The reliability of introspective or first‐person reports has often been questioned. Micro‐phenomenology is a method that has been devised to increase the reliability of such reports. One way of showing that the method actually increases reliability is to test it in experiments where reporting can be checked by an external observer. Though such approaches are highly valuable, the problem remains that the actual experience cannot be investigated directly by external means. This justifies the complimentary approach of developing internal criteria for evaluating first‐person reports. Here we investigate the sense of certainty as a possible internal criterion. We employed the technique of micro‐phenomenological self‐inquiry to investigate the characteristics of this internal sense. A mind‐wandering task was conducted that repeatedly leads to situations in which certainty and uncertainty in relation to past mental events and descriptions can be experienced. These situations were explored in a number of trials until a certain set of characteristics of the sense of certainty emerged. The result is a methodical procedure to enhance the reliability of first‐person reports.

中文翻译：

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第一人称报告的确定性和可靠性：使用微观现象学自我查询的调查

内省式或第一人称报告的可靠性经常受到质疑。微观现象学是一种旨在提高此类报告的可靠性的方法。证明该方法实际上提高了可靠性的一种方法是，在可以由外部观察员检查报告的实验中对其进行测试。尽管这种方法具有很高的价值，但问题仍然在于，无法通过外部手段直接调查实际经验。这证明了开发用于评估第一人称报告的内部标准的补充方法是合理的。在这里，我们研究确定性作为一种可能的内部标准。我们运用微观现象学自我查询技术来研究这种内在感觉的特征。进行了一项思维游荡的任务，该任务反复导致可能发生与过去的心理事件和描述有关的确定性和不确定性的情况。在许多试验中探索了这些情况，直到确定性的某些特征出现为止。结果是有条不紊的程序，可以提高第一人称报告的可靠性。