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Keywords = imagined affordances

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26 pages, 5099 KiB  
Article
Rethinking Traditional Playgrounds: Temporary Landscape Interventions to Advance Informal Early STEAM Learning in Outdoors
by Nazia Afrin Trina, Muntazar Monsur, Nilda Cosco, Leehu Loon, Stephanie Shine and Ann Mastergeorge
Educ. Sci. 2025, 15(8), 952; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15080952 - 24 Jul 2025
Viewed by 213
Abstract
Traditional playground settings are often less effective in fostering STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics)-related activities, as fixed play structures tend to restrict the diversity of play behaviors and inhibit children’s ability to engage in self-directed, imaginative exploration. Using a research-through-design methodology, [...] Read more.
Traditional playground settings are often less effective in fostering STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics)-related activities, as fixed play structures tend to restrict the diversity of play behaviors and inhibit children’s ability to engage in self-directed, imaginative exploration. Using a research-through-design methodology, this study investigated how playground design (temporary landscape interventions) influences children’s engagement in informal STEAM learning activities and enhances the STEAM learning affordances of the playground. Conducted at an early learning center in Lubbock, Texas, the research involved GIS-based Environment–Behavior Mapping (E-B Mapping) and video analysis of 21 preschool-age children to compare pre- and post-intervention STEAM learning behaviors. The intervention incorporated fourteen nature-based landscape elements—such as sand and water play areas, sensory gardens, loose parts, art areas, etc.—to enhance affordances for informal STEAM activities. The results showed a marked decrease in passive behaviors and a notable rise in constructive play; collaborative interactions; and STEAM-related activities such as building, hypothesizing, observing, and experimenting. Engagement shifted away from fixed play structures to more diverse and naturalized play settings. The findings underscore the critical role of integrating diverse landscape settings and elements into playgrounds in enriching STEAM learning experiences for young children. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interdisciplinary Approaches to STEM Education)
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20 pages, 4152 KiB  
Article
Embodied, Exploratory Listening in the Concert Hall
by Remy Haswell-Martin, Finn Upham, Simon Høffding and Nanette Nielsen
Behav. Sci. 2025, 15(5), 710; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15050710 - 21 May 2025
Viewed by 610
Abstract
Live music can afford novel, transformative aesthetic interactions for individual audience members. Nevertheless, concert research tends to focus on shared experience. In this paper we offer an account of exploratory listening that foregrounds embodied–enactive engagement and affective resonance through close analysis of the [...] Read more.
Live music can afford novel, transformative aesthetic interactions for individual audience members. Nevertheless, concert research tends to focus on shared experience. In this paper we offer an account of exploratory listening that foregrounds embodied–enactive engagement and affective resonance through close analysis of the music, physiological measurements, and reflections from interviews. Our analysis centres on data collected from two musician audience members about one specific piece out of a larger interdisciplinary project involving concerts given by the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra and The Norwegian Radio Orchestra in March and June of 2024. Through the combination of in-depth phenomenological interviews with musically skilled audience members and measurements of breathing and body motion, we explore aesthetic enactment beyond common patterns of ‘synchronised’ response, focusing on audience members’ experiences of Harald Sæverud’s ‘Kjempeviseslåtten’ (The Ballad of Revolt) (1943). We find forms of absorbed, both imaginative and embodied involvement, of listeners enacting meaningful contact with, and pathways through, the music that in some ways corroborate crowd patterns but also reveal exploratory expertise and idiosyncratic affective orientations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music Listening as Exploratory Behavior)
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19 pages, 5545 KiB  
Article
Edge Computing for AI-Based Brain MRI Applications: A Critical Evaluation of Real-Time Classification and Segmentation
by Khuhed Memon, Norashikin Yahya, Mohd Zuki Yusoff, Rabani Remli, Aida-Widure Mustapha Mohd Mustapha, Hilwati Hashim, Syed Saad Azhar Ali and Shahabuddin Siddiqui
Sensors 2024, 24(21), 7091; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24217091 - 4 Nov 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2843
Abstract
Medical imaging plays a pivotal role in diagnostic medicine with technologies like Magnetic Resonance Imagining (MRI), Computed Tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and ultrasound scans being widely used to assist radiologists and medical experts in reaching concrete diagnosis. Given the recent massive [...] Read more.
Medical imaging plays a pivotal role in diagnostic medicine with technologies like Magnetic Resonance Imagining (MRI), Computed Tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and ultrasound scans being widely used to assist radiologists and medical experts in reaching concrete diagnosis. Given the recent massive uplift in the storage and processing capabilities of computers, and the publicly available big data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has also started contributing to improving diagnostic radiology. Edge computing devices and handheld gadgets can serve as useful tools to process medical data in remote areas with limited network and computational resources. In this research, the capabilities of multiple platforms are evaluated for the real-time deployment of diagnostic tools. MRI classification and segmentation applications developed in previous studies are used for testing the performance using different hardware and software configurations. Cost–benefit analysis is carried out using a workstation with a NVIDIA Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), Jetson Xavier NX, Raspberry Pi 4B, and Android phone, using MATLAB, Python, and Android Studio. The mean computational times for the classification app on the PC, Jetson Xavier NX, and Raspberry Pi are 1.2074, 3.7627, and 3.4747 s, respectively. On the low-cost Android phone, this time is observed to be 0.1068 s using the Dynamic Range Quantized TFLite version of the baseline model, with slight degradation in accuracy. For the segmentation app, the times are 1.8241, 5.2641, 6.2162, and 3.2023 s, respectively, when using JPEG inputs. The Jetson Xavier NX and Android phone stand out as the best platforms due to their compact size, fast inference times, and affordability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Biomedical Sensors)
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33 pages, 13983 KiB  
Article
Imagining Just and Sustainable Food Futures: Using Interactive Visualizations to Explore the Possible Land Uses and Food Systems Approaches in Revelstoke, Canada
by Robert Newell, Colin Dring and Elvia Willyono
Land 2024, 13(9), 1345; https://doi.org/10.3390/land13091345 - 24 Aug 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1345
Abstract
Food systems are linked to multiple critical sustainability issues such as climate change, environmental degradation, and growing socioeconomic inequalities, and there is a clear need for transformative changes in how food systems are imagined and enacted. For transformations to occur, local governments and [...] Read more.
Food systems are linked to multiple critical sustainability issues such as climate change, environmental degradation, and growing socioeconomic inequalities, and there is a clear need for transformative changes in how food systems are imagined and enacted. For transformations to occur, local governments and stakeholders must be able to consider achievable and desirable futures that involve radically different reconfigurations of space and land use. Based in Revelstoke, Canada, this study uses interactive visualization methods to engage local government and food systems stakeholders in an exploration of three future food systems scenarios that center on changes in food supply, food affordability, and food governance. An interactive visualization tool was developed using the Unity3D game engine, which visualizes how transformations of an underutilized railway site in Revelstoke may appear in 2100. The visualizations were presented to the study participants (n = 10) through an online, Zoom-based workshop, where ‘walkthroughs’ of the scenarios were performed by the researchers and the participants subsequently provided feedback. The results of this study indicate that visualization tools can elicit emotional responses, convey human relationships with food and nature, communicate power dynamics, and incorporate social justice considerations. The results also show that the visualization’s representation of local infrastructure and services, the completeness of a virtual environment, and the plausibility of a depicted future affect the user assessment of the visualized scenarios. Full article
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22 pages, 3715 KiB  
Article
Feel the Music!—Audience Experiences of Audio–Tactile Feedback in a Novel Virtual Reality Volumetric Music Video
by Gareth W. Young, Néill O’Dwyer, Mauricio Flores Vargas, Rachel Mc Donnell and Aljosa Smolic
Arts 2023, 12(4), 156; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12040156 - 13 Jul 2023
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 4542
Abstract
The creation of imaginary worlds has been the focus of philosophical discourse and artistic practice for millennia. Humans have long evolved to use media and imagination to express their inner worlds outwardly via artistic practice. As a fundamental factor of fantasy world-building, the [...] Read more.
The creation of imaginary worlds has been the focus of philosophical discourse and artistic practice for millennia. Humans have long evolved to use media and imagination to express their inner worlds outwardly via artistic practice. As a fundamental factor of fantasy world-building, the imagination can produce novel objects, virtual sensations, and unique stories related to previously unlived experiences. The expression of the imagination often takes a narrative form that applies some medium to facilitate communication, for example, books, statues, music, or paintings. These virtual realities are expressed and communicated via multiple multimedia immersive technologies, stimulating modern audiences via their combined Aristotelian senses. Incorporating interactive graphic, auditory, and haptic narrative elements in extended reality (XR) permits artists to express their imaginative intentions with visceral accuracy. However, these technologies are constantly in flux, and the precise role of multimodality has yet to be fully explored. Thus, this contribution to Feeling the Future—Haptic Audio explores the potential of novel multimodal technology to communicate artistic expression via an immersive virtual reality (VR) volumetric music video. We compare user experiences of our affordable volumetric video (VV) production to more expensive commercial VR music videos. Our research also inspects audio–tactile interactions in the auditory experience of immersive music videos, where both auditory and haptic channels receive vibrations during the imaginative virtual performance. This multimodal interaction is then analyzed from the audience’s perspective to capture the user’s experiences and examine the impact of this form of haptic feedback in practice via applied human–computer interaction (HCI) evaluation practices. Our results demonstrate the application of haptics in contemporary music consumption practices, discussing how they affect audience experiences regarding functionality, usability, and the perceived quality of a musical performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Feeling the Future—Haptic Audio)
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13 pages, 683 KiB  
Protocol
Imagine All the People: A Guided Internet-Based Imagery Training to Increase Assertiveness among University Students—Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial
by Micaela Di Consiglio, Jessica Burrai, Emanuela Mari, Anna Maria Giannini and Alessandro Couyoumdjian
Healthcare 2023, 11(13), 1874; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11131874 - 28 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2251
Abstract
The importance of communication skills for well-being and self-realization is widely accepted. Despite that, research on assertiveness and assertiveness training has declined significantly in recent decades. Consequently, traditional training does not consider the most recent novel technologies used to spread psychological interventions. This [...] Read more.
The importance of communication skills for well-being and self-realization is widely accepted. Despite that, research on assertiveness and assertiveness training has declined significantly in recent decades. Consequently, traditional training does not consider the most recent novel technologies used to spread psychological interventions. This study proposes the development of ComunicaBene: a guided Internet-based imagery intervention to promote assertiveness. Moreover, it describes the study protocol for a randomized control trial to investigate the intervention’s efficacy and acceptability. Participants will be randomly assigned to an experimental (ComunicaBene) or waitlist control condition. ComunicaBene consists of different online training modules corresponding to three phases: psychoeducation, imaginative exposure, and in vivo-exposure. Each module provides participants with theoretical and practical content about needs, emotions, communication style, and assertiveness. Moreover, during the program, every student is supervised by a Tutor. Participants in the control condition will be included in a waiting list. Primary and secondary outcomes will include changes in assertiveness, well-being, emotional awareness, worry, and rumination. Outcomes will be assessed at pre- and post-intervention, and via a 6-month follow-up. We expect that the results will support the efficacy of ComunicaBene as an innovative, scalable, affordable, and acceptable intervention to spread assertive training through the Internet and among a broad population. Full article
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22 pages, 1307 KiB  
Article
Fans, Fellows or Followers: A Study on How Sport Federations Shape Social Media Affordances
by Lovisa Broms
Journal. Media 2023, 4(2), 688-709; https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia4020044 - 13 Jun 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4010
Abstract
Increased in-depth knowledge on how sport federations shape their social media affordances to build relationships with their audiences will develop the understanding and ongoing discussion on the effects of social media in organized sports. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate [...] Read more.
Increased in-depth knowledge on how sport federations shape their social media affordances to build relationships with their audiences will develop the understanding and ongoing discussion on the effects of social media in organized sports. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate in what way sports federations shape their social media affordances to create an increased understanding of how they interact with their audiences through social media. Three sports federations, the Swedish Basketball Federation, the Swedish Skateboard Association, and the Swedish Equestrian Federation, were investigated through semi-structured interviews as well as digital ethnography. The analytical focus lies on in what way the organizations shape social media affordances as well as in what way they imagine social media uses and users. This study shows that the federations’ imagination of who their users are, what they would like to see and how these users act and react defines their affordances. Further, the results reveal that the federations have differing approaches to in what way they imagine their users (as fans, fellows or followers) as well as what their incentives are for using social media. To learn how ongoing mediations mold long-term changes for sport federations, it is of importance to look beyond mediatization and learn more about their current structure and operations, their history, and traditions, as well as their view of their users. Full article
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14 pages, 7400 KiB  
Article
Participatory Inquiries That Promote Consideration of Socio-Scientific Issues Related to Sustainability within Three Different Contexts: Agriculture, Botany and Palaeontology
by Debra McGregor, Sarah Frodsham and Clarysly Deller
Sustainability 2023, 15(8), 6895; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15086895 - 19 Apr 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1579
Abstract
The involvement of students in dramatised inquiries, through participatory activity, offers opportunities to act in-role as scientists. The inquiries can ‘set-the-scene’, provide context and challenges for students to consider possibilities within and beyond everyday life. This approach can engage students in thinking about [...] Read more.
The involvement of students in dramatised inquiries, through participatory activity, offers opportunities to act in-role as scientists. The inquiries can ‘set-the-scene’, provide context and challenges for students to consider possibilities within and beyond everyday life. This approach can engage students in thinking about sustainability and developing citizenship competencies, such as thinking scientifically and critiquing ideas, interrogating evidence and assessing the validity of information, as well as decision making and problem solving. In this paper, adopting stories from the history of science is shown to provide rich, authentic contexts that engage students imaginatively and collaboratively in addressing past, present and future socio-scientific issues. To demonstrate how the approach can be adapted we drew on the work of three scientists: an agriculturalist; a botanist and a palaeontologist. Their scientific work informed the learning activities of several primary science lessons (with students aged 9–10). The agricultural activities were informed by the work of George Washington Carver and were related to improving soil quality through crop rotation as well as thinking about the diversity of food and other products that can be produced from plants. The botanically informed activities promoted understanding about processes linked to maintaining species diversity. These drew on the work of Marianne North, a Victorian botanical artist, noted for her detailed plant observations. The final socio-scientific context was related to the work of Mary Anning, a pioneering 19th century palaeontologist, who made significant fossil discoveries that contributed to the understanding of geology and evolution. Interactive and participatory activities, informed by the lives and work of these scientists, were designed to engage students in socio-scientific inquiry-based learning through a drama-based pedagogy. These dramatised inquiries promoted the development of scientific citizenship competencies. Scrutiny of data collected through multiple methods suggested that, by extending opportunities for learners to participate in these dramatised lessons, understanding sustainability became more salient for the students. Outcomes suggest several distinctive affordances offered by dramatisation when supporting understanding about sustainability and the development of scientific citizenship. Full article
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16 pages, 3651 KiB  
Article
Expansion of Eucalyptus Plantation on Fertile Cultivated Lands in the North-Western Highlands of Ethiopia
by Gashaw Molla, Meseret B. Addisie and Gebiaw T. Ayele
Remote Sens. 2023, 15(3), 661; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15030661 - 22 Jan 2023
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 4072
Abstract
Converting fertile, cultivated land into Eucalyptus plantations has become a common practice in Ethiopia. Integrating geospatial techniques with socio-economic data analysis can be a useful method to evaluate the expansion of Eucalyptus and its underlying factors. The objective of this study is to [...] Read more.
Converting fertile, cultivated land into Eucalyptus plantations has become a common practice in Ethiopia. Integrating geospatial techniques with socio-economic data analysis can be a useful method to evaluate the expansion of Eucalyptus and its underlying factors. The objective of this study is to detect the spatio-temporal patterns and main factors contributing to Eucalyptus expansion in the Mecha district of Ethiopia. To quantify the spatial extents of Eucalyptus plantations, the study employed Landsat images from 1991 to 2021 with supervised image classification in ERDAS Imagine 2015. In addition, 120 households were chosen using random sampling technique to incorporate socioeconomic factors related to Eucalyptus expansion. The result shows that, Eucalyptus plantations expanded significantly across the study area during the last three decades. Eucalyptus plantation covered 908.87 ha, 3719.05 ha, and 26261.9 ha in 1991, 2006, and 2021, respectively. The increment was mostly at the expense of fertile cultivated land use. The main reasons for its expansion are linked with farmer’s expectations of a better source of income, apprehension about the detrimental effects on nearby cropland, and its affordable production cost. In conclusion, the study area faces challenges from the uncontrolled expansion of Eucalyptus plantations on productive lands. Therefore, careful management and intervention strategies should be established to manage its rapid expansion. Full article
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17 pages, 282 KiB  
Article
Prison Theatre and an Embodied Aesthetics of Liberation: Exploring the Potentials and Limits
by Sarah Woodland
Humanities 2021, 10(3), 101; https://doi.org/10.3390/h10030101 - 9 Sep 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 6095
Abstract
Prison theatre practitioners and scholars often describe the sense of imaginative freedom or “escape” that theatre and drama can facilitate for incarcerated actors, in contrast to the strict regimes of the institution. Despite this, the concept of freedom or liberation is rarely interrogated, [...] Read more.
Prison theatre practitioners and scholars often describe the sense of imaginative freedom or “escape” that theatre and drama can facilitate for incarcerated actors, in contrast to the strict regimes of the institution. Despite this, the concept of freedom or liberation is rarely interrogated, being presented instead as a given—a natural by-product of creative practice. Drawing from John Dewey’s (1934) pragmatist aesthetics and the liberatory pedagogies of Bell Hooks (2000) and Paulo Freire (1996), I propose an embodied aesthetics of liberation in prison theatre that adds depth and complexity to claims for freedom through creativity. Reflecting on over twenty years of prison theatre practice and research, I propose that the initial “acts of escape” performed through engaging the imagination are merely the first threshold toward more meaningful forms of freedom. I frame these as the following three intersecting domains: “Acts of unbinding”, which represents the personal liberation afforded by experiences with theatre in prison; “acts of love”, which expresses how the theatre ensemble might represent a “beloved community” (hooks); and “acts of liberation”, which articulates how these experiences of self-and-world creation may ripple out to impact audiences and communities. An aesthetics of liberation in prison theatre can, therefore, be conceived as an embodied movement towards personal and social renewal; an approach that deepens our understanding of its oft-cited humanising potential, and its limits. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Acts of Liberation)
57 pages, 4131 KiB  
Article
The Radically Embodied Conscious Cybernetic Bayesian Brain: From Free Energy to Free Will and Back Again
by Adam Safron
Entropy 2021, 23(6), 783; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060783 - 20 Jun 2021
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 19013
Abstract
Drawing from both enactivist and cognitivist perspectives on mind, I propose that explaining teleological phenomena may require reappraising both “Cartesian theaters” and mental homunculi in terms of embodied self-models (ESMs), understood as body maps with agentic properties, functioning as predictive-memory systems and cybernetic [...] Read more.
Drawing from both enactivist and cognitivist perspectives on mind, I propose that explaining teleological phenomena may require reappraising both “Cartesian theaters” and mental homunculi in terms of embodied self-models (ESMs), understood as body maps with agentic properties, functioning as predictive-memory systems and cybernetic controllers. Quasi-homuncular ESMs are suggested to constitute a major organizing principle for neural architectures due to their initial and ongoing significance for solutions to inference problems in cognitive (and affective) development. Embodied experiences provide foundational lessons in learning curriculums in which agents explore increasingly challenging problem spaces, so answering an unresolved question in Bayesian cognitive science: what are biologically plausible mechanisms for equipping learners with sufficiently powerful inductive biases to adequately constrain inference spaces? Drawing on models from neurophysiology, psychology, and developmental robotics, I describe how embodiment provides fundamental sources of empirical priors (as reliably learnable posterior expectations). If ESMs play this kind of foundational role in cognitive development, then bidirectional linkages will be found between all sensory modalities and frontal-parietal control hierarchies, so infusing all senses with somatic-motoric properties, thereby structuring all perception by relevant affordances, so solving frame problems for embodied agents. Drawing upon the Free Energy Principle and Active Inference framework, I describe a particular mechanism for intentional action selection via consciously imagined (and explicitly represented) goal realization, where contrasts between desired and present states influence ongoing policy selection via predictive coding mechanisms and backward-chained imaginings (as self-realizing predictions). This embodied developmental legacy suggests a mechanism by which imaginings can be intentionally shaped by (internalized) partially-expressed motor acts, so providing means of agentic control for attention, working memory, imagination, and behavior. I further describe the nature(s) of mental causation and self-control, and also provide an account of readiness potentials in Libet paradigms wherein conscious intentions shape causal streams leading to enaction. Finally, I provide neurophenomenological handlings of prototypical qualia including pleasure, pain, and desire in terms of self-annihilating free energy gradients via quasi-synesthetic interoceptive active inference. In brief, this manuscript is intended to illustrate how radically embodied minds may create foundations for intelligence (as capacity for learning and inference), consciousness (as somatically-grounded self-world modeling), and will (as deployment of predictive models for enacting valued goals). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applying the Free-Energy Principle to Complex Adaptive Systems)
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16 pages, 1386 KiB  
Article
At the Intersection of the Social and Physical Environments: Building a Model of the Influence of Caregivers and Peers on Direct Engagement with Nature
by Sarah Little and Art Rice
Geographies 2021, 1(1), 63-78; https://doi.org/10.3390/geographies1010005 - 3 Jun 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4096
Abstract
The movement to reconnect children to nature touts the many benefits associated with exposure to nature and encourages designers and planners of the physical environment to incorporate more nature into the daily lives of children. However, connecting children with nature may not be [...] Read more.
The movement to reconnect children to nature touts the many benefits associated with exposure to nature and encourages designers and planners of the physical environment to incorporate more nature into the daily lives of children. However, connecting children with nature may not be as simple as designing more nature into the physical environment. Variables beyond convenient availability of natural environments affect children’s engagement with nature. Of particular interest is the influence of the social environment. The research seeks to build a model to understand the influence of caregivers and peers on a child’s direct engagement with nature. An initial model of social influences was constructed from existing literature and refined from findings from an original research study, a qualitative investigation exploring the highly imaginative and social experience of a group of boys who played in a neighborhood creek (n = 3, boys, n = 2, parents). The most meaningful social influence on the boys’ direct engagement with nature was the level of autonomy granted by caregivers; however, the physical environment supported the autonomy as well. The autonomy afforded an opportunity to navigate risks, forge long-term friendships, and support higher-order cognitive play behavior. Full article
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27 pages, 508 KiB  
Article
Consequences of Sisyphean Efforts: Meaningless Effort Decreases Motivation to Engage in Subsequent Conservation Behaviors through Disappointment
by Katarzyna Byrka, Katarzyna Cantarero, Dariusz Dolinski and Wijnand Van Tilburg
Sustainability 2021, 13(10), 5716; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105716 - 19 May 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3927
Abstract
This paper explores the consequences of engaging in conservation efforts that later appear purposeless. Specifically, we tested the model in which disappointment lays at the root of decreased motivation in such situations. In Studies 1 and 2, participants (n = 239 and [...] Read more.
This paper explores the consequences of engaging in conservation efforts that later appear purposeless. Specifically, we tested the model in which disappointment lays at the root of decreased motivation in such situations. In Studies 1 and 2, participants (n = 239 and n = 283) imagined that they had recycled plastic bottles for a week and that an assistant had collected their garbage in either separate bags (meaningful condition) or only one bag (meaningless condition). Half of participants imagined that they had put plastic bags and screw caps into separate containers (low-effort condition), the other half imagined that they had torn off the label bands (high-effort condition). In Study 3, a longitudinal field experiment, participants (n = 286) took part in a real situation that followed the procedure from Studies 1 and 2. Altogether, we confirmed the moderating effect of effort on relationship between meaninglessness and motivation through experienced disappointment. We discuss consequences of efforts wasted for beliefs, intentions and behaviors affording sustainable solutions. Full article
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19 pages, 1298 KiB  
Article
Snaking into the Gothic: Serpentine Sensuousness in Lewis and Coleridge
by Jeremy Chow
Humanities 2021, 10(1), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/h10010052 - 15 Mar 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 6285
Abstract
This essay charts the ways late-eighteenth-century Gothic authors repurpose natural histories of snakes to explore how reptile-human encounters are harbingers of queer formations of gender, sexuality, and empire. By looking to M.G. Lewis’s novel The Monk (1796) and his understudied short story “The [...] Read more.
This essay charts the ways late-eighteenth-century Gothic authors repurpose natural histories of snakes to explore how reptile-human encounters are harbingers of queer formations of gender, sexuality, and empire. By looking to M.G. Lewis’s novel The Monk (1796) and his understudied short story “The Anaconda” (1808), as well as S.T. Coleridge’s Christabel (1797–1800), I centre the last five years of the eighteenth century to apprehend the interwoven nature of Gothic prose, poetry, and popular natural histories as they pertain to reptile knowledge and representations. Whereas Lewis’s short story positions the orientalised anaconda to upheave notions of empire, gender, and romance, his novel invokes the snake to signal the effusion of graphic eroticisms. Coleridge, in turn, invokes the snake-human interspecies connection to imagine female, homoerotic possibilities and foreclosures. Plaiting eighteenth-century animal studies, queer studies, and Gothic studies, this essay offers a queer eco-Gothic reading of the violating, erotic powers of snakes in their placement alongside human interlocutors. I thus recalibrate eighteenth-century animal studies to focus not on warm-blooded mammals, but on cold-blooded reptiles and the erotic effusions they afford within the Gothic imaginary that repeatedly conjures them, as I show, with queer interspecies effects. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Queer Culture and Literature in Eighteenth-Century Studies)
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20 pages, 312 KiB  
Article
Embodied Imagination and Metaphor Use in Autism Spectrum Disorder
by Zuzanna Rucińska, Thomas Fondelli and Shaun Gallagher
Healthcare 2021, 9(2), 200; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9020200 - 13 Feb 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 6527
Abstract
This paper discusses different frameworks for understanding imagination and metaphor in the context of research on the imaginative skills of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In contrast to a standard linguistic framework, it advances an embodied and enactive account of imagination and [...] Read more.
This paper discusses different frameworks for understanding imagination and metaphor in the context of research on the imaginative skills of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In contrast to a standard linguistic framework, it advances an embodied and enactive account of imagination and metaphor. The paper describes a case study from a systemic therapeutic session with a child with ASD that makes use of metaphors. It concludes by outlining some theoretical insights into the imaginative skills of children with ASD that follow from taking the embodied-enactive perspective and proposes suggestions for interactive interventions to further enhance imaginative skills and metaphor understanding in children with ASD. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Imagination in Autism)
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