Developing a short-term phenomenological training program: A report of methodological lessons

We discuss our attempts to develop a short-term phenomenological training program for training naïve participants in phenomenological skills. After reviewing existing methodologies for collecting phenomenological data and clarifying the benefit of the short-term training approach, we present two training programs and two experiments that tested their effectiveness. Experiment 1 tested the two-stage training program, which consists of (i) the illusion training which instructs participants to describe the experience of a visual illusion and (ii) the guidance training which offers individualized feedbacks for improving their description. This program proved effective, but also excessively skill-demanding. Experiment 2 tested the one-stage training program, consisting only of the illusion training; it was easier to use, but exhibited a smaller training effect. The paper concludes by delineating methodological lessons from the experiments focusing on three themes: (i) Individual difference in phenomenological aptitude; (ii) Bounded transferability of phenomenological skills; (iii) Active intervention in the learning process.