Silent Animation Research Articles

From Ancient Zhiguai Tales to Contemporary Animation: A Study of Visual Rhetoric in ‘Yao-Chinese Folktales’ (2023)

This study delves into the use of visual rhetorical strategies in 中国奇谭 Zhongguo Qitan ‘Yao-Chinese Folktales’ (2023), particularly focusing on 鹅鹅鹅 E E E ‘Goose Mountain’ (henceforth ‘Goose’) directed by Hu Rui. We assert that ‘Goose’ transcodes and reinterprets the ancient Chinese zhiguai novella 阳羡书生 Yangxian Shusheng ‘The Scholar from Yangxian’ (henceforth ‘Scholar’) for a contemporary audience through the use of visual rhetoric, leading to a compelling contemporary rendition of this tale. As a silent animation, ‘Goose’ does so by adeptly incorporating visual depictions, especially animal-related imagery and ink painting aesthetics, drawn from the broader traditional zhiguai myths, or tales of the strange and traditional Chinese culture. The core argument hinges on visual rhetoric’s transformative potential. In ‘Goose’, the connection between tradition and contemporaneity is established through metaphor and metonymy. Initially a literary figure of speech, metaphor and metonymy now encompasses ‘visual rhetoric’, widely applied in interpreting visual arts. Visual rhetoric often employs various elements such as colour, shape, size, objects, composition and texture to convey information. This study highlights the role played by the inseparable link between traditional zhiguai narratives, the minzu/national style, and the contemporary animation technology in ‘Goose’, a transformative role that revitalizes ancient traditions to resonate with today’s viewership.

The effects of different task repetition schedules on oral narratives of L2 learners with high and low working memory capacity

The present study investigated the effects of different task repetition (TR) schedules on oral complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of L2 learners with high and low working memory capacity (WMC). To this end, 36 intermediate Iranian learners were assigned to two groups by means of a speaking span task: task repetition of high WMC learners (TRHWM) and task repetition of low WMC leaners (TRLWM). The learners in both groups were required to watch a silent animation, retell the story, and then repeat it immediately. They were also asked to repeat the same task after three days and a week without having a chance to watch the animation. The learners' oral task performances were recorded, coded, and analyzed in terms of the CAF measures. Results revealed that different TR schedules assisted low-WMC L2 learners with improving their complexity measure in terms of lexical diversity such that there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups from the first to the last oral performance. In addition, the findings bear pedagogical significance in that they add support to the positive effect of using different task repetition schedules on the oral performances of both high- and low-WMC L2 learners.

Differential Tracking of Linguistic vs. Mental State Content in Naturalistic Stimuli by Language and Theory of Mind (ToM) Brain Networks.

Language and social cognition, especially the ability to reason about mental states, known as theory of mind (ToM), are deeply related in development and everyday use. However, whether these cognitive faculties rely on distinct, overlapping, or the same mechanisms remains debated. Some evidence suggests that, by adulthood, language and ToM draw on largely distinct-though plausibly interacting-cortical networks. However, the broad topography of these networks is similar, and some have emphasized the importance of social content / communicative intent in the linguistic signal for eliciting responses in the language areas. Here, we combine the power of individual-subject functional localization with the naturalistic-cognition inter-subject correlation approach to illuminate the language-ToM relationship. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we recorded neural activity as participants (n = 43) listened to stories and dialogues with mental state content (+linguistic, +ToM), viewed silent animations and live action films with mental state content but no language (-linguistic, +ToM), or listened to an expository text (+linguistic, -ToM). The ToM network robustly tracked stimuli rich in mental state information regardless of whether mental states were conveyed linguistically or non-linguistically, while tracking a +linguistic / -ToM stimulus only weakly. In contrast, the language network tracked linguistic stimuli more strongly than (a) non-linguistic stimuli, and than (b) the ToM network, and showed reliable tracking even for the linguistic condition devoid of mental state content. These findings suggest that in spite of their indisputably close links, language and ToM dissociate robustly in their neural substrates-and thus plausibly cognitive mechanisms-including during the processing of rich naturalistic materials.

Further developing the Frith-Happé animations: A quicker, more objective, and web-based test of theory of mind for autistic and neurotypical adults.

The Frith-Happé Animations Test, depicting interactions between triangles, is widely used to measure theory of mind (ToM) ability in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This test began with recording, transcribing, and subjectively scoring participants' verbal descriptions, which consistently found ToM-specific difficulties in ASD. More recently in 2011, White et al. created a more objective version of this ToM test using multiple-choice questions. However, there has been surprisingly little uptake of this test, hence it is currently unclear if White et al.'s findings replicate. Further, the lack of an online version of the test may be hampering its use in large-scale studies and outside of research settings. Addressing these issues, we report the development of a web-based version of the Frith-Happé Animations Test for autistic and neurotypical adults. An online version of the test was developed in a large general population sample (study 1; N=285) and online data were compared with those collected in a lab-based setting (study 2; N=339). The new online test was then administered to adults with a clinical diagnosis of ASD and matched neurotypical controls (study 3; N=231). Results demonstrated that the test could successfully be administered online to autistic adults, who showed ToM difficulties compared to neurotypical adults, replicating White et al.'s findings. Overall, we have developed a quicker, more objective, and web-based version of the Frith-Happé Animations Test that will be useful for social cognition research within and beyond the field of autism, with potential utility for clinical settings. LAY SUMMARY: Many autistic people find it hard to understand what other people are thinking. There are many tests for this 'mentalising' ability, but they often take a long time to complete and cannot be used outside of research settings. In 2011, scientists used short silent animations of moving shapes to create a fast way to measure mentalising ability. We developed this into an online test to use in research and clinics to measure mentalising ability in autism.

Leonardos da Vinci Wende in der Schlacht bei Anghiari: Poetik und genetische Kritik der zeichnerischen Entwürfe.

In 1505 or 1506, Leonardo da Vinci abandoned his project of the Battle of Anghiari, which was to depict the historical victory in 1440 of Florence over Milan. The last traces of the wall painting were obliterated in the 1560s when Giorgio Vasari and his collaborators restructured and redecorated the once Sala del Maggior Consiglio of the Florentine Republic. More or less contemporary foreign copies seem to reproduce what is believed to be the central part of the composition, known even by the same Vasari’s description as the group of horsemen fighting for a standard, “vn groppo di caualli, che combatteuano vna bandiera”, and only one colour detail, an old soldier in a red cap, “vn soldato vecchio con vn berretton rosso”. Vasari’s words do not identify in the scene any protagonist of the historical event. Only in the eyes of recent interpreters did it become the confrontation of two Milanese horsemen on the left and two Florentine on the right. Observations on Leonardo's method of projecting allow a new approach. The exhibition “Europe in the Renaissance”, organized in 2016 by the Swiss National Museum in Zürich, showed a computer animation produced based on the author’s screenplay by the studio xkopp creative in Berlin. The succession of sequential images demonstrate how both the final composition and the depicted action emerge from Leonardo’s drawing process. The present essay completes the silent animation with the necessarily verbal commentary. The inquiry concerns five original drawing-sheets in the collections of the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice and the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum in Budapest. Leonardo calls the first shaping of figures, the rough composition sketch, componimento inculto. From classical poetics he borrows the word, the term, and the priority of suitable actions which the same figures should demonstrate Genetic criticism distinguishes in the simultaneity of unerased strokes the variations of tools and their handling. Arranging the step-by-step changes, first traces, insertions and alternatives in the individual sketch and from sheet to sheet we recognize earlier and later positions and postures of the same protagonists. Just in the first sketch we discern the future “old soldier in a red cap” emerging victorious from the duel. His action represents the causa efficiens of the extreme left horseman’s finally twisted posture. At the beginning of the internal drawing procedure we recognize the same horseman in a different position, how he rides from right to left, holding the staff of the standard like a lance directed to the left. The counterattacking “old soldier”, coming from the left side and evading the mortal thrust, grips the enemy’s standard and turns it in the opposite direction. With few rapid modifications, the draftsman dramatically creates the “reversal” in the battle, Aristotle’s “change from bad fortune to good, or from good fortune to bad” (Poetics, 1451a). The final composition shows the “old soldier” fighting simultaneously at least three enemies like the paradigmatic Hercules defeating the multi-headed Hydra. The victorious “old soldier in the red cap” embodies the Florentine Republic.

Makna Pesan Nonverbal dalam Tayangan Kartun Larva Season 3 Episode Garlic 1 dan 2

Silent animation is an animation that was created without using sound recording, especially in dialogue. The greatest strength of silent animation is nonverbal communication which is all forms of gestures that are not words. This research attempts to examine Larva season 3 episode Garlic 1 and 2 by using the theory of nonverbal systems of kinesis and proxemics categories as a reference unit of analysis. This research aims to interpret the meanings of nonverbal messages by using the Gillian Rose visual methodology from site of self and site of production to find the meanings of nonverbal messages in Larva season 3 episode Garlic 1 and 2. The research uses a critical paradigm with a qualitative approach that focuses on scenes that are describing nonverbal messages in Larva visualization. The results had found that the meanings of nonverbal messages displayed in Larva season 3 episode Garlic 1 and 2 also reflected in recent life issues such as struggling, respecting others, earnest, and being patient. Keywords: Nonverbal Messages, Kinesis, Proxemics, Visual Methodology

Remoulding of Ideology through Remediation

Abstract This article examines an intermedial adaptation, focusing on the potentials of two different media in the presentation of conflicting ideologies in Iran: Tabar (“Axe”) (1980, dir. Ahmad Arabani), a silent animation, and the picture book of the same title, by Shekoofeh Taqi and Manoochehr Dehqan, published in 1985. The two works have been chosen because they were both published at a time when Iran was tackling serious internal and external tensions after the Islamic Revolution. The ideological content of both the picture book and the animation can shed light on the discourse of didacticism that prevailed in Iran during the 1980s. Both works feature deforestation as a threat, but patriotism is the theme of the animation, whereas female resistance against male oppression is the message of the picture book.

Acquisition of Verb Meaning From Syntactic Distribution in Preschoolers With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Our goal was to investigate whether preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can begin to learn new word meanings by attending to the linguistic contexts in which they occur, even in the absence of visual or social context. We focused on verbs because of their importance for subsequent language development. Thirty-two children with ASD, ages 2;1-4;5 (years;months), participated in a verb-learning task. In a between-subjects design, they were randomly assigned to hear novel verbs in either transitive or intransitive syntactic frames while watching an unrelated silent animation or playing quietly with a toy. In an eye-tracking test, they viewed two video scenes, one depicting a causative event (e.g., boy spinning girl) and the other depicting synchronous events (e.g., boy and girl waving). They were prompted to find the referents of the novel verbs, and their eye gaze was measured. Like typically developing children in prior work, children with ASD who had heard the verbs in transitive syntactic frames preferred to look to the causative scene as compared to children who had heard intransitive frames. This finding replicates and extends prior work on verb learning in children with ASD by demonstrating that they can attend to a novel verb's syntactic distribution absent relevant visual or social context, and they can use this information to assign the novel verb an appropriate meaning. We discuss points for future research, including examining individual differences that may impact success and contrasting social and nonsocial word-learning tasks directly.

The Origins of the First Sound Animation: Songs Series by the Fleischer Brothers

With the invention of moving pictures, the creators sought to supplement them with sound. Even before the invention of cinemat, E. Reynaud in the optical theatre gave performances in which moving images were combined with sound. It was pre-cinema experience, which represented the theatre model of audiovisual show. The attempts to synchronize the dynamic images and sound were taken by T. Edison, S. Meshes, L. Gaumont, O. Kellum, E.Tigerstedt, J. Engel, G. Phocht and J. Massol. However, the systems suggested by these inventors were not perfect. An important step towards creation of a sound film was the appearance of the optical sound recording system Phonofilm designed by Lee de Forest. In 1923, he became acquainted with Brothers Fleischer, outstanding American animators. Together with H. Riesenfeld and E. Fadiman they organized Red Seal Pictures Corporation and began to shoot Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes, which consisted of a series of animated shots Sing-alongs (featuring the famous bouncing ball). It was a kind of multimedia shots, as there was no plot, no character and no narrative structure. They were created basing on popular songs, but did not illustrate them. The Sing-alongs shots were produced for the audience to sing their favorite songs before the session, while reading the text of the songs from the screen. The animated ball bouncing on the syllables helped them to follow the rhythm of the melody. These films became the prototype of the modern karaoke and music animated shows. The series were released from May 1924 till September 1927. The Fleshers created more than 45 shots, more than 19 of which using the Phonofilm. The first sound animated shots where the images were synchronized with the sound and recorded on the same media, were released in 1925. The film Come to Travel on My Airship was the first where the speech was heard, and in the shot My Old House in Kentucky the Fleischers managed to synchronize the speech with the facial expressions of cartoon characters as they were speaking. When the animating and shooting technology changed, the film structure underwent changes too. Detailed animation parts with the story content appeared. The text animation became variable as well. Since the 1930s, the shots have included scenes with singers and jazz-bands. The animated film series Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes shot by the Brothers Fleischer established the principle of movement and sound synchronism in the animation. They not only out paced the sound films by P. Terry and W. Disney, which were considered to be the first sound animation films for a long time, but also proved that the sound animation had been possible and the thirty-year era of the silent animation came to an end.

Mental States in Moving Shapes: Distinct Cortical and Subcortical Contributions to Theory of Mind Impairments in Dementia.

Impaired capacity for Theory of Mind (ToM) represents one of the hallmark features of the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and is suggested to underpin an array of socioemotional disturbances characteristic of this disorder. In contrast, while social processing typically remains intact in Alzheimer's disease (AD), the cognitive loading of socioemotional tasks may adversely impact mentalizing performance in AD. Here, we employed the Frith-Happé animations as a dynamic on-line assessment of mentalizing capacity with reduced incidental task demands in 18 bvFTD, 18 AD, and 25 age-matched Controls. Participants viewed silent animations in which geometric shapes interact in Random, Goal-Directed, and ToM conditions. An exclusive deficit in ToM classification was observed in bvFTD relative to Controls, while AD patients were impaired in the accurate classification of both Random and ToM trials. Correlation analyses revealed robust associations between ToM deficits and carer ratings of affective empathy disruption in bvFTD, and with episodic memory dysfunction in AD. Voxel-based morphometry analyses further identified dissociable neural correlates contingent on patient group. A distributed network of medial prefrontal, frontoinsular, striatal, lateral temporal, and parietal regions were implicated in the bvFTD group, whereas the right hippocampus correlated with task performance in AD. Notably, subregions of the cerebellum, including lobules I-IV and V, bilaterally were implicated in task performance irrespective of patient group. Our findings reveal new insights into the mechanisms potentially mediating ToM disruption in dementia syndromes, and suggest that the cerebellum may play a more prominent role in social cognition than previously appreciated.

The effect of positive symptoms on social cognition in first-episode schizophrenia is modified by the presence of negative symptoms.

There is considerable evidence that patients with schizophrenia have neurocognitive and social-cognitive deficits. It is unclear how such deficits in first-episode schizophrenia relate to current clinical symptoms. Fifty-nine patients with first-episode schizophrenia (FES) were tested using the Danish version of NART (premorbid IQ), subtests from WAIS-III (current IQ), and global cognition using Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrena (BACS), a neurocognitive test battery. Social perception was tested using film clips of everyday interactions (TASIT). Theory of mind (ToM) was tested using silent animations (Animated Triangles Task). The FES subjects had been experiencing psychotic symptoms for several years (mean duration 9.5 years 95% confidence interval (CI [7.6;11.3]). The FES patients were divided into clinical subgroups based on their level of positive and negative symptoms (using SANS and SAPS). Healthy controls were matched to the patients. High levels of negative symptoms were associated with low estimated functional IQ and poor neurocognition and social cognition. All SANS subscales, but Avolition-Apathy, had significant negative impact on social cognition. The effects of positive symptoms were complex. High levels of delusions were associated with higher premorbid IQ. In the presence of high levels of negative symptoms, high levels of positive symptoms were associated with the most comprehensive deficits in social perception, while, in the absence of negative symptoms, high levels of positive symptoms were not associated with such deficits. The results suggest that social-cognitive training will need to take account of the above mentioned effects of symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record

French animation history

Figures ix Plates xiii Acknowledgments xvii 1 Introduction: The Rise of Animation in France 1 The Beginnings of Animation 4 Stop-Motion Animation Attractions 19 2 Silent Animation: Emile Cohl and his Artisanal Legacy 22 Emile Cohl, Caricature, and the Rise of Studio Animation 22 Emile Cohl at Pathe, Eclipse, and Eclair Studios 36 Graphic Art and the Cartoon: Lortac and O'Galop 45 But is it Animation? French Avant-Garde and Moving Pictures 54 3 French Animation and the Coming of Sound 60 Ladislas Starewich's Fabled Puppets 61 Berthold Bartosch's L'Idee: A Working-Class Allegory 73 Jean Painleve's La Barbe bleue 78 Alexandre Alexeieff, Claire Parker, and the Pinscreen 82 Niche Cartoons: Lyrical Joie de vivre and the Surreal La Fortune enchantee 90 4 Toward an Alternative Studio Structure 99 Paul Grimault and the Artist-Owned Animation Studio 100 Transitional Animation: From High Art to Made-for-TV 107 Toward a New Era of Micro-Studios: Laguionie and Laloux 114 5 French Animation's Renaissance 124 Le Cartoon Plan 124 Michel Ocelot's Alternative Mode of Production 127 Comic Book Aesthetics and Niche Studios 139 Contemporary French Animation: 2006 and Beyond 149 6 Conclusion: French Animation Today 162 References 171 Further Reading 178 Index 181

The development of referential understanding.

Previous research has shown that 14‐month‐olds are able to form arbitrary word‐object associations. [Werker et al. 1998).] However, merely associating words and objects is insufficient for the higher level concept that words “stand for” objects. In order to investigate at what age referential understanding emerges, we tested 14‐ and 17‐month‐olds on their ability to comprehend the correct meaning of a word when the word and object are presented separately from one another. We used an infant‐controlled version of the visual fixation procedure presented using HABIT X [Cohen et al. (2004).] Infants heard audio passages containing two target nouns. Subsequently, infants were presented with silent animations of four words—two with which they were familiarized (target) and two they had not heard during familiarization (non‐target). Looking time to target and non‐target animations were averaged and compared using paired t‐tests. The 14‐month‐olds looked longer at the target animations although this result was not significant. In order to identify at what age infants understand the referential relationship between words and objects, we are currently testing 17‐month‐olds on the same task. The results will be discussed in the context of emerging referential understanding of nouns during development.