objective measures (Gerber et al. in press). However, bone density measures are not
always reliable indicators of fracture risk, in part due to deficiencies in current
methods for measuring bone density (Gerber and Madimenos 2016 ).
Making Visible the Invisible
As noted, there are instances where discrepancies exist between subjective expe-
rience and biological markers of a condition. For instance, there is frequently a
discordance between subjective feelings of a hotflash and measurement of the hot
flash by means of skin conductance in menopausal women (Fisher and Thurston
2016 ; Sievert et al. 2010 ). Can we ascribe“experience”to an objectively measured
hotflash that a woman does not“feel”? Hypertension is a condition with crucial
importance for health (James 2016 ), but it is often“invisible”to the individual. In
this case, we generally state that the individual“experiences”hypertension even if
he or she is not consciously aware of the condition. These discrepancies highlight a
second means by which objective measurements make visible the invisible: by
making individuals aware of conditions that are often hidden from them.
A critically important example of a mismatch between an individual’s perception
and objectively measured experience occurs with eating behavior. Many people in
our obesogenic environment have become less attuned to physiological indicators
of hunger and satiety, instead reacting to external cues. This insensitivity to hunger
and satiety cues has contributed to the obesity pandemic which in turn is a major
factor in the ballooning prevalence of type 2 diabetes in modern and modernizing
societies (Lieberman 2016 ). There are also mismatches in nutritional intake data
between self-reports—which are subject to report bias, memory lapses, and the
effect of keeping track of one’s usual intake patterns—and objective measures,
which are often intrusive and thus lead to changes in usual dietary intake (Thomson
and Crane 2016 ). In addition, there are differences between subjective memory
complaints and objective measures of memory function (Weber and Maki 2016 ),
another example of a mismatch between individual perception and objective
experience.
People in high income countries have become increasingly reliant on objective
measures as a way to define our health experience. Blood tests, X-rays and MRIs,
blood pressure readings, cholesterol levels, and memory tests tell us what our
bodies are experiencing. The results of these objective measures make visible the
invisible and affect the subjective experience of our health. We tend not to be“in
tune”with our bodies unless an alarm is rung.“Mindfulness training”(Kabat-Zinn
2003 ) or biofeedback (Nagai 2015 ) can be important clinical interventions.
The current volume presents reviews of research in many areas of human
experience. What integrates this work is the interplay between the subjective
experience of individuals and objective measurements of these experiences by
outsiders. There are interesting and profound philosophical issues that arise from
this research, as noted by Amundson ( 2016 ). The use of biological markers to
1 Making Visible the Invisible 7