Fictitious Experiences Research Articles

Truths and Lies in a TV Series About “Dostoevsky Beyond the Textbook”

The paper offers a detailed analysis of Dostoevsky, a historical and biographical feature TV serial (in eight episodes), produced in 2011, when the writer’s 190th anniversary was celebrated. The film was directed by V. I. Khotinenko, the script was written by E. Ya. Volodarsky. The authors of the series claimed that their objective was to create an image of “Dostoevsky beyond the textbook”, wholly (or largely) unknown to today’s audience. But the authors did not explain what they meant by “Dostoevsky beyond the textbook”, nor, for that matter, by the “textbook” version. Professional expertise had found numerous gross distortions of both Dostoevsky’s biography and Russian history in the script. Nevertheless, after certain corrections by the film director, the flawed script was accepted as the basis for the series, which, in the end, proved to be as flawed. The objective of the film, as defined by the director, was to show the “human dimension” Dostoevsky, was realized in a very peculiar manner: for the sake of pseudo-dramatization, the writers’ real experiences in the fatal moments of his life were replaced with fictitious experiences; many events, well known and well documented, were deliberately misrepresented. For the film director, Dostoevsky was chiefly interesting as a person burdened with many vices, whose biography had been full of extraordinary striking episodes. The film director, by his arbitrary will, ascribed to Dostoevsky the desires, passions and actions of some of his fictional characters; this dubious, though frequently employed, technique has been readily utilized in the series. Numerous erotic episodes were supposed to demonstrate to today’s audience that nothing human was alien to Dostoevsky. His literary activity, his public readings (which he liked so much) were presented as bait used to lure the victims of his male lust. The series showed, as it were, that the writer had rehearsed, in his private space, the would-be crimes of his characters. The real, wellknown, Dostoevsky has remained outside the series. Viewers will not find his work on the novel The Possessed, the creative history of The Brothers Karamazov, the inauguration of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow, Dostoevsky’s Pushkin speech, his dramatic relations with Pobedonostsev, his friendship with S. A. Tolstaya (the widow of Alexei K. Tolstoy), the severe illness of his last days, his death, or his funeral, unprecedented in Russia.

Horrific Heroine

Horrific Heroine Danielle A. Orozco (bio) My Favorite Things is Monsters, Book One Emil Ferris Fantagraphics www.fantagraphics.com 386 Pages; Print, $39.99 In a wondrous, cascade of black-and-white cross hatching and colored pencil art, monsters who are real and imagined come to life in Emil Ferris's graphic novel My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book One. With an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and as a Toby Devan Lew Fellow in the visual arts, Ferris has been the recipient of critical acclaim for her illuminating work. Her graphic novel is a coming-of-age story that centers around the fictitious experiences of ten-year-old Karen Reyes—the novel's primary narrator—and her family in Chicago during the late 1960s. Fashioned as a diary against lined paper, the graphic novel explores family tensions, sexual awakenings, unlikely friendships, and horrific histories. Ferris' work also reflects the tumult and hysteria of the mid-twentieth century while appealing to those readers who are seeking something peculiar, adventurous, and frightening—yet moving—in its narrative. Obsessed with B-horror comics and late-night creep-shows on television, Karen imagines her transformation from an ordinary girl into a powerful were-creature and slinks around the streets of her neighborhood. She idolizes her older brother, Deeze (short for Diego Zapata Reyes) and [End Page 9] is befuddled by the superstitions of her fastidious mother, Marvela "Mama" Reyes. In a family where she is half-Mexican and her mother has indigenous ancestral roots, Karen explores not only her racial identity but her gender and sexual expression. Struggling to connect with her classmates, she decides to investigate the murder of her beautiful yet elusive neighbor Anka Silverberg, a survivor of the Holocaust. In her pursuit of answers, she dons her older brother's trench coat and a dapper hat to get to the bottom of the murder mystery. What she finds along the way is truth stranger than fiction. My Favorite Thing is Monsters begins with Karen's metamorphosis as she dreams the people of her town have taken up arms against her in a mob (otherwise known as Mean, Ordinary, and Boring people). She awakens and considers that even if these ordinary townsfolk insist monsters aren't real, monsters can still exist in everyday circumstances. Unfortunately, Karen knows these monsters all too well as she faces repulsion from her classmates, who alienate and other her through their insidious remarks and taunts. She also pines for the validation and love of her best friend, Missy, who has chosen to hang out with the more popular girls of their school. In the meantime, she befriends a hungry girl called Sandy—a ghostly figure who resembles skin and bones—and a queer young man named Franklin who looks like Frankstein's monster because of his facial scars. Yet, Karen finds the most solace in her brother Deeze, as he whisks her away to art museums and buys her the newest horror comics. She also learns about sex and relationships through his dalliances with women around the neighborhood. Yet, Deeze spends the majority of the novel grieving over his illicit love affair to the dearly departed Anka. Turning away from the horrific vitriol of her classmates, Karen plunges into the opaque and mysterious circumstances surrounding Anka's death. Acquiring a series of personal tape recordings by Anka's late husband, she hears the story of Anka's life and discovers that she was raised in a brothel and sold into sex slavery. As a young Jewish girl in Berlin from the early 1920s to the late 1930s, she experienced sexual assault, rape, and the deaths of those about whom she cared deeply. Although she was almost sacrificed in a secret ritual by a dangerous cult, she escaped and found refuge with a previous client, Herr Schutz. After a torrid relationship with him, she was cast out from his estate and hurled into a world filled with chaos. Remembering the horrors of the holocaust, Anka describes her grueling trip to the concentration camps. Her story is one of violence and tragedy—a narrative that reveals the marginalization of women...

Episodic future thinking and future-based decision-making in a case of retrograde amnesia

We investigated episodic future thinking (EFT) and future-based cognition and decision-making in patient SG, who developed a dense retrograde amnesia following hypoxia due to a cardiac arrest. Despite intact general cognitive and executive functioning, SG was unable to remember events from his entire lifetime. He had, however, relatively spared anterograde memory and general semantic knowledge. Voxel-based morphometry detected a reduction of gray matter in the thalamus, cerebellum and fusiform gyrus bilaterally, and, at a reduced threshold, in several regions of the autobiographical memory network, including the hippocampi. We show that SG is unable to imagine personal future events, but can imagine fictitious events not self-relevant and not located in subjective time. Despite severely impaired EFT, SG shows normal attitudes towards the future time, and normal delay discounting rates. These findings suggest that retrieval of autobiographical information from long-term memory is necessary for EFT. However, relatively spared anterograde memory and general semantic knowledge may be sufficient to allow construction of fictitious experiences. As well, EFT is not necessary to drive future-oriented cognition and choice. These findings highlight the relation between autobiographical memory and EFT, and the fractionation of human temporal consciousness. Moreover, they contribute to our understanding of retrograde amnesia as an impairment of memory as well as future thinking.

ABSURDITAS DALAM DRAMA LES MOUCHES KARYA JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

This study is an attempt to assess absurdity in Les Mouches as a concept of pessimistic humanism. Regarding the issues expressed through the work may be understood on the humanism perspective, then, the aims to be achieved through this research is the understanding of the humanity issues, which have a great extent of possibilities expressed through the literary work. The drama play of Les Mouches is actually the manifestation of the problems of the human life, which deal with many possibilities as well. As a text, Les Mouches is a structure that arranges its constituent elements to create meaning. And within its function, Les Mouches, as a social and cultural phenomenon, is a communication act. This means that a literary work is a sign, and through this sign the literary work may be the expression thrusting concrete and fictitious experiences of the entire human life.

Stuck in the here and now: Construction of fictitious and future experiences following ventromedial prefrontal damage

There is increasing interest in uncovering the cognitive and neural bases of episodic future thinking (EFT), the ability to imagine events relevant to one's own future. Recent functional neuroimaging evidence shows that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is engaged during EFT. However, vmPFC is also activated during imagination of fictitious, atemporal experiences. Therefore, its role in EFT is currently unclear. To test (1) whether vmPFC is critical for EFT, and (2) whether it supports EFT specifically, or, rather, construction of any complex experience, patients with focal lesions to vmPFC (vmPFC patients), control patients with lesions not involving vmPFC, and healthy controls were asked to imagine personal future experiences and fictitious experiences. Compared to the control groups, vmPFC patients were impaired at imagining both future and fictitious experiences, indicating a general deficit in constructing novel experiences. Unlike the control groups, however, vmPFC patients had more difficulties in imagining future compared to fictitious experiences. Exploratory correlation analyses showed that general construction deficits correlated with lesion volume in BA 11, whereas specific EFT deficits correlated with lesion volume in BA 32 and BA 10. Together, these findings indicate that vmPFC is crucial for EFT. We propose, however, that different vmPFC subregions may support different component processes of EFT: the most ventral part, BA 11, may underlie core constructive processes needed to imagine any complex experience (e.g., scene construction), whereas BA 10 and BA 32 may mediate simulation of those specific experiences that likely await us in the future.

Study on the Texture of Materials in Stop Motion

Stop motion is an animation form full of amusement, in todays animation industry we have profound 2D and 3D works been produced which lead the audience to an motion fatigue on these fictitious experiences, they tend to watch more vivid and authentic stop motion, why audiences are deeply attracted by characters made of various materials? And why stop motion can express a strong sense of authenticity? This essay will demonstrate the features of materials through the study on the texture and unfold the beauty of this material expression.

Using timelines as part of recovery‐focused practice in psychosis

The value of timelines is discussed with regard to the promotion of recovery, particularly emphasizing relapse signature and concordance in medicine-taking. Recovery approaches in contemporary mental health care rely on understanding motivations, aspirations and decision making. In the authors' experience timelines are a useful way of working together with people to make sense of experiences, of which they may only have partial or intermittent awareness. The mental health workers' philosophical approach, the tools available to them and their skills and attributes, shape the therapeutic relationship. Timelines are a useful tool in helping reach the kind of joint understanding within a therapeutic relationship which characterizes concordance. As this relationship develops, decision making including that around medicine-taking and relapse signature, can be based on this shared understanding. Timeline examples (Tables 2 and 3) based on the fictitious experiences of Philip, a young man diagnosed with schizophrenia, show their application in recovery-focused practice. Further research is needed to enhance the limited evidence base underpinning timelines as a method of facilitating concordance.

Scene construction in schizophrenia.

Recent research has revealed that schizophrenia patients are impaired in remembering the past and imagining the future. In this study, we examined patients' ability to engage in scene construction (i.e., the process of mentally generating and maintaining a complex and coherent scene), which is a key part of retrieving past experiences and episodic future thinking. 24 participants with schizophrenia and 25 healthy controls were asked to imagine new fictitious experiences and described their mental representations of the scenes in as much detail as possible. Descriptions were scored according to various dimensions (e.g., sensory details, spatial reference), and participants also provided ratings of their subjective experience when imagining the scenes (e.g., their sense of presence, the perceived similarity of imagined events to past experiences). Imagined scenes contained less phenomenological details (d = 1.11) and were more fragmented (d = 2.81) in schizophrenia patients compared to controls. Furthermore, positive symptoms were positively correlated to the sense of presence (r = .43) and the perceived similarity of imagined events to past episodes (r = .47), whereas negative symptoms were negatively related to the overall richness of the imagined scenes (r = -.43). The results suggest that schizophrenic patients' impairments in remembering the past and imagining the future are, at least in part, due to deficits in the process of scene construction. The relationships between the characteristics of imagined scenes and positive and negative symptoms could be related to reality monitoring deficits and difficulties in strategic retrieval processes, respectively.

Using Imagination to Understand the Neural Basis of Episodic Memory

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

Deconstructing episodic memory with construction

It has recently been observed that the brain network supporting recall of episodic memories shares much in common with other cognitive functions such as episodic future thinking, navigation and theory of mind. It has been speculated that 'self-projection' is the key common process. However, in this Opinion article, we note that other functions (e.g. imagining fictitious experiences) not explicitly connected to either the self or a subjective sense of time, activate a similar brain network. Hence, we argue that the process of 'scene construction' is better able to account for the commonalities in the brain areas engaged by an extended range of disparate functions. In light of this, we re-evaluate our understanding of episodic memory, the processes underpinning it and other related cognitive functions.

General procedures of empirical science

1. Some philosophers define the term "Science" as a system of words and symbols, delimitated by certain formal conditions (formal attitude). Instead of this, we prefer to use the term "science" for a system of human activities delimitated from other human activities by careful observation of the cases where the term is actually used in current language (significal attitude). A description of common features of these activities can, of course, only be rather rough, vague and schematic. They have been arranged here in a definite order. But I have done so only for the better surveyability, and I am well aware that the process really does not have a definite beginning or end and is not strictly linear, but has many sidelines and ramifications. In particulair some of the processes mentioned below may fail or occur in a somewhat different order. 2. We reckon to belong to a prae-scientific stage the distinctions we are accustomed to make between "experiences", "memories" (of previous experiences), "expectations" (of future experiences) and "images" (of fictitious experiences); all these will be gathered under the term "perceptions". Neither do we discuss now the distinction between these perceptions and the "emotions" and "volitions". For the sake of simplicity we restrict the use of the term "experiences" to fully conscious ones. These may be considered as having been obtained by subconscious selection from a more extensive group of perceptions, part of which remains subconscious, but may influence later processes. (If e.g. objects are observed visually, the distribution of light and shadow on them usually does not penetrate to full consciousness. Sometimes, being alone in a quiet room, we become aware of something moving, without being able to say, what our per ception really was. When it happens again, we may find out that e.g. a curtain behind us has moved slightly, and that a bright spot on the floor before us became somewhat darker and then brighter again). *) 3. As the beginning of the process we wish to describe we con sider a group of such experiences. Some of these are forgotten imme