Integrating first- and third-person perspective in contemplative neuroscience: Examples and challenges

With the emergence of the field of contemplative sciences researchers have started thinking about the challenge to integrate first-person subjective reports with the traditional third-person objective measurements of behavior, brain, and body. Thus, for example, plasticity research has suggested that training of mental capacities such as mindfulness and compassion is indeed effective and leads to changes in both subjective well-being and subjective experiences as well as in brain functions, health, and behavior. As an example for plasticity research, I will introduce the ReSource Project, a large-scale interdisciplinary and multi-methodological one-year secular mental training program that aims at the cultivation of attention, interoceptive awareness, perspective taking on self and others, meta-cognition, compassion, empathy, and prosocial motivation. This study also includes new ways of training the mind through contemplative intersubjective dyads supported by a web platform allowing for everyday practice with another person. In this study we assessed subjective measures ranging from phenomenological reports, psychological questionnaires, event-sampling data as well as daily meditation-induced reported changes in affect and thoughts. Furthermore, we assess a huge variety of objective data ranging from behavioral-, brain-, to genetic and hormonal measures. Even though neurophenomenology has been suggested as the state-of-the-art mean to achieve an integration between such first-person and third- person data, it is still unclear how exactly such a data set can be integrated in a meaningful way. With the example of the ReSource Project I will highlight such challenges and argue that the field still lacks the right methods for the reliable assessment and integration of complex first-hand reports with training induced third-person data