506 research outputs found

    Being-in-the-world-with: Presence Meets Social And Cognitive Neuroscience

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    In this chapter we will discuss the concepts of “presence” (Inner Presence) and “social presence” (Co-presence) within a cognitive and ecological perspective. Specifically, we claim that the concepts of “presence” and “social presence” are the possible links between self, action, communication and culture. In the first section we will provide a capsule view of Heidegger’s work by examining the two main features of the Heideggerian concept of “being”: spatiality and “being with”. We argue that different visions from social and cognitive sciences – Situated Cognition, Embodied Cognition, Enactive Approach, Situated Simulation, Covert Imitation - and discoveries from neuroscience – Mirror and Canonical Neurons - have many contact points with this view. In particular, these data suggest that our conceptual system dynamically produces contextualized representations (simulations) that support grounded action in different situations. This is allowed by a common coding – the motor code – shared by perception, action and concepts. This common coding also allows the subject for natively recognizing actions done by other selves within the phenomenological contents. In this picture we argue that the role of presence and social presence is to allow the process of self-identification through the separation between “self” and “other,” and between “internal” and “external”. Finally, implications of this position for communication and media studies are discussed by way of conclusion

    Rethinking literary education in the digital age

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    This paper discusses the perspectives of literary education in the context of the transforming of the notions of literature, reading, and learning. While everyday semiotic practices are becoming increasingly digital and multimodal, school education in most countries is still largely focused on mediating original literary texts in print and their established interpretations. Less conventional sources of literary information – brief retellings, comic strips, memes, social media posts – tend to make up a large part of the students’ semiotic environment; yet these are usually dismissed by school education as inaccurate and irrelevant. Cultural semiotics, however, allows regarding pulverized versions of texts as a part of a natural educational system – the culture itself. A holistic approach allows not only integrating everyday semiotic practices into a school curriculum, but also revealing the inherent multimodality, transmediality, and creativity of the literary experience. The paper explores possible implications of semiotics in three aspects of literary education: multimodality and heterogeneity of literary experience; influence of digital media on the perception habits; reading as a creative building of a whole from different fragments. The overarching goal is to enrich school education through a deeper understanding of literary experience and a widening of the spectrum of acknowledged tools, formats and media. The theoretical survey is supported by real-life examples from school practice and recreational reading

    Centrality in the structure of built environment: a study in the structural transformation of society and space

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    Born out of a long term interest in thought and social values and nearly ten years of involvement in space and design as a student of architecture and urban design, this dissertation aims to make a contribution to both the structural theory of the transformation of society and space and to our knowledge of the principle of centrality in the structure of built environment. It looks at the concept of centrality in the Iranian city of Meshed. However, this is not intended as a study of a unique experience. Rather the spatial and temporal co- ordinates of the text, Islam and Iran, and the historical period of Modernist thought, offer a framework within which theoretical and principal questions of a more general nature concerning the structural character of society and space can be explored.The emphasis throughout is on the concept of the social production of the built environment at the centre of which lies the ideal process, understood in its most general sense as purposeful human activity. The dissertation seeks to show how changes in the relations between the elements and actors of production, the physical and mental means by which the built environment is created, and the relation between moment and totality within which the production process occurs, are central to an understanding of the structural transformation of human society, the form of city and the organization of space

    Shared information structure: Evidence from cross-linguistic priming

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    This study asked whether bilinguals construct a language-independent level of information structure for the sentences that they produce. It reports an experiment in which a Polish–English bilingual and a confederate of the experimenter took turns to describe pictures to each other and to find those pictures in an array. The confederate produced a Polish active, passive, or conjoined noun phrase, or an active sentence with object–verb–subject order (OVS sentence). The participant responded in English, and tended to produce a passive sentence more often after a passive or an OVS sentence than after a conjoined noun phrase or active sentence. Passives and OVS sentences are syntactically unrelated but share information structure, in that both assign emphasis to the patient. We therefore argued that bilinguals construct a language-independent level of information structure during speech

    Quintessence of Dust: Cognitive Neuroscience and an Actor\u27s Process

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    This thesis examines theories provided by cognitive neuroscience and applies them to an actor’s process. In particular, this research addresses the subjectivity and intentionality of our consciousness and special as-if states of consciousness, supported by the work of John Searle and Antonio Damasio. The phenomenal feeling of character-model control is discussed and supported by the work of Thomas Metzinger. The paper also considers our relative understanding of mirror neurons and specifically their function in relation to intersubjectivity and their use for an actor’s creation and conveyance of character in rehearsal and performance. It examines Stanislavsky’s notion of emotional memory and imagination. Finally, a personal case study is included which reflects my involvement in theater. The case study serves as a functional correlation between the concepts derived from cognitive neuroscience and recognized theatrical practices. It endeavors to discern areas where an understanding of the afore mentioned theories would have been advantageous to my overall performance, and to other actors as well

    The Virtual Worlds of Cinema Visual Effects, Simulation, and the Aesthetics of Cinematic Immersion

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    This thesis develops a phenomenology of immersive cinematic spectatorship. During an immersive experience in the cinema, the images, sounds, events, emotions, and characters that form a fictional diegesis become so compelling that our conscious experience of the real world is displaced by a virtual world. Theorists and audiences have long recognized cinema’s ability to momentarily substitute for the lived experience of reality, but it remains an under-theorized aspect of cinematic spectatorship. The first aim of this thesis is therefore to examine these immersive responses to cinema from three perspectives – the formal, the technological, and the neuroscientific – to describe the exact mechanisms through which a spectator’s immersion in a cinematic world is achieved. A second aim is to examine the historical development of the technologies of visual simulation that are used to create these immersive diegetic worlds. My analysis shows a consistent increase in the vividness and transparency of simulative technologies, two factors that are crucial determinants in a spectator’s immersion. In contrast to the cultural anxiety that often surrounds immersive responses to simulative technologies, I examine immersive spectatorship as an aesthetic phenomenon that is central to our engagement with cinema. The ubiquity of narrative – written, verbal, cinematic – shows that the ability to achieve immersion is a fundamental property of the human mind found in cultures diverse in both time and place. This thesis is thus an attempt to illuminate this unique human ability and examine the technologies that allow it to flourish

    Adventures of Ludom: a Videogame Geneontology

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    Within the last few decades, the videogame has become an important media, economic, and cultural phenomenon. Along with the phenomenon’s proliferation the aspects that constitute its identity have become more and more challenging to determine, however. The persistent surfacing of novel ludic forms continues to expand the conceptual range of ‘games’ and ‘videogames,’ which has already lead to anxious generalizations within academic as well as popular discourses. Such generalizations make it increasingly difficult to comprehend how the instances of this phenomenon actually work, which in turn generates pragmatic problems: the lack of an applicable identification of the videogame hinders its study, play, and everyday conceptualization. To counteract these problems this dissertation establishes a geneontological research methodology that enables the identification of the videogame in relation to its cultural surroundings. Videogames are theorized as ‘games,’ ‘puzzles,’ ‘stories,’ and ‘aesthetic artifacts’ (or ‘artworks’), which produces a geneontological sequence of the videogame as a singular species of culture, Artefactum ludus ludus, or ludom for short. According to this sequence, the videogame’s position as a ‘game’ in the historicized evolution of culture is mainly metaphorical, while at the same time its artifactuality, dynamic system structure, time-critical strategic input requirements and aporetically rhematic aesthetics allow it to be discovered as a conceptually stable but empirically transient uniexistential phenomenon that currently thrivesbut may soon die out.Videopeli on kasvanut edellisten vuosikymmenten aikana tĂ€rkeĂ€ksi ilmiöksi niin median, talouden, kuin kulttuurinkin nĂ€kökulmasta. Kasvun myötĂ€ ilmiön itsensĂ€ mÀÀrittĂ€minen on kuitenkin muuttunut yhĂ€ haastavammaksi: uudet leikin ja pelaamisen muodot venyttĂ€vĂ€t jatkuvasti ’pelin’ ja ’videopelin’ kĂ€sitteitĂ€, mikĂ€ on jo nyt johtanut kivuliaisiin yleistyksiin sekĂ€ akateemisessa ettĂ€ populaarissa kielenkĂ€ytössĂ€. Kyseisten yleistysten seurauksena ne asioiden joukot, joihin ’pelit’ ja ’videopelit’ tĂ€nĂ€ pĂ€ivĂ€nĂ€ viittaavat, ovat hĂ€mĂ€rtyneet ÀÀrimmĂ€isen epĂ€selvĂ€ksi. TĂ€mĂ€ hĂ€mĂ€rtyminen on tuonut mukanaan lukuisia kĂ€ytĂ€nnön ongelmia, jotka nousevat esiin ilmiöitĂ€ koskevassa tutkimuksessa, kulutuksessa, kuin myös journalistisessa kĂ€sittelyssĂ€. Edesauttaakseen nĂ€iden ongelmien ratkaisua luettavanasi oleva vĂ€itöskirja esittelee lajiontologisen tutkimusmetodologian, joka mahdollistaa videopelin tunnistamisen suhteessa sitĂ€ ympĂ€röiviin ja sitĂ€ muistuttaviin kulttuuri-ilmiöihin. Lajiontologista tutkimusmetodologiaa hyödyntĂ€en vĂ€itöskirja ottaa tehtĂ€vĂ€kseen tarkastella videopelin suhdetta neljÀÀn sitĂ€ ympĂ€röivÀÀn tai muistuttavaan kulttuuri-ilmiöön: ’peleihin’, ’puzzleihin’, ’tarinoihin’, ja ’esteettisiin artefakteihin’ (ns. ’taideteoksiin’). Tarkastelut tuottavat videopeli-ilmiötĂ€ selittĂ€viĂ€ aspekteja, joiden avulla sille rakennetaan alustava taksonominen identiteetti itsenĂ€isenĂ€ kulttuurisena lajina (Artefactum ludus ludus, lyhyesti ludom). Löydetyt aspektit ja niiden mukainen taksonominen identiteetti puoltavat nĂ€kemystĂ€ siitĂ€, ettĂ€ videopelin historiallinen asema ’pelinÀ’ on lĂ€hinnĂ€ metaforinen. Videopelin esineellisyys, dynaaminen systeemirakenne, aika-kriittiset strategiset manipulointivaatimukset sekĂ€ (aporeettisesti) remaattinen estetiikka tuntuvat sen sijaan muodostavan vankan pohjan kĂ€sitteellisesti vakaalle mutta vain hetkellisesti menestyvĂ€lle kulttuurilajityypille, joka parhaillaan kukoistaamutta saattaa pian kuolla pois.Siirretty Doriast
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