Mass-Observation Archive Analysis of People's Pleasures and Enjoyments. Here are a few selected excerpts from the Mass-Observation Archive material used in the study. The smell of fresh rain on hot summer tarmac. It is no surprise that medical science, whose primary concern has been to alleviate pain and suffering, has overlooked the role of pleasure in our lives. Psychological science, which professes to explain the motivations and mechanisms which lie behind our behaviour, has no such excuse.
Debate surrounding the role of pleasure remains stuck at the metaphysical level.
Difficulties surrounding measurement may be one reason why science has considered the use of the pleasure concept impossible. The sensation of pleasure is private and subjective, whereas measurement requires it to be public and objective. Yet this is no different from the problems which faced early research into sensations such as pain or vision. To escape from this impasse, the conscious experience itself was simply attributed to brain cell activity and research focused on what an individual said and did and how this was reflected in brain and body activity - measurement of the mechanisms and behaviour which reflected the sensation rather than the sensation per se. Here then is our link.