Against the backdrop of neoliberal reforms and increasing vulnerability in higher education, we argue that microaffirmations, as a form of corporeal generosity, have a subversive potential and as such may contribute to a much-needed renaissance in academia. In this paper, we offer an empirically-grounded investigation of the experience of being affirmed through practices of what we call "collegial generosity." Through highly sensitive micro-phenomenological interviews with academics across ranks and disciplines, we show how these fleeting moments are lived as subjective shifts - often marked by surprise, joy, and gratitude - that can instill a renewed sense of possibility and professional purpose. Building on embodied ethics, we conceptualize microaffirmations as ethical encounters that enhance our capacity to act and connect to others in our academic environments. These acts are experienced as restorative space-opening gestures that create joy and enhance an individual's sense of belonging to their academic discipline and collegial community.

Context center dot The need to complement quantitative approaches to studying consciousness with rigorous methods assessing subjective experience has long been pointed out. However, only a few publications have presented ways to genuinely achieve this, fewer still in a time-efficient manner. > Problem center dot We aim to demonstrate how micro-phenomenology can be streamlined to inform and improve experimental designs, by assessing face validity, i.e., whether the experimental design allows for participants' clear understanding and execution of the task given. > Method center dot We do so by presenting a case study in which we used six micro-phenomenological interviews and a streamlined analysis protocol to explore participants' experiences ofan experiment investigating time perception. > Results center dot Based on the raw data and findings of this study, we illustrate how the minimal setup we opted for allows for a critical assessment offacevalidityand we discuss guidelines and limitationsfor using micro-phenomenologyfor piloting,and post-study assessment in general. > Implications center dot We discuss and instruct on the use of experiential data within quantitative setups, and argue for implementing respective approaches within the education of all conducting empirical research involving conscious participants. >Constructivist content center dot We offer a hands-on example ofVarela's neurophenomenological approach that allows reflection on the critical role of experimental designs in the construction of knowledge.

Engraved ochres and ostrich eggshells from the South African Blombos Cave and Diepkloof Rock Shelter are among the earliest expressions of human symbolic behavior. They appear to document a continuous practice of mark-making across ~40.000 years. During this time, the engraved markings change from simpler unstructured patterns to more complex markings such as cross-hatchings. Previous work examining the cognitive implications of these changes concluded that the engravings were likely used as decorations and may have served as group identity markers but not as denotational symbols. To inform discussions of the emergence of symbolic behavior, we conducted a two-part experimental study inspired by these engravings and based on the assumption that artifact use will motivate incremental adaptive refinements. Part 1 combined a delayed reproduction task with a transmission chain design to simulate an enduring mark-making practice. Eleven transmission chains were seeded with four drawings derived from the early Blombos and Diepkloof engravings and reproduced over eight generations. Transmission chain drawings showed a tendency to become increasingly regular, organized, and symmetric. Part 2 subjected a sample of the transmission chain drawings to a suite of psychophysical experiments to assess the cognitive implications of the accumulated structural changes. We found that the drawings became easier to discriminate, looked more like they had been intentionally made, and became easier to remember and reproduce, but there was no evidence of a systematic change in saliency or stylistic properties. Finally, we compared the results from the transmission chains with a similar analysis of the drawings derived from the original engravings. Although we observe interesting qualitative similarities between the original engravings and the experimental drawings, our findings suggest that cognitive biases and working memory constraints are not sufficient to generate the patterns observed in the archaeological record, highlighting the significance of social and functional contexts in shaping early symbolic artifacts. By integrating archaeological and experimental research we can better inform inferences on sparse records of early symbolic behavior. Our study thus leads to a broader consideration of the role, strengths and potential limitations of the transmission chain approach in analyzing trajectories of early symbolic behavior.

We examine how micro-phenomenology, a qualitative research method developed to attend to, articulate, and analyse lived experience in fine detail, can be employed to study the experience of using digital systems. Micro-phenomenological interviews unpack the specific experiences of interviewees in fine-grained detail and have previously been acknowledged as a potent tool for Human-Computer Interaction Research. More recently, the method has been extended to comprise a structured analysis method to systematically analyse the temporal unfolding and qualitative dimensions of experiences captured by the interviews. This is the first paper demonstrating the combined use of interviews and analysis via a case in which they were employed to examine the experience of using WeUsedTo, a website for sharing experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic. On this basis, we discuss the potentials of the method for eliciting and understanding experiential aspects of interactive systems, particularly pertaining to embodiment, temporality, attention, agency, and the systemic nature of experience.

Theories of embodied cognition suggest that a shared environment and ongoing sensorimotor interaction are central for interpersonal learning and engagement. To investigate the embodied, distributed and hence dynamically unfolding nature of social cognitive capacities, we present a novel laboratory-based coordination task: the BallGame. Our paradigm requires continuous sensing and acting between two players who jointly steer a virtual ball around obstacles towards as many targets as possible. By analysing highly resolved measures of movement coordination and gaming behaviour, game-concurrent experience ratings, semi-structured interviews, and personality questionnaires, we reveal contributions from different levels of observation on social experience. In particular, successful coordination (number of targets collected) and intermittent periods of high versus low movement coordination (variability of relation) emerged as prominent predictors of social experience. Importantly, having the same (but incomplete) view on the game environment strengthened interpersonal coordination, whereas complementary views enhanced engagement and tended to generate more complex interactive behaviour. Overall, we find evidence for a critical balance between similarity and synchrony on the one hand, and variability and difference on the other, for successful engagement in social interactions. Finally, following participant reports, we highlight how interpersonal experience emerges from specific histories of coordination that are closely related to the interaction context in both space and time.

We live in times of humanitarian and environmental crises. The effects of climate change add to the economic, physical, and mental suffering caused by social discrimination, in the form of gender, class, and race inequalities. Encounters with and creation of arts have been suggested as a potential remedy, allowing to stay with the trouble rather than running from it, and imagining a different future rather than manifesting the past. But what are the concrete chances that all this really happens? Similar questions can be raised in relation to immersive media. The latter have been claimed to possess an unprecedented prosocial potential. However, what are the appropriate strategies to ensure that such potential is actually expressed? For this issue of AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images, we selected diverse contributions investigating the role of the arts and media in rethinking (and acting upon) societal and environmental problems, focussing on immersive experiences in particular.

This article highlights ways to relate psychology, neuroscience, and film theory that are underrepresented in the current debate and that could contribute to a new cognitive media theory. First, we outline how neuroscientific approaches to moving images could be embedded in the embodied, enactive cognition framework and recent predictive processing theories of the brain. Within this framework, we understand filmic engagement as a specific way of worldmaking which is co-constituted by formal elements such as framing, camerawork, and editing. Second, we address experimental progress. Here we weigh the promises and perils of neuroscientific studies by discussing the motor neuron account to camera movements as an example. Based on the limitations we identify, we advocate for a multi-method study of film experience that brings cognitive science into dialogue with philosophical accounts and qualitative in-depth explorations of subjective experience.

Micro-phenomenology is an interview and analysis method for investigating subjective experience. As a research tool, it provides detailed descriptions of brief moments of any type of subjective experience and offers techniques for systematically comparing them. In this article, we use an auto-ethnographic approach to present and explore the method. The reader is invited to observe a dialogue between two authors that illustrates and comments on the planning, conducting and analysis of a pilot series of five micro-phenomenological interviews. All these interviews asked experienced researchers of micro-phenomenology to browse their memories to identify one successful and one challenging instance of working with micro-phenomenology. The interview then focused on this reflective task to investigate whether applying the method to itself might reveal quality criteria. The article starts by presenting a shortened and edited version of the first of these interviews. Keeping the dialogue format, we then outline the micro-phenomenological analysis procedure by demonstrating its application to part of this data and corresponding passages of other interviews. We focus on one unexpected finding: interviewed researchers judge the quality of an interview in part based on a connection or contact between interviewer and interviewee. We discuss these results in the context of the means and intentions of the method and suggest avenues for future research.

This article highlights ways to relate psychology, neuroscience, and film theory that are underrepresented in the current debate and that could contribute to a new cognitive media theory. First, we outline how neuroscientific approaches to moving images could be embedded in the embodied, enactive cognition framework and recent predictive processing theories of the brain. Within this framework, we understand filmic engagement as a specific way of worldmaking, which is co-constituted by formal elements such as framing, camerawork, and editing. Second, we address experimental progress. Here we weigh the promises and perils of neuroscientific studies by discussing the motor neuron account to camera movements as an example. Based on the limitations we identify, we advocate for a multi-method study of film experience that brings cognitive science into dialogue with philosophical accounts and qualitative in-depth explorations of subjective experience.

The need for reducing meat consumption in affluent countries is increasingly recognized as crucial to minimizing carbon footprint. However, confronting individuals with rational arguments can prompt emotional discomfort, which is often relieved by engaging in rationalization processes stabilizing current consumption patterns. Mindfulness research suggests that making people aware of their emotional reactions through introspection can reduce these rationalization processes.In this mixed-method pilot experimental study, we inquired whether a single guided introspection, inspired by the micro-phenomenological interview technique, can alter individuals' experience of and abilities to deal with cognitive dissonance. Furthermore, we asked if such an intervention can stimulate attitude or intention changes concerning meat consumption. After inducing cognitive dissonance by exposing participants to pictures of the slaughter of a cow, the intervention group (n = 36) participated in the guided introspection, while the control group (n = 39) played solitaire. Self-report questionnaire measures of emotional discomfort, rationalization strategies, and attitudes towards meat consumption were administered before and after the intervention. Also, open-ended responses to participants’ experience of the study were analyzed.Quantitative results show significantly lower negative attitudes toward reducing meat consumption in the intervention group compared to the control group (partial η2 = 0.107). Qualitative results indicate that these participants are more aware of negative emotions while engaging less in rationalization strategies. We conclude that our study indicates some potential for guided introspection to affect dissonance resolution and provide suggestions for future research.

Academia is the global institution for higher learning. Its job is to gather wisdom, develop skills and educate new generations of researchers. Over the last decades, ever more scientific research points to playfulness as a key ingredient of sustainable learning environments. Nonetheless, academic culture largely ignores or even suppresses playful engagement. In this paper, we address this paradox: as three researchers from different disciplines, we compose a set of concrete activities to support playfulness in academia. Here, we present the process and preliminary outcome of this collaborative endeavour: we introduce the concept of playfulness (a motivational loop) and philosophy (4EA cognition) that informed our approach, motivate our particular choice of method (‘scores’ and a selection of movement and awareness practices), and document our playful exploration in the form of a protocol, empirical evaluation and supporting documents that make our results available to other researchers. As such, we promote playfulness as a sustainable learning practice, and invite you to join us in bringing it to life in the lab.

How did human symbolic behavior evolve? Dating up to about 100,000 y ago, the engraved ochre and ostrich eggshell fragments from the South African Blombos Cave and Diepkloof Rock Shelter provide a unique window into presumed early symbolic traditions of Homo sapiens and how they evolved over a period of more than 30,000 y. Using the engravings as stimuli, we report five experiments which suggest that the engravings evolved adaptively, becoming better-suited for human perception and cognition. More specifically, they became more salient, memorable, reproducible, and expressive of style and human intent. However, they did not become more discriminable over time between or within the two archeological sites. Our observations provide support for an account of the Blombos and Diepkloof engravings as decorations and as socially transmitted cultural traditions. By contrast, there was no clear indication that they served as denotational symbolic signs. Our findings have broad implications for our understanding of early symbolic communication and cognition in H. sapiens.

The subjective experience of time in depression has been described to be altered in complex ways, with sensations of particular slowness, delay or stillness being the most often named articulations. However, the attempts to provide empirical evidence to the phenomenon of “time slowing down in depression” have resulted in inconsistent findings. In consequence, the overall claim that depressive time somehow differs from ordinary time has often been discarded as unfounded. The article argues against such conclusion, contending that the described ambiguity might be caused by the methods employed to assess the phenomenon under observation. In the first part of the article, a reconceptualization of the experience of time in depression is proposed on the grounds of classic and contemporary phenomenological psychiatry. This leads to identify the essential features of depressive time as described both in clinical and philosophical contexts. In the second part, a critique of the existing methods of time perception assessment is conducted, with a specific focus on duration estimation and time passage perception tasks. The above-mentioned core features serve as guidelines in discussing to what degree such methods fit the phenomenon at stake. Finally, an alternative and innovative method is put forward, that might not only help to explore the scope of existing methods but might itself present an alternative to such: the micro-phenomenological interview.

While appreciating Oblak’s call for and investment in more ecological research designs in psychology, I point out several aspects in Oblak’s own experimental setup that might themselves derive …

One key feature of film consists in its power to bodily engage the viewer. Previous research has suggested lens and camera movements to be among the most effective stylistic devices involved in such engagement. In an EEG experiment we assessed the role of such movements in modulating specific spectators´ neural and experiential responses, likely reflecting such engagement. We produced short video clips of an empty room with a still, a zooming and a moving camera (steadicam) that might simulate the movement of an observer in different ways. We found an event related desynchronization of the beta components of the rolandic mu rhythm that was stronger for the clips produced with steadicam than for those produced with a still or zooming camera. No equivalent modulation in the attention related occipital areas was found, thus confirming the sensorimotor nature of spectators´ neural responses to the film clips. The present study provides the first empirical evidence that filmic means such as camera movements alone can modulate spectators’ bodily engagement with film.

Few studies have explored the specificities of contextual modulations of the processing of facial expressions at a neuronal level. This study fills this gap by employing an original paradigm, based on a version of the filmic “Kuleshov effect”. High-density EEG was recorded while participants watched film sequences consisting of three shots: the close-up of a target person’s neutral face (Face_1), the scene that the target person was looking at (happy, fearful, or neutral), and another close-up of the same target person’s neutral face (Face_2). The participants’ task was to rate both valence and arousal, and subsequently to categorize the target person’s emotional state. The results indicate that despite a significant behavioural ‘context’ effect, the electrophysiological indexes still indicate that the face is evaluated as neutral. Specifically, Face_2 elicited a high amplitude N170 when preceded by neutral contexts, and a high amplitude Late Positive Potential (LPP) when preceded by emotional contexts, thus showing sensitivity to the evaluative congruence (N170) and incongruence (LPP) between context and Face_2. The LPP activity was mainly underpinned by brain regions involved in facial expressions and emotion recognition processing. Our results shed new light on temporal and neural correlates of context-sensitivity in the interpretation of facial expressions.

Play and playfulness have repeatedly been suggested to promote learning and performance, also in environments traditionally not connotated with play. However, finding empirical evidence for these claims has been aggravated by the lack of a definition of play and playfulness fitting to this description. This paper proposes to consider playfulness as an attitude, mode or mental stance, that can be modulated independent of the activity pursued and of the general character of the person. It furthermore introduces the micro-phenomenological method to assess the process and outcome of such modulation. To explore this, we devised a simple building task in a controlled within-subject design, interviewing each participant on how they accomplished the task when asked to perform it so that it either felt playful or not playful. The outcomes of this data driven approach supported this notion of playfulness as a stance, and allowed for specific hypotheses about the temporal course and mechanisms of becoming playful. They suggest that an experience of autonomy and self-expression may be key to the success of the modulation. They furthermore indicate that the resulting playful state may allow for an exploratory engagement with materials that can lead to surprising results. Such unexpected results seem to enhance participants' feeling of competence which, in turn, may increase the motivation for the task. We discuss these results within the framework of Deci and Ryan's motivational theory and in relation to current research on gamification and learning.