Improvement of Freezing of Gait in Patients with Parkinson's Disease by Imagining Bicycling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akio Kikuchi

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Freezing of gait (FOG is one of the factors that reduce the quality of life in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD. Imagining bicycling before gait start provided improvement in FOG in 2 PD patients. Imagining and mimicking bicycling after the initiation of gait allowed the rhythmic gait to continue without interruption. We suggest that imagining and mimicking bicycling, which are nonexternal cues, could serve as a helpful therapeutic approach for the intractable freezing and interruption of gait of PD patients.

Activation of sensory cortex by imagined genital stimulation: an fMRI analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nan J. Wise

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Background: During the course of a previous study, our laboratory made a serendipitous finding that just thinking about genital stimulation resulted in brain activations that overlapped with, and differed from, those generated by physical genital stimulation. Objective: This study extends our previous findings by further characterizing how the brain differentially processes physical ‘touch’ stimulation and ‘imagined’ stimulation. Design: Eleven healthy women (age range 29–74 participated in an fMRI study of the brain response to imagined or actual tactile stimulation of the nipple and clitoris. Two additional conditions – imagined dildo self-stimulation and imagined speculum stimulation – were included to characterize the effects of erotic versus non-erotic imagery. Results: Imagined and tactile self-stimulation of the nipple and clitoris each activated the paracentral lobule (the genital region of the primary sensory cortex and the secondary somatosensory cortex. Imagined self-stimulation of the clitoris and nipple resulted in greater activation of the frontal pole and orbital frontal cortex compared to tactile self-stimulation of these two bodily regions. Tactile self-stimulation of the clitoris and nipple activated the cerebellum, primary somatosensory cortex (hand region, and premotor cortex more than the imagined stimulation of these body regions. Imagining dildo stimulation generated extensive brain activation in the genital sensory cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, insula, nucleus accumbens, and medial prefrontal cortex, whereas imagining speculum stimulation generated only minimal activation. Conclusion: The present findings provide evidence of the potency of imagined stimulation of the genitals and that the following brain regions may participate in erogenous experience: primary and secondary sensory cortices, sensory-motor integration areas, limbic structures, and components of the �

"Holy Cow! This Stuff Is Real!" from Imagining Ministry to Pastoral Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Campbell-Reed, Eileen R.; Scharen, Christian

2011-01-01

How do seminarians move from imagining ministry to embodying pastoral imagination? Stories gathered from seminarians in their final year of study show the complexity of shifting from classroom work, which foregrounds theory and intellectual imagination, to more embodied, relational, and emotionally intense engagements of ministry. Stories about…

Imagining the personal past: Episodic counterfactuals compared to episodic memories and episodic future projections

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Özbek, Müge; Bohn, Annette; Berntsen, Dorthe

2017-01-01

Episodic counterfactuals are imagined events that could have happened, but did not happen, in a person’s past. Such imagined past events are important aspects of mental life, affecting emotions, decisions, and behaviors. However, studies examining their phenomenological characteristics and content...... are few. Here we introduced a new method to systematically compare self-generated episodic counterfactuals to self-generated episodic memories and future projections with regard to their phenomenological characteristics (e.g., imagery, emotional valence, rehearsal) and content (e.g., reference to cultural...... distance. The findings show that imagined events are phenomenologically different from memories of experienced events, consistent with reality monitoring theory, and that imagined future events are different from both actual and imagined past events, consistent with some theories of motivation....

Imagination perspective affects ratings of the likelihood of occurrence of autobiographical memories.

Science.gov (United States)

Marsh, Benjamin U; Pezdek, Kathy; Lam, Shirley T

2014-07-01

Two experiments tested and confirmed the hypothesis that when the phenomenological characteristics of imagined events are more similar to those of related autobiographical memories, the imagined event is more likely to be considered to have occurred. At Time 1 and 2-weeks later, individuals rated the likelihood of occurrence for 20 life events. In Experiment 1, 1-week after Time 1, individuals imagined 3 childhood events from a first-person or third-person perspective. There was a no-imagination control. An increase in likelihood ratings from Time 1 to Time 2 resulted when imagination was from the third-person but not first-person perspective. In Experiment 2, childhood and recent events were imagined from a third- or first-person perspective. A significant interaction resulted. For childhood events, likelihood change scores were greater for third-person than first-person perspective; for recent adult events, likelihood change scores were greater for first-person than third-person perspective, although this latter trend was not significant. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Imaginative science education the central role of imagination in science education

CERN Document Server

Hadzigeorgiou, Yannis

2016-01-01

This book is about imaginative approaches to teaching and learning school science. Its central premise is that science learning should reflect the nature of science, and therefore be approached as an imaginative/creative activity. As such, the book can be seen as an original contribution of ideas relating to imagination and creativity in science education. The approaches discussed in the book are storytelling, the experience of wonder, the development of ‘romantic understanding’, and creative science, including science through visual art, poetry and dramatization. However, given the perennial problem of how to engage students (of all ages) in science, the notion of ‘aesthetic experience’, and hence the possibility for students to have more holistic and fulfilling learning experiences through the aforementioned imaginative approaches, is also discussed. Each chapter provides an in-depth discussion of the theoretical background of a specific imaginative approach (e.g., storytelling, ‘wonder-full’ s...

Enhancing memory and imagination improves problem solving among individuals with depression.

Science.gov (United States)

McFarland, Craig P; Primosch, Mark; Maxson, Chelsey M; Stewart, Brandon T

2017-08-01

Recent work has revealed links between memory, imagination, and problem solving, and suggests that increasing access to detailed memories can lead to improved imagination and problem-solving performance. Depression is often associated with overgeneral memory and imagination, along with problem-solving deficits. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that an interview designed to elicit detailed recollections would enhance imagination and problem solving among both depressed and nondepressed participants. In a within-subjects design, participants completed a control interview or an episodic specificity induction prior to completing memory, imagination, and problem-solving tasks. Results revealed that compared to the control interview, the episodic specificity induction fostered increased detail generation in memory and imagination and more relevant steps on the problem-solving task among depressed and nondepressed participants. This study builds on previous work by demonstrating that a brief interview can enhance problem solving among individuals with depression and supports the notion that episodic memory plays a key role in problem solving. It should be noted, however, that the results of the interview are relatively short-lived.

Imagining wrong: Fictitious contexts mitigate condemnation of harm more than impurity.

Science.gov (United States)

Sabo, John S; Giner-Sorolla, Roger

2017-01-01

Over 5 experiments, we test the fictive pass asymmetry hypothesis. Following observations of ethics and public reactions to media, we propose that fictional contexts, such as reality, imagination, and virtual environments, will mitigate people's moral condemnation of harm violations, more so than purity violations. That is, imagining a purely harmful act is given a "fictive pass," in moral judgment, whereas imagining an abnormal act involving the body is evaluated more negatively because it is seen as more diagnostic of bad character. For Experiment 1, an undergraduate sample (N = 250) evaluated 9 vignettes depicting an agent committing either violations of harm or purity in real life, watching them in films, or imagining them. For Experiments 2 and 3, online participants (N = 375 and N = 321, respectively) evaluated a single vignette depicting an agent committing a violation of harm or purity that either occurred in real life, was imagined, watched in a film, or performed in a video game. Experiment 4 (N = 348) used an analysis of moderated mediation to demonstrate that the perceived wrongness of fictional purity violations is explained both by the extent to which they are seen as a cue to, and a cause of, a poor moral character. Lastly, Experiment 5 (N = 484) validated our manipulations and included the presumption of desire as an additional mediator of the fictive pass asymmetry effects. We discuss implications for moral theories of act and character, anger and disgust, and for media use and regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The Theatre of Imagining

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kallenbach, Ulla

performance with the audience as active co-players. The dissertation’s examination of the cultural history of imagination via three selected periods uncovers a very complex, variable and diverse conception of imagination: From the perception of imagination in the Renaissance as a reproductive but potentially...

Temporal characteristics of imagined and actual walking in frail older adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakano, Hideki; Murata, Shin; Shiraiwa, Kayoko; Iwase, Hiroaki; Kodama, Takayuki

2018-05-09

Mental chronometry, commonly used to evaluate motor imagery ability, measures the imagined time required for movements. Previous studies investigating mental chronometry of walking have investigated healthy older adults. However, mental chronometry in frail older adults has not yet been clarified. To investigate temporal characteristics of imagined and actual walking in frail older adults. We investigated the time required for imagined and actual walking along three walkways of different widths [width(s): 50, 25, 15 cm × length: 5 m] in 29 frail older adults and 20 young adults. Imagined walking was measured with mental chronometry. We observed significantly longer imagined and actual walking times along walkways of 50, 25, and 15 cm width in frail older adults compared with young adults. Moreover, temporal differences (absolute error) between imagined and actual walking were significantly greater in frail older adults than in young adults along walkways with a width of 25 and 15 cm. Furthermore, we observed significant differences in temporal differences (constant error) between frail older adults and young adults for walkways with a width of 25 and 15 cm. Frail older adults tended to underestimate actual walking time in imagined walking trials. Our results suggest that walkways of different widths may be a useful tool to evaluate age-related changes in imagined and actual walking in frail older adults.

A cidade imaginada ou o imaginário da cidade The city imagined, or the city’s imaginary

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Aparecida Lopes Nogueira

1998-06-01

Full Text Available O artigo trata da temática da cidade real-cidade imaginária. Argumenta que, ao refletirmos sobre a cidade, refletimos, também, sobre nós mesmos, com todos os nossos sonhos, frustrações, ansiedades e esperanças. A discussão parte de uma ciência reencantada, que aproxima as questões do cotidiano, da memória, do símbolo e do mito.Exploring the topic ‘actual city/imagined city’, the article argues that when we reflect on the question of city, we are also reflecting upon ourselves - including all our dreams, frustrations, anxieties, and hopes. This discussion is made possible by a science that interrelates the issues of daily life, of memory, of symbol and of myth.

Gettysburg re-imagined

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chronis, Athinodoros; Arnould, Eric J.; Hampton, Ronald D.

2012-01-01

and expands narrative-based theories of consumption experiences. We argue that the workings of imagination in tourism sites are inextricably linked to the production of cultural imaginaries, that is, socially important narratives invested with collective values; we illustrate the process through which...... narrative of the American Civil War and we explore ethnographically the ways in which this historical episode is (re)imagined and articulated in tourism at Gettysburg. Our research provides an alternative account to mental imagery theory that is based on restrictive cognitive conceptions of imagination...

Imaginative ethics--bringing ethical praxis into sharper relief.

Science.gov (United States)

Hansson, Mats G

2002-01-01

The empirical basis for this article is three years of experience with ethical rounds at Uppsala University Hospital. Three standard approaches of ethical reasoning are examined as potential explanations of what actually occurs during the ethical rounds. For reasons given, these are not found to be satisfying explanations. An approach called "imaginative ethics", is suggested as a more satisfactory account of this kind of ethical reasoning. The participants in the ethical rounds seem to draw on a kind of moral competence based on personal life experience and professional competence and experience. By listening to other perspectives and other experiences related to one particular patient story, the participants imagine alternative horizons of moral experience and explore a multitude of values related to clinical practice that might be at stake. In his systematic treatment of aesthetics in the Critique of Judgement, Kant made use of an operation of thought that, if applied to ethics, will enable us to be more sensitive to the particulars of each moral situation. Based on this reading of Kant, an account of imaginative ethics is developed in order to bring the ethical praxis of doctors and nurses into sharper relief. The Hebraic and the Hellenic traditions of imagination are used in order to illuminate some of the experiences of ethical rounds. In conclusion, it is argued that imaginative ethics and principle-based ethics should be seen as complementary in order to endow a moral discourse with ethical authority. Kantian ethics will do the job if it is remembered that Kant suggested only a modest, negative role of principle-based deliberation.

After Imagining/ Après l'imaginer: Imaginations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Managing Editors

2010-12-01

Full Text Available We welcome you to Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies / Revue d’études interculturelles de l’image, an open-access online peer-reviewed journal born out of research and developments in cross-cultural and intersecting epistemological fields that have at their root a determined focus on the role and power of the image in contemporary culture and in cultural communications. Nous vous souhaitons la bienvenue à Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies / Revue d’études interculturelles de l’image, un journal en ligne à accès libre dont les contributions sont préalablement soumises à un comité de révision par les pairs. Cette publication est le fruit d’un vif intérêt pour la recherche et la pratique au croisement de multiples champs épistémologiques et interculturels autour du rôle et de la puissance de l’image dans la société et les média contemporains.

The Relationships among Imagination, Future Imagination Tendency, and Future Time Perspective of Junior High School Students

Science.gov (United States)

Tsai, Min-Ying

2015-01-01

The main purpose of the study were to investigate the relationships among imagination, future imagination tendency, and future time perspective of junior high school students, then to explore the future time perspective which is predicted by background variables, imaginative qualities, and future imagination tendency. The subjects were 331 from…

Mental contamination: the effects of imagined physical dirt and immoral behaviour.

Science.gov (United States)

Elliott, Corinna M; Radomsky, Adam S

2012-06-01

There is a growing body of empirical support for Rachman's (1994, 2004, 2006) conceptualization of mental contamination. The aim of this study was to tease apart manipulations of imagined physical descriptions (i.e., clean versus dirty), in the context of both morally sound and reprehensible acts (i.e., consensual versus non-consensual kiss) to expand our understanding of the experimental variables which may evoke mental contamination and address limitations of previous research. Female undergraduate student participants (n = 140) were randomly assigned to listen to one of four audio recordings and imagine receiving either a consensual or non-consensual kiss from a man described as either physically clean or physically dirty. Results indicated that participants who imagined a non-consensual kiss from a physically dirty man reported the greatest feelings of mental contamination; whereas, participants who imagined a consensual kiss from a physically clean man reported the lowest feelings of mental contamination. However, there were few significant differences in mental contamination feelings between those who imagined a consensual kiss from a physically dirty man and those who imagined a non-consensual kiss from a physically clean man. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive-behavioural conceptualizations of and treatments for contamination fears. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Imagining Sound

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grimshaw, Mark; Garner, Tom Alexander

2014-01-01

We make the case in this essay that sound that is imagined is both a perception and as much a sound as that perceived through external stimulation. To argue this, we look at the evidence from auditory science, neuroscience, and philosophy, briefly present some new conceptual thinking on sound...... that accounts for this view, and then use this to look at what the future might hold in the context of imagining sound and developing technology....

Digital landscapes of imagination

OpenAIRE

Starlight Vattano

2014-01-01

Urban landscapes that exist in the expression of an imaginative sequence define their shape through the digital representation. These hyperreal dimensions, combine imagination and representation as constituents a new reality, which follows the utopian, suprematist and constructivist theories, where the two-dimensional dynamics is transformed into an infinite space in which the imagination creates new forms. Although interpretations of the urban landscape film, put in place a correspondence be...

Imagining Geographies, Mapping Identities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthew Graves

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The ambition of this issue of Portal is to reach across the methodological boundaries of history, politics, literature and geography to apply their complementary perspectives to the study of identity and its relation to space and place, an aim that involves attempting to identify the many different ways the notoriously slippery concepts of identity and geography may intersect. For this issue we have selected articles that cast a fresh perspective on two areas where identity and geography intersect: the construction of identity through the imaginative recreation of place in literature: Mapping Literary Spaces; and the study of the shifting relationships of centre and periphery, exclusion and inclusion in urban settings and geopolitical confrontations: Social and Political Peripheries. Gerard Toal has written that geography is not a noun but a verb: it does not describe what space is but studies what we do with space, imaginatively and politically. The articles in this issue illustrate the exercise of the literary and political imagination and the role of materiality and memory in the creation of geographic representation. They show too a new awareness of the centrality of space in the constitution of identities, and the need for a new geocritical reading of its discourse, as the interrelations of place and community are played out on the many scales of social and political life, from the local to the global.   The special issue is organised thus: Introduction Matthew Graves (Aix-Marseille University & Liz Rechniewski (Sydney University: “Imagining Geographies, Mapping Identities.” I. Mapping Literary Spaces - Isabelle Avila (University of Paris XIII, "Les Cartes de l'Afrique au XIXe siècle et Joseph Conrad : Perceptions d'une Révolution Cartographique." - Daniela Rogobete (University of Craiova, "Global vs Glocal: Dimensions of the post-1981 Indian English Novel." II. Social and Political Peripheries - Elizabeth Rechniewski (Sydney

Introduction: Victorian Fiction and the Material Imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victoria Mills

2008-04-01

Full Text Available How should we deal with the ‘stuff' in books? This is the question addressed in the lead articles of the Spring 2008 issue of 19, all of which focus on some aspect of the material in relation to Victorian fiction. Gas, rocks, jewellery, automata and the entire contents of houses are examined in essays that explore the material imagination of Dickens, Hardy, George Eliot and Thackeray, among others. Moving forward from the previous edition, which different types of collected object, here contributors examine how the material is brought into collision with literature. The phrase 'material imagination' can be traced to the work of Gaston Bachelard who identifies two types of imagination, the formal and the material. Whereas the former focuses on surfaces and the visual perception of images, the latter consists of '…this amazing need for penetration which, going beyond the attractions of the imagination of forms, thinks matter, dreams in it, lives in it, or, in other words, materializes the imaginary'. As Bachelard suggests, the material imagination involves more than just a focus on the representation of objects and the contributions to this edition explore such wide ranging subjects as the gender politics of ownership, dispossession, the body as object, the politics of collecting and display and the dichotomy between the material and immaterial. In addition, this edition features a forum on digitisation and materiality. We are particularly pleased to be able to make use of 19's digital publishing format to further debates about digital media. In the forum, five contributors respond to a series of questions about the nature of the virtual object. All five have worked or are working on nineteenth-century digitisation projects so they are uniquely placed to consider issues surrounding representation and the nature of digital space.

Stories and Science: Stirring Children's Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Seeley, Claire; Gallagher, Sarah

2014-01-01

Stories are a place where magical things happen, where ideas are challenged, where the imagination runs free and questions are asked. They are a safe place, where the reader can walk about with new identities, try new ideas, process life's ups and downs and make new meanings. This makes stories the perfect place for creative learning. In this…

Of Eden and Nazareth: Stories to capture the imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yolande Steenkamp

2017-01-01

Full Text Available In pursuit of counter-traditions that have read the Eden narrative without subscribing to the Christian fall�redemption paradigm, this article engages Richard Kearney�s hermeneutical� phenomenological reading of the imagination to explore new avenues for imagining sin and salvation along post-metaphysical lines. The first section provides insights proceeding from an intratextual reading of the Eden narrative. The second section proceeds to incorporate the biblical and rabbinical concept of the yetser to elaborate the reading described above. The section follows Kearney�s reading of the Eden narrative to elicit the imagination along ethical lines as humanity�s passion for the possible. The third section reads the annunciation narrative along these same lines, illustrating how a divine kingdom of justice and love is possibilised by an imagination captured by divine promise and hospitality. By reading these two narratives together through the lense of the imagination, novel ways of rethinking sin and salvation along post-metaphysical lines emerge that portray salvation as human participation in God�s ongoing creation of justice and love, thus enabling the God Who May Be.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article is relevant to the fields of philosophy, philosophy of religion and theology. The narratives of fall and promise, previously read by philosopher Richard Kearney in different contexts and not in relation to one another, are read here from a decidedly theological point of view.

Brief report: new evidence for a social-specific imagination deficit in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Ten Eycke, Kayla D; Müller, Ulrich

2015-01-01

Previous research suggests that children with autism have deficits in drawing imaginative content. However, these conclusions are largely based on tasks that require children to draw impossible persons, and performance on this task may be limited by social deficits. To determine the generality of the deficit in imagination in children with autism, we asked 25 children with autism (mean age 9;7) and 29 neurotypically developing children (mean age 8;7) to draw an imaginative person and house. Drawings of imaginary houses by children with autism did not differ from those by neurotypically developing controls, but drawings of persons were significantly less imaginative. These findings suggest that the impairment in imagination among children with autism may be specific to social stimuli.

Remembering the past and imagining the future: Selective effects of an episodic specificity induction on detail generation.

Science.gov (United States)

Madore, Kevin P; Schacter, Daniel L

2016-01-01

According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, remembering past experiences and imagining future experiences both rely heavily on episodic memory. However, recent research indicates that nonepisodic processes such as descriptive ability also influence memory and imagination. We recently found that an episodic specificity induction--brief training in recollecting details of past experiences--enhanced detail generation on memory and imagination tasks but not a picture description task and thereby concluded that the induction can dissociate episodic processes involved in remembering the past and imagining the future from those nonepisodic processes involved in description. To evaluate the generality of our previous findings and to examine the role of generative search in producing those findings, we modified our paradigm so that word cues replaced picture cues, and a word comparison task that requires generation of sentences and word definitions replaced picture description. Young adult participants received either a specificity induction or one of two control inductions before completing the memory, imagination, and word comparison tasks. Replicating and extending our previous work, we found that the specificity induction increased detail generation in memory and imagination without having an effect on word comparison. The induction's selective effect on memory and imagination stemmed from an increase in internal (i.e., on-topic and episodic) details and had no effect on external (e.g., off-topic or semantic) details. The results point to the efficacy of the specificity induction for isolating episodic processes involved in remembering the past and imagining the future even when a nonepisodic task requires generative search.

A Reduction in Delay Discounting by Using Episodic Future Imagination and the Association with Episodic Memory Capacity.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Xiaochen; Kleinschmidt, Helena; Martin, Jason A; Han, Ying; Thelen, Manuela; Meiberth, Dix; Jessen, Frank; Weber, Bernd

2016-01-01

Delay discounting (DD) refers to the phenomenon that individuals discount future consequences. Previous studies showed that future imagination reduces DD, which was mediated by functional connectivity between medial prefrontal valuation areas and a key region for episodic memory (hippocampus). Future imagination involves an initial period of construction and a later period of elaboration, with the more elaborative latter period recruiting more cortical regions. This study examined whether elaborative future imagination modulated DD, and if so, what are the underlying neural substrates. It was assumed that cortical areas contribute to the modulation effect during the later period of imagination. Since future imagination is supported by episodic memory capacity, we additionally hypothesize that the neural network underlying the modulation effect is related to individual episodic memory capacity. Twenty-two subjects received an extensive interview on personal future events, followed by an fMRI DD experiment with and without the need to perform elaborative future imagination simultaneously. Subjects' episodic memory capacity was also assessed. Behavioral results replicate previous findings of a reduced discount rate in the DD plus imagination condition compared to the DD only condition. The behavioral effect positively correlated with: (i) subjective value signal changes in midline brain structures during the initial imagination period; and (ii) signal changes in left prefrontoparietal areas during the later imagination period. Generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analyses reveal positive correlations between the behavioral effect and functional connectivity among the following areas: right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and left hippocampus; left inferior parietal cortex (IPC) and left hippocampus; and left IPC and bilateral occipital cortices. These changes in functional connectivity are also associated with episodic memory capacity. A hierarchical

Brief Report: New Evidence for a Social-Specific Imagination Deficit in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Ten Eycke, Kayla D.; Müller, Ulrich

2015-01-01

Previous research suggests that children with autism have deficits in drawing imaginative content. However, these conclusions are largely based on tasks that require children to draw impossible persons, and performance on this task may be limited by social deficits. To determine the generality of the deficit in imagination in children with autism,…

Constructive episodic simulation of the future and the past: distinct subsystems of a core brain network mediate imagining and remembering.

Science.gov (United States)

Addis, Donna Rose; Pan, Ling; Vu, Mai-Anh; Laiser, Noa; Schacter, Daniel L

2009-09-01

Recent neuroimaging studies demonstrate that remembering the past and imagining the future rely on the same core brain network. However, findings of common core network activity during remembering and imagining events and increased activity during future event simulation could reflect the recasting of past events as future events. We experimentally recombined event details from participants' own past experiences, thus preventing the recasting of past events as imagined events. Moreover, we instructed participants to imagine both future and past events in order to disambiguate whether future-event-specific activity found in previous studies is related specifically to prospection or a general demand of imagining episodic events. Using spatiotemporal partial-least-squares (PLS), a conjunction contrast confirmed that even when subjects are required to recombine details into imagined events (and prevented from recasting events), significant neural overlap between remembering and imagining events is evident throughout the core network. However, the PLS analysis identified two subsystems within the core network. One extensive subsystem was preferentially associated with imagining both future and past events. This finding suggests that regions previously associated with future events, such as anterior hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus, support processes general to imagining events rather than specific to prospection. This PLS analysis also identified a subsystem, including hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus and extensive regions of posterior visual cortex that was preferentially engaged when remembering past events rich in contextual and visuospatial detail.

THE ROLE OF IMAGINATION IN ATTAINING THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

TATIANA BORODAI

2010-08-01

Full Text Available In this article, the author wishes to defend a fundamental point: most ancient and early Christian thinkers (from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas thought that the human imagination as a cognitive faculty was a hindrance to metaphysical thinking, to theology, and therefore to the beatifi c vision and salvation. Today, on the contrary, this cognitive faculty is considered to be a positive and very valuable one. The turning-point in the process of this re-evaluation is located in the fourteenth century, when a new literary genre of spiritual literature appeared — the meditationes vitae Christi. For the fi rst time, imagination was seen as a most effi cient tool for attaining a knowledge of God and the fi nal goal of man’s life.

Giambattista Vico and the psychological imagination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tateo, Luca

2015-01-01

psychology, despite the fact that imaginative processes are involved in even the most mundane activities. In this editorial, I first present the rationale and the content of the articles and commentaries. Then I outline a brief history of the concept of imagination before Vico, drawing some consequences...... for contemporary psychology. Finally, I provide the proposal for a new research program on imagination as a higher psychological function that enables us to manipulate complex meanings of both linguistic and iconic forms in the process of experiencing.......This special issue originates from an international workshop on “Vico and imagination,” that took place at Aalborg University in 2014, within a research project on Giambattista Vico and the epistemology of psychology. Imagination has inexplicably been relegated to the background in contemporary...

Musical expertise and the ability to imagine loudness.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laura Bishop

Full Text Available Most perceived parameters of sound (e.g. pitch, duration, timbre can also be imagined in the absence of sound. These parameters are imagined more veridically by expert musicians than non-experts. Evidence for whether loudness is imagined, however, is conflicting. In music, the question of whether loudness is imagined is particularly relevant due to its role as a principal parameter of performance expression. This study addressed the hypothesis that the veridicality of imagined loudness improves with increasing musical expertise. Experts, novices and non-musicians imagined short passages of well-known classical music under two counterbalanced conditions: 1 while adjusting a slider to indicate imagined loudness of the music and 2 while tapping out the rhythm to indicate imagined timing. Subtests assessed music listening abilities and working memory span to determine whether these factors, also hypothesised to improve with increasing musical expertise, could account for imagery task performance. Similarity between each participant's imagined and listening loudness profiles and reference recording intensity profiles was assessed using time series analysis and dynamic time warping. The results suggest a widespread ability to imagine the loudness of familiar music. The veridicality of imagined loudness tended to be greatest for the expert musicians, supporting the predicted relationship between musical expertise and musical imagery ability.

Musical expertise and the ability to imagine loudness.

Science.gov (United States)

Bishop, Laura; Bailes, Freya; Dean, Roger T

2013-01-01

Most perceived parameters of sound (e.g. pitch, duration, timbre) can also be imagined in the absence of sound. These parameters are imagined more veridically by expert musicians than non-experts. Evidence for whether loudness is imagined, however, is conflicting. In music, the question of whether loudness is imagined is particularly relevant due to its role as a principal parameter of performance expression. This study addressed the hypothesis that the veridicality of imagined loudness improves with increasing musical expertise. Experts, novices and non-musicians imagined short passages of well-known classical music under two counterbalanced conditions: 1) while adjusting a slider to indicate imagined loudness of the music and 2) while tapping out the rhythm to indicate imagined timing. Subtests assessed music listening abilities and working memory span to determine whether these factors, also hypothesised to improve with increasing musical expertise, could account for imagery task performance. Similarity between each participant's imagined and listening loudness profiles and reference recording intensity profiles was assessed using time series analysis and dynamic time warping. The results suggest a widespread ability to imagine the loudness of familiar music. The veridicality of imagined loudness tended to be greatest for the expert musicians, supporting the predicted relationship between musical expertise and musical imagery ability.

Parental influence on adolescents' imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Rabinowitz, A; Engelberg, D

1984-09-01

It was hypothesized that a permissive democratic parental attitude towards childrearing and favorable accepting attitude towards children's imagination are conducive to the development of their adolescent children's imaginative ability. It was also hypothesized that the mothers' role is more crucial than that of the fathers. The subjects were 104 adolescent Israeli boys and girls and their parents. The subjects were administered four scales of the Imaginal Processes Inventory and the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory. The parents filled out a questionnaire devised to study their attitude to children's imagination. The first two hypotheses were not confirmed. The data point in the opposite direction as regards the first hypothesis. There was partial conformation for the third hypothesis. The data were also discussed in relation to healthy and neurotic daydreaming.

Relations among Individual Differences in Reproductive Strategies, Sexual Attractiveness, Affective and Punitive Intentions, and Imagined Sexual or Emotional Infidelity

OpenAIRE

Daniel N. Jones; Aurelio José Figueredo; Erin Denise Dickey; W. Jake Jacobs

2007-01-01

We examined relations among Mating Effort, Mate Value, Sex and individuals' self-reported responses to imagined sexual or emotional infidelity. We asked participants to describe the (1) upset or bother (2) aversive emotional reactions (3) punitive impulses, and (4) punitive intentions they experienced in response to imagined sexual or emotional infidelity. The results replicated previously documented sex differences in jealousy. In addition, imagined sexual infidelity upset individuals higher...

Digital landscapes of imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Starlight Vattano

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Urban landscapes that exist in the expression of an imaginative sequence define their shape through the digital representation. These hyperreal dimensions, combine imagination and representation as constituents a new reality, which follows the utopian, suprematist and constructivist theories, where the two-dimensional dynamics is transformed into an infinite space in which the imagination creates new forms. Although interpretations of the urban landscape film, put in place a correspondence between reality and virtuality, into the modeling of spatial movements, from which do not arise contraries, but only interdependencies. It is a particular type of representation that takes shape via the digital in motion and provides new tools for urban representation.

IMAGINING THE ABSENT PARTNER - INTIMACY AND IMAGINATION IN LONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iveta Jurkane-Hobein

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The dominant discourse on relationships in modernity argues for the importance of intimacy, including the intimacy of bodies, for the relationship to be continuous. This raises the question as to how couples that cannot meet face-to-face on a regular basis due to geographical distance maintain intimacy during repetitious non-co-presence. In this article, intimacy is seen as a relational quality that is created and maintained by individuals themselves through practices of intimacy (Jamieson, 2011. The study aims to analyse practices of intimacy in long-distance relationships (LDRs that enable long-distance couples to make their relationship continuous beyond face-to-face encounters. The study is based on 19 in-depth interviews with indi Shrani viduals in Latvia with LDR experience, and argues that the intimacy practices in LDRs trigger imagination. Imagination, in its turn, enables practicing four dimensions of intimacy: embodied, emotional, daily and imagined.

Counterfactual Imagination as a Mental Tool for Innovation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Monika Chylińska

2017-11-01

Full Text Available In the article I demonstrate some of the possible ways by which counterfactual im⁠agination can lead people to innovation and the creation of novel and valuable solutions. I start with adopting the broad definition of counterfactuals, by which counterfactual imagination is understood as the ability to imagine alternative states of affairs which can relate to the past, present or future. I explain how counterfactual imagination differs from other sorts of imaginative and creative thoughts, pointing out that counterfactual types of thinking always rely on facts and involve a change in some features of the actual world, leaving other such features unaltered. I also show that the concept of counterfactual imagination can be useful when we aim to describe the very earliest manifestations of imaginative capacities in children, which can be seen in their make-believe games. All the mentioned characteristics of counterfactual imagination are further used to examine how what if and would be sorts of thinking and imagining might influence people’s creative performance. I conclude with the suggestion that—if guided properly—counterfactual imagination could be a truly valuable mental tool for innovation. This demonstration is partly influenced by Ruth Byrne’s multi-faceted analysis of counterfactual imagination, mainly from her book, The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality.

Niger - IMAGINE

Data.gov (United States)

Millennium Challenge Corporation — This impact evaluation uses random assignment at the village level to estimate impacts of the IMAGINE program on enrollment, attendance, learning and other education...

Rhetorical facets of imagination in contemporary poetry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hassan Delbari

2015-04-01

: Symbol, allegory, paradox, myth, mythical allusion are ample imagery devices for deep understanding. This means a descriptive creation by the poet. Functional descriptions: Poetical imageries can be considered from functional perspectives as positive and imaginative illustrations. The foundation for this taxonomy are the extent of sensibility, feasibility of imagination, their concordance with intellectual rationales, language standards, public acceptability and its emotional and imaginative criteria. Positive Imageries: The poet endeavors to confirm his ideology through this kind of imagery. Since the purpose is an affirmation of the present situation, there is no logic for any imagination, emotion and hyperbole (Confirmation is far beyond imagination. It is sensible, clear and in line with intellectual foundations. It is supported by the public and enjoys high readability of people. In sum it could be said that the poet tries eagerly to provide positive criteria for his ideology. Imaginative Imageries: While positive imageries are based on logic and rational, imaginative illustrations are a host of dissimilation, paradox and great imagination. They are exciting devices with which the poet surpasses the ordinary life and goes beyond the habits of his reader. These images are unconsciously uttered by the poet. Thus a lack of rationale, intellectual thinking and decidedly rare are among the most significant characteristics of this kind of imagery. Results Focusing on imageries of contemporary poetry in Iran, the researcher has founded that the extent of visual or imagery illustrations by many poets has a direct relation to their mental (inner complication in such a way that different indications of these imageries have been internalized as idiosyncratic style of any individual poet. Meanwhile the high frequency of such imageries reflects the prominent of a given style of the era in which the poets have experienced. But what can be said in certain is the fact that notable

The Multidimensional Spectrum of Imagination: Images, Dreams, Hallucinations, and Active, Imaginative Perception

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nigel J.T. Thomas

2014-04-01

Full Text Available A theory of the structure and cognitive function of the human imagination that attempts to do justice to traditional intuitions about its psychological centrality is developed, largely through a detailed critique of the theory propounded by Colin McGinn. Like McGinn, I eschew the highly deflationary views of imagination, common amongst analytical philosophers, that treat it either as a conceptually incoherent notion, or as psychologically trivial. However, McGinn fails to develop his alternative account satisfactorily because (following Reid, Wittgenstein and Sartre he draws an excessively sharp, qualitative distinction between imagination and perception, and because of his flawed, empirically ungrounded conception of hallucination. His arguments in defense of these views are rebutted in detail, and the traditional, passive, Cartesian view of visual perception, upon which several of them implicitly rely, is criticized in the light of findings from recent cognitive science and neuroscience. It is also argued that the apparent intuitiveness of the passive view of visual perception is a result of mere historical contingency. An understanding of perception (informed by modern visual science as an inherently active process enables us to unify our accounts of perception, mental imagery, dreaming, hallucination, creativity, and other aspects of imagination within a single coherent theoretical framework.

The Search for Life in the Universe

Science.gov (United States)

Rothschild, Lynn

2016-01-01

Each recent report of liquid water existing elsewhere in the solar system has reverberated through the international press and excited the imagination of humankind. We have come to realize that where there is liquid water on Earth, virtually no matter what the physical conditions, there is life. Dr. Lynn Rothschild, an evolutionary biologist known for her work on life in extreme environments and a founder of the field of astrobiology, tells us about intriguing new data. The prevalence of potential abodes for life in our solar system and beyond, the survival of microbes in the space environment, modeling of the potential for transfer of life between celestial bodies, and advances in synthetic biology suggest that life could be more common than previously thought. Are we truly "alone"?

Religious insistence on medical treatment. Christian theology and re-imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Connors, R B; Smith, M L

1996-01-01

Families and surrogates sometimes use religious themes to justify their insistence on aggressive end-of-life care. Their hope that "God will work a miracle" can halt negotiations with health care professionals and lead to litigation. The possibility of "re-imagining" religious themes, to broaden their scope and present a wider vision of the Christian tradition, may offer a solution.

Emotion rendering in auditory simulations of imagined walking styles

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Turchet, Luca; Rodá, Antonio

2016-01-01

This paper investigated how different emotional states of a walker can be rendered and recognized by means of footstep sounds synthesis algorithms. In a first experiment, participants were asked to render, according to imagined walking scenarios, five emotions (aggressive, happy, neutral, sad......, and tender) by manipulating the parameters of synthetic footstep sounds simulating various combinations of surface materials and shoes types. Results allowed to identify, for the involved emotions and sound conditions, the mean values and ranges of variation of two parameters, sound level and temporal...... distance between consecutive steps. Results were in accordance with those reported in previous studies on real walking, suggesting that expression of emotions in walking is independent from the real or imagined motor activity. In a second experiment participants were asked to identify the emotions...

Rhetorical facets of imagination in contemporary poetry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hassan Delbari

2015-03-01

figures make the host of literary devices of any language: Symbol, allegory, paradox, myth, mythical allusion are ample imagery devices for deep understanding. This means a descriptive creation by the poet. Functional descriptions: Poetical imageries can be considered from functional perspectives as positive and imaginative illustrations. The foundation for this taxonomy are the extent of sensibility, feasibility of imagination, their concordance with intellectual rationales, language standards, public acceptability and its emotional and imaginative criteria. Positive Imageries: The poet endeavors to confirm his ideology through this kind of imagery. Since the purpose is an affirmation of the present situation, there is no logic for any imagination, emotion and hyperbole (Confirmation is far beyond imagination. It is sensible, clear and in line with intellectual foundations. It is supported by the public and enjoys high readability of people. In sum it could be said that the poet tries eagerly to provide positive criteria for his ideology. Imaginative Imageries: While positive imageries are based on logic and rational, imaginative illustrations are a host of dissimilation, paradox and great imagination. They are exciting devices with which the poet surpasses the ordinary life and goes beyond the habits of his reader. These images are unconsciously uttered by the poet. Thus a lack of rationale, intellectual thinking and decidedly rare are among the most significant characteristics of this kind of imagery. Results Focusing on imageries of contemporary poetry in Iran, the researcher has founded that the extent of visual or imagery illustrations by many poets has a direct relation to their mental (inner complication in such a way that different indications of these imageries have been internalized as idiosyncratic style of any individual poet. Meanwhile the high frequency of such imageries reflects the prominent of a given style of the era in which the poets have experienced

The Incredibly Shrinking World of Imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Kassem, Lou

1992-01-01

Suggests that children's imaginations are not shrinking. Discusses seven ways in which English teachers, librarians, publishers, and authors have used adolescent literature in creative and imaginative ways. (RS)

Supporting imagination in the context of work

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kolbæk, Ditte

2018-01-01

This chapter explores imagination in the context of work. When we work, we meet challenges and problems that we are obliged to solve. Most often we utilize well-defined work processes for the problem-solving, but now and then we run into new problems that need something else. This “something else...... hierarchical levels in the organisation. The research question is: How may a workplace support imagination for problem solving?...... on the task as well as colleagues who are influenced by the problem and its solution. Imagination becomes crucial to problem solving, and the final solution is a new way of doing – it is an innovation. When imagination is required at work, the workplace represents the context of the imagination. This chapter...

Imagination First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Eric; Noppe-Brandon, Scott

2011-01-01

The best corporations know that innovative thinking is the only competitive advantage that cannot be outsourced. The best schools are those that create cultures of imagination. Now in paperback, "Imagination First" introduces a wide-variety of individuals who make a habit of imaginative thinking and creative action, offering a set of universal…

Analysing Children's Drawings: Applied Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Bland, Derek

2012-01-01

This article centres on a research project in which freehand drawings provided a richly creative and colourful data source of children's imagined, ideal learning environments. Issues concerning the analysis of the visual data are discussed, in particular, how imaginative content was analysed and how the analytical process was dependent on an…

The Imagined Audience on Social Network Sites

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eden Litt

2016-02-01

Full Text Available When people construct and share posts on social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, whom do they imagine as their audience? How do users describe this imagined audience? Do they have a sub-audience in mind (e.g., “friends who like reality television”? Do they share more broadly and abstractly (e.g., “the public”? Do such imaginings fluctuate each time a person posts? Using a mixed-methods approach involving a 2-month-long diary study of 119 diverse American adults and their 1,200 social network site posts, supplemented with follow-up interviews (N = 30, this study explores the imagined audience on social network sites. The findings reveal that even though users often interacted with large diverse audiences as they posted, they coped by envisioning either very broad abstract imagined audiences or more targeted specific imagined audiences composed of personal ties, professional ties, communal ties, and/or phantasmal ties. When people had target imagined audiences in mind, they were most often homogeneous and composed of people’s friends and family. Users’ imaginings typically fluctuated among these audience types as they posted even though the potential audience as per their posts’ privacy settings often did not change. The findings provide a list of audience types, as well as detailed descriptions, examples, and frequencies on which future research can build. With people’s online presence playing an important role for their reputations, these findings provide more insight into for whom people are managing their privacy and whom they have in mind as they share.

Layers Of Visual Imagination And Degrees Of Subjectivity In Listening Experiences Exploring Visual Imagination In Acousmatic Composition And Listening

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stefano Poillucci

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Electroacoustic music especially Acousmatic is often perceived differently between listeners and a wide variety of visual images is evoked. This because of the spectromorphological qualities and the abstract reality in which this kind of music carries the listener into. In everyday life it seems that we have a natural tendency to assess and understand reality around us and to quantise how and if the perceived circumstances could affect our wellbeing. Some studies also affirm that brain and the biological function of the sensory and perceptual processes are commonly identical in each listener. This gives evidence that arises the interest to investigate which variations the subjectivity of visual imagery depends on and if it is possible to unfold it in various layers. This experimental research has taken in consideration questionnaire-based listening tests to gather details from each listening experience and to get a better understanding of the visual imagery evoked by electroacoustic compositions into the listeners mind and its degrees of objectivity and subjectivity. The compositions used in the experiment were both composed by the author with the intention of guiding listeners into their personal perceptual-imaginative journey by delivering encoded perhaps objective sonic cues. This paper is a theoretical inter-disciplinary analysis backed by research on the foundations of senses perception cognition emotions etc. An artistic approach based on scientific evidences led to the theorization of layers of imagination and their bias to produce visual images with a degree of subjectivity that lies into micro aspects of sounds and in the perceptual and innate knowledge of each individual. Glossary The terms listed here have been invented or readapted for the purpose of the study in order to make concepts easier to assimilate and understand. Aural World sonic world with intrinsic features Smalley 1997. The purely auditory realm which an

Imagined futures, present lives

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dalsgaard, Anne Line; Wildermuth, Norbert

2006-01-01

The article is focused thematically on the uses and meanings of media for (some) young people in Recife, a million-inhabitant city in the northeast of Brazil. The article brings together the perspective of Anne Line Dalsgaard, a long-term anthropological field researcher who is familiar with the ......The article is focused thematically on the uses and meanings of media for (some) young people in Recife, a million-inhabitant city in the northeast of Brazil. The article brings together the perspective of Anne Line Dalsgaard, a long-term anthropological field researcher who is familiar...... is discussed centrally in this attempt to contribute to an empirically grounded understanding of the role that media play for youth in their striving to ‘find a place in life'. In the empirical context presented in the article, imaginations, expanded and circulated by a globalized media circuit...

Mathematics and Forms of Life

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Severin Schroeder

2015-10-01

Full Text Available According to Wittgenstein, mathematics is embedded in, and partly constituting, a form of life. Hence, to imagine different, alternative forms of elementary mathematics, we should have to imagine different practices, different forms of life in which they could play a role. If we tried to imagine a radically different arithmetic we should think either of a strange world (in which objects unaccountably vanish or appear or of people acting and responding in very peculiar ways. If such was their practice, a calculus expressing the norms of representation they applied could not be called false. Rather, our criticism could only be to dismiss such a practice as foolish and to dismiss their norms as too different from ours to be called ‘mathematics’.

Hypnotic suggestibility predicts the magnitude of the imaginative word blindness suggestion effect in a non-hypnotic context.

Science.gov (United States)

Parris, Benjamin A; Dienes, Zoltan

2013-09-01

The present study investigated how the magnitude the word blindness suggestion effect on Stroop interference depended on hypnotic suggestibility when given as an imaginative suggestion (i.e. not post-hypnotic suggestion) and under conditions in which hypnosis was not mentioned. Hypnotic suggestibility is shown to be a significant predictor of the magnitude of the imaginative word blindness suggestion effect under these conditions. This is therefore the first study to show a linear relationship between the imaginative word blindness suggestion effect and hypnotic suggestibility across the whole hypnotizability spectrum. The results replicate previous findings showing that highs respond to the word blindness suggestion to a greater extent than lows but extend previous work by showing that the advantage for those higher on the hypnotizability spectrum occurs even in a non-hypnotic context. Negative attitudes about hypnosis may not explain the failure to observe similar effects of the word blindness suggestion in less hypnotizable individuals. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Imagine math 3 between culture and mathematics

CERN Document Server

2015-01-01

Imagine mathematics, imagine with the help of mathematics, imagine new worlds, new geometries, new forms. This volume in the series “Imagine Math” casts light on what is new and interesting in the relationships between mathematics, imagination, and culture. The book opens by examining the connections between modern and contemporary art and mathematics, including Linda D. Henderson’s contribution. Several further papers are devoted to mathematical models and their influence on modern and contemporary art, including the work of Henry Moore and Hiroshi Sugimoto. Among the many other interesting contributions are an homage to Benoît Mandelbrot with reference to the exhibition held in New York in 2013 and the thoughts of Jean-Pierre Bourguignon on the art and math exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris. An interesting part is dedicated to the connections between math, computer science and theatre with the papers by C. Bardainne and A. Mondot.  The topics are treated in a way that is rigorous but capt...

Harassment: Imaginings.

Science.gov (United States)

Wilt, Judith

1993-01-01

Imagines the role of the male college professor in view of the erotic and sexual nature of his subjectivity and the glaring possibilities of sexual misconduct with students. Outlines some experiences related to the sexual harassment policies of one private college. (HB)

Life as an Ex-Physicist on Wall Street

Science.gov (United States)

Derman, Emanuel

2001-06-01

Financial theory looks deceptively like physics because of the techniques it uses. But physics models deal with the relatively unchanging parameters of the external world; in contrast, the parameters of financial theory are people's current estimates of, and sentiments about, future behavior. Life as a Ph.D. on Wall St is therefore very different from the way most people in academic life imagine it to be. For most of us, most of the time, it involves neither finding miraculous and previously undiscovered arbitrages, nor doing boring mindless programming. Instead, it demands an interdisciplinary mix of inventive computation, applied mathematics, financial understanding, self-education and educating others, applied in a hectic environment, to help build and maintain a business. Financial modeling as a practitioner means suffering many interruptions when you want to think quietly, and making many pragmatic compromises dictated by constraints on time and resources. It also means a stimulating and lively environment, using your imagination, avoiding complexity, and always trying to bridge the gap between analysis and intuition (yours and others).

Principles or imagination? Two approaches to global justice.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Coeckelbergh, Mark

2007-01-01

What does it mean to introduce the notion of imagination in the discussion about global justice? What is gained by studying the role of imagination in thinking about global justice? Does a focus on imagination imply that we must replace existing influential principle-centred approaches such as that

Imagining the Future University

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bengtsen, Søren Smedegaard; Barnett, Ronald

'Imagining the Future University' is a special issue in the journal Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education, published by Peter Lang. Editor in Chief of the journal is John Petrovic, University of Alabama. The speciale issue is edited by Søren Bengtsen and Ronald Barnett.......'Imagining the Future University' is a special issue in the journal Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education, published by Peter Lang. Editor in Chief of the journal is John Petrovic, University of Alabama. The speciale issue is edited by Søren Bengtsen and Ronald Barnett....

Imagine A Collective Landscape

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manuela Silvia Campanini

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Iceland plays a key role in the circumpolar context. The research investigates the fields of both the icelandic cultural landscape perception and the icelandic cultural identity. It considers the book Ultima thule; or, a summer in Iceland and Ólafur Elíasson art works as two sides of a same medal: the Iceland on the brain concept (F. Burton. The transition from a cultural identity to a collective landscape identity is investigated analysing Imagine J. Lennon's song which inspired Yõko Ono's work art titled Imagine Peace Tower.

Physics imagination and reality

CERN Document Server

Wallace, Philip Russell

1991-01-01

Physics: Imagination and Reality introduces the reader to major ideas and the conceptual structure of modern physics, by tracing its development from the introduction of fields into physics by Faraday and Maxwell in the last century. Because the approach is historical, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the subjects. It should appeal to anyone interested in a basic understanding of the contemporary physicists view of the physical world. It avoids all but the simplest mathematics and presents ideas and concepts in everyday language.Physics: Imagination and Reality attempts to provide

Paisagens, realidade e imaginário: a percepção do cotidiano

OpenAIRE

Vicente Del Rio

1995-01-01

We shape and realize our daily life through the perception of landscapes, in a merge between reality and imagination. Five research areas of the processes of perception are commented, from therapeutic psicology to the informatization of spatial relations, that may help us in understanding our relationship with the landscape and their representations

Enhancement of suggestibility and imaginative ability with nitrous oxide.

Science.gov (United States)

Whalley, M G; Brooks, G B

2009-05-01

Imaginative suggestibility, a trait closely related to hypnotic suggestibility, is modifiable under some circumstances. Nitrous oxide (laughing gas) is commonly used for sedation in dentistry and is reported to be more effective when combined with appropriate suggestions. The aim of this study was to determine whether nitrous oxide inhalation alters imaginative suggestibility and imagery vividness. Thirty participants were tested twice in a within-subjects design, once during inhalation of 25% nitrous oxide and once during inhalation of air plus oxygen. Before the study, participants' expectancies regarding the effects of nitrous oxide were assessed. Participants were blinded to drug administration. During each session, participants were verbally administered detailed measures of imagination and suggestibility: the Sheehan-Betts Quality of Mental Imagery scale and the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale Form C, minus the hypnotic induction. Imaginative suggestibility and imaginative ability (imagery vividness) were both elevated in the nitrous oxide condition. This effect was unrelated to participants' expectations regarding the effects of the drug. Nitrous oxide increased imaginative suggestibility and imaginative ability. Possible explanations of these findings are discussed with respect to the effects of N-methyl-d-aspartate antagonists and to other pharmacological effects upon suggestibility and imagination.

Are We Alone? The Search for Life in the Universe

Science.gov (United States)

Rothschild, Lynn J.

2017-01-01

Each report of liquid water existing elsewhere in the solar system has reverberated through the international press and excited the imagination of humankind. We have come to realize that where there is liquid water on Earth, virtually no matter what the physical conditions, there is life. Dr. Lynn Rothschild, an evolutionary biologist known for her work on life in extreme environments and a founder of the field of astrobiology, tells us about intriguing new data. The prevalence of potential abodes for life in our solar system and beyond, the survival of microbes in the space environment, modeling of the potential for transfer of life between celestial bodies, and advances in synthetic biology suggest that life could be more common than previously thought. Are we truly alone?

Paisagens, realidade e imaginário: a percepção do cotidiano

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vicente Del Rio

1995-06-01

Full Text Available We shape and realize our daily life through the perception of landscapes, in a merge between reality and imagination. Five research areas of the processes of perception are commented, from therapeutic psicology to the informatization of spatial relations, that may help us in understanding our relationship with the landscape and their representations

Discussion: Imagining the Languaged Worker's Language

Science.gov (United States)

Urciuoli, Bonnie

2016-01-01

What people perceive as "a language"--a named entity--is abstracted from practices and notions about those practices. People take for granted that language is somehow a "thing," an objectively distinct and bounded entity. How languages come to be thus imagined indexes the conditions under which they are imagined. The articles…

Seeing failure in your life: Imagery perspective determines whether self-esteem shapes reactions to recalled and imagined failure.

Science.gov (United States)

Libby, Lisa K; Valenti, Greta; Pfent, Alison; Eibach, Richard P

2011-12-01

The present research reveals that when it comes to recalling and imagining failure in one's life, changing how one looks at the event can change its impact on well-being; however, the nature of the effect depends on an aspect of one's self-concept, namely, self-esteem. Five studies measured or manipulated the visual perspective (internal first-person vs. external third-person) individuals used to mentally image recalled or imagined personal failures. It has been proposed that imagery perspective determines whether people's reactions to an event are shaped bottom-up by concrete features of the event (first-person) or top-down by their self-concept (third-person; L. K. Libby & R. P. Eibach, 2011b). Evidence suggests that differences in the self-concepts of individuals with low and high self-esteem (LSEs and HSEs) are responsible for self-esteem differences in reaction to failure, leading LSEs to have more negative thoughts and feelings about themselves (e.g., M. H. Kernis, J. Brockner, & B. S. Frankel, 1989). Thus, the authors predicted, and found, that low self-esteem was associated with greater overgeneralization--operationalized as negativity in accessible self-knowledge and feelings of shame--only when participants had pictured failure from the third-person perspective and not from the first-person. Further, picturing failure from the third-person, rather than first-person, perspective, increased shame and the negativity of accessible knowledge among LSEs, whereas it decreased shame among HSEs. Results help to distinguish between different theoretical accounts of how imagery perspective functions and have implications for the study of top-down and bottom-up influences on self-judgment and emotion, as well as for the role of perspective and abstraction in coping.

"Minding the gap": imagination, creativity and human cognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Pelaprat, Etienne; Cole, Michael

2011-12-01

Inquiry into the nature of mental images is a major topic in psychology where research is focused on the psychological faculties of imagination and creativity. In this paper, we draw on the work of L.S. Vygotsky to develop a cultural-historical approach to the study of imagination as central to human cognitive processes. We characterize imagination as a process of image making that resolves "gaps" arising from biological and cultural-historical constraints, and that enables ongoing time-space coordination necessary for thought and action. After presenting some basic theoretical considerations, we offer a series of examples to illustrate for the reader the diversity of processes of imagination as image making. Applying our arguments to contemporary digital media, we argue that a cultural-historical approach to image formation is important for understanding how imagination and creativity are distinct, yet inter-penetrating processes.

Imagined Physics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Merritt, Timothy Robert; Nørgaard, M.; Laursen, C.

2015-01-01

to this book focuses on the human responses to objects that change shape in response to input from users, environment, or other circumstances. In this chapter we discuss the term "imagined physics", meaning how actuated devices are in one sense tied to their physical form, yet through the use of actuators...

Imagining the future: evidence for a hippocampal contribution to constructive processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Gaesser, Brendan; Spreng, R Nathan; McLelland, Victoria C; Addis, Donna Rose; Schacter, Daniel L

2013-12-01

Imagining future events and remembering past events rely on a common core network, but several regions within this network--including the hippocampus--show increased activity for imagining future events compared to remembering past events. It remains unclear whether this hippocampal activity reflects processes related to the demands of constructing details retrieved across disparate episodic memories into coherent imaginary events, encoding these events into memory, novelty detection, or some combination of these processes. We manipulated the degree of constructive processing by comparing activity associated with the initial construction of an imagined scenario with the re-construction of an imagined scenario (imagine vs. re-imagine). After accounting for effects of novelty and subsequent memory, we found that a region in the hippocampus was preferentially activated for newly constructed imagined events compared with re-imagined events. Our results suggest that the hippocampus may support several distinct but related processes that are critical for imagining future events, and they also indicate that a particular region within posterior hippocampus may uniquely contribute to the construction of imagined future events. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Progression of Chinese Students' Creative Imagination from Elementary Through High School

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, Fujun; Li, Xiuju; Zhang, Huiliang; Wang, Lihui

2012-09-01

For almost a century, researchers have studied creative imagination, most typically that of children. This article reports on a study of the development of creative imagination of Chinese youths and its relation to the educational environment. Data consisted of 4,162 students from grades 4 through 12. Findings showed that students' creative imagination increased as the grade in school increased from grades 4 through 11, but decreased slightly at grade 12. Students' creative imagination was lower in elementary school than that in middle school. The pace of development was also different in different stages. In different grades, youths used different ways to express their imagination. Students of 'excellent' academic performance had the highest creative imagination, followed by students of 'fairly good', 'medium' and 'poor' academic performance. Student-centred teaching methods were associated with higher creative imagination. Students whose teachers had a more supportive attitude showed better creative imagination. Finally, taking part in science-related competitions and frequently visiting science venues were related to the development of students' creative imagination. Some implications and recommendations for development of students' creative imagination are also proposed.

Material Imagination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Folkmann, Mads Nygaard

2018-01-01

what before was non-existing. Taking a starting point in the Kantian notion of schematization, which can be seen as the ability to construct meaning through synthesis in the process of human imagination, I take two steps in the article. First, I propose how the creation of design solutions can be seen...

Imagine Creating Rubrics that Develop Creativity

Science.gov (United States)

Young, Linda Payne

2009-01-01

English teachers are by nature rather imaginative, a trait that is not taught in a methods class or listed as a disposition in standards for teacher preparation. Whether as part of a learning activity or a "what if" question posed in a literature discussion, imagination and creativity are integral parts of classrooms and their inclusion is as…

Imagined Affordance: Reconstructing a Keyword for Communication Theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Nagy

2015-09-01

Full Text Available In this essay, we reconstruct a keyword for communication—affordance. Affordance, adopted from ecological psychology, is now widely used in technology studies, yet the term lacks a clear definition. This is especially problematic for scholars grappling with how to theorize the relationship between technology and sociality for complex socio-technical systems such as machine-learning algorithms, pervasive computing, the Internet of Things, and other such “smart” innovations. Within technology studies, emerging theories of materiality, affect, and mediation all necessitate a richer and more nuanced definition for affordance than the field currently uses. To solve this, we develop the concept of imagined affordance. Imagined affordances emerge between users’ perceptions, attitudes, and expectations; between the materiality and functionality of technologies; and between the intentions and perceptions of designers. We use imagined affordance to evoke the importance of imagination in affordances—expectations for technology that are not fully realized in conscious, rational knowledge. We also use imagined affordance to distinguish our process-oriented, socio-technical definition of affordance from the “imagined” consensus of the field around a flimsier use of the term. We also use it in order to better capture the importance of mediation, materiality, and affect. We suggest that imagined affordance helps to theorize the duality of materiality and communication technology: namely, that people shape their media environments, perceive them, and have agency within them because of imagined affordances.

'Imagining ourselves': South African music as a vehicle for ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper examines some of the ways in which South African music is involved in the negotiation of white South African identity. In particular, it examines how music may be considered a vehicle for constructing 'imagined communities' and imagined individual others, and how these processes of imagining may serve to ...

Imagining with the body in analytical psychology. Movement as active imagination: an interdisciplinary perspective from philosophy and neuroscience.

Science.gov (United States)

Deligiannis, Ana

2018-04-01

This article explores how the body and imagination operate as pathways of knowledge through the use of Movement as Active Imagination in clinical practice. This method activates the transcendent function, thus encouraging new therapeutic responses. A philosophical perspective (Spinoza, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty) and some concepts from neuroscience (embodied cognition, somatic markers, image schema, mirror neurons, neuronal plasticity) will accompany us throughout this work, illustrated with a clinical vignette. Three levels of integration: 1) body, 2) body-emotion, 3) body-emotion-imagination are proposed: these mark a progressive sense of articulation and complexity. Finally the relation between creativity and neuronal plasticity will be considered. © 2018, The Society of Analytical Psychology.

Episodic and semantic content of memory and imagination: A multilevel analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Devitt, Aleea L; Addis, Donna Rose; Schacter, Daniel L

2017-10-01

Autobiographical memories of past events and imaginations of future scenarios comprise both episodic and semantic content. Correlating the amount of "internal" (episodic) and "external" (semantic) details generated when describing autobiographical events can illuminate the relationship between the processes supporting these constructs. Yet previous studies performing such correlations were limited by aggregating data across all events generated by an individual, potentially obscuring the underlying relationship within the events themselves. In the current article, we reanalyzed datasets from eight studies using a multilevel approach, allowing us to explore the relationship between internal and external details within events. We also examined whether this relationship changes with healthy aging. Our reanalyses demonstrated a largely negative relationship between the internal and external details produced when describing autobiographical memories and future imaginations. This negative relationship was stronger and more consistent for older adults and was evident both in direct and indirect measures of semantic content. Moreover, this relationship appears to be specific to episodic tasks, as no relationship was observed for a nonepisodic picture description task. This negative association suggests that people do not generate semantic information indiscriminately, but do so in a compensatory manner, to embellish episodically impoverished events. Our reanalysis further lends support for dissociable processes underpinning episodic and semantic information generation when remembering and imagining autobiographical events.

The Need for Imagination and Creativity in Instructional Design

Science.gov (United States)

Gibson, Pat

2013-01-01

The purpose of this article is to explore the need for imagination and creativity in adult education instructional design both online and face-to-face. It defines both imagination and creativity as well as provides an overview of the history of instructional design. It provides an examination of imagination and its application in educational…

The Neurobiology of Imagination: Possible Role of Interaction-Dominant Dynamics and Default Mode Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luigi Francesco Agnati

2013-05-01

Full Text Available This work aims at presenting some hypotheses about the potential neurobiological substrate of imagery and imagination. For the present purposes, we will define imagery as the production of mental images associated with previous percepts, and imagination as the faculty of forming mental images of a novel character relating to something that has never been actually experienced by the subject but at a great extent emerges from his inner world.The two processes appear intimately related and imagery can arguably be considered as one of the main components of imagination. In this proposal, we argue that exaptation and redeployment, two basic concepts capturing important aspects of the evolution of biological structures and functions (Anderson 2007, could also be useful in explaining imagery and imagination. As far as imagery is concerned it is proposed that neural structures originally implicated in performing certain functions, e.g. motor actions, can be reused for the imagery of the virtual execution of that function. As far as imagination is concerned we speculate that it can be the result of a tinkering that combines and modifies stored perceptual information and concepts leading to the creation of novel mental objects that are shaped by the subject peculiar inner world. Hence it is related to his self-awareness. The neurobiological substrate of the tinkering process could be found in a hierarchical model of the brain characterized by a multiplicity of functional modules (FMs that can be assembled according to different spatial and temporal scales. Thus, it is surmised that a possible mechanism for the emergence of imagination could be represented by modulatory mechanisms controlling the perviousness of modifiers along the communication channels within and between FMs leading to their dynamically reassembling into novel configurations.

Integrating Project Portfolio With Business Strategy: Imagineering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cesar Buaes Dal Maso

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Aligning project management to the strategy of a big company is a difficult job. Through Imagineering (the business department and project management program, The Walt Disney Company has done this alignment in an exemplary way. Using a theoretical investigation, this study analyzed the Imagineering as a reference in strategic management of global projects through Disney´s business portfolio, a global benchmarking and with Malmberg et al. (2010 as a company guide. As the main results of the correlations carried out, it was noted that the Imagineers who work in project teams apply tools and techniques with a strategic vision focused on differentiation, generating value, and mixing imagination with technical capacity. The Blue Sky department and its integrated units make possible the creation and deployment of the attractions, the theme parks, hotels, resorts and the Disney sea cruises, demonstrating in this way, to be a highly effective project management office.

Relations among Individual Differences in Reproductive Strategies, Sexual Attractiveness, Affective and Punitive Intentions, and Imagined Sexual or Emotional Infidelity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel N. Jones

2007-04-01

Full Text Available We examined relations among Mating Effort, Mate Value, Sex and individuals' self-reported responses to imagined sexual or emotional infidelity. We asked participants to describe the (1 upset or bother (2 aversive emotional reactions (3 punitive impulses, and (4 punitive intentions they experienced in response to imagined sexual or emotional infidelity. The results replicated previously documented sex differences in jealousy. In addition, imagined sexual infidelity upset individuals higher in Mating Effort more than those lower in Mating Effort. Higher Mating Effort also predicted greater temptation, intention, and likelihood to engage in punitive behaviors in response to imagined sexual or emotional infidelity. We discuss these data in light of individual differences in relations between reproductive strategy and romantic jealousy. Additionally, we point to the importance of controlling for co-linearity between reactions to sexual and emotional infidelity, and the need for addressing related methodological problems within jealousy research.

Young children's imagination in science education and education for sustainability

Science.gov (United States)

Caiman, Cecilia; Lundegård, Iann

2017-09-01

This research is concerned with how children's processes of imagination, situated in cultural and social practices, come into play when they invent, anticipate, and explore a problem that is important to them. To enhance our understanding of young children's learning and meaning-making related to science and sustainability, research that investigates children's use of imagination is valuable. The specific aim of this paper is to empirically scrutinize how children's imaginations emerge, develop, and impact their experiences in science. We approach imagination as a situated, open, and unscripted act that emerges within transactions. This empirical study was conducted in a Swedish pre-school, and the data was collected `in between' a science inquiry activity and lunchtime. We gathered specific video-sequences wherein the children, lived through the process of imagination, invented a problem together and produced something new. Our analysis showed that imagination has a great significance when children provide different solutions which may be useful in the future to sustainability-related problems. If the purpose of an educational experience in some way supports children's imaginative flow, then practicing an open, listening approach becomes vital. Thus, by encouraging children to explore their concerns and questions related to sustainability issues more thoroughly without incautious recommendations or suggestions from adults, the process of imagination might flourish.

Theological imagination as hermeneutical device: Exploring the ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In the past, biblical scholarship has neglected the hermeneutical contribution that an imaginal engagement with the text may make. The author's aim in this article was to develop theological imagination as a hermeneutical device. This was done by briefly considering the concurrence in the hermeneutic contributions of three ...

In Search of an Index of Imagination for Virtual Experience Designers

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Chaoyun; Hsu, Yuling; Chang, Chi-Cheng; Lin, Li-Jhong

2013-01-01

Imagination is a gift to humans, and a creative faculty of the mind. Although early studies in the fields of philosophy and psychology appreciated the value of imagination, little work has been done pertaining to indicators of imagination. This study synthesized early works on imagination carried out between 1900 and 2012 to clarify its meaning…

Remembering the past and imagining the future in the elderly

Science.gov (United States)

Schacter, Daniel L.; Gaesser, Brendan; Addis, Donna Rose

2013-01-01

Recent research has demonstrated commonalities between remembering past events and imagining future events. Behavioral studies have revealed that remembering the past and imagining the future depend on shared cognitive processes, whereas neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies have shown that many of the same brain regions are involved in both remembering the past and imagining the future. Here, we review recent cognitive and neuroimaging studies that examine remembering the past and imagining the future in elderly adults. These studies document significant changes in elderly adults’ capacities to imagine future events that are correlated with their memory deficits; most strikingly, older adults tend to remember the past and imagine the future with less episodic detail than younger adults. These findings are in line with the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, which holds that that past and future events draw on similar information and rely on similar underlying processes, and that episodic memory supports the construction of future events by extracting and recombining stored information into a simulation of a novel event. At the same time, however, recent data indicate that non-episodic factors also contribute to age-related changes in remembering the past and imagining the future. We conclude by considering a number questions and challenges concerning the interpretation of age-related changes in remembering and imagining, as well as functional implications of this research for everyday concerns of older adults. PMID:22987157

Imagining the Good Organization: Educational Restructuring in a Coastal Community.

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, Carol E.

2002-01-01

Describes town of Burnt Island, Newfoundland, including its need for imaginative survival; explores the nature of imaginative thought, including benefits to the individual and to society; describes threats to imaginative teaching within town's restructured school; describes characteristics common to the work of Greenfield, Greene, and Habermas…

The sociological imagination in a time of climate change

Science.gov (United States)

Norgaard, Kari Marie

2018-04-01

Despite rising calls for social science knowledge in the face of climate change, too few sociologists have been engaged in the conversations about how we have arrived at such perilous climatic circumstances, or how society can change course. With its attention to the interactive dimensions of social order between individuals, social norms, cultural systems and political economy, the discipline of sociology is uniquely positioned to be an important leader in this conversation. In this paper I suggest that in order to understand and respond to climate change we need two kinds of imagination: 1) to see the relationships between human actions and their impacts on earth's biophysical system (ecological imagination) and 2) to see the relationships within society that make up this environmentally damaging social structure (sociological imagination). The scientific community has made good progress in developing our ecological imagination but still need to develop a sociological imagination. The application of a sociological imagination allows for a powerfully reframing of four key problems in the current interdisciplinary conversation on climate change: why climate change is happening, how we are being impacted, why we have failed to successfully respond so far, and how we might be able to effectively do so. I visit each of these four questions describing the current understanding and show the importance of the sociological imagination and other insights from the field of sociology. I close with reflections on current limitations in sociology's potential to engage climate change and the Anthropocene.

Constructing Memory, Imagination, and Empathy: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

OpenAIRE

Gaesser, Brendan

2013-01-01

Studies on memory, imagination, and empathy have largely progressed in isolation. Consequently, humans’ empathic tendencies to care about and help other people are considered independent of our ability to remember and imagine events. Despite this theoretical autonomy, work from across psychology, and neuroscience suggests that these cognitive abilities may be linked. In the present paper, I tentatively propose that humans’ ability to vividly imagine specific events (as supported by constructi...

Destination memory in Alzheimer's Disease: when I imagine telling Ronald Reagan about Paris.

Science.gov (United States)

El Haj, Mohamad; Postal, Virginie; Allain, Philippe

2013-01-01

Destination memory refers to remembering the destination of information that people output. This present paper establishes a new distinction between external and internal processes within this memory system for both normal aging and Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Young adults, older adults, and mild AD patients were asked either to tell facts (i.e., external destination memory condition) or to imagine telling facts (i.e., internal destination memory condition) to pictures of famous people. The experiment established three major findings. First, the destination memory performance of the AD patients was significantly poorer than that of older adults, which in turn was poorer than that of the young adults. Furthermore, internal destination processes were more prone to being forgotten than external destination memory processes. In other words, participants had more difficulty in remembering whether they had previously imagined telling the facts to the pictures or not (i.e., imagined condition) than in remembering whether they had previously told the facts to the pictures or not (i.e., enacted condition). Second, significant correlations were detected between performances on destination memory and several executive measures such as the Stroop, the Plus-Minus and the Binding tasks. Third, among the executive measures, regression analyses showed that performance on the Stroop task was a main factor in explaining variance in destination memory performance. Our findings reflect the difficulty in remembering the destination of internally generated information. They also demonstrate the involvement of inhibitory processes in destination memory. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

‘Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On’: Encountering Clothes, Imagining Selves

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rosie Findlay

2016-03-01

Full Text Available In a personal essay, Ida Hattemer-Higgins describes the discovery of a decrepit store in Athens brimming with designer deadstock from decades past. The clothes she finds therein are the stuff of dreams for any fashion enthusiast, as is the store itself, a dim, forgotten place where garments are concealed like buried treasure under layers of dust, and where the author herself drifts into a state of semi-consciousness. What Hattemer-Higgins describes is the sensual pleasure of finding beautiful clothes, and the future self that she imagines being when she wears them. This article considers the relationship between the garments we wear and the selves we imagine into them in trying them on, buying them, and wearing them in every day life. These modalities are explored through a phenomenological discussion of dress, with reference to Hattemer-Higgins’s essay as well as my own lived experience of dressing.

Imagination persistence on the vertical axis of Khaghani's odes, a personal style

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seyed Javadi Mortezayi

2016-05-01

Full Text Available AbstractKhaghani is one of the preeminent Persian poets. He is a stylist poet. Creating exquisite, dramatic and enigmatic imaginations in the era that most of the poets tried to imitate, integrate and repeat the themes of predecessors makes his position in the poetry more clear. His poems inspired by his rich talent and his proficiency in various sciences such as medicine, astronomy, philosophy, theology, history and math are one of the most exquisite and beautiful Persian poetries.Understanding his poems seems to be difficult due to his heavy use of these sciences, as well as using specialized and strange wordings and creating out of the mind imaginations.This Shervani poet not only has created so beautiful and exquisite dramatic themes and imaginations on the horizontal axis, but also he has done same in several cases on the vertical axis of the poem. In cases the themes are felt repeated, he has uttered them masterfully and skillfully with so novel and exquisite imaginations that they are not seem repeated and keep their value. One of the most outstanding characteristics of Khaghani's personal style is imagination persistence on vertical axis of the odes.Imagination on two horizontal and vertical axes of the poet usually includes the terms such as congestion, interference and persistence. The congestion of imagination mostly takes place on the horizontal axis of the poem and resulted by involving several independence imaginations in a verse of the poem and usually leads to compression of imaginations and their interference and disparity.Poets often use congestion to demonstrate their talent and power in Poetry, while in most of the cases it has no result except for imaginations' interference and that it causes some problems for reader to reach what poet means. But, persistence means to bring several imaginations about an object, a word or a motive in several verses which indicate the talent and imagining power of the poet and his emotional

Imagine the Feeling: An Aesthetic Science of Psychology.

Science.gov (United States)

Quigua, Fernando; Clegg, Joshua W

2015-09-01

We claim that static trait models have dominated contemporary personality psychology but fail to reflect adequately the persons they depict. Beginning from, but moving well beyond, this critique of the five factor model (and the personality psychology field over which it reigns), we shine an aesthetic and critical light on psychology's wider failings. We review the linguistic and methodological features that have undermined the discipline's faithful understandings of human beings and their experience. In its place, we champion an aesthetic (as opposed to an an-esthetic) science of the person, one that is responsive in spirit and in practice to the emotional and imaginative life of participants and to the contexts in which they move. Specifically, we suggest that the images of fantasy and of ordinary metaphor may afford poetic understandings of participant experience that surpass those produced by literal, discursive description. We also hold that these images may offer us the most sensitive and faithful expressions of how social and environmental contexts-and so-called structural and discursive realities-are felt. The paper concludes by sketching several methodological trajectories that may stimulate researcher imagination and empathy, making research more faithful to participants and the reaches of their experience. Research practices informed by feeling and image in this way may generate new knowledge as well as new obligations.

Irish Sea Marine Aggregate Initiative (IMAGIN) Technical Synthesis Report

OpenAIRE

Sutton, G.

2008-01-01

The Irish Sea Marine Aggregates Initiative (IMAGIN) is a collaborative project between Ireland and Wales focused on the sustainable management of marine aggregate resources. IMAGIN was a 2-year project with a total budget of €1.1 million. IMAGIN was part funded (66%) under the Ireland/Wales Inter Regional (INTERREG) IIIA Community Initiative Programme 2000-2006. The remaining project budget was met by contributions from partner organisations (19%) and aggregate companies – CEMEX, Lagan Ltd., ...

Film showing - Higgs: into the heart of imagination

CERN Multimedia

CERN Bulletin

2010-01-01

On 29 April at 7pm Dutch filmmakers, Hannie van den Bergh and Jan van den Berg, will introduce their directorial debut, Higgs: into the heart of imagination in CERN’s Main Auditorium.   This documentary is about the curiousity, passion and imaginative powers of science. Featuring physicists working at CERN, in particular in ATLAS, and filmed over four years, the film-makers have created a cinematic journey into the heart of imagination. They follow Stan Bentvelsen, head of the Dutch research group at CERN, and watch as he prepares his team for the start of the LHC, as well as the scientific competition to find the elusive Higgs particle. The film also features Peter Higgs as he discusses his work from 1964. The directors have created theatre productions and other multimedia projects under the title The Imagination of Invisible Dimensions, which allow for adventurous dialogues between art and science. All are welcome to attend this showing and afterwards there will be a short question...

Opposite patterns of change in perception of imagined and physically induced pain over the course of repeated thermal stimulations.

Science.gov (United States)

Gács, B; Szolcsányi, T; Csathó, Á

2017-08-01

Individuals frequently show habituation to repeated noxious heat. However, given the defensive function of human pain processing, it is reasonable to assume that individuals anticipate that they would become increasingly sensitive to repeated thermal pain stimuli. No previous studies have, however, been addressed to this assumption. Therefore, in the current study, we investigated how healthy human individuals imagine the intensity of repeated thermal pain stimulations, and compared this with the intensity ratings given after physically induced thermal pain trials. Healthy participants (N = 20) gave pain intensity ratings in two conditions: imagined and real thermal pain. In the real pain condition, thermal pain stimuli of two intensities (minimal and moderate pain) were delivered in four consecutive trials. The duration of the peak temperature was 20 s, and stimulation was always delivered to the same location. In each trial, participants rated the pain intensity twice, 5 and 15 s after the onset of the peak temperature. In the imagined pain condition, participants were subjected to a reference pain stimulus and then asked to imagine and rate the same sequence of stimulations as in the induced pain condition. Ratings of imagined pain and physically induced pain followed opposite courses over repeated stimulations: Ratings of imagined pain indicated sensitization, whereas ratings for physically induced pain indicated habituation. The findings were similar for minimal and moderate pain intensities. The findings suggest that, rather than habituating to pain, healthy individuals imagine that they would become increasingly sensitive to repeated thermal pain stimuli. This study identified opposite patterns of change in perception of imagined pain (sensitization) and physically induced pain (habituation). The findings show that individuals anticipate that they would become increasingly sensitive to repeated pain stimuli, which might also have clinical implications. �

Translator’s inferential excursions, with imagination in the background

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bożena Tokarz

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In a literary work, signals that trigger reader’s inferential excursions allow the reader’s imagination to identify with and control the represented world. They constitute an important element of sense-generating mechanism. Thanks to imagination, the translator imitates the inferential mechanism of the original on various level’s of the text’s structure, activating the imagination of the reader. The translator’s imagination is bi- or multivalent in having the linguistic-semiotic, literary, and cultural quality. Although it manifests itself in language, it goes beyond the boundaries of language. Imagination is a form of consciousness which has no object of its own, and a medium connecting a specific non-imaginary knowledge with representations. It constitutes a mind faculty shaped on the basis of sensory and mental perception. It is derived from individual principles of perception and cognition data processing. It usually requires a stymulus to activate the capabilities of the imagining subject. As a mind faculty, imagination is based on the mental capability common to all people, which is the ability to create chains of associations.Translator’s respect for inferential excursions in the original text is necessary for retaining the original meaning, regardless of whether they occur on the phonetic-phonological level (as in Ionesco’s The Chairs, or on the level of image-semantic and syntactic relations (as in translation of Apollinaire’s Zone, or on the level of syntax (as in translation of Mrożek’s short stories into Slovenian, or on the level of cultural communication (as in Slovenian translation of Gombrowicz’s Trans-Atlantic.

Is Moving More Memorable than Proving? Effects of Embodiment and Imagined Enactment on Verb Memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Sidhu, David M; Pexman, Penny M

2016-01-01

Theories of embodied cognition propose that sensorimotor information is simulated during language processing (e.g., Barsalou, 1999). Previous studies have demonstrated that differences in simulation can have implications for word processing; for instance, lexical processing is facilitated for verbs that have relatively more embodied meanings (e.g., Sidhu et al., 2014). Here we examined the effects of these differences on memory for verbs. We observed higher rates of recognition (Experiments 1a-2a) and recall accuracy (Experiments 2b-3b) for verbs with a greater amount of associated bodily information (i.e., an embodiment effect). We also examined how this interacted with the imagined enactment effect: a memory benefit for actions that one imagines performing (e.g., Ditman et al., 2010). We found that these two effects did not interact (Experiment 3b), suggesting that the memory benefits of automatic simulation (i.e., the embodiment effect) and deliberate simulation (i.e., the imagined enactment effect) are distinct. These results provide evidence for the role of simulation in language processing, and its effects on memory.

Experiments on Classification of Electroencephalography (EEG Signals in Imagination of Direction using Stacked Autoencoder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kenta Tomonaga

2017-08-01

Full Text Available This paper presents classification methods for electroencephalography (EEG signals in imagination of direction measured by a portable EEG headset. In the authorsr previous studies, principal component analysis extracted significant features from EEG signals to construct neural network classifiers. To improve the performance, the authors have implemented a Stacked Autoencoder (SAE for the classification. The SAE carries out feature extraction and classification in a form of multi-layered neural network. Experimental results showed that the SAE outperformed the previous classifiers.

Imaging cell competition in Drosophila imaginal discs.

Science.gov (United States)

Ohsawa, Shizue; Sugimura, Kaoru; Takino, Kyoko; Igaki, Tatsushi

2012-01-01

Cell competition is a process in which cells with higher fitness ("winners") survive and proliferate at the expense of less fit neighbors ("losers"). It has been suggested that cell competition is involved in a variety of biological processes such as organ size control, tissue homeostasis, cancer progression, and the maintenance of stem cell population. By advent of a genetic mosaic technique, which enables to generate fluorescently marked somatic clones in Drosophila imaginal discs, recent studies have presented some aspects of molecular mechanisms underlying cell competition. Now, with a live-imaging technique using ex vivo-cultured imaginal discs, we can dissect the spatiotemporal nature of competitive cell behaviors within multicellular communities. Here, we describe procedures and tips for live imaging of cell competition in Drosophila imaginal discs. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

winged eye Induces Transdetermination of Drosophila Imaginal Disc by Acting in Concert with a Histone Methyltransferase, Su(var)3-9

OpenAIRE

Keita Masuko; Naoyuki Fuse; Kanae Komaba; Tomonori Katsuyama; Rumi Nakajima; Hirofumi Furuhashi; Shoichiro Kurata

2018-01-01

Summary: Drosophila imaginal disc cells exhibit a remarkable ability to convert cell fates in response to various perturbations, a phenomenon called transdetermination (TD). We previously identified winged eye (wge) as a factor that induces eye-to-wing TD upon overexpression in eye imaginal discs, but the molecular mechanisms underlying TD have remained largely unclear. Here, we found that wge induces various histone modifications and enhances the methylation of Lys9 on histone H3 (H3K9), a f...

Evidence for the Self as an Imaginal Prototype.

Science.gov (United States)

Yarmey, A. Daniel; Johnson, Julia

1982-01-01

Investigated a set of photographs taken of each subject and self-rated for extent to which each resembled their imagined prototype of "real-self." The findings support the hypothesis of the availability of a memory image schema--the self functions as a cognitive prototype with imaginal and verbal characteristics. (Author/RC)

Imagined Transcultural Histories and Geographies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bronwyn Winter

2012-11-01

Full Text Available In a globalised world, an assumption prevails that the nation has somehow lost its power to regulate our lives, being undermined by other forces, either top-down through the impact of global capitalism or bottom-up through migrations, transnational religious, ethnic or social movement communities or other transversal politics. A related idea is that ‘culture’ is now irrevocably hybridised and border-zoned, that we no longer live in a world of discrete, located, identifiable and historically grounded cultures but in some unstable and for-the-moment insterstitiality, a sort of cultural interlanguage that sits outside well-mapped structures of power. Yet, just as the nation and the boundaries it sets around culture are being conceptually chased from our maps of the world, they come galloping back to reassert themselves. They do so politically, economically, legally, symbolically. Amidst all the noise of our transnationalisms, hybridities and interstitialities, the idea of what it is to be ‘Australian’ or ‘French’ or ‘Filipino’ or ‘Asian’ reaffirms itself, in mental geographies and constructed histories, as our ‘imagined community’ (to use Benedict Anderson’s famous term [Anderson 1983], or indeed, ‘imagined Other’, even if it is an imagined ‘Other’ that we would somehow wish to incorporate into our newly hybridised Self. Using the notion of transcultural mappings, the articles in this special issue investigate this apparent paradox. They look at how the Self and Other have been mapped through imagined links between geography, history and cultural location. They interrogate the tension between the persistence of mappings of the world based on discrete national or cultural identities on one hand, and, on the other hand, the push to move beyond these carefully guarded borders and problematise precise notions of identity and belonging.

Using imagination to understand the neural basis of episodic memory

Science.gov (United States)

Hassabis, Demis; Kumaran, Dharshan; Maguire, Eleanor A.

2008-01-01

Functional MRI (fMRI) studies investigating the neural basis of episodic memory recall, and the related task of thinking about plausible personal future events, have revealed a consistent network of associated brain regions. Surprisingly little, however, is understood about the contributions individual brain areas make to the overall recollective experience. In order to examine this, we employed a novel fMRI paradigm where subjects had to imagine fictitious experiences. In contrast to future thinking, this results in experiences that are not explicitly temporal in nature or as reliant on self-processing. By using previously imagined fictitious experiences as a comparison for episodic memories, we identified the neural basis of a key process engaged in common, namely scene construction, involving the generation, maintenance and visualisation of complex spatial contexts. This was associated with activations in a distributed network, including hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and retrosplenial cortex. Importantly, we disambiguated these common effects from episodic memory-specific responses in anterior medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus. These latter regions may support self-schema and familiarity processes, and contribute to the brain's ability to distinguish real from imaginary memories. We conclude that scene construction constitutes a common process underlying episodic memory and imagination of fictitious experiences, and suggest it may partially account for the similar brain networks implicated in navigation, episodic future thinking, and the default mode. We suggest that further brain regions are co-opted into this core network in a task-specific manner to support functions such as episodic memory that may have additional requirements. PMID:18160644

Imaginative Experience: A Narrative-Dialogic Ethnography of the Community Who Adores Its Idol

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eka Ardianto

2007-09-01

Full Text Available Managing customer loyalty becomes an important activity in marketing management. One of the reasons is that loyal consumers tend to make good financial performances to producer. Unfortunately, gaining a loyal customer is not a trivial activity since there are gaps to understand consumer experience comprehensively. To fulfill the gaps, this article explores imaginative experience of the community who adores its idol in the light of cultural perspective. The members of the community who adores its idol experience the imaginative experience. The author argues that those phenomena are cultural perspective, because they are meaningful to the members. Through narrative-dialogic ethnography, the author builds the concept of imaginative experience that through the imaginative media, the members do narrative-dialogic between “the realm of areal” and “the realm of afotik” then activate the imaginative relations in “the realm of aktinik”. Every member constructs its imaginative relations into imaginative constructions formed in a personal story. Managing imaginative experience could benefit the company. It can be the “Imaginative Experience Management” (IEM that accommodates imaginative consumers’ experiences with the company’s products deeply and sustainably through managing the story of its consumers’ imaginative experiences. It can also be linked to the customer loyalty programs. In this matter, IEM should be integrated with brand management.

Sex differences in components of imagined perspective transformation.

Science.gov (United States)

Gardner, Mark R; Sorhus, Ingrid; Edmonds, Caroline J; Potts, Rosalind

2012-05-01

Little research to date has examined whether sex differences in spatial ability extend to the mental self rotation involved in taking on a third party perspective. This question was addressed in the present study by assessing components of imagined perspective transformations in twenty men and twenty women. Participants made speeded left-right judgements about the hand in which an object was held by front- and back- facing schematic human figures in an "own body transformation task." Response times were longer when the figure did not share the same spatial orientation as the participant, and were substantially longer than those made for a control task requiring left-right judgements about the same stimuli from the participant's own point of view. A sex difference in imagined perspective transformation favouring males was found to be restricted to the speed of imagined self rotation, and was not observed for components indexing readiness to take a third party point of view, nor in left-right confusion. These findings indicate that the range of spatial abilities for which a sex difference has been established should be extended to include imagined perspective transformations. They also suggest that imagined perspective transformations may not draw upon those empathic social-emotional perspective taking processes for which females show an advantage. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Teaching the Handicapped Imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Sloane, Sarah

1983-01-01

The article describes exercises in drama and creative writing to broaden the imaginations of visually handicapped children through stories and poems with a nonvisual imagery. Examples of stories and poems written specifically for the visually handicapped are included. (Author/CL)

Imagining Garage Start-Ups: Interactive Effects of Imaginative Capacities on Entrepreneurial Intention

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Chi-Cheng; Yao, Shu-Nung; Chen, Shi-An; King, Jung-Tai; Liang, Chaoyun

2016-01-01

This article describes a structural examination of the interaction among different imaginative capacities and the entrepreneurial intention of electrical and computer engineering students. Two studies were combined to confirm the factor structure of survey items and test the hypothesised interaction model. The results indicated that imaginative…

Gershwin, Imagination and the Present Day Culture: Art Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adelaida Berchi Petrancu

2016-08-01

Full Text Available In this paper, I analyzed George Gershwin’s musical works and the role of imagination in his musical compositions. In his case, imagination is a new product of his mind. This is in accordance with his interests, purposes and cultural backgrounds. Efforts to appreciate his works should be done in classical terms rather than using some new criteria. Failure to follow these criteria could culminate to relativism, as a result of the decreased role of imagination in today’s art. This bias may lead to imitation.

When imagining future wealth influences risky decision making

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adam Eric Greenberg

2013-05-01

Full Text Available The body of literature on the relationship between risk aversion and wealth is extensive. However, little attention has been given to examining how future realizations of wealth might affect (current risk decisions. Using paired lottery choice experiments and exposing subjects experimentally to imagined future wealth frames, I find that individuals are more risk-seeking if they are asked to imagine that they will be wealthy in the future. Yet I find that individuals are not significantly more risk-averse if they are asked to imagine that they will be poor in the future. I discuss theoretical and policy implications of these findings, including why savings rates are so low in the United States.

Study of ultrasonic imagine of spleen in patients with leukemia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zheng Hui; Zhou Chunyan; Jiang Ju; Luo Liying; Huang Yanhong

2011-01-01

To investigate spleen ultrasonic imagine in patients with leukemia and to provide basis information for preventing and treat disease,the spleens imaging of 158 patients with leukemia were detected by B mode ultrasonicgraphy and the data of clinical medical examination were analyzed.The results showed that the spleens' ultrasonic imagine of patients with leukemia were not related to the degree of anemia.The ultrasonic imagines of spleen in patients with chronic leukemia were different to the other kinds of leukemia.The ultrasonic imagine of spleens in leukemia patients are related to types and development of leukemia.The B-ultrasound screening should be used to help clinical diagnosis and treatment of patients with leukemia. (authors)

Mentally walking through doorways causes forgetting: The location updating effect and imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Lawrence, Zachary; Peterson, Daniel

2016-01-01

Researchers have documented an intriguing phenomenon whereby simply walking through a doorway causes forgetting (the location updating effect). The Event Horizon Model is the most commonly cited theory to explain these data. Importantly, this model explains the effect without invoking the importance or reliance upon perceptual information (i.e., seeing oneself pass through the doorway). This generates the intriguing hypothesis that the effect may be demonstrated in participants who simply imagine walking through a doorway. Across two experiments, we explicitly test this hypothesis. Participants familiarised themselves with both real (Experiment 1) and virtual (Experiment 2) environments which served as the setting for their mental walk. They were then provided with an image to remember and were instructed to imagine themselves walking through the previously presented space. In both experiments, when the mental walk required participants to pass through a doorway, more forgetting occurred, consistent with the predictions laid out in the Event Horizon Model.

Imaginal action: towards a Jungian conception of enactment, and an extraverted counterpart to active imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Robin S

2018-04-01

This theoretical paper considers the fashion in which Jung's psychology radically challenges modern assumptions concerning the nature of subjectivity. With an eye for the clinical implications of Jung's late work, the author introduces the idea of imaginal action. In order to explain what is meant by this, the paper begins by exploring how Jung's thinking demonstrates an underlying bias towards introversion. It is argued that while Jung's interest in synchronicity ultimately resulted in his developing a worldview that might address the introverted biases of his psychology, the clinical implications of this shift have not been sufficiently clarified. With reference to some short examples from experience, the author outlines a conception of relational synchronicity wherein the intrapsychic emerges non-projectively within the interpersonal field itself. Comparing and contrasting these occurrences to the more introverted practice of active imagination, it is claimed that such a notion is implicit in Jung's work and is needed as a corrective to his emphasis on interiority. The author suggests that imaginal action might be conceived as a distinctly Jungian approach to the psychoanalytic notion of enactment. It is also shown how the idea outlined might find further support from recent developments in the field of transpersonal psychology. © 2018, The Society of Analytical Psychology.

Self-imagining enhances recognition memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage.

Science.gov (United States)

Grilli, Matthew D; Glisky, Elizabeth L

2010-11-01

The ability to imagine an elaborative event from a personal perspective relies on several cognitive processes that may potentially enhance subsequent memory for the event, including visual imagery, semantic elaboration, emotional processing, and self-referential processing. In an effort to find a novel strategy for enhancing memory in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage, we investigated the mnemonic benefit of a method we refer to as self-imagining-the imagining of an event from a realistic, personal perspective. Fourteen individuals with neurologically based memory deficits and 14 healthy control participants intentionally encoded neutral and emotional sentences under three instructions: structural-baseline processing, semantic processing, and self-imagining. Findings revealed a robust "self-imagination effect (SIE)," as self-imagination enhanced recognition memory relative to deep semantic elaboration in both memory-impaired individuals, F(1, 13) = 32.11, p memory disorder nor were they related to self-reported vividness of visual imagery, semantic processing, or emotional content of the materials. The findings suggest that the SIE may depend on unique mnemonic mechanisms possibly related to self-referential processing and that imagining an event from a personal perspective makes that event particularly memorable even for those individuals with severe memory deficits. Self-imagining may thus provide an effective rehabilitation strategy for individuals with memory impairment.

Imagining other people’s experiences in a person with impaired episodic memory: the role of personal familiarity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jennifer S. Rabin

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Difficulties remembering one’s own experiences via episodic memory may affect the ability to imagine other people’s experiences during theory of mind (ToM. Previous work shows that the same set of brain regions recruited during tests of episodic memory and future imagining are also engaged during standard laboratory tests of ToM. However, hippocampal amnesic patients who show deficits in past and future thinking, show intact performance on ToM tests, which involve unknown people or fictional characters. Here we present data from a developmental amnesic person (H.C. and a group of demographically matched controls, who were tested on a naturalistic test of ToM that involved imagining other people’s experiences in response to photos of personally familiar others (‘pToM’ condition and unfamiliar others (‘ToM’ condition. We also included a condition that involved recollecting past experiences in response to personal photos (‘EM’ condition. Narratives were scored using an adapted autobiographical interview scoring procedure. Due to the visually rich stimuli, internal details were further classified as either descriptive (i.e., details that describe the visual content depicted in the photo or elaborative (i.e., details that go beyond what is visually depicted in the photo. Relative to controls, H.C. generated significantly fewer elaborative details in response to the pToM and EM photos and an equivalent number of elaborative details in response to the ToM photos. These data converge with previous neuroimaging results showing that the brain regions underlying pToM and episodic memory overlap to a greater extent than those supporting ToM. Taken together, these results suggest that detailed episodic representations supported by the hippocampus may be pivotal for imagining the experiences of personally familiar, but not unfamiliar, others.

Ethical Imagination in Peace Studies: Beyond the Seville Statement.

Science.gov (United States)

Rivage-Seul, M.

1989-01-01

Asks reader to look beyond Seville Statement, Social Darwinism, and utopian ideals and come to understand ethical imagination more fully as it relates to peace studies. Examines Seville Statement and its opposition to Social Darwinism. Explains how ethical imagination serves to provide radical alternative to biological determinism. (Author/NB)

IMAGINE: Interstellar MAGnetic field INference Engine

Science.gov (United States)

Steininger, Theo

2018-03-01

IMAGINE (Interstellar MAGnetic field INference Engine) performs inference on generic parametric models of the Galaxy. The modular open source framework uses highly optimized tools and technology such as the MultiNest sampler (ascl:1109.006) and the information field theory framework NIFTy (ascl:1302.013) to create an instance of the Milky Way based on a set of parameters for physical observables, using Bayesian statistics to judge the mismatch between measured data and model prediction. The flexibility of the IMAGINE framework allows for simple refitting for newly available data sets and makes state-of-the-art Bayesian methods easily accessible particularly for random components of the Galactic magnetic field.

Drawing Links between the Autism Cognitive Profile and Imagination: Executive Function and Processing Bias in Imaginative Drawings by Children with and without Autism

Science.gov (United States)

Ten Eycke, Kayla D.; Müller, Ulrich

2018-01-01

Little is known about the relation between cognitive processes and imagination and whether this relation differs between neurotypically developing children and children with autism. To address this issue, we administered a cognitive task battery and Karmiloff-Smith's drawing task, which requires children to draw imaginative people and houses. For…

Imagination, Waldorf, and critical literacies: Possibilities for transformative education in mainstream schools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Monica Shank

2016-07-01

Full Text Available In the face of transmission-oriented national curricula, this study explores possibilities for claiming space for imagination, as ‘the most powerful and energetic of learning tools’ (Egan 1986, in early childhood education in mainstream Kenyan schools. Drawing from Egan’s work on imagination and Cummins’ Nested Pedagogical Orientations framework, this study interrogates the indispensable role of imagination in transformative education, as well as its utility in the ‘transmission’ of the government curriculum. This study draws insights from an initiative integrating imaginative, Waldorf-inspired pedagogies into mainstream pre-primary and early primary classrooms to explore how imagination-based pedagogies, including storytelling, creative play, poems and verses, drawing and painting, can support the development of critical literacies in young children.

Imagination and Modern Audio Visual Form

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Đurković

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Through three episodes Archetype of modern fairy tales, the mysterious world of fantasy and reality,tell as a serious story about archetypes, symbols, knowledge of good and evil. Rts editor: Natasa Neskovic Written and directed by: Suncica Jergovic Editing: Ana Djurkovic How to illuminate concept of phantasy and affective factors in our imagination a priori something so imaginary, by their genetic provenance, such as a movie scene, or digital picture and sound. You can not always avoid the association to a valid phrase of arnhajm’s truth: mass age -massage: the medium is the message. In elementary and tersely definition of „the shot“ from Plaževsky film language there is term for „le cadre“, however these are selected bits of reality, immanent frame that contains the individual act of images divided of the continent’s view of reality, handling the specific code of semantic value, when its’s imaginative, of course, by aesthetic categories and evaluations. In this type of positive simulacrum, it can not be better segment for the current thinking about the limits of imagination and truth in contemporary media, and contemporary global environment, than the original audio-visual forms through whose prism we search throught a fairy tale in a same time myth and imagination as well as exploring its overall impact on the personality. Everything can be a fairy tale, even false, amoral platitudes politicized by political lobbies in a contemporary existing power sistems, but this is no fairy tale authenticity in it, or creative act, nor humanity and artificial and historical entity of a man that is always present in the ethical effort of a true artist. So, we are investigating the conditions of creative images, modalities of audiovisual media in film language,and it is the archetype of the fairy tale, which, with its psychodynamics still exists and which is removed when the modern man is tired of lies and simulations during his global

Life-history traits in an evergreen Mediterranean oak respond differentially to previous experimental environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. M. Rey Benayas

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Living organisms respond both to current and previous environments, which can have important consequences on population dynamics. However, there is little experimental evidence based on long-term field studies of the effects of previous environments on the performance of individuals. We tested the hypothesis that trees that establish under different environmental conditions perform differently under similar post-establishment conditions. We used the slow-growing, evergreen Mediterranean oak Quercus ilex subsp. rotundifolia as target species. We analyzed the effects of previous environments, competition effects and tradeoffs among life-history traits (survival, growth, and reproduction. We enhanced seedling establishment for three years by reducing abiotic environmental harshness by means of summer irrigation and artificial shading in 12 experimental plots, while four plots remained as controls. Then these treatments were interrupted for ten years. Seedlings under ameliorated environmental conditions survived and grew faster during early establishment. During the post-management period, previous treatments 1 did not have any effect on survival, 2 experienced a slower above-ground growth, 3 decreased root biomass as indicated from reflectivity of Ground Penetration Radar, 4 increased acorn production mostly through a greater canopy volume and 5 increased acorn production effort. The trees exhibited a combination of effects related to acclimation for coping with abiotic stress and effects of intra-specific competition. In accordance with our hypothesis, tree performance overall depended on previous environmental conditions, and the response was different for different life-history traits. We recommend early management because it increased plot cover, shortened the time to attain sexual maturity and increased the amount of acorn production. Plots such as those assessed in this study may act as sources of propagules in deforested

Using the Sociological Imagination to Teach about Academic Integrity

Science.gov (United States)

Nell Trautner, Mary; Borland, Elizabeth

2013-01-01

The sociological imagination is a useful tool for teaching about plagiarism and academic integrity, and, in turn, academic integrity is a good case to help students learn about the sociological imagination. ?We present an exercise in which the class discusses reasons for and consequences of dishonest academic behavior and then examines a series of…

Imagination in radiotherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pourrez, A.; Truc, G.; Santona, M.; Crehange, G.; Peignaux, K.; Martin, E.; Maingon, P.

2010-01-01

Based on a questionnaire given to the patients of a radiotherapy department and to the personnel of a centre of struggle against cancer, the study aimed at revealing imagination and representations about such an advanced medical technology, radio-physics and radioactivity. The patients and personnel were asked to answer the questionnaire with free words, images, or by expressing their own intimate or cultural visions of this environment. Implications on patients' anguish are foreseen. Short communication

Active-imaginal exposure: examination of a new behavioral treatment for cynophobia (dog phobia)

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rentz, T.O.; Powers, M.B.; Smits, J.A.J.; Cougle, J.R.; Telch, M.J.

2003-01-01

The aims of this study were to investigate exposure-based treatments for cynophobia (dog phobia) and to test a newly developed hybrid imaginal exposure treatment that we have named active imaginal exposure. The treatment introduces an in vivo coping component to imaginal exposure whereby the patient

Triumph & Commemoration: Collective Imagination and the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Controversy

OpenAIRE

Powell, Julie M.

2013-01-01

This study reassesses the meaning of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ controversy of 2010 through the lens of urban sociology and collective imagination. It utilizes the imaginative fruits of civic forums, such as “Imagine NY” and “Listening to the City,” to determine New Yorkers’ collective vision for the rehabilitation of Ground Zero and Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11. Articulated as a clarion call for the manifestation of commemoration and triumph over terrorism in the New York cityscape...

Imaginative methodologies in the social sciences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Imaginative Methodologies develops, expands and challenges conventional social scientific methodology and language by way of literary, poetic and other alternative sources of inspiration. Sociologists, social workers, anthropologists, criminologists and psychologists all try to rethink, provoke...... and reignite social scientific methodology. Imaginative Methodologies challenges the mainstream social science methodological orthodoxy closely guarding the boundaries between the social sciences and the arts and humanities, pointing out that authors and artists are often engaged in projects parallel to those...... of the social sciences and vice versa, and that artistic and cultural productions today do not constitute a specialist field, but are integral to our social reality. The book will be of interest to scholars and students in the social sciences and across the arts and humanities working with questions...

`A novel, spicy delicacy': tamales, advertising, and late 19th-century imaginative geographies of Mexico

OpenAIRE

Monrreal , Sahar

2008-01-01

Abstract This article explores how the tamale entered the national market as a mass-produced foodstuff at the end of 19th century. Closely reading advertising images, the article examines how the Armour Packing Company placed their chicken tamale in relation to imaginative geographies of Mexico from this era. Through tracing the symbolic transformations of the tamale from its existence in the street life of the late 19th century US to the nation-wide advertising campaign initiated ...

Imagination in Japanese Educational Experiments.

Science.gov (United States)

Dorner, Robert; Kowalski, Ludwik

1992-01-01

In the K. Ikatura method used in Japan, an instructor describes an experiment with a number of possible outcomes. Students record and discuss their predictions; the experiment is performed and the results analyzed. This method creates constructive cognitive conflict and provides structure for imagination. (SK)

Imagining Other Lives | Mackenzie | Philosophical Papers

African Journals Online (AJOL)

collaborative' models of democratic deliberation procedures need to be supplemented by 'internal-reflective' deliberation. The exercise of the moral imagination plays a central role in Goodin's account of 'democratic deliberation within'.

American television fiction transforming Danish teenagers' religious imaginations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Line Nybro

2010-01-01

This paper argues that American television fiction with supernatural themes offers Danish teenage audiences a playground for exploring different religious imaginations in a continuous process of internal negotiations; thereby transforming their imaginations. This process of the mediatization...... narratives. This essay presents the findings of an empirical qualitative study of seventy-two Danish teenagers and considers two primary parameters for the case-based reception study: the teenagers' levels of fandom and their connection with institutionalized religion. In other words, how are religious...

winged eye Induces Transdetermination of Drosophila Imaginal Disc by Acting in Concert with a Histone Methyltransferase, Su(var3-9

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keita Masuko

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Summary: Drosophila imaginal disc cells exhibit a remarkable ability to convert cell fates in response to various perturbations, a phenomenon called transdetermination (TD. We previously identified winged eye (wge as a factor that induces eye-to-wing TD upon overexpression in eye imaginal discs, but the molecular mechanisms underlying TD have remained largely unclear. Here, we found that wge induces various histone modifications and enhances the methylation of Lys9 on histone H3 (H3K9, a feature of heterochromatin. A histone methyltransferase, Su(var3-9, is required for wge-mediated H3K9 methylation and eye-to-wing TD. Su(var3-9 is also required for classical wound-induced TD but not for normal development, suggesting its involvement in several types of imaginal disc TDs. Transcriptome analysis revealed that wge represses eye identity genes independently of Su(var3-9 and activates TD-related genes by acting together with Su(var3-9. These findings provide new insights into diverse types of chromatin regulation at progressive steps of cell-fate conversions. : Drosophila imaginal discs switch disc identity by a process known as transdetermination. Masuko et al. demonstrate that expression of the winged eye gene induces transdetermination through histone modifications such as H3K9-methylation. winged eye regulates expression of transdetermination-related genes via a histone methyltransferase, Su(var3-9. Keywords: Drosophila, imaginal disc, transdetermination, heterochromatin, cell fate, winged eye, reprogramming, Su(var3-9

Postmodern imaginative constructivism for STSE understanding

Science.gov (United States)

Robertson, Christian

The influences of science and technology on society and the environment (STSE) have been an integral component of the formal educational curricula for four decades, and yet industrialized countries frequently struggle to balance the benefits of science and technology with the social justice and environmental issues inherent to contemporary society. Canadian citizens often fail to connect scientific and technological understandings with the subtle and yet ubiquitous personal, political, cultural, environmental, and social consequences that result from these understandings. This phenomenological research will explore potential discourses of control within education and society that may preclude authentic, contextual, and meaningful understandings of science and technology relative to their significant consequences, and an imaginative adaptation of Egan's Ironic Understanding and McGinn's Foreground and Background Dimensions to imaginatively express an awareness of postmodern STSE understandings. This research is designed to explore student understandings of how the diverse and complex influences of science and technology affect students through postmodern, imaginative, and constructivist photography. Participants demonstrated a limited Ironic Understanding of STSE, a critical awareness of specific modernist influences, increased personal and affective connections to science and technology, and an awareness of the duality of STSE. Participants' photographic artifacts can be utilized to inform teaching and learning strategies in order to purposefully craft curriculum and lesson plan design for personalized and engaging learning opportunities that incorporate students' awareness of STSE.

Imagining Technicities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liboriussen, Bjarke; Plesner, Ursula

2011-01-01

to the elements of taste and skill. In the final analysis those references were synthesized as five imagined technicities: the architect, the engineer, the client, the Chinese, and the Virtual World native. Because technicities are often assumed and rarely discussed as actants who influence practice, their role......, this article focuses on innovative uses of virtual worlds in architecture. We interviewed architects, industrial designers and other practitioners. Conceptually supported by an understanding of technicity found in Cultural Studies, the interviews were then coded with a focus on interviewees’ references...... in cooperation and development of ICTs seems to pass unnoticed. However, since they are aligned into ICTs, technicities impact innovation....

Remapping Capricornia: Xavier Herbert’s Cosmopolitan Imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ellen Smith

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Since its publication in 1938 critics have generally read Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia as a nationalist novel, even when its nationalism is seen to be structured by contradiction. But little attention has been given to the ways in which Herbert’s complex, multifarious and heteroglossic novel exceeds and challenges the very possibility of coherent national space and a coherent national story. This essay considers moments and spaces in Herbert’s novel where the national is displaced and unravelled. Drawing on Rebecca Walkowitz’s idea of cosmopolitan style and Suvendrini Perera’s work on Australia’s insular imagination I identify a critical cosmopolitanism that inheres in the novel’s geographical imagination and its literary form, particularly the narrative voice which retains a critical distance from the nationalist sensibility of various characters and plot lines, performing a detached and restless homelessness that I identify with the cosmopolitan. Ultimately I ask how the novel’s spatial and environmental imagination displaces its nationalist agenda, making space for a different kind of social imagination—one that does not confine itself to the terms of the nation or organise itself around a central figure for the nation.

[The role of imagination in modern medicine].

Science.gov (United States)

Schott, Heinz

2004-06-01

In Renaissance and early modern times, the concept of imagination (Latin imaginatio) was essential for the (natural) philosophical explanation of magic processes, especially in the anthropology of Paracelsus. He assumed that imagination was a natural vital power including cosmic, mental, phychical, and physical dimensions. The Paracelsians criticized traditional humor pathology ignoring their theory of' 'natural magic'. On the other hand, they were criticized by their adversaries as charlatans practicing 'black magic'. About 1800, in between enlightenment and romanticism, the healing concept of, animal magnetism' (Mesmerism) evoked an analogous debate, whether, magnetic' phenomena originated from a real (physical) power (so-called, fluidum') or were just due to fantasy or imagination (German Einbildungskraft). At the end of the 19th century, the French internist Hippolyte Bernheim created-against the background of medical hypnosis (hypnotism') as a consequence of Mesmerism - his theory of suggestion and autosuggestion: a new paradigm of psychological respectively psychosomatic medicine, which became the basis for the concept of, placebo' in modern biomedicine. From now on, all the effects of, alternative medicine' could easily be explained by the, placebo-effect', more or less founded - at least unconsciously - on fraud.

Imagine stopping the progression of Alzheimer's

Science.gov (United States)

... Issue Past Issues Imagine stopping the progression of Alzheimer's Past Issues / Fall 2006 Table of Contents For ... I have friends and loved ones suffering from Alzheimer's. But I can imagine… and hope for… a ...

Interrogating Biosensing in Everyday Life

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Merrill, Nick; Wong, Richmond; Howell, Noura

2017-01-01

This workshop seeks to expand our understanding and imaginations regarding the possible roles biosensors (sensors measuring humans) can-and should-play in everyday life. By applying a critical lens to issues of interpretation, representation, and experience around biosensing and biosensors, we ai...

The role of the imagination in museum visits

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Achiam, Marianne

2016-01-01

The imagination plays an important role in museums, today more than ever. Visitors use their repositories of imagination or repertoires to make sense of their encounters with objects and exhibits. In this article, I argue that this initial meaning making, rather than being the end goal of museum...... that becoming familiar with commonly occurring repertoires is necessary for exhibition designers in order for museums to continue to take their interpretive responsibility seriously, and I discuss how such a familiarisation may affect museum practice. I conclude with some perspectives on the implications...

What imagination can teach us about higher mental functions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tateo, Luca

2016-01-01

The chapter uses the history of the concept of imagination as example of how psychology creates a normative model of mental processes that affects our understanding of development. Following the traditional hierarchy of psychological functions, with abstract rationality on top, we fail to underst......The chapter uses the history of the concept of imagination as example of how psychology creates a normative model of mental processes that affects our understanding of development. Following the traditional hierarchy of psychological functions, with abstract rationality on top, we fail...... in fictional world where we can find relief to the disquieting spectacle of the world, nor a sandbox in which we can play with alternative futures. It is one of the higher mental functions that makes the world how we experience it and how we are striving to experience it. The imaginative process plays a self...

The Effect of Imagining an Event on Expectations for the Event: An Interpretation in Terms of the Availability Heuristic

Science.gov (United States)

Carroll, John S.

1978-01-01

Previous studies have indicated that explaining a hypothetical event makes the event seem more likely through the creation of causal connections. However, such effects could arise through the use of the availability heuristic; that is, subjective likelihood is increased by an event becoming easier to "imagine". Two experiments were designed to…

Dissociable Contributions of Imagination and Willpower to the Malleability of Human Patience.

Science.gov (United States)

Jenkins, Adrianna C; Hsu, Ming

2017-07-01

The ability to exercise patience is important for human functioning. Although it is known that patience can be promoted by using top-down control, or willpower, to override impatient impulses, patience is also malleable-in particular, susceptible to framing effects-in ways that are difficult to explain using willpower alone. So far, the mechanisms underlying framing effects on patience have been elusive. We investigated the role of imagination in these effects. In a behavioral experiment (Experiment 1), a classic framing manipulation (sequence framing) increased self-reported and independently coded imagination during intertemporal choice. In an investigation of neural responses during decision making (Experiment 2), sequence framing increased the extent to which patience was related to activation in brain regions associated with imagination, relative to activation in regions associated with willpower, and increased functional connectivity of brain regions associated with imagination, but not willpower, relative to regions associated with valuation. Our results suggest that sequence framing can increase the role of imagination in decision making without increasing the exertion of willpower.

Let's not, and say we would: imagined and actual responses to witnessing homophobia.

Science.gov (United States)

Crosby, Jennifer Randall; Wilson, Johannes

2015-01-01

We compared imagined versus actual affective and behavioral responses to witnessing a homophobic slur. Participants (N = 72) witnessed a confederate using a homophobic slur, imagined the same scenario, or were not exposed to the slur. Those who imagined hearing the slur reported significantly higher levels of negative affect than those who actually witnessed the slur, and nearly one half of them reported that they would confront the slur, whereas no participants who actually heard the slur confronted it. These findings reveal a discrepancy between imagined and real responses to homophobic remarks, and they have implications for the likelihood that heterosexuals will actually confront homophobic remarks.

Flooding in imagination vs flooding in vivo: A comparison with agoraphobics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Emmelkamp, Paul M.G.; Wessels, Hemmy

In this investigation of agoraphobic patients, 3 different flooding procedures were compared: (1) prolonged exposure in vivo, (2) flooding in the imagination by a ‘live’ therapist and (3) a combination of flooding in the imagination and flooding in vivo. After an intermediate-test all clients were

Higgs into the heart of imagination

CERN Document Server

Van den Bergh, Hannie

2010-01-01

Higgs is the documentary about the quest for the Higgs particle, also known as "The God Particle". It is considered the missing link in particle physics. Higgs is a film about the curiosity, the passion, and the imaginative power of silence.

Transports of delight how technology materializes human imagination

CERN Document Server

Hancock, Peter

2017-01-01

This inspiring book shows how the spiritual side of life, with its thoughts, feelings, and aspirations, is intimately bound up with our material technologies. From the wonder of Gothic Cathedrals, to the quiet majesty of lighter than air flight, to the ultimate in luxury of the north Atlantic steamers, Peter Hancock explores how these sequential heights of technology have enabled our dreams of being transported to new and uncharted realms to become reality. Sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, technology has always been there to make material the visions of our imagination. This book shows how this has essentially been true for all technologies from Stonehenge to space station. But technology is far from perfect. Indeed, the author argues here that some of the most public and tragic of its failures still remain instructive, emblematic, and even inspiring. He reports on examples such as a Cathedral of the Earth (Beauvais), a Cathedral of the Seas (Titanic), and a Cathedral of the Air (Hindenburg) and t...

Examination of Athletes' Anxiety, Motivation, Imagination Value in Competitions with Different Severity Level

Science.gov (United States)

Sallayici, Mustafa; Eroglu Kolayis, Ipek; Kesilmis, Inci; Kesilmis, Mehmet Melih

2018-01-01

The objective of this study was to examine athletes' anxiety, motivation, and imagination value in competitions with different severity level. The research was conducted on swimming athlete in elite level 18 female and 19 male totally 37. To measure the level of imagination, imagine inventory in sports and to measure trait anxiety levels STAI were…

Moving off the Page: Tapping into Young Children's Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Miranda, Martina

2015-01-01

This article explores the interplay between young children's spontaneous engagement in learning through their imagination, and the mind-set of the teacher when approaching planning for instruction. Perhaps by connecting with our own imaginative thinking, we can gain insights about our young learners, and find additional strategies to promote…

Leg deformation during imaginal ecdysis in the downy emerald, Cordulia aenea (Odonata, Corduliidae).

Science.gov (United States)

Frantsevich, Leonid; Frantsevich, Ludmilla

2018-04-01

A dragonfly larva migrates from the water to the shore, perches on a plant stem and grasps it with strongly flexed legs. Adult legs inside the larval exoskeleton fit to the larval legs joint-to-joint. The adult emerges with stretched legs. During the molt, an imaginal leg must follow all the angles in exuvial joints. In turn, larval apodemes are withdrawn from imaginal legs. We visualized transient shapes of the imaginal legs by the instant fixation of insects at different moments of the molt, photographed isolated exuvial legs with the imaginal legs inside and then removed the exuvial sheath. Instant shapes of the imaginal tibia show sharp intrapodomere bends copying the angle in the larval femoro-tibial joint. The site of bending shifts distad during the molt. This is possible if the imaginal leg is pliable. The same problem of leg squeezing is also common in hemimetabolous insects as well as in other arthropods, whereas holometabolous insects overcome problems of a tight confinement either by using leg pliability in other ways but not squeezing (cyclorrhaphan flies, mosquitoes) or by pulling hardened legs out without change of their pupal zigzag configuration (moths, ants, honey bees). The pupal legs are not intended to grasp any external substrate. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Moral imagination: Facilitating prosocial decision-making through scene imagery and theory of mind.

Science.gov (United States)

Gaesser, Brendan; Keeler, Kerri; Young, Liane

2018-02-01

How we imagine and subjectively experience the future can inform how we make decisions in the present. Here, we examined a prosocial effect of imagining future episodes in motivating moral decisions about helping others in need, as well as the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Across three experiments we found that people are more willing to help others in specific situations after imagining helping them in those situations. Manipulating the spatial representation of imagined future episodes in particular was effective at increasing intentions to help others, suggesting that scene imagery plays an important role in the prosocial effect of episodic simulation. Path modeling analyses revealed that episodic simulation interacts with theory of mind in facilitating prosocial responses but can also operate independently. Moreover, we found that our manipulations of the imagined helping episode increased actual prosocial behavior, which also correlated with changes in reported willingness to help. Based on these findings, we propose a new model that begins to capture the multifaceted mechanisms by which episodic simulation contributes to prosocial decision-making, highlighting boundaries and promising future directions to explore. Implications for research in moral cognition, imagination, and patients with impairments in episodic simulation are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Others and Imagination in Reasoning and Argumentation: Improving our Critical Creative Capacity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael D. Baumtrog

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Contemporary argumentation theories highlight the importance of Others for contributing to and critiquing an individual’s reasoning and/or argumentation. Reasoners and arguers are encouraged to interact with imagined constructs such as a community of model interlocutors or universal audience. These model interlocutors are theoretically meant to bring to mind reasons and counter-considerations that may not have been conceived of otherwise so as to improve the overall quality of an instance of reasoning or argumentation. Overlooked, however, is the impact of differing individual’s imaginative abilities. This paper argues that more important than relying on an Other, real or imagined, reasoners and arguers would do just as well to improve their own creative abilities first. Consulting a real or imagined Other may help in some cases help, but such a strong reliance on Others comes with serious limitations.

Previous experiences and emotional baggage as barriers to lifestyle change - a qualitative study of Norwegian Healthy Life Centre participants.

Science.gov (United States)

Følling, Ingrid S; Solbjør, Marit; Helvik, Anne-S

2015-06-23

Changing lifestyle is challenging and difficult. The Norwegian Directorate of Health recommends that all municipalities establish Healthy Life Centres targeted to people with lifestyle issues. Little is known about the background, experiences and reflections of participants. More information is needed about participants to shape effective lifestyle interventions with lasting effect. This study explores how participants in a lifestyle intervention programme describe previous life experiences in relation to changing lifestyle. Semi-structured qualitative in-depth interviews were performed with 23 participants (16 women and 7 men) aged 18 - 70 years. The data were analysed using systematic text condensation searching for issues describing participants' responses, and looking for the essence, aiming to share the basis of life-world experiences as valid knowledge. Participants identified two main themes: being stuck in old habits, and being burdened with emotional baggage from their previous negative experiences. Participants expressed a wish to change their lifestyles, but were unable to act in accordance with the health knowledge they possessed. Previous experiences with lifestyle change kept them from initiating attempts without professional assistance. Participants also described being burdened by an emotional baggage with problems from childhood and/or with family, work and social life issues. Respondents said that they felt that emotional baggage was an important explanation for why they were stuck in old habits and that conversely, being stuck in old habits added load to their already emotional baggage and made it heavier. Behavioural change can be hard to perform as psychological distress from life baggage can influence the ability to change. The study participants' experience of being stuck in old habits and having substantial emotional baggage raises questions as to whether or not Healthy Life Centres are able to help participants who need to make a lifestyle

Cultivating the Ethical Imagination in Education: Perspectives from Three Public Intellectuals

Science.gov (United States)

Spector, Hannah

2017-01-01

Because the subject of imagination is both complex and can be conceived of in different ways, the focus of the first part of this article is to engage in a descriptive analysis of this faculty. With the help of Greene's intellectual predecessor and former teacher Hannah Arendt, Hannah Spector draws distinctions between imagination and other…

Science, culture and the search for life on other worlds

CERN Document Server

Traphagan, John W

2016-01-01

This book explores humanity’s thoughts and ideas about extraterrestrial life, paying close attention to the ways science and culture interact with one another to create a context of imagination and discovery related to life on other worlds. Despite the recent explosion in our knowledge of other planets and the seeming era of discovery in which we live, to date we have found no concrete evidence that we are not alone. Our thinking about life on other worlds has been and remains the product of a combination of scientific investigation and human imagination shaped by cultural values--particularly values of exploration and discovery connected to American society. The rapid growth in our awareness of other worlds makes this a crucial moment to think about and assess the influence of cultural values on the scientific search for extraterrestrial life. Here the author considers the junction of science and culture with a focus on two main themes: (1) the underlying assumptions, many of which are tacitly based upon c...

Bakhtin and Buber: Problems of Dialogic Imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nina Perlina

1984-09-01

Full Text Available Recent publications of biographical materials on Mikhail Bakhtin demonstrate that he was familiar with the writings of Martin Buber. The philosophical and aesthetic verbal expression of Buber's ideas within the time-spatial universe of Bakhtin's own awareness allows us to discuss this obvious biographical evidence in a wider cultural context. The central opposition of Buber's and Bakhtin's systems is the dialogic dichotomous pair: "Ich und Du" (I and Thou, or "myself and another." Bakhtin's dialogic imagination is rooted in the binaries of the subject-object relations which he initially formulated as "responsibility" and "addressivity," that is to say, as individual awareness and its responsiveness of life. The basic words of Bakhtin's philosophical aesthetics can be understood as the "relation to the other," and their semantics and terminological meaning are directly related to Martin Buber (his work, Ich und Du , 1923. In the 1930s-60s Bakhtin developed the concepts of responsibility and addressivity into his universal dialogic theory of speech-genres. His hierarchy of speech-genres was built in order to establish relations between different sub-genres of the novel (various types of poetic utterances and different species of individual discourse. However, the entire edifice of this dialogic system remained unfinished, and several types of dialogic relations between individual pronouncements of the characters and individual novelistic genres were not discussed by him. Buber's ideas on the dialogue can be used as a clue to one possible interpretation of the function of authoritative and internally persuasive discourses in different sub-genres of the novel (the novel of confession, the Bildungsroman , the autobiographical novel. In this article, Buber's philosophical cycle is used as an aid in reconstructing the integral whole of Bakhtin's "dialogic imagination," as this dialogic mode of thinking goes through his unfinished works: "Author and

``Feeling more regret than I would have imagined''

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Diego Fernandez-Duque

2008-08-01

Full Text Available People tend to overestimate emotional responses to future events. This study examined whether such affective forecasting errors occur for feelings of regret, as measured by self-report and subsequent decision-making. Some participants played a pricing game and lost by a narrow or wide margin, while others were asked to imagine losing by such margins. Participants who experienced a narrow loss reported more regret than those who imagined a narrow loss. Furthermore, those experiencing a narrow loss behaved more cautiously in a subsequent gambling task. Thus, the study provides self-report and behavioral evidence for a reversal of the affective forecasting phenomenon for feelings of regret.

Quando o imaginário se diz educacional

OpenAIRE

Araújo, Alberto Filipe

2010-01-01

O imaginário educacional é devedor da concepção romântica de educação que privilegia a formação da interioridade do sujeito (daquilo que Jung denomina de das Selbst : o si-mesmo) por meio de uma viagem iniciática sob a forma, por exemplo, do "romance de formação". Daí a necessidade de se estruturar, mediante uma hermenêutica adequada, aquilo que constitui a sustância do imaginário educacional (alegorias, metáforas, símbolos, ideologemas e mitos), ainda que este apareça de um modo geral degrad...

New control system: IMAGIN supervision in ADA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maugeais, C.

1991-01-01

The structure, the initialization, the operating cycle, the different messages and the errors treatment of the new user oriented packages written in ADA language for IMAGIN software are presented. (A.B.). 2 figs

Déterritorialisation et communautés imaginées : analyse anthropo ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Dans la mesure où elle implique l'exil anthropologique et la déterritorialisation du sujet, l'imagination amène à formuler les questions suivantes : comment, par des pratiques imaginatives, les néo-mouvements et réseaux sociaux jeunes en Afrique organisent-ils la mise en ordre/désordre sociopolitique et culturelle ?

Imaginário, Cultura Global e violência escolar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joyce Mary Adam de Paula e Silva

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Neste artigo discutimos a questão da violência escolar à luz do referencial teórico do imaginário. A questão do imaginário a respeito da instituição escolar é analisada face a algumas características da sociedade atual apontadas por diferentes autores tais como Sennett, (2006, Taylor(2006, Baumann ( 2005. São apresentados alguns dados da pesquisa realizada com os professores de duas do interior do Estado de São Paulo, dando-se destaque para o imaginário sobre a escola e as relações que se estabelecem nesse contexto. Esta pesquisa teve como metodologia de coleta de dados a realização de uma dinâmica de grupo. Concluímos chamando a atenção para a importância de que os estudos sobre violência escolar busquem elucidar os diferentes aspectos institucionais focando não somente os alunos e a família dos mesmos, mas as interações que se processam no interior da escola. A análise institucional que enfoque os aspectos micro e macro social pode contribuir para que a escola consiga enfrentar os problemas em uma perspectiva mais realista, buscando caminhos no próprio grupo em interação explicitando barreiras que são interpostas pelo imaginário institucional.

Classification of Real and Imagined Sounds in Early Visual Cortex

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Petra Vetter

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Early visual cortex has been thought to be mainly involved in the detection of low-level visual features. Here we show that complex natural sounds can be decoded from early visual cortex activity, in the absence of visual stimulation and both when sounds are actually displayed and when they are merely imagined. Blindfolded subjects listened to three complex natural sounds (bird singing, people talking, traffic noise; Exp. 1 or received word cues (“forest”, “people”, “traffic”; Exp 2 to imagine the associated scene. fMRI BOLD activation patterns from retinotopically defined early visual areas were fed into a multivariate pattern classification algorithm (a linear support vector machine. Actual sounds were discriminated above chance in V2 and V3 and imagined sounds were decoded in V1. Also cross-classification, ie, training the classifier to real sounds and testing it to imagined sounds and vice versa, was successful. Two further experiments showed that an orthogonal working memory task does not interfere with sound classification in early visual cortex (Exp. 3, however, an orthogonal visuo-spatial imagery task does (Exp. 4. These results demonstrate that early visual cortex activity contains content-specific information from hearing and from imagery, challenging the view of a strict modality-specific function of early visual cortex.

Towards a Pedagogy of Imagination: A Phenomenological Case Study of Holistic Education

Science.gov (United States)

Nielsen, Thomas William

2006-01-01

This article offers a synthesis of my recently completed doctorate study of Rudolf Steiner's notion of imaginative teaching. Seven original imaginative teaching methods (drama, exploration, storytelling, routine, arts, discussion and empathy) are introduced via phenomenological moments, followed by analysis and discussion. The article concludes…

Forward Ever Backward Never, Global Imaginations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stultiens, Andrea

Ebifananyi 4, based on the Ham Mukasa Foundation Archive that HIPUganda digitised, has had several exhibition versions. This one is part of Global Imaginations, an exhibition organised by Museum de Lakenhal in Leiden in an old factory. In this installation the visitor had the opportunity to dive

Imagining value, imagining users: academic technology transfer for health innovation.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Fiona Alice; Sanders, Carrie B; Lehoux, Pascale

2009-04-01

Governments have invested heavily in the clinical and economic promise of health innovation and express increasing concern with the efficacy and efficiency of the health innovation system. In considering strategies for 'better' health innovation, policy makers and researchers have taken a particular interest in the work of universities and related public research organizations: How do these organizations identify and transfer promising innovations to market, and do these efforts make best use of public sector investments? We conducted an ethnographic study of technology transfer offices (TTOs) in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada, to consider the place of health and health system imperatives in judgments of value in early-stage health innovation. Our analysis suggests that the valuation process is poorly specified as a set of task-specific judgments. Instead, we argue that technology transfer professionals are active participants in the construction of the innovation and assign value by 'imagining' the end product in its 'context of use'. Oriented as they are to the commercialization of health technology, TTOs understand users primarily as market players. The immediate users of TTOs' efforts are commercial partners (i.e., licensees, investors) who are capable of translating current discoveries into future commodities. The ultimate end users - patients, clinicians, health systems - are the future consumers of the products to be sold. Attention to these proximate and more distal users in the valuation process is a complex and constitutive feature of the work of health technology transfer. At the same time, judgements about individual technologies are made in relation to a broader imperative through which TTOs seek to imagine and construct sustainable innovation systems. Judgments of value are rendered sensible in relation to the logic of valuation for systems of innovation that, in turn, configure users of health innovation in systemic ways.

Imagining sex and adapting to it: different aftereffects after perceiving versus imagining faces.

Science.gov (United States)

D'Ascenzo, Stefania; Tommasi, Luca; Laeng, Bruno

2014-03-01

A prolonged exposure (i.e., perceptual adaptation) to a male or a female face can produce changes (i.e., aftereffects) in the subsequent gender attribution of a neutral or average face, so that it appears respectively more female or more male. Studies using imagery adaptation and its aftereffects have yielded conflicting results. In the present study we used an adaptation paradigm with both imagined and perceived faces as adaptors, and assessed the aftereffects in judged masculinity/femininity when viewing an androgynous test face. We monitored eye movements and pupillary responses as a way to confirm whether participants did actively engage in visual imagery. The results indicated that both perceptual and imagery adaptation produce aftereffects, but that they run in opposite directions: a contrast effect with perception (e.g., after visual exposure to a female face, the androgynous appears as more male) and an assimilation effect with imagery (e.g., after imaginative exposure to a female face, the androgynous face appears as more female). The pupillary responses revealed dilations consistent with increased cognitive effort during the imagery phase, suggesting that the assimilation aftereffect occurred in the presence of an active and effortful mental imagery process, as also witnessed by the pattern of eye movements recorded during the imagery adaptation phase. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Failures of Imagination: Disability and the Ethics of Selective Reproduction.

Science.gov (United States)

Soniewicka, Marta

2015-10-01

The article addresses the problem of disability in the context of reproductive decisions based on genetic information. It poses the question of whether selective procreation should be considered as a moral obligation of prospective parents. To answer this question, a number of different ethical approaches to the problem are presented and critically analysed: the utilitarian; Julian Savulescu's principle of procreative beneficence; the rights-based. The main thesis of the article is that these approaches fail to provide any appealing principles on which reproductive decisions should be based. They constitute failures of imagination which may result in counter-intuitive moral judgments about both life with disability and genetic selection. A full appreciation of the ethical significance of recognition in procreative decisions leads to a more nuanced and morally satisfying view than other leading alternatives presented in the article. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Imagined Voodoo: Terror, Sex, and Racism in American Popular Culture

OpenAIRE

McGee, Adam Michael

2014-01-01

I analyze the historical and cultural processes by which American racism is reproduced, approaching the issue through the lens of "imagined voodoo" (as distinct from Haitian Vodou). I posit that the American Marine occupation of Haiti (1915-34) was crucial in shaping the American racial imaginary. In film, television, and literature, imagined voodoo continues to serve as an outlet for white racist anxieties. Because it is usually found in low-brow entertainment (like horror) and rarely men...

Machado de Assis, moral imagination and the novel

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Luiz Passos

Full Text Available The article discusses the premise behind binding literary value to the ability a work has to yield socio-historical information, prevalent in recent criticism on Machado de Assis. It argues that the body of Machado's work shows an increasing ambivalence regarding the links between imagined lives and history, thus proposing that in his late writings the matching between things real and things represented is a rhetorical and melancholy gesture of great insight. In order to illustrate the prevalence of moral imagination as object and technique in Machado's late novels, the author highlights a few points of contact between Machado de Assis and Henry James, contemporaries and akin in their literary sensibilities.

The imagination of touch: surrealist tactility in the films of Jan Švankmajer

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristoffer Noheden

2013-09-01

Full Text Available This article is a theoretical examination of tactility in the Czech surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer's film Down to the Cellar (1983. Švankmajer's deployment of tactile images in a surrealist context shows the need for a discussion of the imagination's role in the embodied film experience. Departing from Laura Marks's The Skin of the Film, this article seeks to explore the surrealist embodied imagination through surrealist poetics of analogy, as defined by André Breton, and the link between these and Walter Benjamin's writings on mimesis. Finally, the film is viewed from the perspective of Gaston Bachelard's ideas of “the imagination of matter,” where matter is seen as a highly potent stimulant for the imagination. Bachelard's notion of the imagination's multisensory properties further lends credence to Švankmajer's aims to liberate the imagination of the spectator through images that invoke touch. Kristoffer Noheden is a PhD candidate in cinema studies at the Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University. In his dissertation, he examines surrealism's attempts to create a new, re-enchanting myth with a focus on its expressions in surrealist cinema. He is the co-editor, with Daniel Brodén, of the anthology I gränslandet: Nya perspektiv på film och modernism (Gidlunds, 2013. He is also the translator into Swedish of books by William S. Burroughs, Leonora Carrington, Max Ernst, and others, and co-runs the surrealist-oriented publishing house Sphinx.

Dissociative Experiences, Creative Imagination, and Artistic Production in Students of Fine Arts

Science.gov (United States)

Perez-Fabello, Maria Jose; Campos, Alfredo

2011-01-01

The current research was designed to assess the influence of dissociative experiences and creative imagination on the artistic production of Fine Arts students of the University of Vigo (Spain). The sample consisted of 81 students who were administered the Creative Imagination Scale and The Dissociative Experiences Scale. To measure artistic…

The Role of Radical Imagination in Social Work Education, Practice, and Research

Science.gov (United States)

Barnetz, Zion

2015-01-01

This article addresses the role of imagination in social work education, practice, and research. Following a brief discussion of terms, the author attempts to identify the various contributions of human imagination to social change processes. The second part presents the argument that the cultural structure known as Social Darwinism significantly…

Imagining Rural Audiences in Remote Western Australia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lelia Green

2010-06-01

Full Text Available In 1979, Australia’s then-Communication Minister Tony Staley commented that the introduction of satellite communications to the bush would “dispel the dis-tance – mental as well as geographical – between urban and regional dwellers, between the haves and the have-nots in a communication society” (Staley 1979: 2225, 2228-9. In saying this, Staley imagined a marginalised and disadvantaged audience of “have-nots”, paying for their isolation in terms of their mental dis-tance from the networked communications of the core. This paper uses ethnographic audience studies surveys and interviews (1986-9 to examine the validity of Staley’s imaginations in terms of four communication technologies: the telephone, broadcast radio, 2-way radio and the satellite. The notion of a mental difference is highly problematic for the remote audience. Inso-far as a perception of lack and of difference is accepted, it is taken to reflect the perspective and the product of the urban policy-maker. Far from accepting the “distance” promulgated from the core, remote audiences see such statements as indicating an ignorance of the complexity and sophistica-tion of communications in an environment where the stakes are higher and the options fewer. This is not to say that remote people were not keen to acquire satel-lite services – they were – it is to say that when they imagined such services it was in terms of equity and interconnections, rather than the “dispelling of distance”.

Generativity and imagination in autism spectrum disorder: evidence from individual differences in children's impossible entity drawings.

Science.gov (United States)

Low, Jason; Goddard, Elizabeth; Melser, Joseph

2009-06-01

This study examined the cognitive underpinnings of spontaneous imagination in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by way of individual differences. Children with ASD (N = 27) and matched typically developing (TD) children were administered Karmiloff-Smith's (1990) imaginative drawing task, along with measures that tapped specific executive functions (generativity, visuospatial planning, and central coherence processing style) and false belief theory of mind (ToM) understanding. The ASD group drawings displayed deficits in imaginative content and a piecemeal pictorial style. ASD participants also showed group deficits in generativity, planning and ToM, and exhibited weak coherence. Individual differences in generativity were related to imaginative drawing content in the ASD group, and the association was mediated through planning ability. Variations in weak coherence were separately related to a piecemeal drawing style in the ASD group. Variations in generativity were also linked with imaginative drawing content in the TD group; the connection unfolded when it received pooled variance from receptive language ability, and thereupon mediated through false belief reasoning to cue imaginative content. Results are discussed in terms of how generativity plays a broad and important role for imagination in ASD and typical development, albeit in different ways.

Student peer reviewers' views on teaching innovations and imaginative learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Chan, Zenobia C Y

2016-04-01

Various teaching innovations have been proven effective in promoting students' critical thinking, creativity, problem solving and active learning. However, little attention has been paid to the possibility of including students as peer reviewers to evaluate these innovations in light of imaginative learning. This study explored the perspective of senior students who played the role of the student peer reviewer on three teaching innovations, namely writing poetry, composing songs and creating role-plays in problem-based learning (PBL), specifically in relation to imaginative learning. A focus group interview. Ten senior nursing students who had experienced the conventional PBL approach but not the mentioned teaching innovations were invited to participate in reviewing a video recording of a PBL class using the above teaching innovations with a total of 18 junior year students. Five themes were identified using content analysis: (i) motivation to learn, (ii) increased empathy, (iii) information retention, (iv) development of critical thinking and creativity, and (v) drawbacks of teaching innovations. It is suggested that student peer reviewers should be considered, as they can bring an outsider-learner's views on understanding the impacts of teaching innovations on imaginative learning. A call should be made to invite student peer reviewers on teaching and learning approaches, and more effort should be devoted to promoting an understanding of how imaginative learning can be achieved via teaching innovations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

winged eye Induces Transdetermination of Drosophila Imaginal Disc by Acting in Concert with a Histone Methyltransferase, Su(var)3-9.

Science.gov (United States)

Masuko, Keita; Fuse, Naoyuki; Komaba, Kanae; Katsuyama, Tomonori; Nakajima, Rumi; Furuhashi, Hirofumi; Kurata, Shoichiro

2018-01-02

Drosophila imaginal disc cells exhibit a remarkable ability to convert cell fates in response to various perturbations, a phenomenon called transdetermination (TD). We previously identified winged eye (wge) as a factor that induces eye-to-wing TD upon overexpression in eye imaginal discs, but the molecular mechanisms underlying TD have remained largely unclear. Here, we found that wge induces various histone modifications and enhances the methylation of Lys9 on histone H3 (H3K9), a feature of heterochromatin. A histone methyltransferase, Su(var)3-9, is required for wge-mediated H3K9 methylation and eye-to-wing TD. Su(var)3-9 is also required for classical wound-induced TD but not for normal development, suggesting its involvement in several types of imaginal disc TDs. Transcriptome analysis revealed that wge represses eye identity genes independently of Su(var)3-9 and activates TD-related genes by acting together with Su(var)3-9. These findings provide new insights into diverse types of chromatin regulation at progressive steps of cell-fate conversions. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Arguing over Life and Death

Science.gov (United States)

Nageotte, Nichole; Buck, Gayle; Kirk, Holly

2018-01-01

Imagine saving just one of the 23,000 species threatened with extinction. Students studying endangered species in a general life science course faced the decision of which species to save as a summative assignment in a unit on scientific explanation and argumentation. They used the claim, evidence, and reasoning (CER) framework in which students…

Leadership and Moral Imagination: Beyond the Decision-making Context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alan Preti

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Moral imagination is often viewed as a necessary condition for ethical leadership on account of its role in managerial decision-making and organizational management. This article argues that an extension of the notion beyond this limited context sheds light on recent reconceptualizations of the nature of business and the relation of business and society proffered by several well-known business leaders. It is suggested that an account of moral imagination which takes into consideration its contribution to the development of a morally deeper and broader perspective and its bearing on character is of particular value for business leaders.

The Beat Goes on: Rhythmic Modulation of Cortical Potentials by Imagined Tapping

Science.gov (United States)

Osman, Allen; Albert, Robert; Ridderinkhof, K. Richard; Band, Guido; van der Molen, Maurits

2006-01-01

A frequency analysis was used to tag cortical activity from imagined rhythmic movements. Participants synchronized overt and imagined taps with brief visual stimuli presented at a constant rate, alternating between left and right index fingers. Brain potentials were recorded from across the scalp and topographic maps made of their power at the…

The Sociological Imagination and Social Responsibility

Science.gov (United States)

Hironimus-Wendt, Robert J.; Wallace, Lora Ebert

2009-01-01

In this paper, we maintain that sociologists should deliberately teach social responsibility as a means of fulfilling the promise that C. Wright Mills envisioned. A key aspect of the sociological imagination includes a sense of social responsibility, but that aspect is best learned through a combination of experience and academic knowledge.…

Driving Symbolic Consumption through Imagined Vertical Movements

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ostinelli, Massimiliano; Ringberg, Torsten; Luna, David

Drawing on theories of embodied cognition and compensatory consumption, we provide evidence that merely imagining oneself moving upward or downward affects preference for symbolic products. Altogether, two studies show that magining taking an elevator down, as opposed to up, decreases self...

Remembering the past and imagining the future: Identifying and enhancing the contribution of episodic memory

Science.gov (United States)

Schacter, Daniel L; Madore, Kevin P

2016-01-01

Recent studies have shown that imagining or simulating future events relies on many of the same cognitive and neural processes as remembering past events. According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis (Schacter and Addis, 2007), such overlap indicates that both remembered past and imagined future events rely heavily on episodic memory: future simulations are built on retrieved details of specific past experiences that are recombined into novel events. An alternative possibility is that commonalities between remembering and imagining reflect the influence of more general, non-episodic factors such as narrative style or communicative goals that shape the expression of both memory and imagination. We consider recent studies that distinguish the contributions of episodic and non-episodic processes in remembering the past and imagining the future by using an episodic specificity induction – brief training in recollecting the details of a past experience – and also extend this approach to the domains of problem solving and creative thinking. We conclude by suggesting that the specificity induction may target a process of scene construction that contributes to episodic memory as well as to imagination, problem solving, and creative thinking. PMID:28163775

Income Outcome: Life in the Corporate University

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robyn Ferrell

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Higher education on the corporate model imagines students as consumers, choosing between knowledge products and brands. It imagines itself liberating the university from the dictates of the State/tradition/aristocratic self-replication, and putting it in the hands of its democratic stakeholders. It therefore naturally subscribes to the general management principles and practices of global corporate culture. These principles – transparency, accountability, efficiency – are hard to argue with in principle. But an abstract argument in political economy comes down to earth in the challenges facing the arts and humanities, after the ‘Education Revolution’, to justify their modes of life.

Infâncias imaginadas: construções do eu e da sociedade nas histórias de vida Imagined childhoods: constructions of self and society in life stories

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marianne Gullestad

2005-08-01

self is the body as a repository of memories and an action system, and the continuous scrutinizing of childhood experiences is usually regarded as a central and natural part of the representation of the adult person. Childhood reminiscences therefore often loom large in life narratives in terms of amount, intensity, and centrality, at the same time as they have so far obtained little theoretical attention. These facts, in my view, provide a key to the cultural analysis of the present stage of modernity. I distinguish between textual childhoods and lived childhoods, and I discuss what kind of information about lived childhood life stories can provide. In particular, I ask if life stories told by adults can help us understand childhood experiences from "the child's point of view". The difference between the self who tells and the self who was is at its greatest when people narrate their childhood experiences. It is in this sense that childhood recollections can be regarded as 'imagined childhoods'. The discussion brings together insights from many disciplines with implications for both social and literary theory.

Towards an imaginal dialogue: archetypal symbols between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Qadir

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the potential for a dialogue between religious traditions based on art, in order to complement the dominant channels that rely on conceptual meanings. Building on a theoretical framework of post-Jungian archetypal psychology – as developed by James Hillman and Henry Corbin – we propose that the utility of such a dialogue inheres in the notion of an imaginal realm, or mundus imaginalis. In the first part of the paper we highlight three key features of this notion: the distinction between the imaginal and the imaginary; the significance of a culturally differentiated collective unconscious; and a reflection of the imaginal in practice rather than conceptually. We emphasize the materiality of sacred symbols that emerge from the imaginal realm. In the second part, we illustrate the importance of two archetypal symbols: the fish and the chalice. The significance of these symbols in history and in the practices of communities of believers is discussed. Thirdly, we discuss specific features of the dialogue emerging from these ubiquitous archetypal symbols.

Just Imagine...Improving the Band Experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Zerull, David S.

1992-01-01

Discusses the use of imagination as a tool to improve students' musicianship. Suggests that imagery can be used to teach intonation, tone color, sight-reading, and expression. Describes active listening in which the students must use musical memory and participate in musical expression to produce a certain sound that may be difficult to describe.…

Imagination in Creative Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wiltschnig, Stefan

2011-01-01

This paper unpacks the notion of imagination presented in the I5-system of knowledge creation along several theoretical contributions and process models from “knowledge science”, creativity research and design studies. It aims at conceptual clarification and integration around the key notion...... of “insight moments” across various levels of abstraction from system perspectives through foci on groups and individuals to mental activity. This work is meant to serve as a conceptual foundation for micro-analyses of in-vivo data of creative design processes based on protocols of participatory ethnographic...

Imagination in Creative Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wiltschnig, Stefan

2013-01-01

This paper unpacks the notion of imagination presented in the I5-system of knowledge creation along several theoretical contributions and process models from “knowledge science”, creativity research and design studies. It aims at conceptual clarification and integration around the key notion...... of “insight moments” across various levels of abstraction from system perspectives through foci on groups and individuals to mental activity. This work is meant to serve as a conceptual foundation for micro-analyses of in-vivo data of creative design processes based on protocols of participatory ethnographic...

The Effect of Drama on the Creative Imagination of Children in Different Age Groups

OpenAIRE

GÜNDOĞAN, AYSUN; ARI, MEZİYET; GÖNEN, MÜBECCEL

2013-01-01

Imagination is necessary for creative ideas to emerge. The creative imagination can be developed by suitable education programs especially by drama programs with suitable activities. This article presents findings on whether the effect of drama on the creative imagination of children in different age groups differentiate or not. The experiment group of this research is comprised of 60 children (30 from the age group of 10, 30 from the age group of 13) from a regular primary school and the con...

The Imagined Desert

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tom Drahos

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The following analysis of the Australian Outback as an imagined space is informed by theories describing a separation from the objective physical world and the mapping of its representative double through language, and draws upon a reading of the function of landscape in three fictions; Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1899, Greg Mclean’s 2005 horror film Wolf Creek and Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 cinematic adaptation of Kenneth Cook’s novel Wake in Fright2. I would like to consider the Outback as a culturally produced text, and compare the function of this landscape as a cultural ‘reality’ to the function of landscape in literary and cinematic fiction.

Second-Language Learning through Imaginative Theory

Science.gov (United States)

Broom, Catherine

2011-01-01

This article explores how Egan's (1997) work on imagination can enrich our understanding of teaching English as a second language (ESL). Much has been written on ESL teaching techniques; however, some of this work has been expounded in a standard educational framework, which is what Egan calls an assembly-line model. This model can easily underlie…

Empathy Examined From Perspectives of Neuroscience and Artistic Imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Franklin, Michael A; Grossenbacher, Peter G

2016-01-01

This response to Ian E. Wickramasekera II's article, Mysteries of Hypnosis and the Self Are Revealed by the Psychology and Neuroscience of Empathy, is addressed from a joint perspective on consciousness comprising two related orientations: neuroscience and artistic imagination. We find that the central importance of empathy to empathic involvement theory (Wickramasekera II, 2015) reflects the pivotal nature of empathy in the brain and in the relational exchange implicit in the psychotherapeutic process, particularly when using art in therapy. We offer a preliminary unpacking of the roles related to key psychological processes, such as imagination, that are implicated in clinical uses of verbal and visual empathic resonance.

想像力知多少？想像力四元模式的建構與量表發展 Inquiry into Imagination: Constructing the Reliabity and Validity of Imagination Scales

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

王秀槐 Hsiou-Huai Wang

2015-12-01

Full Text Available 想像力是人類與生俱來的一種思維過程，過去教育領域中較少針對想像力做系統性研究。本研究為彌補上述不足，探討想像力的內涵與要素，並編製適合的想像力量表，進一步建構與驗證想像力的理論模型。本研究首先分析整理想像力研究相關的文獻，釐清想像力的內涵與可能面向；接著，以三所大學通識課程七班學生共667人為樣本，進行探索性與驗證性因素分析，並運用結構方程模式 （structural equation model, SEM），建立想像力理論模型。研究發現，想像力包含易感性、超越性、連結性及可能性等四元素，且四元素間存在顯著相關性。本研究所建構的想像力四元模式與發展的量表具有重要理論與實務的意涵。 Imagination is inherent in the process of human cognition, which is the ability of forming mental images and concepts through unlimited and imagery thinking. However, little research has been done in exploring the mechanism of imagining process and establishing the mental model of imagination as a basis for innovative teaching and learning. This study intends to bridge such a gap by establishing a theoretical model of imagination and developing an imagination measurement scale. In light of literature review and expert consultation, a tentative theoretical model of imagination was developed as the foundation for scale development. An imagination scale was composed and administered to a total of 667 college students from 7 general education courses at three universities. Structural equation modeling (SEM was applied to establish the relationships among variables. The results showed that the factors of imagination include susceptibility, boundary-crossing, connectivity and possibility, among which significant relationships exist. In this way, this study makes a special contribution by establishing a four-factor model of imagination and developing an

Undergraduate Leadership Students' Self-Perceived Level of Moral Imagination: An Innovative Foundation for Morality-Based Leadership Curricula

Science.gov (United States)

Odom, Summer F.; Andenoro, Anthony C.; Sandlin, M'Randa R.; Jones, Jaron L.

2015-01-01

Leadership educators are faced with the challenge of preparing students to serve organizations and people in dynamic and ever changing contexts. The purpose of this study was to examine undergraduate leadership students' self-perceived level of moral imagination to make recommendations for moral imagination curricula. Moral imagination is the…

Landslide hazard assessment : LIFE+IMAGINE project methodology and Liguria region use case

Science.gov (United States)

Spizzichino, Daniele; Campo, Valentina; Congi, Maria Pia; Cipolloni, Carlo; Delmonaco, Giuseppe; Guerrieri, Luca; Iadanza, Carla; Leoni, Gabriele; Trigila, Alessandro

2015-04-01

Scope of the work is to present a methodology developed for analysis of potential impacts in areas prone to landslide hazard in the framework of the EC project LIFE+IMAGINE. The project aims to implement a web services-based infrastructure addressed to environmental analysis, that integrates, in its own architecture, specifications and results from INSPIRE, SEIS and GMES. Existing web services has been customized to provide functionalities for supporting environmental integrated management. The implemented infrastructure has been applied to landslide risk scenarios, developed in selected pilot areas, aiming at: i) application of standard procedures to implement a landslide risk analysis; ii) definition of a procedure for assessment of potential environmental impacts, based on a set of indicators to estimate the different exposed elements with their specific vulnerability in the pilot area. The landslide pilot and related scenario are focused at providing a simplified Landslide Risk Assessment (LRA) through: 1) a landslide inventory derived from available historical and recent databases and maps; 2) landslide susceptibility and hazard maps; 3) assessment of exposure and vulnerability on selected typologies of elements at risk; 4) implementation of a landslide risk scenario for different sets of exposed elements 5) development of a use case; 6) definition of guidelines, best practices and production of thematic maps. The LRA has been implemented in Liguria region, Italy, in two different catchment areas located in the Cinque Terre National Park, characterized by a high landslide susceptibility and low resilience. The landslide risk impact analysis has been calibrated taking into account the socio-economic damage caused by landslides triggered by the October 2011 meteorological event. During this event, over 600 landslides were triggered in the selected pilot area. Most of landslides affected the diffuse system of anthropogenic terraces and caused the direct

Imagined Positive Emotions and Inhibitory Control: The Differentiated Effect of Pride versus Happiness

Science.gov (United States)

Katzir, Maayan; Eyal, Tal; Meiran, Nachshon; Kessler, Yoav

2010-01-01

"Inhibitory control" is a cognitive mechanism that contributes to successful self-control (i.e., adherence to a long-term goal in the face of an interfering short-term goal). This research explored the effect of imagined positive emotional events on inhibition. The authors proposed that the influence of imagined emotions on inhibition…

Differential Effects of Personality Traits and Environmental Predictors on Reproductive and Creative Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Chaoyun; Chang, Chi-Cheng; Hsu, Yuling

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to analyze the effects of both personality and environmental variables on the imagination of video/film major university students; and (2) to test the mediator effect resulting from the variable of social climate. The results of this study supported both indicators of imaginative capabilities and…

Reorganization of large-scale cognitive networks during automation of imagination of a complex sequential movement.

Science.gov (United States)

Sauvage, C; De Greef, N; Manto, M; Jissendi, P; Nioche, C; Habas, C

2015-04-01

We investigated the functional reconfiguration of the cerebral networks involved in imagination of sequential movements of the left foot, both performed at regular and fast speed after mental imagery training. Thirty-five volunteers were scanned with a 3T MRI while they imagined a sequence of ankle movements (dorsiflexion, plantar flexion, varus and valgus) before and after mental practice. Subjects were distributed in two groups: the first group executed regular movements whereas the second group made fast movements. We applied the general linear model (GLM) and model-free, exploratory tensorial independent component analytic (TICA) approaches to identify plastic post-training effects on brain activation. GLM showed that post-training imagination of movement was accompanied by a dual effect: a specific recruitment of a medial prefronto-cingulo-parietal circuit reminiscent of the default-mode network, with the left putamen, and a decreased activity of a lateral fronto-parietal network. Training-related subcortical changes only consisted in an increased activity in the left striatum. Unexpectedly, no difference was observed in the cerebellum. TICA also revealed involvement of the left executive network, and of the dorsal control executive network but no significant differences were found between pre- and post-training phases. Therefore, repetitive motor mental imagery induced specific putamen (motor rehearsal) recruitment that one previously observed during learning of overt movements, and, simultaneously, a specific shift of activity from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (attention, working memory) to the medial posterior parietal and cingulate cortices (mental imagery and memory rehearsal). Our data complement and confirm the notion that differential and coupled recruitment of cognitive networks can constitute a neural marker of training effects. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

School, Earth and Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Merlini, Anna; Grieco, Giovanni; Oneta, Cristina

2015-04-01

Geology needs to be explained and narrated to the people, focusing on the goal of making that big change of mindset that will allow individuals and the entire community to tune into the timing and the ways in which the Earth evolves. In order to achieve these important goals it is necessary to educate children from an early age so that they learn to live an environmentally friendly life. With the project "School, Earth and imagination" we introduce, with a fun and new way, notions and topics in geological and environmental sciences in schools at all levels with the final goal of improving both knowledge and sensibility for these topics into the community. Through this project we start from the children (kindergarten and primary school, ages between 3 and 8 years) because they are the foundation of our society, and without foundations nothing can be built. The "School, Earth and imagination" project wants to give the children a real opportunity to approach reality and in general the surrounding environment, for the first time even before the traditional scholastic experience, with a scientific point of view, experimenting some basic physical concepts like temperature, weight, hardness and so on directly through their body. The project is structured and developed in modules that provide a high flexibility in order to meet needs and requirements of different schools in different situations. Each module is part of the journey of Mariolino, a character that represents a very curious child who introduces basic concepts associating them to geological processes. The Journey of Mariolino, as each module, follows an insistent scheme that starts from the presentation of the problem, follows with its discussion through direct questions and ends with experimentation of the hypotheses that children have proposed to validate the solution of the problem. Each module is independent and never ends without giving children a solution and is always structured with a practical activity

The self-imagination effect: benefits of a self-referential encoding strategy on cued recall in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage.

Science.gov (United States)

Grilli, Matthew D; Glisky, Elizabeth L

2011-09-01

Knowledge of oneself is preserved in many memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage. Therefore, cognitive strategies that capitalize on mechanisms related to the self may be particularly effective at enhancing memory in this population. The present study investigated the effect of "self-imagining," imagining an event from a personal perspective, on short and long delayed cued recall in memory-impaired individuals with neurological damage. Sixteen patients intentionally encoded word pairs under four separate conditions: visual imagery, semantic elaboration, other person imagining, and self-imagining. The results revealed that self-imagining led to better performance than other-imagining, semantic elaboration, and visual imagery. Furthermore, the "self-imagination effect" (SIE) was preserved after a 30-min delay and was independent of memory functioning. These findings indicate that self-imagining provides a mnemonic advantage in brain-injured individuals, even those with relatively poor memory functioning, and suggest that self-imagining may tap into mnemonic mechanisms related to the self.

Development of the Correspondence between Real and Imagined Fine and Gross Motor Actions

Science.gov (United States)

Sachet, Alison B.; Frey, Scott H.; Jacobs, Stéphane; Taylor, Marjorie

2016-01-01

The development of the correspondence between real and imagined motor actions was investigated in 2 experiments. Experiment 1 evaluated whether children imagine body position judgments of fine motor actions in the same way as they perform them. Thirty-two 8-year-old children completed a task in which an object was presented in different…

Student mathematical imagination instruments: construction, cultural adaptation and validity

Science.gov (United States)

Dwijayanti, I.; Budayasa, I. K.; Siswono, T. Y. E.

2018-03-01

Imagination has an important role as the center of sensorimotor activity of the students. The purpose of this research is to construct the instrument of students’ mathematical imagination in understanding concept of algebraic expression. The researcher performs validity using questionnaire and test technique and data analysis using descriptive method. Stages performed include: 1) the construction of the embodiment of the imagination; 2) determine the learning style questionnaire; 3) construct instruments; 4) translate to Indonesian as well as adaptation of learning style questionnaire content to student culture; 5) perform content validation. The results stated that the constructed instrument is valid by content validation and empirical validation so that it can be used with revisions. Content validation involves Indonesian linguists, english linguists and mathematics material experts. Empirical validation is done through a legibility test (10 students) and shows that in general the language used can be understood. In addition, a questionnaire test (86 students) was analyzed using a biserial point correlation technique resulting in 16 valid items with a reliability test using KR 20 with medium reability criteria. While the test instrument test (32 students) to find all items are valid and reliability test using KR 21 with reability is 0,62.

Incursões da propaganda no imaginário: revisitando o brainstorm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Santos, Francisco dos

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Este trabalho busca refletir sobre as incursões da atividade publicitária no imaginário. O ponto de partida é a noção de que o imaginário é um museu dinâmico de imagens partilhado por toda a humanidade e que essas imagens se manifestam a partir das pulsões do inconsciente antropológico e da situação histórica. No caso da atividade publicitária, o imaginário atua com maior vazão durante o brainstorm, momento em que as ideias emergem. A partir do problema de comunicação traçado pelo planejamento, o processo criativo vai em busca de textos, sons, imagens visuais para a composição dos anúncios. É no processo de associação de ideias que podemos perceber o trajeto da imagem, cuja manifestação simbólica é possível observar nos anúncios

Practicing Sociological Imagination through Writing Sociological Autobiography

Science.gov (United States)

Kebede, Alem

2009-01-01

Sociological imagination is a quality of mind that cannot be adopted by simply teaching students its discursive assumptions. Rather, it is a disposition, in competition with other forms of sensibility, which can be acquired only when it is practiced. Adhering to this important pedagogical assumption, students were assigned to write their…

From memory to prospection: The overlapping and the distinct components between remembering and imagining

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Huimin eZheng

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Reflecting on past and reflecting on future events are two fundamentally different processes, each traveling in the opposite direction of the other through conceptual time. But what we are able to imagine seems to be constrained by what we have previously experienced, suggesting a close link between memory and prospection. Recent theories suggest that recalling the past lies at the core of imagining and planning for the future. The existence of this link is supported by evidence gathered from neuroimaging, lesion, and developmental studies. Yet it is not clear exactly how the novel episodes people construct in their sense of the future develop out of their historical memories. There must be intermediary processes that utilize memory as a basis on which to generate future oriented thinking. Here, we review studies on goal-directed processing, associative learning, cognitive control, and creativity and link them with research on prospection. We suggest that memory cooperates with additional functions like goal-directed learning to construct and simulate novel events, especially self-referential events. The coupling between memory-related hippocampus and other brain regions may underlie such memory- based prospection. Abnormalities in this constructive process may contribute to mental disorders such as schizophrenia.

The effects of mood upon imaginal thought.t.

Science.gov (United States)

Blum, G S; Green, M

1978-06-01

The effects of mood upon imaginal thought were explored with a highly trained undergraduate female hypnotic subject. She was hypnotically programmed to experience free-floating anxiety or pleasure in varying degrees just before the exposure of combinations of three Blacky Pictures, and to produce dreamlike imagery in response to the Blacky stimuli while under sway of the mood. Data from 98 dream trials, separated by amnesia, indicated that the affective states clearly influenced imaginal processes. Blind ratings by a psychoanalyst showed anxiety moods to be more closely associated with primary-process features characteristic of nocturnal dreams, whereas pleasure had a relatively higher incidence of daydreamlike ratings. Empirical analysis of themes yielded significant relationships of anxiety to physical injury to the self and verbal aggression toward others; pleasure was associated with circular movements and overt sex themes.

Effects of Imagined Consumption and Simulated Eating Movements on Food Intake: Thoughts about Food are not Always of Advantage.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simona Haasova

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Imagined food consumption is a method of elaborately imagining oneself eating a specific food that, when repeated 30 times, has been shown to decrease subsequent intake of the same food. The technique relies on a memory-based habituation process when behavioral and motivational responses to a stimulus decrease after its repeated presentation. Thus, repeatedly imagining food consumption leads to food-specific habituation effects. Large numbers of imagined consumption repetitions are effortful and time consuming and can be problematic when applied in interventions with the goal of reducing food intake. In the present study, we assessed the efficacy of the technique at smaller numbers of repetitions while testing motor simulation as a potential facilitator of the habituation-based consumption-reduction effect. 147 participants imagined eating chocolate pudding 15 or 3 consecutive times and simultaneously performed either facilitating or not-facilitating eating movements. Results showed that participants who imagined eating the chocolate pudding 15 times (M15 = 178.20, SD15 = 68.08 ate more of the pudding than those who imagined consuming it 3 times (M3 = 150.73, SD3 = 73.31. The nature of the motor movements that were performed did not impact this effect. The data suggest that the imagined food consumption technique can result in an unexpected increase in food consumption, when smaller numbers of imagination repetitions are performed.

EMOTIONAL EFECTS OF COLOURS ON LIFE

OpenAIRE

Ekta Sharma Stayasai School Indore

2017-01-01

Color psychology is the study of colors as a determinant of human behavior. Color play a vital role in our in our mood swings. Every color has a unique effects on individuals and stimulates various responses. Take a minute & imagine the world around you without colors, how boring and unexciting life would be. We are influenced by color in every aspect of our life. Kenneth Fehrman ,co-author of the bok COLOR ; says that "Most people are unaware of the profound effect color has on the behavior....

Intelligent and interactive computer image of a nuclear power plant: The ImagIn project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haubensack, D.; Malvache, P.; Valleix, P.

1998-01-01

The ImagIn project consists in a method and a set of computer tools apt to bring perceptible and assessable improvements in the operational safety of a nuclear plant. Its aim is to design an information system that would maintain a highly detailed computerized representation of a nuclear plant in its initial state and throughout its in-service life. It is not a tool to drive or help driving the nuclear plant, but a tool that manages concurrent operations that modify the plant configuration in a very general was (maintenance for example). The configuration of the plant, as well as rules and constraints about it, are described in a object-oriented knowledge database, which is built using a generic ImagIn meta-model based on the semantical network theory. An inference engine works on this database and is connected to reality through interfaces to operators and captors on the installation; it verifies constantly in real-time the consistency of the database according to its inner rules, and reports eventual problems to concerned operators. A special effort is made on interfaces to provide natural and intuitive tools (using virtual reality, natural language, voice recognition and synthesis). A laboratory application on a fictive but realistic installation already exists and is used to simulate various tests and scenarii. A real application is being constructed on Siloe, an experimental reactor of the CEA. (author)

The Game of Late Life: A Novel Education Activity for the Psychology of Ageing

Science.gov (United States)

Brinker, Jay K.; Roberts, Pamela; Radnidge, Belinda

2014-01-01

This article describes the development and evaluation of The Game of Late Life--a novel education activity for the psychology of ageing. The game was designed to provide transformational learning where students imagine themselves as older adults and move through late life via a game board, encountering various life events along the way. One of the…

Imagined futures in living with multiple conditions: Positivity, relationality and hopelessness.

Science.gov (United States)

Coyle, Lindsay-Ann; Atkinson, Sarah

2018-02-01

Hope serves as an overarching concept for a range of engagements that demonstrate the benefits of a positive outlook for coping with chronic conditions of ill-health and disability. A dominant engagement through medicine has positioned hope as a desirable attribute and its opposite, hopelessness, as pathological. In this engagement hope is individual, internally located and largely cognitive and able to be learned. Attaining hope reflects a process of coming to terms with the losses associated with long-term conditions and of imagining new meanings and purposes for the future ahead. This process is characterised by a set of linear temporal stages, from loss and denial to acceptance and reappraising the life-course, by an emphasis on the morally desirable exercise of self-care and by a desired outcome that, in the absence of cure, is hope. Through interviews, we aim to unsettle the privileged status given to a positive outlook through examining the expressions, contexts and negotiations of hopelessness of people living with multiple conditions of ill-health and/or disability. These narratives of hopelessness disclose the ways in which realistic imagined possibilities for the future are constrained by external structures of time and function that demand complex negotiations with places, bodies and other people. As a situated and relational narrative, hopelessness draws our attention to the need to rebalance the exclusive attention to individual, internal resources with a renewed attention to contexts and settings. Moreover, hopelessness can be generative for those living with multiple conditions in shaping alternatively framed priorities with respect to their temporal and interpersonal relations. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Designing to support reasoned imagination through embodied metaphor

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Antle, A.N. (Alissa); Corness, G.; Bakker, S.; Droumeva, M.; Hoven, van den E.A.W.H.; Bevans, A.; Bryan-Kinns, N.

2009-01-01

Supporting users' reasoned imagination in sense making during interaction with tangible and embedded computation involves supporting the application of their existing mental schemata in understanding new forms of interaction. Recent studies that include an embodied metaphor in the interaction model,

Re-Imagining the Land, North Sutherland, Scotland

Science.gov (United States)

Mackenzie, A. F. D.

2004-01-01

This paper focuses on contemporary re-imaginings of the land in North Sutherland that counter global, modernist discourse. One narrative concerns the reinvention of the past; the other concerns the reconstruction of the present. Through both, people create what Edward Said (Culture and Imperialism. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1994) calls a…

Anticipatory Imagination in Aging: Revolt and Resignation in Modern Day France

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jill Drouillard

2017-02-01

Full Text Available “Rien n’arrive ni comme on l’espère, ni comme on le craint. Nothing really happens as we hope it will, nor as we fear it will.”1 Améry appropriates this quote of Proust to highlight how our imaginative powers can never approach its reality during an extreme event. This failure of what he coins our anticipatory imagination is depicted in his phenomenological account of torture, an event whose extremity is later compared to another embodied experience: that of aging. Equating torture with aging may seem shocking to some, and Améry was critiqued for suggesting such a parallel, particularly since he narrates a lived experience with the latter at the mere age of fifty-five. He revisits this critique in the preface to the fourth edition of On Aging: Revolt and Resignation where he states: "Today as much as yesterday I think that society has to undertake everything to relieve old and aging persons of their unpleasant destiny. And at the same time I stick to my position that all high- minded and reverential efforts in this direction, though indeed capable of being somewhat soothing- are still not capable of changing anything fundamental about the tragic hardship of aging." - Jean Améry, On Aging [Améry’s emphasis] The “today” of society that Améry referenced was 1977. But what about today? Is Améry correct in projecting that despite our best efforts nothing fundamental can change the quite unbearable experience of aging? Are attempts to aid the aging complicit in a “vile dupery” that ends in “metaphorically empty” phrases such as “rest in peace”?3 I would like to pose these questions in the wake of a heated debate in France regarding the legality of assisted suicide for aging persons (Améry took his own life and sees suicide as an acceptable form of revolt and resignation, the only authentic choices left to the aging. Thus, this paper seeks to not only dissect his account of aging (and the failure of anticipatory

A poética imaginária do videogame: as passagens e as traduções do imaginário e dos mitos gregos no processo de criação de jogos digitais

OpenAIRE

Gasi, Flávia Tavares

2012-01-01

A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender como figuras do imaginário e dos mitos gregos são traduzidas no processo de criação de narrativas em videogames. O estudo é composto por uma revisão dos conceitos de imaginário, mitos gregos, e narrativas ludológicas. Na sequência, realiza-se o estudo de caso de três jogos digitais, que apresentam figuras do imaginário de três maneiras: o primeiro demonstra presença de narrativas e figuras dos mitos gregos que ressurgem de forma quase literal,...

Episodic and semantic components of autobiographical memories and imagined future events in post-traumatic stress disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Adam D; Addis, Donna Rose; Romano, Tracy A; Marmar, Charles R; Bryant, Richard A; Hirst, William; Schacter, Daniel L

2014-01-01

Individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) tend to retrieve autobiographical memories with less episodic specificity, referred to as overgeneralised autobiographical memory. In line with evidence that autobiographical memory overlaps with one's capacity to imagine the future, recent work has also shown that individuals with PTSD also imagine themselves in the future with less episodic specificity. To date most studies quantify episodic specificity by the presence of a distinct event. However, this method does not distinguish between the numbers of internal (episodic) and external (semantic) details, which can provide additional insights into remembering the past and imagining the future. This study employed the Autobiographical Interview (AI) coding scheme to the autobiographical memory and imagined future event narratives generated by combat veterans with and without PTSD. Responses were coded for the number of internal and external details. Compared to combat veterans without PTSD, those with PTSD generated more external than internal details when recalling past or imagining future events, and fewer internal details were associated with greater symptom severity. The potential mechanisms underlying these bidirectional deficits and clinical implications are discussed.

Writings of Healing and Resistance: Empathy and the Imagination-Intellect. Culture Critique. Volume 7

Science.gov (United States)

Weems, Mary E., Ed.

2013-01-01

"Writings of Healing and Resistance: Empathy and the Imagination-Intellect" is a multi-authored, interdisciplinary journey. It continues the work started in Public Education and the Imagination-Intellect (Peter Lang, 2003) by extending the importance of empathy in developing an action-based social consciousness. Mary E. Weems doesn't argue for a…

Imagining the Political : Young Women, Participation and the ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

Imagining the Political : Young Women, Participation and the Crafting of the Political in Egypt. IDRC's Women's Rights and Citizenship (WRC) program initiative is supporting a body of comparative research on whether and how democracy and governance institutions are responding to women's rights and gender equality.

`Not to escape the world but to join it': responding to climate change with imagination not fantasy

Science.gov (United States)

Davison, Andrew

2017-05-01

The work of climate scientists, demonstrating human-driven climate change, has not provoked the widespread and far-reaching changes to human behaviour necessary to avert potentially catastrophic environmental trajectories. This work has not yet sufficiently been able to engage the individual and collective imagination. Drawing on Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) and Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), we can distinguish two modes under which the human imagination can operate: in Murdoch's terms, these are `imagination' and `fantasy'. To relate imaginatively is to be willing to allow one's internal image of the world to be changed by what one encounters, while an outlook characterized by fantasy relates to the world as one would wish it were, rather than how it actually is. Fantasy, therefore, operates not only among those who deny climate change, but also among those who entertain the promise of a technological solution too optimistically. An imaginative outlook, by contrast, evaluates actions and patterns of behaviour in terms of their relation to a wider whole. This is necessary for providing the degree of agency required to step out of a cycle of ever accelerating production, which is explored in terms of an analogy to a discussion of revenge and forgiveness from Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). Ultimately, the need to engage the imagination is an opportunity as well as a challenge. To live imaginatively is fulfilling, and that is precisely what the challenges of climate change require. This article is part of the themed issue 'Material demand reduction'.

The Sociological Imagination and Its Promise Fifty Years Later

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Frade

2009-11-01

Full Text Available This paper offers a restatement of Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination and tries to judge whether its promise can be credibly renewed today by addressing the question about the present and future possibilities of the social sciences as free forms of enquiry. Relying on Weber, Mills and other thinkers, the paper sustains that the possibilities for a truly free social science essentially depend on three major ‘conditions’: the subjective stance or vocation, the sociological imagination proper, and an independent social science politics, conditions whose apt names can also be ‘love’, ‘insight’ and ‘courage’. An analysis of the presence and strength of each of these conditions in contemporary social science and in academia shows the magnitude of the task faced for the existence of a free social science.

Life review as a way to enhance personal growt in midlife: A case study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bohlmeijer, Ernst Thomas; Westerhof, Gerben Johan

2013-01-01

Life review may not only be beneficial for people in the last stages of their lives but for middle-aged people as well. Memories are the building blocks of life stories as imaginative and creative productions that each of us constructs and reconstructs as we move through our adult years. When

Responding to hypnotic and nonhypnotic suggestions: performance standards, imaginative suggestibility, and response expectancies.

Science.gov (United States)

Meyer, Eric C; Lynn, Steven Jay

2011-07-01

This study examined the relative impact of hypnotic inductions and several other variables on hypnotic and nonhypnotic responsiveness to imaginative suggestions. The authors examined how imaginative suggestibility, response expectancies, motivation to respond to suggestions, and hypnotist-induced performance standards affected participants' responses to both hypnotic and nonhypnotic suggestions and their suggestion-related experiences. Suggestions were administered to 5 groups of participants using a test-retest design: (a) stringent performance standards; (b) lenient performance standards; (c) hypnosis test-retest; (d) no-hypnosis test-retest; and (e) no-hypnosis/hypnosis control. The authors found no support for the influence of a hypnotic induction or performance standards on responding to suggestions but found considerable support for the role of imaginative suggestibility and response expectancies in predicting responses to both hypnotic and nonhypnotic suggestions.

The role of imagination in experiencing natural environments

Science.gov (United States)

Herbert. Schroeder

2010-01-01

The experience of natural environments and places is multifaceted, involving psychological functions such as perception, cognition, memory, emotion, and imagination. Environmental perception and cognition were key topics in early research in environmental psychology. More recently, attention has also been directed to affective dimensions of environmental experience,...

Observation, Inference, and Imagination: Elements of Edgar Allan Poe's Philosophy of Science

Science.gov (United States)

Gelfert, Axel

2014-03-01

Edgar Allan Poe's standing as a literary figure, who drew on (and sometimes dabbled in) the scientific debates of his time, makes him an intriguing character for any exploration of the historical interrelationship between science, literature and philosophy. His sprawling `prose-poem' Eureka (1848), in particular, has sometimes been scrutinized for anticipations of later scientific developments. By contrast, the present paper argues that it should be understood as a contribution to the raging debates about scientific methodology at the time. This methodological interest, which is echoed in Poe's `tales of ratiocination', gives rise to a proposed new mode of—broadly abductive—inference, which Poe attributes to the hybrid figure of the `poet-mathematician'. Without creative imagination and intuition, Science would necessarily remain incomplete, even by its own standards. This concern with imaginative (abductive) inference ties in nicely with his coherentism, which grants pride of place to the twin virtues of Simplicity and Consistency, which must constrain imagination lest it degenerate into mere fancy.

'Not to escape the world but to join it': responding to climate change with imagination not fantasy.

Science.gov (United States)

Davison, Andrew

2017-06-13

The work of climate scientists, demonstrating human-driven climate change, has not provoked the widespread and far-reaching changes to human behaviour necessary to avert potentially catastrophic environmental trajectories. This work has not yet sufficiently been able to engage the individual and collective imagination. Drawing on Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) and Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), we can distinguish two modes under which the human imagination can operate: in Murdoch's terms, these are 'imagination' and 'fantasy'. To relate imaginatively is to be willing to allow one's internal image of the world to be changed by what one encounters, while an outlook characterized by fantasy relates to the world as one would wish it were, rather than how it actually is. Fantasy, therefore, operates not only among those who deny climate change, but also among those who entertain the promise of a technological solution too optimistically. An imaginative outlook, by contrast, evaluates actions and patterns of behaviour in terms of their relation to a wider whole. This is necessary for providing the degree of agency required to step out of a cycle of ever accelerating production, which is explored in terms of an analogy to a discussion of revenge and forgiveness from Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). Ultimately, the need to engage the imagination is an opportunity as well as a challenge. To live imaginatively is fulfilling, and that is precisely what the challenges of climate change require.This article is part of the themed issue 'Material demand reduction'. © 2017 The Author(s).

Imagined Voices : a poetics of Music-Text-Film

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kyriakides, Y.

2017-01-01

Imagined Voices deals with a form of composition, music with on-screen text, in which the dynamic between sound, words and visuals is explored. The research explores the ideas around these 'music-text-films', and attempts to explain how meaning is constructed in the interplay between the different

Imaginative Geographies, Dracula and the Transylvania ‘Place Myth’

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Duncan Light

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Imaginative geographies have become a central concept in Anglo-American cultural geography in recent years. We all form knowledge, ideas and beliefs in our minds about what other places are ‘like’. In some cases these ideas may so strong that a distinct place ‘myth’ develops. In this paper I focus on the Western place myth of Transylvania. In the Western imagination this region has come to be constructed as a remote, backward, sinister place on the very edge of Europe, where vampires and the supernatural reign unchecked. I examine the historical development of this place myth in the West with particular reference to the role of popular culture in reproducing and circulating this myth on a global scale. I also seek to situate this place myth in its broader historical, political and social contexts.

The Place of Imagination in Inclusive Pedagogy: Thinking with Maxine Greene and Hannah Arendt

Science.gov (United States)

Harwood, Valerie

2010-01-01

Conceptualising difference is a key task for inclusive pedagogy, and vital to the politics of inclusion. My purpose in this paper is to consider the place that imagination has in helping us to conceptualise difference, and to argue that imagination has a key part to play in inclusive pedagogy. To do this I draw closely on the work of Maxine Greene…

[Hermann Samuel Reimarus' theory of "modes of life" and "drives"].

Science.gov (United States)

Cheung, Tobias

2006-01-01

This essay focuses on Hermann Samuel Reimarus' (1694-1768) theory of "modes of life" and natural "drives" or "tendencies" (Triebe) in Allgemeine Betrachtungen über die Triebe der Thiere, hauptsdchlich über ihre Kunsttriebe (1760). Reimarus combines the notion of a systemic, organized inner order of organs, in which "functions" and corporeal dispositions correspond to each other, with a system of regulated "actions" of individual organic bodies. These "actions" rely on a "basic drive" (Grundtrieb) of "self-preservation", that Reimarus differentiates into "mechanic drives" (mechanische Triebe), "imagination drives" (Vorstellungstriebe) und "voluntary drives" (willkiirliche Triebe). Voluntary drives are again divided into "affection-drives" (Affectentriebe) and "art-drives" (Kunsttriebe). Mechanic drives automatically initiate and sustain physiological processes of the system of organs, imagination drives establish transitions between sense perception, imagination, memory, and recognition, and art-drives regulate, as schemes or "m odels" which imply some degree of skill, "action" (Handlung)-based relations between individual organic bodies and their environments. Further on, humans possess a specific art-drive, based on "reason" (Vernunft), that is not naturally determined as a goal-directed "action": While the "modes of life" of animals are perfect in themselves in combining systems of drives and organic dispositions, humans are perfectible living beings with the faculty of "reflection". Plants are for Reimarus not living beings, because their existence relies only on "mechanical drives" without a central acting entity of perceptions.

Television and the Developing Imagination of the Child.

Science.gov (United States)

Singer, Dorothy G.; Singer, Jerome L.

1981-01-01

The literature review discusses studies which have been conducted to determine whether television enriches a child's imagination or leads to distortions of reality, and whether adult mediation during a child's television viewing or immediately after can evoke constructive changes or stimulate make-believe play. Thirty-six references are cited.…

Imagine That!: Science Fiction as a Learning Motivation

Science.gov (United States)

Ontell, Val

2003-01-01

This article, based on a presentation made by the author at the 2003 California Library Association conference, provides examples of how librarians and teachers can use Science Fiction to provide catalysts for discussion in a variety of subjects; teach students how to question intelligently; and stimulate their imaginations, thus motivating them…

Musical Imagination: Perception and Production, Beauty and Creativity

Science.gov (United States)

Hargreaves, David J.

2012-01-01

In our recently-published book "Musical Imaginations" (Hargreaves, Miell, & MacDonald, 2012), I suggest that the creative aspects of music "listening" have been neglected, and that putting these at the centre of musical creativity (which is usually seen as being manifested in the activities of composition, improvisation and performance) can lead…

Imagination et temporalisation chez Kant, Husserl et Richir

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Fazakas, Istvan

2016-01-01

Roč. 3, č. 2 (2016), s. 502-521 ISSN 2067-3655 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GJ16-00994Y Institutional support: RVO:67985955 Keywords : image * imagination * phantasia * schematism * temporalization * presence * present * weilen Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion http://www.metajournal.org/article_details.php?id=278

An Imagination Effect in Learning from Scientific Text

Science.gov (United States)

Leopold, Claudia; Mayer, Richard E.

2015-01-01

Asking students to imagine the spatial arrangement of the elements in a scientific text constitutes a learning strategy intended to foster deep processing of the instructional material. Two experiments investigated the effects of mental imagery prompts on learning from scientific text. Students read a computer-based text on the human respiratory…

Manual for Scoring the Test of Directed Imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Veldman, Donald J.; And Others

A scoring manual for the Directed Imagination Test, a projective technique wherein the subject is instructed to write four fictional stories (four minutes are allowed for each) about teachers and their experiences, is presented. The manual provides detailed instructions for rating each story by fifteen dimensions relevant to teacher education…

The war in children's imagination: What psychopedagogical routes?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Maria Disanto

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The aim of the pilot study presented below is to investigate the imagination of children of war. Starting from a project of peace education, has been developed a questionnaire containing some items about war and peace’s fuction. 270 children were interviewed. The first results are discussed below.

Runaway globalization and the cultural imagination of dependency ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

justify racial inequality which works to the political and economic advantage of the West. Globalisation and globalism by their nature and design therefore work hand in hand to ensure a hegemonic consciousness among Africans such that even their responses to globalisation is imagined and mediated from the pedestal of ...

A Hybrid Imagination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jamison, Andrew; Christensen, Steen Hyldgaard; Botin, Lars

“hubris” that is so much taken for granted in contemporary science and engineering discourses and practices with a sense of cooperation and social responsibility. The book portrays the history of science and technology as an underlying tension between hubris – literally the ambition to “play god...... an alternative approach, devoting special attention to the role played by social and cultural movements in the making of science and technology. They show how social and cultural movements, from the Renaissance of the late 15th century to the environmental and global justice movements of our time, have provided......” on the part of many a scientist and engineer and neglect the consequences - and a hybrid imagination, connecting scientific “facts” and technological “artifacts” with cultural understanding. The book concludes with chapters on the recent transformations in the modes of scientific and technological production...

Children's strategies to handle cancer: a video ethnography of imaginal coping.

Science.gov (United States)

Rindstedt, C

2014-07-01

This article explores how children use fantasy, play, and coping (imaginal coping) in order to handle chronic illness. Imaginal coping, as a theoretical construct, is defined as the use of imagination to deal with the hardships of illness. The overarching aim has been to investigate the various ways in which categories of staff members (doctors, nurses, play therapists, and hospital clowns) and parents support children in their coping. Focus has thus been on collaborative or interactive aspects of playful coping. A large proportion of the data collected consists of 93 h of video-recorded interactions between children, parents and staff. The collection of data involved fieldwork carried out with the use of a video ethnographic method, making it possible thereby to analyse and work with data in greater detail. For more than one year, five children with leukaemia were followed as each made their regular visits to a children's cancer clinic in a children's hospital in Sweden. Collaborative storytelling, humorous treatment practices, playful rituals, as well as role-reversal play, were all types of events involving staff-child collaboration and creative improvisation. Staff, along with parents, played a significant role in the coping process. In various ways, the staff members helped the parents to respond to their children in ways adaptive for coping. It can be seen that imaginal coping is a highly interactional business. In this study it is shown that parents socialize coping; this is sometimes undertaken explicitly, for example, through coaching (in the form of instructions or suggestions) and teaching. But often it is achieved through modelling or intent participation, with the child observing staff members' treatment practices. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Paradox of Romantic Ekphrasis. Metacritic Discourse, Perception and Imagination in Art Description

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Renata Gambino

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Ekphrasis is a text genre based on the intertwining of visual and verbal features, involving the processes of both reading, and priming a visual image or a related action. We argue in this study that this genre, which has been object of many disputes and critical claims over the times, is a powerful tool in order to stimulate a particularly intense activation of the reader/listener’s emotions and imagination. This because of the double nature of the inputs triggering more powerfully the embodied simulation by mixing the regime of perception, affection and thought. Ekphrasis is characterized by a “paradoxical nature”, i.e. the fact that the fictional visible qualities of the described artwork disavow the process of visualization by facing the reader/listener with the need of “creating” his own images, by activating a kind of “guided imagination act”. The intertwining of codes determines also a substitution of the description by actions, as described by ancient rhetoricians. The description of actions solicits more powerfully the embodied simulation of the reader/listener. This creates an “in-between” space where what was unthinkable becomes thinkable. Since the afforded cognitive process is overwhelming for the reader/listener, he/she is driven to overcome his/her own cognitive limitations thanks to processes of the imagination that “fills in the gaps” between the known and unknown. We argue that in modern times, starting with Romantics, this process is particularly amplified and ekphrasis becomes a metacritical commentary about the act of imagining, since it induces the reader to complete the description by simulating a personal experience triggered by the rhetorical “vividness” of ekphrasis. This hypothesis will be elucidated by investigating as case-study an ekphrastic text by German author Heinrich von Kleist, who wrote about the revolutionary painting The Monk at the Sea by Caspar David Friedrich. In Kleist’s text

Business mereology: imaginative definitions of insourcing and outsourcing transformations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bergstra, J.A.; van Vlijmen, S.F.M.

2010-01-01

Outsourcing, the passing on of tasks by organizations to other organizations, often including the personnel and means to perform these tasks, has become an important IT-business strategy over the past decades. We investigate imaginative definitions for outsourcing relations and outsourcing

The Effects of Spatial Contextual Familiarity on Remembered Scenes, Episodic Memories, and Imagined Future Events

Science.gov (United States)

Robin, Jessica; Moscovitch, Morris

2014-01-01

Several recent studies have explored the effect of contextual familiarity on remembered and imagined events. The aim of this study was to examine the extent of this effect by comparing the effect of cuing spatial memories, episodic memories, and imagined future events with spatial contextual cues of varying levels of familiarity. We used…

Thought-shape fusion in young healthy females appears after vivid imagination of thin ideals.

Science.gov (United States)

Wyssen, Andrea; Coelho, Jennifer S; Wilhelm, Peter; Zimmermann, Grégoire; Munsch, Simone

2016-09-01

It has been shown that exposure to female thin ideals in media has minimal to moderate direct effects on body image satisfaction (BIS), mood and dysfunctional eating in healthy young women. Evidence has been found for several intervening variables such as social comparison processes. Accordingly it is assumed, that cognitive processing (rather than mere media exposure) is crucial. Consequently, vivid imagination of thin ideals after exposure to a fashion magazine was induced in order to trigger cognitive processes. Changes in mood, BIS and resulting bodyrelated cognitive distortions (Thought-Shape Fusion Body, TSF-B) were assessed. A total of 91 healthy women (mean age 21.9 years, SD = 2.0) were exposed to either a fashion magazine (thin-ideal group) or a nature magazine (control group) in a waiting room design. Afterwards they were instructed to vividly imagine either the thin ideals or landscapes. When exposed to thin ideals, a significant decrease in mood and BIS emerged after vivid imagination, but not after mere magazine exposure. Imagining thin ideals triggered body-related cognitive distortions (TSF-B). A higher degree of eating disorder (ED) symptomatology amplified this effect. These findings apply to young healthy females and cannot be generalized to samples with obesity, EDs or males. Internal validity is limited since the intensity of the exposure has not been systematically controlled. Vivid imagination of thin ideals promoted by magazines results in impaired mood and BIS and moreover in body-related cognitive distortions (TSF-B) in healthy women, especially, for those with stronger ED symptomatology. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Activating the Imagination inside the World Language Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, Claire

2015-01-01

Imagination, creation, and innovation are three powerful words that present many possibilities in the world language classroom. When learners can see themselves as language users, they take ownership of their learning experience and become more invested in and engaged with the topic being studied. This heightened sense of investment in turn leads…

Human Rights Education: Imaginative Possibilities for Creating Change

Science.gov (United States)

Bajaj, Monisha

2015-01-01

Background/Context: Human rights education has proliferated in the past four decades and can be found in policy discussions, textbook reforms, and grassroots initiatives across the globe. This article specifically explores the role of creativity and imagination in human rights education (HRE) by focusing on a case study of one non-governmental…

Faith and the Literary Imagination: The Educational Challenge

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Kevin

2013-01-01

Divided into four parts, the article explores the relationship between literature and faith. The first part examines the connection between literature and the pursuit of truth and the second shows that literature can offer a challenging encounter with different beliefs. Part three examines some examples of the imagination at work in illuminating…

Olfactory Imagination and Odor Processing: Three Same-Different Experiments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koster, E.P.; Stelt, van der O.; Nixdorf, R.R.; Linschoten, M.R.I.; Mojet, J.; Wijk, de R.A.

2014-01-01

Do people who claim to have olfactory imagination process odors more efficiently? In three same–different experiments, using all possible combinations of odors and odor names as primes and targets, selected high imagers (n¿=¿12) were faster (±230 ms; P¿

Geography and Creativity: Developing Joyful and Imaginative Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Scoffham, Stephen

2013-01-01

Creativity is a complex and contested notion but is now widely recognised as a feature of learning across the curriculum. This article explores how primary geography teaching can be enriched by creative practice. It goes beyond simply suggesting imaginative ways to devise geography lessons, to outline a pedagogy which places children at the heart…

L’imagination et les biais de l’empathie

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Morgane Paris

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Empathy is an emotional mode associating the point of view of other people to physiological sensations. This phenomena tends to be more significant with certain people than others. And yet, there are sometimes good moral reasons to promote a more egalitarian empathy. Our hypo- thesis of moral psychology is that it is possible to use imagination – and in particular its volon- tary dimension and its openness to emotions – to modify certain empathic biaises.RÉSUMÉL'empathie est un mode émotionnel qui associe le point de vue d'autrui à des sensations phy- siologiques. Ce phénomène a tendance à être plus important envers certaines personnes qu'en- vers d'autres. Or, il existe parfois de bonnes raisons morales de promouvoir une empathie plus égalitaire. Notre hypothèse de psychologie morale est qu'il est possible d'utiliser l'imagination, et en particulier sa dimension volontaire et sa transparence aux émotions, pour corriger certains biais empathiques.

Economic Imagination and Support For Parliamentary Democracy In Poland

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrzej K. Koźmiński

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The article introduces a concept of the economic imagination, describes economic public attitudes and discusses the character of the contemporary economic imagination of Poles. Methodology: Representative survey conducted on the stratifi ed random sample of 1022 adult respondents by means of CAPI (computer assisted personal interview. Statistical analysis of data. Findings: The features perceived by public as economically benefi cial to the entire economy, particular enterprises and individuals have been ranked by the representative survey and statistically grouped into more general clusters. Those considered as good for the economy are grouped into such factors as “investment and competition”, “statism (etatism” and “progressive taxation”. The features considered as benefi cial for the enterprises are grouped into “human, social and economic capital”, “law obedience and good social relations” and “limited free market”. Personal characteristics perceived as benefi cial for individual’s economic success are grouped into “honesty, perseverance and good social relations”, “skills and diligence” and “nepotism and instrumentalism”. Intensity as well as determinants of such general value loaded convictions, and their impact on acceptance of democracy have been revealed as well. The implications: Economic imagination has to be analysed as an important factor of socio-economic system’s legitimization. Originality: Distinction and empirical defi nition of economic attitudinal syndromes at three different levels: macro-economic, enterprise and individual constitute a novelty in socio-economic research. Discussion of their determinants and wider implications constitute a new contribution to the theory of social legitimization.

Interactive, mobile, AGIle and novel education (IMAGINE): a conceptual framework to support students with mobility challenges in higher education.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldberg, Mary; Karimi, Hassan; Pearlman, Jonathan L

2016-01-01

Interactive, mobile, AGIle and novel education (IMAGINE) is a conceptual framework to help students with disabilities (SwD) participate more in the physical space and become more engaged in school. IMAGINE recommends and reminds students, and allows them to make requests of key learning resources (LRs). The goal of IMAGINE is to provide SwD with the location and time for attending a LR that is most optimal with respect to their learning style and preference, learning performance and other activities. IMAGINE will be a means through which SWD will be provided with tailored recommendations with respect to their daily activities to improve learning outcomes. A pilot was conducted with SwD who used IMAGINE's navigation and wayfinding functionality, and the subjects reported that it aligns well with their needs. Preliminary results suggest that after completing a training and using the tool, SwD reported that they are more likely to use the tool and their participation may increase as a result. In contrast to before the trial, the SwD were also able to better describe the tool's benefits and how to improve its functionality after using the tool for four weeks. Implications for Rehabilitation The IMAGINE tool may be a means through which SwD can be provided with tailored recommendations with respect to their daily activities to improve learning outcomes. PWD should be involved (as research study participants and research study team members) in the design and development of tools like IMAGINE to improve participation. IMAGINE and similar tools may not only encourage better learning outcomes, but also more physical participation in the community, and could be used across education and employment settings.

Exile, exilic consciousness and the poetic imagination in Tanure ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

As a thematic trajectory, exile constitutes a visible presence in the Nigerian poetic afflatus and imagination. This is sometimes not adequately or sufficiently acknowledged. Increasingly, however, exile and exilic consciousness have continued to occupy a contested and contestable site in literature especially Nigerian poetry.

Imagining Afrikaners musically: Reflections on the ‘African music’ of Stefans Grové

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. J. Muller

2000-04-01

Full Text Available For nearly two decades Stefans Grové has been composing music that absorbs the cultural “Other" of Africa in a manner that defies an easy classification of ‘‘indigenous’’ principles and “exotic” appropriation. His own conception of himself as an African who composes African music challenges the inhibition of “white” Afrikaner culture and revivifies Afrikaner culture as African culture. In so doing, Grové is consciously subverting the myth of a united Africa over against a monolithic "West” - and with it the legitimacy of an autochthonous echt African culture previously excluded by “whites" and Afrikaners. This article takes a closer look at the strategies and techniques involved in this fin de siècle musical imaginings of Afrikaner identity.

Unwritten: (Re)Imagining FE as Social Purpose Education

Science.gov (United States)

Mycroft, Lou

2018-01-01

Drawing on stories from ten years of social purpose teacher education in the UK, this paper assumes that the future of further education is still unwritten. It illustrates complex and workable ideas via a theorised sketch of the fictional Bee Learning Programme, an imagined education setting of the future. The narrative that follows is designed to…

Test of Creative Imagination: Validity and Reliability Study

Science.gov (United States)

Gundogan, Aysun; Ari, Meziyet; Gonen, Mubeccel

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate validity and reliability of the test of creative imagination. This study was conducted with the participation of 1000 children, aged between 9-14 and were studying in six primary schools in the city center of Denizli Province, chosen by cluster ratio sampling. In the study, it was revealed that the…

At Home with Jane Austen: Imagining the Colonial Connection in Mansfield Park

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Blanka Grzegorczyk

2009-11-01

Full Text Available This article examines Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in the context of the complex relationship between imaginative literature and the experience of empire. Specifically, it argues that the way Austen's novel plays with the imperial experience is more ambivalent than many critics have indicated. It suggests that underlying the imaginative conceptualization of the relations between metropole and colony are certain evasions and contradictions in which the novel consciously abounds. A close reading of the novel demonstrates how issues related to metropole and colony may be articulated within the literary mainstream, and why such narrative articulation is important.

Imagination as poetics of cognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Grazia Pulvirenti

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Our work bases on the hypothesis of an existing interconnection between the symbolic and the metaphoric elements of the text responding to a series of mind patterns compressing perception and experience through the emerging process of conceptual blending triggering the semantic process during the creative act of poiesis. This enquiry focuses on the use of a peculiar rhetorical figure in an exemplar literary text of the famous German poet Goethe. We will try to point out the allegorical function of the scene dedicated to the «Mothers’ Kingdom», in his Faust II as a powerful poetical meta-reflection on imagination, cognition and poetics itself.

Eismitte in the Scientific Imagination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Martin-Nielsen, Janet

was a setting for scientific knowledge production as well as diplomatic maneuvering, providing new insights into the history of polar exploration and the intertwining of scientific and geopolitical considerations. Author Janet Martin-Nielsen draws on new research in private, government, military......Since the first attempts by Europeans to penetrate Greenland's interior, its geometric center, Eismitte (‘middle ice’), has been one of the most forbidding but scientifically rich locations in the Arctic. Tracing its history from European contact through the Cold War, this study shows how Eismitte......, and institutional archives in many languages in multiple countries to illuminate Eismitte’s place in the scientific imagination....

Re-imagining Active Learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dall'Alba, Gloria; Bengtsen, Søren Smedegaard

2018-01-01

is largely lacking in the literature on active learning. In this article, we explore the possibility of re-imagining, or at least extending, the meaning of active learning by drawing out dimensions that are neither readily visible nor instrumental, as much of this literature implies. Drawing from educational......Ample attention is being paid in the higher education literature to promoting active learning among students. Where studies on active learning report student outcomes, they indicate improved or equivalent outcomes when compared with traditional lectures, which are considered more passive...... philosophy and, in particular, existential philosophies, we argue that active learning may also be partly invisible, unfocused, unsettling, and not at all instrumentalsometimes even leaving the learner more confused and (temporarily) incompetent. However, such forms of undisclosed or ‘dark’ learning, we...

Democratising the Research Imagination: Globalising Knowledge about HIV/AIDS

Science.gov (United States)

Epstein, Debbie; Boden, Rebecca

2006-01-01

This paper problematises globalisation and the democratisation of the research imagination, highlighting the potentials for harm and good. We do so, first, by exploring two philosophical/epistemological issues: the definition of "knowledge" and the role of "research" in knowledge creation. The paper then considers some of…

Les ruines à l'épreuve de La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli: Imaginer se souvenir?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laure Barillas

2017-07-01

Full Text Available What place should be given to ruins in the phenomenology of memory sketched by Ricœur in Memory, History, Forgetting? The contemplation of ruins raises the same problem as that which occupies the whole of Ricœur’s work: the representation of the past and the relations of memory and imagination in the formation of recollection. Can ruins give rise to a rearrangement of the relations of memory and imagination and produce an “imagining remembering”?

LITERATURE AND LIFE: THE DECLINE AND FALL OF APARTHEID ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Africa, all areas of life were influenced by "the politics of race"2 during the apart- heid era. In her imaginative rendering of South African society, Gordimer has depicted the various stages of the apartheid system from its introduction in the late forties and fifties; entrenchment in the sixties and seventies; gradual decline in the ...

Imagine the Universe!

Science.gov (United States)

White, N.

2003-01-01

Welcome to the 2004 edition of the education CD from the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. We hope that you will find it to be an exciting and fun learning experience. We have tried very hard to make this CD as user-friendly as possible and along the way we have discovered some things that every user may need to know. Please read the README file found on the CD if you have any questions or problems using the disk. Then, after that, if you still have problems, email us at itu@athena.gsfc.nasa.gov. We will be happy to help you 'get going'! Below are links to all of the sites included on the CD. You will also find the addresses for the on-line version of each of these sites. If you have a good Internet connection available, we recommend that you view the sites on-line. There you will find the latest updated information, interactive activities, and active links to other sites. Included on the disk are: Imagine The Universe! This site is dedicated to a discussion about our Universe... what we know about it, how it is evolving, and the kinds of objects and phenomena it contains. Emphasizing the X-ray and gamma-ray parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, it also discusses how scientists know what they know, what mysteries remain, and how the answers to remaining mysteries may one day be found. Lots of movies, quizzes, and a special section for educators. Geared for ages 14 and up. This site can be viewed on-line at http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/. StarChild: A learning center for young astronomers The 1998 Webby Award Winner for Best Education Website, StarChild is aimed at ages 4-14. It contains easy-to-understand information about our Solar System, the Universe, and space exploration. There are also activities, songs, movies, and puzzles! This site can be viewed on-line at http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/. Astronomy Picture of the Day APOD offers a new astronomical image and caption each calendar day. We have captured the year 2003

Cidade Turística e Seus Imaginários: O Olhar da Imprensa Especializada

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Milena Berthier Bandeira

2013-10-01

Full Text Available O presente artigo apresenta uma reflexão sobre o papel da Cidade na sua relação com o Turismo, quando a mesma não esteja associada a destino de montanha ou mar. Analisa-se a ascensão do turismo de massa, em simultâneo a desqualificação da cidade industrial, que levam a consagrar a viagem como evasão e fuga do urbano, e a busca de espaços tidos como paradisíacos, junto à natureza. Propõe-se, ainda, utilizar Michel Maffesoli, em especial na sua teorização sobre imaginário ou imaginal, como ele também refere, e o conflitual, segundo o mesmo teórico, para com eles analisar a Cidade e o Urbano, a primeira vista enquanto espaço físico concreto e, o segundo, enquanto o imaginal, o complexo das relações socioculturais que alimentam o imaginário de Cidade. Assim como o pastoral está para o campo, o Urbano estaria para a Cidade. Entre os sujeitos que contribuem para essa construção, papel preponderante é desempenhado pela mídia. No caso do Turismo, a presente análise reporta a contribuição de uma publicação especializada, a Revista Viagem e Turismo, na construção do imaginário de cidade turística. No caso da publicação identifica-se o imaginário de cidade turística associada ao paraíso em destinos identificados pela presença marcante da natureza. Tourist City and its Imaginary: The Specialized Press This article presents a reflection on the role of the City regarding tourism, when it is not associated to a mountain or ocean destination. It is analyzed the mass tourism rise, simultaneously with the industrial city disqualification, which lead to devote the trip as evasion and escape from the urban area, and the search after places said to be paradisiacal, close to the nature. It is also proposed to use Michel Maffesoli, especially in his theory about the imaginary or imaginal, as he also says, and the conflitual, according to the same theory and to use them to examine the City and the Urban, at first as concrete

Constructive episodic simulation: dissociable effects of a specificity induction on remembering, imagining, and describing in young and older adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Madore, Kevin P; Gaesser, Brendan; Schacter, Daniel L

2014-05-01

According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis (Schacter & Addis, 2007), both remembered past and imagined future events rely heavily on episodic memory. An alternative hypothesis is that observed similarities between remembering and imagining reflect the influence of broader factors such as descriptive ability, narrative style, or inhibitory control. We attempted to distinguish between these 2 hypotheses by examining the impact of an episodic specificity induction on memory, imagination, and picture description in young and older adults. In Experiment 1, participants received the specificity induction or a control induction prior to the memory, imagination, and description tasks. Older adults provided fewer internal (i.e., episodic) and more external (i.e., semantic) details than young adults across the 3 tasks irrespective of induction. Critically, however, the specificity induction selectively increased internal but not external details for memory and imagination in both age groups compared with the control induction. By contrast, the induction did not affect internal (or external) details for picture description. Experiment 2 replicated these results in young adults using a different control induction. Our findings point to a dissociation between episodic processes involved in memory and imagination and nonepisodic processes involved in picture description. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Historical imagination, narrative learning and nursing practice: graduate nursing students' reader-responses to a nurse's storytelling from the past.

Science.gov (United States)

Wood, Pamela J

2014-09-01

Storytelling and narrative are widely used in nurse education and the value of narrative-based curricula, such as those governed by narrative pedagogy, is well recognised. Storytelling stimulates students' imagination, a central feature of narrative learning. One form of story and imagination yet to be fully considered by educators is the historical story and historical imagination. The use of historical storytelling creates a temporal dissonance between the story and reader that stimulates readers' imagination and response, and enables them to gain rich insights which can be applied to the present. Reader-response theory can support educators when using narrative and storytelling. This article presents an analysis of graduate nursing students' reader-responses to a nurse's story from the past. This narrative learning group used their historical imagination in responding to the story and prompted and challenged each other in their interpretation and in translating their responses to their current nursing practice. The article discusses this analysis within the context of reader-response theory and its potential application to narrative-based learning in nurse education. Historical stories stimulate historical imagination and offer a different frame of reference for students' development of textual competence and for applying insights to the present. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Go West: Imagining the Oregon Trail. [Lesson Plan].

Science.gov (United States)

National Endowment for the Humanities (NFAH), Washington, DC.

In this lesson plan, students in grades 3-5 compare imagined travel experiences of their own with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers on the Oregon Trail. After the 4 lessons students will have: (1) learned about the pioneer experience on the Oregon Trail; (2) compared and contrasted modern-day travel experiences with those of the 19th…

Jung i Bachelard. Problem wyobraxni i mitu (JUNG AND BACHELARD. THE PROBLEM OF IMAGINATION AND MYTH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ilona Błocian

2005-06-01

Full Text Available The article is devoted to some specific 'area between' interpretative achievements of Freud, Jung and Bachelard. The imagination and myth problems are involved in more general perspective of philospophical conception of man in their works. Different models of human reason and imagination idealizing forces influenced procedures of an imaginal thinking and image itself interpretations. The basis of comparation is the unconscious (Freudian 'repressed unconscious', Jungian collective unconsciuos, complex and archetype conceptions as some kind of instruments to understand image formating process, phantasies, mythical and poetical image. An example of these differences is their interpretations of Promethean myth. A way of understand dream image, Anima and Animus archetypes refer to their specific theoretical frames.

Imagining Another Context during Encoding Offsets Context-Dependent Forgetting

Science.gov (United States)

Masicampo, E. J.; Sahakyan, Lili

2014-01-01

We tested whether imagining another context during encoding would offset context-dependent forgetting. All participants studied a list of words in Context A. Participants who remained in Context A during the test recalled more than participants who were tested in another context (Context B), demonstrating the standard context-dependent forgetting…

The Prayer-Poem and Jung's Use of Active-Imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Molton, Warren L.

1996-01-01

Develops the concept of the prayer-poem as a method for spiritual search. Relates the process of the prayer-poem to Carl Jung's use of "active imagination" as a way of pushing the poetic image to a deeper level of meaning and usefulness: a window into the psyche (soul). (SR)

'To Think Representatively': Arendt on Judgment and the Imagination

African Journals Online (AJOL)

... the standpoint of the spectator, I go on to examine their most distinctive features, in particular, the link between judgment, the imagination, and the ability to think 'representatively'. I also examine the philosophical sources of Arendt's theory of judgment, namely, Kant's theory of aesthetic judgment and its criteria of validity.

Just Research in Contentious Times: Widening the Methodological Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Fine, Michelle

2017-01-01

In this intensely powerful and personal new text, Michelle Fine widens the methodological imagination for students, educators, scholars, and researchers interested in crafting research with communities. Fine shares her struggles over the course of 30 years to translate research into policy and practice that can enhance the human condition and…

Our Language: (Re)Imagining Communities in Ukrainian Language Classrooms

Science.gov (United States)

Friedman, Debra A.

2016-01-01

Drawing upon video recordings from two fifth-grade Ukrainian classrooms and interviews with children four years later, this paper examines these classrooms as sites for socializing learners into an "imagined community" of Ukrainian speakers, the extent to which children took up identities as members of this community, and the potential…

Inverted Commons: Africa’s Nature in the Global Imagination.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

B.E. Büscher (Bram)

2012-01-01

textabstractNature in Africa has long occupied a special place in the global imagination: the prevailing images associated with the continent are of a “wild Eden,” of rugged, “pristine” landscapes, and of some of the world’s most charismatic “megafauna” (elephants, gorillas, rhinos, etc.) (Adams and

End-of-Life Medical Spending In Last Twelve Months of Life is Lower than Previously Reported

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

French, Eric; Aragon, Maria; Mccauley, Jeremy

2017-01-01

Although end-of-life medical spending is often viewed as a major component of aggregate medical expenditure, accurate measures of this type of medical spending are scarce. We used detailed health care data for the period 2009–11 from Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Taiw...... but to spending on people with chronic conditions, which are associated with shorter life expectancies....

The Future Is Bright and Predictable: The Development of Prospective Life Stories across Childhood and Adolescence

Science.gov (United States)

Bohn, Annette; Berntsen, Dorthe

2013-01-01

When do children develop the ability to imagine their future lives in terms of a coherent prospective life story? We investigated whether this ability develops in parallel with the ability to construct a life story for the past and narratives about single autobiographical events in the past and future. Four groups of school children aged 9 to 15…

Replaying the tape of life in the twenty-first century.

Science.gov (United States)

Orgogozo, Virginie

2015-12-06

Should the tape of life be replayed, would it produce similar living beings? A classical answer has long been 'no', but accumulating data are now challenging this view. Repeatability in experimental evolution, in phenotypic evolution of diverse species and in the genes underlying phenotypic evolution indicates that despite unpredictability at the level of basic evolutionary processes (such as apparition of mutations), a certain kind of predictability can emerge at higher levels over long time periods. For instance, a survey of the alleles described in the literature that cause non-deleterious phenotypic differences among animals, plants and yeasts indicates that similar phenotypes have often evolved in distinct taxa through independent mutations in the same genes. Does this mean that the range of possibilities for evolution is limited? Does this mean that we can predict the outcomes of a replayed tape of life? Imagining other possible paths for evolution runs into four important issues: (i) resolving the influence of contingency, (ii) imagining living organisms that are different from the ones we know, (iii) finding the relevant concepts for predicting evolution, and (iv) estimating the probability of occurrence for complex evolutionary events that occurred only once during the evolution of life on earth.

Imagining and Feeling: Experiential Learning in Mass Communication Instruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Parcells, Frank E.

Defining the media experience as the media and social interaction involved in any person's viewing of television and the consequences of that viewing for oneself and others, this paper examines how phenomenology and psychodrama--methods of experiential learning focusing on the feeling and imagining functions of communication--can be used to teach…

Effects of Imagined Interactions and Rehearsal on Speaking Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Charles W.; Honeycutt, James M.; Bodie, Graham D.

2015-01-01

Imagined interactions (IIs) constitute a type of social cognition that can reduce fear of communication. Through the mental preparation enabled by IIs, an individual can reduce disfluencies and mitigate the anxiety that arises from a speech. Study 1 indicated that rehearsal influences the reduction of silent pauses but not vocalized pauses. In…

Unconscious Imagination and the Mental Imagery Debate

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Berit Brogaard

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Traditionally, philosophers have appealed to the phenomenological similarity between visual experience and visual imagery to support the hypothesis that there is significant overlap between the perceptual and imaginative domains. The current evidence, however, is inconclusive: while evidence from transcranial brain stimulation seems to support this conclusion, neurophysiological evidence from brain lesion studies (e.g., from patients with brain lesions resulting in a loss of mental imagery but not a corresponding loss of perception and vice versa indicates that there are functional and anatomical dissociations between mental imagery and perception. Assuming that the mental imagery and perception do not overlap, at least, to the extent traditionally assumed, then the question arises as to what exactly mental imagery is and whether it parallels perception by proceeding via several functionally distinct mechanisms. In this review, we argue that even though there may not be a shared mechanism underlying vision for perception and conscious imagery, there is an overlap between the mechanisms underlying vision for action and unconscious visual imagery. On the basis of these findings, we propose a modification of Kosslyn’s model of imagery that accommodates unconscious imagination and explore possible explanations of the quasi-pictorial phenomenology of conscious visual imagery in light of the fact that its underlying neural substrates and mechanisms typically are distinct from those of visual experience.

False Memories and Reproductive Imagination: Ricoeur’s Phenomenology of Memory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Man-to TANG

2015-06-01

Full Text Available In cognitive psychology, a false memory refers to a fabricated or distorted recollection of an event that did not actually happen. Both ‘memory-distortion’ and ‘false memory creation’ refer to the processes of recollection in which the recollected events are not actually happened. This paper has three aims: (1 to examine Ricoeur’s analysis of memory and imagination; (2 to explain and reinforce the constructive role of memory; (3 to show in what manner the first two aims lead to the conclusion that the phenomena of ‘distorted or false memory creation’ are reproductive because the nature of recollection is constructive in the sense of representation of past. In this regard, Ricoeur’s trajectory not only displaces the essential structure of memory and imagination behind the curtain of their distinction and connection, but also contributes to the debates in cognitive psychology.

Gangs and a global sociological imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Fraser, Alistair; Hagedorn, John M

2018-02-01

Across the globe, the phenomenon of youth gangs has become an important and sensitive public issue. In this context, an increasing level of research attention has focused on the development of universalized definitions of gangs in a global context. In this article, we argue that this search for similarity has resulted in a failure to recognize and understand difference. Drawing on an alternative methodology we call a 'global exchange', this article suggests three concepts-homologies of habitus, vectors of difference and transnational reflexivity-that seek to re-engage the sociological imagination in the study of gangs and globalization.

Shaping Your Own Life

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Peijnenburg, J

A distinction is made between imagination in the narrow sense and in the broad sense. Narrow imagination is characterised as the ability to "see" pictures in the mind's eye or to "hear" melodies in the head. Broad imagination is taken to be the faculty of creating, either in the strict sense of

Imagining the Music: Methods for Assessing Musical Imagery Ability

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Terry; Williamon, Aaron

2012-01-01

Timing profiles of live and imagined performances were compared with the aim of creating a context-specific measure of musicians' imagery ability. Thirty-two advanced musicians completed imagery use and vividness surveys, and then gave two live and two mental performances of a two-minute musical excerpt, tapping along with the beat of the mental…

Literature and Truth : Imaginative Writing as a Medium for Ideas

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lansdown, Richard

2017-01-01

In Literature and Truth Richard Lansdown continues a discussion concerning the truth-bearing status of imaginative literature that pre-dates Plato. The book opens with a general survey of contemporary approaches in philosophical aesthetics, and a discussion of the contribution to the question made

O imaginário do herói na trilogia Mass Effect: estudo sobre o mito e o imaginário no processo criativo do herói em jogos digitais

OpenAIRE

Silva, Thiago Tadeu R.

2014-01-01

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo pesquisar o imaginário do herói em jogos digitais sendo que para isso, temos como nosso objeto de pesquisa principal a trilogia de jogos digitais Mass Effect. Para tal, buscamos de início estabelecer um diálogo com teorias fundamentais da antropologia estrutural do imaginário do teórico francês Gilbert Durand, em paralelo com estudos sobre o mito do herói e da narratologia. Consideramos as características semióticas da mídia que pesquisamos, o videogame, ...

The Humanities, Human Rights, and the Comparative Imagination

OpenAIRE

McClennen, Sophia A.

2007-01-01

In her paper "The Humanities, Human Rights, and the Comparative Imagination" Sophia A. McClennen argues that understanding the relationship between culture and human rights depends on humanist perspectives attentive to the relationship between storytelling and identity, mass culture and ideology, text and audience, critical thinking and engaged citizenship. After briefly considering how the divide between the humanities and human rights advocates developed and how it might best be overcome, s...

Activation of Imaginal Information on True and False Memories

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Sau Hou; Pierce, Benton H.

2009-01-01

The present study examined the activation of imaginal information on true and false memories. Participants studied a series of concrete objects in pictures or words. The imagery group (n = 96) was instructed to form images and the control group (n = 96) was not instructed to do so. Both groups were then given a standard recognition memory test and…

EIT and the Popular Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Gurman, J. B.

2005-01-01

The Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope on board SOHO, designed and built by Principal Investigator Jean-Pierre Delaboudiniere and his French/Belgan/US team, has produced numerous scientific breakthroughs, and has become both the standard coronal finder telescope and the determinant of whether halo coronal mass ejections are earthward-directed. Due to the dramatic nature of the images produced by EIT over the last nearly ten years, those images have been adopted worldwide in a manner no one could have foreseen before the launch of SOHO. I examine a small sample of the many scientific, commercial, and cultural uses of EIT imagery from the last decade in order to demonstrate how well-visualized, scientific imagery can first penetrate and then become an accepted part of the popular imagination.

Omission, Suggestion, Completion : Film and the Imagination of the Spectator

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hanich, Julian

2018-01-01

This article counters the widespread assumption that film is exclusively a medium of showing, presentation or appearing by emphasizing the importance of the viewer’s act of imagination. At the center of attention is the aesthetic principle of omission, suggestion, and completion in film – in other

Globalisation, the Research Imagination and Deparochialising the Study of Education

Science.gov (United States)

Lingard, Bob

2006-01-01

This paper works in dialogue with Arjun Appadurai's paper, "Grassroots globalization and the research imagination" in an attempt to outline some necessary changes in researching education in the multiple contexts of globalisation. The paper provides two narratives as part of this project, which Appadurai calls the…

Imaginário e contágio psíquico

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Malena Contrera

2017-09-01

Full Text Available O objetivo deste artigo é refletir, a partir de fatos relatados pela mídia, a questão do contágio psíquico (possessões coletivas, bem como relaciona-lo com os estudos do imaginário, compreendendo como os processos de empatia e mimese facilitam tais contágios e os quadros de possessão coletiva. Dessa forma, este artigo conclui que o contágio psíquico (possessões coletivas são ações de conteúdos imaginários, os quais emergem do Inconsciente Coletivo, em momentos de forte comoção e afetação geral. O artigo tem como metodologia a coleta de dados e revisão bibliográfica, tendo como principais referenciais teóricos Carl G. Jung, Edgar Morin, Christoph Wulf, James Hillman, Frans de Waal, Rafael Lopez-Pedraza e Norval Baitello Júnior.

A Hockey Night in Canada: An Imagined Conversation between Theorists

Science.gov (United States)

Fogel, Curtis

2010-01-01

In this paper, various methodological issues surrounding the sociological study of sport are explored. Through an imagined dialogue between two graduate students at a hockey game, this work brings together three divergent approaches to social enquiry: Positivist Grounded Theory, Constructivist Grounded Theory, and Actor-Network Theory. This paper…

Relative autonomy of manifestation of welt mutation in imaginal discs of Drosophila

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vikulova, V.K.

1988-01-01

Autonomy of manifestation of the temperature-sensitive lethal welt mutation was investigated during transplantation of imaginal discs of mutant larvae into normal recipients and in large clones of cells homozygous for welt induced by γ-irradiation in a dose of 1000 rd in y; fj wt/M(2)S7 T(1;2)sc s 2 heterozygotes. Three temperature regimes were used: 17 degree C, at which the welt mutation is not manifested; 29 degree C, at which it is manifested better; and 25 degree C. It was established that the welt mutation operates autonomously, but in restricted regions of imaginal discs. The possibility is discussed of nonautonomous manifestation of the mutation with direct contact of wt/wt cells with heteroxygous wt/+ tissue

Do you remember proposing marriage to the Pepsi machine? False recollections from a campus walk.

Science.gov (United States)

Seamon, John G; Philbin, Morgan M; Harrison, Liza G

2006-10-01

During a campus walk, participants were given familiar or bizarre action statements (e.g., "Check the Pepsi machine for change" vs. "Propose marriage to the Pepsi machine") with instructions either to perform the actions or imagine performing the actions (Group 1) or to watch the experimenter perform the actions or imagine the experimenter performing the actions (Group 2). One day later, some actions were repeated, along with new actions, on a second walk. Two weeks later, the participants took a recognition test for actions presented during the first walk, and they specified whether a recognized action was imagined or performed. Imagining themselves or the experimenter performing familiar or bizarre actions just once led to false recollections of performance for both types of actions. This study extends previous research on imagination inflation by demonstrating that these false performance recollections can occur in a natural, real-life setting following just one imagining.

Imagine a world without cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brücher, Björn LDM; Polkowski, Wojciech; Wallner, Grzegorz; Verwaal, Vic; Garofalo, Alfredo; D’Ugo, Domenico; Roviello, Franco; Steinau, Hans-Ulrich; Wallace, Timothy J; Daumer, Martin; Maihle, Nitah; Lyman, Gary; Reid, Thomas J III; Ducreux, Michel; Kitagawa, Yuko; Knuth, Alexander; Zilberstein, Bruno; Steele, Scott R; Jamall, Ijaz S; Hillegersberg, Richard van; Pollock, Raphael E; Lordick, Florian; Yang, Han-Kwang; Ushijima, Toshikazu; Yeoh, Khay-Guan; Skricka, Tomas

2014-01-01

Since the “War on Cancer” was declared in 1971, the United States alone has expended some $300 billion on research, with a heavy focus on the role of genomics in anticancer therapy. Voluminous data have been collected and analyzed. However, in hindsight, any achievements made have not been realized in clinical practice in terms of overall survival or quality of life extended. This might be justified because cancer is not one disease but a conglomeration of multiple diseases, with widespread heterogeneity even within a single tumor type. Only a few types of cancer have been described that are associated with one major signaling pathway. This enabled the initial successful deployment of targeted therapy for such cancers. However, soon after this targeted approach was initiated, it was subverted as cancer cells learned and reacted to the initial treatments, oftentimes rendering the treatment less effective or even completely ineffective. During the past 30 plus years, the cancer classification used had, as its primary aim, the facilitation of communication and the exchange of information amongst those caring for cancer patients with the end goal of establishing a standardized approach for the diagnosis and treatment of cancers. This approach should be modified based on the recent research to affect a change from a service-based to an outcome-based approach. The vision of achieving long-term control and/or eradicating or curing cancer is far from being realized, but not impossible. In order to meet the challenges in getting there, any newly proposed anticancer strategy must integrate a personalized treatment outcome approach. This concept is predicated on tumor- and patient-associated variables, combined with an individualized response assessment strategy for therapy modification as suggested by the patient’s own results. As combined strategies may be outcome-orientated and integrate tumor-, patient- as well as cancer-preventive variables, this approach is likely

Managing the Research Imagination? Globalisation and Research in Higher Education

Science.gov (United States)

Boden, Rebecca; Epstein, Debbie

2006-01-01

This paper argues that, during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, universities have been captured by neo-liberal regimes of truth. We suggest that this may inhibit the "research imagination" within universities and, consequently, their role in the democratisation of knowledge. We consider the role of capital in the…

Imagine...Opportunities and Resources for Academically Talented Youth, 1996-1997.

Science.gov (United States)

Hellerman, Susan B., Ed.

1996-01-01

This document consists of the five consecutive issues of the journal "Imagine..." published during volume year 4. Typical journal articles cover teaching academically talented secondary students in the following focus areas: (1) planning ahead for college; (2) history and archaeology; (3) physics and astronomy; (4) the global society; and (5)…

Science, medicine and virility surveillance: 'sexy seniors' in the pharmaceutical imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Marshall, Barbara L

2010-02-01

Abstract While historically sex has been seen primarily as the prerogative of the young, more recently, the emphasis has been on the maintenance of active sexuality as a marker of successful ageing. A new cultural consensus appears to have emerged which not only emphasises the importance of continued sexual activity across the lifespan, but links sexual function with overall health and encourages increased self-surveillance of, and medical attention to, late-life sexuality. Drawing on historical accounts, clinical research, popular science reporting and health promotion literatures, I explore several key shifts in models of sexual ageing, culminating in the contemporary model of gender, sexuality and ageing that has made ageing populations a key market for biotechnologies aimed at enhancing sexual function. Two central concepts frame my analysis: 'virility surveillance', where age-related changes in sexual function are taken as indicative of decline, and the 'pharmaceutical imagination', where sexual lifecourses are reconstructed as drug effects revise standards of sexual function. After consideration of how narratives emerging from qualitative research with older adults challenge the narrow depiction of sexual functionality promoted by pharmaculture, conclusions call for continued critical inquiry into the biomedical construction of sex and age.

Mirror Neurons and Literature: Empathy and the Sympathetic Imagination in the Fiction of J.M. Coetzee

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hilmar Heister

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In the two essays “The Philosophers and the Animals” and “The Poets and the Animals” (in The Lives of Animals, 1999 J.M. Coetzee lets Elizabeth Costello urge us to use our sympathetic imagination in order to access the experience of others—in particular, animals—and engage with them empathetically. Coetzee’s fiction illustrates how the use of the sympathetic imagination might evoke empathy in the reader. Narrative structure and the character’s mode of introspection engage the reader’s empathy through an ambivalent process of distancing and approximation, as Fritz Breithaupt puts forward in his narrative theory of empathy (Kulturen der Empathie, 2009. The sympathetic imagination and the complementary notion of embodiment feature prominently in Coetzee’s fictional discourse and resonate with neuroscience’s research on mirror neurons and their relation to empathy.

Simply Imagining Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows Will Not Budge the Bias: The Role of Ambiguity in Interpretive Bias Modification.

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, Patrick J F; Nanthakumar, Shenooka; Notebaert, Lies; Holmes, Emily A; Blackwell, Simon E; Macleod, Colin

2014-01-01

Imagery-based interpretive bias modification (CBM-I) involves repeatedly imagining scenarios that are initially ambiguous before being resolved as either positive or negative in the last word/s. While the presence of such ambiguity is assumed to be important to achieve change in selective interpretation, it is also possible that the act of repeatedly imagining positive or negative events could produce such change in the absence of ambiguity. The present study sought to examine whether the ambiguity in imagery-based CBM-I is necessary to elicit change in interpretive bias, or, if the emotional content of the imagined scenarios is sufficient to produce such change. An imagery-based CBM-I task was delivered to participants in one of four conditions, where the valence of imagined scenarios were either positive or negative, and the ambiguity of the scenario was either present (until the last word/s) or the ambiguity was absent (emotional valence was evident from the start). Results indicate that only those who received scenarios in which the ambiguity was present acquired an interpretive bias consistent with the emotional valence of the scenarios, suggesting that the act of imagining positive or negative events will only influence patterns of interpretation when the emotional ambiguity is a consistent feature.

'Imagined guilt' vs 'recollected guilt': implications for fMRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Mclatchie, Neil; Giner-Sorolla, Roger; Derbyshire, Stuart W G

2016-05-01

Guilt is thought to maintain social harmony by motivating reparation. This study compared two methodologies commonly used to identify the neural correlates of guilt. The first, imagined guilt, requires participants to read hypothetical scenarios and then imagine themselves as the protagonist. The second, recollected guilt, requires participants to reflect on times they personally experienced guilt. In the fMRI scanner, participants were presented with guilt/neutral memories and guilt/neutral hypothetical scenarios. Contrasts confirmed a priori predictions that guilt memories, relative to guilt scenarios, were associated with significantly greater activity in regions associated with affect [anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), Caudate, Insula, orbital frontal cortex (OFC)] and social cognition [temporal pole (TP), precuneus). Similarly, results indicated that guilt memories, relative to neutral memories, were also associated with greater activity in affective (ACC, amygdala, Insula, OFC) and social cognition (mPFC, TP, precuneus, temporo-parietal junction) regions. There were no significant differences between guilt hypothetical scenarios and neutral hypothetical scenarios in either affective or social cognition regions. The importance of distinguishing between different guilt inductions inside the scanner is discussed. We offer explanations of our results and discuss ideas for future research. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press.

Imagination, Playfulness, and Creativity in Children's Play with Different Toys

Science.gov (United States)

Mo????ller, Signe?? Juhl?

2015-01-01

Based on a four-month experimental study of preschool children's play with creative-construction and social-fantasy toys, the author examines the in?uence of both types of toys on the play of preschool children. Her comparative analysis considers the impact of transformative play on the development of imagination during play activities and…

Engaging Social Imagination: The Developmental Work of Wordless Book Reading

Science.gov (United States)

Lysaker, Judith T.; Miller, Angela

2013-01-01

The reading process and reading development have been addressed by researchers for decades. As a result we know much about what reading is and how it happens. However, less is known about how reading influences other aspects of children's development, specifically the development of social imagination. To address this, we examined the narrative…

Manifestation of x-radiation induced sex-linked recessive lethal mutation impairing the development of imaginal disks and gonads in Drosophila Melanogaster

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abeleva, Eh.A.; Ivanov, A.I.

1982-01-01

A study was made of Drosophila melanogaster mutations impairing the development of imaginal disks. The state of gonads in these mutants was not studied. Using X-radiation a lethal mutation in X chromosome was obtained that induced degeneration of imaginal disks at the 3d stage of larva development. The gonads of the mutants at this stage of development vary in size. The transplantation tests showed that the mutation manifests itself in both the imaginal disks and the gonads

Landslide risk impact management and web services for improving resilience: the LIFE+IMAGINE project approach

Science.gov (United States)

Congi, Maria Pia; Campo, Valentina; Cipolloni, Carlo; Delmonaco, Giuseppe; Guerrieri, Luca; Iadanza, Carla; Spizzichino, Daniele; Trigila, Alessandro

2014-05-01

The increasing damage caused by natural disasters in the last decades points out the need for interoperable added-value services to support environmental safety and human protection, by reducing vulnerability of exposed elements as well as improving the resilience of the involved communities. For this reason, to provide access to harmonized and customized data is only one of several steps towards delivering adequate support to risk assessment, reduction and management. Scope of the present work is to illustrate a methodology under development for analysis of potential impacts in areas prone to landslide hazard in the framework of the EC project LIFE+IMAGINE. The project aims to implement an infrastructure based on web services for environmental analysis, that integrates in its own architecture specifications and results from INSPIRE, SEIS and GMES. Existing web services will be customized during the project to provide functionalities for supporting the environmental integrated management. The implemented infrastructure will be applied to landslide risk scenarios, to be developed in selected pilot areas, aiming at: i) application of standard procedures to implement a landslide risk analysis; ii) definition of a procedure for assessment of potential environmental impacts, based on a set of indicators to estimate the different exposed elements with their specific vulnerability in the pilot area. More in detail, the landslide pilot will be aimed at providing a landslide risk scenario through the implementation and analysis of: 1) a landslide inventory from available historical databases and maps; 2) landslide susceptibility and hazard maps; 3) assessment of exposure and vulnerability on selected typologies of elements at risk; 4) implementation of a landslide risk scenario for different sets of exposed elements (e.g. population, road network, residential area, cultural heritage). The pilot will be implemented in Liguria, Italy, in two different catchment areas located

Cannibals and Orchids: Cannibalism and the Sensory Imagination of Papua New Guinea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ilaria Vanni

2011-11-01

Full Text Available This article examines Leona Miller’s book Cannibal and Orchids (1941 as an example of how place, in this case Papua New Guinea (PNG, is imagined according to a particular sensorium. It follows the ‘sensory turn in anthropology’ and the studies developed in the last two decades that take the senses as their object of enquiry. This body of theory is mobilised to analyse Miller’s biographical narrative recounting how PNG is imagined, represented and produced in terms of a disarray of the (Western senses, coalescing in the trope of cannibalism. This article argues that the experience of PNG as the place of otherness is narrated both in terms of the author’s sensory displacement and of the indigenous sensorium as abject.

A collective unconscious reconsidered: Jung's archetypal imagination in the light of contemporary psychology and social science.

Science.gov (United States)

Hunt, Harry T

2012-02-01

A needed rapprochement between Jung and the contemporary human sciences may rest less on the much debated relevance of a biologistic collective unconscious than on a re-inscribing of an archetypal imagination, as the phenomenological and empirical core of Jungian psychology. The most promising approaches in this regard in terms of theory and research in psychology come from combining the cognitive psychology of metaphor and synaesthesia, individual differences in imaginative absorption and openness to numinous experience and spirituality as a form of symbolic intelligence. On the socio-cultural side, this cognitive psychology of archetypal imagination is also congruent with Lévi-Strauss on the metaphoric roots of mythological thinking, and Durkheim on a sociology of collective consciousness. This conjoined perspective, while validating the cross cultural commonality of physical metaphor intuited by Jung and Hillman on alchemy, also shows Jung's Red Book, considered as the expressive source for his more formal psychology, to be far closer in spirit to a socio-cultural collective consciousness, based on metaphoric imagination, than to a phylogenetic or evolutionary unconscious. A mutual re-inscribing of Jung into congruent areas of contemporary psychology, anthropology, sociology, and vice versa, can help to further validate Jung's key observations and is fully consistent with Jung's own early efforts at synthesis within the human sciences. © 2012, The Society of Analytical Psychology.

A Mathematical Model for the Hippocampus: Towards the Understanding of Episodic Memory and Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Tsuda, I.; Yamaguti, Y.; Kuroda, S.; Fukushima, Y.; Tsukada, M.

How does the brain encode episode? Based on the fact that the hippocampus is responsible for the formation of episodic memory, we have proposed a mathematical model for the hippocampus. Because episodic memory includes a time series of events, an underlying dynamics for the formation of episodic memory is considered to employ an association of memories. David Marr correctly pointed out in his theory of archecortex for a simple memory that the hippocampal CA3 is responsible for the formation of associative memories. However, a conventional mathematical model of associative memory simply guarantees a single association of memory unless a rule for an order of successive association of memories is given. The recent clinical studies in Maguire's group for the patients with the hippocampal lesion show that the patients cannot make a new story, because of the lack of ability of imagining new things. Both episodic memory and imagining things include various common characteristics: imagery, the sense of now, retrieval of semantic information, and narrative structures. Taking into account these findings, we propose a mathematical model of the hippocampus in order to understand the common mechanism of episodic memory and imagination.

Towards Narrative Futuring in Psychology: Becoming Resilient by Imagining the Future

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sools, Anna Maria; Mooren, J.H.M.

2012-01-01

In this article we develop a narrative psychological approach to futuring (imagining the future). We explore how this approach addresses the question of how people can become resilient in order to anticipate (social) crisis and change. Firstly, we bring to the fore how futuring takes shape in

The Whole Learner: The Role of Imagination in Developing Disciplinary Understanding

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Kirsteen

2010-01-01

This article challenges the predominance of modularization across the UK university system, arguing that the fragmentation of the learning experience which results from this model undermines the possibility of a disciplinary understanding. It proposes instead a practice of imaginative writing which, by engaging students' experience, interest and…

Corpo, mito e imaginário nos postais das praias cariocas

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Euler David de Siqueira

Full Text Available "Cidade Maravilhosa", "capital cultural", o Rio de Janeiro é ícone do Brasil em uma série de discursos, entre eles o turístico. As bancas de jornal da cidade exibem cartões-postais com fotos que exploram a imagem do corpo feminino na orla carioca e a mostram como imagem da cidade. A partir da análise de uma amostra intencional e não-probabilística de exemplares dessa mídia, o objetivo deste trabalho é o de estudar a relação entre o corpo e o espaço urbano na construção do imaginário sobre a cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Entre alguns dos resultados encontrados, observa-se a construção de um imaginário que reforça antigos clichês em que a cidade do Rio de Janeiro e seus personagens são apresentados como tendo uma natureza sensual, quente e festiva.

Relationship between speed and EEG activity during imagined and executed hand movements

Science.gov (United States)

Yuan, Han; Perdoni, Christopher; He, Bin

2010-04-01

The relationship between primary motor cortex and movement kinematics has been shown in nonhuman primate studies of hand reaching or drawing tasks. Studies have demonstrated that the neural activities accompanying or immediately preceding the movement encode the direction, speed and other information. Here we investigated the relationship between the kinematics of imagined and actual hand movement, i.e. the clenching speed, and the EEG activity in ten human subjects. Study participants were asked to perform and imagine clenching of the left hand and right hand at various speeds. The EEG activity in the alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (18-28 Hz) frequency bands were found to be linearly correlated with the speed of imagery clenching. Similar parametric modulation was also found during the execution of hand movements. A single equation relating the EEG activity to the speed and the hand (left versus right) was developed. This equation, which contained a linear independent combination of the two parameters, described the time-varying neural activity during the tasks. Based on the model, a regression approach was developed to decode the two parameters from the multiple-channel EEG signals. We demonstrated the continuous decoding of dynamic hand and speed information of the imagined clenching. In particular, the time-varying clenching speed was reconstructed in a bell-shaped profile. Our findings suggest an application to providing continuous and complex control of noninvasive brain-computer interface for movement-impaired paralytics.

Cosmic Biology How Life Could Evolve on Other Worlds

CERN Document Server

Irwin, Louis Neil

2011-01-01

It is very unlikely that little green humanoids are living on Mars. But what are the possible life forms that might exist in our Solar System and how might they have evolved? This uniquely authoritative and imaginative book on the possibilties for alien life addresses the intrinsic interest that we have about life on other worlds - reinforcing some of our assumptions and reshaping others. It introduces new possibilties that will enlarge our understanding of the issue overall, in particular the enormous range of environments and planetary conditions within which life might evolve. Cosmic Biology -discusses a broad range of possible environments where alien life might have evolved; -explains why carbon-based, water-borne life is more likely that its alternatives, but is not the only possiblity; -applies the principles of planetary science and modern biology to evolutionary scenarios on other worlds; -looks at the future fates of living systems, including those on Earth.

Influencing Republicans' and Democrats' attitudes toward Obamacare: Effects of imagined vicarious cognitive dissonance on political attitudes.

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, Joel; Feldman, Lauren A; Blackman, Shane F

2018-04-16

The field of experimental social psychology is appropriately interested in using novel theoretical approaches to implement change in the social world. In the current study, we extended cognitive dissonance theory by creating a new framework of social influence: imagined vicarious dissonance. We used the framework to influence attitudes on an important and controversial political attitude: U.S. citizens' support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 36 Republicans and 84 Democrats were asked to imagine fellow Republicans and Democrats, respectively, making attitude discrepant statements under high and low choice conditions about support for the ACA. The data showed that vicarious dissonance, established by imagining a group member make a counterattitudinal speech under high-choice conditions (as compared to low-choice conditions), resulted in greater support for the Act by Republicans and marginally diminished support by Democrats. The results suggest a promising role for the application of vicarious dissonance theory to relevant societal issues and for further understanding the relationship of dissonance and people's identification with their social groups.

DNA synthesis in the imaginal wing discs of the American bollworm ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Unknown

The effect of two insect growth regulators of plant origin viz. plumbagin and azadirachtin and the ecdysteroids. 20-hydroxyecdysone, makisterone A and a phytoecdysteroid on DNA synthesis in imaginal wing discs of day 4 final instar Helicoverpa armigera larvae was studied. DNA synthesis increased with increase in time of.

Screening Belief: The Life of Pi, Computer Generated Imagery, and Religious Imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rachel Wagner

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Ang Lee’s The Life of Pi is based on Yann Martel’s novel of the same name. The film expands upon the novel’s fantastic story through the integration of new visual metaphors that invite religious reflection, and is reinforced by religious rituals within and beyond the film itself. Martel’s novel invites readers to believe Pi’s story without seeing it. Viewers of the film, by contrast, are invited to believe Pi’s story precisely because they are seeing it so vividly. Ang Lee constructs a filmic world using such elaborately developed CGI (computer-generated imagery that the film exhibits only a vestigial relationship to the real-life animals and locations used in its creation. Indeed, it is impossible to make sense of the film’s extensive use of religious themes and rituals without understanding its use of immersive visual effects. For Ang Lee, the manufacture of a seamless, aesthetically appealing CGI world was a means of visually affirming the broadly conceived notions of interconnectedness and purpose that he borrowed from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Jewish mysticism.

Alpha band functional connectivity correlates with the performance of brain-machine interfaces to decode real and imagined movements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hisato eSugata

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Brain signals recorded from the primary motor cortex (M1 are known to serve a significant role in coding the information brain-machine interfaces (BMIs need to perform real and imagined movements, and also to form several functional networks with motor association areas. However, whether functional networks between M1 and other brain regions, such as these motor association areas, are related to performance of BMIs is unclear. To examine the relationship between functional connectivity and performance of BMIs, we analyzed the correlation coefficient between performance of neural decoding and functional connectivity over the whole brain using magnetoencephalography. Ten healthy participants were instructed to execute or imagine three simple right upper limb movements. To decode the movement type, we extracted 40 virtual channels in the left M1 via the beamforming approach, and used them as a decoding feature. In addition, seed-based functional connectivities of activities in the alpha band during real and imagined movements were calculated using imaginary coherence. Seed voxels were set as the same virtual channels in M1. After calculating the imaginary coherence in individuals, the correlation coefficient between decoding accuracy and strength of imaginary coherence was calculated over the whole brain. The significant correlations were distributed mainly to motor association areas for both real and imagined movements. These regions largely overlapped with brain regions that had significant connectivity to M1. Our results suggest that use of the strength of functional connectivity between M1 and motor association areas has the potential to improve the performance of BMIs to perform real and imagined movements.

Using virtual reality to improve the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in the treatment of late-life anxiety: preliminary recommendations for future research.

Science.gov (United States)

Grenier, Sébastien; Forget, Hélène; Bouchard, Stéphane; Isere, Sébastien; Belleville, Sylvie; Potvin, Olivier; Rioux, Marie-Ève; Talbot, Mélissa

2015-07-01

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) using traditional exposure techniques (i.e. imaginal and in vivo) seems less effective to treat anxiety in older adults than in younger ones. This is particularly true when imaginal exposure is used to confront the older patient to inaccessible (e.g. fear of flying) or less tangible/controllable anxiety triggers (e.g. fear of illness). Indeed, imaginal exposure may become less effective as the person gets older since normal aging is characterized by the decline in cognitive functions involved in the creation of vivid/detailed mental images. One way to circumvent this difficulty is to expose the older patient to a virtual environment that does not require the ability to imagine the frightening situation. In virtuo exposure has proven to be efficient to treat anxiety in working-age people. In virtuo exposure could be employed to improve the efficacy of CBT with exposure sessions in the treatment of late-life anxiety? The current paper explores this question and suggests new research avenues.

From "The Twilight Zone" to "Avatar": Science Fiction Engages the Intellect, Touches the Emotions, and Fuels the Imagination of Gifted Learners

Science.gov (United States)

Stutler, Susan Lee

2011-01-01

Dabrowski's Theory of Overexcitabilities suggests that gifted and creative children experience the world via heightened levels of psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, emotional, and imaginational intensity. According to Dabrowski and Piechowski (1977), "intellectual, emotional, and imaginational linkages are the basis for highly creative…

A Brave New World: Imagining Faculty Development in the Global Era

Science.gov (United States)

VanZanten, Susan

2015-01-01

What might globalization and the demographic shift in Christianity mean for faculty development programs? What faculty members need most is the ability to imagine globalization as Christians. This article surveys and critiques the most powerful and persistent accounts in the current contest of narratives within the field of global education. These…

Just Us, Just Discussing: Imagined Homogeneities in the Gender Studies Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Karlsson, Lena

2015-01-01

This article explores practices of othering through formations of normative sameness in discussion-based seminar classrooms. It takes literary scholar Stanley Fish's question, "Is there a text in this class, or is it just us?", back into the classroom to explore the formation of a "just us," an imagined homogeneous interpretive…

Absences and Imaginings: The Production of Knowledge on Globalisation and Education

Science.gov (United States)

Robertson, Susan L.

2006-01-01

In his paper "Grassroots globalization and the research imagination", Arjun Appadurai challenges academics to develop ways of researching and engaging with the victims of globalisation. A key objective of Appadurai's is to sketch out the problematic and build up the terrain on which a democratisation of research about globalisation might…

The Poetics of Mind and Matter. Some Remarks on Ancient Images and Imagination

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Thein, Karel

2015-01-01

Roč. 51, 1/2 (2015), s. 303-334 ISSN 0046-1628 Institutional support: RVO:67985955 Keywords : Ancient art * Pliny the Elder * Flavius Philostratus * imagination * image and consciousness Subject RIV: AA - Philosophy ; Religion

Imagining Research as Solidarity and Grassroots Globalisation: A Response to Appadurai (2001)

Science.gov (United States)

Novelli, Mario

2006-01-01

In response to Appadurai's "Grassroots globalization and the research imagination", this paper explores some of the theoretical, ethical, methodological and practical issues of developing a "strong internationalisation" of research with and amongst grassroots globalisation movements. Drawing on five years of solidarity and…

Selective attention to imagined facial ugliness is specific to body dysmorphic disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Grocholewski, Anja; Kliem, Sören; Heinrichs, Nina

2012-03-01

Cognitive-behavioral models postulate that biases in selective attention are key factors contributing to susceptibility to and maintenance of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Visual attention in particular toward the imagined defect in appearance may be a crucial element. The present study therefore examined whether individuals with BDD showed increased visual attention to flaws in their own and in unfamiliar faces. Twenty individuals with BDD, 20 individuals with social phobia, and 20 mentally healthy individuals participated in an eye-tracking experiment. Participants were instructed to gaze at the photographs of 15 pictures of themselves and several unfamiliar faces. Only patients with BDD showed heightened selective visual attention to the imagined defect in their own face, as well to corresponding regions in other, unfamiliar faces. The results support the assumption that there is a specific attentional bias in BDD. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Imagination and Creativity: Wellsprings and Streams of Education -- the Taiwan Experience

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Jing-Jyi; Albanese, Dale Leonard

2013-01-01

Creativity and imagination in education are increasingly emphasised around the world. However, a lack of these qualities in Chinese societies has been discussed in the academia and popular media, and attributed to various factors, standardised testing chief among them. In Taiwan, a team of scholars working with the Ministry of Education has, since…

Can Character Solve Our Problems? Character Qualities and the Imagination Age

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Maria Garcia Alvarez

2018-01-01

The emergence of new technology, incorporation of AI to the work floor and rapid pace of change and complexity around us, contribute to the need for a more sophisticated set of skills as key elements for the 21st century and centuries to come. This paper defends the idea that in the Imagination

Imagining life with an ostomy: Does a video intervention improve quality-of-life predictions for a medical condition that may elicit disgust?☆

Science.gov (United States)

Angott, Andrea M.; Comerford, David A.; Ubel, Peter A.

2014-01-01

Objective To test a video intervention as a way to improve predictions of mood and quality-of-life with an emotionally evocative medical condition. Such predictions are typically inaccurate, which can be consequential for decision making. Method In Part 1, people presently or formerly living with ostomies predicted how watching a video depicting a person changing his ostomy pouch would affect mood and quality-of-life forecasts for life with an ostomy. In Part 2, participants from the general public read a description about life with an ostomy; half also watched a video depicting a person changing his ostomy pouch. Participants’ quality-of-life and mood forecasts for life with an ostomy were assessed. Results Contrary to our expectations, and the expectations of people presently or formerly living with ostomies, the video did not reduce mood or quality-of-life estimates, even among participants high in trait disgust sensitivity. Among low-disgust participants, watching the video increased quality-of-life predictions for ostomy. Conclusion Video interventions may improve mood and quality-of-life forecasts for medical conditions, including those that may elicit disgust, such as ostomy. Practice implications Video interventions focusing on patients’ experience of illness continue to show promise as components of decision aids, even for emotionally charged health states such as ostomy. PMID:23177398

A shift in perspective: Decentering through mindful attention to imagined stressful events

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lebois, Lauren A M; Papies, Esther K; Gopinath, Kaundinya; Cabanban, Romeo; Quigley, Karen S; Krishnamurthy, Venkatagiri; Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Barsalou, Lawrence W

Ruminative thoughts about a stressful event can seem subjectively real, as if the imagined event were happening in the moment. One possibility is that this subjective realism results from simulating the self as engaged in the stressful event (immersion). If so, then the process of

A Short Story Approach to Analyzing Teacher (Imagined) Identities over Time

Science.gov (United States)

Barkhuizen, Gary

2016-01-01

In this article the researcher reports on a longitudinal study which investigated the imagined identities of a preservice English teacher in New Zealand and compared these with the identities she negotiated in her teacher education and then teaching practice nearly nine years later. The teacher, an immigrant from the Pacific Island of Tonga,…

An Analysis of the Correspondence between Imagined Interaction Attributes and Functions

Science.gov (United States)

Bodie, Graham D.; Honeycutt, James M.; Vickery, Andrea J.

2013-01-01

Imagined interaction (II) theory has been productive for communication and social cognition scholarship. There is, however, a yet untested assumption within II theory that the 8 attributes are related to all 6 functions and that II functions can be compared and contrasted in terms of II attributes. In addition, there is little research exploring…

Qualitative Characteristics of Memories for Real, Imagined, and Media-Based Events

Science.gov (United States)

Gordon, Ruthanna; Gerrig, Richard J.; Franklin, Nancy

2009-01-01

People's memories must be able to represent experiences with multiple types of origins--including the real world and our own imaginations, but also printed texts (prose-based media), movies, and television (screen-based media). This study was intended to identify cues that distinguish prose- and screen-based media memories from each other, as well…

An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals with psychopathy: imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean eDecety

2013-09-01

Full Text Available While it is well established that individuals with psychopathy have a marked deficit in affective arousal, emotional empathy, and caring for the well-being of others, the extent to which perspective taking can elicit an emotional response has not yet been studied despite its potential application in rehabilitation. In healthy individuals, affective perspective taking has proven to be an effective means to elicit empathy and concern for others. To examine neural responses in individuals who vary in psychopathy during affective perspective taking, 121 incarcerated males, classified as high (n = 37; Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, PCL-R ≥ 30, intermediate (n = 44; PCL-R between 21-29, and low (n = 40; PCL-R ≤ 20 psychopaths, were scanned while viewing stimuli depicting bodily injuries and adopting an imagine-self and an imagine-other perspective. During the imagine-self perspective, participants with high psychopathy showed a typical response within the network involved in empathy for pain, including the anterior insula, anterior midcingulate cortex, supplementary motor area, inferior frontal gyrus, somatosensory cortex, and right amygdala. Conversely, during the imagine-other perspective, psychopaths exhibited an atypical pattern of brain activation and effective connectivity seeded in the anterior insula and amygdala with the orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The response in the amygdala and insula was inversely correlated with PCL-R factor 1 (interpersonal/affective during the imagine-other perspective. In high psychopaths, scores on PCL-R Factor 1 predicted the neural response in ventral striatum when imagining others in pain. These patterns of brain activation and effective connectivity associated with differential perspective-taking provide a better understanding of empathy dysfunction in psychopathy, and have the potential to inform intervention programs for this complex clinical problem.

Imagine-Self Perspective-Taking and Rational Self-Interested Behavior in a Simple Experimental Normal-Form Game

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adam Karbowski

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to explore the link between imagine-self perspective-taking and rational self-interested behavior in experimental normal-form games. Drawing on the concept of sympathy developed by Adam Smith and further literature on perspective-taking in games, we hypothesize that introduction of imagine-self perspective-taking by decision-makers promotes rational self-interested behavior in a simple experimental normal-form game. In our study, we examined behavior of 404 undergraduate students in the two-person game, in which the participant can suffer a monetary loss only if she plays her Nash equilibrium strategy and the opponent plays her dominated strategy. Results suggest that the threat of suffering monetary losses effectively discourages the participants from choosing Nash equilibrium strategy. In general, players may take into account that opponents choose dominated strategies due to specific not self-interested motivations or errors. However, adopting imagine-self perspective by the participants leads to more Nash equilibrium choices, perhaps by alleviating participants’ attributions of susceptibility to errors or non-self-interested motivation to the opponents.

Imagine-Self Perspective-Taking and Rational Self-Interested Behavior in a Simple Experimental Normal-Form Game.

Science.gov (United States)

Karbowski, Adam; Ramsza, Michał

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to explore the link between imagine-self perspective-taking and rational self-interested behavior in experimental normal-form games. Drawing on the concept of sympathy developed by Adam Smith and further literature on perspective-taking in games, we hypothesize that introduction of imagine-self perspective-taking by decision-makers promotes rational self-interested behavior in a simple experimental normal-form game. In our study, we examined behavior of 404 undergraduate students in the two-person game, in which the participant can suffer a monetary loss only if she plays her Nash equilibrium strategy and the opponent plays her dominated strategy. Results suggest that the threat of suffering monetary losses effectively discourages the participants from choosing Nash equilibrium strategy. In general, players may take into account that opponents choose dominated strategies due to specific not self-interested motivations or errors. However, adopting imagine-self perspective by the participants leads to more Nash equilibrium choices, perhaps by alleviating participants' attributions of susceptibility to errors or non-self-interested motivation to the opponents.

Emotion regulation's relationships with depression, anxiety and stress due to imagined smartphone and social media loss.

Science.gov (United States)

Elhai, Jon D; Hall, Brian J; Erwin, Meredith Claycomb

2018-03-01

A sample of 359 students participated in a web survey, administered the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) as a pre-test. We subsequently randomly assigned subjects to either 1) a smart phone loss group or 2) social media accounts loss group. We asked them to imagine losing two days' access to the technology in their respective group, and rate associated symptoms using the DASS-21. Compared to subjects in the smartphone loss group, social media loss subjects evidenced stronger relations between suppressive emotion regulation with depression, anxiety and stress from imagined loss. Controlling for age and gender, social media loss subjects' increased use of suppression, and decreased use of cognitive reappraisal in emotion regulation, were related to depression, stress and (for suppression only) anxiety due to imagined lost social media. Emotion regulation was not related to psychopathology for subjects in the smartphone loss scenario. Results suggest that emotion dysregulation may be associated with psychopathology from social media loss. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Artes e imaginacion en la ensenanza-apprendizaje de ingles (The Arts and Imagination in the Teaching and Learning of English).

Science.gov (United States)

Zoreda, Margaret Lee

This paper reflects on the need to include the arts in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language, thus strengthening the students' imagination. The article begins by defining the concepts of "the arts, "imagination," and "emotion." It goes on to examine the perspectives and claims of studies from different disciplines on these concepts and…

Aspiring migrants, local crises, and the imagination of futures 'away from home

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bal, E.W.; Willems, R.

2014-01-01

This special issue addresses the imagination of futures ‘away from home’ in a globalising world. While a growing number of migration scholars have taken into account that migration considerations are always socially embedded and culturally informed, the processes at work among a mounting number of

THE USE OF A COMPLEX “BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE AND EXO-SKELETON” AND MOVEMENT IMAGINATION TECHNIQUE FOR POST-STROKE REHABILITATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. V. Kotov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Efficacy of physical exercise and movement imagination for restoration of motor dysfunction after a stroke is seen as proven. However, the use of movement imagination is complicated by impossibility of objective and subjective control over  the exercise, as well as by the absence of their motor support. The brain-computer interface based on electroencephalography is a technique that enables a feedback during movement imagination.Materials and methods: We assessed 10 patients (6 men and 4 women aged from 30 to 66 years (mean age, 47 ± 7.7 years with an ischemic (n = 9 and hemorrhagic (n = 1 stroke during the last 2 months to 4 years. Online recognition of movement imagination was done by a classifier with a brain computer interface. An exo-skeleton supported passive movements in a paretic hand managed by the brain-computer interface. During 2 weeks the patients had 10 sessions of 45–90 minute duration each. For control, we used data from 5 stroke patients who, in addition to their standard treatment, underwent an imitation of rehabilitation procedures without movement imagination and feedback. To assess efficacy of treatment, we used a modified Ashworth scale, Fugl-Meyer scale, test for evaluation of hand functions ARAT, British scale for assessment of muscle force MRC-SS. Level of everyday activity and working ability was measured with a modified Rankin scale and Bartel index. Cognitive functions were assessed with Schulte tables.Results: Online recognition of movement imagination according to desynchronization of μ rhythm was registered in 50–75% of patients. All patients reported a subjective improvement of motor functions and working ability. Positive results for at least one parameter were observed in all patients; however, there were no significant difference between the parameters before and after rehabilitation procedures, excluding cognitive functions (degree of warming-up, p < 0.02.Conclusion: In post stroke patients

Mapas imaginários sobre Porto Alegre: a cidade midiática

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nilda Jacks

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Entre julho e agosto de 2007, os principais meios de comunicação de Porto Alegre foram observados por uma equipe de professores e alunos da Faculdade de Biblioteconomia e Comunicação da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS para identificar que cidade eles ajudam a construir no imaginário do cidadão. Esta pesquisa faz parte de uma mais ampla para conhecer os imaginários urbanos da América Latina, com extensão a algumas urbes européias. Seguindo a metodologia de Silva, a pesquisa foi divida em três eixos que se entrecruzam: dados oficiais e históricos sobre o município, enquete para verificar as percepções dos cidadãos sobre a cidade e análise das representações construídas pelos diferentes meios de comunicação, este último é foco deste texto.

iImaginário, desejo e erotismo: o amor idealizado na publicidade

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Aparecido Oliveira

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Este artigo analisa, a partir do referencial teórico-metodológico da Hermenêutica de Profundidade (HP e da noção de imaginário, as formas simbólicas nas quais são representadas a sexualidade e o erotismo presentes no fenômeno da literatura gótica, reproduzido em livros, filmes, músicas, ensaios fotográficos e na publicidade.  O objeto de análise é o filme publicitário do desodorante Axe Excite, veiculado na TV e principalmente na internet. Num breve exame sócio histórico, percebem-se as recentes transformações da sexualidade e do erotismo, representada pelo viés místico-religioso no fenômeno gótico, em que um imaginário ancestral, recorrente na literatura e subjacente às pulsões e desejos que, embora reprimidos, acompanham a humanidade desde seu surgimento.

Encouraging Your Child's Imagination: A Guide and Stories for Play Acting

Science.gov (United States)

Bouzoukis, Carol E.

2011-01-01

iPads, iPhones, Notebooks, X-Boxes, PlayStations, Televisions, Computers. They've found their way into every corner of our lives. Add to that, the pressures of the modern education with standardized tests and crowded classrooms, and it seems that our children have lost the simplicity of childhood. Are our children losing their imagination, too?…

End-of-life medical spending in last twelve months of life is lower than previously reported

NARCIS (Netherlands)

French, E.; Klein, Tobias; a., e.

Although end-of-life medical spending is often viewed as a major component of aggregate medical expenditure, accurate measures of this type of medical spending are scarce. We used detailed health care data for the period 2009–11 from Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Taiwan,

Theology for Life: Doing Public Theology in Romania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Corneliu Constantineanu

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This paper builds on my previous work, “God in Public: A Prolegomena to Public Theology in the Romanian Context,” where I made an argument for the need of public theology in the Romanian context and offered a brief introduction to the nature of this new field. Now I present several issues that would need attention in a public theology in our context. One such issue, to begin with, is the atrophy of the capacity for dreaming, for envisioning a better world, of the capacity for imagination and hope. Most of people living through the difficult period of a long transition period, with such a high rate of corruption, poverty and uncertainty, have lost any hope for a positive social change. There are no solid institutions and structures in these young democracies and people are really struggling to live a normal life. Similarly, other crucial dimensions of life have been downplayed and so in need to be recovered, such as work, family, civil society, justice, to name just a few. It is argued that a public theology for Romania and for the entire region of Central and Eastern Europe would need to address exactly these kinds of issues: a vision for a better world, Christianity and nation-building, faith and work, faith and society. The paper concludes by pointing to several example of platforms that are very promising for public theology.

Synthetic Biology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Science.gov (United States)

Rothschild, Lynn J.

2015-01-01

"Are we alone?" is one of the primary questions of astrobiology, and whose answer defines our significance in the universe. Unfortunately, this quest is hindered by the fact that we have only one confirmed example of life, that of earth. While this is enormously helpful in helping to define the minimum envelope for life, it strains credulity to imagine that life, if it arose multiple times, has not taken other routes. To help fill this gap, our lab has begun using synthetic biology - the design and construction of new biological parts and systems and the redesign of existing ones for useful purposes - as an enabling technology. One theme, the "Hell Cell" project, focuses on creating artificial extremophiles in order to push the limits for Earth life, and to understand how difficult it is for life to evolve into extreme niches. In another project, we are re-evolving biotic functions using only the most thermodynamically stable amino acids in order to understand potential capabilities of an early organism with a limited repertoire of amino acids.

The Sociological Imagination and Community-Based Learning: Using an Asset-Based Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Garoutte, Lisa

2018-01-01

Fostering a sociological imagination in students is a central goal for most introductory sociology courses and sociology departments generally, yet success is difficult to achieve. This project suggests that using elements of asset-based community development can be used in sociology classrooms to develop a sociological perspective. After…

Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination : Set Design in 1930s European Cinema

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bergfelder, Tim; Harris, Sue; Street, Sarah

2007-01-01

In Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination wordt verteld hoe grote Europese filmstudio's in Berlijn, Parijs en Londen dienden als artistieke broedplaatsen. Ze boden werkgelegenheid voor artiesten, architecten en ontwerpers van binnenlandse en buitenlandse bodem. Met behulp van een groot

Perception, Imagination and Affect in Human–Robot Relationships

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erika Kerruish

2016-11-01

Full Text Available As they arrive in our homes, nursing facilities and educational institutions, urgent questions are being asked about the ethics of encouraging people to have feelings towards social robots that have roles as companions, carers and teachers. This article suggests that the quality of these debates is enhanced by examining how people perceive robots and, in particular, how robots’ expressive characteristics stimulate feelings through engaging the embodied imagination. I discuss the perception and expression of the zoomorphic therapeutic robot Paro, before considering the directions an understanding of these processes can take discussions about the aesthetics and ethics of social robots.

War Against the Imagination: Technology, Kids, and Autonomy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anonymous

2007-07-01

Full Text Available All children's movies produced, marketed and distributed by corporations are carefully designed sales delivery systems. They exist to sell. Secondarily, but of no less importance, they transmit ideology: even the most banal animated features transmit the social values and expectations of dominant culture. War Against the Imagination begins to develop a critical understanding of how the growing technological sophistication of story-telling media is changing both what and how stories teach young children. How are the boundaries between fantasy and reality disintegrating in the digital age, and of what impact on the lives of kids growing in our communities?

Thinking Outside the Box: Orbitofrontal Cortex, Imagination, and How We Can Treat Addiction.

Science.gov (United States)

Schoenbaum, Geoffrey; Chang, Chun-Yun; Lucantonio, Federica; Takahashi, Yuji K

2016-12-01

Addiction involves an inability to control drug-seeking behavior. While this may be thought of as secondary to an overwhelming desire for drugs, it could equally well reflect a failure of the brain mechanisms that allow addicts to learn about and mentally simulate non-drug consequences. Importantly, this process of mental simulation draws upon, but is not normally bound by, our past experiences. Rather we have the ability to think outside the box of our past, integrating knowledge gained from a variety of similar and not-so-similar life experiences to derive estimates or imagine what might happen next. These estimates influence our current behavior directly and also affect future behavior by serving as the background against which outcomes are evaluated to support learning. Here we will review evidence, from our own work using a Pavlovian over-expectation task as well as from other sources, that the orbitofrontal cortex is a critical node in the neural circuit that generates these estimates. Further we will offer the specific hypothesis that degradation of this function secondary to drug-induced changes is a critical and likely addressable part of addiction.

Imagining intergroup contact can combat mental health stigma by reducing anxiety, avoidance and negative stereotyping.

Science.gov (United States)

Stathi, Sofia; Tsantila, Katerina; Crisp, Richard J

2012-01-01

Research has demonstrated widespread negative attitudes held toward people with mental health problems. Our study investigated whether a new prejudice reduction technique, imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009), could combat stigma against people with mental illness, and the mediating processes through which it may exert this beneficial effect. We found that compared to a control condition, participants who imagined a positive encounter with a schizophrenic person reported weakened stereotypes and formed stronger intentions to engage in future social interactions with schizophrenic people in general. Importantly, these intentions were formed due to reduced feelings of anxiety about future interactions. We discuss the implications of these findings for improving the social inclusion of people with mental health problems.

Imagination in School Children's Choice of Their Learning Environment: An Australian Study

Science.gov (United States)

Bland, Derek; Sharma-Brymer, Vinathe

2012-01-01

A visual research project addressed school children's concepts of ideal learning environments. Drawings and accompanying narratives were collected from Year 5 and Year 6 children in nine Queensland primary schools. The 133 submissions were analysed and coded to develop themes, identify key features and consider the uses of imagination. The…

Effect of gamma irradiation on the life span of Drosophila melanogaster (Demonstration of threshold and sexual sensitivity differences)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Giess, M.-C.; Planel, H.

1977-01-01

Drosophila melanogaster is irradiated by 5 to 75 krads of 60 Co gamma radiation at a dose rate of 1,000 rads/mn, on the fourth day of its imaginal life. As a result, the life span of the flies is reduced for both sexes. However, females are more radiosensitive than males. On the other hand, the radiosensitivity threshold in females is lower than in males: a life span decrease starts in males at a dose of 10 krads and at a dose of 25 krads in females [fr

Imaginal desensitisation plus motivational interviewing for pathological gambling: randomised controlled trial

OpenAIRE

Grant, Jon E.; Donahue, Christopher B.; Odlaug, Brian L.; Kim, Suck Won; Miller, Michael J.; Petry, Nancy M.

2009-01-01

Sixty-eight individuals were randomised to either six sessions of imaginal desensitisation plus motivational interviewing (IDMI) or Gamblers Anonymous. Individuals assigned to IDMI had significantly greater reductions in Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for Pathological Gambling total scores, gambling urges and gambling behaviour. People who failed to respond to Gamblers Anonymous reported significantly greater reduction in pathological gambling symptoms following later as...

Déterritorialisation et communautés imaginées : analyse anthropo ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

géographie culturelle. Pour construire son analyse, Appadurai s'est créé des outils originaux constituant cinq dimensions7 qui agissent, selon lui, dans la construction des communautés imaginées. Il étudie l'influence conjuguée des médias et des déplacements des populations sur le travail de l'imaginaire. Ce travail ...

Remembering and imagining alternative versions of the personal past.

Science.gov (United States)

St Jacques, Peggy L; Carpenter, Alexis C; Szpunar, Karl K; Schacter, Daniel L

2018-02-01

Although autobiographical memory and episodic simulations recruit similar core brain regions, episodic simulations engage additional neural recruitment in the frontoparietal control network due to greater demands on constructive processes. However, previous functional neuroimaging studies showing differences in remembering and episodic simulation have focused on veridical retrieval of past experiences, and thus have not fully considered how retrieving the past in different ways from how it was originally experienced may also place similar demands on constructive processes. Here we examined how alternative versions of the past are constructed when adopting different egocentric perspectives during autobiographical memory retrieval compared to simulating hypothetical events from the personal past that could have occurred, or episodic counterfactual thinking. Participants were asked to generate titles for specific autobiographical memories from the last five years, and then, during functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) scanning, were asked to repeatedly retrieve autobiographical memories or imagine counterfactual events cued by the titles. We used an fMRI adaptation paradigm in order to isolate neural regions that were sensitive to adopting alternative egocentric perspectives and counterfactual simulations of the personal past. The fMRI results revealed that voxels within left posterior inferior parietal and ventrolateral frontal cortices were sensitive to novel visual perspectives and counterfactual simulations. Our findings suggest that the neural regions supporting remembering become more similar to those underlying episodic simulation when we adopt alternative egocentric perspectives of the veridical past. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Renegotiating religious imaginations through transformations of "banal religion" in Supernatural

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Line Nybro

2010-01-01

implies long-term processes in which media play a role in cultural and social change. The theory of cognitive anthropology of religion allows us to understand how the series activates shared implicit knowledge of supernatural agents and events to evoke recognition and emotion; but by transforming...... applies these narrative devices, which heighten plausibility and familiarity, while simultaneously offering viewers a change in perspective, thus creating opportunities for viewers to renegotiate existing religious imaginations....

Renegotiating religious imaginations through transformations of "banal religion" in Supernatural

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Line Nybro

implies long-term processes in which media play a role in cultural and social change. The theory of cognitive anthropology of religion allows us to understand how the series activates shared implicit knowledge of supernatural agents and events to evoke recognition and emotion; but by transforming...... applies these narrative devices, which heighten plausibility and familiarity, while simultaneously offering viewers a change in perspective, thus creating opportunities for viewers to renegotiate existing religious imaginations....

The similarity of life across the universe.

Science.gov (United States)

Cockell, Charles S

2016-05-15

Is the hypothesis correct that if life exists elsewhere in the universe, it would have forms and structures unlike anything we could imagine? From the subatomic level in cellular energy acquisition to the assembly and even behavior of organisms at the scale of populations, life on Earth exhibits characteristics that suggest it is a universal norm for life at all levels of hierarchy. These patterns emerge from physical and biochemical limitations. Their potentially universal nature is supported by recent data on the astrophysical abundance and availability of carbon compounds and water. Within these constraints, biochemical and biological variation is certainly possible, but it is limited. If life exists elsewhere, life on Earth, rather than being a contingent product of one specific experiment in biological evolution, is likely to reflect common patterns for the assembly of living matter. © 2016 Cockell. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). Two months after publication it is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Offline identification of imagined speed of wrist movements in paralyzed ALS patients from single-trial EEG

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ying Gu

2009-08-01

Full Text Available The study investigated the possibility of identifying the speed of an imagined movement from EEG recordings in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS patients. EEG signals were acquired from four ALS patients during imagination of wrist extensions at two speeds (fast and slow, each repeated up to 100 times in random order. The movement-related cortical potentials (MRCPs and averaged sensorimotor rhythm associated with the two tasks were obtained from the EEG recordings. Moreover, offline single-trial EEG classification was performed with discrete wavelet transform for feature extraction and support vector machine for classification. The speed of the task was encoded in the time delay of peak negativity in the MRCPs, which was shorter for faster than for slower movements. The average single-trial misclassification rate between speeds was 30.4 ± 3.5 % when the best scalp location and time interval were selected for each individual. The scalp location and time interval leading to the lowest misclassification rate varied among patients. The results indicate that the imagination of movements at different speeds is a viable strategy for controlling a brain-computer interface system by ALS patients.

Brain networks of the imaginative mind: Dynamic functional connectivity of default and cognitive control networks relates to openness to experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Beaty, Roger E; Chen, Qunlin; Christensen, Alexander P; Qiu, Jiang; Silvia, Paul J; Schacter, Daniel L

2018-02-01

Imagination and creative cognition are often associated with the brain's default network (DN). Recent evidence has also linked cognitive control systems to performance on tasks involving imagination and creativity, with a growing number of studies reporting functional interactions between cognitive control and DN regions. We sought to extend the emerging literature on brain dynamics supporting imagination by examining individual differences in large-scale network connectivity in relation to Openness to Experience, a personality trait typified by imagination and creativity. To this end, we obtained personality and resting-state fMRI data from two large samples of participants recruited from the United States and China, and we examined contributions of Openness to temporal shifts in default and cognitive control network interactions using multivariate structural equation modeling and dynamic functional network connectivity analysis. In Study 1, we found that Openness was related to the proportion of scan time (i.e., "dwell time") that participants spent in a brain state characterized by positive correlations among the default, executive, salience, and dorsal attention networks. Study 2 replicated and extended the effect of Openness on dwell time in a correlated brain state comparable to the state found in Study 1, and further demonstrated the robustness of this effect in latent variable models including fluid intelligence and other major personality factors. The findings suggest that Openness to Experience is associated with increased functional connectivity between default and cognitive control systems, a connectivity profile that may account for the enhanced imaginative and creative abilities of people high in Openness to Experience. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Imagined and Emerging Career Patterns: Perceptions of Doctoral Students and Research Staff

Science.gov (United States)

McAlpine, Lynn; Turner, Gill

2012-01-01

Increasingly, research staff positions rather than lectureships are the reality for social sciences PhD graduates wishing academic work. Within this context, our longitudinal study examined how social science doctoral students and research staff in two UK universities imagined their futures in and out of academia. The variation over time in how…

Exploration, Invention and Imagination: The Myth of Icarus in André Bazin

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Joret, B.; Viegas, S.; Teixeira, M.T.

2015-01-01

In this essay, I intend to elucidate the ontological implications of André Bazin’s integral realism: "a recreation of the world in its own image." The connection that he draws between the world and the image is in harmony with his mythical project for cinema, which argues that an imaginative myth

Interrelations in the Development of Primary School Learners' Creative Imagination and Creative Activity When Depicting a Portrait in Visual Art Lessons

Science.gov (United States)

Šlahova, Aleksandra; Volonte, Ilze; Cacka, Maris

2017-01-01

Creative imagination is a psychic process of creating a new original image, idea or art work based on the acquired knowledge, skills, and abilities as well as on the experience of creative activity. The best of all primary school learners' creative imagination develops at the lessons of visual art, aimed at teaching them to understand what is…

‘Imagined guilt’ vs ‘recollected guilt’: implications for fMRI

Science.gov (United States)

Mclatchie, Neil; Giner-Sorolla, Roger; Derbyshire, Stuart W. G.

2016-01-01

Abstract Guilt is thought to maintain social harmony by motivating reparation. This study compared two methodologies commonly used to identify the neural correlates of guilt. The first, imagined guilt, requires participants to read hypothetical scenarios and then imagine themselves as the protagonist. The second, recollected guilt, requires participants to reflect on times they personally experienced guilt. In the fMRI scanner, participants were presented with guilt/neutral memories and guilt/neutral hypothetical scenarios. Contrasts confirmed a priori predictions that guilt memories, relative to guilt scenarios, were associated with significantly greater activity in regions associated with affect [anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), Caudate, Insula, orbital frontal cortex (OFC)] and social cognition [temporal pole (TP), precuneus). Similarly, results indicated that guilt memories, relative to neutral memories, were also associated with greater activity in affective (ACC, amygdala, Insula, OFC) and social cognition (mPFC, TP, precuneus, temporo-parietal junction) regions. There were no significant differences between guilt hypothetical scenarios and neutral hypothetical scenarios in either affective or social cognition regions. The importance of distinguishing between different guilt inductions inside the scanner is discussed. We offer explanations of our results and discuss ideas for future research. PMID:26746179

Threatening the heart and mind of gender stereotypes: Can imagined contact influence the physiology of stereotype threat?

Science.gov (United States)

Allen, Ben; Friedman, Bruce H

2016-01-01

Research shows that when a gender stereotype is made salient and the target of the stereotype is asked to perform in the stereotyped domain, targets of the stereotype often perform at a lower level compared to situations when the stereotype was not made salient. The noticeable absence of female faculty and students in math and science departments at coed universities throughout the United States may increase the belief in gender stereotypes and discourage women from pursuing careers in these fields. Contact with counterstereotypical exemplars, such as female science experts, decreases belief in gender stereotypes and increases women's motivation to pursue careers in science. Thus, the present study examined whether imagining an interpersonal interaction with a counterstereotypical exemplar removes the physiological and performance effects of stereotype threat. Subjects were asked to imagine either a nature scene or meeting a female math professor, and were also assigned to either a control or stereotype threat condition. Imagination was used because studies have shown it to be an effective method of simulating interpersonal contact. Subjects were 139 young women (mean age 19 years) recruited from a pool of undergraduates. Results showed that the stereotype threat manipulation elicited greater vagal withdrawal and poorer working memory capacity during the n-back, and that vagal withdrawal was attenuated when the stereotype threat manipulation was preceded by a brief imagined interaction with a counterstereotypical exemplar. This study provides novel evidence that exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars can diminish cardiovascular reactions to salient information about threatening gender stereotypes. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Life history and larval morphology of Eurhinus magnificus Gyllenhal (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), a new weevil to the United States

OpenAIRE

Ulmer, Bryan J.; Duncan, Rita E.; Prena, Jens; Peña, Jorge E.

2007-01-01

Eurhinus magnificus Gyllenhal has been collected in south Florida, presumably introduced through trade with countries in its native range. Very little information has been published on the biology or taxonomy of this insect. We conducted studies to investigate various aspects of its life history and host plant associations. The pre-imaginal life stages of E. magnificus are described for the first time. Dimensions of the adult, egg, larval, and pupal stages are also provided; head capsule meas...

Rational desires and the limitation of life-sustaining treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Savulescu, Julian

1994-07-01

It is accepted that treatment of previously competent, now incompetent patients can be limited if that is what the patient would desire, if she were now competent. Expressed past preferences or an advance directive are often taken to constitute sufficient evidence of what a patient would now desire. I distinguish between desires and rational desires. I argue that for a desire to be an expression of a person's autonomy, it must be or satisfy that person's rational desires. A person rationally desires a course of action if that person desires it while being in possession of all available relevant facts, without committing relevant error of logic, and "vividly imagining" what its consequences would be like for her. I argue that some competent, expressed desires obstruct autonomy. I show that several psychological mechanisms operate to prevent a person rationally evaluating what future life in a disabled state would be like. Rational evaluation is difficult. However, treatment limitation, if it is to respect autonomy, must be in accord with a patient's rational desires, and not merely her expressed desires. I illustrate the implications of these arguments for the use of advance directives and for the treatment of competent patients.

Transpersonale Aspekte von Musik und Imagination in der Traumatherapie

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Maack, Carola

2013-01-01

Guided Imagery and Music nach Helen Bonny (GIM) und ihre Modifikationen haben sich in der Traumatherapie als sehr effektiv herausgestellt. In meinem Vortrag werde ich die Methode und ihre Anwendungen in der Traumatherapie vorstellen. Dabei gehe ich auch auf die Abgrenzung von Imagination im...... personalen und traunspersonalen Raum und deren jeweilige Bedeutung für traumatisierte Menschen in der unterschiedlichen Phasen ihrer Therapie ein. [The Bonny Methode of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) and its modifications have shown to be quite effective in trauma therapy. In my presentation I will give...

The Mediator Effects of Conceiving Imagination on Academic Performance of Design Students

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Wei-Sheng; Hsu, Yuling; Liang, Chaoyun

2014-01-01

Three studies were combined to examine the effects of creativity and imagination on the academic performance of design students. Study 1 conducted an exploratory factor analysis to determine the most appropriate structure of the Creativity Capability Scale (CCS) in a sample of 313 college students. The scale was a new self-report measure, and it…

Playfulness, Imagination, and Creativity in Play with Toys: A Cultural-Historical Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Møller, Signe Juhl

2016-01-01

The aim of this article is to present a wholeness perspective on the relation between creative imagination and children's activity when playing with toys. This is explored through a case retrieved from a 4-month experimental research project, specifically from a social fantasy play session. In order to analyse and examine children's play, the…

The power of restorative apologies (real and imagined for victims and offenders

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Walker Lorenn

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Shame can be felt after causing harm and after being harmed by wrongdoing. Failure to address shame can increase the possibility of the victim-offender overlap, making victims more likely to offend and offenders more likely to be victimized. An online, individually applied, restorative apology process could help prevent the victim-offender overlap by helping heal harm. People who have caused harm are given the opportunity to be accountable and explore how they might help repair damage they have caused, while those harmed can address any violation and shame felt. Anecdotal evidence indicates restorative apologies delivered either personally, or only imagined, can help individuals heal from harm and trauma. Open access to restorative apology processes is provided at www.apologyletter.org. The purpose of this paper is to show how the confidential apology program can help people address harm and shame. Appendices A and B provide an imagined apology exercise and guidelines for preparing a combined apology and gratitude letter, which can assist individuals affected by wrongdoing.

Anomalies of Imagination and Disordered Self in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasmussen, Andreas Christian Rosén; Parnas, Josef

2015-01-01

Vivid mental imagery occurs frequently in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). Overlapping phenomena, such as obsessions or ruminations, are also frequent in other psychiatric disorders, raising significant diagnostic challenges. Unfortunately, contemporary operational psychopathology lacks...... the epistemological and phenomenological framework to address such questions. Using the resources of phenomenology and philosophy of mind, we articulate the structure of imagination and describe its distinctive modifications in the SSDs. Drawing on pilot data with patients' self-descriptions, we present the notion...

Los mapas como abstraccion y espacio imaginativo : representando el urbanismo informal = Maps as abstraction and imaginative space : representing informal urbanism

OpenAIRE

Lueder, Christoph

2014-01-01

Quotidian mobility and urban connectivity become explicit in diagrams of circulation patterns, narrative tracing of trajectories, or choreographic notation of kinetic routines. However, they are also powerfully implicit in architectural floor plans, which, extended to urban scale in the Rossi Plan of Zürich, conjure imaginative space for suppositional wanderings through the city. An ongoing research project by the author brings such imaginative capacities to bear on diagrammatic exploration o...

Prometeu contra Hermes: o lugar do design no imaginário contemporâneo

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcos Beccari

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Este artigo propõe uma reflexão sobre o imaginário contemporâneo, tomando o design como vetor central e duas figuras míticas, Hermes e Prometeu, como coordenadas principais. De início, tecemos algumas considerações acerca das bases teóricas que amparam a abordagem aqui proposta e, em seguida, indicamos o modo como as figuras de Prometeu e Hermes conduzem boa parte da dinâmica sociocultural. Na sequência, analisamos o paradigma pós-prometeico que Bruno Latour identifica a partir de cinco conotações do termo design. Concluímos, por fim, que os mitos de Hermes e Prometeu se encontram implicados um no outro e que o design expressa, no imaginário contemporâneo, essa correlação.

Prospective evaluation of patient-reported quality-of-life outcomes following SBRT ± cetuximab for locally-recurrent, previously-irradiated head and neck cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vargo, John A.; Heron, Dwight E.; Ferris, Robert L.; Rwigema, Jean-Claude M.; Wegner, Rodney E.; Kalash, Ronny; Ohr, James; Kubicek, Greg J.; Burton, Steven

2012-01-01

Purpose: Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) has emerged as a promising salvage strategy for unresectable, previously-irradiated recurrent squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck (rSCCHN). Here-in, we report the first prospective evaluation of patient-reported quality-of-life (PR-QoL) following re-irradiation with SBRT ± cetuximab for rSCCHN. Materials and methods: From November 2004 to May 2011, 150 patients with unresectable, rSCCHN in a previously-irradiated field receiving >40 Gy were treated with SBRT to 40–50 Gy in 5 fractions ± concurrent cetuximab. PR-QoL was prospectively acquired using University of Washington Quality-of-Life Revised (UW-QoL-R). Results: Overall PR-QoL, health-related PR-QoL, and select domains commonly affected by re-irradiation progressively increase following an initial 1-month decline with statistically significant improvements noted in swallowing (p = 0.025), speech (p = 0.017), saliva (p = 0.041), activity (p = 0.032) and recreation (p = 0.039). Conclusions: Especially for patients surviving >1-year, improved tumor control associated with SBRT re-irradiation may ameliorate decreased PR-QoL resulting from rSCCHN. These improvements in PR-QoL transcend all measured domains in a validated PR-QoL assessment tool independent of age, use of cetuximab, tumor volume, and interval since prior irradiation.

Enhanced activation of motor execution networks using action observation combined with imagination of lower limb movements.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael Villiger

Full Text Available The combination of first-person observation and motor imagery, i.e. first-person observation of limbs with online motor imagination, is commonly used in interactive 3D computer gaming and in some movie scenes. These scenarios are designed to induce a cognitive process in which a subject imagines himself/herself acting as the agent in the displayed movement situation. Despite the ubiquity of this type of interaction and its therapeutic potential, its relationship to passive observation and imitation during observation has not been directly studied using an interactive paradigm. In the present study we show activation resulting from observation, coupled with online imagination and with online imitation of a goal-directed lower limb movement using functional MRI (fMRI in a mixed block/event-related design. Healthy volunteers viewed a video (first-person perspective of a foot kicking a ball. They were instructed to observe-only the action (O, observe and simultaneously imagine performing the action (O-MI, or imitate the action (O-IMIT. We found that when O-MI was compared to O, activation was enhanced in the ventralpremotor cortex bilaterally, left inferior parietal lobule and left insula. The O-MI and O-IMIT conditions shared many activation foci in motor relevant areas as confirmed by conjunction analysis. These results show that (i combining observation with motor imagery (O-MI enhances activation compared to observation-only (O in the relevant foot motor network and in regions responsible for attention, for control of goal-directed movements and for the awareness of causing an action, and (ii it is possible to extensively activate the motor execution network using O-MI, even in the absence of overt movement. Our results may have implications for the development of novel virtual reality interactions for neurorehabilitation interventions and other applications involving training of motor tasks.

Innovations in the Treatment of Bulimia: Transpersonal Psychology, Relaxation, Imagination, Hypnosis, Myth, and Ritual.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Michael H.

1991-01-01

Written for counselors who must help clients deal with bulimia, this article reviews bulimia's most obvious physical signs and symptoms, etiology, and behavioral characteristics. Considers innovative counseling approaches including Transpersonal Psychology, relaxation training, imagination, fantasy, hypnosis, myths, and rituals. (Author)

Brief Report: Imaginative Drawing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Learning Disabilities

Science.gov (United States)

Allen, Melissa L.; Craig, Eleanore

2016-01-01

Here we examine imaginative drawing abilities in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and learning disabilities (LD) under several conditions: spontaneous production, with use of a template, and combining two real entities to form an "unreal" entity. Sixteen children in each group, matched on mental and chronological age, were…

Increasing convergence between imagined and executed movement across development: evidence for the emergence of movement representations.

Science.gov (United States)

Caeyenberghs, Karen; Wilson, Peter H; van Roon, Dominique; Swinnen, Stephan P; Smits-Engelsman, Bouwien C M

2009-04-01

Motor imagery (MI) has become a principal focus of interest in studies on brain and behavior. However, changes in MI across development have received virtually no attention so far. In the present study, children (N = 112, 6 to 16 years old) performed a new, computerized Virtual Radial Fitts Task (VRFT) to determine their MI ability as well as the age-related confluence between performance in executed and imagined movement conditions. Participants aimed at five targets, which were positioned along radial axes from a central target circle. The targets differed in width (2.5, 5, 10, 20 or 40 mm), resulting in an index of difficulty (ID) that varied from 6.9 to 2.9 bits. Performance was indexed by the linear relationship between ID and Movement Time (MT). The findings showed that executed task performance was slower than imagined performance. Moreover, conformance to Fitts' Law during executed movement performance was obtained from a very young age. Most importantly, correlations between imagined and executed movements were low in the young participants but gradually increased across age. These age-related changes in MI are hypothesized to reflect the children's emerging ability to represent internal models for prospective actions, consistent with the gradual unfolding of feedforward control processes.

Large-scale network analysis of imagination reveals extended but limited top-down components in human visual cognition.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Verkhlyutov V.M.

2014-12-01

Full Text Available We investigated whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI activation in a group of 21 healthy adult subjects during perception, imagination and remembering of two dynamic visual scenarios. Activation of the posterior parts of the cortex prevailed when watching videos. The cognitive tasks of imagination and remembering were accompanied by a predominant activity in the anterior parts of the cortex. An independent component analysis identified seven large-scale cortical networks with relatively invariant spatial distributions across all experimental conditions. The time course of their activation over experimental sessions was task-dependent. These detected networks can be interpreted as a recombination of resting state networks. Both central and peripheral networks were identified within the primary visual cortex. The central network around the caudal pole of BA17 and centers of other visual areas was activated only by direct visual stimulation, while the peripheral network responded to the presentation of visual information as well as to the cognitive tasks of imagination and remembering. The latter result explains the particular susceptibility of peripheral and twilight vision to cognitive top-down influences that often result in false-alarm detections.

Effect of exercise versus cognitive behavioural therapy or no intervention on anxiety, depression, fitness and quality of life in adults with previous methamphetamine dependency: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Morris, Linzette; Stander, Jessica; Ebrahim, Wardah; Eksteen, Stephanie; Meaden, Orissa Anna; Ras, Ané; Wessels, Annemarie

2018-01-16

Methamphetamine (MA) is a highly addictive psychostimulant used by approximately 52 million people worldwide. Chronic MA abuse leads to detrimental physiological and neurological changes, as well as increases in anxiety and depression, and decreases in overall fitness and quality of life. Exercise has been reported to possibly reverse physiological and neurological damage caused by previous MA use, and to reduce anxiety and depression in this population. The aim of this systematic review was to identify, clinically appraise and synthesise the available evidence for the effectiveness of exercise, compared to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), standard care or no intervention, on decreasing anxiety and depression and improving fitness and quality of life in previous MA users. Seven computerised databases were searched from inception to May 2017, namely Scopus, Cochrane Library, PubMed/MEDLINE, PEDro, CINAHL, and ScienceDirect. Search terms included exercise, methamphetamine, fitness measures, depression, anxiety and quality of life. Randomised and non-randomised controlled- or clinical trials and pilot studies, published in English, were considered for inclusion. Methodological quality was critically appraised according to the PEDro scale. Heterogeneity across studies regarding control groups and assessment intervals rendered meta analyses inappropriate for this review and results were thus described narratively using text and tables. Two hundred and fifty-one titles were identified following the initial search, and 14 potentially-relevant titles were selected and the abstracts reviewed. Three studies (two randomised controlled trials and one quasi-experimental pilot) were included, with an average PEDro score of 6.66. Exercise resulted in significantly lower depression and anxiety scores versus CBT (p = 0.001). Balance also significantly improved following exercise versus standard care (p exercise is effective in reducing anxiety and depression and

Analysis of current research addressing complementary use of life-cycle assessment and risk assessment for engineered nanomaterials: have lessons been learned from previous experience with chemicals?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grieger, Khara D.; Laurent, Alexis; Miseljic, Mirko; Christensen, Frans; Baun, Anders; Olsen, Stig I.

2012-01-01

While it is generally agreed that successful strategies to address the health and environmental impacts of engineered nanomaterials (NM) should consider the well-established frameworks for conducting life-cycle assessment (LCA) and risk assessment (RA), scientific research, and specific guidance on how to practically apply these methods are still very much under development. This paper evaluates how research efforts have applied LCA and RA together for NM, particularly reflecting on previous experiences with applying these methods to chemicals. Through a literature review and a separate analysis of research focused on applying LCA and RA together for NM, it appears that current research efforts have taken into account some key “lessons learned” from previous experience with chemicals while many key challenges remain for practically applying these methods to NM. We identified two main approaches for using these methods together for NM: “LC-based RA” (traditional RA applied in a life-cycle perspective) and “RA-complemented LCA” (conventional LCA supplemented by RA in specific life-cycle steps). Hence, the latter is the only identified approach which genuinely combines LC- and RA-based methods for NM-risk research efforts to date as the former is rather a continuation of normal RA according to standard assessment procedures (e.g., REACH). Both these approaches along with recommendations for using LCA and RA together for NM are similar to those made previously for chemicals, and thus, there does not appear to be much progress made specific for NM. We have identified one issue in particular that may be specific for NM when applying LCA and RA at this time: the need to establish proper dose metrics within both methods.

Developmental Comparisons of the Consequences for Memory of Spontaneous vs. Controlled Imaginal Elaborations.

Science.gov (United States)

Foley, Mary Ann; And Others

Two studies compared the effects of spontaneous and controlled imagery on reality monitoring decisions. Reality monitoring refers to the decision processes involved in discriminating perceptual memories from imaginal ones. In Experiment 1, 6-year-olds and adults were shown pictures and words and they responded to one of two questions: (1)…

Utopic imagination as an attribute of freedom. A comment stemming from Paul Ricoeur’s conception of the social imaginary.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Noelia Vanrell

2015-04-01

Full Text Available When post-modern thinking has declared the end of utopias and considers enlightenment optimism as a repertoire of unfulfilled promises, we wonder: how do we go back to talking about utopias today? We believe that, even though the diagnostic made by postmodern opinion as regards what is factually verifiable may be right, it does not go beyond the surface of historical and sociological analysis and  overlooks that utopic imagination has its roots in an experience inherent in man, namely, freedom and desire. Our research stems from this anthropological root. Finding the foundations of utopic thinking in the ontological core of man is what will allow us to answer the question above. To carry out this task, we will resort to Paul Ricoeur’s study of the social imaginary concept, focusing mainly on one of his most attractive expressions, that of utopia. The highlights of Ricoeur’s thought on utopia will be dealt with and we will seek to show how this utopic imagination, which makes new worlds bloom, unfolds as an attribute of freedom. For this purpose, we will briefly address the etymological analysis of the term utopia and the development of Paul Ricouer’s theory of imagination, mainly focusing on the difference between reproductive and productive imagination, which will lead us to a concept of utopia that, as Ricoeur claims, will appear to us as that no place from which “the most formidable questions of what is will bloom.”

Moral landscapes and everyday life in families with Huntington´s Disease

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Huniche, Lotte

2011-01-01

This article is concerned with understanding moral aspects of everyday life in families with Huntington’s Disease (HD). It draws on findings from an empirical research project in Denmark in 1998e2002 involving multi-sited ethnography to argue that medical genetics provides a particular framework...... for conducting life in an HD family. A framework that implies that being informed and making use of genetic services expresses greater moral responsibility than conducting life without drawing on these resources. The moral imperative of engagement in medical genetics is challenged here by two pieces...... nor the imagined solutions of medical genetics are as unproblematic and straightforward as might be thought. To assist our understanding of the moral aspects of living with severe familial disease, the ethnographic analysis is aligned with bioethical reflections that place the concrete concerns...

AFROPOLITANISM, CELEBRITY POLITICS, AND ICONIC IMAGINATIONS OF NORTH-SOUTH RELATIONS

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Richey, Lisa Ann; Christiansen, Lene Bull

2018-01-01

In discussions of African cultural politics, a new label of ‘Afropolitan’ refers to diverse engagements by Africans who are typically members of the cultural elite, and participate in diaspora politics, online activism, fashion and literature debates. Simultaneously, in discussions of development...... aid, celebrity has become a way of mediating between proximity and distance in imagining relationships between South and North. Afropolitanism can be usefully considered as an Africa-specific, post-colonial form of cosmopolitanism that spans discourses of elite pan-African culture to theories of elite...

Imaginary Documentary: reflecting upon contemporary documental photography Documentário Imaginário: reflexões sobre a fotografia documental contemporânea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kátia Hallak Lombardi

2008-01-01

Full Text Available This article pursues the idea of an Imaginary Documentary – a possible new inflexion on the practices of contemporary documental photography. The text establishes its theoretical foundations through a forthcoming approach of the discussions about documental photography to the concept of imaginary, by Gilbert Durand, and the notion of Imaginary Museum, by André Malraux. Photographers that are part of documental photography history are the elected objects in which we shall confront the potentialities of the Imaginary Documentary. Este artigo tem como propósito buscar a estruturação da idéia de Documentário Imaginário – uma possível inflexão na prática da fotografia documental contemporânea. O texto assenta suas bases teóricas por meio da aproximação de reflexões sobre a fotografia documental ao conceito de imaginário em Gilbert Durand e à noção de Museu Imaginário de André Malraux. Fotógrafos que fazem parte da história da fotografia documental são os objetos eleitos para aferir as potencialidades do Documentário Imaginário.

“My Silk Road to You”: Re-imagining routes, roads, and geography in contemporary art of “Central Asia”

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Diana T. Kudaibergenova

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This paper re-focuses the Silk Road discussions from the position of contemporary art in Central Asian region. Since the late 1980s contemporary art in Central Asia boomed and it eventually became an alternative public space for the discussion of cultural transformations, social and global processes and problems that local societies faced. Initially the questions raised by many artists concerned issues of lost identity and lost heritage during the period of Soviet domination in the region. Different artists started re-imagining the concept of the Self in their works and criticising the old rigid approaches to geography, history and mobility. Nomadic heritage became one of the central themes in contemporary art of Central Asia in the 1990s. Artists started experimenting with symbols of mobility, fluid borders and imagined geography of the “magic steppe” (see Kudaibergenova 2017, “Punk Shamanism”. Contemporary art in Central Asia continues to serve as a space for social critique and a space for search and re-conceptualisation of new fluid identities, geographies and region's place on the world map. In this paper I critically evaluate three themes connected to the symbolism of Silk Road heritage that many artists engage with – imagined geography, routes, roads and mobility. All three themes are present in the selected case studies of Gulnara Kasmalieva's and Muratbek Djumaliev's TransSiberian Amazons (2005 and A New Silk Road: Algorithm of Survival and Hope (2007 multi-channel video art, Victor and Elena Vorobievs' (NonSilk Road (2006 performance and photography, Almagul Menlibayeva's My Silk Road to You video-art and photography (2010–2011, Yerbossyn Meldibekov's series on imagining Central Asia and the Mountains of Revolution (2012–2015, and Syrlybek Bekbotaev's Kyrgyz Pass installation (2014–2015 as well as Defenders of Issyk Kul (2014. I trace how artists modernise, mutate and criticise main discourses about Silk Road and what

There Is More(s) in Television. Studying the relationship between television and moral imagination

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A.F.M. Krijnen (Tonny)

2007-01-01

textabstractIn this dissertation the central focus lies with exploration the relationship of television and moral imagination. The underlying aim was to explore how television might be valuable in reaching moral maturity in order to diminish needless suffering in this world. To give form to these

Inferring imagined speech using EEG signals: a new approach using Riemannian manifold features

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Chuong H.; Karavas, George K.; Artemiadis, Panagiotis

2018-02-01

Objective. In this paper, we investigate the suitability of imagined speech for brain-computer interface (BCI) applications. Approach. A novel method based on covariance matrix descriptors, which lie in Riemannian manifold, and the relevance vector machines classifier is proposed. The method is applied on electroencephalographic (EEG) signals and tested in multiple subjects. Main results. The method is shown to outperform other approaches in the field with respect to accuracy and robustness. The algorithm is validated on various categories of speech, such as imagined pronunciation of vowels, short words and long words. The classification accuracy of our methodology is in all cases significantly above chance level, reaching a maximum of 70% for cases where we classify three words and 95% for cases of two words. Significance. The results reveal certain aspects that may affect the success of speech imagery classification from EEG signals, such as sound, meaning and word complexity. This can potentially extend the capability of utilizing speech imagery in future BCI applications. The dataset of speech imagery collected from total 15 subjects is also published.

Sexuality and everydayness in a transnational context: toward a re-imagined West-China relationship?

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Yingying

2017-06-01

This paper examines how Chinese immigrants to Canada perceive and experience sexuality in a transnational context as revealed in a qualitative study. It identifies cultural interactions and tensions between 'the West' and 'China' embedded in participants' sexual narratives. Three thematic aspects of sexuality are explored: different views toward 'relationships' and how sex is involved in different stages of a relationship; physical desire and sexual attraction based on individuals' dialogues with contemporaries and their own cross-racial dating experience; and perceptions of sexual risks associated with an increasing awareness of China's opening up, in particular risks associated with attitudes towards condom use. The paper also discusses how such sexual narratives challenge dichotomous imaginings of 'sexual openness/conservativeness' in the West-China relationship. Findings help us to better understanding how Chinese immigrants to Canada view the West through the lens of sexuality, and how their transnational experiences have challenge the West-China dichotomy in the sexual imagination and shape understandings of sexual risk.

The training and creativity of professional chefs: Stoking the imagination in global gastronomic discourse.

Science.gov (United States)

Pang, Leo

2017-12-01

The sameness of eating out has been criticised in some quarters of food media in recent years. In this paper I demonstrate through the case of three chefs in Hong Kong how this sameness is the product of global gastronomic discourse. I suggest that chefs play a crucial role in providing the content that fuels gastronomic discourses and also in delivering the experiences of the discourse on the plate to diners. The experience of chefs in cuisines such as Thai, Vietnamese and Spanish allows them to prepare dishes that attract plaudits from food media and fuel the imagination of potential diners. This experience includes professional training in a cuisine under a well-known exponent of the cuisine, which allows them to be associated with the image of their mentor. The other route is vocational culinary training, which gives the chefs the ability to create dishes that stoke the imagination of diners. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

運用人格、心理與環境因素預測教師教學設計想像力 Using Personality Traits and Psychological and Environmental Factors to Predict the Instructional Design Imagination of Teachers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

許育齡 Yuling Hsu

2016-09-01

Full Text Available 面對當前複雜與挑戰兼具的教學情境，本研究整合運用人格特質、心理與環境因素預測國民教育階段教師，從事教學設計想像力的結構模型。本研究運用結構方程模式進行探究，模型建構奠基於教師人格特質、心理與環境影響的相關研究，整合後提出假設進行驗證並獲得支持。研究結果顯示：一、以能力導向詮釋的教學設計想像力，包含創始、構思與轉造三種想像能力；二、開放與審慎特質對教學設計想像力主要是透過直接路徑預測，外向、親和及情緒穩定特質則是透過中介作用間接預測教學設計想像力；三、內在動機與自我效能可適切扮演中介角色，帶動部分人格特質、正向情緒、做中悟，與部分環境條件預測教學設計想像力；四、環境因素順應人格特質差異，對教學設計想像力的預測型態猶有深究的空間。綜 整研究結果，本研究提出實務意涵與未來研究之建議。 This study responded to the challenging and complex situations faced by teachers by using personality, psychological, and environmental variables to construct a predictive model of the imaginative capabilities of teachers as demonstrated in their instructional design. On the basis of previous studies of the influence of personality traits and psychological and environmental factors on imaginative capabilities, we conducted structural equation modeling to propose a predictive model and then validated it. The results revealed that: (1 the imaginative capabilities involved in instructional design included initiating imagination, conceiving imagination, and transforming imagination; (2 openness to experience and conscientiousness had strong direct effects on imaginative capabilities, whereas extraversion, emotional stability, and agreeableness indirectly predicted imaginative capabilities; (3 self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation displayed

Imaginários e discursos de professores sobre leitura no ensino de ciências/geociências : algumas condições de produção

OpenAIRE

Zimmermann, N.

2009-01-01

Pautado em aportes da Análise de Discurso de origem francesa, pressupondo que o professor tem papel fundamental na mediação da leitura e na formação do leitor de ciência, e que essa mediação se relaciona com seus imaginários, este trabalho teve como objetivo compreender aspectos das condições de produção dos imaginários de quatro professores de diferentes disciplinas de uma mesma escola sobre leitura no ensino de ciências. Apontamos que seus imaginários sobre leitura se relacionam às seguinte...

Imaginal desensitisation plus motivational interviewing for pathological gambling: randomised controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Grant, Jon E; Donahue, Christopher B; Odlaug, Brian L; Kim, Suck Won; Miller, Michael J; Petry, Nancy M

2009-09-01

Sixty-eight individuals were randomised to either six sessions of imaginal desensitisation plus motivational interviewing (IDMI) or Gamblers Anonymous. Individuals assigned to IDMI had significantly greater reductions in Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale Modified for Pathological Gambling total scores, gambling urges and gambling behaviour. People who failed to respond to Gamblers Anonymous reported significantly greater reduction in pathological gambling symptoms following later assignment to IDMI. Abstinence was achieved by 63.6% during the acute IDMI treatment period.

May Joseph,Fluid New York: Cosmopolitan Urbanism and the Green Imagination

OpenAIRE

Marche, Guillaume

2015-01-01

In Fluid New York: Cosmopolitan Urbanism and the Green Imagination, May Joseph, a social science and cultural studies scholar, explores the history, experience, representations, and political implications of New York City’s relation to its natural environment, especially its aquatic surroundings –be they rivers, harbor or ocean. Of particular interest to Joseph, and the reader, is New York’s status as an archipelagic metropolis. While the book does not purport to provide a straightforward his...

Neural processes mediating the preparation and release of focal motor output are suppressed or absent during imagined movement

Science.gov (United States)

Eagles, Jeremy S.; Carlsen, Anthony N.

2016-01-01

Movements that are executed or imagined activate a similar subset of cortical regions, but the extent to which this activity represents functionally equivalent neural processes is unclear. During preparation for an executed movement, presentation of a startling acoustic stimulus (SAS) evokes a premature release of the planned movement with the spatial and temporal features of the tasks essentially intact. If imagined movement incorporates the same preparatory processes as executed movement, then a SAS should release the planned movement during preparation. This hypothesis was tested using an instructed-delay cueing paradigm during which subjects were required to rapidly release a handheld weight while maintaining the posture of the arm or to perform first-person imagery of the same task while holding the weight. In a subset of trials, a SAS was presented at 1500, 500, or 200 ms prior to the release cue. Task-appropriate preparation during executed and imagined movements was confirmed by electroencephalographic recording of a contingent negative variation waveform. During preparation for executed movement, a SAS often resulted in premature release of the weight with the probability of release progressively increasing from 24 % at −1500 ms to 80 % at −200 ms. In contrast, the SAS rarely (movement. However, the SAS frequently evoked the planned postural response (suppression of bicep brachii muscle activity) irrespective of the task or timing of stimulation (even during periods of postural hold without preparation). These findings provide evidence that neural processes mediating the preparation and release of the focal motor task (release of the weight) are markedly attenuated or absent during imagined movement and that postural and focal components of the task are prepared independently. PMID:25744055

Love is the triumph of the imagination: Daydreams about significant others are associated with increased happiness, love and connection.

Science.gov (United States)

Poerio, Giulia L; Totterdell, Peter; Emerson, Lisa-Marie; Miles, Eleanor

2015-05-01

Social relationships and interactions contribute to daily emotional well-being. The emotional benefits that come from engaging with others are known to arise from real events, but do they also come from the imagination during daydreaming activity? Using experience sampling methodology with 101 participants, we obtained 371 reports of naturally occurring daydreams with social and non-social content and self-reported feelings before and after daydreaming. Social, but not non-social, daydreams were associated with increased happiness, love and connection and this effect was not solely attributable to the emotional content of the daydreams. These effects were only present when participants were lacking in these feelings before daydreaming and when the daydream involved imagining others with whom the daydreamer had a high quality relationship. Findings are consistent with the idea that social daydreams may function to regulate emotion: imagining close others may serve the current emotional needs of daydreamers by increasing positive feelings towards themselves and others. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Call for papers: SAJHE special issue 'Re-imagining writing retreats for academic staff in higher education'

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guest Editors

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Call for papers for an upcoming special issue of the South African Journal of Higher Education (SAJHE in 2016: ‘Re-imagining writing retreats for academic staff in higher education’.

International Space Station Environmental Control and Life Support System Previous Year Status for 2013 - 2014

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, David E.; Gentry, Gregory J.

2015-01-01

The International Space Station (ISS) Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) system includes regenerative and non-regenerative technologies that provide the basic life support functions to support the crew, while maintaining a safe and habitable shirtsleeve environment. This paper provides a summary of the U.S. ECLS system activities over the past year and the impacts of the international partners' activities on them, covering the period of time between March 2013 and February 2014. The ISS continued permanent crew operations including the continuation of six crew members being on ISS. Work continues on the commercial crew vehicles, and work to try and extend ISS service life.

Nathanael West: The Art of His Life. By Jay Martin. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1970. 435 pp. Nathanael West: The Art of His Life. By Jay Martin. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1970. 435 pp.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joe Ryan

2008-04-01

Full Text Available In 1930, Nathanael West was 26 years old and had just finished his first novel, The Dream Life of Balso Snell. He worked as night manager at the Kenmore Hall Hotel, a glorified rooming house in Manhattan, which was partially owned by his uncle. Later that year he was hired as manager of the Sutton Hotel, which gave him the opportunity to observe the life of the masses, with whom he had a great propensity to identify. In a sense, these hotels became West's laboratory, his imaginative Paris. They evoked a vivid personal response in him and were a fertile source of fantasy. In the thirties when, like West, a great number of Americans escaped the horrors of the depression through fantasy, the author dealt in fiction with mass life on the deepest possible and most relevant level by concentrating on the fantasies of the masses. In 1930, Nathanael West was 26 years old and had just finished his first novel, The Dream Life of Balso Snell. He worked as night manager at the Kenmore Hall Hotel, a glorified rooming house in Manhattan, which was partially owned by his uncle. Later that year he was hired as manager of the Sutton Hotel, which gave him the opportunity to observe the life of the masses, with whom he had a great propensity to identify. In a sense, these hotels became West's laboratory, his imaginative Paris. They evoked a vivid personal response in him and were a fertile source of fantasy. In the thirties when, like West, a great number of Americans escaped the horrors of the depression through fantasy, the author dealt in fiction with mass life on the deepest possible and most relevant level by concentrating on the fantasies of the masses.

"Working Lives": The Use of Auto/Biography in the Development of a Sociological Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Stephenson, Carol; Stirling, John; Wray, David

2015-01-01

This article critically evaluates the attempt of the authors to develop a sociological imagination within first-year undergraduate students studying the discipline of sociology at a British university. Through a sociological analysis of biography and autobiography (of both teachers and students), we attempted to create a quality of mind that would…

O imaginário de um grupo de cuidadores de idosos institucionalizados no cotidiano asilar

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elman Moreira Coelho Grison

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Trata-se de estudo realizado com cuidadores de idosos institucioinalizados. Objetivou-se conhecer o imaginário de um grupo de cuidadores em relação a seu cotidiano. O imaginário é entendido  a partir da antropologia de Gilbert Durand focada nas imagens e nos símbolos culturais. Os dados foram coletados por meio do instrumento denominado Arquétipo Teste de Nove Elementos – o AT-9, de Yves Durand e por meio da “Pedagogia da Escuta”. As teorias gerontológicas do envelhecimento também fundamentaram a análise. Evidenciou-se nesse grupo a predominância de representações mítico-simbólicas com estrutura sintética, ou seja, que pretende harmonizar os contrários, com uma tendência mística que signifca busca de união.  

D’une convergence remarquable entre phénoménologie et philosophie analytique: la lecture ricœurienne des thèses de Sartre et Ryle sur l’imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean-Luc Amalric

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The aim of this article is to analyse the meaning and the implications of the comparative interpretation of Sartre’s and Ryle’s theses on imagination that Ricœur undertook in the still unpublished text of his Lectures on Imagination. These lectures were delivered at the University of Chicago in 1975. First, the article shows how Ricœur brings out a strong convergence, both in the method and in the presuppositions, of the Sartrean and Rylean conceptions of imagination : the choice of a descriptive method leads the two philosophers to a common critique of the mental image. Secondly, the article analyses the properly critical side of the Ricœurian interpretation by showing how it eventually brings to light the common theoretical limitation of Sartre’s and Ryle’s theses on imagination. According to Ricœur, those theses lead to a conception of image as picture and fail to consider the image as fiction, and so they remain locked in a theory of reproductive imagination and of the primacy of perception.RésuméCet article se propose d’analyser le sens et les enjeux de la lecture croisée des thèses de Sartre et Ryle sur l’imagination à laquelle se livre Ricœur dans le texte encore inédit des Lectures on imagination professées en 1975 à l’Université de Chicago. Dans un premier temps, il montre comment Ricœur met en relief une convergence forte, de méthode et de présupposés entre les conceptions sartrienne et rylienne de l’imagination : le choix d’une méthode  descriptive conduisant les deux philosophes à une commune critique de l’image mentale. Puis, dans un second temps, il analyse le versant proprement critique de la lecture ricœurienne en montrant comment elle en vient à dénoncer une commune limitation théorique des thèses de Sartre et Ryle sur l’imagination. Selon Ricœur, ces thèses débouchent sur une conception de l’image comme tableau qui échoue à penser l’image comme fiction et elles restent

Analysis of current research addressing complementary use of life-cycle assessment and risk assessment for engineered nanomaterials: have lessons been learned from previous experience with chemicals?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grieger, Khara Deanne; Laurent, Alexis; Miseljic, Mirko

2012-01-01

of research focused on applying LCA and RA together for NM, it appears that current research efforts have taken into account some key ‘‘lessons learned’’ from previous experience with chemicals while many key challenges remain for practically applying these methods to NM. We identified two main approaches...... for using these methods together for NM: ‘‘LC-based RA’’ (traditional RA applied in a life-cycle perspective) and ‘‘RA-complemented LCA’’ (conventional LCA supplemented by RA in specific life-cycle steps). Hence, the latter is the only identified approach which genuinely combines LC- and RA-based methods......While it is generally agreed that successful strategies to address the health and environmental impacts of engineered nanomaterials (NM) should consider the well-established frameworks for conducting life-cycle assessment (LCA) and risk assessment (RA), scientific research, and specific guidance...

The Mediating Roles of Generative Cognition and Organizational Culture between Personality Traits and Student Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Yi-Lin; Liang, Chaoyun

2014-01-01

Using science majors as an example, we analyzed how generative cognition, organizational culture, and personality traits affect student imagination, and examined the mediating effects of generative cognition and organizational culture. A total of 473 undergraduates enrolled in physical, chemical, mathematical, and biological science programs…

Back-breeding the aurochs: the Heck brothers, National Socialism and imagined geographies for nonhuman Lebensraum

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Driessen, C.P.G.; Lorimer, J.

2016-01-01

This chapter investigates the bio-geographical imaginations behind the animal 'back-breeding' programs carried out by Lutz and Heinz Heck - two influential German zoologists who ran Berlin and Munich zoos. Partly with close connections to and patronage from the National Socialist elite, the Heck

Dutton, Davies, and Imaginative Virtual Worlds: The Current State of Evolutionary Aesthetics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joseph Carroll

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This paper is a commentary comparing the evolutionary perspectives of Denis Dutton’s The Art Instinct (2009 and Stephen Davies’s The Artful Species (2012. Their topics thus necessarily overlap, but their books have different purposes and a different feel. Davies’s book is an academic exercise. He has no real arguments or claims of his own. Dutton wishes to demonstrate that evolutionary psychology can provide a satisfying naturalistic explanation of aesthetic experience. Neither Davies nor Dutton fully succeeds in his ambition. Davies extends his scepticism well beyond a sensible account of the state of current knowledge about human evolution, and Dutton fails to recognize underlying theoretical differences in his main sources of theoretical inspiration. The limitations in these two works do not define the boundaries of current knowledge in evolutionary aesthetics. The most advanced and adequate concept in the evolutionary humanities is the idea that humans evolved the capacity to create imaginative virtual worlds and use those worlds to guide human behaviour. Both books being considered in this essay approach the idea of imaginative virtual worlds and almost grasp it. Before taking up that topic, the paper shall discuss two subsidiary issues: Dutton’s effort to incorporate sexual selection, and Davies’s sceptical negations about all evolutionary knowledge.

The impact of shifting vantage perspective when recalling and imagining positive events.

Science.gov (United States)

Vella, Nicholas C; Moulds, Michelle L

2014-01-01

The vantage perspective from which memories are recalled influences their emotional impact. To date, however, the impact of vantage perspective on the emotions elicited by positive memories and images of positive future events has been minimally explored. We experimentally manipulated the vantage perspective from which a sample of undergraduate students (n =80) recalled positive memories and imagined positive future events. Participants who naturally recalled their positive memories from a field perspective reported decreased vividness and positive affect (i.e., happiness, optimism, hopefulness) when they were instructed to shift to an observer perspective. The same pattern of emotionality ratings was observed when participants' vantage perspective of imagined future events was manipulated. In contrast, shifting participants from observer to field perspective recall of positive memories did not result in changes in ratings of memory-related emotion, although we found an unexpected trend towards reduced vividness. For positive future events, shifting from an observer to a field perspective resulted in decreased vividness but did not lead to any changes in positive emotion. Our findings confirm that vantage perspective plays a key role in determining the emotional impact of positive memories, and demonstrate that this relationship is also evident for images of future positive events.

The reminiscence bump without memories: The distribution of imagined word-cued and important autobiographical memories in a hypothetical 70-year-old.

Science.gov (United States)

Koppel, Jonathan; Berntsen, Dorthe

2016-08-01

The reminiscence bump is the disproportionate number of autobiographical memories dating from adolescence and early adulthood. It has often been ascribed to a consolidation of the mature self in the period covered by the bump. Here we stripped away factors relating to the characteristics of autobiographical memories per se, most notably factors that aid in their encoding or retention, by asking students to generate imagined word-cued and imagined 'most important' autobiographical memories of a hypothetical, prototypical 70-year-old of their own culture and gender. We compared the distribution of these fictional memories with the distributions of actual word-cued and most important autobiographical memories in a sample of 61-70-year-olds. We found a striking similarity between the temporal distributions of the imagined memories and the actual memories. These results suggest that the reminiscence bump is largely driven by constructive, schematic factors at retrieval, thereby challenging most existing theoretical accounts. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A fortunate universe life in a finely tuned cosmos

CERN Document Server

Lewis, Geraint F

2016-01-01

Over the last forty years, scientists have uncovered evidence that if the Universe had been forged with even slightly different properties, life as we know it - and life as we can imagine it - would be impossible. Join us on a journey through how we understand the Universe, from its most basic particles and forces, to planets, stars and galaxies, and back through cosmic history to the birth of the cosmos. Conflicting notions about our place in the Universe are defined, defended and critiqued from scientific, philosophical and religious viewpoints. The authors' engaging and witty style addresses what fine-tuning might mean for the future of physics and the search for the ultimate laws of nature. Tackling difficult questions and providing thought-provoking answers, this volumes challenges us to consider our place in the cosmos, regardless of our initial convictions.

Imagining flood futures: risk assessment and management in practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Lane, Stuart N; Landström, Catharina; Whatmore, Sarah J

2011-05-13

The mantra that policy and management should be 'evidence-based' is well established. Less so are the implications that follow from 'evidence' being predictions of the future (forecasts, scenarios, horizons) even though such futures define the actions taken today to make the future sustainable. Here, we consider the tension between 'evidence', reliable because it is observed, and predictions of the future, unobservable in conventional terms. For flood risk management in England and Wales, we show that futures are actively constituted, and so imagined, through 'suites of practices' entwining policy, management and scientific analysis. Management has to constrain analysis because of the many ways in which flood futures can be constructed, but also because of commitment to an accounting calculus, which requires risk to be expressed in monetary terms. It is grounded in numerical simulation, undertaken by scientific consultants who follow policy/management guidelines that define the futures to be considered. Historical evidence is needed to deal with process and parameter uncertainties and the futures imagined are tied to pasts experienced. Reliance on past events is a challenge for prediction, given changing probability (e.g. climate change) and consequence (e.g. development on floodplains). So, risk management allows some elements of risk analysis to become unstable (notably in relation to climate change) but forces others to remain stable (e.g. invoking regulation to prevent inappropriate floodplain development). We conclude that the assumed separation of risk assessment and management is false because the risk calculation has to be defined by management. Making this process accountable requires openness about the procedures that make flood risk analysis more (or less) reliable to those we entrust to produce and act upon them such that, unlike the 'pseudosciences', they can be put to the test of public interrogation by those who have to live with their consequences

Others and Imagination in Reasoning and Argumentation: Improving our Critical Creative Capacity

OpenAIRE

Michael D. Baumtrog

2017-01-01

Contemporary argumentation theories highlight the importance of Others for contributing to and critiquing an individual’s reasoning and/or argumentation. Reasoners and arguers are encouraged to interact with imagined constructs such as a community of model interlocutors or universal audience. These model interlocutors are theoretically meant to bring to mind reasons and counter-considerations that may not have been conceived of otherwise so as to improve the overall quality of an instance of ...

Imagination, creation and literary origins: dreaming and waking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Catherine Farrar

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Quotation, allusion, mediumship and speaking with or through others’ voices is an established ad well-worked aspect of culture, indeed, it seems, across all cultures, an appropriate subject indeed for COMPASIO. So too has the inspiration artists have drawn for their creation from dreams and the voices of a world beyond themselves. This has been relatively well studied in such fields as visual art and music. Less attention, however, despite its clear centrality, has been given to literary creation. This paper, by a cultural anthropologist, uses a personal case study to illustrate how this can work through the interaction between dreams and narrative. The case here, though only singular in its detailed content and process has wider implications for the comparative anthropological and comparative study of culture, individuality, imagination and creativity.

Phantom phone signals: An investigation into the prevalence and predictors of imagined cell phone signals

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tanis, M.A.; Beukeboom, C.J.; Hartmann, T.; Vermeulen, I.E.

2015-01-01

This paper aims to elucidate the peculiar phenomenon of imagined cell phone signals, or Phantom Phone Signals (PPS), which is defined as an individual's perception of a phone signal, indicating an incoming call, message, or social media notification, when in fact no such signal was transmitted. A

Places of the Imagination: Ecological Concerns in David Malouf’s “Jacko’s Reach”

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonella Riem

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Malouf’s ecological concerns and interest in the natural world and their relationship with the cultural can be traced in most of his works, both in prose and poetry. Space and place such as the wilderness and the garden, the steppe and the Roman Empire, the Australian bush and the city are fundamental elements in Malouf’s delineation of individual, social, political and cultural relationships with the land. This article focuses on “Jacko’s Reach” (Malouf 2000, where, under the label of progress, globalisation is enforcing the development of a local natural place. Jacko’s Reach, “our last pocket of scrub”, will be destroyed by “mechanical shovels and cranes”, to build “a new shopping mall” (93, deceptively advertised as a necessity for the benefit of the community. The narratorial voice on the surface describes a usual event, the building of a new shopping centre, and at the same time criticises the destruction of the natural world for the sake of progress, which leads to the annihilation of wilderness in order to domesticate and acculturate it. This article focuses in particular on Malouf’s narrative strategies, which, more relevantly, emphasise the mythological power of the imagined or remembered place as a form of resistance to the devastation of the natural environment. In “the dimension of the symbolic” (99, through memory, imagination, creativity and dream, the total erasure of wilderness – in both the natural world and ourselves – cannot be fully achieved. Constantly re-imagined and re-configured in our memory, it will be forever “pushing up under the concrete” (99, and “in our head” (100, in a profound visionary and creative interconnectedness between the natural world and the human being.

Mental reversal of imagined melodies: a role for the posterior parietal cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Zatorre, Robert J; Halpern, Andrea R; Bouffard, Marc

2010-04-01

Two fMRI experiments explored the neural substrates of a musical imagery task that required manipulation of the imagined sounds: temporal reversal of a melody. Musicians were presented with the first few notes of a familiar tune (Experiment 1) or its title (Experiment 2), followed by a string of notes that was either an exact or an inexact reversal. The task was to judge whether the second string was correct or not by mentally reversing all its notes, thus requiring both maintenance and manipulation of the represented string. Both experiments showed considerable activation of the superior parietal lobe (intraparietal sulcus) during the reversal process. Ventrolateral and dorsolateral frontal cortices were also activated, consistent with the memory load required during the task. We also found weaker evidence for some activation of right auditory cortex in both studies, congruent with results from previous simpler music imagery tasks. We interpret these results in the context of other mental transformation tasks, such as mental rotation in the visual domain, which are known to recruit the intraparietal sulcus region, and we propose that this region subserves general computations that require transformations of a sensory input. Mental imagery tasks may thus have both task or modality-specific components as well as components that supersede any specific codes and instead represent amodal mental manipulation.

A Ratchet Lens: Black Queer Youth, Agency, Hip Hop, and the Black Ratchet Imagination

Science.gov (United States)

Love, Bettina L.

2017-01-01

This article explores the utilization of the theory of a Black ratchet imagination as a methodological perspective to examine the multiple intersections of Black and queer identity constructions within the space of hip hop. In particular, I argue for the need of a methodological lens that recognizes, appreciates, and struggles with the fluidity,…

Directing Matter and Energy: Five Challenges for Science and the Imagination

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hemminger, J.; Fleming, G.; Ratner, M.

2007-12-20

The twin aspects of energy and control (or direction) are the underlying concepts. Matter and energy are closely linked, and their understanding and control will have overwhelming importance for our civilization, our planet, our science, and our technology. This importance ranges even beyond the large portfolio of BES, both because these truly significant Grand Challenges confront many other realms of science and because even partial solutions to these challenges will enrich scientists’ collective imagination and ability to solve problems with new ideas and new methods.

Dementia and Imagination: a mixed-methods protocol for arts and science research.

Science.gov (United States)

Windle, Gill; Newman, Andrew; Burholt, Vanessa; Woods, Bob; O'Brien, Dave; Baber, Michael; Hounsome, Barry; Parkinson, Clive; Tischler, Victoria

2016-11-02

Dementia and Imagination is a multidisciplinary research collaboration bringing together arts and science to address current evidence limitations around the benefits of visual art activities in dementia care. The research questions ask: Can art improve quality of life and well-being? If it does make a difference, how does it do this-and why? Does it have wider social and community benefits? This mixed-methods study recruits participants from residential care homes, National Health Service (NHS) wards and communities in England and Wales. A visual art intervention is developed and delivered as 1×2-hour weekly group session for 3 months in care and community settings to N=100 people living with dementia. Quantitative and qualitative data are collected at 3 time points to examine the impact on their quality of life, and the perceptions of those who care for them (N=100 family and professional carers). Repeated-measures systematic observations of well-being are obtained during the intervention (intervention vs control condition). The health economics component conducts a social return on investment evaluation of the intervention. Qualitative data are collected at 3 time points (n=35 carers/staff and n=35 people living with dementia) to explore changes in social connectedness. Self-reported outcomes of the intervention delivery are obtained (n=100). Focus groups with intervention participants (n=40) explore perceptions of impact. Social network analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from arts and healthcare professionals (N=100) examines changes in perceptions and practice. The study is approved by North Wales Research Ethics Committee-West. A range of activities will share the research findings, including international and national academic conferences, quarterly newsletters and the project website. Public engagement projects will target a broad range of stakeholders. Policy and practice summaries will be developed. The visual art intervention protocol will

Ad Oculos. Images, Imagination and Abstract Thinking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alessandra Cirafici

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The unusual edition of Elements of Euclid released for publishing in 1847 by Oliver Byrne offers the occasion to suggest a few elements for discussion on the uniqueness of the ‘representation’ of geometric-mathematical thinking—and more in general of the abstract thinking—enshrined in its ‘nature of a pure imaginative vision able to connect the intelligible with the tangible’. The purpose is, thus, a reasoning on images and communicative artefacts, that, when articulated, provide different variations of the idea of ‘transcription’ of complex theoretical structures from one language (that of abstract logic to another (that of sensory experience, with a view to facilitate, ease and make more accurate the noetic process. Images able over time to facilitate the understanding of complex and abstract theoretical principles—since able to show them in an extremely concrete way, ad oculos,—and which at some points could reveal the horizons of art interpretation to inscrutable and figurative meaningless formulas.

Optimized Motor Imagery Paradigm Based on Imagining Chinese Characters Writing Movement.

Science.gov (United States)

Qiu, Zhaoyang; Allison, Brendan Z; Jin, Jing; Zhang, Yu; Wang, Xingyu; Li, Wei; Cichocki, Andrzej

2017-07-01

motor imagery (MI) is a mental representation of motor behavior. The MI-based brain computer interfaces (BCIs) can provide communication for the physically impaired. The performance of MI-based BCI mainly depends on the subject's ability to self-modulate electroencephalogram signals. Proper training can help naive subjects learn to modulate brain activity proficiently. However, training subjects typically involve abstract motor tasks and are time-consuming. to improve the performance of naive subjects during motor imagery, a novel paradigm was presented that would guide naive subjects to modulate brain activity effectively. In this new paradigm, pictures of the left or right hand were used as cues for subjects to finish the motor imagery task. Fourteen healthy subjects (11 male, aged 22-25 years, and mean 23.6±1.16) participated in this study. The task was to imagine writing a Chinese character. Specifically, subjects could imagine hand movements corresponding to the sequence of writing strokes in the Chinese character. This paradigm was meant to find an effective and familiar action for most Chinese people, to provide them with a specific, extensively practiced task and help them modulate brain activity. results showed that the writing task paradigm yielded significantly better performance than the traditional arrow paradigm (p paradigm was easier. the proposed new motor imagery paradigm could guide subjects to help them modulate brain activity effectively. Results showed that there were significant improvements using new paradigm, both in classification accuracy and usability.

Pedagogy and Purpose: Moral Imagination and the Teaching of Medical Ethics.

Science.gov (United States)

Hart, Curtis W

2016-04-01

This essay is an exploration of the development of moral imagination as an important outcome in the teaching of medial ethics. It is contextualized within the growth of professionalism and pays attention to the formation of character of physicians in their formal training and in the first phase of their careers. Issues around formation as it is understood historically in the vocation of the clergy are also considered. Finally, there is discussion of the place rites of passage as they figure in the lives of those who teach medical ethics.

Life cycle impact assessment of ammonia production in Algeria: A comparison with previous studies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Makhlouf, Ali, E-mail: almakhsme@gmail.com; Serradj, Tayeb; Cheniti, Hamza

2015-01-15

In this paper, a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) from “cradle to gate” of one anhydrous ton of ammonia with a purity of 99% was achieved. Particularly, the energy and environmental performance of the product (ammonia) were evaluated. The eco-profile of the product and the share of each stage of the Life Cycle on the whole environmental impacts have been evaluated. The flows of material and energy for each phase of the life cycle were counted and the associated environmental problems were identified. Evaluation of the impact was achieved using GEMIS 4.7 software. The primary data collection was executed at the production installations located in Algeria (Annaba locality). The analysis was conducted according to the LCA standards ISO 14040 series. The results show that Cumulative Energy Requirement (CER) is of 51.945 × 10{sup 3} MJ/t of ammonia, which is higher than the global average. Global Warming Potential (GWP) is of 1.44 t CO{sub 2} eq/t of ammonia; this value is lower than the world average. Tropospheric ozone precursor and Acidification are also studied in this article, their values are: 549.3 × 10{sup −6} t NMVOC eq and 259.3 × 10{sup −6} t SO{sub 2} eq respectively.

Life cycle impact assessment of ammonia production in Algeria: A comparison with previous studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Makhlouf, Ali; Serradj, Tayeb; Cheniti, Hamza

2015-01-01

In this paper, a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) from “cradle to gate” of one anhydrous ton of ammonia with a purity of 99% was achieved. Particularly, the energy and environmental performance of the product (ammonia) were evaluated. The eco-profile of the product and the share of each stage of the Life Cycle on the whole environmental impacts have been evaluated. The flows of material and energy for each phase of the life cycle were counted and the associated environmental problems were identified. Evaluation of the impact was achieved using GEMIS 4.7 software. The primary data collection was executed at the production installations located in Algeria (Annaba locality). The analysis was conducted according to the LCA standards ISO 14040 series. The results show that Cumulative Energy Requirement (CER) is of 51.945 × 10 3 MJ/t of ammonia, which is higher than the global average. Global Warming Potential (GWP) is of 1.44 t CO 2 eq/t of ammonia; this value is lower than the world average. Tropospheric ozone precursor and Acidification are also studied in this article, their values are: 549.3 × 10 −6 t NMVOC eq and 259.3 × 10 −6 t SO 2 eq respectively

Drama and Imagination: A Cognitive Theory of Drama's Effect on Narrative Comprehension and Narrative Production

Science.gov (United States)

Mages, Wendy K.

2006-01-01

This article proposes a cognitive theory of how drama affects two aspects of language development: narrative comprehension and narrative production. It is a theoretical model that explicitly posits the role of the imagination in drama's potential to enhance the development of both narrative comprehension and narrative production. (Contains 2…

Late-life depressive symptoms, religiousness, and mood in the last week of life.

Science.gov (United States)

Braam, Arjan W; Klinkenberg, Marianne; Galenkamp, Henrike; Deeg, Dorly J H

2012-01-01

Aim of the current study is to examine whether previous depressive symptoms modify possible effects of religiousness on mood in the last week of life. After-death interviews with proxy respondents of deceased sample members of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam provided information on depressed mood in the last week of life, as well as on the presence of a sense of peace with the approaching end of life. Other characteristics were derived from interviews with the sample members when still alive. Significant interactions were identified between measures of religiousness and previous depressive symptoms (CES-D scores) in their associations with mood in the last week of life. Among those with previous depressive symptoms, church-membership, church-attendance and salience of religion were associated with a greater likelihood of depressed mood in the last week of life. Among those without previous depressive symptoms, church-attendance and salience of religion were associated with a higher likelihood of a sense of peace. For older adults in the last phase of life, supportive effects of religiousness were more or less expected. Fore those with recent depressive symptoms, however, religiousness might involve a component of existential doubt.

Alien life matters: reflections on cosmopolitanism, otherness, and astrobiology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andre Novoa

2016-03-01

Full Text Available This is a synaptic paper that invites the reader to take a stroll on the edges of cross-disciplinary knowledge. We will walk the roads of anthropology, history, philosophy, astronomy and biology. It is mainly a theoretical article, where I attempt to provide links between authors and theories that were, at first sight, unrelated. In doing so, this paper is aimed at making one controversial claim: ideologically and politically speaking, cosmopolitanism may never fully transcend itself beyond a debate until and unless humankind encounters alien life forms. The argument is based on a simple equation. Despite all the quarrels and debates around the concept, it seems innocuous to assume that cosmopolitanism is the search for a certain universal identity or, at least, a search for a common culturalia, i.e. the cultural grounds wherein local and global senses of universalism come into being (section 2. In spite of the fact that identities are built in opposition and supported by difference (section 3, cosmopolitanism might only be possible as a political project (cosmopolitics when humankind is faced with life forms that are capable of providing true Otherness. I believe that this may explain why we have been fascinated by the utopias of extra-terrestrials for many centuries now (section 4. These utopias are present in a diverse array of knowledges, ranging from science to art, literature or even religion. They have been around for at least 500 years. Until now, all of them have been trapped in the realm of imagination, but there is one concrete cluster of knowledge that has attempted to transpose these imaginings into reality: the promising discipline of astrobiology. Astrobiology is mainly troubled by the de-naturalisation of Earth in order to create analogues for the study of life elsewhere in the cosmos. Provocatively, I end up this paper stating that this may well be the most cosmopolitical practice available to us (section 5.

Geografias do mundo imaginário

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria Fernanda Alegria

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Geographies of the imagined world. The idea that Geography ismore about the construction of images of the world than about a given “objective reality” inspired this study of the mental representations of several countries. Among the multiple possible representations of 12 countries (Portugal, France, Norway, Egypt,Mauritania, Mozambique, United States, Mexico, Brazil, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, we began by charting their location in a world map as indicated by over 300 respondents with at least high school attendance. Then, the compilation of a vast number of mental images (three per country and respondent led to the definition ofsix general categories that bring together mental images of a similar kind: nature, culture and history, tourism and gastronomy, economy and society, specific places and no answer/wrong answers. In each category, we have highlighted the dominant (most frequentidea. Location, the relative frequency of the no answer/wrong answerscategory and the dominant images for each country all proved significant when it comes to dividing the countries into groups, and serve as indicators of the richness and variety of the mental representations. The study provided answers to some of the original research questions, but leaves many others unanswered.

Novas tecnologias, antigos mitos: apontamentos para uma definição operatória de imaginário tecnológico

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erick Felinto

2008-11-01

Full Text Available Investigação sobre as mutações históricas sofridas pelo conceito de imaginário e elaboração de uma definição para a noção de imaginário tecnológico. Por meio dessa noção, analisa os discursos da cibercultura e identifica sua contaminação por um desejo religioso da transcendência. Por fim, sugere uma crí­tica dos mitos utópicos da cibercultura, interpretados no âmbito de um processo de fetichização da tecnologia. Palavras-chave imaginário, tecnologia, comunicação, cibercultura, mito Abstract The article investigates the transformations underwent by the concept of imaginary throughout history and elaborates a definition for the notion of technological imaginary. By means of this notion, it analyzes cyberculture's discourse and denounces its contamination by a religious longing for transcendence. Lastly, it suggests a critique of cyberculture's utopist myths, which are interpreted as a process of fetishization of technology. Key words imaginary, technology, communication, cyberculture, myth

"Piores que bestas feras": Garcilaso de la Vega e o imaginário hispano-inca sobre os Guarani Chiriguano

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Protasio Paulo Langer

Full Text Available No presente artigo propomos uma análise do imaginário de Garcilaso de la Vega sobre os Chiriguano - povo guarani falante que, por volta do século XV, se estabeleceu nas fronteiras do império andino. O tenaz enfrentamento que travaram contra os exércitos imperiais incaicos e, posteriormente, contra os hispânicos ensejou que o cronista Garcilaso de la Vega descrevesse os Chiriguano como a antítese da civilização. Nossa análise incide sobre como esse cronista mestiço abordou os Chiriguano, no intuito de tecer similaridades entre o imaginário cristão e o inca.

Undoing forgetfulness: Chiasmus of Poetical Mind - a Cultural Paradigm of Archetypal Imagination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Isar, Nicoletta

2005-01-01

into some old cosmologies and visions in which chiasmus constantly emerged as an enduring cultural paradigm with ontological relevance. Spanning from Plato to Christian theology, up to the contemporary Neo-Platonism of archetypal psychology, this paper hopes to put forth, if not a theory, at least a vision...... about man and cosmos, cosmos and man, a chiastic epiphany in which the body and the material world partake both of the sacred. Key words: memory; chiasmus; image; imagination; archetypal psychology; DNA....

The Imagined Audience and Privacy Concern on Facebook: Differences Between Producers and Consumers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yumi Jung

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Facebook users share information with others by creating posts and specifying who should be able to see each post. Once a user creates a post, those who see it have the ability to copy and re-share the information. But, if the reader has a different understanding of the information in the post than the creator intended, he or she may use the information in ways that are contrary to the intentions of the original creator. This study examined whether post creators (Producers and readers (Consumers who are Facebook Friends had similar levels of privacy concern regarding how others might use the information in specific posts, and how their privacy concern about the post varied by whether the imagined audience consisted of Friends, Friends of Friends, or the general Public. The results showed that both Producers and Consumers had similar levels of privacy concern about a post shared with an imagined audience of Friends versus Friends of Friends. However, Consumers believed posts were more private than the Producers themselves did, and showed more privacy concern. This shows that post Consumers care about Producers’ privacy, perceive that they are co-owners of the information, and engage in boundary management with Producers.

Imagination, Perceptual Engagement and Sound Mediation. Thinking Technologically-Produced Sound Through Simondon's Concept of the Image

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Paiuk, G.

2018-01-01

Applying French philosopher Gilbert Simondon’s concept of image to the domain of the sonorous, this article aims to tackle how imagination is constitutional in our grasp of sound, and how this grasp is informed by the protocols and affordances of technological tools of sound reproduction and

Utopia: An Imaginative, Critical and Playful Dialogue on the Meaning and Practice of Contemporary Education

Science.gov (United States)

Hayes, Michael T.; Marino, Matthew

2015-01-01

In this article the authors re-examine Sir Thomas More's classic book "Utopia" as a potential source of ideas and concepts for examining, understanding and imagining contemporary education. Too often the concept utopia is used to criticize an idea, perspective or image as offering a simplistic solution to a complex problem, or, at its…

The Management of "Emotional Labour" in the Corporate Re-Imagining of Primary Education in England

Science.gov (United States)

Bates, Agnieszka

2016-01-01

The last 20 years has witnessed the spread of corporatism in education on a global scale. In England, this trend is characterised by new structural and cultural approaches to education found in the "academies" programme and the adoption of private sector management styles. The corporate re-imagining of schools has also led to the…

The Collaborative Theatre-Making Project: A Space to Challenge, Explore and Re-Imagine Accepted Mythologies

Science.gov (United States)

McGinty, Lorna

2013-01-01

This short case study gives insight into a theatre-making project with young lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified people. The author reflects on the capacity of collaborative arts practice to open discussion around identity and allow space to re-imagine lived experience through metaphor and mythology. She focuses on the central role of the…

[Vaccines: history and stories between reality and imagination].

Science.gov (United States)

Terracciano, Elisa; Zorzoli, Ermanno; D'Alò, Gian Loreto; Zaratti, Laura; Franco, Elisabetta

2016-01-01

Vaccinations and the controversy around them always go in parallel. We identified four categories blending in various amounts of truth and imagination: history, myths, shams and frauds. Over the years, they have alternated and sometimes transformed into one another. This sharp separation into categories is certainly academic and forced. In fact, the line between these aspects is not clear enough to allow a rigid and well-defined division. Our work starts from the category containing the most truthfulness: history, and goes on to analyze two categories that add fantasy to facts: myths and shams (or better, "old wives' tales"). The history deals with the topics of variolation and the first anti-vaccine activists' disputes. Myths that arose around immunization include immune overload, homeoprophylaxis, and excessive hygiene. In this context, immunization itself risked becoming a myth, being considered not amenable to improvements. In the category of old wives' tales we find rumors about the presence in the vaccines of considerable quantities of supposedly toxic components such as aluminum, squalene, Thimerosal and nanoparticles, as well as the existence of secret techniques of vaccine preparation that involve unethical procedures. The last category, fraud, is the poorest in both truth and fantasy but it is still hard to confront. The most famous fraud is the supposed link between vaccines and autism. In this frame, disinformation is certainly a fertile substrate for the emergence both of elements close to reality and of very imaginative ones. Vaccine hesitancy is believed to be responsible for decreasing vaccine coverage and increasing the risk of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks and epidemics. The role of communication in immunization is essential to its success, especially taking into account the deep transformations the world of information is going through. The great multitude of voices seem to carry the same weight, but it is not so in science. Web searches

He said what? Physiological and cognitive responses to imagining and witnessing outgroup racism.

Science.gov (United States)

Karmali, Francine; Kawakami, Kerry; Page-Gould, Elizabeth

2017-08-01

Responses to outgroup racism can have serious implications for the perpetuation of bias, yet research examining this process is rare. The present research investigated self-reported, physiological, and cognitive responses among "experiencers" who witnessed and "forecasters" who imagined a racist comment targeting an outgroup member. Although previous research indicates that experiencers self-reported less distress and chose a racist partner more often than forecasters, the present results explored the possibility that experiencers may actually be distressed in such situation but regulate their initial affective reactions. The results from Experiment 1 demonstrated that participants in both roles showed (a) no activation of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal stress axis (decreased cortisol) and (b) activation of the sympathetic autonomic nervous system (increased skin conductance). However, experiencers but not forecasters displayed a physiological profile indicative of an orienting response (decreased heart rate and increased skin conductance) rather than a defensive response (increased heart rate and increased skin conductance). Furthermore, the results from Experiment 2 provided additional evidence that experiencers are not distressed or regulating their emotional responses. In particular, experiencers showed less cognitive impairment on a Stroop task than forecasters. Together these findings indicate that when people actually encounter outgroup bias, they respond with apathy and do not censure the racist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The technological socio-materiality of kindergarten children’s conduct of everyday life

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chimirri, Niklas Alexander

a four-month researcher participation in a kindergarten practice. It argues that the relevance of media technologies can only be investigated in relation to the various perspectives of the other practice participants. The main focus is put on the children’s perspectives, as it is their conduct......The conduct of everyday life concept has been enormously fruitful for theorizing how persons come to live their lives across diverse social contexts as participants in and contributors to social practices. However, social practice research still needs to investigate in a more detailed manner...... the relevance of material artifacts for conducting one’s everyday life. Everyday artifacts such as media technologies heavily shape the concrete socio-material arrangements in specific practices, hence co-constituting the scope of imaginable action possibilities. The presentation builds on insights drawn from...

Toys as Tools for Skill-building and Creativity in Adult Life

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katriina Heljakka

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Previous understandings of adult use of toys are connected with ideas of collecting and hobbying, not playing. This study aims to address toys as play objects employed in imaginative scenarios and as learning devices. This article situates toys (particularly, character toys such as Blythe dolls as socially shared tools for skill-building and learning in adult life. The interviews with Finnish doll players and analyses of examples of their productive, toy-related play patterns showcased in both offline and digital playscapes reveal how toy play leads to skill-building and creativity at a mature age.The meanings attached to and developed around playthings expand purposely by means of digital and social media. (Audiovisual content-sharing platforms, such as Flickr, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube, invite mature audiences to join playful dialogues involving mass-produced toys enhanced through do-it-yourself practices. Activities circulated in digital play spaces, such as blogs and photo management applications, demonstrate how adults, as non-professional ‘everyday players’, approach, manipulate and creatively cultivate contemporary playthings. Mature players educate potential players by introducing how to use and develop skills by sharing play patterns associated with their playthings. Producing and broadcasting tutorials on how to play creatively with toys encourage others to build their skills through play.

Presence revisited: imagination, competence, and activity in text-based virtual worlds.

Science.gov (United States)

Jacobson, D

2001-12-01

Presence is the sense of being caught up in the representations of virtual worlds. Drawing on social and literary theories and on ethnographic fieldwork, this paper examines the ways in which imagination, competence, and activity promote or undermine a sense of presence in online text-based environments known as MOOs. These factors vary for newbies, socials, and techies, categories that reflect differences in length of experience in participating in these worlds, in comfort and/or competence in the use of commands for navigation and communication, and in the interests and/or degree of participation in socializing or programming.

Disruptive conflicts in computopic space : Japanese sf videogames as sources of otherness and radical political imagination

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roth, Martin Erwin

2014-01-01

Can you imagine a radically different world? In our times dominated by neoliberal capitalism, we seem to lack not only viable alternatives, but also the capacity to envision anything outside of the status quo. In this PhD thesis, I show that videogames can be a potential source of inspiration and

O JARDIM DE SI: o imaginário de CLAUDIA ROQUETTE-PINTO

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio Rediver Guizzo

2014-12-01

Full Text Available A lírica de Claudia Roquette-Pinto encontra no ambiente do jardim, simulacro miniaturizado do mundo natural, as imagens que compõem a representação simbólica do conflito surgido entre o eu e o mundo, e intensa reflexão metapoética. As imagens recorrentes da queda, da flor, da escuridão e do corpo que enformam a materialidade simbólica de Roquette-Pinto revelam uma lírica constituída em uma zona de transição, estabelecida entre saturação da ordem social orientada pelo aproveitamento racional do mundo e pela dominação da natureza, e a insurgência pós-moderna de uma ordem ecológica, na qual se privilegia a fruição mais livre do presente. A abordagem metodológica escolhida para adentrar a lírica de Claudia Roquette-Pinto orienta-se a partir da teoria das estruturas antropológicas do imaginário proposta por Gilbert Durand conjuntamente com as reflexões sobre a sociedade contemporânea presentes na obra do sociólogo Michel Maffesoli. Na primeira e segunda seção do artigo, apresentam-se brevemente considerações sobre o imaginário e o estruturalismo figurativo de Gilbert Durand; na terceira seção analisa-se um pequeno recorte da lírica de Roquette-Pinto.

Re-imagining Citizenship, Re-imagining Social Work: U.S. Immigration Policies and Social Work Practice in the Era of AZ SB1070

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hye-Kyung Kang

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The literature on immigrant cultural citizenship (Ong, 1996; Rosaldo, 1997 has argued that traditional and normative definitions of citizenship ignore various forms of civic participation and belonging and fails to capture the experiences of immigrants in an increasingly globalized world (Getrich, 2008, calling for more nuanced and multiple meanings of citizenship. As agents of civil society, social workers have much power in constructing and maintaining (or resisting normative discourses of citizenship, and how we participate in this process has material consequences for those we serve. Applying poststructural and postcolonial theories, this paper excavates discourses of exclusion and inequity that produce the idea of U.S. citizenship through a critical historical analysis of key U.S. immigration and naturalization-related policies and proposes immigrant cultural citizenship as a conceptual frame for re-imagining social work practice with immigrants.

Sensory shelf life estimation of minimally processed lettuce considering two stages of consumers' decision-making process.

Science.gov (United States)

Ares, Gastón; Giménez, Ana; Gámbaro, Adriana

2008-01-01

The aim of the present work was to study the influence of context, particularly the stage of the decision-making process (purchase vs consumption stage), on sensory shelf life of minimally processed lettuce. Leaves of butterhead lettuce were placed in common polypropylene bags and stored at 5, 10 and 15 degrees C. Periodically, a panel of six assessors evaluated the appearance of the samples, and a panel of 40 consumers evaluated their appearance and answered "yes" or "no" to the questions: "Imagine you are in a supermarket, you want to buy a minimally processed lettuce, and you find a package of lettuce with leaves like this, would you normally buy it?" and "Imagine you have this leaf of lettuce stored in your refrigerator, would you normally consume it?". Survival analysis was used to calculate the shelf lives of minimally processed lettuce, considering both decision-making stages. Shelf lives estimated considering rejection to purchase were significantly lower than those estimated considering rejection to consume. Therefore, in order to be conservative and assure the products' quality, shelf life should be estimated considering consumers' rejection to purchase instead of rejection to consume, as traditionally has been done. On the other hand, results from logistic regressions of consumers' rejection percentage as a function of the evaluated appearance attributes suggested that consumers considered them differently while deciding whether to purchase or to consume minimally processed lettuce.

Storytelling Permutations in the Performance of Life Narrative Betty Roland's Caviar for Breakfast.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maureen Clark

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Throughout her life, Australian storyteller and playwright Betty Roland (1903-1996 was haunted by the lure of travel. Roland's extensive body of work reflects experiences in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union in the 1930s, the UK in the 1950s and Greece in the 1960s and charts the evolution of a personal and political philosophy marked by world-wide social upheaval. Caviar for Breakfast (1979 revised 1989, the second volume of Roland's autobiographical trilogy, is the subject of this paper. When taken together, the three books provide a fascinating insight into the values and ideas of the mushrooming modern cultures in which Roland travelled, worked and lived. Caviar for Breakfast retraces Roland's adventures in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union where she spent fifteen months during 1933-34 with her then lover, Guido Baracchi, a wealthy Marxist scholar. The narrative takes its life from the contents of a diary maintained by Roland during that time and her introductory remarks convey the notion that, what follows, is not a literary enterprise of the imagination. The author insists that Caviar for Breakfast is a first-hand account of past realities and not only does her diary hold the ordering of events together, but is the purveyor of truth. The truth status of the diary as a mode of representation is widely accepted in Western culture. This paper argues, however, that it is impossible for any transcription of a life to enjoy a one-to-one ratio with 'what actually happened' as it is for a ghost to re-enter a world which fully resembles the one it left. It is well within the capacity of any imaginative storyteller to construct a counterfeit, or simulated, sense of reality whether or not s/he works with the diary mode of representation.

Growing of the mathematical thinking imaginative to students in designing of the teaching aids for CWD towards to joyful learning

Science.gov (United States)

Sugiman; Sugiharti, E.; Kurniawati, N. F.

2018-03-01

Government and the private parties had also organized of Special School (SS) and Inclusive School. SS requires of math teachers who were professional in the material, but also master the needs of Children with Disabilities (CwD) in teaching-learning process. The problem: How to design the Teaching Aids for CwD through Extra-Curriculum Training (ECT) activities to Joyful Learning? The purposes of this research: (1) To find new ways how to grow the imaginative in mathematical thinking for students of Mathematics Education. (2) To find a Teaching Aids Design that suitable for CwD who studying in SS. (3) In order to create a Teaching Aids for CwD through activities based on ECT to Joyful Learning. The research method was done by qualitative approach. The research subjects were 6 students of Mathematics Education Study Program of FMIPA UNNES who were interested in attending of the training activities based on ECT. The results: (1) ECT can be a place to grow an Imaginative in Mathematical Thinking of students, (2) created the design of the teaching aids for CwD through activities based on ECT to Joyful Learning as a mirror of the imaginative growth in mathematical thinking for students.

Parental views on withdrawing life-sustaining therapies in critically ill children.

Science.gov (United States)

Michelson, Kelly Nicole; Koogler, Tracy; Sullivan, Christine; Ortega, María del Pilar; Hall, Emily; Frader, Joel

2009-11-01

To broaden existing knowledge of pediatric end-of-life decision making by exploring factors described by parents of patients in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) as important/influential if they were to consider withdrawing life-sustaining therapies. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of semi-structured one-on-one interviews. The PICUs at 2 tertiary care hospitals. English- or Spanish-speaking parents who were older than 17 years and whose child was admitted to the PICU for more than 24 hours to up to 1 week. Semi-structured one-on-one interviews. Forty of 70 parents (57%) interviewed said they could imagine a situation in which they would consider withdrawing life-sustaining therapies. When asked if specific factors might influence their decision making, 64% of parents said they would consider withdrawing life-sustaining therapies if their child were suffering; 51% would make such a decision based on quality-of-life considerations; 43% acknowledged the influence of physician-estimated prognosis in their decision; and 7% said financial burden would affect their consideration. Qualitative analysis of their subsequent comments identified 9 factors influential to parents when considering withdrawing life-sustaining therapies: quality of life, suffering, ineffective treatments, faith, time, financial considerations, general rejection of withdrawing life-sustaining therapies, mistrust/doubt toward physicians, and reliance on self/intuition. Parents describe a broad range of views regarding possible consideration of withdrawing life-sustaining therapies for their children and what factors might influence such a decision.

The beautiful invisible creativity, imagination, and theoretical physics

CERN Document Server

Vignale, Giovanni

2011-01-01

Challenging the image of theoretical physics as a dry discipline, The Beautiful Invisible shows that this highly abstract science is in fact teeming with beautiful concepts, and the task of imagining them demands profound creativity, just as creative as the work of poets or magical realist novelists such as Borges and Musil. "A good scientific theory is like a symbolic tale, an allegory of reality," writes Giovanni Vignale, as he uncovers the unexpected links between theoretical physics and artistic creativity. In engaging and at times poetic prose, and with ample quotations from many of the writers he admires, Vignale presents his own unorthodox accounts of fundamental theoretical concepts such as Newtonian mechanics, superconductivity, and Einstein's theory of relativity, illuminating their profound implications. Throughout, the author treats readers to glimpses of physics as "exercised in the still night, when only the moon rages." Indeed, as we delve behind now-familiar concepts such as "electron spin" an...

Nature is far more imaginative than human beings!

CERN Multimedia

2009-01-01

Is today’s science fiction really tomorrow’s science fact (*)? If you remember the Star Trek TV series, you will have noticed that extra-dimensions are becoming more plausible than you could have imagined when Captain Kirk was leading the Enterprise. Lawrence Krauss, author of "The Physics of Star Trek", visited CERN on 28 August and told us how the LHC inspires him both as a scientist and as a writer.Wearing his cosmologist’s hat, Lawrence Krauss met the CERN audience in the Main Auditorium and gave a colloquium entitled "Cosmology as Science? From Inflation to Eternity". Wearing his other hat of bestselling writer, he told us that he finds the LHC a very inspiring human adventure. "The LHC and its experiments", he says, "represent how science can span and bridge human cultures and interests, focusing for an incredibly intense period on questions which may seem esoteric but in some way will give us insights into our place in the Universe". CERN science has inspired ...

Directing spatial attention to locations within remembered and imagined mental representations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Simon G Gosling

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Spatial attention enables us to enhance the processing of items at target locations, at the expense of items presented at irrelevant locations. Many studies have explored the neural correlates of these spatial biases using event-related potentials. More recently some studies have shown that these ERP correlates are also present when subjects search visual short-term memory. This suggests firstly that this type of mental representation retains a spatial organisation that is based upon that of the original percept, and secondly that these attentional biases are flexible and can act to modulate remembered as well as perceptual representations. We aimed to test whether it was necessary for subjects to have actually seen the memoranda at those spatial locations, or whether simply imagining the spatial layout was sufficient to elicit the spatial attention effects. On some trials subjects performed a ‘visual’ search of an array held in visual short-term memory, and upon other trials subjects imagined the items at those spatial locations. We found ERP markers of spatial attention in both the memory-search and the imagery-search conditions. However, there were differences between the conditions, the effect in the memory-search began earlier and included posterior electrode sites. By contrast the ERP effect in the imagery-search condition was apparent only over fronto-central electrode sites and emerged slightly later. Nonetheless, our data demonstrate that it is not necessary for subjects to have ever seen the items at spatial locations for neural markers of spatial attention to be elicited; searching an imaginary spatial layout also triggers spatially-specific attention effects in the ERP data.

Analysis of the results of serum tumor markers in patients with multiple abnormal concentrations in bone imagines

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu Xingyong; Jiang Min; Geng Jun; Hu Desheng; He Jian; Fan Xiandong

2008-01-01

To study the serum tumor markers in patients with multiple abnormal concentration of radiopharmaceuticals in whole body bone imagine, 73 patients with malignancy were under a whole body bone scan. The serum tumor markers levels of AFP, CEA, CA125, CA15-3 and CA19-9 were measured in 73 patients and 37 normal people. The results showed that there was significant difference only on serum CEA level (P<0.005), and no significant difference on CA125, CA15-3 and CA19-9 levels (P<0.05) between 36 patients with multiple abnormal concentration and the others with normal bone imagine. The serum levels of CEA, CA125 and CA19-9 in patients were significant higher than that of normal controls (P<0.005). Combined the whole body bone scan and detection of serum tumor markers might be regarded as clinical significance for the diagnosis of bone metastases. (authors)

TV FOR CHILDREN : How the Swedish Public Service Television Imagines a Child Audience

OpenAIRE

Pettersson, Åsa

2013-01-01

The study explores how the Swedish public service TV institution imagines a child audience in a societal context where the broadcasting landscape hastransformed greatly over the past thirty years and where TV is seen to  constitute both risks and benefits for children. The concept of TV for children is established to broaden the scope for studying what has been broadcast for a child audience on public service TV. The empirical material consists of both broadcasting policy documents and an ext...

Characterization of EEG Signals Using Wavelet Packet and Fuzzy Entropy in Motor Imagination Tasks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Boris Alexander Medina

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Context:  Clinical rhythm analysis on advanced signal processing methods is very important in medical areas such as brain disorder diagnostic, epilepsy, sleep analysis, anesthesia analysis, and more recently in brain-computer interfaces (BCI. Method: Wavelet transform package is used on this work to extract brain rhythms of electroencephalographic signals (EEG related to motor imagination tasks. We used the Competition BCI 2008 database for this characterization. Using statistical functions we obtained features that characterizes brain rhythms, which are discriminated using different classifiers; they were evaluated using a 10-fold cross validation criteria. Results: The classification accuracy achieved 81.11% on average, with a degree of agreement of 61%, indicating a "suitable" concordance, as it has been reported in the literature. An analysis of relevance showed the concentration of characteristics provided in the nodes as a result of Wavelet decomposition, as well as the characteristics that more information content contribute to improve the separability decision region for the classification task. Conclusions: The proposed method can be used as a reference to support future studies focusing on characterizing EEG signals oriented to the imagination of left and right hand movement, considering that our results proved to compared favourably to those reported in the literature. Language: Spanish.

Imagining the future: The Power of Climate Change Fiction

Science.gov (United States)

Buhr Sullivan, S. M.; Kellagher, E.; Poppleton, K. L.

2013-12-01

Fiction has galvanized the public imagination around societal concerns throughout US history, on issues including slavery, worker abuse and animal cruelty. A growing body of fiction concerned with climate change, 'cli-fi', provides the opportunity for students to engage with climate science in more visceral and affective ways. The Inspiring Climate Education Excellence (ICEE) project ran a climate and energy book club from Spring 2012 through Winter 2013, in which educators, scientists and writers participated. The fictional works were intended for audiences ranging from youth through adult, with themes of dystopia, renewal, hope, oppression, and innovation. This presentation will describe the benefits, opportunities and caveats of using these works within science teaching contexts, highlight some of the works which stood out from the rest and provide an annotated bibliography of books which were included or considered.

SECURITY RISKS, MYTHS IN A TRANSITIONING SUB-NATIONAL REGIONAL ECONOMY (CROSS RIVER STATE AND IMAGINATIVE GEOGRAPHIES OF NIGERIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. K. UKWAYI

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The emergence of an “international community” through accumulation of perceived risks that contrasts with those risks (of considerably lower levels of seriousness compared to those perceived constitutes one of the interesting (or intriguing subjects of risks and disaster studies surrounding the 9/11 era. The constructions of “imaginative geographies”, have frequently been biased in the practices that underlie the mapping of the foreign places tend to put-down the affected regions in their “paintings” for the global community. The latter are subsequently “demonized” in their ratings of competence for participating in world trade, tourism, travel, among other social/cultural, and economic and political activities. The objective of this article is to highlight how the exaggeration of risks (contrasted to actually existing/lived risks, practices that are frequently associated with such adverse “imaginative geographies” poses sub-national regional development dilemma in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. We trace the roots of adverse “imaginative geographies” of Nigeria to the Abacha dictatorship (1993-1997. Then we highlight the mixed characteristics of the Niger Delta conditions during the “return of positive image recapture” by Nigeria’s federal government (re-democratisation of the Fourth Republic, 1999-present, re-branding campaigns; as well as adverse conditions present. Most significantly, we show that despite these adversities, a combination of favorable geographical size, differentiation, sub-national regional security programme formulation and management taking aims at diversification have created “large oases” of peace and security in Cross River State, a part of the Niger Delta that has been completely unscathed by insurgencies of the nearby sub-national region and further away national origin. Apart from identifying sub-national regions qualifying for delisting from “adverse imaginative geographies” due to

Final report: Imagining Fire Futures - An interactive, online learning activity for high school and college students

Science.gov (United States)

Jane Kapler Smith

2014-01-01

In IMAGINING FIRE FUTURES, students in a high school or college class use model results to develop a vision of the future for Flathead County, Montana. This is a rural area in the northern Rocky Mountains where more than half of the landscape is covered by wildland ecosystems that have evolved with and are shaped by wildland fire.

Imaginários em confronto: as brasileiras e a televisão em Portugal

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isabel Ferin

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Este artigo tem como objectivo analisar os cruzamentos entre trajectórias de vida, imaginários e percepção de conteúdos da televisão das imigrantes brasileiras em Portugal. Tendo como pano de fundo as teorias das migrações e aprofundando as teo-rias sobre a recepção, procura-se entender o papel dos Media, principalmente da televisão, nos processos de integração. Conclui-se que determinados conteúdos veiculados pelos Media são percebidos como interferindo nos quotidianos, enquanto as percepções tendem a ser selectivas e a articularem-se com as trajectórias de vida e de imigração.2 Palavras-chave: Mulheres imigrantes brasileiras; percepções dos conteúdos dos Media; consumos e usos dos Media; audiências activas e imaginação. ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to cross life trajectories, imaginaries and uses of television among Brazilian immigrants in Portugal. The objective was to identify the perceptions of information contents and the interferences of those contents in their daily lives. Having support on migration and reception theories, we seek to understand the role of media, mainly television, in the integration process. The conclusion points out to certain contents that interfere in the daily lives and to the selectivity of the perceptions. Keywords: Brazilian women immigrants; media perceptions; media uses and forms of consumption; active audiences and perceptions.

Divorcing China: The Swing from the Patrilineal Genealogy of China to the Matrilineal Genealogy of Taiwan in Taiwan’s National Imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yin C. Chuang

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the popular concept of the relationship between Taiwan and China as a feminine/ masculine dichotomy which has been constructed within Taiwan’s national imagination. First, I will focus on how this dichotomy has been created within the process of identity-shifting in Taiwan since the 1990s as manifested in Taiwanese pop songs. Second, I will demonstrate how it has been appropriated within the process of nation-building. Two primary questions will be addressed: How is the national imagination of Taiwan in Taiwanese pop songs constructed through maternal and feminine images? How is the matrilineal genealogy in Taiwanese pop songs appropriated by the opposition camp, namely the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP, to mobilize voters? I will investigate, from a cultural studies perspective, how cultural imagination has come to serve as the vehicle to formulate resistance, mobilize voters, gain power and, most importantly, reconstruct Taiwanese nationalism within Taiwan’s political limbo for decades. Furthermore, Margaret Somers’ discussion (1993, 1994, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c; Somers and Gibson 1994 of narrative identity is adopted as the framework for this paper in order to look at how identities are constructed within and across multiple realms. My research methods consist of conducting in-depth interviews and analysing texts.

Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination : Set Design in 1930s European Cinema

OpenAIRE

Bergfelder, Tim; Harris, Sue; Street, Sarah

2007-01-01

Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination presents for the first time a comparative study of European film set design in the late 1920s and 1930s; based on a wealth of designers' drawings, film stills and archival documents, the book offers a new insight into the development and significance of trans-national artistic collaboration during this period. European cinema from the late 1920s to the late 1930s is famous for its attention to detail in terms of set design and visual effect....

“Empire is a state of mind” – Imagining Eurasia in Russia –

OpenAIRE

Vehkasalo, Veera Kaisa

2011-01-01

In this thesis I study the Neo-Eurasianist movement in Russia and the ways the activists of the movement construct Eurasia as a unified entity and an empire. The central research questions of this work are: What is the empire and what are its central motivations and themes? How is the idea of empire constructed or understood, and how can this be interpreted? What could be seen to be the effects of their ways of imagining Eurasia? My material consists of interviews that were collected during t...

Energy Road-map 2050: Towards regional and local energy Road-maps. IMAGINE seminar 2011

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maillot, Herve; Pidoux, Blandine

2011-11-01

The 2011 IMAGINE Seminar held in Brussels on 9 November 2011 united around fifty representatives from Energy Cities network member cities as well as representatives from the European Parliament and the Commission, various industrial sectors and civil society organisations. Participants were invited to share their visions of their action by 2040-2050 in a sustainable and desirable city, having achieved its energy transition. The spontaneous and inspiring discussions that followed broached the following questions: - What is and should be the role of the local level in the EU Energy Road-map? - What if European local authorities were to develop their own 'Energy 2050' Road-maps? - What local and regional policies can social and economic players use for contributing to achieving European targets? - Under what conditions is the 'low energy cities with a high quality of life for all' concept relevant? The debate helped outline a shared, global vision as a step towards European collective dynamics giving territories a major role in energy transition. At the end of the day, participants from very different backgrounds converged on the following key points: - Like European institutions, territories must develop a long-term vision, failing which they will be unable to take meaningful action, mobilise players and make the right decisions in the short-term. - The energy-territory relationship, from efficient energy use to supply policies, is a major democratic challenge. - Although a number of technologies are already available, they still have to be integrated so that citizens can satisfy their needs and become fully accountable for their energy use. - Energy strategies must help meet a number of local challenges: social and territorial cohesion, employment and economic development, environmental protection and quality of life. To do so, they need to be designed taking those they are supposed to serve, i.e. citizens, into consideration. - The interaction between local

Angels and legs: a “circus girl” in the Brazilian artistic imagination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gilmar Rocha

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Wherever they go the circus and circus arts have always captured the attention of people in small and large cities. Artists were not indifferent to this influence; it is what reveals the heterogeneous production of circus representations in the field of literature, the visual arts, music etc. This can be understood as a short essay since it is a brief incursion into the Brazilian artistic imagination which presents the first reflections regarding the female circus performer, here, poetically christened, as a "circus girl". It is a symbolic analysis inspired on Nietzsche’s tragic philosophy.

Imagining Macondo: Interacting with García Márquez’s Literary Landscape.

Science.gov (United States)

Forbes, Angus Graeme; Burbano, Andres; Murray, Paul; Legrady, George

2015-01-01

Imagining Macondo is a public artwork that commemorates Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez. It was first showcased at the Bogota International Book Fair in April 2015 to an audience of more than 300,000 over the course of two weeks. The project involved extensive collaboration between an international team of artists, designers, and programmers. This article explores the historical and artistic contexts for the creation of the work, discusses the audience reception to the work, and describes the significant software and production requirements necessary to create an installation with thousands of participants and hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Space, Geometry and the Imagination from Antiquity to the Early Modern Age

CERN Document Server

Mathematizing Space : The Objects of Geometry from Antiquity to the Early Modern Age

2015-01-01

This book brings together papers of the conference on 'Space, Geometry and the Imagination from Antiquity to the Modern Age' held in Berlin, Germany, 27-29 August 2012. Focusing on the interconnections between the history of geometry and the philosophy of space in the pre-Modern and Early Modern Age, the essays in this volume are particularly directed toward elucidating the complex epistemological revolution that transformed the classical geometry of figures into the modern geometry of space. Contributors: Graciela De Pierris Franco Farinelli Michael Friedman Daniel Garber Jeremy Gray Gary Hatfield Andrew Janiak Douglas Jesseph Alexander Jones Henry Mendell David Rabouin

The Impact of Discovering Life beyond Earth

Science.gov (United States)

Dick, Steven J.

2016-01-01

Introduction: astrobiology and society Steven J. Dick; Part I. Motivations and Approaches. How Do We Frame the Problems of Discovery and Impact?: Introduction; 1. Current approaches to finding life beyond earth, and what happens if we do Seth Shostak; 2. The philosophy of astrobiology: the Copernican and Darwinian presuppositions Iris Fry; 3. History, discovery, analogy: three approaches to the impact of discovering life beyond earth Steven J. Dick; 4. Silent impact: why the discovery of extraterrestrial life should be silent Clément Vidal; Part II. Transcending Anthropocentrism. How Do We Move beyond our Own Preconceptions of Life, Intelligence and Culture?: Introduction; 5. The landscape of life Dirk Schulze-Makuch; 6. The landscape of intelligence Lori Marino; 7. Universal biology: assessing universality from a single example Carlos Mariscal; 8. Equating culture, civilization, and moral development in imagining extraterrestrial intelligence: anthropocentric assumptions? John Traphagan; 9. Communicating with the other: infinity, geometry, and universal math and science Douglas Vakoch; Part III. Philosophical, Theological, and Moral Impact. How Do We Comprehend the Cultural Challenges Raised by Discovery?: Introduction; 10. Life, intelligence and the pursuit of value in cosmic evolution Mark Lupisella; 11. 'Klaatu barada nikto' - or, do they really think like us? Michael Ruse; 12. Alien minds Susan Schneider; 13. The moral subject of astrobiology: guideposts for exploring our ethical and political responsibilities towards extraterrestrial life Elspeth Wilson and Carol Cleland; 14. Astrobiology and theology Robin Lovin; 15. Would you baptize an extraterrestrial? Guy Consolmagno, SJ; Part IV. Practical Considerations: How Should Society Prepare for Discovery - and Non-Discovery?: Introduction; 16. Is there anything new about astrobiology and society? Jane Maienschein; 17. Evaluating preparedness for the discovery of extraterrestrial life: considering potential

A Planet for Goldilocks: The Search for Evidence of Life Beyond Earth

Science.gov (United States)

Batalha, Natalie M.

2018-01-01

A Planet for Goldilocks: The Search for Evidence of Life Beyond Earth "Not too hot, not too cold" begins the prescription for a world that's just right for life as we know it. Finding evidence of life beyond Earth is one of the primary goals of science agencies around the world thanks in large part to NASA's Kepler Mission which launched in 2009 with the objective of finding Goldilocks planets orbiting other stars like our Sun. Indeed, the space telescope opened our eyes to the terrestrial-sized planets that populate the galaxy as well as exotic worlds unlike anything that exists in the solar system. The mission ignited the search for life beyond earth via remote detection of atmospheric biosignatures on exoplanets. Most recently, our collective imagination was awakened by the discovery of Goldilocks worlds orbiting some of the nearest neighbors to the Sun, turning abstractions into destinations. Dr. Batalha will give an overview of the science legacy of the Kepler Mission and other key discoveries. She'll give a preview of what's to come by highlighting the missions soon to launch and those that are concepts taking shape on the drawing board.

Dreams and imaginative processes in American and Balinese artists.

Science.gov (United States)

Gaines, R; Price-Williams, D

1990-06-01

A study is presented comparing the imaginative modes of American and Balinese artists. Strict survey comparison has not been possible owing to the lack of certain artistic types in the comparative culture and smallness of sample. By using an interview approach, a paradigmatic difference between the artistic members of the two cultures can be demonstrated. In American artists there is a more individualistic approach to creative imagery, with a stronger reliance on their dreams. In Balinese artists the creative endeavor is more collective, depending on more conscious imagery drawn from myths and common beliefs. The difference is correlated with the philosophical and cultural settings of each society in which the artist is embedded. Exemplar statements from interviews are presented to illustrate and support these propositions. Finally, it has been suggested that creative imagery should also be viewed in the perspective of differing concepts of self in the two societies.

Um outro mundo possível: Castoriadis e Eco na construção do imaginário

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keske, Humberto Ivan

2003-01-01

Full Text Available Conceito impactante, problemático, difuso, ambíguo, confuso, contestável. Refletir sobre aspectos que envolvem uma certa especulação do que possa vir a se constituir o imaginário de uma sociedade é tarefa complexa e sempre inacabada.

Drosophila wing imaginal discs respond to mechanical injury via slow InsP3R-mediated intercellular calcium waves

Science.gov (United States)

Restrepo, Simon; Basler, Konrad

2016-08-01

Calcium signalling is a highly versatile cellular communication system that modulates basic functions such as cell contractility, essential steps of animal development such as fertilization and higher-order processes such as memory. We probed the function of calcium signalling in Drosophila wing imaginal discs through a combination of ex vivo and in vivo imaging and genetic analysis. Here we discover that wing discs display slow, long-range intercellular calcium waves (ICWs) when mechanically stressed in vivo or cultured ex vivo. These slow imaginal disc intercellular calcium waves (SIDICs) are mediated by the inositol-3-phosphate receptor, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) calcium pump SERCA and the key gap junction component Inx2. The knockdown of genes required for SIDIC formation and propagation negatively affects wing disc recovery after mechanical injury. Our results reveal a role for ICWs in wing disc homoeostasis and highlight the utility of the wing disc as a model for calcium signalling studies.

A Survey of 6,300 Genomic Fragments for cis-Regulatory Activity in the Imaginal Discs of Drosophila melanogaster

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aurélie Jory

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Over 6,000 fragments from the genome of Drosophila melanogaster were analyzed for their ability to drive expression of GAL4 reporter genes in the third-instar larval imaginal discs. About 1,200 reporter genes drove expression in the eye, antenna, leg, wing, haltere, or genital imaginal discs. The patterns ranged from large regions to individual cells. About 75% of the active fragments drove expression in multiple discs; 20% were expressed in ventral, but not dorsal, discs (legs, genital, and antenna, whereas ∼23% were expressed in dorsal but not ventral discs (wing, haltere, and eye. Several patterns, for example, within the leg chordotonal organ, appeared a surprisingly large number of times. Unbiased searches for DNA sequence motifs suggest candidate transcription factors that may regulate enhancers with shared activities. Together, these expression patterns provide a valuable resource to the community and offer a broad overview of how transcriptional regulatory information is distributed in the Drosophila genome.

Parental Views on Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Therapies in Critically Ill Children

Science.gov (United States)

Michelson, Kelly Nicole; Koogler, Tracy; Sullivan, Christine; del Pilar Ortega, María; Hall, Emily; Frader, Joel

2009-01-01

Objective To broaden existing knowledge of pediatric end-of-life decision making by exploring factors described by parents of patients in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) as important/influential if they were to consider withdrawing life-sustaining therapies. Design Quantitative and qualitative analysis of semi-structured one-on-one interviews. Setting The PICUs at 2 tertiary care hospitals. Participants English- or Spanish-speaking parents who were older than 17 years and whose child was admitted to the PICU for more than 24 hours to up to 1 week. Intervention Semi-structured one-on-one interviews. Results Forty of 70 parents (57%) interviewed said they could imagine a situation in which they would consider withdrawing life-sustaining therapies. When asked if specific factors might influence their decision making, 64% of parents said they would consider withdrawing life-sustaining therapies if their child were suffering; 51% would make such a decision based on quality-of-life considerations; 43% acknowledged the influence of physician-estimated prognosis in their decision; and 7% said financial burden would affect their consideration. Qualitative analysis of their subsequent comments identified 9 factors influential to parents when considering withdrawing life-sustaining therapies: quality of life, suffering, ineffective treatments, faith, time, financial considerations, general rejection of withdrawing life-sustaining therapies, mistrust/doubt toward physicians, and reliance on self/intuition. Conclusion Parents describe a broad range of views regarding possible consideration of withdrawing life-sustaining therapies for their children and what factors might influence such a decision. PMID:19884588

Quality of life philosophy II: what is a human being?

Science.gov (United States)

Ventegodt, Søren; Andersen, Niels Jørgen; Kromann, Maximilian; Merrick, Joav

2003-12-01

The human being is a complex matter and many believe that just trying to understand life and what it means to be human is a futile undertaking. We believe that we have to try to understand life and get a grip on the many faces of life, because it can be of great value to us to learn to recognize the fundamental principles of how life is lived to the fullest. Learning to recognize the good and evil forces of life helps us to make use of the good ones. To be human is to balance between hundreds of extremes. Sometimes we have to avoid these extremes, but at other times it seems we should pursue them, to better understand life. With our roots in medicine, we believe in the importance of love for better health. The secret of the heart is when reason and feelings meet and we become whole. Where reason is balanced perfectly by feelings and where mind and body come together in perfect unity, a whole new quality emerges, a quality that is neither feeling nor reason, but something deeper and more complete. In this paper, we outline only enough biology to clarify what the fundamental inner conflicts are about. The insight into these conflicts gives us the key to a great deal of the problems of life. To imagine pleasures greater than sensual pleasures seems impossible to most people. What could such a joy possibly be? But somewhere deep in life exists the finest sweetness, the greatest quality in life, the pure joy of being alive that emerges when we are fully present and life is in balance. This deep joy of life is what we call experiencing the meaning of life.

Quality of Life Philosophy II: What is a Human Being?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Søren Ventegodt

2003-01-01

Full Text Available The human being is a complex matter and many believe that just trying to understand life and what it means to be human is a futile undertaking. We believe that we have to try to understand life and get a grip on the many faces of life, because it can be of great value to us to learn to recognize the fundamental principles of how life is lived to the fullest. Learning to recognize the good and evil forces of life helps us to make use of the good ones.To be human is to balance between hundreds of extremes. Sometimes we have to avoid these extremes, but at other times it seems we should pursue them, to better understand life. With our roots in medicine, we believe in the importance of love for better health. The secret of the heart is when reason and feelings meet and we become whole. Where reason is balanced perfectly by feelings and where mind and body come together in perfect unity, a whole new quality emerges, a quality that is neither feeling nor reason, but something deeper and more complete.In this paper, we outline only enough biology to clarify what the fundamental inner conflicts are about. The insight into these conflicts gives us the key to a great deal of the problems of life. To imagine pleasures greater than sensual pleasures seems impossible to most people. What could such a joy possibly be? But somewhere deep in life exists the finest sweetness, the greatest quality in life, the pure joy of being alive that emerges when we are fully present and life is in balance. This deep joy of life is what we call experiencing the meaning of life.

Re-Imagining School Health in Education and Health Programmes: A Study across Selected Municipal Schools in Delhi

Science.gov (United States)

Deshpande, Mita; Baru, Rama V.; Nundy, Madhurima

2014-01-01

The idea of school health is re-imagined with an emphasis on the need for children's health programmes to be rooted in an understanding of the social context. Such programmes must address health, nutrition and education in a comprehensive manner. The article details findings and insights emerging from a qualitative study conducted in municipal…

Meaning and death-thought accessibility.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Tongeren, Daryl R; Green, Jeffrey D

2018-01-01

Meaning is a central feature in human life, but death can disrupt a sense of meaning. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that meaning in life and meaning in death are distinct types of meaning when mortality is salient and differentially affect death-thought accessibility (DTA). In Experiment 1, imagining a specific scenario in which meaning is preserved beyond death reduced DTA relative to a standard mortality salience prime; moreover, these effects were not due to changes in self-esteem. In Experiment 2, imagining a meaningful life when mortality is salient elicited greater DTA, whereas imagining meaning in death elicited less DTA. Imbuing death with meaning attenuates DTA, whereas meaning in life increases DTA. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

Affective Imagination in Science Education: Determining the Emotional Nature of Scientific and Technological Learning of Young Children

Science.gov (United States)

Fleer, Marilyn

2013-10-01

Vygotsky (1986) draws attention to the interrelationship between thought and language and other aspects of mind. Although not widely acknowledged, Vygotsky (1999) also drew attention to the search for the relations between cognition and emotions. This paper discusses the findings of a study which examined imaginary scientific situations within the early years. The central research questions examined: What is the emotional nature of scientific learning? and How does affective imagination support early childhood science learning? Video observations were made of the teaching of science from one site in a south-eastern community in Australia (232 h of video observations). The teachers used fairy tales and Slowmation as cultural devices to support the concept formation of 3- and 4-year-old children (n = 53; range of 3.3 to 4.4; mean of 3.8 years). The findings of this under-researched area (e.g. Roth, Mind, Culture, and Activity 15:2-7, 2008) make a contribution to understanding how affective imagination can work in science education in the early years.

Educating the Imagination.

Science.gov (United States)

Cowperthwaite, Gordon

At Sinclair Community College (SCC) in Dayton, Ohio, a series of holistic education courses, called Education for Work/Life Actualization, was designed to offer students new skills for the development of self-esteem, empathy, creativity, intuition, centeredness, clarity of values, communication, nutrition, and preventative self-help health care.…

Andrew Milner, ed., Tenses of Imagination: Raymond Williams on Science Fiction, Utopia and Dystopia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonis Balasopoulos

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Tenses of Imagination, an anthology of Raymond Williams’s writings on science fiction, utopia and dystopia is the seventh volume in the growing Ralahine Utopian Studies Series. It is also, in my view, something of a treasure. For it not only offers an illuminating compendium of Williams’s most important engagements, critical and creative, with SF, utopia and dystopia, but also furnishes us with a heretofore unavailable account of the long-term significance of these frequently spurned genres a...

Past-life identities, UFO abductions, and satanic ritual abuse: the social construction of memories.

Science.gov (United States)

Spanos, N P; Burgess, C A; Burgess, M F

1994-10-01

People sometimes fantasize entire complex scenarios and later define these experiences as memories of actual events rather than as imaginings. This article examines research associated with three such phenomena: past-life experiences, UFO alien contact and abduction, and memory reports of childhood ritual satanic abuse. In each case, elicitation of the fantasy events is frequently associated with hypnotic procedures and structured interviews which provide strong and repeated demands for the requisite experiences, and which then legitimate the experiences as "real memories." Research associated with these phenomena supports the hypothesis that recall is reconstructive and organized in terms of current expectations and beliefs.

Imagined Religious Communities and the “Culture of Bible-Readers”: Hinduism’s Challenge to European Religious Studies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Helton Christopher Jason

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This paper will discuss the challenges posed by modern conceptions of Hinduism - in particular Heinrich von Stietencron’s conception of a “collection of religions” and Romila Thapar’s application of Benedict Anderson’s theory of “imagined communities” to Hinduism-to the European style of religious studies, particularly at the undergraduate level.

Past Expectations, Current Experiences, and Imagined Futures: Narrative Accounts of Chinese International Students in Canada

OpenAIRE

Zhang, Zhihua

2017-01-01

The internationalization of higher education has led to the influx of Chinese international students in Canada. The literature on these students usually addresses the factors that drive them to Canada, their learning experiences, and the impact of the stereotypical constructions of “Chinese learners” on their language learning. But the literature does not connect the current learning experiences of these students to their past back in China and the futures in their imagination. This narrative...