Phenomenological Experience Research Articles

Video games as cultural studies other

Why are video games always discussed separately from other types of media and popular culture? Although many scholars have utilized cultural studies approaches to understanding games and gaming culture, the relationship between games and popular culture more broadly is more problematic than one might assume. Despite their ubiquity, video games are consistently positioned—by cultural studies and game studies, by popular and video game cultures, and by our phenomenological experiences with them—as ‘other’ within popular media. This has important implications for how cultural studies might approach video games, and how critiques of and solutions to issues of diversity and inclusivity in games can be addressed.

Development of Self-Reported Reward Responsiveness and Inhibitory Control and the Role of Clinical and Neural Predictors.

Understanding the development of adolescent reward responsiveness and inhibitory control is important as they are implicated in key outcomes, such as depression. However, relatively few studies have examined the self-reported experience of this development longitudinally, and past findings have been mixed. Here, we examined the longitudinal development of self-reported reward responsiveness and inhibitory control in youth, as well as clinical and neural measures as predictors of these longitudinal trajectories. We assessed 223 youth aged 9-17 across 36 months. We modeled growth trajectories of several measures of reward responsiveness and inhibitory control using multilevel models. We tested reward-related functional connectivity, depression symptoms, and parental risk for psychopathology as moderators of longitudinal growth. Self-reported inhibitory control increased linearly across adolescence. However, contrary to hypotheses and common models of adolescent development, self-reported reward responsiveness decreased linearly across adolescence. Baseline functional connectivity and clinical risk measures did not significantly moderate trajectories. Results suggest that within-person changes in the phenomenological experience of reward responsiveness may not match developmental expectations based on cross-sectional and neuroimaging studies. More attention is needed to the longitudinal study of subjective experience of reward responsiveness.

The Multiple Dimensions of Familiarity: From Representations to Phenomenology.

This article focuses on familiarity, the form of memory allowing humans to recognize stimuli that have been encountered before. We aim to emphasize its complex nature which includes representational and phenomenological dimensions. The former implies that its neural correlates depend on the type and complexity of the cue stimulus, as different classes of stimuli are represented in distributed ventral visual and medial temporal regions. The second dimension relates to the subjective feeling of familiarity, which results from a fluency signal that is attributed to past encounters with the stimulus. We review mnemonic and non-mnemonic sources of fluency that can induce a sense of familiarity, as well as cases where fluency is not attributed to memory, among which the phenomenological experience of déjà-vu. Across these two dimensions, we highlight key questions to be answered by future studies to improve our understanding of the underpinnings of this form of memory and contribute to building an integrative neurocognitive model of familiarity. Essential to this aim is the clarification of the computational, cognitive, and neural mechanisms involved, namely global matching, fluency attribution, and sharpening. Furthermore, future research is needed to unravel the relationships between these mechanisms. We argue that to achieve these goals, researchers must use appropriate behavioral paradigms and clearly define which dimension of familiarity they investigate.

The Phenomenology of Animation

This paper presents a framework for a phenomenology based on pure transcendental phenomenology that examines the nature of both the experience of viewing and creating animation. The technological innovation of film and cinema in general is based upon two overarching principles. The first is the phenomenon of the captured frame and the second is the spectator’s phenomenological experience of sequences of such captured frames. It is argued among animation and film theorists alike that the insights offered by the consideration of the phenomenon of the cinematic frame should form the nexus of all film theories. This paper argues that a complete theory of film and cinema should start by explaining this fundamental conceptual bedrock, and that the ‘already-created’ frame of film restricts insight into the phenomenology of cinema spectatorship. The article also shows how the practice of animation is instrumental to the proposition and elaboration of a phenomenology of animation.

The Lived Experiences of Telemedicine Intensive Care Unit Nurses.

Although nurses are the primary clinicians in telemedicine intensive care units (tele-ICUs), their experiences remain underresearched. To describe and interpret the lived experiences of tele-ICU nurses. A qualitative, hermeneutical, phenomenological approach based on van Manen's methodology was used to collect and interpret interview data. In-depth interviews were conducted with 11 tele-ICU nurses affiliated with a health system in the northeastern United States. The interviews were intended to elicit direct reports of specific incidents to capture the phenomenological experience. Field observations of the practice setting were conducted to enhance data richness. The participants were primarily female, aged 34 to 67 years, with 11 to 45 years of nursing experience. The following 4 major themes and 12 subthemes were identified: (1) watching intensively and panoptically, with subthemes (a) affirming unremitting diligence, (b) uncovering virtual knowing, and (c) easing perceptions of intrusion; (2) transcending complex boundaries, with subthemes (a) building trustful collaboration, (b) discerning vigilant interventions, and (c) exercising skillful investigation; (3) transforming nursing practice, with subthemes (a) mastering tact, (b) delineating the critical wholeness, and (c) augmenting safety and quality of care; and (4) developing an e-identity, with subthemes (a) tempering feelings of working in shadows, (b) evolving to the enhanced specialist role, and (c) achieving professional gratification. Tele-ICU nurses play a transformative role in nursing practice. These findings have implications for nursing practice, education, health policy, enhancement of the current American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) Tele-ICU Nursing Practice Model, and future research on ICU telemedicine.

Phenomenological exploration of educational mentoring relationships and concerns for 21st century pedagogical praxis in Fitche pre-service primary school college of teacher education, Ethiopia

Purpose: The study explored phenomenological experiences of educational mentoring relationships and concerns for 21st century pedagogical praxis in Fitche pre-service primary school college of teachers’ education. The study answered the central research question “What do the phenomenological experiences of educational mentoring relationships and concerns for 21st century pedagogical praxis in Fitche pre-service primary school teacher education looks like?” Methodology: The study explored the lived experiences of instructors and pre-service teacher candidates regarding mentoring relationships through phenomenological research design. I selected 47 participants using purposive sampling technique based on teaching experience, mentors-mentees’ performance, and academic position. Findings: The data were collected using semi-structured interview, focus group discussion, and researcher’s direct observation. The researcher observed educational relationship experiences between mentors and mentees, and caused vertical and lateral effects on professional development beyond engagements in classrooms. The researcher analyzed textual and contextual data qualitatively in themes. The finding indicated that cognizant to critical realistic approach to education, the study explored mechanisms of re-educating educators towards understanding of lived experiences through contentment, contention, conflict, and conciliation of emotional sates into positive mind-sets. I observed the existing phenomenon in educational mentoring based on inquiry, sharing, encouraging, and caring occurred between mentors and mentees. Educational relationship is stronger between students and grades than mentors and mentees. Implications: Educational mentoring should improve capacity of mentors and mentees’ professional and pedagogical development practices to improve quality of pre-service teacher education.

St: Exploring Auckland's St James Theatre as liminal space and picturesque ruin using photography, letterforms, and book design.

This practice-led artistic inquiry explores the relationship between letterforms and place. It asks the question: How can letterforms and book design conventions express the phenomenological experience of the eerie urban ruin? The conceptual framework for this research is of the ruin as liminal space sparking imagination and fascination. It embraces the Romanticism historically associated with ruins. St is framed as creative response to the experience of the ruin, centred around letterforms which emphasise the eerie through the interplay of negative and positive space. The resulting decorative alphabet references historic initial letters and illuminated manuscripts. This decorative alphabet is supported by a publication which investigates the history of the St James Theatre and its current derelict state using documentary photography and archival materials. The resulting work integrates text, image and story-telling, elevating letters to the Sublime, alongside architecture and humanity’s other artistic creations which the St James Theatre represents.

‘I’ve seen people on the train, like really weird people’ hauntological reflections on the fear of crime

By exploring the hauntological dimensions of fear of crime, this article proposes that this phenomenon exists as an ontological absence that manifests through the spectacle of crime’s imaginary, shaping thoughts, emotions, and movements. In so doing, we highlight fear of crime’s alignment with Fisher’s concept of the eerie – a presence that at once indicates an absence and an object that points to nothing beyond itself. Building on this foundation, we incorporate Simmel’s rendering of the Stranger and Casey’s theorization of ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ places to argue that fear of crime is not solely a reaction to crime events, but manifests as a phenomenon that circulates independently, akin to Baudrillard’s simulacra, reacting against crime’s imaginary. Woven through phenomenological experiences of place, fear of crime emerges as a stain, eliciting a strong sensory, anticipatory and often pre-reflexive response that alerts us that not all is as it seems. Fundamentally, we aim to highlight how fear remains an object that points to an absence, a phantasmagoria and an atmospheric sense of dis-ease, that can engulf us all and press upon spaces, societies and bodies in equal measure.

Mental simulation of the approximal future: Imagining what might happen next.

In the course of daily life, various events-such as driving in suboptimal weather conditions, going on a first date, or walking home alone at night-evoke cognitions about what might happen next in the context of ongoing experience. Nonetheless, little is currently known about the phenomenological experience of anticipating events that might occur next-or what we refer to as simulation of the approximal future. We present novel evidence from a retrospective survey, a diary study, and an experimental laboratory study indicating that people commonly experience simulations of the approximal future, and that simulations of the approximal future can be reliably distinguished, in terms of their valence and function, from simulations of future events that are expected to occur in spatiotemporal contexts that are distinct from ongoing experience. Simulation of the approximal future represents an understudied mental experience that carries important implications for understanding the nature of constructive perceptual and memory-based processes as they pertain to event cognition, threat detection, individual differences, and psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

‘Mind-Revealing’ Psychedelic States: Psychological Processes in Subjective Experiences That Drive Positive Change

This narrative review explores the utilization of psychedelic states in therapeutic contexts, deliberately shifting the focus from psychedelic substances back to the experiential phenomena which they induce, in alignment with the original meaning of the term “mind-manifesting”. This review provides an overview of various psychedelic substances used in modern therapeutic settings and ritualistic indigenous contexts, as well as non-pharmacological methods that can arguably induce psychedelic states, including breathwork, meditation, and sensory deprivation. While the occurrence of mystical experiences in psychedelic states seems to be the strongest predictor of positive outcomes, the literature of this field yields several other psychological processes, such as awe, perspective shifts, insight, emotional breakthrough, acceptance, the re-experiencing of memories, and certain aspects of challenging experiences, that are significantly associated with positive change. Additionally, we discuss in detail mystical experience-related changes in metaphysical as well as self-related beliefs and their respective contributions to observed outcomes. We conclude that a purely medical and neurobiological perspective on psychological health is reductive and should not overshadow the significance of phenomenological experiences in understanding and treating psychological issues that manifest in the subjective realities of human individuals.

Lifetime trauma, mental well-being, alcohol and help-seeking; the phenomenological experience of veterans residing in Northern Ireland

BackgroundVeteran residents in Northern Ireland (NI) are an under-researched population. Little is known about their experiences of trauma and mental health management. The overall mental well-being of veterans living in NI may be poorer than other veteran populations, due to the challenges presented by the unique landscape. Understanding their experiences is crucial for providing appropriate, targeted support.MethodSix male veterans, who had received a mental health diagnosis, living in NI and all aged > 40 years participated. Semi-structured interviews, using open-ended questions, were conducted over the telephone. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore their experiences.ResultsTwo experiential themes were identified each containing three experiential statements. Statements for ‘an extreme lack of’ included: lack of mental health literacy/awareness; lack of expectations of official support; lack of a sense of perceived appreciation. Statements for ‘an extreme abundance of’ included: exacerbated exposure to a range of extreme environments; high levels of ruled-based living; high levels of engaging with informal/local level support.ConclusionsSeveral experiential statements aligned with existing literature, including having poor mental health literacy and problem recognition, and heavily utilising social support versus formal help-seeking. Some novel findings included bouncing between extreme positive and negative environments which could be as detrimental to mental health as experiencing conflict trauma. Heavy alcohol use was just another rule soldiers followed. Positive help-seeking experiences failed to improve poor opinions of support organisations. Finally, poor self-perceptions connected to military status are pertinent in NI, which seems to fuel self-marginalisation and distrust. A combination of factors likely contributes to many veterans living in NI having poorer mental well-being. Novel findings would benefit from further exploration as understanding how NI veterans interpret their experiences is key to providing adequate healthcare.

"I owe some people some apologies"

Videogames are a large and growing cultural-economic medium, a fact alone that makes them worthy of critical attention. Focalising one text, Kentucky Route Zero (CARDBOARD COMPUTER 2013-2020, hereafter referred to as KRZ) this essay argues that videogame media functions as a unique and powerful tool for navigating the phenomenological experiences of neoliberal capitalism and its principal mode of expression -- debt. We argue that KRZ functions as an exemplar of the ways in which games respond to and mediate social and economic structures in terms of content, design, narrative and production. We delve into the game in full, parsing through it, its approaches of economic insecurity, hauntology, debt and how a single text can portray and be part of a wide cultural and economic moment.

Bringing Past Kindness Into the Present: Memories of Acts of Kindness Are Vivid, Memorable, and Feel Good

The current research is a contribution to the ongoing scientific efforts to understand the emotional implications of acts of kindness. While a large body of studies has examined the benefits of remembering past episodes of prosocial (monetary) spending toward others, considerably fewer studies have examined the implications of past acts of kindness. Additionally, the phenomenological experiences (e.g., the vividness and memorability) of such memories remain unexplored, even though the phenomenological experiences may contribute to the emotional implications of acts of kindness over time when recollecting these memories. The current work addresses these research gaps in two preregistered experimental studies. Specifically, we examined the well-being benefits of recalling memories of acts of kindness toward others and oneself, and how such memories are experienced by the remembering person. Study 1 (N = 521) showed that the kindness memories (compared to a memory control) were more easily recalled and experienced as more emotionally intense and positive. In addition, recalling acts of kindness toward oneself significantly increased hedonic, but not eudaimonic, well-being. In contrast, our results showed no significant increases in hedonic or eudaimonic well-being from recalling acts of kindness toward others. Study 2 (N = 513) attempted to replicate the findings concerning hedonic well-being, as well as to use a more sensitive tool to measure eudaimonic well-being at the state level. Analyses revealed that participants in both kindness conditions (self; other) experienced significantly more state eudaimonic and hedonic well-being than the control condition. We discuss various interpretations of our findings, including the possibility that systematic population differences shape the benefits of acts of kindness toward others.

The Conceptual Model Mediated by IVR and 3DP as a First Architectural Idea Generator

The first ideas generation of the architectural project has traditionally been carried out through sketches. Even though in recent decades models have also gained importance, their use is still restricted due to the time required to make them and their difficulty of realization when it comes to complex forms. This research argues that the use of concept models mediated by two disruptive technologies such as Immersive Virtual Reality and 3D Printing can foster the cognitive process of the ideation and configuration of the first architectural ideas. To demonstrate the hypothesis, a pilot study was conducted with 32 architecture students; 17 students created models manually and 15 used IVR and 3DP. Two observation sheets were used to collect information. The results show that in the process of generating ideas, the group that used the two technologies developed three of the four characteristics of the cognitive process better, being an undecided and slow process, then fast and continuous, and finally perceptual for reinterpretation. Also, both technologies complemented each other and favored the development of an intense, tactile, and phenomenological experience. Finally, regarding the model as a product, a better result was found in 3D-printed models in terms of two of the three characteristics, three-dimensionality complexity and materiality. It is concluded that these two technologies ideally complement each other as mediating tools for three-dimensional architectural thinking, making it possible to use the conceptual models as the first generators of the architectural idea.

Understanding the phenomenological experiences of schema therapy for those with an eating disorder.

Schema therapy expands traditional cognitive-behavioral models, weakening early maladaptive schemas and schema modes while strengthening adaptive modes. This study investigated participant experiences of schema therapy for eating disorders, focusing on schema modes and the eating disorder voice, how these maintained disordered eating, and how therapy helped. Semistructured online video interviews with clients receiving schema therapy for eating disorders (N=10) were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four group experiential themes were developed: (1) adverse experiences, typically in childhood and adolescence, (2) interpersonal relationships, especially with primary caregivers and the benefits of a good therapeutic relationship, (3) self-awareness of schema modes and the eating disorder voice and their impact on participants' eating disorders, and (4) recovery using schema concepts, including finding one's inner child, better self-management, and ambivalence about recovering. Overall, schema therapy was perceived as beneficial, specifically regarding participants' awareness of their inner child, development of their eating disorder, and awareness of their eating disorder voice. Participants expressed a growing positive sense of agency, connecting with their inner child's needs and developing a connection to their healthy adult mode. They also felt that schema therapy had equipped them with the tools to strengthen their healthy adult mode, while simultaneously weakening their maladaptive modes.

Growing Confidence and Remaining Uncertainty About Animal Consciousness

While the study of consciousness has had a controversial history and, until recently, a pessimistic prognosis, recent views within the neuroscientific community suggest that a maturing if incomplete scientific understanding of consciousness is close at hand. The purpose of this essay is to specify the major points on which in my opinion there is widespread though not universal agreement, as proposed benchmarks for the current state of consciousness research across the phylogenetic spectrum. Most published definitions of consciousness boil down to a focus on it as a process arising in a nervous system engaged with a body and its environment, giving rise to subjective (personal) experience. A broad consensus on the phenomenology of consciousness sees it consisting at a minimum of (1) awareness_ _and focused attention, (2) unity of perception, (3) qualitative variations in content, (4) mental causation, and (5) a sense of self. There is also broad agreement that the substrate of consciousness requires sizeable, complex nervous systems organized into several hierarchical levels of processing. Further insight is gained by reconstructing the evolution of subjective phenomenological experience ― most likely from multiple origins, hosted by a diversity of body and brain architectures, and diverging into markedly different forms across the animal kingdom. However, three major mysteries about phenomenological experience that remain unresolved are (1) the neurological correlates of consciousness, (2) the apparent gap between phenomenology and mechanism, and (3) the process that monitors the brain activity admitted into consciousness.

Towards a Theory of Emotional Autonomy

The author challenges the emotional contagion theory and proposes an alternative of emotional autonomy. He critiques how the contagion theory is faulty logic because it assumes different individuals may experience identical emotions, rather than each having their own phenomenological experience even though the outward signs may look similar. A way of ascertaining individual experiences of emotions is suggested, followed by an example of the experiences of pain, before the conclusion that we should adopt within the literature the assumptions of emotional autonomy.

The phenomenological experience of autobiographical memory in patients with behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia

In this study, we offer a comprehensive assessment of the phenomenological experience of patients with behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) upon retrieval of autobiographical memory. We invited patients with bvFTD and control participants to retrieve autobiographical memories and rate, for each memory, its phenomenological characteristics. We also analyzed the retrieved memories regarding specificity (i.e., whether the memory described a general or a detailed event). Results demonstrated that, compared to control participants, patients with bvFTD attributed lower levels of reliving, back in time (feeling as if going back in time), remembering, realness, visual imagery, auditory imagery, language, emotion, rehearsal, importance, spatial recall and temporal recall to their memories. Lower autobiographical specificity was also observed in patients with bvFTD compared to control participants. Autobiographical specificity in patients with bvFTD was associated with verbal fluency and verbal episodic memory, but not with phenomenological experience. Although autobiographical memories of patients with bvFTD show low ratings of phenomenological experience, the patients may still enjoy some limited subjective experience during autobiographical retrieval.

Constructing a World for Compassion: How Temporal Work Can Preserve Compassion in Extreme Contexts

AbstractThis article extends previous research on how compassion can be preserved in extreme contexts, highlighting the phenomenological experience of time in practices. Based on an ethnographic study of hospice care, we show how temporal work preserves compassion by enacting the end‐of‐life as a time of agency, a liminal time between the past (life) and an undesirable and certain future (death) that shifts focus to here and now actions. Taking a Heideggerian approach to the lived experience of compassion, we understand the hospice as a world where different ways of being are implicated in practices organized through existential spatiality (being with the guest and being by the guest). We show how exposure to people in end‐of‐life affects the experience of time in compassion practices, allowing them to be experienced as kairos, involving sacredness and spiritual connectedness with others, and as chronos, allowing compassion‐givers to restore their capacity by focusing on compassion tasks.

Deliberate and Self-Conscious Adaptation of Eye-Contact by Autistic Adults.

Eye gaze is widely recognised as an important element in managing social interactions, receiving information from others and communicating information about ourselves. Atypical eye gaze is one of the characteristic hallmarks of autism. Experimental research has contributed significantly to our knowledge of eye-gaze in autism, however, there is a lack of research exploring how autistic individuals describe and understand the phenomenological experience of eye-gaze and eye-contact. The current study explores the subjective experience of deliberate and self-conscious adaptation of eye-contact by autistic adults. Nine autistic adults were interviewed individually about their experiences of eye-contact. Audio recordings were transcribed, and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Themes included gaining awareness of eye contact differences through feedback from others, the interaction of motivation to make eye-contact with a sense of autistic identity, difficulties listening when making eye contact, the importance of familiarity of conversational partners, and strategies to make eye-contact. This study makes an important and novel contribution to understanding the experience of eye-contact differences from the perspective of autistic adults themselves, highlighting the phenomenology of eye-contact as potentially aversive and the social pressure to engage in it, and exploring factors influencing effective eye-contact, with implications for psychological intervention.