The lived experience of remembering a 'good' interview: Micro-phenomenology applied to itself.

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.

The evolution of early symbolic behavior in Homo sapiens.

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.

Embodying the camera: An EEG study on the effect of camera movements on film spectators´ sensorimotor cortex activation.

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.

How context influences the interpretation of facial expressions: a source localization high-density EEG study on the "Kuleshov effect".

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.

How Playfulness Motivates - Putative Looping Effects of Autonomy and Surprise Revealed by Micro-Phenomenological Investigations.

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.

How Context Influences Our Perception of Emotional Faces: A Behavioral Study on the Kuleshov Effect.

Facial expressions are of major importance in understanding the mental and emotional states of others. So far, most studies on the perception and comprehension of emotions have used isolated facial expressions as stimuli; for example, photographs of actors displaying facial expressions corresponding to one of the so called 'basic emotions.' However, our real experience during social interactions is different: facial expressions of emotion are mostly perceived in a wider context, constituted by body language, the surrounding environment, and our beliefs and expectations. Already in the early twentieth century, the Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov argued that such context, established by intermediate shots of strong emotional content, could significantly change our interpretation of facial expressions in film. Prior experiments have shown behavioral effects pointing in this direction, but have only used static images as stimuli. Our study used a more ecological design with participants watching film sequences of neutral faces, crosscut with scenes of strong emotional content (evoking happiness or fear, plus neutral stimuli as a baseline condition). The task was to rate the emotion displayed by a target person's face in terms of valence, arousal, and category. Results clearly demonstrated the presence of a significant effect in terms of both valence and arousal in the fear condition only. Moreover, participants tended to categorize the target person's neutral facial expression choosing the emotion category congruent with the preceding context. Our results highlight the context-sensitivity of emotions and the importance of studying them under ecologically valid conditions.

"Cuts in Action": A High-Density EEG Study Investigating the Neural Correlates of Different Editing Techniques in Film.

In spite of their striking differences with real-life perception, films are perceived and understood without effort. Cognitive film theory attributes this to the system of continuity editing, a system of editing guidelines outlining the effect of different cuts and edits on spectators. A major principle in this framework is the 180° rule, a rule recommendation that, to avoid spectators' attention to the editing, two edited shots of the same event or action should not be filmed from angles differing in a way that expectations of spatial continuity are strongly violated. In the present study, we used high-density EEG to explore the neural underpinnings of this rule. In particular, our analysis shows that cuts and edits in general elicit early ERP component indicating the registration of syntactic violations as known from language, music, and action processing. However, continuity edits and cuts-across the line differ from each other regarding later components likely to be indicating the differences in spatial remapping as well as in the degree of conscious awareness of one's own perception. Interestingly, a time-frequency analysis of the occipital alpha rhythm did not support the hypothesis that such differences in processing routes are mainly linked to visual attention. On the contrary, our study found specific modulations of the central mu rhythm ERD as an indicator of sensorimotor activity, suggesting that sensorimotor networks might play an important role. We think that these findings shed new light on current discussions about the role of attention and embodied perception in film perception and should be considered when explaining spectators' different experience of different kinds of cuts.

Single-pulse Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Reveals Contribution of Premotor Cortex to Object Shape Recognition.

BACKGROUND: It is known that ventral premotor cortex responds selectively to the visual perception of object shapes. However, it is unclear whether this activation also contributes to visual processing. OBJECTIVE: In this study we want to assess whether activation in premotor areas contributes to visual perception of objects. METHODS: We measure performance on a perception task while delivering single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the left premotor cortex at different latencies after stimulus onset. RESULTS: We show that in cases of limited visual consciousness, disturbing the left premotor cortex 150 ms after stimulus onset results in a decrease in the capacity to recognize shapes, compared both to other latencies and to stimulation of the vertex. CONCLUSION: Premotor cortex plays a constitutive role in object shape recognition.

Moving mirrors: a high-density EEG study investigating the effect of camera movements on motor cortex activation during action observation.

Action execution-perception links (mirror mechanism) have been repeatedly suggested to play crucial roles in social cognition. Remarkably, the designs of most studies exploring this topic so far excluded even the simplest traces of social interaction, such as a movement of the observer toward another individual. This study introduces a new design by investigating the effects of camera movements, possibly simulating the observer's own approaching movement toward the scene. We conducted a combined high-density EEG and behavioral study investigating motor cortex activation during action observation measured by event-related desynchronization and resynchronization (ERD/ERS) of the mu rhythm. Stimuli were videos showing a goal-related hand action filmed while using the camera in four different ways: filming from a fixed position, zooming in on the scene, approaching the scene by means of a dolly, and approaching the scene by means of a steadycam. Results demonstrated a consistently stronger ERD of the mu rhythm for videos that were filmed while approaching the scene with a steadycam. Furthermore, videos in which the zoom was applied reliably demonstrated a stronger rebound. A rating task showed that videos in which the camera approached the scene were felt as more involving and the steadycam was most able to produce a visual experience close to the one of a human approaching the scene. These results suggest that filming technique predicts time course specifics of ERD/ERS during action observation with only videos simulating the natural vision of a walking human observer eliciting a stronger ERD than videos filmed from a fixed position. This demonstrates the utility of ecologically designed studies for exploring social cognition.

How the motor-cortex distinguishes among letters, unknown symbols and scribbles. A high density EEG study.

Previous research has reported that the perception of written language symbols activates the cortical motor hand representation of the dominant hemisphere also found to be activated during the writing of these symbols. It has been suggested that such motor activation supports reading. Nevertheless, the precise circumstances leading to such activation are still unknown. For instance, several studies suggested that motor activation necessarily depends on specific sensory-motor experience with the stimuli. Some results, however, also indicated that untrained stimuli can elicit the response. Moreover, due to the methods used so far, little is known about the temporal course of the motor activity. Our study explored these open questions using high-density EEG. We measured central alpha event-related desynchronization (ERD) as a marker of cortical motor activation during the observation of Roman letters (alphabet of participants' mother language), Chinese characters (not familiar to participants), and scribbles. Our results show that the cortical motor system is activated during the perception of all three stimuli in both hemispheres, with ERD stronger in the left (dominant) hemisphere. A significant difference of ERD time-course was observed in the left hemisphere between the observation of symbols (letters and characters) and scribbles. Scribbles elicited significantly faster resynchronization of central alpha than symbols. We suggest that ERD results are due to recognizing all stimuli as traces of hand gestures. Furthermore, differences in ERD found between symbols and scribbles might depend either on visuo-motor training, separating symbols from scribbles, or on stimuli specific features marking their status as either language symbols or scribbles.