The Radical Non-subjectivity of Pristine Experience
Cambridge University Press eBooks June 27, 2011 DOI: 10.1017/cbo9780511842627.018 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case study Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 1 |
| Population | A 24-year-old college student, described as a typical subject in a DES (descriptive experience sampling) study |
| Key findings | A single introspective report from a 24-year-old college student illustrates the kind of data produced by descriptive experience sampling: at a random beep she saw the words "abuse treatment" in lowercase bubble letters floating inside her head while hearing her own voice say "abuse" in a flat tone. The chapter asks whether such reports should be treated as bits of subjective experience or as bits of objective experience. |
Abstract
“Karen” sample 3.1. Karen was studying for her psychology test. At the moment of the beep she was seeing the words “abuse treatment,” which were experienced to be inside her head, toward the front, as if the point of view was in the back of her head and the words were projected in front of her. The words were seen in bubble letter font, all lower case, and had thin black edges as sketched in Figure 17.1. There was no color in this seeing. The letters of “abuse treatment” floated like balloons, each individual letter independently in motion, moving slightly up and down vertically (and not side to side). She also heard herself innerly saying the word “abuse” ( not “abuse treatment ”) in her own voice, in a normal volume, but in a flat tone. This voice experience was decidedly a hearing experience rather than a speaking experience, as if she were hearing her own voice as played back by a tape recorder. Although she described her voice as being spoken at a normal volume, she said she experienced it as being loud because she was in a quiet computer lab. Karen's sample 3.1 is a more or less typical datum from a more or less typical DES subject, a twenty-four-year-old college student. This chapter asks whether we should conceptualize such data as bits of Karen's subjective experience or as bits of Karen's objective experience.