Schizophrenia and the Scaffolded Self

A family of recent externalist approaches in philosophy of mind argues that our psychological capacities are synchronically and diachronically “scaffolded” by external resources. I consider how these “scaffolded” approaches might inform debates in phenomenological psychopathology. I first introduce the idea of “affective scaffolding” and make some taxonomic distinctions. Next, I use schizophrenia as a case study to argue—along with others in phenomenological psychopathology—that schizophrenia is fundamentally a self-disturbance. However, I offer a subtle reconfiguration of these approaches. I argue that schizophrenia is not simply a disruption of ipseity or minimal self-consciousness but rather a disruption of the scaffolded self, established and regulated via its ongoing engagement with the world and others. I conclude by considering how this scaffolded framework indicates the need to consider new forms of intervention and treatment

A importância da Atmosfera do ambiente no varejo físico brasileiro em 2030

In the face of the technological developments, the change in consumer behavior and the intensification of the use of the internet in the purchase of products and services, it is identified the need to develop new competitive structure in the Brazilian physical retail. In this context, the atmosphere of the environment has been adopted as an important strategic tool in physical retail in order to provide competitive advantage and consolidate the consumer's shopping experience. This article seeks to identify trends related to the atmosphere of the Brazilian physical retail environment in 2030. The research developed in this article started from an exploratory approach with qualitative nature and it was divided into two stages: one, involving eight retail executive professionals (Vision 1), with data collection through the Survey Monkey platform electronic questionnaire; the second stage was conducted face-to-face and Skype semi-structured interviews with four retail executive professionals (Vision 2). It was possible to identify:  a) the factors that will affect the atmosphere of the environment; b) the factors that need change for physical retail to serve the consumer; c) the most important relationships between physical retail versus the consumer; d) the dimension of greatest value to the consumer and e) as regards behavior.Diante das evoluções tecnológicas, da mudança do comportamento do consumidor e da intensificação do uso da internet na aquisição de produtos e serviços, identifica-se a necessidade de desenvolvimento de novas estrutura competitiva no varejo físico brasileiro. Nesse contexto, a atmosfera do ambiente passou a ser adotada como importante ferramenta estratégica no varejo físico a fim de proporcionar vantagem competitiva e consolidar a experiência de compra do consumidor. Este artigo busca identificar quais as tendências relacionadas à atmosfera do ambiente no varejo físico brasileiro em 2030. A pesquisa desenvolvida neste artigo partiu de uma abordagem exploratória com cunho qualitativo e foi dividida em duas etapas: uma primeira, envolvendo oito profissionais executivos de varejo (Visão 1), com a coleta de dados feita por meio de questionário eletrônico da plataforma SurveyMonkey; a segunda etapa, realizada com entrevistas semiestruturadas presenciais e via Skype com quatro profissionais executivos do varejo (Visão 2). Em seguida foram identificados a) os fatores que impactarão a atmosfera do ambiente; b) os fatores que necessitam de mudança para que o varejo físico atenda ao consumidor; c) as relações mais importantes entre o varejo físico versus o consumidor; d) a dimensão de maior valor para o consumidor e e) quanto ao comportamento

Schizophrenia and the Scaffolded Self

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this recordA family of recent externalist approaches in philosophy of mind argues that our psychological capacities are synchronically and diachronically “scaffolded” by external (i.e., beyond-the-brain) resources. Despite much interest in this topic, however, it has not found its way to philosophy of psychiatry in a substantive way. I here consider how these “scaffolded” approaches to mind and self might inform debates in phenomenological psychopathology. First, I introduce the idea of “affective scaffolding”. I distinguish three forms of affective scaffolding and support this taxonomy by appealing to different sources of empirical work. Second, I put the idea of affective scaffolding to work. Using schizophrenia as a case study, I argue — along with others in phenomenological psychopathology — that schizophrenia is fundamentally a self-disturbance. However, I offer a subtle reconfiguration of these approaches. I argue that schizophrenia is not simply a disruption of ipseity or minimal self-consciousness but rather a disruption of the scaffolded self, established and regulated via its ongoing engagement with the world and others. I conclude that this way of thinking about the scaffolded self is potentially transformative both for our theoretical as well as practical understanding of the causes and character of schizophrenic experience, insofar as it suggests the need to consider new forms of intervention and treatment

Exploring the impact of hotel interior design through service dominant logic (SDL) and consumer culture theory (CCT) lenses

This study examined the role of interior design in a hotel context. Although the role of interior design is clear in daily life and managerial activities, little consumer research has been conducted to identify the influential elements of interior design and capture their impacts, specifically within the hotel industry. Additionally, there is limited theoretical support for the integration of design and business disciplines, and the integration of consumer culture theory (CCT) and service dominant logic (SDL) theories. Addressing these gaps, this study sought to understand the underpinnings of hotel interior design, and explain its role from the distinct perspective of cosmopolitan consumers, through servicescape, CCT and SDL lenses. Drawing on the CCT and SDL theories in this research, the perspective of value creation in SDL is combined with the meaning creation in CCT, to explore what meanings hotel interior design can convey to hotel consumers, what it means to them, and how it influences them. An interpretivist research paradigm was employed using an inductive approach, and qualitative data was collected through thirty-seven semi- structured interviews.The findings of the research have indicated that consumers perceive hotels’ interior design holistically as a first impression. However, over time and with usage experience certain design elements increase in importance relative to others (e.g. colour, lighting). Therefore the findings highlighted that the perception is formed by both the functionality and the aesthetic appearance of the interior design, and identified the most influential interior design elements. The findings also revealed that hotel interior design is very critical in forming customers’ perceptions, creating value, symbolizing meanings, and shaping their overall experience. This study is of both theoretical and managerial importance. Theoretically, this study developed the “Hotelscape” framework as the core contribution and the final outcome of the study. This framework identifies the elements that form the overall interior design of a hotel servicescape, along with their impacts on customers and hoteliers in one comprehensive framework. It also unites separate concepts such as design and business, and integrates several theories including SDL and CCT. Managerially, this study will enhance the hotel managers’ awareness of the practical value of interior design. It will help hoteliers understand their consumers better, and enable them to manipulate their service environments to differentiate their offerings through interior design. As such, this study sends an overriding message to academics and managers that the coordination between design and business is necessary and beneficial, especially in a globalized and competitive industry such as hotels

Expressive entities:An Exploration and Critical Reflection on Poetic Engagements with Technology

The overarching motivation of this thesis is to open new ideas on designing aesthetic interactions in everyday technology, moving beyond goal-directed utility to more nuanced, experimental, and even challenging interactions. My research endeavor is to impact human value by creating critical and imaginative technology-human relations. In particular, I design digital expressiveness to accommodate sensitive human sides before highlighting digital beings’ effective performances. In doing so, I strive for expressive yet thoughtful computational embodiments that empower humans to be expressive, reflective, explorative, and connected to each other. To bring these conceptual experimentations into tangible experiences in people’s lives, my research is based on designing interactive artifacts called “Expressive Entities”. To carry on this research outline above, I pursue an integrated approach from 1) conceptual and 2) methodological sides to steer 24 design explorations that underpin this thesis. First, I built conceptual experimentations on imagining what could present “Poetic Engagements with Technology”. Essentially, Poetic Engagements allow humankind to be protagonists who feel, sense, perceive, choose, and appropriate the engagements with technology, and avoid defining human beings from a generalized and filtered result through a technological lens. The outcome of this conceptual framework is composed of Four Poetic Interaction Possibilities: Expressive, Felt, Meditative, and Ludic Tech. Second, I open methodological development that bridges the conceptual exploration to design practice through “Experimental Making”. In particular, I propose art practice strategies and values in designing through three practice components, Defamiliarization, Creativity, and Imagination. This approach incorporates critical design perspective and imaginative ideas into material explorations and fluid assemblages for designing new aesthetic interactions. These two main research streams are correlated and complementary, introducing new concepts, embedding metaphors, and developing sensual aesthetics to expand thoughtful human-technology relations, bringing poetic experiences into life

Investigations into music and sound through restaurant atmosphere and the cross-modal functioning of the senses

Màster Oficial en Música com a Art Interdisciplinària, Departament Història de l'Art, Facultat Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2021-2022. Tutor: Daniel Torras Segura i Josep Lluís i FalcóThe growing realization that our understanding of the world is subject to multisensory perception has led cognitive neuroscientists to begin researching the ways in which the senses can be integrated more effectively into our everyday experiences (See Bruno & Pavani, 2018; Calvert et al., 2004; Stein, 2012). Multisensory perception has begun to be examined through new approaches to architecture, consumer shopping, and most relevant to this thesis, through restaurant design. Until recently however, most design and consumer experiences have been created to specifically influence and target visual human biases; preferences in visual aesthetics, perception, and audiovisual design, have demonstrated the influence of visuals on our creative and consumer experiences and thus, the lack of integration due the other senses. Architect Bruce Mau asserts this point in saying that, “We have allowed two of our sensory domains - sight and sound - to dominate our design imagination. In fact, when it comes to the culture of architecture and design, we create and produce almost exclusively for one sense - the visual” (Mau, 2018). Mau’s statement corroborates the current trend in visual biases of design and further highlights the necessity to integrate the other senses in the approach to design

After Transparency / Towards an architecture of reflection

After transparency takes a critical position regarding the conceptualization of glass in modern and contemporary architecture where it has, largely so far been viewed as an absent entity that divides interior and exterior spaces. Beyond transparency delves beneath the much-touted transparency of glass to expose how its complex material properties can generate affective atmospheres that modify/modulate our sensorial perception of architecture. In Part I of this thesis, “A Genealogy of Glass,” I begin by exploring the etymological roots of “glass”, and then go on to examine its material, ideological and phenomenological uses in modern architecture, from Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in 1851 to the interwar period in Germany (1918 – 1930), down to contemporary projects that transgress the notion of glass as “transparency”. I show that the latter projects highlight the interplay of transparency and reflection to produce rich and complex atmospheres designed to radically transform social and perceptual interactions. Paradoxically, most of these transgressive projects seek to recuperate and enter into dialogue with some of the early intentions of glass architecture at the beginning of the century, before glass came to be seen as a material the greatest achievement of which was to be virtually absent. Unfortunately, the discourse of absence and transparency remains very current in architecture circles, and it is argued that this has obfuscated the utopian and sensorial properties of glass architecture dating back to the beginning of modernism. Part I of this thesis concludes with a review of the roots and intentions beyond transparency of seminal projects such as the Crystal Palace, the Glass House, the Glass Room and the Barcelona Pavilion. Here my aim is to uncover unattended routes and phenomenological intentions in glass architecture from an affective and atmospheric perspective. In Part II, “An Anatomy of Glass Architecture”, I elaborate a theoretical structure anchored in Kenneth Frampton's Studies in tectonic Culture, augmented by a phenomenological perspective based on Gernot Böhme’s Atmospheric Architectures: The Aesthetics of Felt Spaces. By weaving the concepts of tectonics and atmospheres together, I present a new position with respect to what “glass atmosphere” is. The concept of glass atmospheres is also explored through the shared history of glass and crystals, both in practice and concept, highlighting the importance of this relation in the production of abstract and modern architecture. The affective dimension of glass atmospheres is studied by attending to its sensuous qualities, pointing out as well to how these qualities change and transform in relation to their social, cultural, and geographical locus. To conclude the second part of the thesis, I conceptualize the phenomenon of glass atmospheres as a perceptual apparatus. I analyze this apparatus in terms of its surface properties based on Giuliana Bruno’s studies on the projective e-motion of light and cinema, as well as the capacity of a reflective surface to retain the memories of its surrounding space. I incorporate time and entropy into the analysis through the work of Fernandes Galiano on the role of entropy in the production and maintenance of architecture, while The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli will help explain how reflection in glass atmospheres can make us experience alternative temporalities. In Part III “A Typology of Glass Reflection”, I examine different forms of glass reflection through different architectural examples, field work observations, experiments, and the fundamental physics that produces the phenomena. To round out the last part, I incorporate two interviews to give insight into the potentialities of glass atmospheres and reflection both in arts and architecture. First, distinguished architect Alberto Campo Baeza discusses some of the ways glass reflection has played an important role in his work, and how this phenomenon has been incorporated into Moorish and Renaissance architecture. Second, Pedro Lash discusses his artistic work based on prehispanic mythology, Dark Mirror, which employs reflection as a perceptual and conceptual mechanism for the decolonization of space

Schizophrenia and the Scaffolded Self

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this recordA family of recent externalist approaches in philosophy of mind argues that our psychological capacities are synchronically and diachronically “scaffolded” by external (i.e., beyond-the-brain) resources. Despite much interest in this topic, however, it has not found its way to philosophy of psychiatry in a substantive way. I here consider how these “scaffolded” approaches to mind and self might inform debates in phenomenological psychopathology. First, I introduce the idea of “affective scaffolding”. I distinguish three forms of affective scaffolding and support this taxonomy by appealing to different sources of empirical work. Second, I put the idea of affective scaffolding to work. Using schizophrenia as a case study, I argue — along with others in phenomenological psychopathology — that schizophrenia is fundamentally a self-disturbance. However, I offer a subtle reconfiguration of these approaches. I argue that schizophrenia is not simply a disruption of ipseity or minimal self-consciousness but rather a disruption of the scaffolded self, established and regulated via its ongoing engagement with the world and others. I conclude that this way of thinking about the scaffolded self is potentially transformative both for our theoretical as well as practical understanding of the causes and character of schizophrenic experience, insofar as it suggests the need to consider new forms of intervention and treatment

Affective Computing

This book provides an overview of state of the art research in Affective Computing. It presents new ideas, original results and practical experiences in this increasingly important research field. The book consists of 23 chapters categorized into four sections. Since one of the most important means of human communication is facial expression, the first section of this book (Chapters 1 to 7) presents a research on synthesis and recognition of facial expressions. Given that we not only use the face but also body movements to express ourselves, in the second section (Chapters 8 to 11) we present a research on perception and generation of emotional expressions by using full-body motions. The third section of the book (Chapters 12 to 16) presents computational models on emotion, as well as findings from neuroscience research. In the last section of the book (Chapters 17 to 22) we present applications related to affective computing