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An Integration of First-Person Methodologies in Cognitive
"... Abstract: A number of recent publications have argued that a scientific approach to consciousness needs a rigorous approach to first-person data collection. As mainstream experimental psychology has long abandoned such introspective or phenomenological method, there is at present no generally agreed ..."
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Abstract: A number of recent publications have argued that a scientific approach to consciousness needs a rigorous approach to first-person data collection. As mainstream experimental psychology has long abandoned such introspective or phenomenological method, there is at present no generally agreed upon method for first-person data collection in experimental consciousness studies. There are, however, a number of recent articles that all claim to provide a unique contribution to such a methodology. This article reviews these suggestions and extracts their core features. It is argued that the suggested methods are generally overlapping and compatible, and a number of concrete methods that easily are applied to experimental studies are put forward. In recent years, it has been an emerging view that in order to make progress in experimental studies of consciousness, it is necessary to develop more elaborate ‘first-person methods ’ than those that have been common in cognitive science over the last fifty years. During this long period, there has been immense resistance among psychologists and neuroscientists to the use of first-person methods This is largely due to the fact that it was standard to think of first-person reports as intersubjectively inaccessible and thus not intersubjectively verifiable. In the context of this article, we take first-person methods to
How to Improve on Heterophenomenology: The Self-Measurement Methodology of First-Person Data 1
"... Abstract: Heterophenomenology is a third-person methodology proposed by Daniel Dennett for using first-person reports as scientific evidence. I argue that heterophenomenology can be improved by making six changes: (i) setting aside consciousness, (ii) including other sources of first-person data bes ..."
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Abstract: Heterophenomenology is a third-person methodology proposed by Daniel Dennett for using first-person reports as scientific evidence. I argue that heterophenomenology can be improved by making six changes: (i) setting aside consciousness, (ii) including other sources of first-person data besides first-person reports, (iii) abandoning agnosticism as to the truth value of the reports in favor of the most plausible assumptions we can make about what can be learned from the data, (iv) interpreting first-person reports (and other first-person behaviors) directly in terms of target mental states rather than in terms of beliefs about them, (v) dropping any residual commitment to incorrigibility of first-person reports, and (vi) recognizing that thirdperson methodology does have positive effects on scientific practices. When these changes are made, heterophenomenology turns into the self-measurement methodology of firstperson data that I have defended in previous papers. 1. Reinventing Heterophenomenology? In a previous paper (Piccinini 2003a), I argued that when psychologists and neuroscientists rely on first-person reports as sources of data, they follow – or at any rate they should
Conceptual, Theoretical, and Methodological Issues in Inferring Subjective Emotion Experience Recommendations for Researchers
"... In recent years, researchers in a variety of disciplines have outlined broad methodological strategies for approaching the scientific study of conscious experience, advocating the systematic inclusion of phenomenological data in ongoing research and the use of findings at the phenomenal level to con ..."
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In recent years, researchers in a variety of disciplines have outlined broad methodological strategies for approaching the scientific study of conscious experience, advocating the systematic inclusion of phenomenological data in ongoing research and the use of findings at the phenomenal level to constrain investigations at other, more objective levels of analysis (Baars, 1988; Chalmers, 1999, 2004; Flanagan, 1992; Varela, 1996). The proposals differ in the details, but they share the common theme that new and better self-report methods will be required to advance our understanding of experience. Compared with the apparent fine-grained nature of phenomenal experience, our measures of it remain crude. Varela (1996) lamented that the advancement of the field of consciousness studies may be hindered by a reticence on the part of traditional investigators to take phenomenological
Kant and the scientific study of consciousness
"... We argue that Kant’s views about consciousness, the mind–body problem and the status of psychology as a science all differ drastically from the way in which these topics are conjoined in present debates about the prominent idea of a science of consciousness. Kant never used the concept of consciousn ..."
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We argue that Kant’s views about consciousness, the mind–body problem and the status of psychology as a science all differ drastically from the way in which these topics are conjoined in present debates about the prominent idea of a science of consciousness. Kant never used the concept of consciousness in the now dominant sense of phenomenal qualia; his discussions of the mind–body problem center not on the reducibility of mental properties but of substances; and his views about the possibility of psychology as a science did not employ the requirement of a mechanistic explanation, but of a quantification of phenomena. This shows strikingly how deeply philosophical problems and conceptions can change even if they look similar on the surface.
A Human Inquiry into the Land of Dreaming
, 2014
"... ii Until recently, research into dreaming followed the reductionist paradigm within a Freudian framework. This line of enquiry has failed to date to provide a meaningful relationship between neuropsychology and dreaming. As a result, theory development has halted, original therapeutic approaches out ..."
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ii Until recently, research into dreaming followed the reductionist paradigm within a Freudian framework. This line of enquiry has failed to date to provide a meaningful relationship between neuropsychology and dreaming. As a result, theory development has halted, original therapeutic approaches outside the analytic tradition are scarce, and practitioners are disempowered when confronted with dream material. However, in recent years the concept of consciousness is back on the scientific agenda and the study of the subjective experience of dreaming is once again possible. Eight co-inquirers employed Heron’s (1996) co-operative inquiry. We collaboratively explored our experience of dreaming holding seven meetings over six months. Paradoxically, we found that our experiences and understandings were similar and conflicting, mirroring the current debates in dream research. Our findings indicate strong links with waking consciousness, and that dreams are a source of entertainment, insight, problem solving and angst. Our study also highlighted that directing our awareness altered the nature
Carter’s Cartesian Paraphrase and “Operational Autonomy”: The Carter-Bostrom Anthropic Principle, the Principle of Mediocrity, and “Being No One...”
, 2008
"... This paper examines Yilmaz, Ören and Aghaee’s outline of present research efforts into the development of simulations that “represent the behavior of active (human) entities in the world. ” The paper argues that the Carter-Bostrom formulation of the anthropic principle provides a more functional set ..."
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This paper examines Yilmaz, Ören and Aghaee’s outline of present research efforts into the development of simulations that “represent the behavior of active (human) entities in the world. ” The paper argues that the Carter-Bostrom formulation of the anthropic principle provides a more functional set of theoretical, and pragmatic proposals to frame the issue of the simulation of human sociocognitive activity than the now standard conjunctive phrases “cognitive simulations, ” “Strong Artificial Intelligence, ” and “Strong Machinic Consciousness. ” More importantly, the principle of “anthropic entity(s) ” was, in its original cosmological form, developed within the global context of evolutionary theory. Consequently, as an evolutionary principle, it may provide a more comprehensive, explanatory context with which to frame the possible emergence of the first fully operational artificial simulations. In its present formulation, however, the anthropic principle is insufficient with respect to two interlocking issues that are of foundational importance to the successful development of simulations. These are the principle of “operational autonomy,” and a credible, theoretical response to two of the most generic, identitarian properties of (human) personhood: the folk psychological belief in “our ” substantive, autonomous identity as persons possessing the property of being the person whom we experience as “me ” or “I”; and the autocentric preclusion of the emergence of the concept of personhood to other forms of emergent, anthropic entities.
Scientific Methods Ought to Be Public, and Descriptive Experience Sampling Is One of Them 1
"... developed by Hurlburt and collaborators, works roughly as follows. An investigator gives a subject a random beeper. During the day, as the subject hears a beep, she writes a description of her conscious experience just before the beep. The next day, the investigator interviews the subject, asks for ..."
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developed by Hurlburt and collaborators, works roughly as follows. An investigator gives a subject a random beeper. During the day, as the subject hears a beep, she writes a description of her conscious experience just before the beep. The next day, the investigator interviews the subject, asks for more details, corrects any apparent mistakes made by the subject, and draws conclusions about the subject’s mind. Throughout the book, Schwitzgebel challenges some of Hurlburt’s specific conclusions. Yet both agree – and so do I – that DES is a worthy method. Why is DES legitimate? In recent years, there’s been a serious debate about the legitimacy of methods – such as DES – that rely on so-called “first-person data”. Privatists maintain that such methods are “firstperson” or private, thus different in kind from ordinary scientific methods (Chalmers 2004, Gertler 2009,
Acknowledgements
"... development computer science pathology imaging consciousness dualism evolution psychology music learning perception for Mind, Brain, and Behavior BRAIN stimulation cognition physiology mind physics information artificial intelligence sociobiology statistics structure function history inside: free wi ..."
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development computer science pathology imaging consciousness dualism evolution psychology music learning perception for Mind, Brain, and Behavior BRAIN stimulation cognition physiology mind physics information artificial intelligence sociobiology statistics structure function history inside: free will genetics pharmacology conversations with language development computer science Kay Jamison,
Donelson E. Dulany How Well Are We Moving Toward a Most Productive Science of Consciousness?
"... This will be a commentary on TSC 2008, not a summary, so I should say something about the perspective I bring. Consciousness is, after all, the medium in which we live our lives — the very subject of the founding of a science psychology, rejected by behaviourists on irrelevant metaphysical fears, an ..."
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This will be a commentary on TSC 2008, not a summary, so I should say something about the perspective I bring. Consciousness is, after all, the medium in which we live our lives — the very subject of the founding of a science psychology, rejected by behaviourists on irrelevant metaphysical fears, and then treated only gingerly in the computational and information processing metatheories that have dominated much of the discipline and beyond over the last half century (Dulany, in press). For that matter, I can say this of studies I read in a range of psychology journals, including those submitted to me in my 20 years asEditoroftheAmerican Journal of Psychology: it seemed rather clear to me that conscious states and contents of the experimental subjects were centrally and causally involved in the production of their experimental effects — consistent, by the way, with a mentalistic metatheory I have presented (e.g. Dulany, 1997; 2004). In an increasing number of studies those effects are specifically investigated. Shouldn’t a most productive science of consciousness focus on what consciousness explains — on what it permits in mentation and in action? With the symbolic contents of conscious states we represent events out there in perceptions, in the past in remembrances, even of our own conscious experience, and in a future as expected or wished
