Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2023
Alejandro Troncoso, Vicente Soto, Antoni Gomila et al.
31 citations
Empathy, crucial for social interaction, is often studied in controlled lab settings that miss its real-world complexity. This article proposes an integrative framework called the Empirical 5E (E5E) approach, which combines embodied, embedded, enacted, emotional, and extended perspectives of empathy. The authors argue for studying empathy as an active interaction between embodied agents in a shared environment. They illustrate how a multimodal method—mobile brain and body imaging (MoBi) paired with phenomenological techniques and natural interactive paradigms—can capture both neural and bodily processes alongside subjective experience. This framework aims to bridge brain, body, and phenomenological attributes to better reflect how empathy actually occurs in everyday life.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2022
David Martínez-pernía, Ignacio Cea, Alejandro Troncoso et al.
25 citations
Empathy for pain involves direct bodily perception and sensation, not just mental states. In an experimental phenomenological study, 28 adults watched videos of extreme-sport accidents and then underwent phenomenological interviews. Four main themes emerged: bodily resonance (kinesthetic and affective sensations coordinated with the athlete's actions), attentional focus (either on one's own discomfort or the athlete's pain), kinesthetic motivation (avoidance or helping impulses), and temporal fluctuations in experience. Two experiential structures were identified: a self-centered empathic experience focused on personal discomfort and self-protection, and an other-centered empathic experience focused on the athlete's suffering with prosocial motivation. The findings support an enactive, embodied view of empathy and extend enactive theory to non-interactive social contexts.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2024
Alejandro Troncoso, Kevin Blanco, Álvaro Rivera-Rei et al.
14 citations
Empathy involves bodily, emotional, and cognitive connections with others. Observing people in pain triggers whole-body responses, but the timing of these bodily reactions and their link to understanding others' experiences was unclear. This study introduces "bodyssence," blending "body" and "essence," to describe three temporal phases of empathetic bodily response. Thirty-five participants watched videos of extreme sportspersons having accidents while their postural sway, electrodermal activity, and heart rate were measured, followed by interviews. In the forefeel phase, participants anticipated the accident with minimal movement and high heart rate. In fullfeel, they experienced strong negative emotions and increased movement with lower heart rate. In reliefeel, emotional intensity decreased, postural control stabilized, and heart rate stayed low. Electrodermal activity remained high throughout. The findings reveal how bodily experience temporally attunes to others' pain.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2025
David Martínez-pernía, Alejandro Troncoso, Sergio E Chaigneau et al.
4 citations
ChatGPT can process large qualitative datasets for phenomenological analysis while preserving depth and nuance. The tool follows four stages: preparing phenomenological data, individual analysis highlighting experiential nuances, global analysis synthesizing narratives, and structuring shared experience components. Custom prompts ensure alignment and precision. ChatGPT organizes themes reflecting sensation intensity and variations in empathetic encounters, transforming raw input into detailed phenomenological accounts. Its proficiency combines precision with scalability for consciousness studies. Further research is needed to understand AI's capacity in phenomenological analysis and strengthen the methodological framework.
June 2, 2026
Alejandro Troncoso, Antonia Zepeda, David Martínez-pernía
preprint
Neurophenomenology aims to combine first-person subjective experience with third-person neurobiological measures but still lacks integrated, reproducible workflows. This article introduces Experimental Phenomenological Analysis (EPA), a structured workflow that uses Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software and the R statistical environment to systematically analyze phenomenological data. EPA proceeds through two cycles: foundational phenomenological construction with intersubjective triangulation, and corpus-wide consolidation with computational integration. It articulates lived experience through unified analytic units, diachronic phases and dynamics, synchronic categories, and experiential structures. The workflow includes intersubjective stabilization, agreement analysis, and computational visualization. Its application is illustrated with data from an empathy-for-pain paradigm involving simulated Alzheimer's patient interaction. EPA enables qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and neurophenomenological analyses, supporting transparent and reproducible phenomenological science.
Frontiers in psychology
January 1, 2015
Francisco A Olivares, Esteban Vargas, Claudio Fuentes et al.
Neurophenomenology aims to bridge qualitative and quantitative methods in consciousness research through reciprocal constraints between first-person accounts and neurophysiological data, but has faced methodological difficulties in systematically obtaining and analyzing subjective reports. Recently developed second-person methods—interview techniques that elicit verbal and non-verbal information—offer a way to obtain detailed subjective reports. This paper examines the potential of second-person methodologies for neurophenomenology, describes available interview techniques, analyzes two experimental studies that incorporate them, and identifies the validation problem of comparing results across participants and interviewers. The authors argue that second-person methods are a powerful approach for closing the gap between experiential and neurobiological levels of description.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2026
María del Carmen Tejada, Antonia Zepeda, Alejandro Troncoso et al.
Empathy relies on bodily processes, but how Parkinson's disease (PD) disrupts this is unclear. Using a neurophenomenological approach, 42 people with PD watched pain-related videos while their self-reports, postural movement, heart rate, and electrodermal activity were recorded. Phenomenological interviews after exposure revealed two distinct empathic modes: Resonance Bodyssence, where emotions tightly couple with bodily sensations and movement, and Marginal Resonance Bodyssence, a more observational, cognitively mediated response with reduced bodily resonance. Integrating first-person data with quantitative measures shows that interindividual variability in motor and physiological responses in PD reflects distinct embodied empathic engagements, advancing an embodied account of empathy as a heterogeneous, dynamically enacted phenomenon.