Experimental Phenomenology

Experimental phenomenology is the study of appearances in subjective awareness or psychological experience. Its methods and results challenge quite a few aspects of the current debate on psychological experience. While the psychological experience of perceptual space seems obvious to us -- we know what it feels like to eat watermelon or drink coffee -- measuring and understanding it can be quite challenging. 

More than that, there seems to be a natural association between the properties of perceptual space, a phenomenon known in phenomenology as cross-modality associations.

As we enter and navigate a space there is not only a psychological experience associated with it but also the properties permeating the space integrate in a certain, cross-modal way ascribed to psychological experience (Galilei, 1623).

The theoretical foundations of Experimental Phenomenology, combined with ecological psychology and embodied and enactive cognitive science, maintain that psychological experience or imagining is qualitative in nature, endowed with meaning, and is not merely a product of the computational representation, retrieval, or elaboration of physical stimuli.

With a little phenomenological imagination and an exact experimental procedure we are able to measure phenomenological experience in its situatedness. We can thereby answer questions about how does a certain design of space affect the reduction of stress or increment of creativity? What is the experience of learning? What factors impact an individual learning trajectory? How do brands influence behaviour? How to enhance the perceptual experience? Why do we find some objects aesthetically appealing and reject others? What is the experience of being mentally ill, how can we improve it?