Emotional Complexity and the Neural Representation of Emotion in Motion

According to theories of emotional complexity, individuals low in emotional complexity encode and represent emotions in visceral or action-oriented terms, whereas individuals high in emotional complexity encode and represent emotions in a differentiated way, using multiple emotion concepts. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants viewed valenced animated scenarios of simple ball-like figures attending either to social or spatial aspects of the interactions. Participant’s emotional complexity was assessed using the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale. We found a distributed set of brain regions previously implicated in processing emotion from facial, vocal and bodily cues, in processing social intentions, and in emotional response, were sensitive to emotion conveyed by motion alone. Attention to social meaning amplified the influence of emotion in a subset of these regions. Critically, increased emotional complexity correlated with enhanced processing in a left temporal polar region implicated in detailed semantic knowledge; with a diminished effect of social attention; and with increased differentiation of brain activity between films of differing valence. Decreased emotional complexity was associated with increased activity in regions of pre-motor cortex. Thus, neural coding of emotion in semantic vs action systems varies as a function of emotional complexity, helping reconcile puzzling inconsistencies in neuropsychological investigations of emotion recognition

Face evaluation: an embodied cognitive approach

American Psychological Association (PsycINFO Classification Categories and Codes) 2320 Sensory Perception 2340 Cognitive Processes 3000 Social Psychology 3040 Social Perception and Cognitionthesis intends to demonstrate that face evaluation can be embodied. Studies in the area of face evaluation suggest that face perception is linked to action. Given that actions depend on our bodies, face evaluation supposedly influence how our bodies will act. Furthermore, I intend to show that the action of our bodies can also influence face perception. In the first three empirical chapters, I tested the notion that judgments of social dominance result from an overgeneralization of properties that signal to the perceiver the potential for someone to act (i.e. physical strength). This may potentially influence our bodily actions. The results indicate that judgments of physical strength predict social dominance. In the last three empirical chapters, I tried to show that bodily actions can influence face evaluation. I showed that an expansive posture can reduce the perception of differences between facial levels of social dominance when compared to a constrictive posture. Participants in the expansive body posture also recreated a mental image of their self-face evidencing greater dominance than participants in a constrictive posture. Finally, I also demonstrated that the interaction between bodies through a multisensory stimulation can influence judgments and the recognition of trustworthiness in faces. Thus, the present thesis shows that face evaluation is embodiedEsta tese tem por objectivo demonstrar que a avaliação de faces pode ser corporalizada. Os estudos na área da avaliação de faces sugerem que a percepção facial está associada à acção. Sendo que as acções dependem dos nossos corpos, a avaliação de faces supostamente influenciará a forma como os nossos corpos irão actuar. Para além disso, pretende-se evidenciar que a acção corporal também pode influenciar a avaliação de faces. Nos três primeiros capítulos empíricos testou-se a noção de que os julgamentos de dominância social resultam de uma generalização de propriedades que sinalizam ao percipiente o potencial de alguém para agir (i.e. força física) o que poderá influenciar as acções corporais. Os resultados indicam que os julgamentos de força física predizem a dominância social. Nos últimos três capítulos empíricos, procurei demonstrar que as acções corporais podem influenciar a avaliação de faces. Demonstrei que uma postura expansiva em comparação com uma postura constritiva pode reduzir a percepção das diferenças entre os níveis faciais de dominância social. Os participantes numa postura corporal expansiva recriaram uma imagem mental do seu eu facial que evidencia uma maior dominância, comparativamente aos participantes numa postura constritiva. Finalmente, evidenciei que a interacção entre os corpos através de uma estimulação multissensorial pode influenciar os julgamentos e o reconhecimento do traço confiável nas faces. Assim, a presente investigação evidencia que a avaliação de faces é corporalizada

Appearance Teasing and Identity Formation Amongst Young Adults: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Appearance teasing (AT) is such a widespread phenomenon that to discount its meaning, impact, and severity on the lives of those who are teased would be a mistake. This study aims to explore the lived experiences of Indian youths who have been appearance-teased by their close friends and family, how they perceive it has impacted their senses of self and identity and to understand their coping strategies that help them manage the negative effects of AT. Data was collected via semi structured interviews with six young adults and analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Analysis of the transcripts reveals five master themes encompassing forms of exhibition of AT, causes, impact, protective factors, and coping strategies that represented the experiences for this population. Each individual voice captured in this study offers valuable insights into how teasing someone based on their appearance can have tremendous impacts on their psyche and behavior. Findings also point to the unique role played by Indian culture in these experiences of Indian youths. Based on the results, we conclude that there is a substantial need for awareness about AT in India and the impact of its normalization on Indian youth

Taste, Waste and the New Materiality of Food

Anthropocentric thinking produces fractured ecological perspectives that can perpetuate destructive, wasteful behaviours. Learning to recognise the entangled nature of our everyday relationships with food can encourage ethical ecological thinking and lay the foundations for more sustainable lifestyles. This book analyses ethnographic data gathered from participants in Alternative Food Networks from farmers’ markets to community gardens, agricultural shows and food redistribution services. Drawing on theoretical insights from political ecology, eco-feminism, ecological humanities, human geography and critical food studies, the author demonstrates the sticky and enduring nature of anthropocentric discourses. Chapters in this book experiment with alternative grammars to support and amplify ecologically attuned practices of human and more-than-human togetherness. In times of increasing climate variability, this book calls for alternative ontologies and world-making practices centred on food which encourage agility and adaptability and are shown to be enacted through playful tinkering guided by an ethic of convivial dignity. This innovative book offers a valuable insight into food networks and sustainability which will be useful core reading for courses focusing on critical food studies, food ecology and environmental studies

Threat Prompts Defensive Brain Responses Independently of Attentional Control

Negative emotional signals are known to influence task performance, but so far, investigations have focused on how emotion interacts with perceptual processes by mobilizing attentional resources. The attention-independent effects of negative emotional signals are less well understood. Here, we show that threat signals trigger defensive responses independently of what observers pay attention to. Participants were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging while watching short video clips of threatening actions and performed either color or emotion judgments. Seeing threatening actions interfered with performance in both tasks. Amygdala activation reflected both stimulus and task conditions. In contrast, threat stimuli prompted a constant activity in a network underlying reflexive defensive behavior (periaqueductal gray, hypothalamus, and premotor cortex). Threat stimuli also disrupted ongoing behavior and provoked motor conflict in prefrontal regions during both tasks. The present results are consistent with the view that emotions trigger adaptive action tendencies independently of task setting

Taste, Waste and the New Materiality of Food

Anthropocentric thinking produces fractured ecological perspectives that can perpetuate destructive, wasteful behaviours. Learning to recognise the entangled nature of our everyday relationships with food can encourage ethical ecological thinking and lay the foundations for more sustainable lifestyles. This book analyses ethnographic data gathered from participants in Alternative Food Networks from farmers’ markets to community gardens, agricultural shows and food redistribution services. Drawing on theoretical insights from political ecology, eco-feminism, ecological humanities, human geography and critical food studies, the author demonstrates the sticky and enduring nature of anthropocentric discourses. Chapters in this book experiment with alternative grammars to support and amplify ecologically attuned practices of human and more-than-human togetherness. In times of increasing climate variability, this book calls for alternative ontologies and world-making practices centred on food which encourage agility and adaptability and are shown to be enacted through playful tinkering guided by an ethic of convivial dignity. This innovative book offers a valuable insight into food networks and sustainability which will be useful core reading for courses focusing on critical food studies, food ecology and environmental studies

Cultivating suspicion: an ethnography of corporeal strategies deployed against vulnerability to crime in Observatory, Cape Town

This ethnographic study explores how people deal with suspicion and navigate the fear of crime in the Observatory suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The study grapples with the question of how the neighbourhood watch, as a recently revived institution, operates. It analyses the institution and relationships within and around it as an alternative source of trust to the state in combatting crime and its wider impact on lived sociality in the suburb and, perhaps, beyond. The focus of the study lies in understanding the strategies people employ habitually in order to create a sense of security in a context where the anticipation of violence permeates various everyday routines. In analysing strategies of living through insecurities, I focus on examining material and highly visible security measures, such as patrol cars and barbed wires, and engage with the body as a site of social and political memory and struggle, while considering the roles it takes on in the face of perceived precariousness. This dissertation offers an insight in to how the body is deployed as an instrument or buffer to deal with insecurity and crime vulnerability. The quality of public life becomes compromised through embodied strategies of (in)security and vulnerability as employed by the neighbourhood watch. The capacity of a constantly perceived presence of criminal violence in shaping individual and institutional bodies and strategies constitutes the main focus of this study. While the study does not identify the roots of crime as is currently practice with related studies of crime in South Africa, it illuminates the engagement with its perceived presence and thus moves away from a fixed victim-perpetrator dichotomy that has dominated the public discourse

Are you disabled? Social and cultural factors in understanding disability in Trinidad and Tobago

This thesis is an analysis of the under-researched subject of disability in Trinidad and Tobago and presents an understanding of the concepts and contestations of disability as it is lived and experienced by disabled people in T&T. In it disability is explored in the context of identity construction, power relations and self-empowerment, and takes into account the ways in which that identity is shaped by historical events, cultural relations, social interactions and political structures. It identifies the relationships between disability and local social issues through an analysis of the everyday cultural paradigms of religion, kinship, beliefs, rituals, customs and values of the people, and gives particular attention to discrimination within the context of heterogeneity, and the effects that has on disabled people’s contribution to society. The possibilities and limits of claiming a disability identity, and the role of state policy in framing understandings of disability are also explored, as are some of the impacts of those policies on the lives of disabled people. The research took a broadly qualitative approach, drawing on narrative, semi-structured and formal interviews, focus groups, observations and documentary analysis. The research findings and analysis add to the existing disability scholarship by exploring the cultural impositions and social structures that impact on disability experiences in a country of the Global South, and pinpoint some of the limitations present in hegemonic Western discourse when applied in these settings. It highlights the importance of the legacies of colonialism and challenges assumptions that systems of Western modernisation and development can be easily transferred to countries of the South without considering whether or not they are socially or culturally appropriate. The data results have illustrated that disability in T&T is a social construct which diverges in important ways from the dominant Westernised theorisations of disability and in particular, identifies the significance of religion and spirituality in shaping models of reality and value systems, which must be taken into account more fully in disability scholarship, activism and policy in the country

Skin, celebrity and online media :affect and humour on gossip blogs

PhD ThesisThis thesis investigates the affective and embodied ways in which representations of celebrity on gossip blogs generate ideas about femininity, queerness and whiteness. To date, celebrity studies has largely focused on how celebrity representations shape cultural ideas about proper and improper forms of subjectivity through discursive or semiotic approaches. I extend these readings by drawing attention to the technological and affective specificities of celebrity representations on such gossip blogs as Dlisted.com, Jezebel.com and Perezhilton.com. I do so by bringing feminist work on the politics of emotions into dialogue with key new materialist and phenomenologist thinkers. Using the concept of skin as a heuristic device to read these representations of celebrity allows me to think through the relations of affect, embodiment and technology that shape our meaning-making processes. Skin enables us to understand online representations not as fixed texts on the screen but as dynamic and sensuous interfaces that affect and are affected by that with which they come into contact. This thesis is comprised of three core chapters. The first focuses on the affective production of femininity in these gossip websites. Drawing on feminist theorisations of touch, I demonstrate how meaning is produced beyond the realm of visibility. The affective- discursive force of humour is a central concern throughout the thesis, but the second core chapter explores the role of humour in some depth in order to tease out how it serves the creation of queerness in these websites. The third main chapter examines some of the ways in which the technological affordances of online blogs influence the affective production of whiteness. The thesis places these gossip blogs within the context of neoliberal consumer culture in which the production and modulation of affect is vital for the creation of profit. Far from locating these online productions as mere products of market forces, however, I argue that they can move the reader in new critical directions, thereby challenging dominant ideas about femininity, queerness and whiteness. This potentiality lies in the complex ways in which the humour and the affective force of these online representations move and touch the offline reading body

Free to Be: One Charter School\u27s Approach to Supporting Gender and Sexual Minority Students

This dissertation presents three and a half years of ethnographic data from an “LGBT” charter school. It explores how gender and sexuality appear within educational spaces and how providing students an anti-heteronormative inclusive education impacts a student’s sense of self. I show how critical pedagogy is deployed as an anti-heteronormative approach to supporting all students. The term anti-heteronormative is used to express an explicit rejection of heterosexism and genderism, acknowledging the complex oppressive factors that develop given the normative expectations of gender and sexuality and the impact such expectations have on all bodies and all students. Findings reveal how the juxtaposition of the inclusive space provided by the school and the heteronormative expectations of the outside world collide in complex ways for students. Bullying and challenges to inclusion persist. Critical pedagogy serves to help students assess the meaning bullying has for themselves and others. Likewise the critical pedagogy of the school supports a flexible curriculum and informal spaces that provide students opportunities to explore how they want heteronormativity to impact their lives. The anti-heteronormative approach of the school leads some students to find new ways of being – literally, new ways to exist – in the world