In a recent article, Dawn Wilson (2021) has argued against single-stage accounts of photography by arguing against the latent photographic images upon which those accounts depend. Concomitantly, she argues that the only viable account of photography is multi-stage. Unlike single-stage accounts, multi-stage accounts do not postulate the existence of photographic images of any kind prior to development. Rather, according to multi-stage accounts, photographs are produced from “photographic registers.” In this Discussion Piece, I defend single-stage accounts by arguing that Wilson’s (...) rejection of latent photographic images is premised on an implausible view of what a latent photographic image is. Given a reasonable interpretation, the latent images described in single-stage accounts just are the photographic registers described in multi-stage accounts. (shrink)

Some photographs show determinate features of a scene because the photographed scene had those features. This dependency relation is, rightly, a consensus in philosophy of photography. I seek to refute many long-established theories of photography by arguing that they are incompatible with this commitment. In Section II, I classify accounts of photography as either single-stage or multi-stage. In Section III, I analyze the historical basis for single-stage accounts. In Section IV, I explain why the single-stage view led scientists to postulate (...) “latent” photographic images as a technical phenomenon in early chemical photography. In Section V, I discredit the notion of an invisible latent image in chemical photography and, in Section VI, extend this objection to the legacy of the latent image in digital photography. In Section VII, I appeal to the dependency relation to explain why the notion of a latent image makes the single-stage account untenable. Finally, I use the multi-stage account to advance debate about “new” versus “orthodox” theories of photography. (shrink)

Visual images are widely used in medical and patient education to enhance spoken or written explanations. This paper considers the role of such illustrations in shaping conceptions of the body; specifically, it addresses depictions of variant sexual anatomy and their part in the discursive production of intersex bodies. Visual language—even didactic, ‘factual’ visual language—carries latent as well as manifest content, and influences self-perceptions and social attitudes. In the case of illustrations about atypical sex development, where the need for non-stigmatising (...) communication is crucial, it is especially important to consider the implicit messages conveyed by imagery and compositional strategies. (shrink)

The following thesis is an attempt to find a role for the faculty of memory in Kant's account of the structures of consciousness in the Critique of Pure Reason. The very core of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the importance of an unchanging structure of consciousness to which thoughts and experiences can be attributed across time: the transcendental unity of apperception. If it is true, as I maintain, that Kant's project is fundamentally an epistemological, rather than metaphysical one, it (...) follows that the anchor of this project shall be the subject, as one who can know his world in a coherent fashion. Our knowledge of the world, and of ourselves as meaningfully involved therein, depends entirely upon our ability to self-ascribe events and experiences. This ability cannot be gleaned from a theoretically 'raw' experiential base, for there would be no anchor or reference point from which to begin such an epistemological project. It is the productive imagination which provides laws of affinity according to which it is structurally possible to order representations or images which are subject to the form of time in intuition, such that they can be known by the same consciousness as belonging to it, even as that empirical consciousness changes across time. This thesis attempts to demonstrate the transcendental productive memory is in fact a transcendental structure of memory, and that this reading of Kant is bourn out through a subsequent analysis of the Schematism chapter, and the chapter on the Principles of Understanding.Dept. of Philosophy. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2005.B78. Source: Masterss International, Volume: 44-03, page: 1162. Thesis --University of Windsor, 2005. (shrink)

[Pre-peer review draft available to download.] Our imaginative capacities shape the making of images, while the making of images has the ability to shape our imaginative capacities. What are the connections between vision and mental visual images that allow for this traffic between the contents of our minds and external images? And how are image-makers able to exploit the distinctive powers of imagery, to extend the modes of representation that are available to us, and hence also to extend the (...) resources upon which our imaginations can draw? The chapter explores various aspects of those issues. It starts by exploring “visual imagery” as a general category; and it identifies one very striking range of cases that encompasses both suitable mental and nonmental visual images. It develops a philosophical account of what is distinctive about the range of visual images thus identified. Subsequent sections then use the resulting ideas to investigate some of the ways in which various strategies for creating visual images exploit in remarkably inventive ways possibilities that are latent within the general phenomenon of imagistic representation. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo se propone examinar la clausura del concepto benjaminiano de aura como noción válida para pensar la experiencia estética contemporánea. En este sentido, un primer objetivo consiste en rehabilitar tal concepto, cotejando su definición en el famoso ensayo sobre la reproductibilidad técnica con las diversas formulaciones que el mismo Benjamin elabora al respecto en otros ensayos, en los que la gravitación del aura se desplaza desde una cualidad objetiva, anidada en la obra misma, hacia una facultad perceptual (...) y memoriosa que organiza su experiencia histórica. A partir de lo anterior, un segundo objetivo consiste en pesquisar las huellas de un presunto modelo de historiografía del arte que Benjamin esboza en una carta dirigida a Florens Christian Rang y que afina en su ensayo sobre Eduard Fuchs. Establecidos los lineamientos de este modelo, el artículo concluye que el concepto de aura no remite tanto a una datación de origen de la obra de arte, circunscribiendo exclusivamente sus condiciones de producción, sino a las coordenadas variables en las que cada época recupera para sí una obra de arte determinada. Esta recuperación, imantada por el mecanismo de las correspondances, donde la singularidad de una obra de arte hace sistema con una situación histórica determinada, permite comprender finalmente el aura como un modo de experiencia de las imágenes del arte.: The following work attempts to examine Walter Benjamin’s concept of aura as a valid notion for thinking about contemporary aesthetic experience. In this regard, our first goal is to rehabilitate this concept, comparing its definition in the famous essay on technical reproducibility with other formulations developed by Benjamin in essays such as a “A short history of photography”, “The storyteller”, and “On some motifs in Baudelaire”, in which aura is not understood as an objective quality pertaining to the work of art itself, but as the perceptive and mnemonic faculty organizing its historical experience. Our second goal is to locate the traces of a model for the historiography art, which Benjamin outlines in a letter written to Florens Christian Rang and which he refines in his essay on Eduard Fuchs. Within this context, the article concludes that the concept of aura does not refer to a work of art’s time of origin, but to the variable coordinates that allow each epoch to make its own experience of that work of art. Through the mechanism of correspondences, by which a work of art’s singularity matches with a specific historical situation, we are able understand aura as a mode of experience of the images of art. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Christopher Norris IMAGE AND PARABLE: READINGS OF WALTER BENJAMIN Marxist literary criticism is a house with many mansions, most of diem claiming a privileged access to the great central chamber of history and truth. Only the most blinkered polemicist could nowadays attack "Marxist criticism" as if it presented a uniform front or even a clearly delineated target. Differences of oudook have developed to a point where debates within (...) Marxism are often more highly charged and polarized man anything brought to bear by its downright opponents. These differences will seem a crippling liability only from the viewpoint of a hard-line determinist creed which insists both on the rightness of its own reductive methodology and on a one-track notion of historical necessity and reason. The alternative, as New Left theorists have argued, is to examine the diversity of present-day Marxist thinking and show how its manifold traditions take rise from various backgrounds of political and cultural development. Perry Anderson's Considerations on Western Marxism is one such attempt to "situate" the work of thinkers like Sartre, Almusser, and Adorno in terms of their beleaguered position as left intellectuals outside the active mainstream of any revolutionary movement.1 Another example is Terry Eagleton's Criticism and Ideology, a book which sets out to rethink the bases of a Marxist-theoretical approach to English literary history.2 Eagleton, like Anderson, takes it as axiomatic that no such critique can get underway without first coming to terms with the problems and dilemmas which others have faced in trying to make new sense of a communal enterprise. For Eagleton this means a diagnostic treatment of the gaps and significant sUences which have marked the texts of those — like Arnold or Leavis — engaged in a class-based mystification ofliterary history and values. The critique extends to what Eagleton sees as the inbuilt problems of a homespun British Marxism, whedier of the crudely determinist variety (Caudwell) or the "left-Leavisite" amalgam of radical mêmes and traditionalist assumptions represented by Raymond Williams. Eagleton's approach lays claim to a power of unmasking die 15 16Philosophy and Literature latent ideology at work both in literary and critical texts. Ramer than simply collapse that distinction — as desired by the current post-structuralists, with whom he is wholly out of sympadiy — Eagleton strives to articulate the different structures and relations of discourse which situate criticism vis-à-vis literary history. He proposes a Marxist "science of the text" which would bring out its ideological modes of production, inscribed in the twists and unconscious blind-spots of meaning where a project comes up against its own impossibility. Criticism "deconstructs" the literary text, but not (like the Yale deconstructors) with a view to breaking down all possible distinctions between literature and commentary, merging both in the infinite freeplay of signs. For Eagleton there is indeed a knowledge of die text which stands at a definite remove from its object, just as literature itself"works" and transforms the raw stuffoflived ideology, mus offering it up to critical knowledge. Eagleton's theory of literary production was worked out in response to a powerful new current of Marxist thought, associated mainly with the French philosopher Louis Akhusser. What mis program involved, very briefly, was a rigorous re-reading of Marx's texts, aimed at defining their precise theoretical structure and die place within mem of such concepts as "knowledge," "ideology," and "structure" itself. Only thus could Marxist science attain the clarity and grasp of its own first principles which would set it apart from other, deviant or "ideological" discourses. This meant drawing a firm critical line (or "epistemological break") between the early, humanist Marx and the later productions —including Das Kapital— where his thought took on the full rigor of its scientific basis. Such a theory, in Althusser^ words, "makes it possible to distinguish a word from a concept, to distinguish the existence or non-existence of a concept behind a word, to discern the existence of a concept by a word's function in the dieoretical discourse...." 3 This structuralist reading of the Marxist text is intended as an immanent critique, a means of salvaging the essential Marx from fhose elements in his... (shrink)

Illustrated by critically examining a range of architectural journalism, from an article by artist Paul Nash in 'The Architectural Review', 1940, to an early project by contemporary French architects Lacaton et Vassal published in the journal '2G' in 2001, to recent photography by Hisao Suzuki published in the journal 'El Croquis', this book brings a radical and detailed analysis of the architectural media. It addresses issues of architectural criticism, architectural photography and the role of journal editors, and argues that the (...) architectural media is a site of contestation and ambiguity regarding the role of critical and speculative thinking. The book highlights moments where a different type of critical voice emerges within the architectural media, indicating the possibility of a more progressive engagement with the media as a platform for critical thinking about architecture. 0The study is underpinned by theory about utopian thinking/discourse, primarily from the work of the French semiotician and art theorist Louis Marin and the American Marxist critic Fredric Jameson. Through this, it builds a fresh theoretical approach to the architectural media and begins to reveal a hitherto unexplored dimension of ‘latent’ or ‘unconscious’ discourse within the media portrait of architecture. Following Jameson’s charting of the role of the utopian imagination in the modern and post-modern periods, the book suggests that genuine utopian thinking has undergone comprehensive suppression in our current times and that the task of theory is to now to detect its presence and explore its meaning within new forms and sites of cultural production. (shrink)

. The accounting profession’s image and reputation is built upon the members of the profession acting with the “highest sense of integrity” in “the public interest” (AICPA, 2003, www.aicpa.org/about). The Enron debacle initiated the latest crisis facing the profession regarding its image and reputation. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is the largest professional body representing the accounting profession and the one to which regulators have looked in establishing and upholding professional standards relating to the public (...) practice of accounting and auditing. One of the AICPA’s responsibilities is to “promote public awareness and confidence in the integrity, objectivity, competence and professionalism of CPAs ....” (AICPA, 2003, www.aicpa.org/about). We analyze the public statements issued by the AICPA (i.e., press releases, speeches of officers, testimony, published articles) during this ethical and identity crisis beginning with the AICPA’s first public statement on the Enron debâcle (AIPCA 2001) and concluding with the AICPA recognizing the need for a “new accounting culture” (Melancon 2002). In order to better understand the public discourse, we use image restoration theory (Benoit, 1995), because it provides a typology of strategies for dealing with the public face of crises. We identify the three most common strategies the AICPA employs during this period. Proposals for taking corrective action represent the most commonly employed strategy, but the analysis also indicates an attempt to evade responsibility by claiming defeasibility and to reduce the offensiveness of the situation by employing a bolstering strategy. A second analysis using DICTION, a software package useful in revealing latent dimensions in a text, indicates that early statements tend to use language related to accomplishing specific action while the later statements tend more toward general language that relates to peoples’ everyday lives. The findings raise questions as to substantive nature of the changes proposed by the AICPA, and thus, the extent to which the public interest is being served by them. (shrink)

BackgroundMediation analysis is important to test the theoretical framework underpinning an intervention. We therefore aimed to investigate if the healthy body image intervention’s effect on eating disorder symptomatology and use of muscle building supplements was mediated by the change in risk and protective factors for ED development and muscle building supplement use.MethodsThis study used data from the HBI intervention: a cluster randomized controlled universal intervention aiming to promote positive body image and embodiment and reduce the risk for ED (...) development including 30 schools in Norway. A total of 1,713 participants were included in the analyses. Conditional latent growth curve analyses were performed to test for indirect effects on ED symptomatology and weekly frequency of protein and creatine supplement use measured at the 12-month follow-up via change in the proposed mediators.ResultsIn girls, the reduction in ED symptomatology was mediated by positive changes in protective factors and reductions in risk factor scores. Comparable changes in protective and risk factors among boys played no mediating role.ConclusionInterventions aiming to reduce the risk of ED development in girls may benefit from aiming to enhance self-esteem and body image flexibility and reduce perceived media pressure and thin appearance internalization. Future studies should investigate the casual relationship between muscle building supplement use and risk and protective factors for ED development in both girls and boys. (shrink)

In March 1956 there appeared in Monde Nouveau a relatively short piece by Emmanuel Levinas called “Maurice Blanchot et le regard du poète.” It is an extended review of L’Espace littéraire, published by Gallimard the previous summer, which is also laced with a polemic against Heidegger. Levinas observes that Blanchot is close to the Heidegger of Vorträge und Aufsätze (1954), almost to the point of immediate intellectual intuition, but he is just as quick to register the distance between the two (...) on a decisive issue: on Blanchot’s account of literature we are led away from the world of dwelling and rootedness that Heidegger affirms in his meditations on art. Here as elsewhere, Levinas is profoundly disturbed by Heidegger’s slighting of ethics and, in turning to show that his friend finds a way beyond the primacy of Sein, he observes parenthetically that Blanchot “also abstains from ethical preoccupations, at least in explicit form.” A little later he remarks, more pointedly, that Blanchot’s concern with “authenticity” must one day “herald an order of justice” if it is to be more than “a consciousness of the lack of seriousness of edification, anything other than derision” (137; SMB 24). Clearly, Levinas is uneasy at the proximity of his friend to the Heidegger of Sein und Zeit (1927) and beyond, having freed himself from “the climate of that philosophy,” starting in “De l’évasion” (1935) and then more completely in De l’existence à l’existent (1947) (EE 19; DEE 19). The invitation is for Blanchot to render his ethics explicit. Levinas’s review even hints at how this can be done. Other essays by Levinas, later collected in Sur Maurice Blanchot (1975), return to the prediction or hope registered in this review that someone will express “the latent meaning” of his friend’s novels and récits (133; SMB 17), and there is no doubt when reading his reflections on L’Attente l’oubli (1962) and La Folie du jour (1973) that for Levinas their manifest meaning is ethical, at least in part. (shrink)

In March 1956 there appeared in Monde Nouveau a relatively short piece by Emmanuel Levinas called “Maurice Blanchot et le regard du poète.” It is an extended review of L’Espace littéraire, published by Gallimard the previous summer, which is also laced with a polemic against Heidegger. Levinas observes that Blanchot is close to the Heidegger of Vorträge und Aufsätze (1954), almost to the point of immediate intellectual intuition, but he is just as quick to register the distance between the two (...) on a decisive issue: on Blanchot’s account of literature we are led away from the world of dwelling and rootedness that Heidegger affirms in his meditations on art. Here as elsewhere, Levinas is profoundly disturbed by Heidegger’s slighting of ethics and, in turning to show that his friend finds a way beyond the primacy of Sein, he observes parenthetically that Blanchot “also abstains from ethical preoccupations, at least in explicit form.” A little later he remarks, more pointedly, that Blanchot’s concern with “authenticity” must one day “herald an order of justice” if it is to be more than “a consciousness of the lack of seriousness of edification, anything other than derision” (137; SMB 24). Clearly, Levinas is uneasy at the proximity of his friend to the Heidegger of Sein und Zeit (1927) and beyond, having freed himself from “the climate of that philosophy,” starting in “De l’évasion” (1935) and then more completely in De l’existence à l’existent (1947) (EE 19; DEE 19). The invitation is for Blanchot to render his ethics explicit. Levinas’s review even hints at how this can be done. Other essays by Levinas, later collected in Sur Maurice Blanchot (1975), return to the prediction or hope registered in this review that someone will express “the latent meaning” of his friend’s novels and récits (133; SMB 17), and there is no doubt when reading his reflections on L’Attente l’oubli (1962) and La Folie du jour (1973) that for Levinas their manifest meaning is ethical, at least in part. (shrink)

Food images are useful stimuli for the study of cognitive processes as well as eating behavior. To enhance rigor and reproducibility in task-based research, it is advantageous to have stimulus sets that are publicly available and well characterized. Food Folio by Columbia Center for Eating Disorders is a publicly available set of 138 images of Western food items. The set was developed for the study of eating disorders, particularly for use in tasks that capture eating behavior characteristic of these illnesses. (...) It contains foods that are typically eaten, as well as those typically avoided, by individuals with eating disorders. Each image has now been rated across 17 different attributes by a large general United States population sample via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Ratings included subjective attributes as well as estimates of nutrient content. Each participant rated a subset of stimulus set food items on all 17 dimensions. Additional description of the image set is provided in terms of physical image information and accurate nutritional information. Correlations between subjective ratings were calculated and an exploratory factor analysis and exploratory cluster analysis completed. Outcomes of the factor analysis suggested foods may be described along three latent factors of healthiness, tastiness, and umami taste; the cluster analysis highlighted five distinct clusters of foods varying on these same dimensions. Descriptive outcomes indicated that the stimulus set includes a range of foods that vary along multiple dimensions and thus is likely to be useful in addressing various research questions surrounding eating behavior and cognition in healthy populations, as well as in those with eating disorders. The provision of comprehensive descriptive information allows for stimulus selection that is optimized for a given research question and promotes strong inference. (shrink)

Differences in the ability of students to judge images can be assessed by analyzing the individual preference order of images. To gain insights into potential heterogeneity in judgement of visual abstraction among students, we combine Bradley–Terry preference modeling and model-based recursive partitioning. In an experiment a sample of 1,020 high-school students ranked five sets of images, three of which with respect to their level of visual abstraction. Additionally, 24 art experts and 25 novices were given the same task, while their (...) eye movements were recorded. Results show that time spent on the task, the students’ age, and self-reported interest in visual puzzles had significant influence on rankings. Fixation time of experts and novices revealed that both groups paid more attention to ambiguous images. The presented approach makes the underlying latent scale of visual judgments quantifiable. (shrink)

This Discussion Piece is a response to Mark Windsor's Discussion Piece (2023) 'Photographic Registers are Latent Images', which is a response to my article, (2021) 'Invisible Images and Indeterminacy: Why we need a Multi-stage Account of Photography' JAAC 79(2) 161-174.. -/- I argue that a photosensitive surface does not produce invisible pictorial features when it is exposed to light, and conclude, contra Windsor, that a photographic register is not a latent image. I argue that Windsor does not (...) succeed in defending a single-stage account of photography and I reconfirm that a multi-stage account is correct. (shrink)

This study examines the theology of the fourth-century bishop, Hilary of Poitiers, concentrating particularly on two commentaries written at different times in his life. The main focus of the study is on Hilary's anthropological theology.

This article examines the role of photography in the scientific discovery of cosmic radiation and antimatter, showing how a visual medium designed to react to photons was successfully coopted to detect invisible particles and antiparticles through traces left by their collision, so-called annihilation events. The continuous presence of cosmic radiation means that every photograph is always already a double image, carrying both a visible surface formed by photons and a latent image carrying traces of cosmic rays, the (...) latter ‘image’ continuing in its perpetual state of ‘development’. It is the physical irregularity of the photograph exposed to the continuous and uniform shower of cosmic radiation that leads Doser to speculate on image formation not through an external referent but through the internal manipulation of the material substrate. (shrink)

We review the argument that latent image formation is a measurement in which the state vector collapses, requiring an enhanced noise parameter in objective reduction models. Tentative observation of a residual noise at this level, plus several experimental bounds, imply that the noise must be colored, and hence frame dependent and non-relativistic. Thus a relativistic objective reduction model, even if achievable in principle, would be incompatible with experiment; the best one can do is the non-relativistic CSL model. This (...) negative conclusion has a positive aspect, in that the non-relativistic CSL reduction model evades the argument leading to the Conway–Kochen “Free Will Theorem”. (shrink)

The shadow of representation -- Time -- The event -- Simulacrum -- Latent image.

William Gavin’s William James in Focus: Willing to Believe is a brief and creative introduction to James’s philosophy aimed at students and non-specialists. As the subtitle of the book suggests, Gavin uses James’s will to believe doctrine as the organizing theme for his interpretation of James’s philosophy. One might initially think that this implies reading the latter in the light of James’s views on religion, but Gavin downplays the religious aspects of James’s will to believe doctrine and focuses instead on (...) its relevance for understanding what he terms the “latent image” of James’s personal life, which according to Gavin is primarily concerned with human mortality and the need to affirm philosophical positions.. (shrink)

The image of Africa in the world at the moment does not fit into that of a dignifying and adequately humanised and humanising unit of mankind. The situation beats and challenges the philosophical and anthropological aphorisms that seem to commune all men in general. This philosophical reflection investigates the deep roots of the extant situation. It focuses more on inherent factors to the exclusion of all exterior sources and causes of the problems, which it considers as secondary even if (...) important. It has employed philosophical anthropological categories maximally and has also engaged metaphysical concepts to an extent to explore the general human modus operandi. Against this backdrop, it has beamed its searchlight on the Africans, specifically as a species of the human to identify to what extent it fits into the generally accepted pattern. This has led to an identification of the mind as the seat of the albatross. The philosophical anthropological analysis of the specific African mind and how it has been functioning has been carried out amidst a larger spectrum of the experiential operations of the mental state of mind. This has led to an examination of key concepts like fascination, imitation, success and failure, the heart and hope. A specific sample of an African concept has been adopted from the Igbo cultural background of Nigeria. How these concepts in practice have affected the organisation of African society and development has been examined and has led to an identification of various types of intelligence operative among the majority of African leaders, thinkers and the masses and the vicious cycle that is provoked by this. The external factors that feed and nourish this status quo have not been examined herein. But the shamelessness of the generality of mankind in tolerating this de facto state, for whatever can be labelled a third world within the one world, is implicitly indicated. The essay is a tribute to Professor Richard Onwuanibe who spent decades teaching philosophical anthropology to several generations of Nigerian seminarians who have become great philosophers as well today. It is also a wake-up call to philosophers, Africans and all people of good will. By concentrating on the internal conditions that in turn, obfuscate the mind and keep Africa and by implication the world behind its fullest possibilities of growth, peace and a better home for all, it looks forward to the exposition and possible neutralization of the latent external factors which belie the entire matrix of the African mindset at the moment. (shrink)

This essay examines the image of the Eucharist in the poetry of the Peruvian writer César Vallejo. I argue that unlike his modernista forebears, Vallejo regularly employs the Eucharist not as an image of the ecstasy of sexual union, but instead as an image of guilt, melancholy, frustration, and loss. In one sense, such images can be read as deliberately blasphemous distortions of the Christian picture of the Eucharist Vallejo imbibed as a child. My central thesis, however, (...) will be that the same images can also be read, perhaps in part against Vallejo's own intentions, not as distortions of the Eucharist but as offering insights into the nature of the sacrament itself. I develop this thesis in two parts. First, I argue that despite the centrality to eucharistic theology of the themes of communion, spiritual intimacy, and “real presence”—themes that made it an almost irresistible poetic symbol of sexual desire—the Eucharist itself is also and fundamentally a sacrament of absence, delay, and failure. Second, I suggest that by drawing, however implicitly, on these latent elements of eucharistic theology, Vallejo's poetry opens up a space to think about certain aspects of the sacrament which the modernistas’ erotic exuberance tended systematically to obscure. (shrink)

Abstract : Background: Vegetable agriculture is very important to human continued existence and remains a key driver of many economies worldwide, especially in underdeveloped and developing economies. Objectives: There is an increasing demand for food and cash crops, due to the increasing in world population and the challenges enforced by climate modifications, there is an urgent need to increase plant production while reducing costs. Methods: In this paper, Lemon classification approach is presented with a dataset that contains approximately 2,000 images (...) belong to 3 species at a few developing phases. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) algorithms, a deep learning technique extensively applied to image recognition was used, for this task. The results: found that CNN-driven lemon classification applications when used in farming automation have the latent to enhance crop harvest and improve output and productivity when designed properly. The trained model achieved an accuracy of 99.48% on a held-out test set, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach. (shrink)

From the end of 2018 in China, the Big-data Driven Price Discrimination (BDPD) of online consumption raised public debate on social media. To study the consumers’ attitude about the BDPD, this study constructed a semantic recognition frame to deconstruct the Affection-Behavior-Cognition (ABC) consumer attitude theory using machine learning models inclusive of the Labeled Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Snow Natural Language Processing (NLP), based on social media comments text dataset. Similar to the questionnaires published results, (...) this article verified that 61% of consumers expressed negative sentiment toward BDPD in general. Differently, on a finer scale, this study further measured the negative sentiments that differ significantly among different topics. The measurement results show that the topics “Regular Customers Priced High” (69%) and “Usage Intention” (67%) occupy the top two places of negative sentiment among consumers, and the topic “Precision Marketing” (42%) is at the bottom. Moreover, semantic recognition results that 49% of consumers’ comments involve multiple topics, indicating that consumers have a pretty clear cognition of the complex status of the BDPD. Importantly, this study found some topics that had not been focused on in previous studies, such as more than 8% of consumers calling for government and legal departments to regulate BDPD behavior, which indicates that quite enough consumers are losing confidence in the self-discipline of the platform enterprises. Another interesting result is that consumers who pursue solutions to the BDPD belong to two mutually exclusive groups: government protection and self-protection. The significance of this study is that it reminds the e-commerce platforms to pay attention to the potential harm for consumers’ psychology while bringing additional profits through the BDPD. Otherwise, the negative consumer attitudes may cause damage to brand image, business reputation, and the sustainable development of the platforms themselves. It also provides the government supervision departments an advanced analysis method reference for more effective administration to protect social fairness. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychologists sometimes suggest that "an evolutionary view of life can shed light on psyche" by revealing the "latent" psychology that underlies our "manifest" psychological image. At such moments, which become more frequent in popular works, explanations trade freely in subconscious motives whose goal is inclusive fitness. While some evolutionary psychologists explicitly deny that their aim is to uncover latent motivation, references to subconscious motives are nonetheless frequent in evolutionary psychology (and are even made by those explicitly (...) denying postulation of subconscious motives). These explanatory references to subconscious motives pose a dilemma. On the one hand, if they are literal, evolutionary psychology is vulnerable to a criticism frequently leveled against sociobiology: if subconscious motives toward inclusive fitness are the true determinants of human behavior, our behavior should more closely approximate full satisfaction of those motives (i.e. increased fitness) than it does. On the other hand, if references to subconscious motives are merely figurative -- like talk of "selfish" genes -- it must be explained how they are to be literally interpreted. Either way it is necessary to "deFreud" evolutionary psychology. I will thus provide an account of evolutionary psychological explanation, and how it functions, when purged of reference to subconscious motives. (shrink)

Bilder spielen in allen Schulfächern immer schon eine zentrale Rolle. Die intellektuellen Energien, die in den Bildungs- und Erziehungswissenschaften aufgewendet werden, um Fragen des Einsatzes von Bildern zu beantworten, wirken daher beachtlich. Eingeklammert bleiben dabei bisher jedoch Phänomene der Unsichtbarkeit, obwohl sie grundlegend für alles Bildliche sind. Denn sie gehören zu jener Dimension, die wir als "latent" bezeichnen. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Funktionen von Bildern in Lehrkontexten kann deshalb nur erfolgreich sein, wenn die philosophischen Debatten über "Latenz", die zwischen (...) dem Zeitalter der Aufklärung und dem frühen 21. Jahrhundert stattgefunden haben, Eingang in die bildungswissenschaftliche Theoriebildung finden. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a growing number of states around the world relying on border control measures, such as immigration detention, to govern human mobility and control the movements of those classified as “unauthorised non-citizens.” In response to this, an increasing number of scholars from several disciplines, including psychologists, have begun to examine this phenomenon. In spite of the widespread concerns raised, few studies have been conducted inside immigration detention sites, primarily due to difficulties in gaining access. This body of (...) research becomes even scanter when it comes to the experiences of detained women. This study is the first of its kind to have surveyed 93 women confined in an Italian immigration detention facility. A partial mediation model with latent variables was tested through partial least structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed the negative impact that unfair immigration procedures have on detained women’s human dignity, which in turn negatively affects their self-rated physical and mental health. Overall, our study sheds light on the dehumanisation and damage to human dignity that immigration detention entails, as well as its negative impact on the health of those affected. This evidence reinforces the image of these institutions as sites of persistent injustice, while stressing the need to envision alternative justice-oriented forms to address human mobility. (shrink)

The results of two experiments are analyzed to find out how artistic expertise influences visual search. Experiment I comprised survey data of 1,065 students on self-reported visual memory skills and their ability to find three targets in four images of artwork. Experiment II comprised eye movement data of 50 Visual Literacy experts and non-experts whose eye movements during visual search were analyzed for nine images of artwork as an external validation of the assessment tasks performed in Sample I. No time (...) constraint was set for completion of the visual search task. A latent profile analysis revealed four typical solution patterns for the students in Sample I, including a mainstream group, a group that completes easy images fast and difficult images slowly, a fast and erroneous group, and a slow working student group, depending on task completion time and on the probability of finding all three targets. Eidetic memory, performance in art education and visual imagination as self-reported visual skills have significant impact on latent class membership probability. We present a hidden Markov model approach to uncover underlying regions of attraction that result from visual search eye-movement behavior in Experiment II. VL experts and non-experts did not significantly differ in task time and number of targets found but they did differ in their visual search process: compared to non-experts, experts showed greater precision in fixating specific prime and target regions, assessed through hidden state fixation overlap. Exploratory analysis of HMMs revealed differences between experts and non-experts in image locations of attraction. Experts seem to focus their attention on smaller image parts whereas non-experts used wider parts of the image during their search. Differences between experts and non-experts depend on the relative saliency of targets embedded in images. HMMs can determine the effect of expertise on exploratory eye movements executed during visual search tasks. Further research on HMMs and art expertise is required to confirm exploratory results. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 58-64 [Access article in PDF] Media Literacy Education in Art:Motion Expression and the New Vision of Art EducationThe Bauhaus, which established the foundation of modern design, has greatly influenced Japanese design and art education. It is a historical fact that the movement views "synthetic art" as an integration of the various fields and the integration of the art and machine technology experimentally. (...) However, the Bauhaus is not just of historical importance but continues to have an influence even in the integration of the art and electronic technology in today's "multimedia." In addition, it can be said that it is very much alive as "the digital Bauhaus" or "the electronic Bauhaus." 1 As we know, today's multimedia and the Internet give us a new life-environment, and expandthe possibility of expression in art. Therefore, current art education must examine how these new medias will be incorporated into the curriculum.In the cases of the photograph, video, or computer, an expression by the image media is added to the art course for the junior high school course of study. 2 Also in school art classes, image media was introduced, expanding the possibilities of self-expression through art. This result can be matched to the needs of the industrial world in Japan as well. As an educational practice, the content of this course of study is promising, even though someproblems must be solved, acquiring new equipment, re-educating the artteacher, and securing additional art school hours. The new content in art education can be summarized as follows:1. The motion picture (animation) which includes time and movement. Motion picture is asequence of continuous images, obviously different from the still images of painting. There are, of course, artworks that express motion or induce the viewer'seye movement. There are also kinetic artworks that do move, such as mobiles. Works of motion picture have, however, a fixed time shaft, and they are formed by the afterimage phenomenon. Thinking about the progress of time shaft is an indispensable element for the production. [End Page 58]2. The synchronism of image and sound. Because time is a factor in the visual expression, the works are compatible with music — the art of time. There is a synchronized relation between the motion picture and music. Image expression with multimedia became synthetic art, just as the Bauhaus looked for "architecture." Currently, this kind of expression transitions from art to entertainment, and permeates daily life.3. The method with interactive art work. Not only artworks of installation, but also TV games and web design have interactive construction as an indispensable interface. The aesthetic value of these visual works will be appreciated when the user starts the action by hitting a touchpad, pushing buttons, or clicking a mouse. To make this kind of artwork, one needs to consider the latent relationships between humans and work, and establish the input-output order for the method of construction.4. The problem of virtual reality. The term "virtual reality" is used by some art teachers as criticism against digital works such as computer graphics. These teachers insist that there is no reality there. One can, however, get an aesthetic feeling through sensory information, imagination, and sensitivity, even though what one sees is an illusion. The feeling of reality a picture of an apple gives, for example, may be equal to a computer graphic apple.Human imagination also creates "virtual reality" beyond reality in the myth, the novel, and so on. It can be said that this is the basis for human creativity.Furthermore, expression by image media raises the problem of a "reality" in which material experience is important to encounterthe world directly. Such an argument discusses multimedia as a tool of expression and a teaching material while reconsidering human reality.More recently, "media literacy" (ability to read and understand media) became an important point of discussion for Japanese educators. Usually, in this discussion, the critical ability to talk back to the television program is emphasized. However, through art... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 58-64 [Access article in PDF] Media Literacy Education in Art:Motion Expression and the New Vision of Art EducationThe Bauhaus, which established the foundation of modern design, has greatly influenced Japanese design and art education. It is a historical fact that the movement views "synthetic art" as an integration of the various fields and the integration of the art and machine technology experimentally. (...) However, the Bauhaus is not just of historical importance but continues to have an influence even in the integration of the art and electronic technology in today's "multimedia." In addition, it can be said that it is very much alive as "the digital Bauhaus" or "the electronic Bauhaus." 1 As we know, today's multimedia and the Internet give us a new life-environment, and expandthe possibility of expression in art. Therefore, current art education must examine how these new medias will be incorporated into the curriculum.In the cases of the photograph, video, or computer, an expression by the image media is added to the art course for the junior high school course of study. 2 Also in school art classes, image media was introduced, expanding the possibilities of self-expression through art. This result can be matched to the needs of the industrial world in Japan as well. As an educational practice, the content of this course of study is promising, even though someproblems must be solved, acquiring new equipment, re-educating the artteacher, and securing additional art school hours. The new content in art education can be summarized as follows:1. The motion picture (animation) which includes time and movement. Motion picture is asequence of continuous images, obviously different from the still images of painting. There are, of course, artworks that express motion or induce the viewer'seye movement. There are also kinetic artworks that do move, such as mobiles. Works of motion picture have, however, a fixed time shaft, and they are formed by the afterimage phenomenon. Thinking about the progress of time shaft is an indispensable element for the production. [End Page 58]2. The synchronism of image and sound. Because time is a factor in the visual expression, the works are compatible with music — the art of time. There is a synchronized relation between the motion picture and music. Image expression with multimedia became synthetic art, just as the Bauhaus looked for "architecture." Currently, this kind of expression transitions from art to entertainment, and permeates daily life.3. The method with interactive art work. Not only artworks of installation, but also TV games and web design have interactive construction as an indispensable interface. The aesthetic value of these visual works will be appreciated when the user starts the action by hitting a touchpad, pushing buttons, or clicking a mouse. To make this kind of artwork, one needs to consider the latent relationships between humans and work, and establish the input-output order for the method of construction.4. The problem of virtual reality. The term "virtual reality" is used by some art teachers as criticism against digital works such as computer graphics. These teachers insist that there is no reality there. One can, however, get an aesthetic feeling through sensory information, imagination, and sensitivity, even though what one sees is an illusion. The feeling of reality a picture of an apple gives, for example, may be equal to a computer graphic apple.Human imagination also creates "virtual reality" beyond reality in the myth, the novel, and so on. It can be said that this is the basis for human creativity.Furthermore, expression by image media raises the problem of a "reality" in which material experience is important to encounterthe world directly. Such an argument discusses multimedia as a tool of expression and a teaching material while reconsidering human reality.More recently, "media literacy" (ability to read and understand media) became an important point of discussion for Japanese educators. Usually, in this discussion, the critical ability to talk back to the television program is emphasized. However, through art... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:VIOLENCE AS INSTITUTION IN AFRICAN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: A CASE STUDY OF RWANDA Malachie Munyaneza UnitedReform Church, London I. Introduction Violence is a phenomenon. It is multidimensional and multifarious. It is physical, geographical, spiritual, psychological, sudden or latent. It is metaphysical, because for some religious beliefs, it involves the deed-consequences scheme in terms of rewards and punishments, even beyond this world into the otherworldly life. It is an instrument (...) used in one's own life (suicide), in the simple family, in the small-scale societies, as well as in the multi-ethnic social settings. It can be a national, multinational and universal phenomenon. It presents some contradictions, because, though it is abhorred in general, some individuals or states use it as a means to achieve ultimate good or misuse it for their own selfish interests. It becomes more of a repulsive mystery when it is seen as institutional and integral partofreligionwhich fundamentallyshould avoid it. Between April and July 1994, the media ofthe world brought images ofthe mostviolent episode ofRwandan history into the living rooms ofthis planet's population. The magnitude ofthe genocide of 1994 was unprecedented in this century. Up to one million of people are estimated to have been killed within only one hundred days. It is difficult to understand the magnitude ofthis violence. Tribal conflicts in Rwanda, colonial powers, political manipulations and economic problems alone are not enough to explain whathas happened. Political analysts, sociologists, anthropologists have tried to understand whetherthe political instability ofthe late 80s, the malfunction of political institutions, the October War (1990-94) and the 40Malachie Munyaneza consequent war atrocities could have necessarily culminated in the genocide the world witnessed. Fundamental questions about the whole philosophy oflife and religion in the history ofRwandaand its relationship to violence are to be addressed too, because they touch the inner being of the outward physical person. People have the right to know what has gone wrong all along in all areas of their life. This paper will try to look at religious beliefs and violence as institution in ancient and modern Rwanda in its magico-religious context and its implications in the social structure. As I am only a debutante Girardian, I will discuss only the key terms ofhis theory—mimesis, desire and scapegoating—as they guide my reflections.?. Religious beliefs and violence Generally, Rwanda is viewed as a monotheistic country. All Rwandan ethnic groups believed in the only one heavenly Superior Being called Imana. Though Rwandansrecognized Imanaasthe SupremeBeing, Creator and Sustainer ofall life, they did not have a special service ofworship to him at a central place. They thought it was temerity to try and please or influence God because ifyou try you would not find enough to match his greatness and his merits. A Rwandan saying tells that you cannot handle God because ifyoutryyou would paydearly.1 Imana is the Ancientofdays as it is expressed in the name "Habiyakare"(He is before the first dawn). He is all-knowing as in the name "Bizimana" (they [all things] are known by God). He rules over everything as King, Judge and Master as expressed in the name "Hategekimana" (everywhere it is God who rules). Unfortunately Rwandans believedthatwhatever befell them was pre-ordained by God and most ofthe time fatalism dominated their lives. They confronted violence or fate with resignation thinking that the origin is in God's will or from angry spirits they did not control. Rwandans also believe in the existence ofa spiritual realm. The spirits of the dead lived further and roamed about. They would come back to trouble their relatives, especially when they felt some duties due to them were neglected. They could even kill through sickness, insanity or provoke infertility. They hold people under the siege ofconstant mental terror. The spirits most feared were the ones from those who had died in unfortunate 1St Paul expressed the same idea in his discourse at Athens and said: "The god who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by the human hands, as ifhe need anything..." (Acts 1 7, 24-25). Violence as Institution in... (shrink)

“The apocalypse of hope” and other comparable flourishes in the writings of Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sartre on political violence strike an alarming tone. In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon advocates the way of revolutionary violence as the inevitable consequence of colonialism and its systematic exploitation of colonized natives. In his role of agent provocateur, Sartre’s preface to Fanon’s influential and controversial work characteristically dramatizes this redemptive promise of violence: “to gun down a European is to kill two birds (...) with one stone…there remains a dead man and a free man.” This notorious pronouncement constitutes itself as an act of violence—we must feel threatened—meant to incite the latent counter-violence behind, in Sartre’s diagnosis, the false consciousness of bourgeois toleration and understanding. Could Sartre’s bold statement be spoken today without violent condemnation? This statement claims that, against the dehumanization of colonial oppression, only revolutionary violence allows for the colonized natives to constitute a “people” and recreate themselves in the image of a new humanity forged from the experience of liberation. For Fanon in particular, the recreation of humanity is impossible without the birth of a national consciousness and a revolutionary culture. As Fanon writes, “[w]e believe that the conscious, organized struggle undertaken by a colonized people in order to restore national sovereignty constitutes the greatest cultural manifestation that exists.” This reach toward a new humanism through the praxis of revolutionary violence points directly to the problem of beginnings. As Arendt observes in On Revolution, “[r]evolutions are the only political events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of beginning.” Anti-colonial violence, for Fanon, inaugurates the beginning of political life; the colonized native reconstitutes himself as a βίοσ πολιτικόσ capable of both speech and praxis. For Sartre, anti-colonial violence reveals the dialectical necessity of world history in its struggle towards genuine universality and the utopia of a “classless” society. (shrink)

In the following text we would like to present the philosophical discussion on untrusting lies, which introduces a space for innocent lie understood as figurative manipulation of the speech: a poetic trope that we would argue could not only be generously used to help us tolerating our sometime deceiving human condition—which is global and universally ours, that of the finitude of human capacity of knowledge and ethical action—but also to maximise our capacity for knowledge formation and adaptation to values. Concepts (...) formation and communication relates to a collective interplay of different interiorized images, before it comes to the exterior in some well-chosen expressions, in self-mastered way; their origin remain in a mentally latent process of selection of content and ideas, as possible solutions of in a games of compatible propositions. These unconscious materials of our life relies on our capacity to identify and quickly switch between different spans, that enable us to focus on complex sets data, all depending very much on figurative manipulations, that should not be confounded with blameworthy and misleading representations. (shrink)

“The apocalypse of hope” and other comparable flourishes in the writings of Frantz Fanon and Jean-Paul Sartre on political violence strike an alarming tone. In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon advocates the way of revolutionary violence as the inevitable consequence of colonialism and its systematic exploitation of colonized natives. In his role of agent provocateur, Sartre’s preface to Fanon’s influential and controversial work characteristically dramatizes this redemptive promise of violence: “to gun down a European is to kill two birds (...) with one stone…there remains a dead man and a free man.” This notorious pronouncement constitutes itself as an act of violence—we must feel threatened—meant to incite the latent counter-violence behind, in Sartre’s diagnosis, the false consciousness of bourgeois toleration and understanding. Could Sartre’s bold statement be spoken today without violent condemnation? This statement claims that, against the dehumanization of colonial oppression, only revolutionary violence allows for the colonized natives to constitute a “people” and recreate themselves in the image of a new humanity forged from the experience of liberation. For Fanon in particular, the recreation of humanity is impossible without the birth of a national consciousness and a revolutionary culture. As Fanon writes, “[w]e believe that the conscious, organized struggle undertaken by a colonized people in order to restore national sovereignty constitutes the greatest cultural manifestation that exists.” This reach toward a new humanism through the praxis of revolutionary violence points directly to the problem of beginnings. As Arendt observes in On Revolution, “[r]evolutions are the only political events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of beginning.” Anti-colonial violence, for Fanon, inaugurates the beginning of political life; the colonized native reconstitutes himself as a βίοσ πολιτικόσ capable of both speech and praxis. For Sartre, anti-colonial violence reveals the dialectical necessity of world history in its struggle towards genuine universality and the utopia of a “classless” society. (shrink)

How does personality influence the relationship between appraisals and emotions? Recent research suggests individual differences in appraisal structures: people may differ in an emotion's appraisal pattern. We explored individual differences in interest's appraisal structure, assessed as the within-person covariance of appraisals with interest. People viewed images of abstract visual art and provided ratings of interest and of interest's appraisals (novelty–complexity and coping potential) for each picture. A multilevel mixture model found two between-person classes that reflected distinct within-person appraisal styles. For (...) people in the larger class (68%), the novelty–complexity appraisal had a stronger effect on interest; for people in the smaller class (32%), the coping potential appraisal had a stronger effect. People in the larger class were significantly higher in appetitive traits related to novelty seeking (e.g., sensation seeking, openness to experience, and trait curiosity), suggesting that the appraisal classes have substantive meaning. We conclude by discussing the value of within-person mixture models for the study of personality and appraisal. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.4 (2000) 3-13 [Access article in PDF] Benjamin's Arcades Project and the Postcolonial City Rajeev S. Patke [Tables]Walter Benjamin. The Arcades Project. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999. [AP] Post-this, post-that, post-the-other, yet in the endNot past a thing. —Seamus Heaney, "On His Work in the English Tongue" Preamble Among the several Benjamins to be conjured from The Arcades Project is the one (...) who invites a speculative discourse on the idea of the postcolonial city. We can imagine him first conceding, and then qualifying, three propositions about himself: he mitigates the force of the first—that he was Eurocentric—with the counterproposition that the cities he wrote about were formative of a discourse that can be transposed to other cities whose patterns of urban development were shaped by forces analogous to those he studied in the period of their inception. He then concedes that his work on the city remains problematic in several ways related to an uncertain temperament and method, but urges the recognition that his method came to resemble his object of study; the fortuitous correspondence reinforces the self-reflexive relation between modern cities and the discourse they generate. His third concession—that his use of Marxian ideas mixes them with elements of bourgeois thought—is marginalized by the recognition that he always took his Marx with such a difference that to confine him within such a debate would be to take him in the wrong spirit. He then proceeds to reiterate in the specific instance of the postcolonial a more familiar general claim made by many contemporary readers of the metropolitan experience, that the set of approaches he uncovered continue to remain valid wherever the project of modernity is at work. They help us address "[t]he split image of modernity, modernity's promises for social and individual emancipation, as well as modernity's failures" [Paetzold 216a]. Modern Benjamin would begin by reminding us that his "modern" and "modernity" refer primarily to the industrial transformation of society by technology, as part of the Enlightenment project of progress through the application of reason to nature and society. He would [End Page 3] qualify his sense of the project of "modernity" through the image of "[t]he world dominated by its phantasmagorias" [AP 26]. He would then shrug off the cloak of the Eurocentric by turning, for illustration, to the many Asian manifestations of the postcolonial. Here, he would make the twofold claim that the postcolonial experience brings out the disillusionment latent in the myth of progress, just as the postmodern brings out the phantasmal that is incipient in the myth of an evenly distributed access to capital and goods in the era of globalization. He would argue that the cities of contemporary Asia are the sites for a partial and uneven overlap between the postmodern and the postcolonial. This overlap, he would say, invites us to treat the idea of the city in a generic mode, without discounting the fact that the diversity separating the metropolitan centers in Asia makes little sense of an Asian city except as banal literalism. He would note that colonialism did not affect all of Asia, nor did it follow quite the same course from colony to colony, though the term retains some usefulness in accounting for the general factors that link different cities in Asia to what happened after colonialism. He would treat the postcolonial and the postmodern as three-tiered phenomena: each is a historical phase of world history, a predicament affecting collectivities, and an attitude or state of mind. The aptness of the notion of the postcolonial city, he points out, increases in direct proportion to the degree to which a city has acquired a distinctive identity through colonial administration or commerce, and decreases in direct proportion to the degree of discontinuity between the colonial and postcolonial phases of its history. He would add the corollary that any contemporary city in the developing world approximates to the postcolonial condition when its role in the network of power relations negotiates... (shrink)

ABSTRACTPrevious research has shown that disgusting photographs are better remembered than frightening photographs, even when the two image types have equivalent valence and arousal. However, this work did not control for potential differences in organisation between the disgusting and frightening stimuli that could account for enhanced memory for disgusting photographs. The current research therefore tested whether differences in recall between disgusting and frightening photographs persist when differences in organisation are eliminated. Using a set of disgusting and frightening photographs matched (...) for interrelatedness, Study 1 found that participants recalled more disgusting photographs than frightening photographs. This effect was mediated by increased attention to the disgusting photographs. Study 2 used Latent Semantic Analysis to further interrogate the relatedness of the photographs, providing converging evidence that organisation does not account for enhanced recall of disgusting photographs. Tak... (shrink)

Joaquin Segura. Untitled (fig. 40) . 2007 continent. 1.2 (2011): 117-124. The interview that follows is a dialogue between artist and gallerist with the intent of unearthing the artist’s working strategies for a general public. Joaquin Segura is at once an anomaly in Mexico’s contemporary art scene at the same time as he is one of the most emblematic representatives of a larger shift toward a post-national identity among its youngest generation of artists. If Mexico looks increasingly like a foreclosed (...) home burning to the ground, Segura could likely be the one walking away, charred matchstick between thumb and forefinger and shit-eating grin on his face. His corrosive attacks on institutions, ideologies, and power reflect a deep general distrust of authority, increasingly evident within the work of younger Mexican artists. It is perhaps most directly the result of President Calderon’s deeply unpopular war against the cartels but no doubt equally the product of decades upon decades of rampant corruption and errant policy within Mexico. Brett W Schultz (BWS): A recurring—if not dominant—theme within your current work and investigation explores ideological extremism in reaction to some perceived political and economic disenfranchisement, especially that espoused and practiced by right-wing groups in United States. That's exactly why I thought of you when I was approached to contribute a piece to an issue on the subject of the moraine—taken metaphorically here to signify a certain set of beliefs that have resurfaced within mainstream American culture in the wake of a probably over-exaggerated political sea-change, marked by Obama's election. You're a Mexican artist who now lives and works in Guadalajara, far from the border cities where such concerns would seem more likely to be relevant to a contemporary artist; of course, you're even farther from the culture that birthed this nature of extremism. What interests you so intensely about this movement, if we can call it that? Joaquin Segura (JS): I think there are several seminal points that you touch on in this particular question. There's a very specific set of interests that make me address the socio-political issues I've been dissecting through my practice in the last few years. First of all, I don't really consider myself a 'mexican' artist. As I've made clear in the past, I don't really believe in the notion of 'identity' or the idea of 'nation', which I find totally laughable and heartwarmingly passé. I'm convinced that these are totally outdated models of understanding our differences and similarities, expanding our already immense and irreconcilable cultural abysses instead of bringing them together, thus resulting in their total dispersion among the complex and extremely arbitrary weaving of contemporary social nucleii. Pretty much a frankly bad joke, if I may say so. The fact that I live and work in Mexico is a completely random geographical and temporal factor, which of course affects what I think and what I do, but I've chosen not to be limited by this specific circumstance. In the past, while working abroad, I've taken advantage of this preconception of Mexico—to be more exact, pretty much all of Latin America—as one of the last barbaric bastions of western civilization. Totally amusing, if you ask me about it. I consider my practice to be, among other things, a gonzo strategy of deceit: there are quite a few roles you can adopt in this approach that may actually reveal themselves to be a privileged vantage point. In my experience, the gentle savage is one of the most effective ones to establish my standing position. Thus, I'm a mexican artist if I need it to prove my point. If it's not necessary in a specific circumstance, I'm not. Quite simple, I think. Said in other words, it's just an ace I can play to win a particular match. It has worked so far, at least for me. L: Hey, America… , 2009. R: The Inaugural Address , 2009. I am interested in the nature of power and the rise and fall of totalitarian ideological and political apparatuses nowadays. But I guess, going even further, I'm essentially fascinated by the fissures and contradictions that have made these structures spectacularly crumble to the ground. I do believe extreme ideologies have played a crucial role in the globalization of socio-political crisis. In the end, our world is nothing more than a fading monument to all things gone wrong—the inspiring triumph of failure, in every sense. I see this as an exciting parable. And of course, it is an undeniable fact that the US, through their influence in world economy, international policies and general attitude towards the rest of the planet is the largest structure waiting to collapse. I think we are all secretly awaiting that moment of splendor, even americans. It'll be disastrous and as nasty as it can get, but it will also be liberating and incredibly inspirational. Not just because it’s the US but because it'll prove that absolutely everything is susceptible to fall. And not only that, most importantly, it would confirm that radical change may actually be possible and not just one more of the unfulfilled promises modernity has left us to struggle with on our own. BWS: I want to talk first about two of your works in particular: Hey, America... and The Inaugural Address . I feel like your more recent work has a subtle —or even hidden—sinisterness, but these two works are perfect examples of how brutally confrontational your earlier work has been. When we showed Hey, America... at Mexico City's Zona Maco art fair in 2010, there were at least a couple visitors to our stand who were absolutely ready to punch me in my gringo face for having done so. Certainly the shock value of these works is crucial to their central ideas, but can you tell me more about your intentions and how these works relate to your general oeuvre? JS: So funny. Perhaps we do deserve to be punched in the face. I think that's what I'm sometimes looking for, but I hardly ever get it. I do think of such works as some sort of logical trap, a somewhat perverse ambush waiting for someone to walk into head-on. I think what I tried to do with those two specific works, as well as some other past projects, is just emphasize issues or themes that do disturb or make me uneasy and restless. I consider my essential intention a need to make clear that we do not have to look the other way, ignore or forget. We must address, understand and solve these manifestations of senseless violence and absurdity because if we don't confront them this way, they'll end up consuming us. In other words, I do consider these works as a personal need of coming to terms with the nonsense of the world we all are living in. I don't particularly consider myself to be someone with a clear set of beliefs. Perhaps my only certainty would be that everything is there to be denied, demolished and obliterated—even my supposed unquestionability of that particular 'dogma.' My practice is a reflection of that paradox, and I do think that's how these two pieces relate to a wider body of work. Every democratic system and so-called developed contemporary society is deeply flawed on the inside, and that is because each has swept things under the rug. Of course, there's tolerance, good will and eagerness to make a difference but there's also hatred, pain and fear lingering all around. We must learn to relate to both sides of the spectrum. In a way, I approach the themes behind these particular works in what I think to be a non-biased, somewhat 'neutral' way. I do think there's an encryption process going on in the way I work, some sort of formal refinement of this somewhat outrageous content. A digest of infamy, if we can refer to it that way. It is up to the individual experiencing the work to decide which way these pieces lean. They can easily be seen from both positions and I'm ok with that. If you look closely at these works, there's nothing that establishes an unrelenting position—neither support nor rejection. I don't want my personal political views to directly set an agenda for the spectator as that’s essentially propaganda, which is one of the things I absolutely despise. To sum it up, I strive for the spectator to complete the piece in that sense. The work then becomes a reflection of his or her own contradictions, a playground of the mind. I'm interested in achieving a deadpan and deadlock state in the observer. So, in a way, those visitors threatening to beat the shit out of you unconsciously became that particular issue the work is alluding to. Just blind and senseless reaction to god knows what people feel must be defended, the overwhelming virtue of ambiguity. Beautiful. Perhaps you can also think of my practice as a uber-sophisticated and snobbish version of Punk'd. And you wouldn't be far from what I'm trying to convey. Untitled (Disturbance Scenarios #2) . 2010. BWS: To me, an important transitional marker in the overall trajectory of your work is the series, Disturbance Scenarios , which evokes a similar generalized state of panic, paranoia, and impending doom through its incorporation of sensationalist newspaper headlines, yet also suggests this slyly mysterious meta-narrative via the context in which the newspaper itself is placed. How did you arrive at this series and why did you choose photorealistic painting as the medium for it? JS: I consider this series to be a by-product of the process I follow when making work. I spend an important part of my time just doing research, going through documentation and accumulating visual or historical references for the themes or episodes I'm interested in, in that particular moment. These are, of course, valuable assets that connect among themselves in a mysterious and almost undetectable manner, sometimes a few years between one and the other. I've employed similar production strategies in the past, in ongoing series like Random Moments of Urban Decay , in which I document what I consider to be physical traces of ethnic, religious or ideological violence in the form of text graffiti, invisibly scattered in different cities of the world, mostly in the US. Disturbance Scenarios was started in early 2010, following a particularly intense period of traveling here and there that lasted for most of the year. I've always felt compelled by text, as I find quite intriguing the idea of how words can create equally intense evocations of what I call a mental panorama of uneasiness than those produced by aesthetically-charged imagery; of course, if handled right. I have a close relationship to print media—due both to my academic background and to my attraction to its ubiquity and almost unlimited influence, which in the end, is nothing else but power—so I found myself with a growing archive of newspaper headlines snapshots from cities like Melbourne, Auckland, London, and LA. Going through them, I noticed that they had in common a very specific thematic slant: they were all about some sort of conflict: energy crisis, political unrest, local episodes of domestic violence, you name it. So as you very well put it, I felt they all connected through this feeling of anxiety and anguish and I decided to start thinking of them as a body of work. Basically, I felt an interest in creating what I think of as my personal fragmented prefigurements of the end of civilization. There were few elements on the shots that could give away its actual location, geographically speaking, and I liked that. I find this sensation of vagueness and uncertainty quite alluring. The more subtle, the more perverse. The formal resolution of the series—as photo-realistic painting—is linked to my intention of creating distance between me as the artist and the themes I work with. I rarely execute my own work, and that is more a personal choice as I'm more interested in the ideas I mingle with than in the actual outcome of that process, understood as an "art-object" with certain market value. I did some tests with light-jet prints of those snapshots and I found them devoid of that nightmarish, disturbing indistinctness that I felt was so important for them to be able to project the turmoil I experienced upon encountering them and in conceiving of them as a series. So I thought that photorealistic painting would be an interesting resource to play with, as I hardly had worked with that medium before because of my lenient animosity toward painters and their craft. So they were executed like that and I think it turned out to be just right. Homemade (Napalm #2) . 2010. BWS: Though Disturbance Scenarios remains ongoing, it's an interesting contrast to another series of yours, Homemade, which are these beautifully banal photographs of the ingredients used to make improvised explosives. Whereas Disturbance Scenarios still confronts the viewer aggressively with its visual emphasis on loaded texts, in Homemade , you've dropped the surface-level bravado entirely. They're pieces that require explanation to someone not already versed in the fine art of amateur explosive-making. You weren't known for subtlety in your past work; why this change in direction? JS: I'm personally convinced that these are just two angles of the same conceptual preoccupation. I mentioned before my obsession with the idea of encryption. I'm quite enticed by how these processes of translation can politically and semantically alter and deviate purportedly subversive materials such as the ones these works allude to. I do think subversion is futile. I was really troubled by that thought for some time, but I think now I understand that it's not really that important. What is really significant is to elaborate on these alternate views, to envision and refine possible escape routes. It doesn't really matter if they go nowhere, but that is because nothing really matters. A "mute" artwork is a notion that captivates me. When you look at the works you mention, you know there's something off, but it's not fully clear how and why that is. I rely on that insecurity—on that moment of hesitation. And that can also be achieved through an approach like the one I'm now interested in. Let's just call it a smoke screen, a surrogate ruse to get to the same point: to talk about impotence and defeat in contemporary life. The notion that readily accessible information is actually a weapon is a double-edged fallacy: sure, you can make use of whatever resources you can lay your hands on, but that doesn't set you free because freedom is impossible. Still, that doesn't mean you can't blow up stuff during the process, metaphorically or not. I didn't understand the nature of subtlety before. I used to think that you needed to be loud and manifest anger and unconformity in the most aggressive manner possible. Then I finally realized that you can actually permeate and rarify a battleground—because after all, this is low-intensity war—if you actually aim at silently building up the contradictions and making the symbolic value of ideas and acts clash within themselves. Or perhaps it is that I am just getting old. I guess I used to be an angry kid until recently. Now I think of myself as a disenchanted post-teenager, and of course that reflects in my work and my approach to art-making. Kind of a rite of passage and I laugh at it because, overall, it has been overwhelmingly fun. And that doesn't mean that I'm not ready to stick it in someone or something's face again if I feel like it. BWS: You're now taking the subtlety of the Homemade series even further with your newest series, Definitive Reader For a Botched Revolution , in which you photograph a series of politically-charged books side-on, negating their content entirely—essentially reducing them to purely aesthetic objects in which the subject matter is only revealed in the title of the work. Can you talk about the ideas behind this series? Furthermore, is your recent interest in this idea of the "botched revolution" an indication of a general attitudinal or philosophical shift you've since adopted? JS: This new series of works is the logical outcome of a brief period I went through. Probably the last couple years, in which due to a number of circumstances that don't really have to do with my art-making, I was forced to renegotiate my ideas, my beliefs and practically everything that surrounds me. It was quite distressful and turbulent, but in the end, I think it was also almost epiphanic. I came to terms with myself and now I'm calm and serene. That is, of course, my personal take on it but I mention it because I do think it's important to address this shift you mention. The idea of an artwork as a container for latent revelations enthralls me quite a bit. That's how I see these particular works: art as an incendiary agent. It's up to the artist and the spectator to do whatever they please with it. I think the detachment and almost surgical cleanliness from the Definitive Reader series is also my take at poking fun of the way some art is totally innocuous and uncompromising. These images may be pleasing to the eye, but there's something twisted and rotten within them, well hidden beneath. You'll either see it or not, but without a doubt, it will not cancel its presence. This series is intrinsically linked to Homemade . I'm pretty much horsing around with similar ideas and statements here. And well, yes, I do think any revolution is a botched one. There's nothing too heavy about their own downfall. Decay and breakdown are here and will not go away. Perhaps we must learn to embrace them in one way or another, for our own sake. L: Untitled (T.A.Z.). R: Untitled (United States Marine Guidebook of Essential Subjects) . 2011. BWS: Finally, let's discuss the near future. You've got an upcoming solo show at the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros [SAPS] in Mexico City this summer. What can we expect from that? What else do you have planned? JS: I'll go and get seafood as soon as I'm done with this interview. It's pretty good here in Guadalajara. That's my top priority at this very moment. About my solo project at SAPS, it's due to open in late July. I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm still closely working with the curator on the general feel for the show but I can say that it'll be more of a revision of past works that have not been shown in Mexico City except for a couple pieces. It definitely won't be a showcase for new projects, although we may include one or two previously unseen works. What you can expect is a rereading of what I've been working on during the past few years. In a way, that's exciting to me because for some reason I don't really care about, I'm not that active in Mexico City even though that's where I lived and work for years. I've hardly shown there after my solo project at Yautepec in February of 2010. It'll be nice to see how it all comes together and I'm more thrilled about it because I totally love the space and I think they're doing an excellent job with their programming and its direction. And in a certain way it feels like going back home. About everything else, I need a period to reflect and fully understand what I've been thinking and working on. I've got a few group shows here and there: New York, San Francisco, and Melbourne are the ones happening soon. I will present my censored project Untitled ( Gringo Loco ) as part of the programming of the Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Guadalajara, two years after being escorted at gunpoint from the installation site by police sent by the extreme right-wing mayor of the city, which I found pretty amusing for an otherwise typical Saturday afternoon. I'm also involved in a couple "curatorial" projects. In my case, "curatorial" means that I help put together stuff I like and I'm interested in. One of them will open in late September of 2011 at Arena Mexico Arte Contemporaneo, and I will work with three of whom I consider to be some of the best artists in a lively and active scene such as the one here in Guadalajara. But most importantly, I've been doing heavy research so there are also a number of projects that I've yet to finalize. That'll be my main focus during the rest of the year, even though I really enjoy procrastination. There'll be time for that later. Or maybe not. We'll see. About Joaquin Segura The action, installation, intervention and photographic work of Joaquin Segura (b. Mexico City, 1980) has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, Europe, and Asia. Some spaces that have featured his work include La Panaderia, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Centro de la Imagen and Ex-Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City; El Museo del Barrio and apexart, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain; National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; and Palace Adria in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2008 and 2009, Segura was an artist-in-residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, NY and at the 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA. He is represented YAUTEPEC in Mexico City and by Arena Mexico Arte Contemporáneo in Guadalajara. Further Reading Joaquin Segura’s website YAUTEPEC artist page for Joaquin Segura Capps, Kriston. “ID-ENTITY: Washington, DC.” ART PAPERS . 2009. (shrink)

Traditional philosophical uneasiness with imagining activity is documented. The reason adduced for the ontological homelessness of imagination is the inability of most philosophers to recognize the irreducible nature and function of imaginativity.Imagining is then distinguished from sense-perceiving. imaging. and conceptual activity. Imagining, it is proposed, is the reality of making-believe; and such human, as-if functioning can both (I) characterize human deeds as imaginative acts. and (2) be a latent or active functional moment within other kinds of human acts.Why God. (...) creational ordinances, angels. and all earthly creatures can be imaginated is expounded, along with an analysis of such activity. its norm. and imaginative results huch as art). Remarks on relations of imagining to science and faith conclude the piece. (shrink)

The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (1992) provided both a powerful framework for analyzing public opinion and a highly influential account of the role of political elites in shaping public opinion. Zaller's subsequent work has focused less on the mechanics of opinion change than on the role of public opinion in the broader political process. This evolution has entailed sustained attention to V. O. Key, Jr.'s concept of ?latent opinion??the opinion politicians are likely to face in the next (...) election, as distinct from what is currently measureable in surveys. It has also entailed a downgrading of the importance attached to Media Politics??the attempt to govern on the basis of words and images that diffuse through the mass media??relative to Party Politics??the substance of party performance.? In recent work, Zaller and his colleagues have emphasized the key role of interest groups and activists in shaping parties' policy choices, largely free of effective constraint by the mass public. This work provides a rather more pessimistic take on ?The Question of Elite Domination of Public Opinion? than does the epilogue to The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. (shrink)

Background: Individuals with psychopathic traits demonstrate an attenuated emotional response to aversive stimuli. However, recent evidence suggests heterogeneity in emotional reactivity among individuals with psychopathic or callous-unemotional (CU) traits, the emotional detachment dimension of psychopathy. We hypothesize that primary variants of psychopathy will respond with blunted affect to negatively valenced stimuli, whereas individuals marked with histories of childhood trauma/maltreatment exposure, known as secondary variants, will display heightened emotional reactivity. To test this hypothesis, the present study examined fear-potentiated startle between psychopathy (...) variants while viewing aversive, pleasant, and neutral scenes. Method: 238 incarcerated adolescent (M age = 16.8, SD = 1.11 years) boys completed a picture-startle paradigm and self-report questionnaires assessing CU traits, antisocial-aggressive behavior, and maltreatment. Results: Latent profile analyses identified four classes; primary variants (high CU traits, high aggression, low maltreatment; n = 46), secondary variants (high CU traits, high aggression, high maltreatment; n = 42), and two nonpsychopathic groups differentiated on maltreatment experience (n = 148). Findings from an ANOVA comparing identified groups on startle amplitude difference scores (i.e., aversive-neutral) suggested a main effect for group, F(3,196)=8.91, p<.001, η2 = .12. Primary variants of juvenile psychopathy displayed reduced startle potentiation to aversive images (threat and victim scenes), whereas secondary variants distinguished by high levels of childhood maltreatment did not. Conclusions: Findings add to a rapidly growing body of literature supporting the possibility of multiple developmental pathways to psychopathy (i.e., equifinality), and extend it by finding support for divergent potential biomarkers between primary and secondary psychopathy variants. (shrink)

The expression “human enhancement” could be placed in the ontological, cognitive, and symbolic dimension in which we conceive and experience the faculty, that is constitutive of human beings, of giving name and thus consistence to things, relations and phenomena in general. It is necessary to point out that this symbolic dimension of emerging technologies has been obstinately and jealously anthropocentric, at least in the modern Western world. In this contribution, I aim to develop a philosophical account of post-human enhancement that (...) allows us to conceive a future society of humanoids – humans, hybrids, artificial beings – who are free and equal. This expression – “post-human enhancement” – is to be understood as referring to symbols and phenomena different from those associated with “trans-human”. Post-human is to be interpreted here as material, not anthropocentric but rather interspeciesist, osmotic and relational, horizon of effective sharing of experiences, dangers and challenges. In contrast, trans-human is meant to refer to the transcending of humans into the pure ether of an ‘ideal’, immaterial network made up only of software, and lacking of relations with any material beings in the ecosystem or cosmos. On my account, reframing the debate about human enhancement means to guarantee widest possible conditions of non-hegemonic or expansive conscious contextuality of legislative and decisional systems. I focus rather on the social circumstance whereby we see ourselves as subjects that already co-inhabit multiform social identities, in changeable and hybrid bodies and identitary images, in potential or latent conditions of moral and political asymmetry. These conditions, I hold, are therefore to be preventively identified and neutralized. (shrink)

This article explores Futurist technophilia and some more or less latent technophobia, in the period after 1918. Fuelled by the economic and industrial advancements of the so-called “Giolittian age,” as well as an extensive employment of war technology in the First World War, the Futurist technological imagination remains both robust and wide-ranging in the postwar period. Resonant of nineteenth-century French and Italian literary traditions, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's official position clusters round the powerful, if hackneyed, images of the steam train (...) and the motorcar. A number of fellow Futurists, however, explore technology in more original and, in some cases, more persuasive fashions. From the technology of flying employed first-hand by Fedele Azari to Enrico Prampolini's mechanical applications on the European stage, from Anton Giulio Bragaglia's experimental cinema to Ivo Pannaggi's and Vinicio Paladini's technological rebirth in marxian key, the Futurists' approach to technology is characterised throughout by a problematic counterpoint of modernity and tradition. If the Futurist officialdom ultimately relies on the latter, numerous alternative experiences testify to their vibrant strife towards the former. (shrink)

As James Chapman has famously put it in National Identity and the British Historical Film, historical films are “as much about the present in which they are made as they are about [the] past in which they are set.” This article discusses Shekhar Kapur’s aesthetically ground-breaking Elizabeth and its sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age focusing on two main aspects, namely national identity issues and the representation of the enemy. Kapur’s Elizabeth films will first be placed within the larger context of (...) Elizabeth’s film and television appearances. Informed by Giroux’s critical methodology guidelines, in an attempt to “historize” the films under scrutiny and so foster “sane historical sense,” a se­miotic analysis will then be offered. Largely inspired by the tenets of Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis and Kress and Leeuwen’s visual grammar, this will draw a parallel between the verbal and visual discourses in both films. Data will finally be discussed and the contention will be made that England’s religious heritage has left indelible traces which remain latent in the English imagination, for which historical evi­dence will be presented. The article’s ultimate aim will be to provide evidence suggesting that, in the English case, religious and national discourses merged from the late 16th century onwards, clearly influ­en­cing not only the perception that the English had of themselves but also and crucially the image they may still have of “Other” nations. (shrink)