From Crisis to Compensation: Reinventing Identity and Place in the Sideshow and the Laboratory

Examining the ambivalent place of the sideshow and the laboratory within Victorian culture and its reimaginings, this essay explores the contradiction between the narratively orchestrating role and peripheral location of the sideshow in Leslie Parry’s Church of Marvels (2015) and the laboratory in NBC’s Dracula (2013–2014), reading these neo-Victorian spaces as heterotopias, relational places simultaneously belonging to and excluded from the dominant social order. These spaces’ impacts on individual identity illustrate this uneasy relationship. Both the sideshow and the laboratory constitute sites of resignification, emerging as “crisis heterotopias” or sites of passage: in Parry’s novel, the sideshow allows the Church twins to embrace their unique identities, surpassing the limitations of their physical resemblance; in Dracula, laboratory experiments reverse Dracula’s undead condition. Effecting reinvention, these spaces reconfigure the characters’ senses of belonging, propelling them to places beyond their confines, and thus projecting the latter’s heterotopic qualities onto the city. Potentially harmful, yet opening up urban space to include identities which are considered aberrant, these relocations envision the city as a “heterotopia of compensation”: an alternative, possibly idealized, space that reifies the sideshow’s and the laboratory’s attempts to achieve greater extroversion and visibility for their liminal occupants, thus fostering neo-Victorianism’s outreach efforts to support the disempowered.

The Effect of Facial Self-Resemblance on Emotional Mimicry

Social resemblance, like group membership or similar attitudes, increases the mimicry of the observed emotional facial display. In this study, we investigate whether facial self-resemblance (manipulated by computer morphing) modulates emotional mimicry in a similar manner. Participants watched dynamic expressions of faces that either did or did not resemble their own, while their facial muscle activity was measured using EMG. Additionally, after each presentation, respondents completed social evaluations of the faces they saw. The results show that self-resemblance evokes convergent facial reactions. More specifically, participants mimicked the happiness and, to a lesser extent, the anger of self-resembling faces. In turn, the happiness of non-resembling faces was less likely mimicked than in the case of self-resembling faces, while anger evoked a more divergent, smile-like response. Finally, we found that social evaluations were in general increased by happiness displays, but not influenced by resemblance. Overall, the study demonstrates an interesting and novel phenomenon, particularly that mimicry can be modified by relatively subtle cues of physical resemblance.

Specificity of spiders among fear- and disgust-eliciting arthropods: Spiders are special, but phobics not so much

To investigate a specificity of spiders as a prototypical fear- and disgust-eliciting stimuli, we conducted an online experiment. The respondents rated images of 25 spiders, 12 non-spider chelicerates, and 10 other arthropods on a fear and disgust 7-point scale. The evaluation of 968 Central European respondents confirmed the specificity of spiders among fear- and disgust-eliciting arthropods and supported the notion of spiders as a cognitive category. We delineated this category as covering extant spider species as well as some other chelicerates bearing a physical resemblance to spiders, mainly whip spiders and camel spiders. We suggested calling this category the spider-like cognitive category. We discussed evolutionary roots of the spider-like category and concluded that its roots should be sought in fear, with disgust being secondary of the two emotions. We suggested other chelicerates, e.g., scorpions, might have been important in formation and fixation of the spider-like category. Further, we investigated an effect of respondent’s sensitivity to a specific fear of spiders on evaluation of the stimuli. We found that suspected phobic respondents were in their rating nearly identical to those with only high fear of spiders and similar to those with only moderate fear of spiders. We concluded that results based on healthy respondents with elevated fear should also be considered relevant for arachnophobia research.

Generalization and False Memory in an Acquired Equivalence Paradigm: The Influence of Physical Resemblance Across Related Episodes

The ability to make inferences about related experiences is an important function of memory that allows individuals to build generalizable knowledge. In some cases, however, making inferences may lead to false memories when individuals misremember inferred information as having been observed. One factor that is known to increase the prevalence of false memories is the physical resemblance between new and old information. The extent to which physical resemblance has parallel effects on generalization and memory for the source of inferred associations is not known. To investigate the parallels between memory generalization and false memories, we conducted three experiments using an acquired equivalence paradigm and manipulated physical resemblance between items that made up related experiences. The three experiments showed increased generalization for higher levels of resemblance. Recognition and source memory judgments revealed that high rates of generalization were not always accompanied by high rates of false memories. Thus, physical resemblance across episodes may promote generalization with or without a trade-off in terms of impeding memory specificity.

Low versus high level of physical resemblance in simulation for the acquisition of basic surgical skill: a meta-analysis

BackgroundMany studies explored the use of simulation in basic surgical education, with a variety of devices, contexts and outcomes, with sometimes contradictory results.ObjectivesThe objectives of this meta-analysis were to focus the effect that the level of physical resemblance in a simulation has on the development of basic surgical skill in undergraduate medical students and to provide a foundation for the design and implementation of a simulation, with respect to its effectiveness and alignment with the learning outcomes.Study selectionWe searched PubMed and Scopus database for comparative randomised studies between simulations with a different level of resemblance. The result was synthesised as the standardised mean difference, under a random effect model.FindingsWe selected 12 out of 2091 retrieved studies, reporting on 373 undergraduate students (mean of subjects 15.54±6.89). The outcomes were the performance of simple skills and the time to complete a task. Two studies reported a scoring system; seven studies reported time for a task; and three studies reported both. The total number of measures included in the meta-analysis was 456 for score and 504 for time. The pooled effect size did not show any significant advantage in a simulation of a high level of physical resemblance over a lower level, both for the scoring system (−0.19, 95% CI −0.44 to 0.06) and for time (−0.14, 95% CI −0.54 to 0.27).ConclusionSimulations with a low level of physical resemblance showed the same effect as the simulation using a higher level of resemblance on the development of basic surgical skills in undergraduate students.

SADHU SUNDAR SINGH – HIS CONTRIBUTION TO INDIAN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929) was a Christocentric Indian Christian Mystic, known for his efforts to Indianize Christianity and whose thoughts on Christ, Bible, Spirituality, Christianity etc, are very original. Born in Sikh religion, by the age of sixteen he read Bhagavadgita and memorised Granth, Koran and several Upanishads. He hated Christianity so much, that he tore up and burnt the bible at this teen age. But next year, in a powerful vision he saw Jesus and was converted to Christianity. At the age of Seventeen, he set out on his journey as a new Christian, penniless, except with a New Testament copy, wearing a saffron turban and the saffron robe of a sadhu, as an ascetic devoted to spiritual practice, to preach the Gospel and about Jesus. Due to the Sadhu's uncanny physical resemblance to the Incarnate Jesus, similarities to the life and ministry of Apostle Paul, he was considered as a Biblical gure coming alive. He travelled extensively in India and around 24 countries in his missionary work. His thoughts on Prayer, Visions, Bible, and Heaven on Earth etc were so strong and original, that it even surprised most of the western theologists. His entire theology is based on his personal and spiritual experiences (Anubhava) with Lord Jesus. His thoughts about the primacy of Prayer in a Christian's life are compa red with that of other great European Christian mystics like St. Augustine, St Francis of Assisi, and St. Thomas a Kempis. Many of his theological thoughts are similar to that of Luther, even though he never met him nor read about him, but he also had some differences too. In his various severe sufferings that he faced in his efforts to preach the Gospel, even when he was persecuted, left to dead, imprisoned in Ilom, dumped in a dark well in Rasar, among skeletons and bones, he said Christ's presence has turned his prison or hell into a heaven of blessing. In him Christianity and Hinduism meet, and the Christian is like a ower which blossoms on an Indian stem. He says non-Christians, who did not get an opportunity or left an opportunity to accept Jesus, will get another opportunity afterlife to have their false and partial views of truth corrected. Even though he says all other religions are inadequate and only through Jesus one can get salvation, in his fullment approach, he says there is dim measure of “light of the truth” among the followers of different religions and provides for “continuity” in fullment and that they will eventually get full knowledge of true God, the “True Reality”. Sundar Singh is thoroughly convinced, that Christianity can enter Indian hearts and souls if offered in Indian form. He had done more than any man in the rst half of the twentieth century to establish that "Jesus belongs to India” and Christianity is not foreign.

Person knowledge shapes face identity perception

Recognition of others’ identity through facial features is essential in human life. Here, we examined how person knowledge may bias the perception of others’ facial identity. In five studies, using correlational (Studies 1–4) and experimental approaches (Study 5), we examine the representational structure of facial identities across conceptual, perceptual, and visual levels. When a participant believed any two individuals were more similar in terms of their personality, their faces were perceived to be correspondingly more similar (assessed via computer mouse-tracking; Studies 1–2), even when controlling for faces’ intrinsic physical similarity. Further, participants’ visual representations of faces belonging to individuals believed to have a more similar personality were found to have a greater physical resemblance (assessed via reverse-correlation tasks; Studies 3–4). Finally, the effect persisted when participants learned about novel faces randomly linked with different personality traits (e.g., trustworthiness), implicating a causal role of person knowledge (Study 5). Together, the findings suggest that the perception of facial identity is driven not only by facial features but also the person knowledge we have learned about others.

Depths and limits of spontaneous categorization in a family dog

Categorization has been tested in non-human animals after extensive training procedures under laboratory conditions and it is assumed that in non-primate species categorization relies on perceptual similarity. We report evidence of the ability to categorize objects in absence of specific training in a family dog with vocabulary knowledge of multiple toys, including exemplars of 4 categories. Our experimental design was devised to test categorization in absence of specific training and based on the spontaneously learned vocal labels of the categories, a condition that mirrors human studies more than previous experiments on non-human animals. We also observed that the dog’s categorization skills were more accurate when, prior to the categorization test, she was given the opportunity to play with the novel exemplars, suggesting that category representations arise not only from physical resemblance, but also from objects’ affordances (function).

The Literary Portrait from Pushkin to Dostoevsky

The article explores the peculiarities of literary portraits and studies the interconnections and contrasts between painted and written portraits. The recognizability of a portrait in pictorial art is attained not only through physical resemblance but also through “artistic deformations” that the author introduces to the appearance of the portrayed. In a literary portrait, identification is achieved both by verbal and plastic detailing and by addressing the reader’s inner experience and imagination. Traditionally, the literary portrait in the Russian literature of the 19th century is based mostly on plastic characteristics, comparisons, and color accents, and because of this, it is often defined as “pictorial”. However, portraits by Pushkin and Dostoevsky stand out as exceptionally original, as if created from a different material. Pushkin avoids detailing, instead, he presents a “suggestive” portrait, i.e., a dynamic outline of the personality. The reader’s imagination is influenced not by details, but rather by the dynamic nature of Pushkin’s characters. Dostoevsky does not inherit Pushkin’s methods, though he also turns to a dynamic principle in describing the heroes of his novels. When they first appear, he presents them as if from different angles of vision, and their features may often be in discord, which makes the reader sense a contradictory impact of their personalities, as well as of their portraits. This kind of portrait is a dynamic message, where the reader follows the hero along unexpected and contrasting paths that the author previously mapped for him. From the beginning to the very end of their works, these two classics of Russian literature present the human personality as a being in a state of life-long development, always changing and always free in its existential choice.