Haiku and the brain: an exploratory study

This paper presents the first results of an interdisciplinary project, bringing together haiku poets and neuro-/cognitive scientists, to investigate the reading of English-language haiku (ELH) as a potentially paradigmatic material for studying the reception of poetic texts. Our pilot study was based on the ‘eye-mind assumption’, that where and for how long we gaze at sections of text reflects processes of information harvesting for meaning construction. The results indicate that the interactive process between the poem and the reader gives rise to characteristic patterns of eye movements (saccades and fixations) across the text from which (i) the position of the cut (after line 1 vs. after line 2) and (ii) the type of haiku (context-action vs. juxtaposition) can be discerned. Finding (i) is of special importance: it provides evidence that the effect intended by the poet can indeed be traced in oculomotor behavior and that, thus, the cut is indeed a potent poetic/stylistic device with a specific effect in the reader. Moreover, readers’ recognition memory was found to be associated with more explicit, conscious-recollective experience of having read a particular haiku if the poem was self-rated to be understood. This suggests that the realization of the haiku’s ‘meaning gestalt’ in the reader’s mind, which may be associated with an ‘aha’ experience, is important for memory consolidation and remembering. Albeit tentative, these findings and conclusions open up interesting lines for future, interdisciplinary research

Reading English-language Haiku: processes of meaning construction revealed by eye movements

In the present study, poets and cognitive scientists came together to investigate the construction of meaning in the process of reading normative, 3-line English-language haiku (ELH), as found in leading ELH journals. The particular haiku which we presented to our readers consisted of two semantically separable parts, or images, that were set in a ‘tense’ relationship by the poet. In our sample of poems, the division, or cut, between the two parts was positioned either after line 1 or after line 2; and the images related to each other in terms of either a context–action association (context–action haiku) or a conceptually more abstract association (juxtaposition haiku). From a constructivist perspective, understanding such haiku would require the reader to integrate these parts into a coherent ‘meaning Gestalt’, mentally (re-)creating the pattern intended by the poet (or one from within the poem’s meaning potential). To examine this process, we recorded readers’ eye movements, and we obtained measures of memory for the read poems as well as subjective ratings of comprehension difficulty and understanding achieved. The results indicate that processes of meaning construction are reflected in patterns of eye movements during reading (1st-pass) and re-reading (2nd- and 3rd-pass). From those, the position of the cut (after line 1 vs. after line 2) and, to some extent, the type of haiku (context–action vs. juxtaposition) can be ‘recovered’. Moreover, post-reading, readers tended to explicitly recognize a particular haiku they had read if they had been able to understand the poem, pointing to a role of actually resolving the haiku’s meaning (rather than just attempting to resolve it) for memory consolidation and subsequent retrieval. Taken together, these first findings are promising, suggesting that haiku can be a paradigmatic material for studying meaning construction during poetry reading

Reading English-language haiku: An eye-movement study of the ‘cut effect’

The current study, set within the larger enterprise of Neuro-Cognitive Poetics, was designed to examine how readers deal with the ‘cut’ – a more or less sharp semantic-conceptual break – in normative, three-line English-language haiku poems (ELH). Readers were presented with three-line haiku that consisted of two (seemingly) disparate parts, a (two-line) ‘phrase’ image and a one-line ‘fragment’ image, in order to determine how they process the conceptual gap between these images when constructing the poem’s meaning – as reflected in their patterns of reading eye movements. In addition to replicating the basic ‘cut effect’, i.e., the extended fixation dwell time on the fragment line relative to the other lines, the present study examined (a) how this effect is influenced by whether the cut is purely implicit or explicitly marked by punctuation, and (b) whether the effect pattern could be delineated against a control condition of ‘uncut’, one-image haiku. For ‘cut’ vs. ‘uncut’ haiku, the results revealed the distribution of fixations across the poems to be modulated by the position of the cut (after line 1 vs. after line 2), the presence vs. absence of a cut marker, and the semantic-conceptual distance between the two images (context–action vs. juxtaposition haiku). These formal-structural and conceptual-semantic properties were associated with systematic changes in how individual poem lines were scanned at first reading and then (selectively) re-sampled in second- and third-pass reading to construct and check global meaning. No such effects were found for one-image (control) haiku. We attribute this pattern to the operation of different meaning resolution processes during the comprehension of two-image haiku, which are invoked by both form- and meaning-related features of the poems

Determination of the domain of the admissible matrix elements in the four-dimensional PT-symmetric anharmonic model

Many manifestly non-Hermitian Hamiltonians (typically, PT-symmetric complex anharmonic oscillators) possess a strictly real, "physical" bound-state spectrum. This means that they are (quasi-)Hermitian with respect to a suitable non-standard metric. The domain D of the existence of this metric is studied here for a nontrivial though still non-numerical four-parametric "benchmark" matrix model.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure

Visible-Light Photoredox Catalysis in Flow

Photoredox catalysis: A variety of organic transformations mediated by visible-light-active photoredox catalysts have been conducted in a photochemical flow reactor. The reactor design is very simple and can be easily implemented in any laboratory (see picture). In addition, this reactor afforded a marked increase in the reaction rate compared to those observed in typical batch (round bottom flask) reactors.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant CHE-1056568)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIGMS Grant R01-GM096129)Alfred P. Sloan FoundationAmgen Inc.Boehringer Ingelheim PharmaceuticalsAmgen Inc. (Graduate Fellowship)NMR (CHE-0619339)MS (CHE-0443618

Frequency Stabilized Injection Seeded Q-Switched Ho:YAG Laser for 2 µm Doppler Wind LIDARs

We report on a Q-switched 2.1 µm Ho:YAG injection-seeded laser system with 100 ns pulses and kHz repetition rates based on a single heterodyne beat signal FFT technique with a linewidth smaller than 10 MHz (FWHM

A movement criterion for running

The adjustment of the leg during running was addressed using a spring-mass model with a fixed landing angle of attack. The objective was to obtain periodic movement patterns. Spring-like running was monitored bya one-dimensional stride-to-stride mapping of the apex height to identify mechanically stable fixed points. We found that for certain angles of attack, the system becomes self-stabilized if the leg stiffness was properly adjusted and a minimum running speed was exceeded. At a given speed, running techniques fulfilling a stable movement pattern are characterized byan almost constant maximum leg force. With increasing speed, the leg adjustment becomes less critical. The techniques predicted for stable running are in agreement with experimental studies. Mechanically self-stabilized running requires a spring-like leg operation, a minimum running speed and a proper adjustment of le

Effects of a Prenatal Lifestyle Intervention in Routine Care on Maternal Health Behaviour in the First Year Postpartum—Secondary Findings of the Cluster-Randomised GeliS Trial

Lifestyle interventions during pregnancy were shown to beneficially influence maternal dietary behaviour and physical activity, but their effect on health behaviour after delivery is unclear. The objective of this secondary analysis was to investigate the sustained effect of a lifestyle intervention in routine care on maternal health behaviour during the first year postpartum. The cluster-randomised controlled “Healthy living in pregnancy” (GeliS) study included 2286 pregnant women. Data on maternal health behaviour were collected at 6–8 weeks (T1pp) and one year postpartum (T2pp) using validated questionnaires. The intervention group showed a lower mean intake of fast food (T1pp: p = 0.016; T2pp: p < 0.001) and soft drinks (T1pp: p < 0.001), a higher mean intake of vegetables (T2pp: p = 0.015) and was more likely to use healthy oils for meal preparation than the control group. Dietary quality rated by a healthy eating index was higher in the intervention group (T1pp: p = 0.093; T2pp: p = 0.043). There were minor trends towards an intervention effect on physical activity behaviour. The proportion of smokers was lower in the intervention group (p < 0.001, both time points). The lifestyle intervention within routine care modestly improved maternal postpartum dietary and smoking behaviours