Silence and its organization in the pragmatics of introspection

Because of the importance of the mentation narrative, during the pre-experiment briefing with the participants, the participants are explicitly encouraged to report out loud every and an

Robin Wooffitt and Nicola Holt

Silence and its organization in the pragmatics of introspection

Discourse Studies 12(3) 379–406

© The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: sagepub co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1461445609358520 http://dis.sagepub.com

We identify the normative features of silence, and sketch some of the pragmatic or performative functions facilitated by silence We conclude by considering our findings for the more general use

of introspective data in the study of consciousness and cognate disciplines.

phenomena Our interest in these data rests solely on the observation that, given the nature

of the experiment, and the assumptions that inform its design, participants’ silences are unexpected, and therefore analytically interesting To explain why, it is necessary to describe the experiment and its objectives

Our data come from a series of what are known as ‘ganzfeld’ parapsychology experiments (Bem and Honorton, 1994; Honorton, 1985) The ganzfeld procedure is

designed to test whether mild sensory deprivation facilitates communication other than that via the normal sensory mechanisms The following description is based on

ganzfeld experiments conducted at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University

of Edinburgh during the 1990s (Morris et al., 1995), and which provide the data for subsequent analysis

In preparation for the experiment, research participants are seated in a room alone, and they listen through headphones to a relaxation tape When this is complete, white noise is played through the headphones Masking over the eyelids ensures a homoge-neous light distribution on the retina At an appointed time, a person in another room mentally tries to project images from a video clip to the participant (this clip is randomly selected by a computer from a large database of clips) This is called the sending period The objective of the experiment is this: when later presented with the target video and three decoys, can the participant correctly identify from their imagery and conscious experiences during the sending period which was the object of the mental projection? Over a large number of trials involving different people, parapsychologists can statisti-cally assess whether or not participants are able to identify the target video more often than would be predicted by chance

During the sending period, the participant is asked to describe out loud the images, thoughts and experiences that impinge upon their consciousness This introspective

report is known as the mentation narrative and it is extremely valuable to the

parapsy-chologist This is because the participants’ descriptions of their experience of their own consciousness may reveal clues about the ways in which anomalous cognitive processes (if they exist) interact with known cognitive mechanisms The experimenters can hear the mentation narrative via an intercom system (but they do not interact with the partici-pant unless explicitly required to intervene to assist the participant or safeguard the pro-cedure) As they overhear the mentation narrative being produced, the experimenters make handwritten notes, and these become the basis for a subsequent review (to allow clarification or correction) prior to the judging phase when the participant views the target video and the three decoys

Because of the importance of the mentation narrative, during the pre-experiment briefing with the participants, the participants are explicitly encouraged to report out loud every and any image that comes to mind during the sending period (Morris, per-sonal communication) We can find empirical evidence for this encouragement On two occasions in the present corpus, the experimenter activates the intercom to speak directly

to the participant In both cases, the experimenter clearly encourages the participant to report comprehensively on their conscious sensations and mental imagery In extract 1, the participant’s first recorded contribution directly solicits the experimenter’s help; in the second case, the experimenter intervenes when it becomes apparent that the participant may be unclear about what is required of him

(1) (01–46) (Experiment identifying codes are those used by the original experimenters ‘P’ is the research participant, ‘E’ is the experimenter.)

1 P: doctor wilson do I gi- you my impressions now?

5 P: can’t- really see

a:nythi:n-((some lines omitted – no descriptions offered))

9 P: ˙hh I’m- still not gettin- any fixed image:s

10 (6.2)

Tape cuts and experimenter comes on the line

11 E: ˙hhhhh (.6) Tre:vor >just to no:te< tha:t’s oh: ka:y you don’t- ha:ve to

12 get anything that’s li:ke a a full blown imag:e: uh: j’st go ahead er

13 just comme:nt on er ˙hhh any kind’ve impressions that’re coming

14 t- mi:nd even if they’re they’re really very hvague and there’s no,

15 specific ima:ge to it: or even anythi:ng that hyou iknow kind’ve:

y-16 you find yourself: er:: thinking abou:t (.) that’s all fai:r game >it doesn’t

17 have to be er< >>any- any<< kind’ve really (.) specific uh visual ºimage?º

In extract 1, in response to the participant’s query as to when to start describing his impressions, the experimenter states that he should report ‘whatever comes to mind’ And in extract 2, in a rather lengthier set of instructions as to what is required of the participant, the experimenter stresses that every kind of imagery or impression mer-its description The experimental procedure, then, explicitly encourages participants

to report any conscious experience – imagery, thoughts, impressions – during the

sending period

Explicit instructions and invitations to report fully their experiences should

encour-age extensive participant description But reflections on what is being reported should

give us even greater confidence that participants would provide a flowing, continuous account of their experiences This is because they are describing their consciousness and its contents

Writing in 1890, William James captured the essential phenomenal reality of human existence: that consciousness of some sort goes on; and that what he called states of mind succeed each other, that is, each personal consciousness is continuous, and, crucially for

our purposes, that consciousness is attentional: it is interested in some parts of the world

to the exclusion of others (James, 1890) These intuitively self-evident observations hold true today, as contemporary philosophical investigations recognize that even transitory states of consciousness hold some attentional focus (Bailey, 2000; see also, Jones, 2005,

on the social and discursive properties of attentional structures in computer-mediated

interaction) Being conscious, then, is to be conscious of something.

So, in an environment in which participants are explicitly encouraged to report on their ongoing and continuous phenomenal reality, and in which other sensory distrac-tions are minimized, we might expect an ongoing and continuous report It is for this reason that periods of silence are unexpected and, therefore, analytically interesting.Extract 3 is a continuation of extract 1, and illustrates the extent to which much of the mentation narrative is punctuated by periods of silence

18 ºs’rt’veº (.4) fa:lli:ng (.8) spinning (.2) sensati:on

After having established that the participant understands that he is encouraged to report as extensively as he wishes, the experimenter closes the intercom connection (the clicking sound in line 9), and the participant’s mentation begins There is silence for 34.5 seconds,

at which point the participant reports the imagery of ‘cars’ There is a further 13.8 second silence, and he reports ‘trees’ Approximately 50 seconds elapse before he announces the imagery of the shape of leaves Just over 15 seconds later, he reports a physical sensation

of falling or spinning This is a pattern that repeats throughout the subsequent mentation

19 (12.1)

20 P: hhhh

21 (5.4)

22 hhhhh ˙hhhh

38 ˙hhh (ts) (.2) ’s like a (1.1) a mohican hairstyle? (.4) ’gainst a (1)

39 ºs’rt’veº (1.6) (t:) (.4) pinkish (.) ba:ckgrou:nd

67 ˙h (.4) chi:ne:se (.) fi:lms wi:th (.) the: (.9) the me:tal hh (.7) ha:nd

78 like a neon (.6) sig:n

Some silences are similar to those found in everyday interaction For example, the report

of ‘Chinese films with the metal hand puppets’ (lines 67–8) is punctuated by pauses of the kind that can intersperse clausal, phrasal or sentential turn construction units (Sacks

et al., 1974) Similarly, participants may report a series of images that are developed from or touched off by an initial image or sensation In these cases, gaps between items may not be excessive, as in the case of the description of pipe and water related imagery:

‘˙hh (1.3) dark: (.3) pipes: (2.2) wit wa:ter (1) >undergro:und pipes<’ (line 30) What is clear, though, is that silences between utterances reporting discrete images are routinely considerably longer than periods of silence in conversational discourse Moreover, they are routinely longer than intra-utterance periods of verbal inactivity

In this article we focus on the broader organization and management of silence in mentation narratives, and examine the pragmatic, context-sensitive functions served by that management (Basso, 1972; Bruneau, 2008; Jaworski, 1993; Jaworski and Stephens, 1998; Jensen, 1973; Johannesen, 1974; Maltz, 1985; Nakane, 2008; Poland and Pederson, 1998) Specifically, we draw from conversation analytic (CA) research, in which absences of talk are understood in relation to the sequential context in which they occur, and also in relation to the jointly produced courses of interpersonal actions of which they are a part (for example, Drew, 1989; Fox et al., 1996; Heritage, 1984a; Jefferson, 1989; Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff et al., 2002; Sorjonen, 1996)

The focus on the interactional orientation of pauses derives from some of Harvey Sacks’s observations on silence (Sacks, 1992) He explicitly identifies the importance of discourse structures and normative patterns in examining pauses So, when considering pauses when people are spelling out the letters of a person’s name, he argues that ‘how what a pause does is a function of what sort of structure is being produced or intended’ (Sacks, 1992, Vol I: 784); and further, ‘in order to know what a pause is doing, one is attentive to the structure within which the pause is being produced’ (Sacks, 1992, Vol I: 785) Moreover, he observes that pacing in conversational activity such as story telling – and the momentary pauses that may subsequently arise – may be bound by norms and expectations; and that ‘pacing rules might constitute quite powerful normative tech-niques on their own’ (Sacks, 1992, Vol I: 722) Our analyses of the pragmatic function

of silences in these introspective reports draw from Sacks’s observations, and focus on robust structural discursive practices, and the normative frameworks they exhibit

Data presented so far suggest that discrete reports of imagery may be temporally clustered, and that there can be significant silences between clusters In this analysis we first establish that this inter-cluster pacing is routine, regardless of the detail or extensive-ness of the participants’ imagery reports Second, we argue that continuations of discrete imagery after a lengthy pause are extremely rare; and that when they do occur, participants

do particular kinds of work to establish that continuation is occurring, thereby displaying

a normative assumption that further talk after a lengthy silence is likely to be heard as a report of new imagery Third, we consider evidence that the inter-cluster gaps may be organized to a weakly patterned personal metric for the duration of silences; in particular,

we consider cases where participants report that ‘there is nothing to report’, and examine whether these utterances may be ways of marking the tolerance limit (Jefferson, 1989) for periods of appropriate or normatively acceptable silence in this context

The routine character of inter-utterance silence

In extract 3, the participant’s reports of his imagery take two forms: there are very short, one or two word descriptions, and there are short reports in compound utterances (Lerner, 1996) Short descriptions of imagery are common in the data, as illustrated by extracts 4 and 5, which are taken from different participants’ narratives (Extract 4 comes from the start of the respective narrative; the sequence in extract 5 comes towards the end.)

‘mind’s eye’ (such as ‘spots of light’ in line 13) Some reports are ambiguous: the utterance

‘space’ in line 19 could be a report of the inner perception of a cosmic scene, or the sensation

of being physically unconstrained, or the concept of space (in either of these two senses).Reports of conscious experience in this fragment are produced after some considerable periods of silence, some of which last over a minute This is a general characteristic of this participant’s mentation However, despite these lengthy periods of verbal inactivity, the overhearing experimenter does not initiate communication with the participant to assist, offer encouragement, or inquire as to the participant’s well-being; actions which would demonstrate the experimenter’s understanding that the silences reflect some difficulty on the part of the participant, and which thereby constitute some problem to the procedure The absence of trouble oriented experimenter intervention implicitly recognizes that the distinctive temporal attenuation of the participant’s reports is unaccountable

Inter-utterance silences are not always so extended

(5) (01–69) (To establish that the descriptions are produced as discrete clusters, we will occasionally include in the transcript the period of silence that has elapsed prior to the first reproduced report.)

1 (33.2)

2 P: a black (.4) cloa:k (1.8) >blowing in the wi:nd< (1.8) º>s’rt’ve< o:ldº

3 (2.8) hhh hangman’s tree:: ºs’rt’ve thi:ngº (1) >cloak’s hanging from it:-<

11 ºa:nd a::º (1) >a man and woman again walking in a pa:rk< (3) º>I:’ve

12 seen this before<º (.8) >punt- in the backgrou:nd<

13 (8.6)

14 ah::::: (2.1) an art gallery: (.2) >I visited on my honeymoon<

24 u:::m (1.5) wondering when this’ll e:nd (1.6) I see: (1) ººuhºº doctor

25 battersby in the roo:m (7.1) ººuhºº (.) see lots of her equipmen:- (.3)

26 ha:nd reaching for

So far we have examined extracts from mentations in which participants produce relatively short descriptions of discrete experiences But even in mentations com-posed of more extensive reports, it is routine to observe lengthy silences between discrete imagery Consider extracts 6 and 7, the first of which comes from the start of the mentation period

(6) (01–82)

1 P: the first thing I notice is- (.3) um:: (.6) for a start that my body doesn’t (.)

2 feel (1.3) quite as though I’m >sitting in a< chai::r it- (1) it’s as though

3 my ar:ms feel thi:s (.4) u*h::: they=were*:: (.7) >the other way up< (.2)

4 than they we:re (.4) >to start off wi:th< (.) >and bu- I’m I’m< not

5 >sort’ve< sitting in the same positio:n (1.5) that (.) almost as though it e:

6 (.5) the feeling >that you might get if you’re sort’ve< (.5) drifting in space

7 (20.3)

8 >there seems to be some sort’ve::< (.) i:mpression of:: (.3) um:: (1.3)

9 >I mean maybe< it’s the >it’s the< noi:se >that’s reminding me of the

10 sea: but s’rt’ve< (.8) sitting on a*:: a- a- a- cliff on on on the top of a

11 hi:ll an- (1.3) not so much (.4) hearing the sea as >j’st s’rt’ve< (.4) staring

12 out at a big expanse of of of sea

13 (70.2)

14 >someho:w I get the jdea of a lot’ve< (.5) uh: colours(.2) °uh I

15 don’t kno:w° (2.3) u:::: >I don’t know what colours or anything but

16 s’rt’ve< u::: >>or whatever the other they’re reasonably<< (.) bri:ght (.3)

17 >> they’re not<< um::: (3) s-s- >s’rt’ve< u*m::: (1.5) °u:::° (.)

18 psychedelic >they’re not< u*m::: (.5) >>°they’re=not°<< natural (1.4)

19 °°*u:::°° (.) something like on *a:::: (.)°*a::° (.)°*a::° (.4) °*a::° (.)

20 >>s’rt’ve<< (.3) °*a::° (.7) ˙hhh unreal like a gamesho:w or something

21 or:=or: °um:::° (2) o*:n the:se (.) these adverts (.3) °*u::°

22 (45.6)

23 >I: also: get the impression of< (.7) feeli:ng (.6) *um:: (.3)

qui:te-24 o:pposi:te >s’rt’ve< (.2) ˙hhh (feeluh) isolated a::as th*ou:gh (.3) u::m

25 (2.7) >I dunno< u:::: (.) >very differe:nt-< as as though you:: you’re in a

26 *a (.6) *yu:: u:: (.2) big long tunnel o:r:: (.2) ˙hhh (.2) in an ice cave or

27 something like that where where:: (.4) n: n-n-not- that- (.4) you:’re the

28 only one that- (.7) >just that there’s< ˙hhhh (.7) °*u::° (.2) *you’re

29 surrounded by: (.2) by: (1.6) °*u::m° (.7) °*u::° (.2) somethi:ng

30 >something< very big (.) *u::m (.5) °*u:m° (.8) >something tha-=you

31 can’t< tou:ch (.) °maybe*::° (.) >°that sort’ve thing°<

to their imagery, such that they act as a ‘ring side’ reporter documenting the ongoing changes in their consciousness This latter form of imagery development is illustrated in lines 10 onwards of the following extract, in which an initial report of abstract shapes ends with a report of a washing line via successive reports of a doorway, a tunnel, travel-ling through the tunnel, being in a room, seeing a mask in the room on which there is a tick, and then a grid such as those found in mathematics exercise books

(7) (01–52)

1 (14.4)

2 P: an- (.2) ((sound of mouth opening)) (.7) fingernai:ls (.8) bi:g (.3)

3 fingernails holdi:n- (3) holding a metal rod ºof some sortº (.) but it was a

4 co:ffee bean >a minute ago< (.) an- it turned into a red fingernai:l (3.1)

5 we:ll (.5) ºuh-uº (.7) I think tha- (.5) ºthat’s theº thing I ma:de (.2) i:s

6 (.5) ºisº (.2) fingers (1) brown finge:rs (2.1) º #stu-a-#stuck in the::

7 (1.5) ºin=a:º (.6) in the cla:y (4.8) li:ke (.6) rollin’ round (.) round on their

8 finge:rs

9 (21.1)

10 j’st seein’ u*h:::: (.2) abstact sha:pes (2.3) and a doorway (.5) ˙hhhh UH

11 (.) ri:gh- (.7) ºit’sº throu:gh a big tunnel (.7) an- I’*m::: >going past

12 someo:ne< (.9) and it’s really dark >but it’s sunny at< either end (.5)

ºa::n-13 I’ve justº >>come outta tunnel and I’m coming up to some really big

14 doors<< (1.1) a:n- ºuh-º (1) right (.4) the:y’re (.) they’re >opening and

15 I’m goin- i:n< ˙hhh (.3) a:nd (.2) I’m in a big roo:m (.3) a:nd (.) there is

16 this like circular (1.6) a:nd (.8) ’n the:re’s a ma:sk (1.7) AN a big tick (.)

17 on the mask (1.5) li*ke (.) correc- tick (1.5) ˙hh (.5) hhh an- a grid (.) lik-

18 like in a maths boo:k (4.2) and a washing line (1.1) heh hhh ˙hh hhh

19 (h)hm:: (1.8) hhhh ºach: Iº dunno

of the washing line

While the ostensible topic of a report may shift in extended descriptions, it is, though, extremely unusual to find topically discrete imagery reported contiguously within an utterance

In this experimental setting, participants are asked to provide a full report on ongoing imagery and sensations to which only they have access Despite the institutional licence to provide extended – or, indeed, continuous – accounts of conscious experience, there are extended periods of silence Moreover, these periods of verbal inactivity are massively present in the majority of mentation narratives; moreover, experimenters do not intervene and topicalize silences as problems, either for the participant or the experiment There is, then, in this institutional context, a social organization for the production of introspective data that is largely independent of the inner mental experiences the experiment is designed

to capture We may speculate as to the origins of this organization, given that a key feature

– saying nothing – is precisely what is not required by the experiment.

The mentation narrative is produced under unusual circumstances Setting aside the pre-experimental induction of a relaxed state of mind, and the mild sensory deprivation, there is a non-participating but overhearing experimenter So, although the design of the mentation cannot be said to be fully interactional, in that turns are not designed to be responsive to a co-interactant’s prior turns, the mere presence of an (albeit) inactive

co-participant means that, as Schegloff has described it, an interactional dimension is

‘inescapable’ (Schegloff, 2002: 152)

This interactional dimension may be relevant in two ways During the mentation rative the overhearing experimenter is taking a handwritten record of what the partici-pant says The participants are told that this will be happening in the pre-experiment briefing It is possible that the periods of silence arise as a consequence of the partici-pants withholding further talk to allow the experimenter to complete his or her record of

nar-the immediately prior report, and may, nar-therefore, display nar-their understanding of nar-the institutional role of the experimenter Relatedly, the extended periods of silence may work pragmatically to demonstrate ‘proper’ or appropriate participation Periods of silence clearly demarcate the cessation of one set of images and the onset of others They manage the mentation narrative so that its products are recognizable as discrete phenomenal events This displays an orientation to one of the key design features of the experiment: participants know that, in another room, another experimenter is mentally

projecting specific images from a video clip (as opposed to the entire clip), and in the

later phase of the experiment the participant attempts to identify the clip based on his or her imagery The absence of continuous description thereby ensures that what is reported may more closely match the way in which the participants understand how the target video materials might impinge in their consciousness if extrasensory processes are in fact occurring In this, orientation to the broader institutional arrangements of the con-text in which the mentation is produced is constitutive of precisely the experiences those arrangements were designed to facilitate or elicit

Establishing continuation of imagery reports post-silence

Just as there are few cases of topically discrete reports produced contiguously within an utterance, so too are there few cases where the participant returns to prior imagery after

a period of silence When this does happen, the post-silence turn in which an earlier topic

is continued is designed in such a way as to suggest that participants are sensitive to some minor normative breach constituted by that turn In extract 9, the participant reports hear-ing a piece of music which is (tentatively) identified (line 2) There is then a silence of nearly 10 seconds, which is commensurate with silences in this narrative that mark topi-cally discrete imagery reports When the participant speaks again, he revisits the topic of the piece of music

(9) (01–18)

2 P: °°m-°° (.) piece of Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony:: (1.7).h I think, (2.0) yeah?

4 >another °piece of the° same< symphony: ˚hh roof (0.6) BEAMS (.) >GIRders on

5 a< roof:: (0.9).hh um, seeing it from underneath:: the WHIte roof with black (.)

6 black bea:ms: (0.2) like top’ve a::: (.) barn (2.6) a horse:

8 >°uh something° I can’t quite make out< uh° like a- u:- u:- u::

9 °>th- th- th’s a<° tee shape

((continues))

Immediately after reporting that he can hear another section of the music identified in the pre-silence utterance, there is a short intake of breath and then a new topic of a ‘roof’ is introduced This topic is developed throughout this utterance as the participant reports various aspects of, or associations with, the roof, eventually culminating in a report of a

barn and then a horse What is happening here, then, is that the revisiting of a prior topic intrudes into the report of new imagery It is noticeable that the turn initial item in this utterance, the reference to the music reported previously, is rushed relative to the imme-diately prior talk The hasty manner in which this business is done displays the partici-pant’s awareness of the inauspiciousness of its placement in turn space in which new imagery should be reported The pronunciation of the two words that articulate the new

‘roof’ related imagery might also display the participant’s sensitivity to the departure from normal proceedings The first word, ‘roof’, is emphasized, and then the words

‘beam’ and ‘girders’ are entirely or partially vocalized louder than surrounding talk (this participant speaks more loudly on only one other occasion in a full mentation narrative, the transcript of which extends to five single spaced pages) In these turn design features, then, we see evidence of the participant’s orientation to a form of procedural requirement underpinning the temporal placement of reports of new imagery

In the last extract, an old topic intruded into a post-silence utterance in which, whelmingly, new topics are reported In the following case, the post-silence utterance is entirely addressed to the topic of the prior utterance There is, then, no intrusion of one topic into the report of the next Yet even here, the post-silence turn displays design fea-tures that orient to and address the minor normative breach of procedure in resuming reports of imagery after a topic terminal period of silence

over-In extract 10 the participant progresses through various images and sensations: a kitchen, birds, and trees Between the reports of the first two items, and the first report of tree related imagery, he leaves silences of 67.3, 64 and 15.2 seconds

5 tree::s °an-° (8.7) °(h)u:m:° (1.5) tree::s a:nd a kind’ve: (.) palm tree:

6 (0.6) °.hh° °h(h)um(hhh):: (4.1) or:: (.) f-firs °mebbe:,°

7 (15.2)

8 → ((swallows)) °°yea(h)m hh°°.hh pine, (.) pine tree::s or °>something<°

9 (2.4) u:rm, °m::::° (1.0) looking up to the ­↑k(hh)y:

10 (19.8)

Although shorter than the preceding two silences, the silence of 15.2 seconds in line 7 is

in the range of inter-utterance silences in this participant’s mentation narrative (for ple, the next seven inter-utterances gaps after the one shown in line 10 last 15.3, 49.5, 10, 18.2, 7.0 and 8.9 seconds)

exam-After this silence, however, he returns to the topic of trees, and reflects further on the kind of tree in his imagery However, his resumption of this topic is marked After an audible gulping (arrowed line 8, which is common throughout this narrative), the subse-quent turn initial component is a very softly spoken articulation of ‘yeah’, followed by the naming of the kind of tree The ‘yeah’ here has a responsive quality, and given that