Descriptive Experience Sampling: A Method for Exploring Momentary Inner Experience

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher L. Heavey ◽  
Russell T. Hurlburt ◽  
Noelle L. Lefforge
Keyword(s):  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Inner Experience ◽  
Descriptive Experience Sampling

Mixed Emotions: Toward a Phenomenology of Blended and Multiple Feelings

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher L. Heavey ◽  
Noelle L. Lefforge ◽  
Leiszle Lapping-Carr ◽  
Russell T. Hurlburt
Keyword(s):  
Experience Sampling ◽  
The Other ◽  
Inner Experience ◽  
Descriptive Experience Sampling ◽  
Mixed Emotions ◽  
Observational Methodology ◽  
Theories Of Emotions

After using descriptive experience sampling to study randomly selected moments of inner experience, we make observations about feelings, including blended and multiple feelings. We observe that inner experience usually does not contain feelings. Sometimes, however, feelings are directly present. When feelings are present, most commonly they are unitary. Sometimes people experience separate emotions as a single experience, which we call a blended feeling. Occasionally people have multiple distinct feelings present simultaneously. These distinct multiple feelings can be of opposite valence, with one pleasant and the other unpleasant. We provide examples that inform theories of emotions and discuss the important role observational methodology plays in the effort to understand inner experience including feelings.

Inner Speaking as Pristine Inner Experience

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell T. Hurlburt ◽  
Christopher L. Heavey
Keyword(s):  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Inner Speech ◽  
Psychological Process ◽  
Inner Experience ◽  
Descriptive Experience Sampling

Inner speaking is a directly apprehended phenomenon, not an inference or metaphorical claim about a psychological process. Investigations of inner speaking require a method that carefully explores phenomena as they actually occur. Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) is an attempt at such a method, and is described in this chapter, including an annotated case study of its results. DES investigations suggest that many claims about inner speech are hugely mistaken, leading to the conclusion that powerful presuppositions about inner speech can lead investigations astray; the chapter discusses the recognition and the bracketing of presuppositions. It suggests skepticism about claims based on Vygotskian or other theory, on introspection, on experimental manipulations, or on questionnaires unless the method used provides a principled rationale for the bracketing of presuppositions. The chapter describes aspects of inner speaking not frequently recognized as occurring: partially or completely unworded inner speaking, multiple simultaneous inner speaking, meaningless inner speaking.

Applications of Descriptive Experience Sampling

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Jones-Forrester ◽  
Yani Dickens ◽  
Noelle L. Lefforge
Keyword(s):  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Descriptive Experience Sampling

Unsymbolized thinking, sensory awareness, and mindreading

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell T. Hurlburt
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Attitudes ◽  
Experience Sampling ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Descriptive Experience Sampling ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Sensory Awareness

AbstractCarruthers views unsymbolized thinking as “purely propositional” and, therefore, as a potential threat to his mindreading-is-prior position. I argue that unsymbolized thinking may involve (non-symbolic) sensory aspects; it is therefore not purely propositional, and therefore poses no threat to mindreading-is-prior. Furthermore, Descriptive Experience Sampling lends empirical support to the view that access to our own propositional attitudes is interpretative, not introspective.

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