Schegloff, E. A. (2004). Experimentation or 
Observation? On the self alone or the natural 
world? (Commentary on Roberts:"Self- 
Experimentation as a source of new ideas"). Brain
and Behavioral Sciences, 27(2), 271-2.


One important lesson of Roberts’ target article
may be potentially obscured for some by the 
title’s reference to “self-experimentation.” At 
the core of this work, the key investigative 
resource is sustained and systematic observation,
not experimentation, and it is deployed in a 
fashion not necessarily restricted to self- 
examination. There is an important reminder here 
of a strategically important, but neglected, 
relationship between observation and experiment.