Experimental phenomenology: present and future

The presentation summarizes the picture which has emerged from a “mosaic” of short video-recordings made by colleagues invited to share their ideas about potential areas of research which can make use of Experimental Phenomenology. These areas go beyond the classic boundaries concerning the Psychology of perception (i.e. Experimental aesthetics, the Psychology of reasoning, Psychometrics, the Psychology of risk and safety, Environmental Psychology, Cognitive Linguistics, Philosophy). The “mosaic” was created on the occasion of an international symposium at the University of Macerata (6-7 April 2022) dedicated to Ugo Savardi and entitled “The experimental study of perception from a phenomenological perspective: from present to future”. Some ideas focus on its potential contribution in terms of methodology; others focus on how it clarifies the perceptual grounding of linguistic categorization. Other ideas refer to the value of Experimental Phenomenology in: the definition of user experiences in the domain of computer interaction design; the reconstruction of what operators involved in work accidents really had in mind, in the area of the Psychology of safety; the highlighting of the differences between the perception of risk for experts versus non-experts; emphasizing the importance of a subject’s attitude toward the perceived validity of a psychometric test (i.e. face validity); the explanation of the paths that our thoughts follow in insight problem solving and the affective component of the A-ha experience; for showing how subjective feelings of certainty/uncertainty drive effective thinking in metacognitive control processes and in design, comic effects, the Psychology of sport and Psychotherapy. An intriguing selection!