Context: Although trauma research has advanced immensely, the struggle to find effective treatment for posttraumatic survivors continues. It seems reasonable to say that, at present, our ability to treat those suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is, at the very least, limited. Problem: We argue that in order to confront the current crisis in the study of trauma - evidenced by our limited ability to offer successful treatment for those who develop PTSD - we must return to the subjective experience. Our claim is that only by applying a rigorous method to study the subjective experience will we be able to understand the meaning of neuronal activity associated with PTSD. Method: The neurophenomenological research program (NRP) is a working plan that enables us to create a solid and reliable link between the subjective experience and neuronal activity. Thus, the NRP allows us to (a) delve deeply (and rigorously) into the subjective experience and, by so doing, (b) extract the cognitive mechanism that constitutes the building blocks bridging between the subjective experience and neuronal activity. Following this, we will be able to (c) identify the relevant neuronal activity for the phenomenon under examination. Results: Based on previous studies among posttraumatic survivors, we suggest that two cognitive mechanisms are especially relevant for the study of trauma: the sense of body ownership (i.e., the sense that this is our own body) and the sense of agency (the sense that we control our body. The trade-off between these closely related, yet independent mechanisms is highly significant. We conclude the article with the presentation of a detailed working plan for the study of trauma - one that begins with the subject and returns to the subject. Implications: This article summarizes our struggle to conduct a phenomenological research in the study of trauma and our methodological efforts of the last ten years. It should help the beginner to avoid some mistakes that have been made in this long journey, yet obviously, each one must build their own route. Likewise, we suggest that phenomenologists, brain scientists and clinicians should find a way to cooperate. This shared effort might allow us to improve our understanding of the traumatic experience and its long-term implications; as such, we believe that in this process a better treatment could be developed. That being said, the limitation of our proposal is the difficulty of creating a shared language that bridges these different worlds. Constructivist content: We strongly embraces phenomenological approach together with enactivist/embodied theories.

Key words: Trauma, PTSD, treatment, neurophenomenology, subjective experience, introspection cognitive bridges, brain activity

Summary: In its most radical version, Neurophenomenology asks researchers to suspend the quest of an objective solution to the problem of the origin of subjectivity, and clarify instead how objectification can be obtained out of the coordination of subjective experiences. It therefore invites researchers to develop their inquiry about subjective experience with the same determination as their objective inquiry. However, accessing lived experience raises the question of the investigation method, and of the reliability of its results. Here, we present an accurate method of exploration of lived experience: the elicitation (or microphenomenological) interview. In the course of this interview, one first triggers a form of “phenomenological reduction,” then assists the subject in retrieving or “evoking” past experiences, and finally helps the subject to perform acts of attention about this evoked experience, to describe it faithfully. It is shown that this method addresses a set of traditional objections against introspection Relevance: Elicitation interview, first-person, introspection, lived experience, microdynamics, micro-phenomenological interview, neurophenomenology, pre-reflective experience.

Key words: Elicitation interview, first-person, introspection, lived experience, microdynamics, micro-phenomenological interview, neurophenomenology, pre-reflective experience.

Open peer commentary on the article “Info-computational Constructivism and Cognition” by Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic. Upshot: The main problems with info-computationalism are: (1) Its basic concept of natural computing has neither been defined theoretically or implemented practically. (2. It cannot encompass human concepts of subjective experience and intersubjective meaningful communication, which prevents it from being genuinely transdisciplinary. (3) Philosophically, it does not sufficiently accept the deep ontological differences between various paradigms such as von Foerster’s second- order cybernetics and Maturana and Varela’s theory of autopoiesis, which are both erroneously taken to support info-computationalism.

Open peer commentary on the article “Modeling Subjects’ Experience While Modeling the Experimental Design: A Mild-Neurophenomenology-Inspired Approach in the Piloting Phase” by Constanza Baquedano & Catalina Fabar. Upshot: The authors show in their pilots how open it is to participants not to obey the instructions during an experiment. Their findings leave us to choose between two options: either we (a) accept that subjective confounds are inevitable and stronger than we think, but in this case, why should we continue trying to measure subjective experience?; or (b) strive at designing better experiments in order to control for these fluctuations. I will argue for option (b) and propose an alternative model to go beyond the first- and third-person data gap, namely “predictive processing.”

Open peer commentary on the article “Going Beyond Theory: Constructivism and Empirical Phenomenology” by Urban Kordeš. Upshot: I propose that getting the empirical study of subjective experience off to a good start requires an intersubjective approach, in both theory and method, where intersubjectivity is understood not in the standard science way of verification by others, but rather as participation in the investigation of how experience transforms when examining it together. I argue that this will greatly help do justice to and respect experience’s special transforming and transformative nature.

Current research on spontaneous, self-generated brain rhythms and dynamic neural network coordination cast new light on Immanuel Kant’s idea of the ‘spontaneity’ of cognition, that is, the mind’s capacity to organize and synthesize sensory stimuli in novel, unprecedented ways. Nevertheless, determining the precise nature of the brain-cognition mapping remains an outstanding challenge. Neurophenomenology, which uses phenomenological information about the variability of subjective experience in order to illuminate the variability of brain dynamics, offers a promising method for addressing this challenge.

This article provides a critical review of recent work at the intersection of phenomenology and cognitive science. What is and what ought to be the relationship between these two approaches to the study of consciousness? This review explores problems involved with expressing subjective experience in an objective fashion, and issues involved in the use of principles of isomorphism to explain how brain and consciousness are interrelated. It suggests that strict lines cannot be drawn between third-person theory and phenomenological description, that the division of labour between phenomenology and cognitive science is not very strict, and that the best model for understanding the relation between these two approaches is one that emphasizes an externalist viewpoint.

Recent advances in brain imaging have improved the measure of neural processes related to perceptual, cognitive and affective functions, yet the relation between brain activity and subjective experience remains poorly characterized. In part, it is a challenge to obtain reliable accounts of participant’s experience in such studies. Here we addressed this limitation by utilizing experienced meditators who are expert in introspection. We tested a novel method to link objective and subjective data, using real-time fMRI (rt-fMRI) to provide participants with feedback of their own brain activity during an ongoing task. We provided real-time feedback during a focused attention task from the posterior cingulate cortex, a hub of the default mode network shown to be activated during mind-wandering and deactivated during meditation. In a first experiment, both meditators and non-meditators reported significant correspondence between the feedback graph and their subjective experience of focused attention and mind-wandering. When instructed to volitionally decrease the feedback graph, meditators, but not non-meditators, showed significant deactivation of the posterior cingulate cortex. We were able to replicate these results in a separate group of meditators using a novel step-wise rt-fMRI discovery protocol in which participants were not provided with prior knowledge of the expected relationship between their experience and the feedback graph (i.e., focused attention versus mind-wandering). These findings support the feasibility of using rt-fMRI to link objective measures of brain activity with reports of ongoing subjective experience in cognitive neuroscience research, and demonstrate the generalization of expertise in introspective awareness to novel contexts.

Key words: Real-time neurofeedback, Real-time fMRI, Focused attention, Posterior cingulate cortex, Default mode network, Meditation

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructivism and Mystical Experience” by Hugh Gash. Abstract: The synergy proposed between the epistemological limits on what we can know scientifically and what we can know mystically is provocatively addressed in the creative target article. However, the avoidance of ontological and metaphysical issues implicated in what is more than simply subjective experience is unfortunate. Addressing these issues enhances the synergistic relationship between constructivist and mystical traditions beyond merely epistemological issues.

Upshot: Douglas Robinson argues for a revision of the extended mind theory (EMT) that incorporates intersubjectivity and qualia. Robinson argues that “material extendedness” is less important than accounting for the subjective experience of what he terms “body-becoming-mind,” and that this experience, rather than mere computational equivalence between intra- and transcranial cognition, is the strongest argument in favour of the EMT.