User experience research in the field of human-computer interaction tries to understand how humans experience the interaction with technological artefacts. It is a young and still emerging field that exists in an area of tension. There is no consensus on how the concept of user experience should be defined or on how it should be researched. This paper focuses on two major strands of research in the field that are competing. It tries to give an overview over both and relate them to each other. Both start from the same premise: usability (focusing on performance) is not enough. It is only part of the interaction with technological artefacts. And further: user experience is not very different from experience in general. Then they develop quite different accounts of the concept. While one focuses more on uncovering the objective in the subjective, on the precise and the formal, the other one stresses the ambiguous, the human and suggests to live with the subjectivity that is inherent in the concept of (user) experience. One focuses more on evaluation rather than design and the other more on design than evaluation. One is a model and the other one more a framework of thought. Both can be criticised. The model can be questioned in terms of validity and the results of the other approach do not easily generalize across contexts – the reliability can be questioned. Sometimes the need for a unified view in user experience research is emphasized. While I doubt the possibility of a unified view I think it is possible to combine the two approaches. This combination has only rarely been attempted and not been critically reflected.

Key words: human computer interaction, user experience, method comparison, overview

It is becoming apparent in modern cognitive science that the lack of knowledge about human experiential landscape implies the loss of a very important element, perhaps the very essence. Consequently, a rather new area of research has emerged recently: an attempt at a systematic observation and study of experience. This is the so-called phenomenologically inspired research (or just phenomenological research). Part of this article aims to present this new area of research – it describes the common fundaments of the field and some of its characteristic methodological derivates, relating them to the possibility of studying decision making from the first-person point-of-view, i.e. decision making as an experiential phenomenon (and not as a neurological or behavioural process). The article also presents some of the findings phenomenological studies have led to and some theoretical reflexions encouraged by these insights.

Key words: experience, experiencing, phenomenology, phenomenological research, reason, first-person.

The article briefly describes the relatively young field of cognitive science dedicated to the research of lived human experience – the so-called phenomenological inquiry (or first-person research). It enumerates the reasons for the renewed interest in the study of experience and outlines the field’s relation to the rest of cognitive science. With the help of an example (phenomenology of thinking), the article attempts to illustrate the importance of systematic study of experience and addresses some open questions emerging from such an enterprise.

Key words: phenomenological inquiry, first-person perspective, experience, thoughts

The aim of the article is twofold. First, it aims to overview current empirical methods in the area of first-person research. Such a review cannot overlook epistemological and ontological issues, but must at the same time keep in mind methodological and almost technical nature of the problem. Empirical experience research is positioned within the frame of cognitive science and the overview of approaches and techniques of empirical phenomenology is presented, together with epistemological considerations. The second aim of the paper is concerned with the future of research in the discussed area. It suggests that in-depth, existentially liable introspection and self-inquiry should be considered as serious scientific research tools.

Key words: empirical phenomenology, first-person methods, cognitive science, mindfulness

The article is an attempt at – yet once again – finding a source of more fitting metaphor for the study of consciousness inside the framework of quantum mechanics. It starts by doubting into the possibility of the naturalization of research of experience. Proceeding from that it searches for a more adequate way to implement Varela’s idea about a balanced bridging the explanatory gap. By comparing certain positions of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanical phenomena with the properties of introspection, it tries to point out that there might exist better epistemic positions for understanding consciousness than the ones most frequently used today.

Phenomenology and empirical research are not naturally compatible and devising an empirical technique aiming at researching experience is a challenge. This article presents second-person in-depth phenomenological inquiry – a technique that tries to meet this challenge by allowing the transformation of a participant greatly interested in the investigation of their own subjective experience, into a co-researcher. It then provides an example of this technique being used in a study on enaction of beliefs, more closely showing the cooperative research process of researcher and co-researcher and its result: a grounded theory. The article ends with a discussion on the techniques strengths and weaknesses.

Key words: phenomenological inquiry, first-person perspective, experience, enaction, belief

Researchers in the field of empirical phenomenology often base their understanding on the theories of philosophical phenomenology, particularly favouring Husserl in their discussions and explaining obtained results in terms of pre-reflective and reflective experience. In this article we first outline various authors’ intuitions on the phenomenological tradition, before going on to examine certain assumptions of the empirical phenomenological tradition. In the second part we present preliminary results of our empirical phenomenological research in the attempt to point to the enormous phenomenological richness of pre-reflective awareness. To an extent we attempt to contribute to the understanding of the techniques of modern empirical phenomenological research by discussing the presuppositions of its relevant authors.

Key words: experience, phenomenological inquiry, first-person perspective, elicitation interview, pre-reflective consciousness.

The author discusses the problem of integration of first- and third-person approaches in studying the human mind. She critically evaluates and compares various methodologies for studying and explaining conscious experience. Common strategies that apply reductive explanation seem to be unsatisfied for explaining experience and its subjective character. There were attempts to explain experience from the first-person point of view (introspectionism, philosophical phenomenology) but the results were not intersubjectively verifiable. Dennett proposed heterophenomenology as a scientifically viable alternative which supposed to bridge the gap between first- and third-person perspectives. The author critically evaluates his proposal and compares it to contemporary attempts to provide first-person methods.

Key words: cognitive science, heterophenomenology, consciousness, experience, explanation

This article proposes a method for consensually validating phenomenal data. Such a method is necessary due to underreporting of explicit validation procedures in empirical phenomenological literature. The article argues that descriptive sciences – exemplified by phenomenology and natural history – rely on nominalization for construction of intersubjectively accessible knowledge. To this effect, epistemologies of phenomenology and natural history are compared. The two epistemological frameworks differ in terms of their attitudes towards the interpretation of texts and visual epistemology, however, they both rely on eidetic intuition of experts for knowledge construction. In developing the method of consensual validation, I started out with the prismatic approach, a method for researching embodied social dynamics. I then used debriefings on the experience of consensual validation to further refine the method. The article suggests that for a nominalization of experiential world to be intersubjectively accessible, such a vocabulary must be independently constructed by the entire group of co-researchers. I therefore propose that during consensual validation, co-researchers be presented with composite descriptions of experiential categories, compare them with their experience, attempt to falsify them, and finally jointly name them. This approach does not yield a single vocabulary for description of experience, but several commensurable vocabularies, contingent on a specific research setting.

Key words: consensual validation, phenomenal data, participatory sense-making, empirical phenomenology, intersubjective accessibility.

In this article we advocate the methodological feedback loop in the study of the dynamical self at the crossroads of performance philosophy, (artistic) performance, and the philosophy of science. We point to the importance of the dynamics of methodology transfer between arts and sciences and the “interactive continuum” proposed by Newman & Benz in 1998. In the first part of this paper we give a comparative review of the research context relevant for our field of study, and we explain our research hubs in approaching the concept of “performance.” We suggest the possibility to define our filed of research in three equally legitimate ways: as philosophy-of-performance, philosophy-as-performance and performance-as-philosophy. In our recent work we are primarily interested in artistic performances that incorporate elements of artistic practice in the methodology of research output (Frayling 1993), as well as in the potentials of performative aspects of scientific praxis and methodology. However, the conceptual background relevant for this paper is in the field of process philosophy and its relation to science (Birkhard’s “interactivist model” 2009; Campbell’s “process-based model for an interactive ontology” 2009). We attribute particular importance to the notion of “autopoietic feedback” (Maturana and Varela 1974; Luhmann 1990). The second part addresses the issue of transcending identity in the representations of the self and the other; the relationship between Theory-Theory (TT) and Simulation Theory (ST), as well as some recent attempts at combining different theories of mind (e.g. Barlassina 2013). We also deal with the notion of “embodied praxis” (Gallagher and Meltzoff 1996); we mention some neuroscientific insights into the similar phenomena, and – commenting on the importance of the dialogue between neuroscientists and philosophers (Changeux and Ricour) – we give an example of an enactive approach to understanding acting (Zarrilli 2007). In the third part of this article, we critique the notion of “interpassivity” (Žižek 1997; Pfaller 2000). In the concluding part we mention the importance of exploring the concept of “expanded self” (Gallagher 2000; Jeannerod 2003; Kim and Johnson 2013). Being aware of the impossibility to reach final conclusions in the scientific approach to the dynamics of the self, instead of a formal conclusion, we offer a quote from Yeats’ poem “Balloons of Mind.”

Key words: autopoiesis, dynamic self, embodied cognition, enactive intersubjectivity, performance