The multisensory basis of the self:From body to identity to others

By grounding the self in the body, experimental psychology has taken the body as the starting point for a science of the self. One fundamental dimension of the bodily self is the sense of body ownership that refers to the special perceptual status of one’s own body, the feeling that “my body” belongs to me. The primary aim of this review article is to highlight recent advances in the study of body ownership and our understanding of the underlying neurocognitive processes in three ways. I first consider how the sense of body ownership has been investigated and elucidated in the context of multisensory integration. Beyond exteroception, recent studies have considered how this exteroceptively driven sense of body ownership can be linked to the other side of embodiment, that of the unobservable, yet felt, interoceptive body, suggesting that these two sides of embodiment interact to provide a unifying bodily self. Lastly, the multisensorial understanding of the self has been shown to have implications for our understanding of social relationships, especially in the context of self–other boundaries. Taken together, these three research strands motivate a unified model of the self inspired by current predictive coding models

I Me Mine: on a Confusion Concerning the Subjective Character of Experience

In recent debates on phenomenal consciousness, a distinction is sometimes made, after Levine (2001) and Kriegel (2009), between the “qualitative character” of an experience, i.e. the specific way it feels to the subject (e.g. blueish or sweetish or pleasant), and its “subjective character”, i.e. the fact that there is anything at all that it feels like to her. I argue that much discussion of subjective character is affected by a conflation between three different notions. I start by disentangling the three notions in question, under the labels of “for-me-ness”, “me-ness” and “mineness”. Next, I argue that these notions are not equivalent; in particular, there is no conceptual implication from for-me-ness to me-ness or mineness. Empirical considerations based on clinical cases additionally suggest that the three notions may also correspond to different properties (although the claim of conceptual non-equivalence does not depend on this further point). The aim is clarificatory, cautionary but also critical: I examine four existing arguments from subjective character that are fuelled by an undifferentiated use of the three notions, and find them to be flawed for this reason

Empathy, engagement, entrainment: the interaction dynamics of aesthetic experience

A recent version of the view that aesthetic experience is based in empathy as inner imitation explains aesthetic experience as the automatic simulation of actions, emotions, and bodily sensations depicted in an artwork by motor neurons in the brain. Criticizing the simulation theory for committing to an erroneous concept of empathy and failing to distinguish regular from aesthetic experiences of art, I advance an alternative, dynamic approach and claim that aesthetic experience is enacted and skillful, based in the recognition of others’ experiences as distinct from one’s own. In combining insights from mainly psychology, phenomenology, and cognitive science, the dynamic approach aims to explain the emergence of aesthetic experience in terms of the reciprocal interaction between viewer and artwork. I argue that aesthetic experience emerges by participatory sense-making and revolves around movement as a means for creating meaning. While entrainment merely plays a preparatory part in this, aesthetic engagement constitutes the phenomenological side of coupling to an artwork and provides the context for exploration, and eventually for moving, seeing, and feeling with art. I submit that aesthetic experience emerges from bodily and emotional engagement with works of art via the complementary processes of the perception–action and motion–emotion loops. The former involves the embodied visual exploration of an artwork in physical space, and progressively structures and organizes visual experience by way of perceptual feedback from body movements made in response to the artwork. The latter concerns the movement qualities and shapes of implicit and explicit bodily responses to an artwork that cue emotion and thereby modulate over-all affect and attitude. The two processes cause the viewer to bodily and emotionally move with and be moved by individual works of art, and consequently to recognize another psychological orientation than her own, which explains how art can cause feelings of insight or awe and disclose aspects of life that are unfamiliar or novel to the viewer

Does alcohol catch the eye? Investigating young adults’ attention to alcohol consumption

Many studies on young adults' motivations for drinking overlook the symbolic aspects of alcohol use. However, research indicates that young adults' alcohol consumption is also driven by signaling motivations. Although the interest of a receiver is a necessary prerequisite of a signal, no previous studies have verified whether drinking behavior indeed attracts young adults' attention. Therefore, we conducted two studies. A two-part eye-tracking study ( N1 = 135, N2 = 140) showed that both young men and young women pay special visual attention to male and female drinking behavior. Additionally, a recall experiment ( N = 321) confirmed that observed male and female drinking is better remembered than observed nonsignaling, functional behavior. Moreover, alcoholic beverages also receive special attention, as they were recalled better than other functional products, and also nonalcoholic drinks similar in color and shape. In summary, the experiments clearly showed that male and female drinking behavior can be used as a signal, as both behaviors clearly function as an attention-attracting cue. Additionally, as alcoholic beverages draw more attention than nonalcoholic drinks, this attention is clearly linked to the alcohol element of the drinking behavior

How to return to subjectivity? Natorp, Husserl, and Lacan on the limits of reflection

This article discusses the recent call within contemporary phenomenology to return to subjectivity in response to certain limitations of naturalistic explanations of the mind. The meaning and feasibility of this call is elaborated by connecting it to a classical issue within the phenomenological tradition concerning the possibility of investigating the first-person perspective through reflection. We will discuss how this methodological question is respectively treated and reconfigured in the works of Natorp, Husserl, and Lacan. Finally, we will lay out some possible consequences of such a cross-reading for the conception of subjectivity and the concomitant effort to account for this dimension of first-person experience in response and in addition to its omission within the standard third-person perspective of psychological research

Ego-Splitting and the Transcendental Subject. Kant’s Original Insight and Husserl’s Reappraisal

In this paper, I contend that there are at least two essential traits that commonly define being an I: self-identity and self-consciousness. I argue that they bear quite an odd relation to each other in the sense that self-consciousness seems to jeopardize self-identity. My main concern is to elucidate this issue within the range of the transcendental philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. In the first section, I shall briefly consider Kant’s own rendition of the problem of the Egosplitting. My reading of the Kantian texts reveals that Kant himself was aware of this phenomenon but eventually deems it an unexplainable fact. The second part of the paper tackles the same problematic from the standpoint of Husserlian phenomenology. What Husserl’s extensive analyses on this topic bring to light is that the phenomenon of the Ego-splitting constitutes the bedrock not only of his thought but also of every philosophy that works within the framework of transcendental thinking

Decreased mental time travel to the past correlates with default-mode network disintegration under lysergic acid diethylamide

This paper reports on the effects of LSD on mental time travel during spontaneous mentation. Twenty healthy volunteers participated in a placebo-controlled crossover study, incorporating intravenous administration of LSD (75 μg) and placebo (saline) prior to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Six independent, blind judges analysed mentation reports acquired during structured interviews performed shortly after the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans (approximately 2.5 h post-administration). Within each report, specific linguistic references to mental spaces for the past, present and future were identified. Results revealed significantly fewer mental spaces for the past under LSD and this effect correlated with the general intensity of the drug’s subjective effects. No differences in the number of mental spaces for the present or future were observed. Consistent with the previously proposed role of the default-mode network (DMN) in autobiographical memory recollection and ruminative thought, decreased resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) within the DMN correlated with decreased mental time travel to the past. These results are discussed in relation to potential therapeutic applications of LSD and related psychedelics, e.g. in the treatment of depression, for which excessive reflection on one’s past, likely mediated by DMN functioning, is symptomatic

The use of interpretive phenomenological analysis in couple and family therapy research

This article proposes a research methodology that is newer to the field of couple and family therapy research called Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Researchers exploring couple and family therapy research continue to establish the efficacy of couple and family interventions in a context that favors a positivist view of phenomena. This research continues to be critical for establishing the role of couple and family therapy in the field of mental health as well as further clarifying which interventions are best for specific clinical issues and when. IPA offers researchers the opportunity to explore how couples and families make meaning of their experiences from an intersubjective perspective. Meaning making is central to understanding couples and families as well as part of the many clinical approaches to working with couples and families. Despite the importance of meaning, few research methodologies allow for this central concept in couple and family therapy to be the focus of exploration. The following article outlines one such methodology and the possible use of IPA in couple and family therapy research

Geography and Post-phenomenology

This paper examines geography’s engagements with phenomenology. Tracing phenomenology’s influence, from early humanist reflections on the lifeworld to non-representational theories of practice, the paper identifies the emergence of a distinct post-phenomenological way of thinking. However, there is currently no clear articulation of what differentiates post-phenomenology from phenomenology as a set of theories or ideas, nor is there a clear set of trajectories along which such difference can be pursued further. In response to this, the paper outlines three key elements that differentiate phenomenology from post-phenomenology and that require further exploration. First is a rethinking of intentionality as an emergent relation with the world, rather than an a priori condition of experience. Second is a recognition that objects have an autonomous existence outside of the ways they appear to or are used by human beings. Third is a reconsideration of our relations with alterity, taking this as central to the constitution of phenomenological experience given our irreducible being-with the world. Unpacking these differences, the paper offers some suggestions as to how post-phenomenology contributes to the broader discipline of human geography

The ambivalence of losing weight after bariatric surgery

This study is grounded in a phenomenological lifeworld perspective. It aims at providing rich descriptions of lived experience of the process of losing weight after obesity surgery. Two women participated in in-depth interviews four times each during the first postoperative year. Based on the women's experiences, a meaning structure—the ambivalence of losing weight after obesity surgery—was identified across the women's processes of change. This consisted of five core themes: movement and activity—freedom but new demands and old restraints; eating habits and digestion—the complexity of change; appearance—smaller, but looser; social relations—stability and change; and being oneself—vulnerability and self-assurance. These core themes changed over time in terms of dominance. The experience of ambivalence is discussed according to a phenomenological perspective of the body as lived experience