Neurophenomenology revisited: second-person methods for the study of human consciousness

Abstract

In the study of consciousness, neurophenomenology was originally established as a novel research program attempting to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable methodologies in psychology: qualitative and quantitative methods. Its potential relies on Francisco Varela’s idea of reciprocal constraints, in which first-person accounts and neurophysiological data mutually inform each other. However, since its first conceptualization, neurophenomenology has encountered methodological problems. These problems have emerged mainly because of the difficulty of obtaining and analyzing subjective reports in a systematic manner. However, more recently, several interview techniques for describing subjective accounts have been developed, collectively known as “second-person methods.” Second-person methods refer to interview techniques that solicit both verbal and non-verbal information from participants in order to obtain systematic and detailed subjective reports. Here, we examine the potential for employing second-person methodologies in the neurophenomenological study of consciousness and we propose three practical ideas for developing a second-person neurophenomenological method. Thus, we first describe second-person methodologies available in the literature for analyzing subjective reports, identifying specific constraints on the status of the first-, second- and third- person methods. Second, we analyze two experimental studies that explicitly incorporate second-person methods for traversing the “gap” between phenomenology and neuroscience. Third, we analyze the challenges that second-person accounts face in establishing an objective methodology for comparing results across different participants and interviewers: this is the “validation” problem. Finally, we synthesize the common aspects of the interview methods described above. In conclusion, our arguments emphasize that second-person methods represent a powerful approach for closing the gap between the experiential and the neurobiological levels of description in the study of human consciousness.

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published: 29 May 2015
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00673
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*Correspondence:
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Citation:
Olivares FA, Vargas E, Fuentes C,
Martínez-Pernía D and
Canales-Johnson A (2015)
Neurophenomenology revisited:
second-person methods for the study
of human consciousness.
Front. Psychol. 6:673.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00673
Neurophenomenology revisited:
second-person methods for the
study of human consciousness
Francisco A. Olivares 1†, Esteban Vargas 2, Claudio Fuentes 3, David Martínez-Pernía 1and
Andrés Canales-Johnson 1,4,5*†
1Laboratory of Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, Psychology Department, Universidad Diego Portales, UDP-INECO
Foundation Core on Neuroscience, Santiago, Chile, 2Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso,
Chile, 3Faculty of Psychology, Center of Argumentation and Reasoning Studies, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago,
Chile, 4Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK, 5Department of Psychology,
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
In the study of consciousness, neurophenomenology was originally established as a
novel research program attempting to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable method-
ologies in psychology: qualitative and quantitative methods. Its potential relies on
Francisco Varela’s idea of reciprocal constraints, in which first-person accounts and
neurophysiological data mutually inform each other. However, since its first concep-
tualization, neurophenomenology has encountered methodological problems. These
problems have emerged mainly because of the difficulty of obtaining and analyzing
subjective reports in a systematic manner. However, more recently, several inter-
view techniques for describing subjective accounts have been developed, collectively
known as “second-person methods.” Second-person methods refer to interview tech-
niques that solicit both verbal and non-verbal information from participants in order
to obtain systematic and detailed subjective reports. Here, we examine the potential
for employing second-person methodologies in the neurophenomenological study of
consciousness and we propose three practical ideas for developing a second-person
neurophenomenological method. Thus, we first describe second-person methodolo-
gies available in the literature for analyzing subjective reports, identifying specific
constraints on the status of the first-, second- and third- person methods. Second,
we analyze two experimental studies that explicitly incorporate second-person meth-
ods for traversing the “gap” between phenomenology and neuroscience. Third, we
analyze the challenges that second-person accounts face in establishing an objec-
tive methodology for comparing results across different participants and interviewers:
this is the “validation” problem. Finally, we synthesize the common aspects of the
interview methods described above. In conclusion, our arguments emphasize that
second-person methods represent a powerful approach for closing the gap between
the experiential and the neurobiological levels of description in the study of human
consciousness.
Keywords: neurophenomenolgy, second-person methods, elicitation interview, descriptive experience sampling,
double-blind interview, mutual circulation
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
The Neurophenomenological Program
Francisco Varela in his article “Neurophenomenology: a method-
ological remedy for the hard problem” (Varela, 1996) proposed a
novel research program for the study of human consciousness or
lived experience by combining experimental methods of neuro-
science with phenomenological methods of Western philosophy.
“Phenomenology” has at least two different meanings in this con-
text. First, it represents a research program for the study of human
consciousness that includes phenomenology, introspection and
meditation as its main methodologies (i.e., phenomenology as a
general concept; Varela, 1996, p. 333). These are based, respec-
tively, on the “reduction” and “suspension of the natural attitude”
derived from the phenomenological tradition; on the attentional
capacities derived from scientific psychology; and on meditation
practices derived from Buddhist and Vedic traditions (Varela and
Shear, 1999, p. 7). Second, phenomenology can be understood as
a specific disciplined method for describing lived experience, first
introduced by Husserl, and further developed by Merleau-Ponty
and others (i.e., phenomenology as a restricted concept coming
from the philosophical tradition). In the context of the neurophe-
nomenological program, the notion of “Phenomenology” refers to
the first sense (i.e., the general concept of phenomenology) which
includes the Husserlian phenomenological tradition as one of its
specific methodologies.
Given the importance of this topic for the rest of the article, it is
worth drawing a strict distinction between the concepts of intro-
spection and phenomenology (in its restricted conceptualization).
Although both methods have existed for over a century, there are
still contemporary studies that confuse the introspective and the
phenomenological approaches, as has been alerted in several pub-
lications (Varela, 1996; Gallagher and Sørensen, 2006; Gallagher
and Zahavi, 2008). This misinterpretation is even committed by
very well known professionals of Cognitive Sciences, such as Den-
nett (1991), who confused the phenomenological method with
introspectionism in his book “Consciousness explained” (Varela,
1996; Gallagher, 2000).
Nowadays two different procedures denominated “introspec-
tion” can be distinguished in the experimental research applied
in Cognitive Sciences: introspection in a weak sense and in a
strong sense (Gallagher and Sørensen, 2006). The weak concept
of introspection is applied in those experimental designs where a
person is required to report his or her own experience (in a verbal
or behavioral response) when a specific stimulus is provided, e.g.,
a word, an image, a sound (Jack and Roepstorff, 2002; Price and
Aydede, 2005). While the concept of weak introspection has been
used for over a century in research focusing on the subjective
experience of consciousness (Locke, 2009), introspection in the
strong sense has been frequently confused with the phenomeno-
logical method. The reason for this misinterpretation is that the
concept of introspection in the strong sense applies a method that
makes the participant exclude any subjective interpretation from
his or her experience and focus on their “pure” perception (Gal-
lagher and Sørensen, 2006). Another characteristic of the strong
concept of introspection is that the person, prior to the testing
phase, is trained in this specific type of experiences that must be
achieved. Initially, the researcher provides the participant with a
number of the qualifying categories already operationalized by the
investigator. Once the experiences in these categories are collected
in verbal reports, the researcher transforms them into quantitative
data, which could be compared with other third-person data
(Gallagher and Sørensen, 2006).
On the other hand, there are a number of different variations of
the phenomenological method. In the context of Varela´s work,
the method incorporates three steps (Gallagher and Sørensen,
2006; Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008). In the first step, denominated
as “suspending beliefs or theories about experience,” the inter-
viewer raises open questions about the interviewee’s experiences.
These questions lack any categorization or information that could
bias the experience of the person. Through the method of open
questions the interviewer aims for the individual to focus their
attention on their own experience, reducing the number of possi-
ble interpretations (epoché). Through accomplishing the epoché,
the person does not alter the veridity of the lived experience, but
the interpretation on the phenomenon. This first step is similar
to the concept of introspection in the strong sense. In the second
step, called “gaining intimacy with the domain of investigation,”
the interviewer gives the individual an insight into the study’s
targeted experience. For that, the interviewer assists the person
in exploring his or her experience in multiple ways (elaborated
in the “Second-person method” section below). The task of the
researcher is to enrich the conscious experience by guiding the
session, which will allow the interviewee to more easily evoke
the pre-reflective experiences. Thanks to this enrichment, the
interviewee will have access to a new comprehension of his or
her experience, i.e., to an intuition of his or her lived experience.
While in the first and second steps the method is focused on
the subjective experience, in the last step this changes. The third
step in the neurophenomenological interview, termed “offering
descriptions and using intersubjective validations,” is focused on
externalizing the experience and sharing it with a community.
This final step is of a great importance with respect to the scientific
study of phenomenology. Depending on the scientific validity of
this methodology, the results found in the interview might be
replicated and accepted in the scientific community, or rejected
based on the method’s inadequacy (this epistemological prob-
lem discussed below). In a nutshell, the descriptions that the
interviewer collects are permanent properties that stay invariant
during different analyses. They constitute a stable structure in the
experience. Through this permanent feature, the same study could
be repeated with other participants, and consequently confirmed
or rejected in intersubjective validation. One important character-
istic of this kind of validation is that the reports collected are not
transformed into quantitative variables, which allows for keeping
the data in its first-person experience state. This is an essential
feature of phenomenological method. In the general context of
the research, the phenomenological data (first-person), which was
collected in a second-person interview, can be correlated with
third-person data (behavioral response, neuroimaging, electroen-
cephalography, EEG). Varela named this triple level of study as
“mutual circulation” (Varela, 1996).
To summarize, introspection and phenomenology are differ-
ent methods of studying the lived experience in first-person.
Nevertheless, they are both part of the neurophenomenological
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
program. The two methods are complementary in the first-person
analysis. Varela expressed this notion in the following terms: “Phe-
nomenology does share with introspectionism an interest in the
reflective doubling as a key move of its approach to phenomena”
(Varela, 1996, p. 338). From a procedural point of view, introspec-
tion is the first step in Varela’s phenomenology, showing the con-
tent of the lived experience. However, the introspective method
is insufficient to explain the whole lived experience of a person.
To complete this description, it is also necessary to integrate the
phenomenological and the meditation methods. Just with the
application of these three neurophenomenological methods the
subjective experience can be comprehensively explained.
One of the goals of the neurophenomenology is to unify two
different traditions, the neuroscientific experimental approach
and the phenomenological approach (as a general concept) by
integrating the lived, experiential data with neuroscientific data
(Froese and Fuchs, 2012). Thus, neurophenomenology has to
combine two distinct methodological procedures. On the one
hand, the neuroscientific procedures furnish third-person “objec-
tive” data (e.g., fMRI, EEG) and, on the other, the phenomeno-
logical procedure provides first-person data, meaning reports of
the observer’s lived experience. Just as there are many methods
for obtaining third-person data, there are several means to acquir-
ing data about a lived experience. These include -as described
above- the phenomenological, introspective and meditative meth-
ods (Varela and Shear, 1999). To counteract the methodologi-
cal differences between its constituents, the success of the neu-
rophenomenological program requires a “necessary circulation”
or communication between the first- and third-person accounts.
In other words, neurophenomenology requires an integration of
the third-person methods with all of the described first-person
approaches (Varela and Shear, 1999).
Since its original conception, one of the main challenges for
the neurophenomenological program is the creation of formal
models for integrating both phenomenological and neurobiolog-
ical accounts. The difficulty lies in establishing the correlation
between local and global patterns of neural activity and their
relationship with the phenomenal structure of the subjective expe-
rience (Lutz et al., 2002). Regarding the difficulty of generating
models that link empirical and experiential data, Froese and Gal-
lagher (2010) have suggested an intermediate step. They propose
using agent-based modeling and mathematical simulation for
developing formal models capable of integrating objective and
subjective data. Another challenge in front of neurophenomenol-
ogy has been the integration of extended and embodied aspects
of human cognition. This issue has been addressed by investi-
gating the relationship between cooperative patterns of neural
activity and ecological (Colombetti, 2014; Desmidt et al., 2014),
environmental (Beaton, 2013), and embodied/social aspects of
the phenomenal experience (Lutz and Thompson, 2003; Froese
and Fuchs, 2012). Thus, the problem of constructing a “bridge”
between phenomenology, neurobiology and the environment
finds its place as one of the main challenges of the neurophe-
nomenological program.
During the last decade, several researchers have explicitly
incorporated first-person phenomenological data in
their third-person experimental protocols, exemplifying
neurophenomenological practice (Lutz et al., 2002; Garrison
et al., 2013; Petitmengin et al., 2013). In one of the first
and most influential examples, Lutz et al. (2002) correlated
phenomenological reports, reaction times and dynamical analysis
of brain activity EEG. Thus, EEG activity was recorded during
the presentation of a point pattern with depth information called
an auto-stereogram. Each participant had to press a button
when they achieved to clearly observe the three-dimensional
figure and make a report of their experience. According to their
first-person accounts, different phenomenological categories
(or clusters) were identified regarding the level of participant’s
preparation at the time the three-dimensional figure was
perceived. According to these phenomenological clusters,
EEG recordings were classified and patterns of brain functional
connectivity (i.e., gamma-band phase synchrony) were computed.
Their interest on first-person data was based on the hypotheses
that the variability of the brain response after the perception
of the three-dimensional figure could be generated by mental
fluctuations attributable to the attentional state of the subject, or
spontaneous thinking processes, or cognitive strategies on the
task, among other possibilities (Gallagher, 2010, p. 24). Their
“descriptive strategy”—a set of phenomenological techniques
used for improving first-person accuracy of reportability of
internal experiences (Bayne, 2004, p. 352)—can be described in
two steps:
First, experimental subjects were trained. Training consisted
of a set of practices for increasing the attentional sensitivity over
actions and internal states that are related to the present experi-
ence (Thompson et al., 2005). Specifically, training was based on
the practice of the epoche (Gallagher, 2010) which consists of the
suspension of all previous judgments about the external world in
order to attend to the experience itself; it is a description not of the
content of what subject knows, but rather of how the experience
happens. For Lutz et al. (2002), training consisted of improving
subjects’ performance in the perceptual discrimination task as
well as in the accuracy of their experiential reports. Participants
were asked open questions between trials, which directed their
attention toward their own mental processes. It was hypothesized
that their responses could account for the between-subject vari-
ability in objective task performance by revealing differences in
strategies employed, distractions, attentional states, and the like.
Unlike traditional paradigms that deploy averaging techniques
in order to attenuate the high variability of neural activity when
interpreted as “noise,” Lutz et al. (2002) studied these “noisy”
signals as representative of subjective parameters by taking into
account the descriptions given by the participants after every
trial.
Second, participants’ experiential reports were given after each
trial and were organized into “phenomenological clusters.” “Phe-
nomenological clusters” represented categories of trials, estab-
lished based on first-person reports, that captured subjective
variability during the task. Each cluster then permitted dynamical
analysis of brain activity (Gallagher, 2010). For each phenomeno-
logical cluster, subcategories based on the state of preparation felt
by the participants prior to stimuli presentation were identified.
For instance, in the “steady readiness” cluster subjects reported
that they were “well prepared” when the imaged appeared on the
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
screen. Thus, phenomenological clusters gave richer and multi-
dimensional information about the structure of conscious experi-
ence by accounting not just for the behavioral data (reaction times)
but also for the neural correlates associated with conscious experi-
ence. In particular, prior to the presentation of the visual stimulus,
they observed a large-scale pattern of phase synchrony in the
frontal brain region in prepared subjects but not in unprepared
subjects. Second, the degree of phase scattering recorded in the
back electrodes was also modulated by the degree of preparation,
i.e., the lower the degree of preparation the greater dispersion
phase. Third, an earlier large-scale pattern of phase synchrony
in prepared subjects (300 ms) than in the no-prepared subjects
(600 ms) for the motor response.
As this example shows, successful neurophenomenology
requires collecting large amounts of first-person data. This may
appear to be a straightforward task if it would be enough to just
ask the participant what they were experiencing during the trials.
However, this is not the case at all; a disciplined observation of
the experience is required. For instance, it would be a mistake to
assume that being aware of a particular experience is sufficient for
providing adequate verbal description (Bockelman et al., 2013).
Furthermore, it is required that participants are able to attend the
experience (introspection) while still being able to suspend their
beliefs or previous judgments (phenomenological reduction), to
avoid (as far as possible) bias or contamination of first-person
reports. A powerful way to address these problems is to structure
first-person data collection using interviews that are mediated by
a trained person able to help the participants with describing their
experiences accurately, that is, an interviewer or mediator with
the “attitude” for reporting first-person data. This approach is
known as the second-person perspective (Varela and Shear, 1999).
Furthermore, the mediator does not take a neutral position but
rather examines the participant from an empathic stand for inves-
tigating an experience in common. Just like an ethnographer is
not simply interested in compiling data from a community as a
neutral observer but in apprehending a way of living, a mediator
may employ a specific strategy for apprehending first-person lived
experiences. Varela and Shear (1999) claim that “a mediator is
eccentric to the lived experience (...) but nevertheless takes posi-
tion of one who has been there to some degree, and thus provides
hints and further training” (p. 8).
In this paper, we conclude that second-person methodologies
represent a promising set of tools for studying human conscious-
ness in the context of the neurophenomenological program. We
first describe second-person methodologies available in the lit-
erature for analyzing subjective reports, identifying specific con-
straints on the status of the first-, second- and third- person
methods. Second, in the discussion we analyze two experimental
studies that explicitly incorporate second-person methods for
traversing the “gap” between phenomenology and neuroscience.
On the other hand, we evaluate the challenges that second-person
accounts face in establishing an objective methodology for com-
paring results across different participants and interviewers: this
is the “validation” problem. Finally, we conclude by showing the
common aspects of the interview methods described above, in
order to provide an overview of the general properties of this
important methodological approach.
Second-person Methods
In this section we describe three second-person interview meth-
ods. Although these methods were not initially considered as part
of the neurophenomenological program, we think they could be
incorporated in the program if they meet to a possible extend
the following three features. First, second-person methods require
to be evaluated in the “mutual circulation” between the first,
second and third person (Varela and Shear, 1999). For instance,
the interviewer’s and interviewee’s description of the lived experi-
ence could be correlated with objective third-person data (Froese,
2013). Second, the acquisition of second-person data requires the
mediation of a qualified interviewer. By a qualified interviewer we
mean an emphatic mediator who could guide the interviewee in
the process of becoming aware of their lived experience. Finally,
the data collected by the interviewer should be used for computing
correlational analyses with the neurobiological data, These three
features are tightly related to neurophenomenology’s “mutual cir-
culation” between the phenomenological and the neurobiological
data. Importantly, these three characteristics we propose here
represent an aspiration for the neurophenomenological program.
They could be partially or completely met depending on the
limitations imposed by the complexities of specific experimen-
tal designs. These three features that we propose here for the
second-person neurophenomenological method are similar to the
three steps in the Varela’s work. The first two features, to which
the epoché of the phenomenological method should be added,
attempt at developing the report of the lived experience. The third
characteristic allows for the neurophenomenological analysis.
Descriptive Experience Sampling
Descriptive experience sampling is an introspective method devel-
oped by Russ Hurlburt during the 1990s for observing and
describing inner experiences—such as thoughts, feelings and visu-
alizations—and their perceptual components (Hurlburt, 2011).
“Experience” refers to the attention-, stimulus-, and context-
dependent contents of consciousness at a particular time (Hurl-
burt and Schwitzgebel, 2011). For instance, now I am attending
to the letters I am reading (what is “outside” the subject), then
to my thoughts about what I am reading (what is “inside” the
subject), then I become aware of those thoughts when suddenly
a memory irrupts or I start attending to a sound of the environ-
ment. Thus, inner experience, or simply “experience,” refers to
everything that is “directly present,” what appears “directly before
the footlights of consciousness” (Hurlburt, 2009, p. 157; for a
discussion of the concepts see Hurlburt and Schwitzgebel, 2007, p.
15). In this setting, the term “pristine experience” describes what
is already happening before attending to the reflection or observa-
tion, as when we get lost in our thoughts until something appears
“out there” and grabs our attention without making us lose the
flux of experience at any moment (Hurlburt and Akhter, 2006).
Therefore, the aim of DES is to achieve faithful and informative
apprehension of the interviewee with their experience, and of
the interviewer with a description of the interviewee’s experience.
Altogether, this approach provides a phenomenologically valid
and experimentally useful description of a particular experience
at a particular moment.
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
The methodological procedure of DES consists of equipping the
participant with an electronic device (a “beeper”) which emits a
sound that participant can hear through headphones while occu-
pied by his usual activities (Hurlburt and Heavey, 2004). Previous
training has ensured that participants are adept in attending to
their ongoing awareness (the pristine experience) at the moment
of the “beep” (Hurlburt and Heavey, 2004, p. 13). The beeper
sounds 5 or 6 times per day and its function is to facilitate the phe-
nomenological report in minimizing retrospection, and to reduce
the perturbation of the ongoing experience. Importantly, the func-
tion of the beep is to select an experience randomly, thereby avoid-
ing bias associated with intentionally selecting moments. Thus,
each random “beep” commands the subject to attend to his inner
experience at that particular moment, and to register (by written
or verbal recording) the features of that particular experience.
Finally, 24 h after collecting experimental samples, an iterative
process of interviews takes place (Hurlburt, 2009). According to
Hurlburt, the role of the iterative process of interviews is to allow
for increasing the salience of pristine experience:
The direct contribution of pristine experience is likely to
decrease within each interview because the influence of
reconstructions during the interview is likely to outpace
the bracketing of presuppositions, even if genuine progress
is made in bracketing presuppositions (i.e., the removal
of parts of the interview contaminated by presuppositions
or assumptions) and clarifying communication. However,
if genuine progress is made in bracketing presuppositions
and clarifying communication, the direct contribution of
pristine experience is likely to increase across interviews
because of the refreshment by the new pristine experience
at each step (Hurlburt, 2009, p. 165).
All in all, the DES iterative process represents a useful
method for obtaining first-person reports by facilitating “pris-
tine” accounts of experience. An important feature of DES is its
second-person character, arising from the essential role of the
interviewer in mediating participants’ ability to describe their
phenomenological experience and in thus validating their reports.
Elicitation Interview
The elicitation interview (EI) is a technique developed by Pierre
Vermersch at the end of the 1970s (Vermersch, 1994, 1999, 2009)
designed to guide the interviewee to redirect her attention to
specific aspects of her experience and to precisely describe
them (Petitmengin and Lachaux, 2013; Valenzuela-Moguillansky,
2013).
Originally, Vermersch developed this technique in the context
of his study of the cognitive processes involved in learning, par-
ticularly in problem resolution. Vermersch was interested in the
procedural aspect of problem resolution, meaning the trajectory
and the strategies that the person used while performing a certain
task and not only in reaction times or success rates, which were
the measures primarily used at that time. Thus, he designed a
questioning technique that focuses on the physical or mental
actions involved in performing a given task. In this sense, the EI
focuses on the “how” of the experience rather than on the “why” or
“what” (Petitmengin, 2006). For example, when I read, normally
my attention is turned toward the content of what I read and not
toward the processes involved in how I make sense of what I read.
The latter normally stays implicit. The EI is oriented to access to
this type of knowledge, hence its name, to make explicit what was
hitherto implicit.
According to Petitmengin et al. (2007), the need of a technique
to access the procedural aspects of our experience resides in
the fact that, despite the intuitive belief that being aware of our
own experiences is a fast and straightforward process, for us it is
normally difficult to attend to the procedural aspects of our own
lived experiences. Thus, one of the roles of the interviewer in this
technique is to help the interviewee to sustain and stabilize his or
her attention to such aspects.
Since its creation, the use of the EI spread to other contexts,
particularly to the one of cognitive science and neuroscience
(e.g., Petitmengin et al., 2007; Braboszcz, 2012; Valenzuela-
Moguillansky et al., 2013; Gould et al., 2014; and see interview
examples Maurel, 2009). Just like brain activity is recorded to
obtain neuro-electric data in search for regularities of specific
neuro-dynamic structures, Petitmengin (1999, 2006) and Verm-
ersch (1994) have proposed collecting detailed interview data in
search for regularities of specific “pheno-dynamic” structures.
The procedure of the EI could be described in terms of the fol-
lowing steps: (a) selecting a particular experience; (b) evoking the
experience; (c) inquire into the temporal unfolding of the experi-
ence, or diachronic dimension; (d) inquire the experiential aspects
that characterize each moment of the experience or synchronic
dimension (Petitmengin, 1999, 2006; Petitmengin et al., 2013).
Step (a) relies on accurately selecting an experience in a partic-
ular moment. It would depend on the specific protocol whether
the cognitive process associated with the experience under inves-
tigation is easily reproducible or not. If so, the researcher could
devise a protocol enabling the interviewee to carry out the process
here and now, and later through questioning to describe how he
went about performing the process (Petitmengin, 2006).
Step (b) refers to evoking a past experience, which is to
“recalling a given experience as if re-enacting it” (Valenzuela-
Moguillansky, 2013, p. 340) in order to emphasize the retrospec-
tive contact. The experience may either have recently occurred
(i.e., a cognitive task the participant has just performed) or it could
have happened several years before, in which case the aim is for the
past experience to be manifested in the present to the extent pos-
sible. Thus, the interviewer has to guide the interviewee toward an
“embodied position” (Valenzuela-Moguillansky, 2013), in which
they stand on the spatio-temporal context of his experience (the
when, where and with whom). This embodied position facilitates
the association of sensations and emotions by means of recalling
episodic or autobiographical memory (Petitmengin et al., 2013).
In order to determine the effectiveness of evoking the past
experience, Petitmengin (2006) used certain verbal, paraverbal
and non-verbal “hints” which were indicative of the “strength”
of a particular past experience. Thus, some ocular movements
were indicative of the sensory register employed by the evocate
state. For example participant’s fixating sight on the horizon
often represents attending to their inner voice. In other cases,
information about the “strength” of the past experience was
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
derived from speech rhythm or vocal intonation. These were
gestures the interviewer attended to because they went beyond
the contents of speech. Instead, they represented a switch to
pre-reflective consciousness of the experience to which the
interviewee was attending.
In Step (c) the interviewer redirects the attention of the intervie-
wee toward the procedural aspects of the experience (Valenzuela-
Moguillansky, 2013). Once the interviewee is in a state of evoca-
tion, the interviewer helps the interviewee to describe the develop-
ment of the experience using as axes of questioning her mental or
physical actions. The interviewer guides the interviewee through
the continuous flux of moments that characterize the unfolding
of the experience or its diachronic dimension. The participant’s
attention is directed to how a particular experience happened in
time instead of what that experience was about or why did it
happen. The set of questions asked by the interviewer are called
“empty content” questions (Petitmengin and Bitbol, 2009) since
they are aimed at the structure of the experience rather than the
content of the experience.
The interviewee is encouraged to take time exploring their
experience and to try and avoid judgments or preconceptions
about their experience or about the interview process, in order
to maximize their attention on the procedural aspects of the
experience itself. The participant is often asked to clarify certain
non-verbal gestures or vague words (Petitmengin, 2006).
Step (d) refers to the identification of the characteristics of
each moment of the given experience. According to Valenzuela-
Moguillansky (2013), once a sequence of actions has been estab-
lished, the interviewer can guide the interviewee’s attention
toward more subtle levels of the experience, such as bodily sensa-
tions, mode of attention, the characteristics of different sensorial
modalities, etc. If we make an analogy of a participant’s experience
as a movie, a continuum of the frames of a cinematographic film,
the diachronic dimension would be the sequence, frame by frame,
of that continuum (Petitmengin, 1999). In contrast, a synchronic
dimension cannot be described by successive temporal relations
but rather by the emotional tone, the mobilized attention, and the
sensory registers employed in the evocation. In this synchronic or
spatial configuration of the interviewee’s experience, their atten-
tion is directed to the structural aspect of the experience. For
instance, describing the spatial features of what they “become
aware” of, “the shape of the mental image,” “the position of the
image [which] appears at a given distance, in a given direction,
with a given size, etc. (Petitmengin, 2006, p. 251).”
Once a set of interviews is completed, comes the analysis of
the interviews. In a nutshell, the analysis of the interviews is a
process of abstraction that aims to identify the generic structure of
an experience. The first step is the identification of the sequence
of actions and points of articulation between different stages or
“phases” of the experience, which has been called the diachronic
structure of the experience. The second step is the identification
of the experiential categories that characterize each phase of the
diachronic structure of the experience, which has been identified
as the synchronous structure of the experience.
Then, through a process of comparison, comes the identifica-
tion of the invariants of the diachronic and synchronic structures
of the experiences of a group of persons. From these invariants the
generic structure of a given type of experience is built(Petitmengin,
1999, 2006; Vermersch, 2009).
To sum up, the EI permits accessing specific aspects of a par-
ticular experience. It employs a technique of questioning aimed
at stabilizing interviewee’s attention and redirecting it toward the
procedural aspects of the experience. In this way theoretical (i.e.,
the experimenter conceptualizing what the experience was) or
representational (i.e., the participant only describing instead of
reliving the experience) accounts of the experience is avoided. The
analysis of the interviews allows building a generic structure of the
experience identifying its “pheno-dynamic,” which can be used to
incorporate the experiential aspects of a cognitive phenomenon to
its neuroscientific study.
Neuro-linguistic Programming
Neuro-linguistic programming was developed in the 1970s by
Bandler and Grinder (1975) as a method for effective com-
munication and personal development. It has been applied in
personal coaching (Linder-Pelz and Hall, 2007), clinical therapy
(Heap, 1988), among others (Sturt et al., 2012; Pishghadam and
Shayesteh, 2014; and for a review of NLP studies see Witkowski,
2010). NLP studies how we experience the world through our
senses and how we process consciously or non-consciously our
percepts. NLP is further interested in the neural correlates of these
processes (i.e., the neuro aspect). In addition, the programming
aspect of NLP is concerned with how language is used for signify-
ing the world (i.e., the linguistic aspect), and how people represent
their experience by generating regular linguistic “patterns” (i.e.,
the programming aspect; Linder-Pelz and Hall, 2007).
The major contributions to the development of the NLP come
from the work of Vermersch (1994) and Petitmengin (2006) who
reconsidered several theoretical aspects of psychophenomenology
for the study of experiences (Tosey and Mathison, 2010). For this
reason, the NLP should not be considered as a method indepen-
dent of the EI but rather as a complementary tool for the study of
consciousness in its “pre-reflective” aspect (Mathison and Tosey,
2009, p. 193).
The NLP offers the opportunity to incorporate in the interview
the experiential dimension of language in its verbal and non-
verbal forms. Thus, Tosey and Mathison (2010) proposed a three
step interview considering the following aspects: enabling evo-
cation; identifying a “meta-model”; and eliciting sensory details.
“Enabling evocation” refers to the introspective exercise of guid-
ing the interviewee toward a state of evocation in which they
re-create a past experience as if it is happening in the present
(similarly as in the EI). The next step consists of investigating
language patterns, that is, how the participant configures a taxon-
omy of syntactic structures, namely, the “meta-model” (Bandler
and Grinder, 1975). The meta-model is indicative of the patterns
that configure the interviewee “map of the world.” In other words,
creating the “meta-model” involves investigating the configura-
tion of the interviewee’s syntactic statements in order to reveal
the underlying structure of the manner in which they signify their
world.
The meta-model has been used for constructing questions in
order to investigate “modal operators,” which according to Tosey
and Mathison (2010) are “words that define the mode in which an
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
action is to be carried out, such as ‘will’, ‘can’, ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘won’t’
and so on” (p.37). Thus, in a prototypical study, the questions and
instructions could guide the participant to attend to the patterns of
their language and to the changes in their internal representations
by the usage of one word or the other. For instance, Tosey and
Mathison (2010) describe a study that was looking to elucidate
the distinctive subjective experience of the operators could and
will. Participants had to think of an activity they were intending to
do without specifying the activity. Then, they were asked to think
about the activity in such a way that they would be aware of and
able to re-present the event to themselves. They were instructed
to report the changes of those internal representations using the
modal operators could and will. Particularly, the interviewer asked
a participant: “(...) and if I say ‘You could do it?’; [the participant
replied:] That’s much gentler. The kinaesthetic is more relaxed, it’s
em. . .. The external auditory effect is one of support, so it’s my
choice...the internal, the picture is soft, still clear, but soft.” (p. 20).
The last step corresponds to the elicitation of sensory details,
conceptualized as internal sensory representations and their sub-
modalities, as explained by Tosey and Mathison (2010): “re-
creations of experience as internal representations, a pre-verbal level
of cognition where the senses were engaged in the subjective re-
presentation of experience, lived or imagined” (p. 23). Examples
of representational systems are the visual, auditory, kinesthetic,
olfactory and gustatory dimensions, among others investigated
during the interview. On the other hand, the submodalities are
sensory registers that contain properties belonging to each modal-
ity; for instance, a register of the auditory modality is the volume of
the participant’s voice (and its changes), its rhythm, intensity, etc.
NLP, as a second-person method, is based on the necessar y con-
tribution of the interviewer for directing participant’s attention
toward the “inner search” of their own experience; for inviting
the participant in a sort of “exchange between situated individ-
uals” (Depraz et al., 2003, p. 81); and for creating questions that
allows for the investigation of a particular experience. We have
to stress that, to our knowledge, the application of NLP has not
been considered experimentally in the context of the neurophe-
nomenological program. The closest instance of using NLP in the
study of phenomenological experience is the research conducted
by Andreas and Andreas (2009) regarding the experiential distinc-
tion between perceptual positions; as well as the theoretical work
of Barsalou (2008) about grounded cognition.
Discussion
In the following section, we take a more analytical stanceregarding
the role of the second-person methods in the study of conscious
experience. First, we put forth some qualifications regarding the
status of the first-, second- and third-person methods that we
believe are important to bear in mind. Second, we analyze two
experimental studies that explicitly incorporate second-person
methods for gaining access the “gap” between phenomenology
and neuroscience. Third, we analyze the challenge that second-
person accounts face in establishing an objective methodology for
comparing results across different participants and interviewers,
i.e., the validation problem. Finally, we conclude by synthesizing
the common aspects of the interview methods described above.
The First-, Second-, and Third-person: Some
Qualifications
We would like to briefly clarify that the distinction of persons that
neurophenomenology makes can be done not only by the mode of
accessing lived experience, but also by distinguishing how many
persons are involved in an investigation about consciousness.
Thus, we have to notice that when we study consciousness, there
is always someone who investigates and someone who is being
investigated. In a first-person investigation there is, obviously,
only one person. In this case, the researcher and the person
being investigated are the same person. Thus, here the subject and
the object of the knowledge are one only. In other words, if the
researcher wants to investigate some aspect of consciousness, they
should undergo the experience by themselves. In a second-person
investigation, on the other hand, there are two persons, one that
investigates (the interviewer) and another one that is being investi-
gated (the interviewee). Finally, in the third-person research, there
are at least three persons, one that is under investigation, and one
or more (a community) that investigates.
If we fail to take into account the last point, we could mistak-
enly conclude that the first-person method is the only faithful
method for accessing lived experience since no mediation is
needed. This is an idea that comes from the ancient philosophers
such as Aristotle for whom knowledge occurs in God, defined
as the intellection that “intellects itself ” (Aristotle, 1958). The
idea is further developed, for instance, in Descartes (2008), for
whom the most evident knowledge is the thinking or awareness
of himself. However, we have to bear in mind that first-person
accounts require discipline in the context of neurophenomenol-
ogy. As we have seen, it is not enough for the participant to
describe his lived experience. They could be imprecise due to lack
of attention or training, or to being biased by previous beliefs.
This is why the mediation of the third and, in particular, the
second person is highly relevant for studying the first-person
accounts.
Some authors, such as Dennett (2011), propose that the status
of first-person data should be considered as a kind of belief of
the participant until they can be objectively tested by a third-
person study (e.g., in a neuroscientific context). This implies
that the only method that reaches the truth of the phenomenon
is the third-person. Nevertheless, the neurophenomenological
approach assumes “the lived experience” as data which are
reported in first-person (Thompson, 2011). But it must be taken
into account that the phenomenological report is influenced by
the level of the person’s training in attending to their thoughts,
feelings and body or their ability to report the experience. This
is the reason why it is necessary to add the studies in second-
and third-person. The scientific explanations in each of the three
persons have their own validity in the research, and neither poses
a better level of explanation than the other. In fact, if applied in
an explanatory circularity procedure, they allow for strengthening
and improving the knowledge of the object of study. Although the
debate between heterophenomenology and neurophenomenol-
ogy is far away from the scope of this review, we advocate a
neurophenomenological approach for the study of the lived expe-
rience where the phenomenological data are not considered as
mere beliefs.
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
There are some meaningful ways to summarize the distinction
between DES, EI and NLP. As Hurlburt (2011) puts it, “DES aims
to make the visible memorable, EI aims to make the invisible
visible” (p.70); in other words, DES try to make the visible visible,
not assuming there are pre-reflective aspect of the experience and
capture the directly experienced with fidelity enough; theoreti-
cally opposite to EI declare to find the source of the visible ort hat is
not directly experienced. And the core methodological difference
as Petitmengin and Bitbol (2011) put it, “EI is interested in what
the subject does to apprehend his experience in the course of an
interview [while] DES focuses exclusively on what happens “before
the beep”—“pristine experience”—and not on what the subject
does after the beep to describe his experience”(p.96).
Although the NLP has contributed methodologically to the
development of the EI (Mathison and Tosey, 2009) because
it shares some features with the introspectionist tradition, the
theoretical structure of the NLP incorporates representational
notions that are in conflict with the “embodiment” nature of the
phenomenological program, e.g., with the “radical embodiment”
stance (Thompson and Varela, 2001). However, in this manuscript
we have considered the methodological aspect of the NLP as
a second-person interview method rather than its explanatory
account as a representational theory.
Testing the “Mutual Generative Constraints”
As we mentioned in the introduction section, the inter-
play between neuroscientific knowledge and phenomenological
accounts is at the core of the neurophenomenological program.
Despite the advances in the interview protocols, the incorpora-
tion of second-person methods in the neuroscientific study of
consciousness is still scarce (Froese et al., 2011). However, here
we show two potential examples of how second-person meth-
ods “could” casts a new light on the “gap” between these two
(neuroscientific and phenomenological) levels of description of
consciousness.
The DES in the Study of Mind Wandering
An example of the application of the DES is given by the work of
Christoff et al. (2009) who investigated the default network during
mind wandering. The study was concerned with whether brain
regions associated with the default network were activated in the
same time window as when the mind was wandering and moving
away from the task. Participants were asked to sample their
experience at random intervals in order to determine whether
they were mind wandering and whether they were aware or
unaware of their mind wandering. They showed an activation in
the medial prefrontal cortex in association with both subjective
reports and behavioral measures. Also, when participants
were unaware of their own mind wandering, both default and
attentional networks were strongly activated. This study provided
direct evidence for the neural recruitment associated with mind
wandering by combining experience sampling with the tools of
cognitive neuroscience. One limitation of this study is that the
level of introspection required was minimal as the design lacked
a theoretical and methodological appreciation of principled
first- and second-person methods (Froese et al., 2011). Despite
this limitation, the finding of default network recruitment in
association with subjective experience sampling helps validate
the use of reports in the study of consciousness.
The EI in the Study of Epileptic Seizures
A paradigmatic case of the interplay between EI and neuroscience
is the study of Petitmengin et al. (2007) who investigated the pro-
dromic symptoms in the subjective experiences occurring before
a seizure, which corresponds to the preictal that precedes epileptic
seizures. Since the preictal neuro-electrical changes are correlated
with changes in the subjective experience of epileptic patients, the
authors showed how preictal/epileptic anticipation represents an
example of the mutual dependence between the neuro-dynamic
and pheno-dynamic analyses (Petitmengin, 2010).
In Petitmengin et al.’s (2007) study, EI application consisted of a
progression of the steps of the interview process. First, they asked
patients to remember and retain a seizure experience that had
generated vivid sensations, images or sounds. Then, they guided
the patient toward a concrete evocation of that particular preictal
experience, by helping them rediscover the experience until they
feel as if “reliving” it. During the reliving moment, the interviewer
had to attend to a group of precise verbal, paraverbal and non-
verbal clues, which indicated the patient was really going back
to a past experience. Once the evocation was stable, they asked
appropriate questions that helped the patient turn their attention
toward the various registers of his pre-reflective experience (e.g.,
emotional tone, visual, auditory registers) in order to describe
accurately the experience that they were “reliving” (Petitmengin,
2010).
The significant contribution of this study did not consist
only of the detection and comparison of neurological and phe-
nomenological data, but also of establishing the “mutual genera-
tive constraints” (Varela, 1999) between the two. The concept of
mutual constraints is in the core of the idea of enriching both
phenomenological and neurological data by generating mutual
restrictions between them. This idea is consistent with the find-
ing of a neurodynamic structure preceding seizures, namely,
the “preictal neuro-electric desynchronization” and, recipro-
cally, of a corresponding phenodynamic structure of the preictal
experience.
In conclusion, both the DES and the EI contributed for the
detection of certain specific neuronal configurations that were
not predefined but rather emerged when both levels of explana-
tion—the neurological and phenomenological—areconsidered in
the analyses. Despite the theoretical and methodological limita-
tions described above, these studies showed the fertility of the
second-person methods when phenomenological accounts are
permitted to guide the neurodynamic analysis.
Second-person Methods and the Problem of
Validation
It is however, of great importance to seriously consider to
what extent the verbal descriptions of conscious experience
resulting from second-person techniques valid for the scientific
community. In particular, the challenge is to establish an objective
method for comparing results across different participants and
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
interviewers. This is challenging because the interview methods
are prone to bias in several respects (see Froese et al., 2011).
However, this is not an exclusive problem of the second-person
methodologies since the first- and third-person methods are
equally prone to be biased (Froese, 2013). For example, first-
person accounts require training since the description of the
experience can be obscured by the judgments or belief of the
person who lives it. The interviewer, on the other hand, could
influence the interviewee answers. Finally, the third-person (the
scientific community) could introduce a bias by invalidating
first-person accounts (Varela et al., 1992, p. 12).
Nevertheless, and with the aim of reducing the bias in the
methodologies in second-person, the three steps in Varela’s
approach have the purpose of increasing scientific validity
through a procedure based on objectivity. As Gallagher and
Zahavi (2008) point out, the aim of the phenomenological
method is to achieve an objective procedure for the research
of the subjective experience, which is a basic requirement in
the scientific methodology. However, it is necessary to clar-
ify that the model of objectivity proposed by Varela’s second-
person method is different to those just based on third-person
methods. This difference lies in the lack of equalling objectiv-
ity with a reductionist model of quantitative measurement and
in advocating a method of intersubjective validation. Through
the intersubjective model some invariant structures are iden-
tified in the interview of different individuals. This persistent
report among subjects does not suffer from subjective interpre-
tation of their experiences or subjectivity of the investigator.
Therefore, the neurophenomenological method can guarantee
the replication of other studies that investigate the same kind of
phenomenon.
In Addition, Varela proposed to solve the problem of vali-
dation of the subjective experience by mutual circulation, that
is, an explanation in first-, second-, and third-person. The lived
experience (first-person) and (second-person) should be recip-
rocally validated against the collective experience of the sci-
entific community (third-person). In line with this idea, the
double blind interview (DBI) is, to our knowledge, the only
method that explicitly proposes a solution for the validation
problem.
The Double Blind Interview
Froese et al. (2011) proposed the DBI as the first step toward an
objective measure of the fidelity of introspective accounts. In the
context of the validation problem, a response to the challenge
would be to determine whether participants are able to improve
their introspective performance by employing second-person
methods in the context of classical experimental paradigms. Thus,
the DBI is conceived as a method for calibrating and validating
other interview methods. The authors exemplify their proposal by
using an experimental paradigm of crowded visual displays. In the
words of Froese (2013):
Subjects are briefly presented with an array of visual stimuli
and then asked to report what they have seen. It has been
found that, although subjects report that they consciously
experienced the whole crowded visual display (and they can
indeed report any one of the items if appropriately primed),
if left to their own devices they can subsequently report
only a small subset of about four items. The methodological
question is to what extent this retrospective blindness can
be overcome with the guiding help of a suitably trained
interviewer. Ideally the interviewer should not have seen
the crowded display that was presented to the subject.
This helps to avoid introducing implicit biases into the
interview process, which is why we proposed to call this
particular kind of second-person method the “Double Blind
Interview” (p. 673).
Also, the DBI attempts to measure and standardize both
the interviewer’s (second-person) and interviewee’s (first-person)
introspective skills by incorporating an objective measure (i.e., a
score) for establishing the authenticity of the reports published in
the context of the scientific community (third-person). In Froese
et al. (2011) words:
A score for facilitated recall (calculated on the basis of
an interviewer’s ability to facilitate recall for a number of
different participants, or on the basis of an interviewee’s
recall ability to be facilitated by a number of different
interviewers, or some combination of the two) could be
introduced as an explicit requirement for publishing verbal
reports of lived experience. In this way readers would be
enabled to objectively assess the level of introspective skill
which played a part in the generation of the reports, and
hence their reliability and authenticity (p. 59).
In its first conceptualization, the DBI was proposed as a method
of comparing two interview methods available at that time, i.e.,
the EI and the DES. However, it was not exempt of criticism by
the authors of these methods. For instance, on the side of the EI,
Petitmengin and Bitbol (2009) expressed reservations regarding
the proposition of using external performance criteria to evaluate
the reliability of interview-based measures of lived experience. In
the DES camp, Hurlburt (2011), despite supporting the efforts
for developing methods that validate phenomenological accounts,
claims that validating the DES using DBI methods results impos-
sible (p. 76). Hurlburt (2011) claims that DES cannot be validated
under objective measurements since it represents a practice-based
approach. In his view, DES can only be validated by assessing the
internal coherence of the experience under investigation (i.e., the
different internal aspects of the lived experience) rather than by
objective measures.
It is important to notice that the DBI proposal has not been
tested experimentally so far. However, according to Froese (2013)
and despite the authors who previously doubted DBI’s valid-
ity, a similar method has been tested by Petitmengin et al.
(2013) by incorporating the EI into the “choice blindness”
paradigm (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977; Johansson et al., 2006). In
this paradigm, participants are presented with a pair of portraits
of women and are asked to choose which one they prefer. This
procedure is repeated for 15 trials. After six of the trials subjects
are handed their chosen photo and asked to explain their choice;
but in three of these trials they have actually been secretly handed
a non-chosen photo. Interestingly, the results showed that with
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Olivares et al. Second-person methods and neurophenomenology
the help of the EI participants detected that their choice had been
manipulated in 80% of the trials, compared to only 33% when
the choices were not followed by an EI. This result indicates that
even if our awareness seems to be poor, it is still possible to con-
sciously access our decision-making processes when our attention
is directed toward its constitutive dimensions (Petitmengin et al.,
2013).
In conclusion, the DBI emerges as the first explicit attempt
for solving the validation problem in the context of the neu-
rophenomenological program. Although it has not been tested
experimentally so far, other similar methods have shown evidence
for the direct efficacy of a second-person approach to the measure
of conscious experience.
Conclusions: The Role of the
Second-Person in the Interview Methods
Finally, we would like to conclude by summarizing the common
roles of the second-person (i.e., the interviewer) in the meth-
ods described above. Despite the theoretical and methodologi-
cal differences between the interview methods, several interde-
pendent aspects between second-person methods can also be
found.
Increasing the Ability of the Interviewee for
Describing Lived Experience
In the DES, this can be noticed during the “expositional inter-
view” performed by a skilled interviewer for helping to “bracket
the natural attitude” (in Husserl’s terms) or, in other words, for
suspending participant’s judgments about the nature of their expe-
riences. By systematically repeating this procedure for a number
of days, the EI aims to train the interviewee in becoming aware
of their lived experience in such a way that they report it more
accurately. Similarly, the contribution of the interviewer in both
the EI and DBI is to facilitate the detailed reliving of a specific
past experience by re-evoking it, and by directing the attention of
the participant toward previously unattended or forgotten aspects
of the experience. Finally, in the NLP framework, the interviewer
investigates the cognitive and affective maps of the experience,
trying to identify the different dimensions of the conceptual struc-
ture of the experience and to make the interviewee aware of these
during the interview process.
Validating the Mutual Circulation between the
First- and Third-person Accounts
Regarding the well-known difficulty of the interviewee at the
moment of specifying, recognizing and categorizing their own
internal states, the role of the interviewer as a guider and “catalyst”
of the process of becoming aware is crucial for all of the methods
described above. On the other hand, the first-person requires a
disciplined training in order to describe their experience since
reporting own experiences is not very common in daily life. Also,
for an untrained participant, their primary experiential accounts
can be indistinguishable from their secondary cognition (i.e.,
judgments, beliefs justifications). Thus, second-person methods
possess an eliciting potential for faithfully describing first-person
accounts as a measure of the ability to describe lived experience.
Attending the Accounts in Different Levels of
Description
A crucial feature of the interview methods is that they allow the
interviewer to examine the interviewee experience on different
levels. In particular, first-person accounts can be described in both
their verbal and non-verbal aspects (Petitmengin, 2006). Thus,
visual and kinesthetic non-verbal indicators are especially relevant
during the interview. For instance, the interpretation of gestures,
the location of eyes in the space, or the movements that follow
the verbal accounts, could bring non-explicit information about
specific aspects of the interviewee’s experience. In addition, the
interviewer could calibrate the non-verbal indicators performed
by the interviewee by interpreting them, and thus improve both
the introspective skills of the participant as well as their own
interview skills (Bockelman et al., 2013).
In conclusion, the present article has emphasized that second-
person methods represent a powerful but still underappreciated
approach for closing the gap between the experiential and the
neurobiological levels of description in the study of human con-
sciousness.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Anil K. Seth, Stanimira Georgieva, Camila
Valenzuela-Moguillansky and Jean-Philippe Lachaux for their
insightful comments and fruitful discussions during the prepara-
tion of the current version of this manuscript.
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Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was con-
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Copyright © 2015 Olivares, Vargas, Fuentes, Martínez-Pernía and Canales-Johnson.
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