The study of individual experience during the performance of a psychological task using a phenomenological approach is a relatively new area of research. The aim of this paper was to combine first‐ and third‐person approaches to investigate whether the strategies individuals use during a working memory task are associated with specific task conditions, whether the strategies combine to form stable patterns, and whether the use of specific strategies is related to task accuracy. Thirty‐one participants took part in an experiment in (...) which they were instructed to remember colors, orientations, or positions of stimuli presented in a change detection task. After every 7th–15th trial, participants took part in an in‐depth phenomenological interview in which they described their experiences during the trial that immediately preceded the interview. Qualitative analysis revealed a set of 18 strategies that participants used while performing the task, which we divided into active and passive strategies of encoding, maintenance, and retrieval. Quantitative analysis revealed that while many strategies were used in all task conditions, some strategies and their combinations may be better suited to the specific task demands, while others are more general in nature. The results also suggest a distinction between strategies for encoding object identity and spatial features. Finally, our results did not provide robust evidence for a relationship between specific strategies and task accuracy. (shrink)

Many methodologies for systematic study of lived experience have been proposed in recent decades. These methods are typically calibrated in terms of the depth and complexity of data collection, and whether they consider reports on pre-reflective experience admissible. Even though it has been shown that lived experience occurs at different timescales (elementary, integrative, narrative), contemporary methods tend to focus on momentary experience. We trace the focus on momentary experience to the current cultural milieu and attitudes in the history of psychology. (...) We point out the need for studying temporally extended experiences in the field of psychopathology. We propose that lived experiences at different timescales are nested within each other and that this principle can be used to organize data collected with qualitative methods for the study of experience. We suggest that temporally extended experiences occur at the narrative level of description (i.e. they consist of experiential reports and sense-making). (shrink)