First-person science of consciousness: Theories, methods, applications

Abstract

First-person science, one of the traditional forms of psychological enquiry, has significant contributions to make to psychological theory-building as it can add an in-depth understanding to phenomena that are difficult to access from a third-person perspective. At the same time, first-person enquiry is widely considered to be an anachronistic and unreliable mode of research. This view is debatable in itself, however. In a recent theme-call we sought to compile different views and perspectives on various facets of first-person enquiry and in the following provide a brief synopsis of the papers published under this theme-call.