has also distinguished two forms of SDI, technology-assisted SDI and self-directed SDI. In technology-assisted SDI, participants use software to generate a random sequence of words that they will imagine a configurable number of seconds (usually 5–10 seconds) apart. Sequences of words may be delivered through text-to-speech technology. In self-directed SDI, participants think of a word between 5-12 letters. Each letter in the word functions as a cue letter.{{Cite web |date=2021-08-03 |title=Cognitive Shuffle: The Simple Sleep Technique To Help You Fall Asleep Faster |url=https://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/article/cognitive-shuffle-sleep-method |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=British Vogue |language=en-GB}}{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Kara Jillian |date=2023-02-06 |title='I'm a Sleep Expert, and This Is the #1 Mistake People Make When Trying To Get Better Sleep' |url=https://www.wellandgood.com/tips-for-sleep-difficulties/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Well+Good |language=en}} For each letter, participants visualize a target that starts with the letter and an instance involving the target for 5–10 seconds. After exhausting all letters, participants can produce new words and continue the practice until they have fallen asleep.

Pilot data on SDI and the cognitive shuffle was collected using the mobile sleep app SomnoTest.{{Cite journal |last1=Selham |first1=Zineb |last2=Guloy |first2=Sheryl |last3=Bastien |first3=Célyne |last4=Beaudoin |first4=Luc P. |last5=Carrier |first5=Julie |date=2019-06-12 |title="Research process and sleep app design lessons learned from the reflective examination of a sleep study" |url=http://summit.sfu.ca/item/18925}}

The cognitive shuffle is based on Beaudoin’s somnolent information processing theory.{{Cite journal |last1=Beaudoin |first1=Luc |last2=Pudło |first2=Monika |last3=Hyniewska |first3=Sylwia |date=2020-08-21 |title=Mental Perturbance: An Integrative Design-Oriented Concept for Understanding Repetitive Thought, Emotions and Related Phenomena Involving a Loss of Control of Executive Functions |url=https://journals.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/sfuer/article/view/1282 |journal=SFU Educational Review |language=en |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=29–58 |doi=10.21810/sfuer.v13i1.1282 |issn=1916-050X|doi-access=free }}{{Cite web |title=Towards an integrative design-oriented theory of sleep-onset and insomnolence from which a new cognitive treatment for insomnolence (serial diverse kinesthetic imagining, a form of cognitive shuffling) is proposed for experimentally testing this against alternatives |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337970679}} The somnolent information processing theory postulates the existence of a sleep onset control system that evolved to ensure that falling asleep tends to happen when it is evolutionarily opportune (safe, timely) to fall asleep. The theory claims that control of human somnolence posed a significant evolutionary challenge particularly due to the hyper-abundant cerebral cortex of humans. Beaudoin’s theory stipulates that somnolence (propensity for sleep) is deemed to be a function of the sleep onset control system.{{Cite journal |last1=Beaudoin |first1=Luc P. |last2=Hyniewska |first2=Sylwia |date=2010-01-10 |title=Towards an affective information-processing theory of sleep onset and insomnia |url=http://summit.sfu.ca/item/16915}} External cues (such as physical threats) and internal mechanisms (such as alarms or mental perturbance) are deemed to be insomnolent, meaning they tend to delay sleep onset; or pro-somnolent, meaning they tend to promote sleep onset; or asomnolent, meaning they have no particular effect on sleep onset.{{Cite journal |last1=Lemyre |first1=Alexandre |last2=Belzile |first2=Florence |last3=Landry |first3=Madeleine |last4=Bastien |first4=Célyne H. |last5=Beaudoin |first5=Luc P. |date=2020-04-01 |title=Pre-sleep cognitive activity in adults: A systematic review |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1087079219302217 |journal=Sleep Medicine Reviews |volume=50 |pages=101253 |doi=10.1016/j.smrv.2019.101253 |pmid=31918338 |issn=1087-0792}}

As noted above, mental perturbance is deemed in somnolent information processing theory to be insomnolent. The concept of mental perturbance (invoked in somnolent information processing theory) was originally expounded by Aaron Sloman, who referred to it as “emotion” in his earlier works.{{Cite web |title=YOU DON'T NEED A SOFT SKIN TO HAVE A WARM HEART Towards a computational analysis of motives and emotions |url=https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/sloman-croucher-warm-heart.html}}{{Cite web |title=WHY ROBOTS WILL HAVE EMOTIONS |url=https://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/81-1/Papers/039.pdf}} To distinguish this from other concepts of emotion, Beaudoin and Sloman introduced the technical term “perturbance”. Beaudoin refers to Sloman’s concept of emotion as “perturbance.”{{Cite web |title=A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science of the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY |url=https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk//research/projects/cogaff/Luc.Beaudoin_thesis.pdf }} Mental perturbance is an emergent state of mind in which an insistent motivator tends to control executive functions.{{Cite web |title=A Study of Motive Processing and Attention |url=https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/Luc.Beaudoin.and.Sloman_Motive_proc.pdf}} Beaudoin claims that mental perturbance is insomnolent and that the cognitive shuffle can interfere with mental perturbance, making it "counter-insomnolent." Counter-insomnolent processes are information processes that interfere with insomnolent processes.

Mobile apps such as mySleepButton and SomnoTest have been developed for technology-assisted SDI i.e., cognitive shuffling.{{Cite web |date=2017-05-07 |title=A cognitive scientist has devised a drug-free sleep trick for your restless mind |url=https://qz.com/977182/a-cognitive-scientist-has-devised-a-drug-free-sleep-trick-for-your-restless-mind |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Quartz |language=en}}{{Cite news |last=Eaton |first=Kit |date=2016-07-06 |title=A Snooze-Worthy App Collection to Add to the Smartphone |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/technology/personaltech/a-snooze-worthy-app-collection-to-add-to-the-smartphone.html |access-date=2023-09-25 |issn=0362-4331}}{{Cite journal |last1=Hammings |first1=Nicholas |last2=Stewart |first2=Jayme |date=2017-05-15 |title=Behavioural Interventions for Sleep: Who Prefers what? |url=https://journals.macewan.ca/studentresearch/article/view/1034 |journal=Student Research Proceedings |language=en |volume=2 |issue=2}}{{Cite news |last=Burkeman |first=Oliver |date=2016-07-15 |title=Shuffle your thoughts and sleep |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jul/15/shuffle-thoughts-sleep-oliver-burkeman |access-date=2023-09-25 |issn=0261-3077}} The apps aid users in practicing SDI by supplying words and images for them to imagine.{{Cite web |date=2016-03-19 |title=MySleepButton Lulls You to Sleep Using Cognitive Science |url=https://lifehacker.com/mysleepbutton-lulls-you-to-sleep-using-cognitive-scienc-1765684510 |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Lifehacker |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=SFU researchers launch a new sleep app {{!}} Globalnews.ca |url=https://globalnews.ca/news/1322990/sfu-researchers-launch-a-new-sleep-app/ |access-date=2023-09-25 |website=Global News |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=B.C. professor's sleep trick gets attention from Oprah, Forbes, Guardian |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sfu-sleep-trick-luc-beaudoin-1.4092294}}

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Category:Cognition