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Abstract. The self has become a prominent field of research in psychology but despite its eminent first-person character, it is typically studied from a third-person perspective. Such a third-person approach is well suited to enquire into the behavioral expression of the sense of selfhood but it does not capture the core experience – the so-called qualia nature – of the self. In the current article we illuminate the challenges that a predominant third-person approach poses to an understanding of the self. We outline two levels of analysis that can complement and enrich a third-person, behavior-focused view, namely the level of experience and the level of conceptual insight. Both these additional levels are accessible via a first-person mode of enquiry and can reveal a degree of richness about the self that reaches beyond a third-person approach. We here provide a methodological justification for such a qualitative mode of enquiry, as well as a synopsis of findings from our own first-person research which involved introspective reports of the authors’ experiences during meditation on geometrical shapes, words, and short phrases.

In view of the unresolved mind–brain problem, we examine a number of prototypical research attitudes regarding the question, how the mental and the neuronal realms are related to each other, both functionally and ontologically. By discussing neurophilosophical and neuropsychological positions, the mind–brain problem can be recast in terms of a structural relation between methodological and content-related aspects. Although this reformulation does not immediately lead to a solution, it draws attention to the necessity of searching for a new way of balancing separating and integrating elements regarding content as well as method. As a relatively unknown alternative in this context we investigate an approach by the philosopher Rudolf Steiner. It comprises a firstperson method, along with the theoretical background of what has come to be known as the mirror metaphor – an analogy for the brain as a necessary but not a sufficient basis for mental activity. Through a first-person study, this approach is scrutinized using volitionally controlled perceptual reversals. The results allow for a phenomenological distinction of processual phases which can be summarized as engaging and disengaging forms of mental activity. Finally, we initiate a discussion in view of related philosophical concepts and give an outlook on the next possible research steps.

Mind wandering is an inherently inner (or first-person) phenomenon that leaves few direct traces for third-person enquiry. Nonetheless, psychologists often study mind wandering using third-person (e.g., behavioral or neuronal) research methods. And although research-participants may well be asked to introspect on their mind wandering experiences (e.g., via experience-sampling or think-aloud techniques), such introspective self-observations typically lack methodological rigor and are hence of only preliminary value. Here, we argue that it is a missed opportunity to not train researchers to introspect on their own mind-wandering experiences to better understand the associated mental processes. We propose a novel approach to cultivating an educated form of introspection in the study of attentional focusing and mind wandering. Our research adds to the current theoretical understanding by explicating conditions that facilitate mind wandering (e.g., the shifting and broadening of concepts) and help find the way back to the primary task (e.g., commitment; deliberate shifts between focusing and defocusing). /journal/acp approach that we propose will deal with these challenges and also present data from a pilot trial to substantiate this approach. We consider this discussion as an important extension not only to the mindwandering literature but also to the study of various other phenomena in cognitive psychology and beyond, especially with regard to their qualitative (or qualia) components (Mandler, 2005;Shoemaker, 1991). Smallwood and Schooler (2015) identify three challenges to the study of mind wandering, which we take up and connect to in the following sections. The first of these challenges is the difficulty of exercising experimental control over the onset and occurrence of mind wandering; in the absence of such control, it is difficult to identify the precursors or even the triggers of mind wandering, hence complicating a systematic analysis of the characteristics of this psychological state. The second difficulty is the circumstance that as an inherently internal phenomenon, mind wandering constitutes itself in the form of a first-person experience that happens "at its own convenience"and that can only be indirectly inferred from third-person observation.As a matter of fact, given its primarily qualitative or first-person nature, not much is left to the third-person observer of mind wandering to begin with other than the indirect and hence secondary and in fact somewhat peripheral aspects of the mind-wandering phenomenon.Its primary quality is-by its very nature-elusive to a third-person point of view. Related to this, a third challenge lies in the fact that information about mind wandering typically depends on self-report measures that are widely perceived to be subjective and biased and that are claimed to alter the occurrence of the primary phenomenon -here, mind wandering-to begin with (Smallwood & Schooler, 2015).Given the importance and prevalence of mind wandering, substantial efforts have been made nonethe...