Nostalgia and Nostalgic Experience: Connecting the Past, the Present, and the Future

04/15/22 • 48 min

This is episode #15 of the podcast and it’s Thursday, the 14th of April, 2022.
My invited speaker today is Dr. Clay Routledge, an existential psychologist and the Arden and Donna Hetland Distinguished Professor of Business at North Dakota State University, the director of the Psychology of Progress Project, a faculty scholar at the Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth, a senior research fellow at Archbridge Institute, and an editor for Profectus, a periodic web-based magazine focused on civilizational progress and human flourishing.
Our topic of discussion is nostalgia and nostalgic experience. Nostalgia is generally defined as a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. We started by summarizing the concept’s long history of three millennia, where it received different characterizations, and then moved to how people understand and experience nostalgia today. While nostalgia is a past-oriented emotion that has implications for the present, as it leads to increments in self-esteem, it also has implications for the future.
The second part of the discussion moved toward technology when we talked about the possibility of using immersive technologies to experience nostalgic moments. Here is the show.
Show Notes:

- nostalgia and nostalgic experience
- the concept’s history of three millennia and its different characterizations
- methodological approaches to understanding nostalgia
- nostalgia and the cross-cultural lexicon
- nostalgic reverie
- scent-evoked nostalgia and self-esteem
- nostalgia, a past-oriented emotion with implications for the present and for the future
- does our current (scientific) understanding of nostalgia allow us to experience it in virtual reality?
Links:
https://www.psychologyofprogress.org/

Previous Episode

Enhancing Multisensory Experiences: Perspectives from the Food & Beverage, and Flavor & Fragrance Industries

This is episode #14 of the podcast and it’s Thursday, the 24th of March, 2022.

My guest today is professor Charles Spence, a world-famous experimental psychologist with a specialization in neuroscience-inspired multisensory design. He has worked with many of the world’s largest companies across the globe since establishing the Crossmodal Research Laboratory (CRL) at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University in 1997. Prof. Spence has published over 1,000 academic articles and edited or authored, 15 books (a sample is provided in the Notes). His work focuses on the design of enhanced multisensory food and drink experiences, through collaborations with chefs, baristas, mixologists, chocolatiers, perfumiers, and the food and beverage, and flavour and fragrance industries. Prof. Spence has worked extensively in the world of multisensory experiential wine and coffee and has also worked extensively on the question of how technology will transform our dining/drinking experiences in the future.

We started the discussion addressing how many senses do humans have, after which we jumped right into important questions related to sense harmony, sensory overload, sense congruency, dominance, and harmony.

The second part of the discussion moved toward technology (as I usually like to do), brainstorming about how can we use the senses to provide the best immersive experience in augmented, virtual, and mixed reality. Here is the show.

Show Notes:

How many senses do humans have and use
- Sensory dominance: Are vision and hearing our most important and most complex senses?
- Looking at sensory combinations
- How do senses interact?
- How much do we know about individual differences in somatosensory stimulation and perception?
- Considering cross-modal brain plasticity
- The role of technology (i.e., AI / AR / VR) in shaping our awareness and use of the senses
- Ethical implications

Note:

Links to some of Dr. Spence’s more recent (and popular) books:

1) Spence, Charles. 2017. Gastrophysics: The new science of eating. Penguin Viking.
[International bestseller; winner of the 2019 Le Grand Prix de la Culture Gastronomique from Académie Internationale de la Gastronomie. ]

2) Spence, Charles. 2021. Sensehacking - How to Use the Power of Your Senses for Happier, Healthier Living. Penguin UK.

Next Episode

Storytelling and Relational Identity: Lived Experiences in Medical Education (Part I)

This is episode #16 of the podcast and it’s Thursday, the 28th of April, 2022.

Today, I sat down with Dr. Sally Warmington, a retired medical doctor and narrative researcher from Melbourne, Australia with a deep interest in the encounter between health professionals and those seeking care. Her experiences as a doctor, student, teacher and patient inform her research at the intersection of anthropology, cultural theory and linguistics. Her book "Storytelling encounters as medical education: crafting relational identity" demonstrates the key role of storytelling in medical education and practice and its potential to promote collaborative, better quality care.

We had a fascinating discussion on many important topics covered in Sally’s book, but the episode went over the usual podcast duration, so I’ve decided to split it into two parts.

We started talking about the importance of storytelling in clinical context and that of identity work — how storytelling tells something about who we are in relation to others. The focus here is not only how people become doctors, but also what kinds of people emerge from contemporary clinical training and how students play an active part in their own identity construction. We also talked about the role the analyst plays in such research — their training, language, cultural orientation, memories as an investigator influencing the study. As investigators, Sally believes, we should apply what she calls “ethical mindfulness” — paying close attention to the participants, but also to our own sensations, perceptions and emotional responses, process which requires an acute self-awareness and an awareness of others.

In Part II, we talked about the connection between storytelling and empathy, its role in clinical settings and medical education, and the importance of helping students develop an awareness of the emotional and relational aspects of the clinical encounter.

This is Part I of the episode.

Show Notes:
- the role of stories and storytelling in clinical practice
- identity construction; identity dissonance
- empathy and the formation of professional identities
- “ethical mindfulness” and cognitive and sensory self-awareness in clinical practice
- the analyst’s role in clinical research

Note:
Link to Dr. Warmington’s book:

"Storytelling encounters as medical education: crafting relational identity" is available on the Routledge website:
https://www.routledge.com/Storytelling-Encounters-as-Medical-Education-Crafting-Relational-Identity/Warmington/p/book/9781032177007#