Inner Experience and Neuroscience Merging Both Perspectives

by Price, Donald D.; Barrell, James J.

• ISBN13: 9780262017657
• ISBN10: 0262017652
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-08-03
• Publisher: Bradford Books

Summary

The study of consciousness has advanced rapidly over the last two decades. And yet there is no clear path to creating models for a direct science of human experience or for integrating its insights with those of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. In Inner Experience and Neuroscience, Donald Price and James Barrell show how a science of human experience can be developed through a strategy that integrates experiential paradigms with methods from the natural sciences. They argue that the accuracy and results of both psychology and neuroscience would benefit from an experiential perspective and methods. Price and Barrell describe phenomenologically based methods for scientific research on human experience, as well as their philosophical underpinnings, and relate these to empirical results associated with such phenomena as pain and suffering, emotions, and volition. They argue that the methods of psychophysics are critical for integrating experiential and natural sciences, describe how qualitative and quantitative methods can be merged, and then apply this approach to the phenomena of pain, placebo responses, and background states of consciousness. In the course of their argument, they draw on empirical results that include qualitative studies, quantitative studies, and neuroimaging studies. Finally, they propose that the integration of experiential and natural science can extend efforts to understand such difficult issues as free will and complex negative emotions including jealousy and greed.

Author Biography

Donald D. Price is Professor Emeritus, Division of Neuroscience, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University of Florida.

James J. Barrell has been a professor and research psychologist at the universities of Florida and West Georgia. He is currently a consultant for application of experiential methods to psychology and neuroscience.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Developing a Science of Human Meanings and Consciousness	p. 1
Lessons Learned from Psychophysics	p. 31
Psychophysical Methods and Human Meanings	p. 59
Describing, Characterizing, and Understanding Phenomenal Experience	p. 71
Merging the Qualitative with the Quantitative: The Roles of Desire and Expectation in Emotions	p. 109
Choosing	p. 137
Human Pain and Suffering	p. 159
Second Pain: A Model for Explaining a Conscious Experience?	p. 195
Mysterious and Not-So-Mysterious Mechanisms of Placebo Responses	p. 209
Hypnotic and Other Background States of Consciousness	p. 243
Using Experiential Paradigms to Extend Science and Help Solve Human Problems	p. 269
Notes	p. 303
References	p. 311
Index	p. 341
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