The well-known experiments of Nisbett and Wilson lead to the conclusion that we have no introspective access to our decision-making processes. Johansson et al. have recently developed an original protocol consisting in manipulating covertly the relationship between the subjects’ intended choice and the outcome they were presented with: in 79.6% of cases, they do not detect the manipulation and provide an explanation of the choice they did not make, confirming the findings of Nisbett and Wilson. We have reproduced this protocol, (...) while introducing for some choices an expert guidance to the description of this choice. The subjects who were assisted detected the manipulation in 80% of cases. Our experiment confirms Nisbett and Wilson’s findings that we are usually unaware of our decision processes, but goes further by showing that we can access them through specific mental acts. (shrink)

There is a growing realization in cognitive science that a theory of embodied intersubjectivity is needed to better account for social cognition. We highlight some challenges that must be addressed by attempts to interpret ‘simulation theory’ in terms of embodiment, and argue for an alternative approach that integrates phenomenology and dynamical systems theory in a mutually informing manner. Instead of ‘simulation’ we put forward the concept of the ‘extended body’, an enactive and phenomenological notion that emphasizes the socially mediated nature (...) of embodiment. To illustrate the explanatory potential of this approach, we replicate an agent-based model of embodied social interaction. An analysis of the model demonstrates that the extended body can be explained in terms of mutual dynamical entanglement: inter-bodily resonance between individuals can give rise to self-sustaining interaction patterns that go beyond the behavioral capacities of isolated individuals by modulating their intra-bodily conditions of behavior generation. (shrink)

Not only our conscious expectations, wishes and intentions are directed towards the future, but also pre- or unconscious tendencies, hunches and anticipations. Using a term of Ernst Bloch, they can be summarized as thenot-yet-conscious. This not-yet-conscious mostly unfolds spontaneously and without plan; it is not directly anticipated or aimed at, but rather comes to awareness in such a way that the subject is, as it were, surprised by itself. Thus it gives rise to phenomena such as the striking, the coincidental, (...) the new, and the improvised, which are particularly important for understanding creative and therapeutic processes. The paper aims at providing a general phenomenological framework for the understanding of not-yet-conscious dynamics and their unfolding in different contexts. To this end, the structure of the not-yet-conscious is examined in light ofprotention, in which the phenomenon is fundamentally to be located. I propose to describe the general structure of protention as a future-directed horizon of graded probabilities, i.e., as a “protentional cone”. This cone is fed by current experiences and bodily tendencies and is focused to varying degrees by attention. This results in either more focused or rather defocused states of anticipation, the latter giving space to the not-yet-conscious as a meaning “in statu nascendi”. On this basis, selected manifestations of the not-yet-conscious are analyzed, including extemporaneous speech, artistic improvisation and creativity, bodily meaning implicates, decision-making, and meaningful coincidence. (shrink)

In experimental cognitive psychology, objects of inquiry are typically operationalized with psychological tasks. When interpreting results from such tasks, we focus primarily on behavioral measures such as reaction times and accuracy rather than experiences – i.e., phenomenology – associated with the task, and posit that the tasks elicit the desired cognitive phenomenon. Evaluating whether the tasks indeed elicit the desired phenomenon can be facilitated by understanding the experience during task performance. In this paper we explore the breadth of experiences that (...) are elicited by and accompany task performance using in-depth phenomenological and qualitative methodology to gather subjective reports during the performance of a visuo-spatial change detection task. Thirty-one participants were asked to remember either colors, orientations or positions of the presented stimuli and recall them after a short delay. Qualitative reports revealed rich experiential landscapes associated with the task-performance, suggesting a distinction between two broad classes of experience: phenomena at the front of consciousness and background feelings. The former includes cognitive strategies and aspects of metacognition, whereas the latter include more difficult-to-detect aspects of experience that comprise the overall sense of experience. We focus primarily on the background feelings, since strategies of task-performance to a large extent map onto previously identified cognitive processes and discuss the methodological implications of our findings. (shrink)

The distinguishing feature of enactivist cognitive science is arguably its commitment to non-reductionism and its philosophical allegiance to first-person approaches, like phenomenology. The guiding theme of this article is that a theoretically mature enactivism is bound to be humanistic in its articulation, and only by becoming more humanistic can enactivism more fully embody the non-reductionist spirit that lay at its foundation. Our explanatory task is thus to bring forth such an articulation by advancing an enactivist theory of human personality. To (...) this end, we synthesize core concepts from cognitive science, personality theory, and phenomenological philosophy in order to develop an Enactivist Big-5 Theory of personality. According to EB5T, personality traits are dispositional tendencies for how we come to optimally grip our distinctly human worlds. Individual differences in personality are therefore reflective of stylistic differences in optimal gripping tendencies between human beings. EB5T affords a non-reductionist understanding of the immanent teleology of the autopoietically embodied human mind as a kind of full-scale optimal gripping process that is achieved along five major dimensions of personality. To the degree that these dimensions are universal, therefore, we argue that our theory offers a viable path forward in advancing enactivist cognitive science beyond the life of a cell and into the mind of a person, a longstanding hope and ambition held by proponents of the enactive approach. (shrink)

The paper defends the position that phenomenological interviews can provide a rich source of knowledge and that they are in no principled way less reliable or less valid than quantitative or experimental methods in general. It responds to several skeptic objections such as those raised against introspection, those targeting the unreliability of episodic memory, and those claiming that interviews cannot address the psychological, cognitive and biological correlates of experience. It argues that the skeptic must either heed the methodological and epistemological (...) justification of the phenomenological interview provided, or embrace a more fundamental skepticism, a “deep mistrust”, in which scientific discourse can have no recourse to conscious processes as explananda, with ensuing dire consequences for our conception of science. (shrink)

Despite a long history of researchers who combine phenomenology with qualitative or quantitative methods, there are only few examples of working with a phenomenological mixed method—a method where phenomenology informs both qualitative and quantitative data generation, analysis, and interpretation. Researchers have argued that in working with a phenomenological mixed method, there should be mutual constraint and enlightenment between the qualitative and quantitative methods for studying consciousness. In this article, we discuss what a framework for phenomenological mixed methods could look like (...) and we aim to provide guidance of how to work within such framework. We are inspired by resources coming from research in mixed methods and existing examples of phenomenological mixed-method research. We also present three cases of phenomenological mixed methods where we study complex social phenomena and discuss the process of how we conducted the studies. From both the research inspiration and our own studies, we depict the landscape of possibilities available for those interested in mixing phenomenology with qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as the challenges and common pitfalls that researchers face. To navigate in this landscape, we develop a three-fold structure, focusing on the phenomenological frame, the phenomenologically informed generation of qualitative and quantitative data, and the phenomenologically informed analysis and interpretation of data. (shrink)

This paper describes a method for analyzing a corpus of descriptions collected through micro-phenomenological interviews. This analysis aims at identifying the structure of the singular experiences which have been described, and in particular their diachronic structure, while unfolding generic experiential structures through an iterative approach. After summarizing the principles of the micro-phenomenological interview, and then describing the process of preparation of the verbatim, the article presents on the one hand, the principles and conceptual devices of the analysis method and on (...) the other hand several dimensions of the analysis process: the modes of structural unfolding of generic structures, the mutual guidance of the processes of structural and experiential unfolding, the tracking of analysis processes, and finally the assessment of analysis results. (shrink)

This study presents two case reports of altered states spontaneously occurring during meditation in two proficient practitioners. These states, known as fruition, are common within the Mahasi School of Theravada Buddhism, and are considered the culmination of contemplation-induced stages of consciousness. Here, electrophysiological measures of these experiences were measured, with the participant’s personal reports used to guide the neural analyzes. The preliminary results demonstrate an increase in global long-range gamma synchronization during the fruition states, compared to the background meditation. The (...) discrepancies and similarities with other neuroscientific studies of meditation-induced altered states are discussed. Albeit preliminary, the results presented here provide support for the possibility - previously raised by various authors - that long-range global gamma synchronization may offer an underlying mechanism for un-learning of habitual conditioning and mental patterns, possibly underpinning the neural correlate of the Buddhist concept of liberation. Finally, this pilot study highlights the utility of employing neuro-phenomenology, namely using first-person reports to guide neural analyzes, in the study of subtle human consciousness states. (shrink)

Depression has been widely studied by researchers from different fields, but its causes, and mechanism of action are still not clear. A difficulty emerges from the shifting from objective diagnosis or analysis to exploration of subjective feelings and experiences that influence the individuals' expression, communication and coping in facing depression. The integration of the experiential dimension of the first-person in studies on depression–and related methodological recommendations–are needed to improve the validity and generalizability of research findings. It will allow the development (...) of timely and effective actions of care. Starting from providing a summary of the literature on theoretical assumptions and considerations for the study of the mind, with particular attention to the experiential dimension of patients with depression, this contribution is aimed to provide practical suggestions for the design of research able to incorporate first- and third-person accounts. It is also aimed to review qualified phenomenological methods for the acquisition and interpretation of experiential data in patients with depression. Recognizing the first-person perspective in the study of depression is a major step toward a better understanding and treatment of this disorder. Theoretical constructs and technique suggestions that result from this review offer a valid starting point for the inclusion of the experiential dimension to common third-person research in the study of the mind. (shrink)

Research in phenomenology has benefitted from using exceptional cases from pathology and expertise. But exactly how are we to generate and apply knowledge from such cases to the phenomenological domain? As researchers of cerebral palsy and musical absorption, we together answer the how question by pointing to the resource of the qualitative interview. Using the qualitative interview is a direct response to Varela’s call for better pragmatics in the methodology of phenomenology and cognitive science and Gallagher’s suggestion for phenomenology to (...) develop its methodology and outsource its tasks. We agree with their proposals, but want to develop them further by discussing and proposing a general framework that can integrate research paradigms of the well-established disciplines of phenomenological philosophy and qualitative science. We give this the working title, a “phenomenological interview”. First we describe the what of the interview, that is the nature of the interview in which one encounters another subject and generates knowledge of a given experience together with this other subject. In the second part, we qualify why it is worthwhile making the time-consuming effort to engage in a phenomenological interview. In the third and fourth parts, we in general terms discuss how to conduct the interview and the subsequent phenomenological analysis, by discussing the pragmatics of Vermersch’s and Petitmengin’s “Explicitation Interview”. (shrink)

The invention of the computer has revolutionized science. With respect to finding the essential structures of life, for example, it has enabled scientists not only to investigate empirical examples, but also to create and study novel hypothetical variations by means of simulation: ‘life as it could be’. We argue that this kind of research in the field of artificial life, namely the specification, implementation and evaluation of artificial systems, is akin to Husserl’s method of free imaginative variation as applied to (...) the specific regional ontology of biology. Thus, at a time when the clarification of the essence of our biological embodiment is of growing interest for phenomenology, we suggest that artificial life should be seen as a method of externalizing some of the insurmountable complexity of imaginatively varying the phenomenon of life. (shrink)

The paper presents the prevailing understanding of pre-reflective and reflective experience as a “data-description model”. According to this model, pre-reflective experience is the original datum, the meaning of which is fully determined in the very beginning, whereas reflection is a secondary layer that purports to recover faithfully the meaning of the pre-reflective. The paper spells out the difficulty of this model by looking into the scepticism on reflection. Despite its contribution to explicating the basic level of human consciousness, the data-description (...) model merely attends to the epistemological function of reflection and its orientation towards the past. The aim of the paper is thus to propose an alternative model inspired by the phenomenological-hermeneutical tradition, especially the paradigm of “text” Gadamer and Ricoeur emphasize. By understanding pre-reflective experience as a text, we are able to make explicit the essential role reflection plays for human life and its inherent existential dimension. (shrink)

Human behavior can range from automatic and even unconscious bodily movements to very elaborate and rational decisions. In this paper I develop a taxonomy based on the empirical analysis of the phenomenology associated with selected instances of different forms of behavior. The transition from sub-actional behavior to proper actions is shown to take place when the agent intervenes actively in the causal process leading from her mental states to the bodily movement by exercising her power to form intentions to act. (...) It is argued that this type of analysis could be helpful to agent-causal accounts of action and free will. (shrink)

Let me express my deep thanks to the contributors for taking the time to read my book, Mind in Life, and for writing their thoughtful commentaries, from which I have learned a great deal. Special thanks are due to Tobias Schlicht, whose hard work and dedication made this volume possible. In what follows, I will respond singly to each con-tributor and do my best to address their main points. My replies to the commentators will be longer or shorter depending on (...) the points they raised. (shrink)

In this paper, I review recent contributions of phenomenology to a variety of disciplines, including the cognitive sciences and psychiatry, and explore (1) controversies about phenomenological methods and naturalization; (2) relations between phenomenology and the enactive and extended mind approaches; and (3) the promise of phenomenology for addressing a number of controversial philosophical issues.

Recent decades have seen a development of a variety of approaches for examining lived experience in the context of cognitive science. However, the field of first-person research has yet to develop a pragmatic epistemological framework that would enable researchers to compare and integrate – as well as understand the epistemic status of – different methods and their findings. In this article, we present the foundation of such a framework, grounded in an epistemological investigation of gestures involved in acquiring data on (...) experience. We examine the acts of turning towards one’s experiential field and attending to experience within the process of reflection. We describe what we call the _horizon of attending to experience_ by analogy to the “experimental arrangement” in quantum observation: this horizon, we argue, co-defines experiential phenomena that end up being observed and reported; at the same time, it itself forms an element of experience and is therefore amenable to phenomenological investigation. Drawing on the constructivist notion of enaction, we show that acknowledging the inherently constructive nature of attending to experience and accepting one’s lack of epistemic access to the “original”, observation-independent pre-reflective experience is not a dead end for first-person research when situated in a constructivist (but not relativist) understanding of the reflective act and its results. Expanding the notion of the horizon to encompass all epistemic acts involved in producing phenomenological data and final results of a first-person study (i.e., _horizon of the method_), we suggest some lines of inquiry that would allow researchers to identify and articulate horizons of particular methods, opening a way towards integrating past and future findings of different complementary first-person approaches into a comprehensive map of lived experience. (shrink)

Despite a recent surge in publications on Tourette Syndrome, we still lack substantial insight into first-personal aspects of “what it is like” to live with this condition. This is despite the fact that developments in phenomenological psychiatry have demonstrated the scientific and clinical importance of understanding subjective experience in a range of other neuropsychiatric conditions. We argue that it is time for Tourette Syndrome research to tap into the sophisticated frameworks developed in the philosophical tradition of phenomenology for describing experience (...) in a way that integrates discrete symptoms into an overarching experiential framework concerning the self, the body, and its modes of experience. Following a historical introduction that contextualises the pertinence of phenomenology to psychopathology, we distinguish this approach from the existing, psychologically oriented studies on TS that are also qualitative. We then outline gaps and opportunities for future research, including the sorts of questions that might be utilised in phenomenological interviews and why they are of potential benefit to research programs in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. In conclusion we address some of the broader implications for phenomenology of the body and philosophy of action. (shrink)

Imagine a scenario where you are cooking and suddenly, the contents of the pot start to come out, and the oven bell rings. You would have to stop what you are doing and start responding to the changing demands, switching between different objects, operations and mental sets. This ability is known as cognitive flexibility. Now, add to this scenario a strong emotional atmosphere that invades you as you spontaneously recall a difficult situation you had that morning. How would you behave? (...) Recent studies suggest that emotional states do modulate cognitive flexibility, but these findings are still controversial. Moreover, there is a lack of evidence regarding the underlying brain processes. The purpose of the present study was, therefore, to examine such interaction while monitoring changes in ongoing cortical activity using EEG. In order to answer this question, we used two musical stimuli to induce emotional states (positive/high arousal/open stance and negative/high arousal/closed stance). Twenty-nine participants performed two blocks of the Madrid Card Sorting Task (MCST) in a neutral silence condition and then four blocks while listening to the counterbalanced musical stimuli. To explore this interaction, we used a combination of first-person (micro-phenomenological interview) and third-person (behavior and EEG) approaches. Our results show that compared to the positive stimuli and silence condition, negative stimuli decrease reaction times (RTs) for the shift signal. Our data show that the valance of the first emotional block is determinant in the RTs of the subsequent blocks. Additionally, the analysis of the micro-phenomenological interview and the integration of first- and third-person data show that the emotional disposition generated by the music could facilitate task performance for some participants or hamper it for others, independently of its emotional valence. When the emotional disposition hampered task execution, RTs were slower, and the P300 potential showed a reduced amplitude compared to the facilitated condition. These findings show that the interaction between emotion and cognitive flexibility is more complex than previously thought and points to a new way of understanding the underlying mechanisms by incorporating an in-depth analysis of individual subjective experience. (shrink)

Cardiophenomenology aims at refining the neuro-phenomenological approach created by F. Varela as a new paradigm, jointly based on Husserl’s a priori dynamics of the living present and an experiment on anticipatory time-dynamics of visual motor perception. In order to do so, we will situate the paradigm of neurophenomenology at the cardio-vascular level, focusing on the emotional dynamics of lived experience and thus refining the dialogue, more precisely, the generative mutual constraints between first- and third-person analysis. In this article we present (...) the theoretical hypothesis of cardiophenomenology, which places the bodily-emotional heartsystem at its core, as an intrinsic part of the cognitive system. The latter therefore needs to be enlarged in order to include an enactive embodied cardiac-affective dimension. Here we present five main arguments for the necessary inclusion of the bodily-emotional heartsystem in the cognitive system: first, two pragmatic operational arguments, then three theoretical ones. A direct methodological-pragmatic consequence is the actual operativity of the generative mutual constraints based on an experiential -experimental continuity of the embodied cardiac-affective fold inherent in the subject. (shrink)

From the height of his ninety years of experience, Robert G. Shulman is not just a veteran of World War II, but a world-class biophysicist with a distinguished research career spanning the California Institute of Technology, Bell Labs, and Yale University. A forerunner in the use of nuclear magnetic resonance, Shulman contributed to the study of biochemical processes, founded the Yale Magnetic Resonance Research Center, and shepherded functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) as a dominant tool of cognitive neuroscience. Together with (...) Gregory McCarthy et al., Shulman authored several of the earliest fMRI studies, including the first to explicitly manipulate cognitive processes (McCarthy, Blamire, Rothman, Gruetter, & Shulman, 1993; Shulman, Blamire, Rothman, & McCarthy, 1993). As such, his ideas concerning conscious research piqued our curiosity. We read Brain Imaging: What It Can (and Cannot) Tell Us About Consciousness with anticipation.Shulman comes full circle with his book on brain imaging: although his career spanned meaningful collaborations with behavioural scientists and interactions with researchers from preclinical and clinical fields, he retreats to the comfort of the biophysical sciences. Two prominent, but related, hesitations give us pause regarding his retreat. First, he claims that a behaviourist approach to brain imaging is reasonable and pragmatic for the science of consciousness. Second, he rebuffs subjective and phenomenal forms of evidence. In... (shrink)

The clinical encounter begins with presentation of an illness experience; but throughout that encounter, something else is constructed from it – a symptom. The symptom is a particular interpretation of that experience, useful for certain purposes in particular contexts. The hermeneutics of medicine – the study of the interpretation of human experience in medical terms – has largely taken the process of symptom-construction to be transparent, focussing instead on how constellations of symptoms are interpreted as representative of particular conditions. This (...) paper examines the hermeneutical activity of symptom-construction more closely. I propose a fourfold account of the clinical function of symptoms: as theoretical entities; as tools for communication; as guides to palliative intervention; and as candidates for medical explanation or intervention. I also highlight roles they might play in illness experience. I use this framework to discuss four potential failures of symptom-interpretation: failure of symptom-type and symptom-token recognition; loss of the complete picture of illness experience through overwhelming emphasis on its symptomatic interpretation; and intersubjective feedback effects of symptom description altering the ill person’s own perceptions of their phenomenal experience. I conclude with some suggestions of potential remedies for failures in the process of symptom-construction. (shrink)

Recent decades have seen a development of a variety of approaches for examining lived experience in the context of cognitive science. However, the field of first-person research has yet to develop a pragmatic epistemological framework that would enable researchers to compare and integrate – as well as understand the epistemic status of – different methods and their findings. In this article, we present the foundation of such a framework, grounded in an epistemological investigation of gestures involved in acquiring data on (...) experience. We examine the acts of turning towards one’s experiential field and attending to experience within the process of reflection. We describe what we call the horizon of attending to experience by analogy to the “experimental arrangement” in quantum observation: this horizon, we argue, co-defines experiential phenomena that end up being observed and reported; at the same time, it itself forms an element of experience and is therefore amenable to phenomenological investigation. Drawing on the constructivist notion of enaction, we show that acknowledging the inherently constructive nature of attending to experience and accepting one’s lack of epistemic access to the “original”, observation-independent pre-reflective experience is not a dead end for first-person research when situated in a constructivist (but not relativist) understanding of the reflective act and its results. Expanding the notion of the horizon to encompass all epistemic acts involved in producing phenomenological data and final results of a first-person study (i.e., horizon of the method), we suggest some lines of inquiry that would allow researchers to identify and articulate horizons of particular methods, opening a way towards integrating past and future findings of different complementary first-person approaches into a comprehensive map of lived experience. (shrink)