Residue: The privilege of spatiality in the puzzle film

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-41
Author(s):  
Zachary Vickers

Typical discourses around the puzzle film ‐ a genre that typically eschews classic storytelling for more complex narrative techniques, such as entangled secondary/tertiary plotlines, and characters with mental or psychological instability ‐ often privilege the manipulation of the film’s temporality and narratology. However, in this article, I perform a close textual analysis of the mise en scène of Inception by Christopher Nolan (2010) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) by Michel Gondry to demonstrate how these puzzle films privilege spatiality over time and plot to depict cognitive processes associated with mental and psychological instability, thereby bringing attention to an underrepresented attribute of the genre. I focus on the influence of surrealism on mise en scène, as surrealist art and cinema manipulate space to explore the psyche. I also draw on these films’ production history to show how the filmmakers, production crew and actors understood approaches to space as a cognitive process.

Author(s):  
Robert Miklitsch

Part one of this chapter examines the production history of The Woman on Pier 13 to highlight the ideological mutability of the film’s ostensible, “right-wing” agenda, one endorsed by RKO’s head of production at the time, Howard Hughes. Part two aims to counter the claim that the anticommunist noir is without aesthetic interest by proffering a close textual analysis of a number of noir sequences in The Woman on Pier 13. Part three argues that--as the film’s original title, I Married a Communist, indexes--the political discourse of anticommunism cannot be divorced from questions about genre (melodrama, film noir, gangster film) and from contemporary socio-cultural notions about marriage, notions which receive their most charged expression in the picture’s figuration of gender and sexuality, in particular femininity (the femme fatale), masculinity (the “bad boy”), and homosexuality (the queer “Commie”). Part four revisits the issue of form—here, mise-en-scène--by exploring issues of labor and union subversion via the role of the cargo-hook and Diego Rivera’s painting, The Flower Carrier (1935), in the film.


Daphnis ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-391
Author(s):  
Sebastian Coxon

This article offers a close textual analysis of the Strassburger Eulenspiegelbuch, paying particular attention to the narrative motif of departures. As an outsider-figure par excellence Eulenspiegel is always travelling, always forced to leave one place and move on to the next. It will be shown here how certain very specific narrative techniques are developed in this text to describe these numerous moments of departure in ways which are both comically effective and thematically resonant.


Author(s):  
Christina - Christina

Sugiharti Halim (2008) provides a cinematic insight into the lives of Chinese Indonesians whose identities are perpetually labeled as liyan (other) in the eyes of the inlanders (pribumi). It narrates the story of Sugiharti Halim, a Chinese Indonesian girl, who struggles with her Indonesian sounding name which, instead of successfully assimilating her Chinese identity, makes her even more Chinese than before. This study aims to investigate the cinematic portrayal of Chinese Indonesian’s ambiguous identity as experienced by the female protagonist. The writer employs close textual analysis of the indie film and approaches the issue by the reading of cinematic codes (mise en scene) and the theoretical perspective of name giving developed by Watzlawik in 2016. The conflict highlited in this “indie” criticizes the position of Chinese filmmaker for being pigeoholed on the ground of their ethnicity as portrayed in most commercial films which put Chinese more as a marginalized group. Therefore, the study reveals that films have become a new means of politicizing the interest of certain ethnic group which somehow puts the Chinese Indonesians in their most vulnerable position. The study also concludes that independent films help the young Chinese filmmakers to reconnect with their Chinese heritage as they begin to pick up bits of their Chineseness which were previously miscontrued by the inherited ideals of the New Order regime.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Klaus Moser ◽  
Hans-Georg Wolff ◽  
Roman Soucek

Abstract. Escalation of commitment occurs when a course of action is continued despite repeated drawbacks (e.g., maintaining an employment relationship despite severe performance problems). We analyze process accountability (PA) as a de-escalation technique that helps to discontinue a failing course of action and show how time moderates both the behavioral and cognitive processes involved: (1) Because sound decisions should be based on (hopefully unbiased) information search, which requires time to gather, the effect of PA on de-escalation increases over time. (2) Because continuing information search creates behavioral commitment, the debiasing effect of PA on information search diminishes over time. (3) Consistent with the tunnel vision notion, the effects of less biased information search on de-escalation decrease over time.


Author(s):  
Binbing Song ◽  
Hiroko Itoh ◽  
Yasumi Kawamura

AbstractVessel traffic service (VTS) is important to protect the safety of maritime traffic. Along with the expansion of monitoring area per VTS operator in Tokyo Bay, Japan, inexperienced operators must acquire the ability to quickly and accurately detect conditions that requires attention (CRAs) from a monitoring screen. In our previous study (Song B, Itoh H, Kawamura Y, Fukuto J (2018) Analysis of Cognitive Processes of Operators of Vessel Traffic Service. In: Proceedings of the 2018 International Association of Institutes of Navigation. IAIN 2018, pp 529–534, Song et al., J Jpn Inst Navig 140:48–54, 2019), we established a task analysis method based on the assumption that the cognitive process model consists of three stages: “situational awareness”, “situation judgment”, and “decision making”. A simulation experiment was conducted for VTS operators with different levels of ability and their cognitive processes were compared based on the observation of eye movements. The results showed that the inexperienced operators’ abilities to predict situation changes were lower. And it was considered that oral transmission of the knowledge is difficult, thus new training methods are needed to help the inexperienced operators to understand the prediction methods of experienced operators. In this study, based on the cognitive process of an experienced operator, we analyzed the prediction procedures of situation changes and developed an educational tool called vessel traffic routine (VTR). The training method learning VTR aims to quickly improve inexperienced VTS operators’ abilities to predict situation changes. A simulation verification experiment of the VTR effect was conducted for four inexperienced operators, who were divided into two groups with and without prior explanation of VTR. By evaluating the cognitive processes of inexperienced operators, it was confirmed that those given prior explanations of VTR were better at detecting CRAs.


Apeiron ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Woodcox

AbstractThis paper offers a novel interpretation of the nature and role of logical (logikôs) argumentation in Aristotle’s natural philosophy. In contrast to the standard domain interpretation, which makes logikôs argumentation the contrary of phusikôs, relying on principles drawn from outside the domain of natural science, I propose that the essential or defining feature of logikôs argumentation is the use of principles that are general relative to the question under investigation. My interpretation is developed and illustrated with a close textual analysis of Aristotle’s explanation of mule sterility in Generation of Animals II 8.


2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (12) ◽  
pp. 136-138
Author(s):  
Bahar Aliosat Mustafayeva ◽  

One of the most relevant methods used in the rehabilitation of hearing-impaired children and for the development of speech is music-rhythm. In any games based on music-rhythm, it is possible to stimulate several areas, such as speech, motor, cognitive processes. Composing tasks in the form of role-playing games appropriate to the age characteristics of children increases its effectiveness. Music primarily affects the auditory analyzer in children, helps to increase auditory attention in children with dementia. Thus, the child perceives sounds better over time and develops the ability to differentiate them. Improved hearing allows children to understand the speech of adults better. Over time, it accelerates the process of sound imitation, allows the child to pronounce the initial sounds and syllables. Musical-rhythmic is based on the combination of sounds with movements, which leads to the improvement of children's motor skills. It helps to develop small and large motor skills, rhythm and coordination abilities during tasks. Key words: hearing, speech, game, music, exercise, child


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-327
Author(s):  
Richard Pleijel

Abstract This paper aims to bring research on different forms of group-level cognition into conversation with Cognitive Translation Studies (CTS), the focal point of the paper being cognitive processes in translation teams. It is argued that an analysis of cognition in translation teams, which exhibit the properties of a cognitive system, needs to be placed on group-level. A case study of a team, translating the Hebrew Bible Book of Psalms into Swedish in the 1980’s, is presented. The empirical base for the case study consists of archival material in the form of draft translations and paratexts. The methodological question is thus raised whether, and if so in what way, cognitive processes may be analyzed retrospectively, and not only from a real time perspective. By treating the archival material as cognitive artifacts which have constituted an integral part of the team’s cognitive process, the question is tentatively answered in a favourable way. This, it is finally argued, opens up interesting possibilities for joining CTS with translator archives research, Genetic Translation Studies (GTS), and cognitive archeology.


Author(s):  
Melissa A Day ◽  
Rhonda M Williams ◽  
Aaron P Turner ◽  
Dawn M Ehde ◽  
Mark P Jensen

Abstract Background Chronic pain in Veterans is a major problem compounded by comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Adopting a transdiagnostic framework to understanding “shared territory” among these diagnoses has the potential to inform our understanding of the underlying cognitive processes and mechanisms that transverse diagnostic boundaries. Purpose To examine the associations between pain-related cognitive processes (diversion, distancing, absorption, and openness), pain intensity, PTSD and depressive symptoms, and the extent to which Veterans with chronic pain with and without comorbid PTSD and depression engage in different/similar pain-related cognitive processes. Methods Secondary analysis of pretreatment data with a subsample (n = 147) of Veterans with chronic pain from a larger clinical trial. Pretreatment PCL-5 and PROMIS Depression scales were used to categorize participants into three groups: (a) Pain-only; (b) Pain-PTSD; and (c) Pain-PTSD-DEP. Results Compared to the Pain-only group, the Pain-PTSD and Pain-PTSD-DEP groups reported significantly greater pain intensity, PTSD and depressive symptoms, and ruminative pain absorption. The Pain-PTSD-DEP group had significantly lower pain diversion and pain openness scores. When diversion and openness were used within the Pain-PTSD-DEP group, however, they were both associated with lower pain intensity and openness was additionally associated with lower PTSD scores. However, in the Pain-PTSD group, pain openness was associated with higher depression scores. Conclusions Across increasing complexity of comorbidity profiles (i.e., one vs. two comorbid conditions), ruminative absorption with pain emerged as a cognitive process that transverses diagnoses and contributes to worse outcomes. Nonjudgmental acceptance may not be universally beneficial, potentially depending upon the nature of comorbidity profiles.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Samina Akhtar ◽  
Muhammad Rauf ◽  
Saima Ikram ◽  
Gulrukh Raees

This paper is an attempt to portray the plight of Mariam that she undergoes due to her illegitimate social status. The study focuses on the critical societal attitude towards the illegitimate unfortunate women. Mariam begins her life with a “harami” status; continues her struggle for personal identity, suffer and endures as a battered woman and leave this world as a woman of consequences by digging herself out of the lower social status that society attached to her. The study analyzes Mariam’s endurance, struggles and resistance in her strenuous journey to attain legitimate ending. The researcher used feminist literary criticism to interpret the text as a research methodology and adopted close textual analysis of the text by Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns.


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