...the generalization involved in literary interpretation operates differently from scientific generalization: while science tends to abstract from particular instances of a phenomenon in order to ...subsume them under a general law or pattern, interpretation retains what I'd like to call-borrowing a term from Gestalt psychology-a figure-ground structure.6 A precondition of interpretation is that, for a text or artifact to take on meaning (the "figure"), it must be positioned vis-à-vis a given aspect of the interpreter's worldview (the "ground"). No doubt, the functional approach to the cognitive study of literature can offer important tools for this task: for example, it seems reasonable to think that the social and psychological effects of reading literary texts are heightened by actively reflecting on them in interpretive practices such as classroom discussion or essay writing.51 Even cognitive science can indirectly benefit from this reflection, as I have argued in the last part of this article.
After establishing its roots in basic forms of sensorimotor coupling between an organism and its environment, the new wave in cognitive science known as “enactivism” has turned to higher-level ...cognition, in an attempt to prove that even socioculturally mediated meaning-making processes can be accounted for in enactivist terms. My article tries to bolster this case by focusing on how the production and interpretation of stories can shape the value landscape of those who engage with them. First, it builds on the idea that narrative plays a key role in expressing the values held by a society, in order to argue that the interpretation of stories cannot be understood in abstraction from the background of storytelling in which we are always already involved. Second, it presents interpretation as an example of what Di Paolo et al. (
2010
) have called in their recent enactivist manifesto a “joint process of sensemaking”: just like in face-to-face interaction, the recipient of the story collaborates with the authorial point of view, generating meaning. Third, it traces the meaning brought into the world by interpretation to the activation and, potentially, the restructuring of the background of the recipients of the story.
The notion of aesthetic illusion relates to a number of art forms and media. Defined as a pleasurable mental state that emerges during the reception of texts and artefacts, it amounts to the reader’s ...or viewer’s sense of having entered the represented world while at the same time keeping a distance from it. Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and the Arts is an in-depth study of the main questions surrounding this experience of art as reality. Beginning with an introduction providing historical background to modern discussions of illusion, it deals with a wide range of theoretical issues. The collection explores the nature and function of the aesthetic illusion as well as the role of affect and emotion, the implications of aesthetic illusion for the theory of fiction, the variable forms of aesthetic illusion and its relationship to other components of aesthetic response. Aesthetic Illusion in Literature and the Arts brings together a team of scholars from philosophy, literature and art and presents an interdisciplinary examination of a concept lying at the heart of contemporary aesthetics.
Preliminary Moves What does it mean to take a "second-generation" approach to the cognitive study of literature? Since this label can easily lend itself to misunderstandings, we want to make clear ...that "second-generation" refers to a specific strand in contemporary cognitive science, one foregrounding the embodiment of mental processes and their extension into the world through material artifacts and socio-cultural practices. ...the essays in this collection investigate-and, in some cases, problematize- connections between textual cues and psychological phenomena such as readers' understanding of fictional minds (Bernaerts), immersion and plot predictions (Kukkonen), mental imagery (Kuzmicová), interpretive readings (Caracciolo, Troscianko), and audiences' understanding of camera movement (Miiller).
Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2-i) are a novel class of oral hypoglycaemic agents currently used among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The effects of SGLT2-i ...inhibitors on cardiac structure and function are not fully understood. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the echocardiographic changing among patients with well-controlled TDM2 treated with SGLT2-i in real-world setting. 35 well-controlled T2DM patients (65± 9 years, 43.7% male) with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction and 35 age and sex-matched controls were included. T2DM patients underwent clinical and laboratory evaluation; 12-lead surface electrocardiogram (ECG); 2-dimensional color Doppler echocardiography at enrolment, before SGLT2-i administration, and at six months follow-up after an uninterrupted 10 mg once daily of Empagliflozin (n: 21) or Dapagliflozin (n: 14). Standard echocardiographic measurements, LV global longitudinal strain (LV-GLS), global wasted work (GWW) and global work efficiency (GWE) were calculated. T2DM patients showed higher E\E' ratio (8.3± 2.5 vs. 6.3± 0.9; p< 0.0001) and lower LV-GLS (15.8 ± 8.1 vs. 22.1± 1.4%; P<0.0001) and global myocardial work efficiency (91± 4 vs 94± 3%; P: 0.0007) compared to age and sex-matched controls. At six-months follow-up, T2DM patients showed a significant increase in LVEF (58.9± 3.2 vs 62± 3.2; p<0.0001), LV-GLS (16.2± 2.8 vs 18.7± 2.4%; p=0.003) and GWE (90.3± 3.5 vs 93.3± 3.2%; P= 0.0004) values; conversely, GWW values (161.2± 33.6 vs 112.72± 37.3 mmHg%; P<0.0001) significantly decreased. Well-controlled TDM2 patients with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction who are treated with a SGLT2-i on top of the guidelines direct medical therapy showed a favourable cardiac remodelling, characterized by the improvement of LV-GLS and MWE.
MURKY MERCY CARACCIOLO, MARCO
College literature,
10/2017, Volume:
44, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This article explores the complex perspectival play underlying readers' engagement with Isserley, the alien protagonist of Michel Faber's 2000 novel Under the Skin. I focus on three dimensions: ...first, the novel destabilizes readers' conception of the human, asking them to move between their anthropocentric assumptions and Isserley's "alien" point of view; second, it exposes the constraints that language and concepts pose on intersubjective interaction, showing any form of "mercy" to be fundamentally "murky" (to quote one of the novel's pivotal scenes); third, it calls attention to the strangeness of consciousness itself in a universe dominated by brute matter and strict physical laws. The result of these interrogations is a sophisticated novel that demonstrates literature's power to probe what Cora Diamond has called the "difficulty of reality."
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