Researching body perception: towards an integration of quantitative and qualitative interdisciplinary approaches to address the multiplicity of bodily experiences

Experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience have attempted to understand the underlying functioning of one's body experience. This has resulted in standardised methods involving multisensory manipulations and physiological, behavioural and subjective measures. These approaches contribute to the important goal of creating a cumulative and reproducible science. However, they may sometimes lead to some well-known pitfalls; most notably, construct ambiguity, measure dissociations, and loss of nuance. In this argumentative work, we propose that combining qualitative methods employed in design research centred on body experiences, together with quantitative approaches from psychology and cognitive neuroscience, can yield a richer account without compromising quantitative rigour. This integration of quantitative and qualitative methods, we argue, may be particularly valuable when dealing with one's body perception. Without pretending to fundamentally solve methodological discrepancies between qualitative and quantitative approaches, we propose a conciliatory take. We propose a three-staged integration model that may be mapped to three common steps of the research inquiry: the experimental design, data collection, and data analysis. We further provide a synthesis of qualitative tools and methods to support the explicit reporting of exploratory practices that often remain informal in quantitative research. Our suggested mixed methods approach aims to account for individual differences, produce more nuanced insights, increase transparency, foster multidisciplinarity, and potentially speed progress in some aspects of the research program.