Science of Human Experience

Led by Professor Charles Fernyhough

How do we access the contents of consciousness including thoughts, emotions, sensations and perceptions?

Research in this strand aims to improve methods for studying human experience and use them to advance models of mind and brain, particularly the ways in which social and environmental settings affect both psychology and physiology.

Recent work has focused on large project proposals, including a.the establishment of a multidisciplinary network on visions and visual hallucinations.

Explore research and activity in this strand:

Fernyhough, C. (2017). ‘Tripping in the ICU’. Aeon.

Moffatt, J., Mitrenga, K., Alderson-Day, B., Moseley, P., and Fernyhough, C. (2020). Inner experience differs in rumination and distraction without a change in electromyographical correlates of inner speech. PLoS One, 15(9), e0238920.

Mitrenga, K. J., Alderson-Day, B., May, L., Moffatt, J., Moseley, P., and Fernyhough, C. (2019). Reading characters in voices: Ratings of personality characteristics from voices predict proneness to auditory verbal hallucinations. PLoS ONE, 14(8), e0221127.

Simons, J., Ritchey, M. and Fernyhough, C. ‘Brain mechanisms underlying the subjective experience of remembering.’ (2022). Annual Review of Psychology. 73: 159–186.

Simons, J. S., Mitrenga, K. J., and Fernyhough, C. (2020). Towards an interdisciplinary science of the subjective experience of remembering. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 32, 29-34.