From Heidegger and Barrett, we have seen that a phenomenological epoché allows the researcher to set aside or bracket assumptions about the metaphysical categories of emotion and cognition. The result is the ontological structure of experience as having the qualities of valuation, categorization, and attention, which map onto Heidegger’s ontological categories of mood, understanding, and fallenness. When we examine the role of emotion in the brain, we fi nd that what typically passes for
“emotion” in neuroscience—and thus valuation or mood—tends to be associated with activity in the amygdala. And, furthermore, as we shall see, the activities of the amygdala are seen to be closely associated with functions related to understanding and fallenness in Heidegger’s terminology and categorization and attention in Barrett’s.
Research on the amygdala over the past decade or so has found that the activity of this almond-shaped structure in the limbic system is closely association with functions that include learning and memory, attention and perception, social behav- ior, and the regulation of emotion (Phelps & LeDoux, 2005 ). Phenomenologically, moods and emotions disclose how things matter to the person in terms of the past, which implies that affect should be closely associated with learning and memory.
Neuroscientifi c evidence supports this contention in that activity of the amygdala is associated with enhancing the consolidation of memory, which means that highly relevant personal events that matter deeply will be remembered in more richly elab- orated detail (McGaugh, 2000 , 2004 ). Likewise, since mood is ontologically and structurally related to understanding, affects should also infl uence what present events are the most salient to our attention and how they matter. And in addition, affects should infl uence how we are anticipating future events, or using more Heideggerian terminology, moody understanding should be seen to reveal to us our possibilities for being-in-the-world. Again, these insights are supported by research on the brain, which fi nds, for example, that the emotional state of fear enhances future attunement to a feared phenomenon. As would be predicted by this hypoth- esis, activity in the amygdala has been found to be closely linked to plasticity in the auditory cortex as a result of exposure to fear-inducing sounds (Poremba & Gabriel, 2001 ; Quirk, Armony, & LeDoux, 1997 ).
In addition to infl uencing anticipation of future events, mood states should also modulate attention, directing the person to aspects of the phenomenal fi eld that are
of particular signifi cance for the person. Again, neuroscience supports this conten- tion. The amygdala has been found to be closely linked with sensory pathways in the cortex (Amaral, Behnieu, & Kelly, 2003 ); thus, intense states of affect predict- ably produce increased cortical attention and vigilance to personally relevant events in the world (Armony, Servan-Schreiber, Cohen, & LeDoux, 1997 ). Likewise, when a person has damage to the amygdala, he or she is found to lack the expected modu- lation of attention associated with affective states (Anderson & Phelps, 2001 ).
Heidegger’s theory of mood likewise predicts that human affective responses should be especially attuned to social dynamics. This is partly what the existential category of fallenness alludes to—our tendency to understand ourselves in terms of our relationships to others and to appeal to culture as a way to make sense of our lives. Not surprisingly, then, affect and neural activity in the amygdala is closely linked to social behavior. Those with damage to the amygdala, for example, have much greater diffi culty interpreting facial expressions (Adolphs et al., 1999 ) and tracking the eyes of other people in ways that are essential for the interpretation of mood (Adolphs et al., 2005 ).
While these fascinating associations between Heidegger and neuroscience are illuminating, they are only a hint of the potential for better understanding of experi- ence if phenomenology and neuroscience were to be more seriously married in future investigations. Of particular importance is research that will focus on rich, experience-near descriptions of specifi c, momentary moods using a rigorous phenomenological method of analysis. Once invariant thematic descriptions are produced with the phenomenological method and validated experimentally, neuro- science can highlight the neural correlates of these experiences in ways that can be mutually benefi cial. Neuroscience can gain by having more fi ne-grained descrip- tions to map onto the structure of the brain, and phenomenology will be refi ned to the extent that its fi ndings are checked against the functional anatomy of the brain and nervous system. We have, then, a recipe for a fruitful neurophenomenology and the makings of a truly radical experiential revolution.
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25 S. Gordon (Ed.), Neurophenomenology and Its Applications to Psychology,
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-7239-1_2, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
The purpose of this chapter is to fi rst explore potential hybrid theories and method- ologies that will help to explicate specifi c and immediate moments of learning, such as situated learning as well as embodied and enactive learning and, second, to advocate for the use of a pedagogical portfolio assessment and praxis that is appro- priate for adult learners and that values these ways of learning. 1 Accordingly, in continuation of my previous work (McInerney, 2010 ), I will synthesize specifi c ways of learning (situated, embodied, enactive) with a neurophenomenologically inspired pedagogy and praxis for the purpose of liberating these ways of learning from educational subjugation (Fendler, 1998 ; Foucault, 1980 ; hooks, 1994 ; Kincheloe, 2008 ). 2
To briefl y defi ne some of the terms mentioned above:
1. Situated learning . Sawyer and Greeno ( 2009 ) relate, “from a situated perspec- tive, learning is the gradual appropriation, through guided participation, of the ability to participate in culturally defi ned, socially situated activities and prac- tices” (p. 354; see also Greeno, 1998 ; Lave & Wenger, 1991 ; Walkerdine, 1997 ).
For Lave and Wenger ( 1991 ), “learning is not merely situated in practice – as if