E. J. Capaldi and Robert W. Proctor
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199753628
- eISBN:
- 9780199950027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199753628.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology
There has always been a close association between psychology and the philosophy of science. Although some individuals over the past 200 years have suggested that psychology had little to offer ...
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There has always been a close association between psychology and the philosophy of science. Although some individuals over the past 200 years have suggested that psychology had little to offer philosophy (Kant and Popper), many more have expressed a contrary opinion. The chapter shows that psychology influenced philosophy of science mainly through four areas: perception in the form of psychophysics (on Mach, Peirce, and James) and in the form of Gestalt psychology (on Carnap, Hanson, and Kuhn), animal behavior in the form of behaviorism (on Russell, Bergmann, and the logical positivists), and cognitive psychology (on Popper, Giere, and Thagard). On the basis of the present findings, the conclusion is reached that better understanding of science is considerably dependent on knowing how the mind works, which is an idea as old as the British empiricists and the Würzburg school and as young as contemporary cognitive science.Less
There has always been a close association between psychology and the philosophy of science. Although some individuals over the past 200 years have suggested that psychology had little to offer philosophy (Kant and Popper), many more have expressed a contrary opinion. The chapter shows that psychology influenced philosophy of science mainly through four areas: perception in the form of psychophysics (on Mach, Peirce, and James) and in the form of Gestalt psychology (on Carnap, Hanson, and Kuhn), animal behavior in the form of behaviorism (on Russell, Bergmann, and the logical positivists), and cognitive psychology (on Popper, Giere, and Thagard). On the basis of the present findings, the conclusion is reached that better understanding of science is considerably dependent on knowing how the mind works, which is an idea as old as the British empiricists and the Würzburg school and as young as contemporary cognitive science.
John A. Goldsmith and Bernard Laks
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226550800
- eISBN:
- 9780226550947
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226550947.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter explores the evolution of academic psychology in the first four decades of the twentieth century. In the United States, a style of psychological study that emphasized the ability of ...
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This chapter explores the evolution of academic psychology in the first four decades of the twentieth century. In the United States, a style of psychological study that emphasized the ability of individuals to solve problems in a real context gained adherents who called this functionalism. Another movement, behaviorism, arose partly in response to functionalism, and partly as a reflection of the trend to see science as limited to phenomena that can be measured by any observer and that is also limited, as positivists had proposed, to visible things. At the same time, Gestalt psychology was winning minds among German psychologists, and as Nazism gained ground in Europe, leading Gestalt psychologists were coming to the United States, where they challenged the behaviorism they saw around them in the work of their new American colleagues.Less
This chapter explores the evolution of academic psychology in the first four decades of the twentieth century. In the United States, a style of psychological study that emphasized the ability of individuals to solve problems in a real context gained adherents who called this functionalism. Another movement, behaviorism, arose partly in response to functionalism, and partly as a reflection of the trend to see science as limited to phenomena that can be measured by any observer and that is also limited, as positivists had proposed, to visible things. At the same time, Gestalt psychology was winning minds among German psychologists, and as Nazism gained ground in Europe, leading Gestalt psychologists were coming to the United States, where they challenged the behaviorism they saw around them in the work of their new American colleagues.
Kaira M. Cabañas
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226556284
- eISBN:
- 9780226556314
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226556314.003.0004
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This chapter situates Mário Pedrosa’s early theses on Gestalt in relation to his reception of psychiatric patients’ work, in particular Dr. Nise da Silveira’s patients in Rio de Janeiro. As the ...
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This chapter situates Mário Pedrosa’s early theses on Gestalt in relation to his reception of psychiatric patients’ work, in particular Dr. Nise da Silveira’s patients in Rio de Janeiro. As the leading art critic, Pedrosa’s writing on formal autonomy and aesthetic response was foundational to the understanding of geometric abstraction in the 1950s. The author argues that Pedrosa’s theoretical grappling with patients’ work prompted his turn to Heinz Werner’s theorization of physiognomic expression and perception. In doing so, Pedrosa articulates an understanding of abstract geometry as expressive rather than rational or purely visual. Accordingly, this chapter’s discussion of physiognomic Gestalt displaces the well-established alignment of geometric abstraction, modern rationality, and Brazil’s expanding industrialization in the 1950s. The chapter also demonstrates how patients’ creative expression was not uniformly aligned with a surrealist or art informel aesthetic, as continued to be the case in Western Europe.Less
This chapter situates Mário Pedrosa’s early theses on Gestalt in relation to his reception of psychiatric patients’ work, in particular Dr. Nise da Silveira’s patients in Rio de Janeiro. As the leading art critic, Pedrosa’s writing on formal autonomy and aesthetic response was foundational to the understanding of geometric abstraction in the 1950s. The author argues that Pedrosa’s theoretical grappling with patients’ work prompted his turn to Heinz Werner’s theorization of physiognomic expression and perception. In doing so, Pedrosa articulates an understanding of abstract geometry as expressive rather than rational or purely visual. Accordingly, this chapter’s discussion of physiognomic Gestalt displaces the well-established alignment of geometric abstraction, modern rationality, and Brazil’s expanding industrialization in the 1950s. The chapter also demonstrates how patients’ creative expression was not uniformly aligned with a surrealist or art informel aesthetic, as continued to be the case in Western Europe.
Joaquín M. Fuster
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195300840
- eISBN:
- 9780199863655
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195300840.003.0004
- Subject:
- Neuroscience, Molecular and Cellular Systems
This chapter argues that cortical networks and the knowledge they represent are hierarchically organized in layers by order of complexity or generality of cognitive content. These layers correspond ...
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This chapter argues that cortical networks and the knowledge they represent are hierarchically organized in layers by order of complexity or generality of cognitive content. These layers correspond to cortical stages for the processing and representation of sensory information. Further, the perceptual networks are amply interconnected within and between layers, as well as with the motor networks or cognits of frontal regions. The chapter assembles evidence of an order in the cortical processing of sensory information that corresponds isomorphically to the mental or phenomenal order of perception. The first two sections of the chapter deal with psychological aspects of perception; the last three deal with the mechanisms by which networks of posterior and frontal cortex process sensory information in perception. The limited capacity of sensory systems to process sensory information is the primary reason why selective attention serves the categorizing in one particular sector of perception at the expense of all others. There are two major components of selective attention: inclusion and exclusion. This chapter also discusses gestalt psychology, perceptual binding, and perception-action cycle.Less
This chapter argues that cortical networks and the knowledge they represent are hierarchically organized in layers by order of complexity or generality of cognitive content. These layers correspond to cortical stages for the processing and representation of sensory information. Further, the perceptual networks are amply interconnected within and between layers, as well as with the motor networks or cognits of frontal regions. The chapter assembles evidence of an order in the cortical processing of sensory information that corresponds isomorphically to the mental or phenomenal order of perception. The first two sections of the chapter deal with psychological aspects of perception; the last three deal with the mechanisms by which networks of posterior and frontal cortex process sensory information in perception. The limited capacity of sensory systems to process sensory information is the primary reason why selective attention serves the categorizing in one particular sector of perception at the expense of all others. There are two major components of selective attention: inclusion and exclusion. This chapter also discusses gestalt psychology, perceptual binding, and perception-action cycle.
Carl Stumpf
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695737
- eISBN:
- 9780191742286
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695737.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Music Psychology, Developmental Psychology
This book was first published in German in 1911. The text sets out a path-breaking hypothesis on the earliest musical sounds in human culture. Alongside research in such diverse fields as classical ...
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This book was first published in German in 1911. The text sets out a path-breaking hypothesis on the earliest musical sounds in human culture. Alongside research in such diverse fields as classical philosophy, acoustics, and mathematics, Stumpf became one of the most influential psychologists of the late 19th century. He was the founding father of Gestalt psychology, and collaborated with William James, Edmund Husserl, and Wolfgang Köhler. This book was the culmination of more than twenty-five years of empirical and theoretical research in the field of music. The first part of the book discusses the origin and forms of musical activities as well as various existing theories on the origin of music, including those of Darwin, Rousseau, Herder, and Spencer. The second part summarizes his works on the historical development of instruments and music, and studies a putatively global range of music from non-European cultures to demonstrate the psychological principles of tonal organization, as well as providing a range of cross-cultural musical transcriptions and analyses. This became a foundation document for comparative musicology, the elder sibling to modern Ethnomusicology, and the book provides access to the original recordings Stumpf used in this process. This book is available for the first time in the English language.Less
This book was first published in German in 1911. The text sets out a path-breaking hypothesis on the earliest musical sounds in human culture. Alongside research in such diverse fields as classical philosophy, acoustics, and mathematics, Stumpf became one of the most influential psychologists of the late 19th century. He was the founding father of Gestalt psychology, and collaborated with William James, Edmund Husserl, and Wolfgang Köhler. This book was the culmination of more than twenty-five years of empirical and theoretical research in the field of music. The first part of the book discusses the origin and forms of musical activities as well as various existing theories on the origin of music, including those of Darwin, Rousseau, Herder, and Spencer. The second part summarizes his works on the historical development of instruments and music, and studies a putatively global range of music from non-European cultures to demonstrate the psychological principles of tonal organization, as well as providing a range of cross-cultural musical transcriptions and analyses. This became a foundation document for comparative musicology, the elder sibling to modern Ethnomusicology, and the book provides access to the original recordings Stumpf used in this process. This book is available for the first time in the English language.
James E. Cutting
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780195393705
- eISBN:
- 9780199979271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393705.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
In 1973, Gunnar Johansson launched the systematic study of the perception of the human body in motion. Merging his applied interests in traffic safety and his theoretical interests in vector analysis ...
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In 1973, Gunnar Johansson launched the systematic study of the perception of the human body in motion. Merging his applied interests in traffic safety and his theoretical interests in vector analysis and decomposition, Johansson produced captivating displays of people dancing and doing other ordinary activities, but with the people represented only by lights on their joints. This chapter discusses Johansson’s research and some of my own follow-up on his ideas, serving as background for ideas in this volume.Less
In 1973, Gunnar Johansson launched the systematic study of the perception of the human body in motion. Merging his applied interests in traffic safety and his theoretical interests in vector analysis and decomposition, Johansson produced captivating displays of people dancing and doing other ordinary activities, but with the people represented only by lights on their joints. This chapter discusses Johansson’s research and some of my own follow-up on his ideas, serving as background for ideas in this volume.
K. J. Donnelly
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199773497
- eISBN:
- 9780199358816
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199773497.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, Western
Sound and image are perceived as an utter unity, disavowing the effect’s basis in artifice. This situation has dissuaded much in the way of serious questioning of film as more than simply a visual ...
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Sound and image are perceived as an utter unity, disavowing the effect’s basis in artifice. This situation has dissuaded much in the way of serious questioning of film as more than simply a visual medium. This chapter provides some technological and historical information but also concentrates on outlining aesthetic procedures and addressing the psychology (and neuropsychology) of synchronizing sound and image. It argues that a Gestalt-inspired approach provides more insight into the unity of sound and image into an illusory whole, and as such is more useful than the cognitive psychology-inspired framework that dominates the study of film. So, rather than deal with the process through a notion of atomized packages of information processed by a separated ‘Descartian’ mind, the book adopts an interest in physical perception as the central reality of interface between the film as audiovisual object and the audience.Less
Sound and image are perceived as an utter unity, disavowing the effect’s basis in artifice. This situation has dissuaded much in the way of serious questioning of film as more than simply a visual medium. This chapter provides some technological and historical information but also concentrates on outlining aesthetic procedures and addressing the psychology (and neuropsychology) of synchronizing sound and image. It argues that a Gestalt-inspired approach provides more insight into the unity of sound and image into an illusory whole, and as such is more useful than the cognitive psychology-inspired framework that dominates the study of film. So, rather than deal with the process through a notion of atomized packages of information processed by a separated ‘Descartian’ mind, the book adopts an interest in physical perception as the central reality of interface between the film as audiovisual object and the audience.
Alan Baddeley
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199228768
- eISBN:
- 9780191696336
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199228768.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This chapter is concerned with developments in psychology in the 1950s. It suggests that this period witnessed the demise of Gestalt psychology, a distinctive approach to experimental psychology, ...
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This chapter is concerned with developments in psychology in the 1950s. It suggests that this period witnessed the demise of Gestalt psychology, a distinctive approach to experimental psychology, strongly influenced by the Gestalt principles of perception. During this period, in universities the influence of behaviourism was very strong and the major focus of most psychology courses were theories of learning. Another significant development came through the information processing approach to the study of human cognition, which reflected a number of separate but related sources. These include communication theory and the attempt by Claude Shannon to measure the flow of information through an electronic communication channel in terms of the capacity of a message to reduce uncertainty.Less
This chapter is concerned with developments in psychology in the 1950s. It suggests that this period witnessed the demise of Gestalt psychology, a distinctive approach to experimental psychology, strongly influenced by the Gestalt principles of perception. During this period, in universities the influence of behaviourism was very strong and the major focus of most psychology courses were theories of learning. Another significant development came through the information processing approach to the study of human cognition, which reflected a number of separate but related sources. These include communication theory and the attempt by Claude Shannon to measure the flow of information through an electronic communication channel in terms of the capacity of a message to reduce uncertainty.
David Bates
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226720807
- eISBN:
- 9780226720838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226720838.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter questions the underlying assumptions of both classic Artificial Intelligence, founded in the analogy between the brain and the digital computer, and the newer tradition that construes ...
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This chapter questions the underlying assumptions of both classic Artificial Intelligence, founded in the analogy between the brain and the digital computer, and the newer tradition that construes the mind as an emergent property of interacting, distributed, parallel processes. It specifically explores Gestalt psychology and its brief engagement with cybernetics to suggest that was perhaps a missed opportunitt, and additionally examines John von Neumann's influential automata theory. The structure of insight helped explain the complex, nonmechanical behavior of living, acting organisms. For von Neumann, the creative plasticity of the nervous system served only to highlight the rather simplistic, and inferior, mechanical structure of the early computers, something he was of course well positioned to notice. His terse conclusion was that the logical structures involved in nervous system activity must “differ considerably” from the ones that are familiar in logic and mathematics.Less
This chapter questions the underlying assumptions of both classic Artificial Intelligence, founded in the analogy between the brain and the digital computer, and the newer tradition that construes the mind as an emergent property of interacting, distributed, parallel processes. It specifically explores Gestalt psychology and its brief engagement with cybernetics to suggest that was perhaps a missed opportunitt, and additionally examines John von Neumann's influential automata theory. The structure of insight helped explain the complex, nonmechanical behavior of living, acting organisms. For von Neumann, the creative plasticity of the nervous system served only to highlight the rather simplistic, and inferior, mechanical structure of the early computers, something he was of course well positioned to notice. His terse conclusion was that the logical structures involved in nervous system activity must “differ considerably” from the ones that are familiar in logic and mathematics.
Giorgio Vallortigara
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195377804
- eISBN:
- 9780199848461
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377804.003.0004
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
The cognitive abilities of species outside of mammalian classes may prove useful and insightful to the study of animal intelligence. In Europe, ...
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The cognitive abilities of species outside of mammalian classes may prove useful and insightful to the study of animal intelligence. In Europe, particularly within the tradition of Gestalt psychology or in the work of zoologists somewhat influenced by the Gestalt tradition, studies of the intelligence of birds and fish (and even nonvertebrate species such as insects) have been quite common. After World War II, the Gestalt research tradition largely disappeared and the remaining followers of Gestalt psychology (concentrated in a few universities in Germany, the northeast of Italy, and Japan) concerned themselves mainly with studies of human visual perception. In this chapter, the author describes some of the work that he has carried out with his collaborators in the past 15 years on cognition in nonmammalian species (mainly the domestic chicken) and addresses issues that were largely inspired by the European Gestalt tradition, rather than by the psychology of animal learning, which has provided the typical background of most contemporary comparative psychology.Less
The cognitive abilities of species outside of mammalian classes may prove useful and insightful to the study of animal intelligence. In Europe, particularly within the tradition of Gestalt psychology or in the work of zoologists somewhat influenced by the Gestalt tradition, studies of the intelligence of birds and fish (and even nonvertebrate species such as insects) have been quite common. After World War II, the Gestalt research tradition largely disappeared and the remaining followers of Gestalt psychology (concentrated in a few universities in Germany, the northeast of Italy, and Japan) concerned themselves mainly with studies of human visual perception. In this chapter, the author describes some of the work that he has carried out with his collaborators in the past 15 years on cognition in nonmammalian species (mainly the domestic chicken) and addresses issues that were largely inspired by the European Gestalt tradition, rather than by the psychology of animal learning, which has provided the typical background of most contemporary comparative psychology.
Mary A. Peterson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195313659
- eISBN:
- 9780199848058
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195313659.003.0011
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This chapter summarizes research showing that object memories can exert an influence on figure assignment. It supposes that these object-memory effects arise from matches between partial ...
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This chapter summarizes research showing that object memories can exert an influence on figure assignment. It supposes that these object-memory effects arise from matches between partial configurations in object memory and portions of borders rather than whole continuous borders (or whole regions). The proposed partial configurations code boundary features and their spatial relationships; hence they code configural information conjunctively. It supposes that known objects are represented by a number of overlapping partial configurations within posterior regions of the ventral pathway. It also presents evidence suggesting that different portions of the continuous border of a region of uniform texture, color, and luminance can be matched to different object memories before figure assignment is completed.Less
This chapter summarizes research showing that object memories can exert an influence on figure assignment. It supposes that these object-memory effects arise from matches between partial configurations in object memory and portions of borders rather than whole continuous borders (or whole regions). The proposed partial configurations code boundary features and their spatial relationships; hence they code configural information conjunctively. It supposes that known objects are represented by a number of overlapping partial configurations within posterior regions of the ventral pathway. It also presents evidence suggesting that different portions of the continuous border of a region of uniform texture, color, and luminance can be matched to different object memories before figure assignment is completed.
Derek Robbins
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780719099397
- eISBN:
- 9781526146755
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526127709.00009
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
This chapter offers a brief outline of Gurwitsch’s career in the first half of his life, in Germany until 1932 and in France between 1932 and 1938. It then considers in detail the texts, published ...
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This chapter offers a brief outline of Gurwitsch’s career in the first half of his life, in Germany until 1932 and in France between 1932 and 1938. It then considers in detail the texts, published and unpublished at the time, which he produced in this period. It provides detailed analysis of his doctoral and Habilitation theses and of the texts which he produced in the period when he was mentor to Merleau-Ponty. It concludes with a summary of the correlations between these social and intellectual trajectories.Less
This chapter offers a brief outline of Gurwitsch’s career in the first half of his life, in Germany until 1932 and in France between 1932 and 1938. It then considers in detail the texts, published and unpublished at the time, which he produced in this period. It provides detailed analysis of his doctoral and Habilitation theses and of the texts which he produced in the period when he was mentor to Merleau-Ponty. It concludes with a summary of the correlations between these social and intellectual trajectories.
Ryan Pierson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190949754
- eISBN:
- 9780190949792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter examines the use of walk cycles in animation practice. Walk cycles—frames of characters’ actions that can be repeated in loops—have been important in animation not only for portraying ...
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This chapter examines the use of walk cycles in animation practice. Walk cycles—frames of characters’ actions that can be repeated in loops—have been important in animation not only for portraying coordinations of moving parts to convey lifelike movement but also for saving labor. However, if a cycle is noticed by the viewer, the figure’s movement will appear imposed and not self-directed, leaving the figure lifeless. Through a study of Norman McLaren and Grant Munro’s film Canon (1964), this chapter further argues that cycles can be layered to create a living, open system of cyclical parts.Less
This chapter examines the use of walk cycles in animation practice. Walk cycles—frames of characters’ actions that can be repeated in loops—have been important in animation not only for portraying coordinations of moving parts to convey lifelike movement but also for saving labor. However, if a cycle is noticed by the viewer, the figure’s movement will appear imposed and not self-directed, leaving the figure lifeless. Through a study of Norman McLaren and Grant Munro’s film Canon (1964), this chapter further argues that cycles can be layered to create a living, open system of cyclical parts.
Ryan Pierson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190949754
- eISBN:
- 9780190949792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter examines the use of perspectival movement (or camera movement) in animation practice. In particular, it argues that the ambiguity of the out-of-field space that perspectival movement ...
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This chapter examines the use of perspectival movement (or camera movement) in animation practice. In particular, it argues that the ambiguity of the out-of-field space that perspectival movement creates entails a suppression of another kind of ambiguity: the graphic ambiguity of marks on a surface. Thus, much of the history of animated space can be seen as a history of trade-offs between the possibilities of camera movement and those of graphic metamorphoses. However, two films—Norman McLaren’s Blinkity Blank (1955) and Caroline Leaf’s The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (1977)—manage to combine these possibilities, creating spaces that seem to transform themselves as the camera moves through them.Less
This chapter examines the use of perspectival movement (or camera movement) in animation practice. In particular, it argues that the ambiguity of the out-of-field space that perspectival movement creates entails a suppression of another kind of ambiguity: the graphic ambiguity of marks on a surface. Thus, much of the history of animated space can be seen as a history of trade-offs between the possibilities of camera movement and those of graphic metamorphoses. However, two films—Norman McLaren’s Blinkity Blank (1955) and Caroline Leaf’s The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (1977)—manage to combine these possibilities, creating spaces that seem to transform themselves as the camera moves through them.
George F. Flaherty
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520291065
- eISBN:
- 9780520964938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520291065.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
Mexico’s successful bid to host 1968 Olympics necessitated the management of the country’s holistic and cohesive modern image for the worldwide audiences. Chapter 3 analyses the integration and ...
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Mexico’s successful bid to host 1968 Olympics necessitated the management of the country’s holistic and cohesive modern image for the worldwide audiences. Chapter 3 analyses the integration and mobilization of various design disciplines—especially built environment and visual communications—to produce and convey such an image. Focusing on the immersive participatory street environments designed for the Games, the chapter examines work of planner-architect Eduardo Terrazas, head of the urban design for the Mexican Olympic organizing committee—and compares them to the ideas promoted by the neo-avant-garde kinetic artists. It thus shows the seemingly neutral notions such as interdisciplinary collaboration, Gestalt psychology, and cybernetic responsiveness engender also frameworks of hierarchy, management, and the cult of expertise. The analysis demonstrates kinetic environments and technologies to be inherently open-ended and unstable, clearing space for the interventions of 68 Movement.Less
Mexico’s successful bid to host 1968 Olympics necessitated the management of the country’s holistic and cohesive modern image for the worldwide audiences. Chapter 3 analyses the integration and mobilization of various design disciplines—especially built environment and visual communications—to produce and convey such an image. Focusing on the immersive participatory street environments designed for the Games, the chapter examines work of planner-architect Eduardo Terrazas, head of the urban design for the Mexican Olympic organizing committee—and compares them to the ideas promoted by the neo-avant-garde kinetic artists. It thus shows the seemingly neutral notions such as interdisciplinary collaboration, Gestalt psychology, and cybernetic responsiveness engender also frameworks of hierarchy, management, and the cult of expertise. The analysis demonstrates kinetic environments and technologies to be inherently open-ended and unstable, clearing space for the interventions of 68 Movement.
Ryan Pierson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190949754
- eISBN:
- 9780190949792
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190949754.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
How can movements in animated films be described? Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics introduces a powerful new method for the study of animation. By looking for figures—arrangements that seem ...
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How can movements in animated films be described? Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics introduces a powerful new method for the study of animation. By looking for figures—arrangements that seem to intuitively hold together—and forces—underlying units of attraction, repulsion, and direction—it reveals startling new possibilities for animation criticism, history, and theory. Drawing on concepts from Gestalt psychology, the book offers a wide-ranging comparative study of four animation techniques—soft-edged forms, walk cycles, camera movement, and rotoscoping—as they appear in commercial, artisanal, and avant-garde works. In the process, through close readings of little-analyzed films, the book demonstrates that figures and forces make fertile resources for theoretical speculation, unearthing affinities between animation practice and such topics as the philosophy of mathematics, scientific and political revolution, and love. Beginning and ending with the imperative to “look closely,” Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics is a performance in seeing the world of motion anew.Less
How can movements in animated films be described? Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics introduces a powerful new method for the study of animation. By looking for figures—arrangements that seem to intuitively hold together—and forces—underlying units of attraction, repulsion, and direction—it reveals startling new possibilities for animation criticism, history, and theory. Drawing on concepts from Gestalt psychology, the book offers a wide-ranging comparative study of four animation techniques—soft-edged forms, walk cycles, camera movement, and rotoscoping—as they appear in commercial, artisanal, and avant-garde works. In the process, through close readings of little-analyzed films, the book demonstrates that figures and forces make fertile resources for theoretical speculation, unearthing affinities between animation practice and such topics as the philosophy of mathematics, scientific and political revolution, and love. Beginning and ending with the imperative to “look closely,” Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics is a performance in seeing the world of motion anew.
Laura Otis
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190213466
- eISBN:
- 9780190271701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190213466.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
To show how much people vary in their relationships with verbal language, this chapter portrays the mental worlds of translator Michael Holquist, complex systems scholar David Krakauer, geoscientist ...
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To show how much people vary in their relationships with verbal language, this chapter portrays the mental worlds of translator Michael Holquist, complex systems scholar David Krakauer, geoscientist Lynn Margulis, and life scientist Jeff Martin. Holquist and Martin experience language as a medium that makes thinking possible, and they don’t believe that their ideas have fully emerged until they can be expressed in words. Krakauer and Margulis, in contrast, find that verbal language hinders profound, innovative thought. Interwoven with these four individuals’ insights is a brief history of 20th-century research on the relationship between verbal language and thought. The four participants’ insights engage the findings of Würzburg School psychologists, behaviorists, Gestalt psychologists, L. S. Vygotsky, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Benjamin Lee Whorf, and Noam Chomsky. Close analysis of these scientists and philosophers’ work reveals how often scholars’ personal experiences with verbal language and visual mental imagery have shaped their theories of thought.Less
To show how much people vary in their relationships with verbal language, this chapter portrays the mental worlds of translator Michael Holquist, complex systems scholar David Krakauer, geoscientist Lynn Margulis, and life scientist Jeff Martin. Holquist and Martin experience language as a medium that makes thinking possible, and they don’t believe that their ideas have fully emerged until they can be expressed in words. Krakauer and Margulis, in contrast, find that verbal language hinders profound, innovative thought. Interwoven with these four individuals’ insights is a brief history of 20th-century research on the relationship between verbal language and thought. The four participants’ insights engage the findings of Würzburg School psychologists, behaviorists, Gestalt psychologists, L. S. Vygotsky, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Benjamin Lee Whorf, and Noam Chomsky. Close analysis of these scientists and philosophers’ work reveals how often scholars’ personal experiences with verbal language and visual mental imagery have shaped their theories of thought.
Peter H. Schiller and Edward J. Tehovnik
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199936533
- eISBN:
- 9780190258054
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199936533.003.0013
- Subject:
- Psychology, Vision
This chapter has seven subdivisions. Section A delineates the major theories that have been formulated about how living organisms process pattern and shape information. Section B describes ...
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This chapter has seven subdivisions. Section A delineates the major theories that have been formulated about how living organisms process pattern and shape information. Section B describes neurophysiological research that has been carried out studying the temporal lobe, an area which plays a major role in pattern and shape perception. Section C considers how we process subjective contours. Section D examines how selective cortical lesions affect pattern and shape perception. Section E deals with transposition, invariance, and figure/ground effects in visual perception. Section F examines the nature of short-term temporal interactions in pattern perception that includes visual masking and metacontrast. Section G provides a summary for the chapter.Less
This chapter has seven subdivisions. Section A delineates the major theories that have been formulated about how living organisms process pattern and shape information. Section B describes neurophysiological research that has been carried out studying the temporal lobe, an area which plays a major role in pattern and shape perception. Section C considers how we process subjective contours. Section D examines how selective cortical lesions affect pattern and shape perception. Section E deals with transposition, invariance, and figure/ground effects in visual perception. Section F examines the nature of short-term temporal interactions in pattern perception that includes visual masking and metacontrast. Section G provides a summary for the chapter.
Derek Robbins
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780719099397
- eISBN:
- 9781526146755
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526127709
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
In two parts, the book examines, first, the attempts of three thinkers of the first half of the twentieth century to reconcile, in different socio-cultural contexts, the legacy of idealist philosophy ...
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In two parts, the book examines, first, the attempts of three thinkers of the first half of the twentieth century to reconcile, in different socio-cultural contexts, the legacy of idealist philosophy with the claims of empirical social science, and, secondly, the trajectory of Bourdieu’s career in France from philosophy student to sociological researcher to political activist. It traces a progression from thought to action, but an emphasis on action informed by thought. It poses the question whether Bourdieu’s attempted integration of intellectualism and empiricism correlated with his particular socio-historical situation or whether it offers a global paradigm for advancing inter-cultural understanding. The book is of interest in confronting the question whether socio-political organization is best understood by social scientists or by participants in society, by experts or by the populace. It will stimulate general consideration of the relevance of a sociological perspective in everyday life and how much that perspective should be dependent on inherited concepts. Part I analyses the work of Alfred Schutz, Aron Gurwitsch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Part II that of Pierre Bourdieu. The book is methodologically meticulous in situating these works socio-historically. It provides an introduction to some ideas in social philosophy and shows how these ideas became instrumental in generating a theory of practice. The book is aimed at post-graduate students and staff in all disciplines in the Humanities, and Human and Social sciences, but, more generally, it should interest all academics concerned about the contemporary social function of intellectuals.Less
In two parts, the book examines, first, the attempts of three thinkers of the first half of the twentieth century to reconcile, in different socio-cultural contexts, the legacy of idealist philosophy with the claims of empirical social science, and, secondly, the trajectory of Bourdieu’s career in France from philosophy student to sociological researcher to political activist. It traces a progression from thought to action, but an emphasis on action informed by thought. It poses the question whether Bourdieu’s attempted integration of intellectualism and empiricism correlated with his particular socio-historical situation or whether it offers a global paradigm for advancing inter-cultural understanding. The book is of interest in confronting the question whether socio-political organization is best understood by social scientists or by participants in society, by experts or by the populace. It will stimulate general consideration of the relevance of a sociological perspective in everyday life and how much that perspective should be dependent on inherited concepts. Part I analyses the work of Alfred Schutz, Aron Gurwitsch and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Part II that of Pierre Bourdieu. The book is methodologically meticulous in situating these works socio-historically. It provides an introduction to some ideas in social philosophy and shows how these ideas became instrumental in generating a theory of practice. The book is aimed at post-graduate students and staff in all disciplines in the Humanities, and Human and Social sciences, but, more generally, it should interest all academics concerned about the contemporary social function of intellectuals.
Ryan Pierson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190949754
- eISBN:
- 9780190949792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190949754.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter examines the use of soft edges in animation practice. Unlike hard-edged forms, such as the contour-based characters found in studio cartoons, figures with patchy forms often appear to ...
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This chapter examines the use of soft edges in animation practice. Unlike hard-edged forms, such as the contour-based characters found in studio cartoons, figures with patchy forms often appear to not hold together strongly. Consequently, when these forms change shape, their metamorphoses appear passive, coming from without—as opposed to the active, self-directed metamorphoses of cartoon figures. Through a history of cloudy forms in animation, focusing especially on Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker’s 1933 short film Night on Bald Mountain, this chapter argues that soft-edged forms provoke a special kind of engagement called “exposure,” which makes concrete our vulnerability to the world of forces that undergirds us.Less
This chapter examines the use of soft edges in animation practice. Unlike hard-edged forms, such as the contour-based characters found in studio cartoons, figures with patchy forms often appear to not hold together strongly. Consequently, when these forms change shape, their metamorphoses appear passive, coming from without—as opposed to the active, self-directed metamorphoses of cartoon figures. Through a history of cloudy forms in animation, focusing especially on Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker’s 1933 short film Night on Bald Mountain, this chapter argues that soft-edged forms provoke a special kind of engagement called “exposure,” which makes concrete our vulnerability to the world of forces that undergirds us.
