The paradox of fiction revisited: a cognitive approach to understanding (cinematic) emotion

The following project is intended as a contribution to the inter-disciplinary enterprise of cognitive film theory. Employing a cognitive approach, the project examines our capacity to respond emotionally to audiovisual fictions in general and cinematic fictions in particular. In order to structure and focus the investigation, the project centres on the paradox of fiction: namely, the question of why and how we respond emotionally to fictional characters and events, especially when we are consciously aware of their fictional - i.e., non-existent - status. (It also considers the related paradoxes of representation and empathy.) The main strategy for solving the paradox is to challenge the proposition that (cinematic) emotions require 'existence beliefs'; in tum, this strategy can be divided into 'direct' and 'indirect approaches', as exemplified by the 'seeing' and 'thought theories' respectively. An additional strategy is to revise the Cartesian framework which underlies the paradox as a whole. The first three main chapters explicitly address the direct approach. The process of direct engagement can be divided roughly into a 'seeing stage' and a 'reacting stage'. In light of this, Chapter 2 outlines a modular and computational view of the mind/brain, considering some of the ways in which we 'see' the world and the cinema. In a corresponding fashion, Chapter 3 outlines a multi-level model of the emotion system from a neurobiological perspective, considering some of the ways in which we 'react' to what we see. The function of Chapter 4 is to develop the multi-level model in question by adopting a connectionist and cognitive perspective, thereby tracing both an associative network and a cognitive appraisal route to (cinematic) emotion. The final main chapter - Chapter 5 - explicitly addresses the indirect approach. Given that appeals to 'thought' and 'imagination' are potentially problematic, it re-traces the simulative route to (cinematic) emotion, demonstrating how the multi-level model acts as both a constraint on, and an alternative to, emotional simulation

Proceedings experiencing light 2009 : international conference on the effects of light on welbeing

no abstrac

Proceedings experiencing light 2009 : international conference on the effects of light on welbeing

no abstrac

Actor & Avatar: A Scientific and Artistic Catalog

What kind of relationship do we have with artificial beings (avatars, puppets, robots, etc.)? What does it mean to mirror ourselves in them, to perform them or to play trial identity games with them? Actor & Avatar addresses these questions from artistic and scholarly angles. Contributions on the making of "technical others" and philosophical reflections on artificial alterity are flanked by neuroscientific studies on different ways of perceiving living persons and artificial counterparts. The contributors have achieved a successful artistic-scientific collaboration with extensive visual material

"Enriching 360-degree technologies through human-computer interaction: psychometric validation of two memory tasks"

This doctoral dissertation explores the domain of neuropsychological assessment, with the objective of gaining a comprehensive understanding of an individual's cognitive functioning and detecting possible impairments. Traditional assessment tools, while possessing inherent value, frequently exhibit a deficiency in ecological validity when evaluating memory, as they predominantly concentrate on short-term, regulated tasks. To overcome this constraint, immersive technologies, specifically virtual reality and 360° videos, have surfaced as promising instruments for augmenting the ecological validity of cognitive assessments. This work examines the potential advantages of immersive technologies, particularly 360° videos, in enhancing memory evaluation. First, a comprehensive overview of contemporary virtual reality tools employed in the assessment of memory, as well as their convergence with conventional assessment measures has been provided. Then, the present study utilizes cluster and network analysis techniques to categorize 360° videos according to their content and applications, thereby offering significant insights into the potential of this nascent medium. The study introduces then a novel platform, Mindscape, that aims to address the existing technological disparity, thereby enhancing the accessibility of clinicians and researchers in developing cognitive tasks within immersive environments. The conclusion of the thesis encompasses the psychometric validation of two memory tasks, which have been specifically developed with Mindscape to assess episodic and spatial memory. The findings demonstrate disparities in cognitive performance between individuals diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment and those without cognitive impairments, underscoring the interrelated nature of cognitive processes and the promising prospects of virtual reality technology in improving the authenticity of real-world experiences. Overall, this dissertation aims to respond to the demand for practical and ecologically valid neuropsychological assessments within the dynamic field of neuropsychology. It achieves this by integrating user-friendly platforms and immersive cognitive tasks into its methodology. By highlighting a shift in the field of neuropsychology towards prioritizing functional and practical assessments over theoretical frameworks, this work indicates a changing perspective within the discipline. This study highlights the potential of comprehensive and purpose-oriented assessment methods in cognitive evaluations, emphasizing the ongoing significance of research in fully comprehending the capabilities of immersive technologies

Perceiving voids: Memory And Sight Afflictions In Contemporary Cinema

My thesis focuses on the perceptive afflictions caused by alteration of the normal biological functioning of sight and memory. These afflictions are related to the redefinition and disgregation of the classical and postclassical cinematographic characters, and affect cinematographic language, establishing a dialectical relation with the filmic image that contaminates our spectatorial perception. In the first chapter I propose a different reading of a few moments in film history, turning points in which a modification of the ordinary sensorial patterns has been introduced. From the German Expressionism to the late authorial experiments of the 60s, there is a sort of hidden history of film that passes through the continuous redefinition of the audience sensory activity. The different perspective upon broadly studied topics leads to the analysis of contemporary cinema: my thesis tries to investigate the reasons that led cinema to continually increase the representation of perceptive afflictions during the last years, and theses “affected” narratives of afflictions and dysfunctions have interesting effects upon so called “normal” perception of the reality surrounding us. The chapters 2 and 3 respectively analyze memory disorders and different dysfunctions of sight: these elements determine alterations in the ‘normal’ and ‘sensory’ perception of reality. They work as narrative factors changing the visual filmic instruments and redefining the role of the subject (and his/her uncertain definition of identity) in contemporary narratives that show how new technologies are profoundly transforming (and enhancing) the perceptive mechanisms involved in our spectatorial activity. In this work I analyze those films that are mostly committed to a clear and readable narration. My study primarily concentrates on American cinema of the last 30 years – with particular attention to popular Hollywood productions – because Hollywood has become the privileged ‘laboratory’ for the negotiation of gaze and images in the contemporary mediascape (while during the classical era experimental and avant-garde cinema were the “place” in which audience experienced the most important redefinitions of the boundaries between different types of mediated perception

Dining with the Cyborgs: Disembodied Consumption and the Rhetoric of Food Media in the Digital Age

This project explores digital media productions based specifically on food and cooking in order to demonstrate that new communication technologies are increasingly incorporating all five of the bodily senses. In doing so, they contribute significantly to the emergence of new ideological apparatuses appropriate for a global community. These apparatuses – including the formation of a posthumanist subject, the use of technology to support embodied cognition, and the establishment of entertainment as an ideological institution – have become the harbingers of a rhetorical evolution. Based on the work of Gregory Ulmer, along with Jacques Derrida, N. Katherine Hayles, Donna Haraway, and Cary Wolfe, this evolution expands the work of Plato and Aristotle by overcoming the privileging of mind over body and abstract reasoning over concrete physical experience. As such hierarchies become turned on their heads, a renewed emphasis on materiality and embodiment demands virtual products that stimulate the body. As such, a phenomenon I have named disembodied consumption takes place whereby users\u27 chemical senses can be incited through participation with digital technologies. Through the stimulation of these physical senses, and in turn the connected emotions, today\u27s digital citizens are practicing the rhetorical method referred to by Ulmer as conduction. By examining sites, blogs, and postings that include references to food and flavor, I reveal examples of conduction and show how this method is necessary for the development of well-being, and the defeat of compassion fatigue in digital society

Radical Immersions: Navigating between virtual/physical environments and information bubbles - DRHA 2019 Conference Proceedings

This publication consists of the peer-reviewed papers and posters presented at the DRHA 2019 Conference "Radical Immersions: navigating between virtual / physical environments and information bubbles". The conference was held at Watermans Arts Centre, London (8-10 September 2019). For further information: http://www.2019.drha.uk

Perception of emotion in social interactions from body movement and voice

The central theme of this thesis was to examine different aspects related to the observation and judgement of emotions from the body movement and voice of two actors engaged in social interaction. There were four major goals related to this theme. The first goal was to create a novel stimulus set for the study of emotional social interactions. The second was to validate the created stimulus set by examining emotion perception in ways similar to that done with single actor displays. The third goal was to examine the effect of degrading visual and auditory information on the perception of emotional social interactions. The final goal was focused on the multimodal integration of emotional signals from body movement and voice. Initially, a stimulus set was created that incorporated body movement and dialogue between two actors in brief, natural interactions that were happy, angry or neutral at different levels of intensity. The stimulus set was captured using a Vicon motion and voice capture system and included a group of nine professional and non-professional actors. This resulted in a corpus of 756 dyadic, multimodal, emotional interactions. A series of experiments were conducted presenting participants with visual point-light displays, auditory voice dialogues or combinations of both visual and auditory displays. Observers could accurately identify happy and angry interactions from dyadic displays and voice. The intensity of expressions influenced the accuracy of the emotional identification but only for angry rather than happy displays. After validation of the stimulus set, a subset was selected for further studies. Various methods of auditory and visual distortion were tested separately for each modality to examine the effect of those distortions on recognition of emotions from body movement and voice. Results for dyadic point-light displays followed similar findings from single actor displays that inversion and scrambling decreased the overall accuracy of emotion judgements. An effect of viewpoint was also found, indicating that observation of interaction from a side viewpoint was easier for emotion detection than observation of interaction from an oblique viewpoint. In the case of voice, methods of brown noise and low-pass filtering were shown to degrade emotion identification. However, with both visual and auditory methods of distortion, participants were still able to identify emotions above the level of chance, suggesting high sensitivity to emotional cues in a social context. In the final set of studies, the stimulus set was used in a multimodal context to examine the perception of emotion from movement and voice in dyadic social interactions. It was repeatedly found that voice dominated body movement as a cue to emotions when observing social interactions. Participants were less accurate and slower in emotion discrimination when they were making judgements from body movement only, compared to conditions when movement was combined with dialogue or when dialogue was presented on its own. Even when participants watched emotionally mismatched displays with combined movement and voice, they predominantly oriented their responses towards the voice rather than movement. This auditory dominance persisted even when the reliability of the auditory signal was degraded with brown noise or low-pass filtering, although visual information had some effect on judgements of emotion when it was combined with a degraded auditory signal. These results suggest that when judging emotions from observed social interactions, we rely primarily on vocal cues from conversation rather than visual cues from body movement