Vivid Imagination Research Articles

Experience of Healthy Adult Women with the Receptive Music Therapy Using Body-Monochords – Qualitative Phenomenological Study

Resonance chair/harmonisation recliner are prototypes of body-monochords that were developed in the Czech Republic. These instruments are therapeutically used in music therapy practice, healthcare institutions and by people with disabilities. The aim of this study was to understand how people experience this intervention in the context of private music therapy practice. The design of this qualitative study was based on phenomenology. Six healthy women on maternity leave reflected their experience through semistructured interviews before and after therapeutic session with resonance chair/harmonisation recliner. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to identify 12 themes describing the course of these sessions. The women experienced changes on physical, cognitive, and emotional levels related to relaxation and muscles relieve, calming of mind, different experience with feeling of vibrations, vivid imaginations, or changes in body perception. Intervention on resonance chair/harmonisation recliner offered positive experience to the participants and provided them with a space for self-care and rest. No serious adverse events were reported by the participants during or after the intervention. The intervention using resonance chair/harmonisation recliner was highly valued by our participants and has a meaningful usage in private music therapy practice. Future researchers may explore long-term experience of participants and identify other populations that may have specific benefit from this intervention.

CLAY: A Controllable Large-scale Generative Model for Creating High-quality 3D Assets

In the realm of digital creativity, our potential to craft intricate 3D worlds from imagination is often hampered by the limitations of existing digital tools, which demand extensive expertise and efforts. To narrow this disparity, we introduce CLAY, a 3D geometry and material generator designed to effortlessly transform human imagination into intricate 3D digital structures. CLAY supports classic text or image inputs as well as 3D-aware controls from diverse primitives (multi-view images, voxels, bounding boxes, point clouds, implicit representations, etc). At its core is a large-scale generative model composed of a multi-resolution Variational Autoencoder (VAE) and a minimalistic latent Diffusion Transformer (DiT), to extract rich 3D priors directly from a diverse range of 3D geometries. Specifically, it adopts neural fields to represent continuous and complete surfaces and uses a geometry generative module with pure transformer blocks in latent space. We present a progressive training scheme to train CLAY on an ultra large 3D model dataset obtained through a carefully designed processing pipeline, resulting in a 3D native geometry generator with 1.5 billion parameters. For appearance generation, CLAY sets out to produce physically-based rendering (PBR) textures by employing a multi-view material diffusion model that can generate 2K resolution textures with diffuse, roughness, and metallic modalities. We demonstrate using CLAY for a range of controllable 3D asset creations, from sketchy conceptual designs to production ready assets with intricate details. Even first time users can easily use CLAY to bring their vivid 3D imaginations to life, unleashing unlimited creativity.

Physiological and subjective arousal to prospective mental imagery: A mechanism for behavioral change?

Emotional prospective mental imagery, in which we simulate possible future events within our minds, have a pronounced impact on behavior. For example, repeated engagement in positive prospective imagery can lead to behavioral activation, while negative prospective imagery can lead to catastrophizing and avoidance. Physiological arousal boosts memory consolidation, creating emotional memories. Thus, if emotional prospective imagery produces an arousal response, the memory consolidation of these simulations of the future may be boosted, offering a possible underlying mechanism for the impact of emotional prospective imagery on behavior. In order to examine the feasibility of arousal as a possible mechanism behind the impact of emotional prospective imagery on behavior, sixty participants produced autobiographical prospective imagery of 30 scenes (10 positive, 10 neutral, and 10 negative), during which arousal responses (skin conductance) were measured, and ratings for subjective arousal, valence, and imagery vividness were collected. Moreover, because vividness of prospective imagery has been related to anxiety and depression, the study examined this relation also for event-related autobiographical prospective imagery. The results showed that emotional prospective imagery were associated with higher subjective arousal ratings as compared to neutral imagery. Physiological arousal responses showed a similar pattern, but further data is needed for a firm conclusion. Nevertheless, arousal-boosted consolidation remains a possible contributing mechanism for the impact of emotional prospective imagery on behavior. Moreover, results suggest both anxiety and depression may entail a reduced ability to invent prospective life situations. However, only anxiety was associated with less vivid imaginations, unless the imaginations were of negative content. Hence, anxious individuals may experience negative prospective imagery more vividly than imagery with neutral and positive content.

Higher visceral adipose tissue is associated with decreased memory suppression ability on food-related thoughts: A 1-year prospective ERP study

Memory about food and eating is crucial in regulating appetite and eating behaviors. Successfully stopping vivid imagination of delicious food could help reduce food craving and thus reduce the possibility of further intake. Memory inhibition is a cognitive process that involves intentional suppression of certain memories coming to consciousness. Successful memory suppression derives from inhibitory control. Although considerable work has consistently observed the impairment in motor or response inhibitory control among individuals with obesity, there has been a lack of investigation into the influence of bodyweight status on memory inhibitory control. To fill this gap, current study investigated behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of memory suppression in young women. Using Think/No-Think task and event-related potentials among 47 females, we found that participants with higher visceral adipose tissue (VAT) showed a tendency towards decreased suppression ability for memories related to food but not memories related to nonfood items. In depth analysis showed that decrease in the differences in P2 amplitudes between suppression vs. retrieval of food-related memories mediated the impairment of suppression ability by high VAT. We then tested whether individual differences in memory suppression ability as well as ERP correlates predicted future BMI or VAT change over 1-year follow-up. Results showed that P2 amplitudes when retrieving food-related memory could predict VAT change at 1-year follow-up among participants with healthy BMI. These observations suggest a hypersensitivity inference hypothesis underlying memory control impairments. To be specific, deficits in memory suppression may be in part resulted from elevated sensitivity to the cues coupling with food-related memory. It extends previous studies of memory suppression with food rewards and provides the first evidence to help understand the relationship between inhibitory control on food-related memory and obesity.

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery as a Coming-of-age Novel

Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery is a Canadian Classic children’s fiction published in 1908. It revolves around an eleven-year-old orphan girl named Anne Shirley who is vibrant, witty, has a vivid imagination and a positive outlook on life. This coming-of-age story begins as Anne Shirley arrives at the Green Gables house on Prince Edward Island, Canada, to assist the upper-middle-aged siblings Marilla and Gilbert Cuthbert on their farm. The Cuthbert siblings were disappointed to see a girl as they were expecting to foster a boy to assist with the field labor. Anne Shirley landed in Green Gables as a mishap but won everyone over time with her spirited personality and charming nature. In the predominant literary narrative, children’s literature is under-represented and forgotten as childhood, after all is seen as a state from which we grow away. But children’s literature provokes an intense response and engagement amongst its readers through its congruence. A coming-of-age story in children’s literature focuses on the psychological and moral growth of a protagonist from youth to adulthood and confounds the audience to experience the surrounding of the protagonist to impact the readers’ thoughts and attain self-growth. In light of the above information, this paper aims to substantiate Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery as a coming-of-age novel to understand the impact that children’s literature has on its audience through various elements such as culture, identity, positivity, friendship, love, growth, and imagination.

The Digital Divide and Futurist Imaginings of Zelle‐ous Resistors

The “digital divide” is widely acknowledged as exacerbating inequality by leaving some people on one side or the other of a knowledge divide without access to appropriate tools for the future and all the opportunities that digital technology promises. Attempts to understand this gap tend to focus on issues of trust, levels of financial education, and digital skills, mainly seeking to understand why some individuals and groups—who are mostly assumed to have minimal financial know-how and digital skills—do not trust either online financial institutions or exclusively app‐based finance. Considering the large investment in fintech solutions driven by these industries, and the practical features designed in part to make the user’s life easier and user experience more intuitive and reassuring, it is worth noting that such queries are inclined to conclude that these untapped users cannot imagine a digital future due to their own lack of digital skills and lack of exposure to tech. This article suggests that, for a portion of this population, many of whom are digital natives, this is not the case. instead, they can invest in understanding and adapting to technology and do so. Yet they are uncomfortable with the “instantaneousness” of some transactions because this doesn’t allow them enough time to address a problem or have recourse for anything unforeseeable. Furthermore, their interest in fintech’s inclusive platforms is foreshadowed by their vivid futurist understandings and imaginations. Indeed, they envision precisely the kind of digital significance that is often assumed that they do not. However, this article argues that the key difference is that many envision the future as a digital dystopia and are resisting what Lauren Berlant refers to as “cruel optimism.” These types of imaginings motivate many to resist the vulnerabilities that they believe can make them overly dependent on technology in ways that they believe can potentially place them at risk. This article focuses on the US multi‐bank‐owned Zelle payment system and its online and app‐based banking features as a case study to illustrate these points. It further argues that the inclusivity that online digital banking platforms aspiringly offer is often viewed by potential users not as a portal toward equality but rather as “a leap of faith” toward digital dependency and future vulnerability.

Non-commitment in mental imagery

We examine non-commitment in the imagination. Across 5 studies (N > 1, 800), we find that most people are non-committal about basic aspects of their mental images, including features that would be readily apparent in real images. While previous work on the imagination has discussed the possibility of non-commitment, this paper is the first, to our knowledge, to examine this systematically and empirically. We find that people do not commit to basic properties of specified mental scenes (Studies 1 and 2), and that people report non-commitment rather than uncertainty or forgetfulness (Study 3). Such non-commitment is present even for people with generally vivid imaginations, and those who report imagining the specified scene very vividly (Studies 4a, 4b). People readily confabulate properties of their mental images when non-commitment is not offered as an explicit option (Study 5). Taken together, these results establish non-commitment as a pervasive component of mental imagery.

Goddess of Sipsong Panna by Can Xue

Reviewed by: Goddess of Sipsong Panna by Can Xue Laura Xie CAN XUE Goddess of Sipsong Panna Beijing. People's Literature Publishing House. 2022. 211 pages. GODDESS OF SIPSONG PANNA is a collection of thirteen short stories by the much-acclaimed Chinese writer Can Xue (b. 1953). Set across a variety of real or surreal locations, from the tranquil grassland to the enchanting mulberry garden, and from a bleak and desolate coal mine located on the outskirts of a quaint, snow-covered town to the subterranean dugout beneath a tunneled city, each story sheds light on a distinct facet of a particular character's inner world and personal journey. The first of the thirteen stories, "Treasure Land," features Lu Xiaoyuan, a young man from a coal miner's family. He grew up in Snow City, a small town that was once the site of several coal mines. After his parents died in a mining accident, he had to make his own living. One night, Xiaoyuan is lured by a gentleman donning a black felt hat to venture into the long-abandoned mine. As he enters the mining area, he hears the clamor of people talking and shouting all around him, and he sees the burning flames in the stoves. The warmth of the air brings back memories of his deceased parents, particularly of the time when the mine was still in operation. Although the identity of the enigmatic gentleman is never revealed, he acts as a powerful catalyst that compels Xiaoyuan to take a journey of rediscovery. As he revisits both joyous and painful moments of the past, he finds a renewed sense of purpose to continue moving forward into the future. The titular story, "Goddess of Sipsong Panna," is about a man who goes to Sipsong Panna in search of a simpler way of life. However, he cannot tolerate living in the bungalow where ants, snails, and caterpillars crawl over the room and the roses in the front yard bloom profusely, filling the air with a sweet and strong fragrance. He moves to a high-rise apartment, but its concrete frame structure blocks out the living sights and sounds of nature. He is so lonely that he longs to move back to the bungalow, which is now occupied by a woman living with a ferocious black bear. Her presence [End Page 75] piques everyone's interest, spurring them to steal glances at her, but her face remains a mystery, always shrouded from their view. Enveloped in her powerful earthly aura, the young man comes to realize what it takes to live in Sipsong Panna, a land of fertility, growth, and abundance. Can Xue's gift for plunging into her characters' souls and mining the truths about them is evident in other stories of the collection. "The Lion King" charts a path from the early stage of desire and infatuation to a love that transcends physicality and species through the eyes of a woman who decides to make her own life in the grasslands after encountering a handsome male lion. "Death Education" explores the initial encounter with death and its many nuances from the viewpoint of a young girl. In "Old Man and Cat in Fresh Produce Market," readers may also sympathize with Papa Ma, an old man who lives a solitary life and suffers mistreatment at the hands of a similarly unhappy young man. Can Xue is known for her vivid imagination and keen sense of fantasy, with a rapid, feverish ability to proceed from one plot to the next, much like a person traversing a dream or nightmare. Her collection of stories is a mesmerizing journey into the human psyche, with each story serving as an allegory of the self. Navigating the labyrinth of her writing may be challenging, but there is no denying that Can Xue is a singular and unforgettable voice in Chinese literature. Laura Xie Virginia Military Institute Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Practicing Musical Intention: The Effects of External Focus of Attention on Musicians’ Skill Acquisition

Movement science research indicates that an external focus of attention benefits learning as well as performing movement. Despite these findings from the field of sports, research on the effects of external focus in music pedagogy is sparse, especially in naturalistic settings. This in-depth, small-sample study investigated the effect of external focus on musical learning in terms of accuracy, self-efficacy, confidence, motivation, and engagement, as well as the qualitative performance experience. Seven conservatoire (natural trumpet) students practiced challenging, unfamiliar pieces in short practice sessions using their normal practice methods, followed by a trial using the instructions of the Audiation Practice Tool (APT). This tool was developed to enhance auditory and kinaesthetic engagement as well as detailed musical intention through vivid imagination, singing, gesturing, playing, and seeking musical variation. Use of the APT resulted in higher performance accuracy than participants’ usual practice methods, and a non-significant trend for improvement in self-efficacy and confidence compared to practice as usual. Logbook scores were inconclusive on motivation and engagement; however, exit questionnaire answers showed that most participants experienced audiation or external focus as engaging and enjoyable. Although none of the participants initially favored external focus, participants generally intended to continue using elements of the APT. This study suggests that the use of external focus could be more explicit and prominent in teaching and in practicing music.

Techniques for Strengthening 21st Century Learners' Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking, as opposed to technical or professional abilities, enhances intellectual capacities and promotes the development of multi perspective thinking. It promotes the growth of the mind's analytical and creative regions. Enhancing critical thinking abilities in higher education constructs an excellent platform for aspirant engineers. To analyze complex problems, investigate various techniques, and design solutions, critical thinking skills are required. The most vivid imaginations are born to artists and musicians. Teaching artists how to use software and graphics tools is relatively simple; however, transforming engineers into artists is far more difficult. Students who use visualization in their studies are encouraged to look at the world from various angles. Sports and academics complement each other well. There are also links between the arts, logic, and athletics. It is beneficial to understand the relationship between critical thinking and academics. This study covers some strategies related to puzzle solving, problem-based learning, design thinking, picture analysis, and experiential learning in order to develop critical thinking and practical problem-solving skills. Keywords— critical thinkers; Experiential Learning; Holistic edification; skills

Thinking about Adam and Eve with Augustine and Milton

Thinking about Adam and Eve with Augustine and Milton Raymond N. MacKenzie, Editor Key Words Adam and Eve, Augustine, Milton, Paradise Lost, Fall of Man Speculating about our origins, wondering how humans came to be and trying to imagine what the first people might have been like—this must be pretty nearly a universal trait among humankind. We seem to think that understanding our origins would give us a better understanding of what we are now—or perhaps we keep coming back to the subject just because the various origin stories are so fascinating. We read about the creation of human beings in ancient myths from many cultures, and in many of them, humans have a less than exalted origin. In Sumerian myth, a god is sacrificed, and from his body clay is derived—and from that, the first people are molded. The ancient Greeks too saw humans as having their origins in mud— molded into human shape by Prometheus, and given life by the breath of Athena. And then there is the account in Genesis. Encountering the tale as a child, I remember my own vivid imaginations of what that garden must have looked like, and I still remember the way I pictured God himself walking there “in the cool of the day.” As an adult, I’m sadly less likely to let my imagination range as freely as a child does, but I can’t help trying to imagine what it would [End Page 5] have been like for the first people—how life would have felt, how the world might have looked to them. Psychologically, their minds couldn’t have operated in the convoluted ways ours do; and as for their emotions, what would they have felt, and what would that feeling have been like? What was their umwelt, the “world they lived in,” to use Helen Keller’s phrasing for it? Impossible to imagine it. Unburdened by memory, with free, fresh minds and open hearts, the only “culture” the trees and animals around them, the only sounds the rustling of the leaves and the birdsong up in the branches above. The American poet Billy Collins wrote a fine short piece titled “The First Dream,” in which he imagines the first person to have had a dream: “How quiet he must have seemed the next morning.” The account of the first people in Genesis is endlessly compelling, and yet we can’t—anyway, I can’t—ever quite decide exactly what truths reside in it, how literally we ought to take certain elements, or how allegorical it might be. Our lead article in this issue, from Professor Kemp, is an intriguing take on the topic. I’ll give a proper introduction to that article a bit later in this preface, but that paper is what got me thinking about this general subject. In this preface, I’d like to think a little about some of the ways later writers have thought about key elements in the Genesis story, and specifically about the characters of Adam and Eve. The literature on the subject—theological, philosophical, historical, scientific—is vast, so without any pretense at being comprehensive, I’ll look at just two treatments that strike me as having a legitimate, perhaps even urgent claim on our attention in the twenty-first century: first, I’ll examine briefly some key moments in Augustine’s work on the subject, and then look, in a little more detail, at John Milton’s great treatment in Paradise Lost. Augustine, who wrote very extensively about Genesis in several important texts, begins with the assumption that we ought to take the story pretty much as written, though his various studies add a great deal of interpretation. With regard to the first humans, his treatment in The City of God is particularly rich (and had a great influence on Milton). Before the Fall, he tells us, “the love of the pair for God [End Page 6] and for one another was undisturbed, and they lived in a faithful and sincere fellowship.”1 Augustine dismisses the idea that their sin was a felix culpa: had Adam and Eve remained unfallen, the future of human-kind...

Prediction of delay discounting in intertemporal decisions by future thinking: Accounting for fluency, contents, and functions of future thoughts.

PurposeTo study the variations of delay discounting rates as a function of fluency, contents, and functions of future thoughts in healthy subjects.BackgroundDelay discounting (DD) is a concept that can measure a frequent tendency toward smaller, yet immediate rewards, while a delayed reward is greater in value. DD describes people's choices in intertemporal decisions and is associated with self‐control. Future thinking (FT) and having a vivid imagination of the future can reduce individuals’ DD rates. However, constructing a specific episodic future representation was merely studied in relation to DD. Although fluency and contents of future thoughts have been reported related to various disorders and behaviors, their association with DD has not been previously addressed.MethodsThe present study applies a verbal fluency task named the personal future task (PFT), the functions of future thinking scale (FoFTS), and the 27‐item delay discounting questionnaire (DDQ) in order to assess fluency, contents, and functions of future thoughts, and delay discounting in healthy subjects (N = 114, Female = 64%, Male = 36%, Mage = 34.22, SDage = 7.15).ResultsFindings indicate that fluency of future thoughts is associated with DD. Among the contents of FT categories, financial contents (future thoughts about money and real estate matters), and regarding functions of FT, engaging in FT for planning are related to DD. Due to the final model, the above‐mentioned correlated variables can be considered as significant predictors of intertemporal choices when controlling for education and gender (R 2 = 0.4, Adjusted R 2 = 0.33, F = 5.186, p‐value = 0.001).ConclusionThe frequency of future thoughts one can generate, specifically future thoughts about financial contents, is associated with less short‐sighted intertemporal decisions. The former relationship is enhanced for longer delays (e.g., 5–10 years). Besides, individuals who frequently engage in FT for planning (planning out sequences of actions) discount future rewards to a lesser extent.

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World

Book Review| September 01 2022 The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World. By Riley Black. 2022. St. Martin’s Press. (ISBN 9781250271044). 287 pp. $28.99. Ebook and audiobook also available. Kirstin Milks, Kirstin Milks Department Editor Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Frank Brown Cloud, Frank Brown Cloud Department Editor Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Robert A. Cooper Robert A. Cooper retired biology teacher bcooper721@gmail.com Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar The American Biology Teacher (2022) 84 (7): 451. https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2022.84.7.451 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Robert A. Cooper; The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World. The American Biology Teacher 1 September 2022; 84 (7): 451. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/abt.2022.84.7.451 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentThe American Biology Teacher Search Can you imagine what it would have been like to be on Earth 66 million years ago during the aftermath of the asteroid impact that caused the extinction of an estimated 75% of all species, including the non-avian dinosaurs? An asteroid, 7.5 miles in diameter, traveling at over 44,000 miles per hour, struck the Earth along the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. The impact caused earthquakes, tsunamis, a global infrared heat pulse hotter than an oven on broil, and global firestorms that pumped soot into the atmosphere blocking out a significant amount of sunlight for an extended period. In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, science writer Riley Black employs her extensive knowledge of paleontology and vivid imagination to take the reader on a tour of the Cretaceous ecosystem around Hell Creek in Montana at a time just before the impact, then describes the likely aftereffects. In each... You do not currently have access to this content.

『빨강머리 앤』에 재현된 아동기의 상상력

This paper intends to study the pastoral world of childhood in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables (1908). The work has a vivid childhood imagination that expresses the writer’s own experiences, such as a deficiency in childhood and wish-fulfillment, a satire of religious practice, and awareness of a national important issue regarding the preservation of rural Canada in a literary way. Anne, an 11-year-old orphan girl and main character, was a hopeless, skinny child who was initially exposed to all kinds of excesses. However, she slowly grows up in a loving home provided by Matthew and Marilla, taming passion and imagination, and learns to live up to Avonlea’s social and behavioral expectations. Anne not only brings Matthew and Marilla a much more fulfilling and happy life than ever before, but she also influences the Avonlea community. Anne never loses her childhood imagination, even though she grows up to be a great member of Avonlea. Anne’s childhood imagination lets her move forward, keeping her and the community’s desperate needs alive in search of a utopia.

Unfinished Poetry

Unfinished Poetry

What Drives Internet Entrepreneurial Intention to Use Technology Products? An Investigation of Technology Product Imagination Disposition, Social Support, and Motivation.

Technological products such as computer, communication, and consumer electronic products, apps, smart wearables, and streaming services have become inseparable from people’s lives. In technological fields of practice, imagination, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship may influence one another. A vivid imagination can generate creativity and trigger the entrepreneurial intention to “bring new things to the market.” This study aims to understand the formation of internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study explores and empirically tests how technology product imagination disposition and social support impact internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Drawing from self-determination theory, this study proposes and examines the mediating role of intrinsic (challenge and enjoyment) and extrinsic motivation (compensation and outward motivation) in the relationship between technology product imagination disposition and internet entrepreneurial intention, as well as the relationship between social support and internet entrepreneurial intention. We conducted a survey of 568 adults in Taiwan and used partial least squares to test our hypotheses. The results show the following: (1) Technology product imagination disposition is positively associated with challenge, enjoyment, compensation, and outward motivation. (2) Social support is positively associated with challenge, enjoyment, compensation, and outward motivation. (3) Challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation are positively associated with internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. (4) Technology product imagination disposition intensifies internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products by strengthening challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation. Social support intensifies internet entrepreneurial intention by increasing challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation. The partial mediation model represents a significant improvement in the total effect over the direct effect. We discuss the implications of these results for research and internet entrepreneurship practices.

Towards Goosepunk: A Contemporary Poetic Treatment of Francis Godwin's 'The Man in the Moone'

This article proposes a retro-futurist mode of science fiction based on seventeenth-century technology and culture. After a brief account of retro-futurist subgenres, named for the technology they are based on with the suffix -punk, I introduce my own poetic reworking of Francis Godwin's 1638 novel The Man in the Moone, one of a group of texts inspired by early modern New Astronomy. The novel's hero flies to the moon in a craft of his own invention drawn by a flock of migrating birds (swans in the original). Godwin's narrative is enjoyable for modern readers for its combination of vivid imagination, accurate speculation and, with hindsight, intriguing counter-factuality. My treatment aims to emphasise these aspects, eliminating other parts of the text such as the picaresque adventures that open the novel. Treated in this way, the story offers similar pleasures to more established modes such as steampunk. Godwin and his contemporaries were heavily dependent on animals for their power: to reflect this, the article proposes the term 'goosepunk' for its early modern retro-futurist subgenre.

Tower of Myriad Mirrors: The first BL ‘quick transmigration’ novel?

Journey to the West is adulated as one of the Four Great Classical Novels in China, which has inspired a veritable cornucopia of sequels and adaptations. Tower of Myriad Mirrors (aka A Supplement to Journey to the West) composed during late Ming (1368-1644) is one of the three most illustrious sequels in pre-modern literature, in that it is characterised by vivid imagination and creativity, Buddhist ethos and philosophical thoughts, as well as biting satire on political reversals and societal predicaments in the 17th century. More significantly, Tower of Myriad Mirrors manifests psychological insights and features enigmatic dreams, which might have inspired a subgenre dubbed as ‘Quick Transmigration’ in China’s online literature. To be more specific, Tower of Myriad Mirrors is parallel to web-based BL (Boys Love) fiction under the category of Quick Transmigration, in terms of their analogous settings, storylines and characters. In this sense, Tower of Myriad Mirrors can be regarded as a prototypical BL novel concerning ‘quick transmigration’.

Does Vivid Imagination Deter Visitation? The Role of Mental Imagery Processing in Virtual Tourism on Tourists’ Behavior

The digital transformation of the tourism industry influences tourists’ behavior. Grounded in dual-processing theory, this study developed a holistic framework to explain the underlying psychological mechanisms of virtual tourism. The study’s overarching objectives were to (1) examine how mental imagery processing (MIP) of sensory stimuli in virtual tourist attractions influence cognition (learning) and emotion and (2) contribute to prior research that focused on the positive effect of MIP. This study aims to explore the potential negative impacts of MIP on future behavioral intention to visit actual tourist attractions. Two rounds of surveys in China show that MIP influenced cognition and emotion, which together may affect future visitation. MIP inspired a desire to visit through learning, although it also decreased interest because of negative emotions. The current study contributes to the virtual tourism literature and MIP theory and suggests implications for the use of virtual technologies in tourism marketing.

Özel Yetenekli Çocukların Baskın Özelliklerinin İkili Karşılaştırmalar Yöntemiyle Ölçeklenmesi

Introduction: In this study, it is aimed to conduct a scaling study to determine the dominant characteristics of gifted children who attend Science and Art Centers (SAC). In this scaling study, the opinions of the parents of the children identified with gifted/talented were taken. Method: The dominant characteristics of gifted children were collected under eight statements by the researchers. Data were collected from 204 parents who voluntarily participated in the descriptive research. Results: At the end of the scaling process with the Case V and Case III Full Data Matrix, it was seen that the parents ranked the dominant characteristics in gifted children as strong curiosity, keen powers of observation ability, vivid imagination, high degree of creativity, rapid learning ability, good problem solving / reasoning ability, extensive vocabulary, and perfectionism, respectively. Conclusion and Discussion: At the end of the research, it has been determined that the stimulus sequences obtained by the Case V and Case III equations are completely consistent with each other. When the scale values are examined, it is seen that the intervals of the scale values obtained from the Case III equation are wider than the Case V equation. The scale values obtained from the Case III equation are higher than the scale values obtained from the Case V equation.