The Author As The Novel Self: Shirley Lim’s Sister Swing

While authorial omniscience is denied the biographer, I argue that Lim as novelist takes this advantage in Sister Swing as a tool through which to explore the development of self-identity through characterizations of three sisters that in combination form the tripartite self as proposed by Freud. Autobiographical memories of familial, social and cultural life experiences are the source from which Lim draws and fleshes out, in her novel, portrayals of family members seeking freedom through different ways and means. As a self-analyst probing deep within the psyche, Lim employs linguistic stylizations to express contrastive and yet complementary points of view in a polyphonic unity of expression that echoes the id, ego and superego in Freud’s topographic model of personality. This psychoanalytic reading of the novel provides an opening through which to explore the deeper meanings within the novel and how the characters are interrelated beyond the level of sisterhood

Wilderness in 19th Century South Seas Literature: An Ecocritical Search for Seascapes

In Western thought and literature, a terrestrial bias is considered a phenomenological primacy for notions such as wilderness. This ecocritical review draws on nineteenth-century South Seas literature with its influences from frontierism and the literary movements of romanticism, realism and naturism to consider a more fluid appreciation and reconceptualisation of wilderness as non-terrestrial and an oceanic touchstone for freedom. American terrestrial frontierism, that drove colonial settlement of the North American continent, is used as both counterpoint and important embarkation point for ventures into the Pacific Ocean following ‘fulfilment’ of the ‘manifest destiny’ to overspread the continent. For American, British and Australian writers, the Pacific represented an opportunity to apply literary techniques to capture new encounters. South Seas works by Melville, Stevenson, Becke and Conrad offer glimpses of seascapes that provide perceptions of heterotopias, archetypes and depictions of dispossessed itinerants at a moral frontier and wilderness that is both sublime and liberating, liminal and phenomenological

“Footprint”: the apocalyptic imprint of end as immanent in Atwood's Oryx and Crake

In her speculative fiction novel, Oryx and Crake, Atwood explores and challenges readers with visions of loss: the extinction of life forms, of culture, and loss of human control over various systems including those of language, economy and ecology. All such systems are prone to human manipulative influence and sensitive to minor alterations that result in major disruptions and ultimately to extinction, disappearance (both forms of loss) or, at best, altered forms of survival. I consider here McKibben’s suggestion that we live in a “postnatural world” because human activity has altered things as fundamental as the weather, and explore Atwood’s depiction of some of the consequences of a human-altered future in which a great city transforms into a harsh, tropical wilderness. I also apply Buell’s notion that apocalyptic rhetoric serves to alert people to global environmental threats by arousing their imagination to a “sense of crisis,” through this “master metaphor”. If only perceptions to threats are sufficiently aroused such that people are spurred to action, real apocalypse might thereby be delayed. Buell expresses the view that the environmental imagination has a sure role in how people might be able to adapt to transformations in the environment by gaining understanding of what the human relation to nature can be and what it should be. The notion of apocalypse is a strong and enduring theme in literature and is of particular relevance to speculative fiction pertaining to human desire to exercise ultimate control, as is Oryx and Crake

People, environment, language and meaning: values in nature and the nature of 'values'

[Extract] The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area (WTWHA) in Australia's North Queensland provides the real world social and applied context for considering an example of language dynamism. In its use as a social activity, language imbues the world with meaning, and in turn derives meaning, through interplay among language, thought and experience (Landauer and Dumais p211; Cruse p125). How people come to conceptualise complex words and ideas depends on different cultures and languages of use (including public, workplace and scientific subcultures and terminologies). As an added factor, certain expressions function as 'buzzwords' or 'catchphrases' to invoke an emotive reaction (Little 929). Whereas emotive language works for general communication, situations requiring precise meanings for shared terminologies might result in the dismissal of mistreated terms as poorly defined and inconsequential (Callicott, Crowder and Mumford p23; Hull et al. p11)

Deer who are distant: response congruency to relative pronouns across human and nonhuman entities

The study explores the influence of relative pronouns who or that on attributions of humanness across four categories of entities (unnamed nonhuman animals, named animals, machines, and people). Eighty-three university students performed an attribution task where they saw a priming phrase containing one category item with either who or that (e.g., deer who are …) and then two trait attribute items (Uniquely Human UH/Human Nature HN word pairs; e.g., distant-nervous), from which they selected the trait attribute most meaningfully suited to the phrase. Data were analyzed with a repeated measures 2 (humanness: HN traits, UH traits) × 2 (pronoun: who, that) × 4 (category: unnamed animals, named animals, machines, people) ANOVA. Participants responded relatively faster to HN trait attributes than to UH traits, and responded faster to named animals than to all other entities. Faster responses also ensued for people-who pairings than people-that pairings, and vice versa for named animals

Virtual Reality Greenspaces: Does Level of Immersion Affect Directed Attention Restoration in VR Environments?

Research on attention restoration theory has provided consistent results over the years, and exposure to nature has been found to significantly improve and restore directed attention fatigue. However, rapid urbanisation has made it increasingly difficult for human beings to interact with unpolluted nature. Countries such as Singapore began to integrate nature into city planning and into the designs of buildings to help resident satisfaction and well-being. Local studies have had contradictory outcomes; residents report significantly higher restoration and affect towards vertical integrated greeneries, but many would still prefer traditional on-the-ground foliage. Interest in outdoor greenspaces is variable because Singapore’s high heat and humid climate make it uncomfortable to interact with outside nature for prolonged periods. The current study tested alternative modalities that can provide residents with on-the-ground foliage interactions, without the discomfort of being outdoors. Virtual exposures with different levels of immersion (high and low) and types of scenes (nature and urban) were tested for effects on perceived presence, perceived restoration and objective restoration. A total of 120 adult participants completed the study, which revealed that a virtual reality-nature condition provided significantly superior directed attention restoration and higher presence ratings. Immersive tendency did not affect perceived presence; neither did it moderate the relationship between perceived presence and its corresponding perceived restoration

Voice Analysis for Stress Detection and Application in Virtual Reality to Improve Public Speaking in Real-time: A Review

Stress during public speaking is common and adversely affects performance and self-confidence. Extensive research has been carried out to develop various models to recognize emotional states. However, minimal research has been conducted to detect stress during public speaking in real time using voice analysis. In this context, the current review showed that the application of algorithms was not properly explored and helped identify the main obstacles in creating a suitable testing environment while accounting for current complexities and limitations. In this paper, we present our main idea and propose a stress detection computational algorithmic model that could be integrated into a Virtual Reality (VR) application to create an intelligent virtual audience for improving public speaking skills. The developed model, when integrated with VR, will be able to detect excessive stress in real time by analysing voice features correlated to physiological parameters indicative of stress and help users gradually control excessive stress and improve public speaking performanceComment: 41 pages, 7 figures, 4 table

Green Spaces as Healthy Places: Correlates of Urban Green Space Use in Singapore

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when stress levels were heightened and social connections were threatened, a spike in green space visits was observed. Drawing upon the value–belief–norm (VBN) theory, which explains the influence of personal values and world view on perceived obligations to the environment and to action, relevant correlates were examined in relation to people’s psychological wellbeing in a bid to better elucidate this phenomenon. We aimed to explore the associations amongst a number of protective factors for psychological wellbeing and to examine the applicability of the VBN theory to wellbeing rather than environmental behaviour. Our research aim was to understand some of the correlates of the use of urban green spaces in Singapore during COVID-19. In total, 268 adult residents of Singapore completed an online survey measuring proximity/frequency of visits to green space, value orientations, nature connectedness, social connectedness, religious belief, spirituality and psychological wellbeing, along with sociodemographic variables such as age and gender. As predicted by the VBN theory, biospheric value orientation and spirituality were positively associated with nature connectedness. The nature connectedness association with psychological wellbeing was completely mediated by spirituality. Frequency of visits to nature was also positively associated with nature connectedness. Neither proximity to nature nor social connectedness were associated with nature connectedness. An altruistic value orientation was associated only with religious belief. Our results indicate that during uncertain times, people are drawing on either social or nature connections as coping mechanisms to fulfil psychological needs and enhance psychological wellbeing. Spirituality mediates this pathway for nature connectedness but not for social connectedness

Community gardening: stress, well-being and resilience potentials

The financial and health burdens of stress associated with increased urbanisation have led to a demand for mental health enhancement strategies. While some extant literature details mental health benefits of community gardening, a coherent narrative on the construct of resilience and its relationship with the mental health benefits of community gardening is lacking. The present study examined the relationship between community gardening and a number of mental health benefits, in the forms of subjective well-being, stress, resilience potentials, and resilience factors (self-esteem, optimism and openness). 111 residents in Singapore completed a survey. Results from MANCOVA and Pearson’s correlation analyses show that, after controlling for age and levels of connection to nature, community gardeners reported significantly higher levels of subjective well-being than individual/home gardeners and non-gardeners, indicating that engagement in community gardening may be superior to individual/home gardening or non-gardening outdoor activities. Community gardeners reported higher levels of resilience and optimism than the non-gardening control group. These novel results indicate some potential for mental health benefits in urban environments, specifically in terms of subjective well-being and resilience. These findings have implications for future research in clinical psychology, mental health promotion and policy

People that are nervous: attributions of humanness in third-person pronouns?

Haslam and colleagues proposed that humanness consists of uniquely human (UH) traits and human nature (HN) traits; artists and animals were associated with HN traits, whereas businesspeople and automata were associated with UH traits. The current study explored the influence of third person pronoun referents 'who' or 'that' on attributions of humanness for four categories (animals, named animals, automata and people). Preliminary pilot testing with 20 professional copyeditors, proofreaders and writers ensured that items in the categories were representative. In the experiment, sixty university students performed a semantic attribution task where they were shown a phrase containing one category item with either 'who' or 'that' (e.g. elephants who are…) and then two words (UH/HN pairs, e.g. polite/curious) from which they selected the option most meaningfully suited to the phrase. Trials were randomized so that participants saw each category item paired with 'who' or 'that' and with six UH/HN word pairs, which carried an equal number of positive and negative connotations. A repeated measures 4 (people, automata, animals, named animals) x 2 (HN traits, UH traits) x 2 (who, that) ANOVA was used to analyse the data