Things are starting to shift, though, as this article from the BPS Research Digest Blog reports. Another viewpoint is offered below, from Perspectives on Psychological Science.
Introspection reborn!
Introspection - people reporting their subjective experience of their own mental processes - was a favoured technique among psychology's founding fathers. Today, by contrast, it has a poor reputation, often dismissed as unreliable and unscientific. But in a new paper, Sebastien Marti and colleagues argue that introspection can be accurate and illuminating, providing a useful addition to objective measures.
Ten participants completed a simple dual-task paradigm. First they listened to an auditory tone and pressed one of two keys as fast as possible to indicate whether the tone was high or low pitch. Straight after, they pressed one of two keys as fast as possible to indicate whether a 'Y' or 'Z' had subsequently appeared on a computer screen. When the second decision stage comes too soon after the first, reaction times to the second stage are prolonged - an established effect known as 'the psychological refractory period'.
The key twist in this study is that the researchers didn't just record participant reaction times, they also asked them to make several subjective estimates after each trial: how long they'd taken to respond to the tone; how long they'd taken to respond to the letter; how soon the letter appeared after the tone; and whether the letter appeared before or after they'd made their decision about the tone. Reaction times didn't vary on introspection versus control trials, suggesting, importantly, that introspection didn't interfere with the basic cognitive processes required to complete the task.
Participants displayed the usual 'psychological refractory period' and their subjective estimates of their own reaction times and other factors, although under-estimates, were mostly highly correlated with the objective measures. The accuracy of introspection only went awry when the letter appeared too soon after the auditory tone or simultaneously with it. On these trials, not only did participants' reaction times to the letter slow down, it seems they weren't able to start an internal recording of the duration of their reaction time (to the letter) until they had finished processing the tone. Their estimates of the gap between the tone and letter also became inaccurate. It's as if they weren't able to consciously perceive the letter until they'd finished processing the tone. It was a similar story regarding their judgment about whether the letter appeared before or after their auditory decision. Participants were accurate when there was a big enough time delay between tone and letter, but their insight was compromised when the letter appeared too early.
'For the first time, we were able to reconstruct the sequence of conscious events in a psychological refractory period trial based on subjects' introspection,' the researchers said. 'Overall, the present study showed that quantified introspection is a powerful tool. After each trial, participants can answer multiple questions that provide remarkably coherent data which are not always objectively true, but can be used to paint a consistent picture of the subjective phenomenology of an average trial during a cognitive task.'
_________________________________Marti S, Sackur J, Sigman M, & Dehaene S (2010). Mapping introspection's blind spot: reconstruction of dual-task phenomenology using quantified introspection. Cognition, 115 (2), 303-13 PMID: 20129603
Here is a related article from 2009, in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, that looks at a renewed interest in introspection as a valid method of research.
It's Time We Brought Introspection Out of the ClosetCopyright © 2009 Association for Psychological ScienceABSTRACT—I identify the main reasons why introspection unofficially has been banned from the field for some 100 years, though it has been partly smuggled back in through the use of "verbal (self-) reports." I then show why introspection is indispensable to psychology. I argue that this ban has retarded the progress of psychology by taking attention away from the problem of the accuracy of self-reports, limiting our understanding of concepts like emotion, discouraging psychologists from using introspection themselves, and ignoring the study of how to develop introspective skill. I conclude by suggesting some approaches to validating introspective reports.ABSTRACT
Introspection is the process of turning one focus inward, toward one's mental contents and processes. The open use of the term introspection and the method of introspection have—with few exceptions—been, at least unofficially, banned from the field of psychology for close to a century. I believe there are several reasons for this. First, philosophers of science complained that introspection could not be "consensually validated," as other people cannot observe anyone's consciousness but their own. Second, Wilhelm Wundt and others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries gave introspection a "bad name," because they used the term so narrowly—mainly to refer just to reporting of sensory qualities. Third, Freud convinced many that the most important determinants of human action were unconscious and could not be discovered by introspection (as contrasted with, for example, dream analysis). Fourth, the behaviorists, especially Watson and Skinner, who dominated psychology for some 60 years, convinced most psychologists that the conscious mind had no causal role in action (a view that Freud would have generally agreed with though for reasons other than environmental determinism). For the behaviorists, introspection was a waste of time because it could not help generate any causal laws. Fifth, most psychologists have had no idea how one might become skilled at introspection, which would limit its usefulness. Sixth, some contemporary psychologists claim that virtually everything we do is subconsciously primed and that becoming aware of our subconscious contents and processes is impossible, useless, or both (a claim that can easily be refuted by introspection).
All of this is ironic because introspection is indispensable to the science of psychology. The most fundamental reason is that one could not grasp even the most basic of psychological concepts without introspection. Consider the concept of consciousness itself. As an axiomatic concept, one cannot explain what it means to be "conscious" or "aware" by the use of any more basic concepts. One has to experience it directly. Similarly, concepts like psychological conflict, desire, expectation, emotion (including specific emotions), imagination, knowledge, memory, perception, plan, purpose, self, understanding, and thousands of other psychological concepts would be inexplicable and incommunicable unless each of us were able to introspect.
Even when a specific concept refers to something that one might not have ever experienced, such as suicidal depression, it could only be explained and understood with reference to something one has experienced plus the use of imagination: "Remember when you were sad after X happened? Imagine that that feeling was so bad that you saw everything as hopeless and wanted to end your life."
Given that introspection is banned and yet indispensable to the field of psychology, how have psychologists coped? The behaviorists did it by simply redefining what psychology was: changing it from the science of the mind to the science of behavior. They tried to explain behavior in terms of its consequences (reinforcements) rather than in terms of internal states. This doctrine was doomed to failure and collapsed as a paradigm in the early 1970s.
Since then, psychologists have brought introspection back but only in disguised form, as "self-reports." (Even the behaviorists did some mind-smuggling by relabeling mental events as "verbal behavior.") But one rarely hears them say: "These self-reports are based on introspection and therefore …"
I believe that not dealing openly with issues relating to introspection has slowed the progress of psychology in a number of ways.
1. Not enough psychologists spend time worrying about how accurate self-reports are or when they are most accurate. There are, of course, exceptions (e.g., Ericcson & Simon, 1980), but for most, especially in the experimental (nonclinical) field, self-reports are most commonly taken at face value An obvious example is the field of personality. The Big Five scales are all direct self-reports. No one really knows how accurate the scales are or how much inaccuracies reduce the validity of the scales. Projective measures have been considered as an alternative, but McClelland and others showed that self-reported achievement motivation was uncorrelated with Need for Achievement measured by a projective tests (the thematic apperception test, e.g., see Spangler, 1992). Although both types of measures may predict behavior (Collins, Hanges, & Locke, 2004), they are not measuring the same thing (for more on this problem, see Gawronski, LeBel, & Peters, 2007).
2. The failure to take introspection seriously retards our understanding. Consider, for example, emotions. All emotions (excepting hormonal imbalances or brain abnormalities) entail automatic, subconscious appraisals based on subconsciously held ideas (this was first identified by Magda Arnold in 1960). Yet very few discussions of emotions acknowledge this. Why? Because to understand emotions one must introspect backward in time to identify the appraisals (e.g., "I was angry because I viewed my friend's attack on my character as unjust"). Learning how to analyze and explain emotions is especially critical in the realm of psychotherapy. It is also crucial for changing emotions. Aaron Beck was a pioneer in having clients use introspection and thought analysis to relieve depression; Clark & Beck, 1999). There are very few areas of psychology (e.g., the study of infants) in which greater reliance on introspection on the part of participants would not enhance our knowledge (e.g., decision-making, learning, problem-solving).
3. The anti-introspection bias discourages psychologists themselves from introspecting, and not only because colleagues would probably frown upon it. Virtually no top journal would consider introspective reports to be publishable. Yet, introspection could provide valuable raw material for building theories, especially if psychologists worked together to stimulate one another's thinking.
4. Failing to accept introspection as a potentially valid method, prevents psychologists from attempting to train people (including themselves) in how to introspect. It is reasonable to assume that introspection is a learnable skill just like any other. People well-trained in introspection should be able to give more accurate "self-reports" than those not so trained. Among other reasons, introspection training could help people to discover and avoid using defense mechanisms which distort their reports.
The forgoing discussion raises an important issue: How would one validate introspective observations? This obviously needs much thought, but several possibilities can be suggested.
- Integration between various sources of evidence. For example, if a person claims not to be frightened or shy but acts frightened or shy, we have reason to doubt their claim. If a person is known to have low moral character, we would also have reason to doubt what they report, especially if they have reason to want to get away with something. This is a matter of holding the full context of knowledge about the person and the total situation.
- Discoveries made by one person's introspection can be checked by others who have the context of knowledge to know what the other is talking about. This is a form of replication. Disagreements might be settled by further discussion and mental experiments (e.g., "Well, what would you feel if I did X rather than Y?").
- If one has a fairly well-validated theory, one could look at the relationship between introspective reports and action in a clearly defined context. This is tricky, because the theory and the accuracy of the reports cannot be tested at the same time: How would you know which was wrong, the theory or the reports? You would also have to know and control most of the other possible causes of the actions in question to isolate the introspected variable of interest.
- It remains to be seen if brain scans might help in some way. Such scans reveal what part of the brain is activated at a given time, but not mental content.
REFERENCES
(1960). Emotion and personality (Vol. 1). New York: Columbia University Press.
(1980). Verbal reports on data. Psychological Review, 87, 215–251. Links
(1999). Scientific foundations of cognitive theory and therapy of depression. New York: Wiley.
(2004). The relationship of achievement motivation to entrepreneurial behavior: A meta-analysis. Human Performance, 17, 95–117. Links
(2007). What do implicit measures tell us? Scrutinizing the validity of three commonplace assumptions. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 2, 181–193. Links
(1992). Validity of questionnaire and TAT measures of need for achievement: Two meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 140–154. Links
Locke, E.A. (2009). It's Time We Brought Introspection Out of the Closet. Perspectives on Psychological Science; (4)1, 24-25. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01090.xTags:
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