Monday, January 27, 2020

Attentional Control and Working Memory

Attentional Control and Working Memory Attentional control and working memory over top-down, bottom-up factors Complicated activities rely on attention to selectively focus on task-relevant stimuli while overlooking salient distractive stimuli. For instance, drivers need to able to attend to oncoming traffic while simultaneously ignoring distracting stimuli such as eating, looking after children, or hearing the bell of a cellphone receive a message. Most models pertaining to the selectivity of attention suggest that our attention is biased to either stimulus-based factors (bottom-up selection) and/or goal-driven factors (top-down selection) (Theeuwes, 2010). Physically salient properties of objects that draw attention involuntarily are bottom-up factors, in contrast, past knowledge, goals, and future plans are top-down factors that automatically guide our attention (Katsuki Constantinidis, 2014). Attentional control researchers have continuously argued whether goal-driven factors or stimulus-based factors have a larger influence on attentional control. However, this assumes that attention co ntrol involves a dichotomous selection between stimulus-based factors and goal-driven factors. This is an assumption that is incorrect and does not consider attentional control research that exists beyond this dichotomic viewpoint (Vecera et al, 2014). Past theories of attention focusing on the biases between goal-driven (top-down) and physically salient stimuli (bottom-up) do not take into consideration findings that persist outside of these factors, such as, the influence of experience with distractors on future search tasks. Attentional control, using working memory of distractor experience and strong biases, is a more effective posit than the dichotomic bias between goal-driven factors and physically salient factors. Although the dichotomy of bottom-up and top-down does not account for selection biases that are not goal-related nor physically salient, it still provides a highly acceptable theory of attentional control. The first visual sweep is completely driven by stimuli (Theeuwes, 2010). Theeuwes (2010) claims that the most physically salient item drives attention during the first visual scan, it is not until later in time that visual selection is biased in a top-down manner. This top-down manner involves feedback processing and voluntary control based on willful plans and current goals. Theeuwes (1992) found that when looking for a circle among diamonds of all the same color, the response time was a lot slower when one of the diamonds was red. Their study demonstrated that salience has an impact on visual attentional control. Goal driven selection matches targets that most fit the observers goal template. For example, when at the supermarket, if the goal is to buy a red apple, the observer wi ll prioritize red items. Overall, the bottom-up and top-down model offers a much more simplistic approach to attention and is one that can be easily accepted due to its lack of complexity in reasoning. For instance, it is easy to comprehend that items that pop out are more likely to grab attention, as well as, current selection goals of the on looker. However, this theory suggests that irrelevant items are not learned and cannot be used in future search tasks. Both stimulus-based and goal-driven factors influence attentional control, however, researchers have recently started to notice the impact experience has on the selective nature of attention (Awh et al., 2012). For example, participants point out noticeable, color targets quickly if the target-color is repeated throughout subsequent trials (Maljkovic Nakayama, 1994). They found that even when observers have a strong stimulus-based bias towards the target, experience strengthens this bias. Accordingly, priming of pop out of targets in repeated trials demonstrates the ability of experience to change the efficiency and overall efficacy of attentional control (Lee, Mozer, Vecera, 2009). These findings further support the idea that experience can influence attentional control, an idea that is not supported by bottom-up and top-down theories. In contrast to research done in favor of bottom-up, top-down posits, one memory system that falls in favor of experience and attentional control is priming of pop out (PoP). PoP occurs when individuals can point out a target faster if the essential feature of that target is constant in subsequent trials (Maljkovic Nakayama, 1994). In their study, they had their participants look for a colored diamond and had them identify if the diamond had a feature missing from either side. They found that PoP helped individuals and increased their response times. Their findings suggest that by continually showing a targets defining features, it reinforces the selective bias towards that targets features. In a similar vein, Tulving and Schacter (1990) found that representation systems based on perception allow for perceptual priming to occur. These representation system process new information in short-term memory. This short-term memory hastens the processing of similar information in future task s. Thus, when the visual information sweep frequently encounters similar items to process, these items are processed in a faster manner because short-term memory already has a memory trace of that item. Priming of pop out further demonstrates how learned experience with physically salient items benefits subsequent search tasks. It demonstrates that passive priming can provoke strong selection biases that have nothing to do with goal-driven selection. The bottom-up, top-down attentional control model does not consider these findings. Large amounts of research on attentional selection cannot be accounted for by the tendency to group attentional control in either top-down or bottom-up factors (Awh et al., 2012), for example, memory. There are two types of memory that have different roles and first need to be distinguished. Visual working memory depictions are different from visual long-term memories (VLTM). Visual working memory depictions are held for a limited amount of time, while visual long-term depictions continue throughout time (Luck, 2008). The constant maintenance of information limits the length of time for which visual working memory (VWM) depictions are upheld in memory. Lastly, VWM can only hold three to four items at the same time, while VLTM depictions are not bounded to a specific amount of objects (Brady et al., 2008). Although VWM is important in memory, VWM, in regards to attentional control, is specifically important for building experience with distractor rejections, but, is not useful for fut ure use. Visual long term memory (VLTM) uses information (information that is no longer relevant to the task) encoded in the past to guide attention (Fan Turk-Browne, 2016). In their first experiment, Fan and Turk-Browne (2016) found that VLTM for the associated location of a target guided spatial attention during visual search for the target, even when this location was not relevant to the task. Their second experiment expanded on these findings by discovering that VLTM for the associated color of a target influenced attentional capture in a different task. Memories can guide attention toward associated features, even when these features were encoded incidentally and were never relevant to any task (Fan Turk-Browne, 2016). An items features are automatically retrieved from long-term memory based on environmental cues encoded into working memory. These working memory representations bias selection toward items perceived in the world that match with features in memory through react ivation. An example of this would be shopping at a supermarket frequently gone to. When shopping at the local supermarket looking for your favorite cereal, for example, you are less likely to be distracted by other grocery items because you know where youre going and do not have to scan the visual area as often as opposed to it being the first time at that specific store. Observers find targets more easily when knowledge is given beforehand concerning the physical features of the target, like location, identity, and color (Moher Egeth, 2012). This is a process known as visual cueing. Observers find targets more easily, when they are told beforehand, not to look at certain irrelevant areas of the display areas that will not have any targets pop up. For example, an individual is more often than not to find their friend at a mall if told that their friend will be wearing a bright yellow shirt. In the same manner, Woodman and Luck (2007) found that targets were located faster if distractor items that were in the color that had to be ignored were present versus the distractors not being there at all. They concluded that participants used a template for rejection wherein items that match any beforehand features that had to be ignored, could be avoided during search, thus, items possessing the feature that had to be ignored were quickly rejected, ultimatel y, minimizing the size of the search. Knowing what not to look for reduces the number of items needed to be scanned, inadvertently reducing the time it takes to search through items. Further extending current research on the theory that individuals can use cues to bias attention away from salient distractors, individuals need experience with distractors before the distractors can actually be ignored (Cunningham Egeth, 2016). Experience with irrelevant stimuli can improve search in tasks. Learning to ignore features can result in a benefit in search tasks because time spent learning about these features, that need to be ignored, enhances its ability to be used by individuals in future search tasks (Cunningham Egeth, 2016). Results from their experiment found that within the same task, observers only benefited from cues that were consistent and not by cues that changed trial by trial. This demonstrates that cues can only be beneficial in search tasks if the cues are repeatedly shown ; developing a more concrete trace in long term memory in which participants can use. The mentioned studies establish that memory is an important part of the attentional selection process. The concept of memory cannot be put into a category that is either stimulus-driven or goal-driven, but rather makes its own valid case in the plethora of selection phenomena. Biased competition proposes that attentional control mechanisms occur when several neuronal axons land in the same receptive vicinity (Desimone Duncan, 1995). They found that when several stimuli fall into one receptive field, a neuron has multiple choices as to which of these stimuli it should respond to; this is quite an uncertain process. However, attentional mechanisms solve this uncertainty through two processes: attention is biased towards matching target objects with templates held in VWM. And, attention is biased towards items that are physically salient. Objects that are held in VWM are preferred over objects that are not because cells that have the objects features show higher rates of activity (Miller Desimone, 1994). Features of items in the external world are represented by these cells held in VWM, thus, the higher the activation rate, the more probable these neurons are to reach supra-threshold and fire an action potential when an external item matches that of the ite m in working memory. In support of experience and attentional control, biased competition reveals that past experience directs learning towards novel characteristics in settings and plays an important role forming the long-term memory system (Hutchinson et al., 2016). Frequent studies of attention have looked at task-related goals and its effect on memory encoding, but not much research has investigated the role of memory guiding itself during selection (Awh et al., 2012). According to Hutchinson et al. (2016), memory allows for the brain to differentiate between old information (information in which the individual has already encountered) and new information that will give the best representation of the surroundings. Thus, in circumstances that involve both the presence of old and new information, old information will affect how new information is processed and interpreted. Biased competition further supports that experience has an effect on what enters the memory system, which then, subsequently affect s the attentional systems use of templates in the prioritization of certain items. Cases that cannot be explained by the traditional dichotomy of attentional control can be further expanded by reward control. Although attentional selection can be voluntary, in the case of goal-driven tasks, subsequent selection can be provoked be rewards. Hickey et al. (2010) had participants look for a diamond shape while also ignoring irrelevant color stimuli at the same time. Participants were given a low or a high monetary reward depending on whether they answered right. The researchers found that rewards could bias attentional selection to either the target or to the irrelevant stimuli trial after trial.ÂÂ   For instance, if the target color stayed the same on subsequent trials, participants had a fast response time after given a high monetary reward. However, when the distractor had the same color as the previous target, reaction times were slow after given a high monetary reward. This study suggests that monetary reward influenced attention towards the color that was gi ven the high reward, irrespective of whether the color was associated with the distractor or the target. Several studies have shown that attentional selection is biased towards monetary reward. These findings cannot be explained by the voluntary, top-down or the physically salient, bottom-up attentional control dichotomy. Monetary reward further demonstrates that the dichotomic posit of attentional control is one that is incomplete and that monetary reward only expands on the present findings related to selection phenomena. Rewards are one of the strong biases that have a significant influence on selective processes. When encountering physically noticeable distractors, the experiences built on these distractors allows individuals to focus in future search tasks. This finding reveals that experience with physically noticeable distractors, and not only target templates held in working memory, benefits the high functionality of attentional control. Like further posits of attentional controls dependence on experience, learning to reject irrelevant stimuli depends on visual long term memory. This is an acceptable finding to grasp because long term memory possesses the ability to direct attention to target items in the present and later on, and, away from distractors. This finding further validates that attentional control cannot be explained by purely using the dichotomy of goal-driven and physically-salient-driven efforts. Rather, attentional control is an active process founded on creating experience with specific objects. Consequently, attentional control is a skill that is increasingly sharpened a s we gain experience out in the world. By not having much experience, the skills used in controlling attention is rather basic and depends on the simple use of the physical noticeability of object features. However, as individuals experience increases with certain tasks, the skills involved in attentional control sharpens and focuses on specific features. Once our attention is focused on a specific set of features, top-down control of attention can operate more efficiently. The importance of attentional control can be further seen in everyday life, especially in the realm of mental health. Several findings have found that there is a high correlation between those who suffer with mental illnesses and levels of attentional control. Individuals who have Alzheimers disease, for example, have trouble maintaining goal-directedness (Coubard, et al., 2011). They found that Alzheimers disease affects the ability of switching attention, suppressing, and preparing attention for random events. Further, individuals who suffer from schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a fast response time in tasks when levels of anxiety and depression are lessened (Sarter and Paolone, 2011). Emotional processing is an important of human interaction and communication. Low attentional control would hinder the ability to shift attention away from potentially threating information which would increase ones susceptibility of developing harmful psychological effects (Fergus et al., 2012). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is another mental illness that is also affected by attentional control. Individuals with PTSD and low attentional control show attentional avoidance (Schoorl et al., 2014). Attentional avoidance is the concept of biasing attention away from threatening situations. These threatening situations serve as triggers that remind individuals with PTSD of the traumatic events they have experienced. This cognitive avoidance can be dysfunctional becaus e individuals with PTSD do not face threatening stimuli head on and avoid it, which, deprive them of the chance to realize that the traumatic event will not occur again (Schoorl et al., 2014). This was only the case when post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms were high and attention control levels were low. Works Cited Awh, E., Belopolsky, A. V., Theeuwes, J. (2012). Top-down versus bottom-up attentional control: A failed theoretical dichotomy. Trends In Cognitive Sciences, 16(8), 437-443. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.06.010 Brady, T.F., Konkle, T., Alvarez, G.A., Oliva, A. (2008). Visual long-term memory has a massive storage capacity for object details. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(38), 14325-14329. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0803390105 Cunningham, C. A., Egeth, H. E. (2016). Taming the white bear: Initial costs and eventual benefits of distractor inhibition. Psychological Science, 27(4), 476-485. doi:10.1177/0956797615626564 Coubard, O. A., Ferrufino, L., Boura, M., Gripon, A., Renaud, M., Bherer, L. (2011). Attentional control in normal aging and Alzheimers disease. Neuropsychology, 25(3), 353-367. doi:10.1037/a0022058 Desimone, R., Duncan, J. (1995). Neural mechanisms of selective visual attention. Annual Reviews of Neuroscience, 18(1), 193-222. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ne.18.0030195.001205 Fan, J. E., Turk-Browne, N. B. (2016). Incidental biasing of attention from visual long-term memory. Journal Of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, And Cognition, 42(6), 970-977. doi:10.1037/xlm0000209 Fergus, T. A., Bardeen, J. R., Orcutt, H. K. (2012). Attentional control moderates the relationship between activation of the cognitive attentional syndrome and symptoms of psychopathology. Personality And Individual Differences, 53(3), 213-217. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2012.03.017 Hickey, C., Chelazzi, L., Theeuwes, J. (2010). Reward Changes Salience in Human Vision via the Anterior Cingulate. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(33), 11096-11103. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.1026-10.2010 Hutchinson, J. B., Pak, S. S., Turk-Browne, N. B. (2016). Biased competition during long- term memory formation. Journal Of Cognitive Neuroscience, 28(1), 187-197. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00889 Katsuki, F., Constantinidis, C. (2014). Bottom-up and top-down attention: Different processes and overlapping neural systems. The Neuroscientist, 20(5), 509-521. doi:10.1177/1073858413514136 Lee, H., Mozer, M.C., Vecera, S.P. (2009). Mechanisms of priming of pop-out: Stored representations or feature-gain modulations? Attention, Perception, Psychophysics, 71(5), 1059-1071. doi: 10.3758/APP.71.5.1059 Luck, S.J. (2008). Visual short-term memory. In S.J. Luck A. Hollingworth (Eds.), Visual Memory (pp. 43-85). New York: Oxford University Press. Maljkovic, V., Nakayama, K. (1994). Priming of pop-out: I. Role of features. Memory Cognition, 22(6), 657-72. doi: 10.3758/BF03209251 Miller, E.K., Desimone, R. (1994). Parallel neuronal mechanisms for short-term memory. Science, 263((5146), 520-522. doi: 10.1126/science.8290960 Moher, J., Egeth, H.E. (2012). The ignoring paradox: Cueing distractor features leads first to selection, then to inhibition of to-be-ignored items. Attention, Perception, Psychophysics, 74(8), 1590-1605. doi: 10.3758/s13414-012-0358-0 Sarter, M., Paolone, G. (2011). Deficits in attentional control: Cholinergic mechanisms and circuitry-based treatment approaches. Behavioral Neuroscience, 125(6), 825-835. doi:10.1037/a0026227 Schoorl, M., Putman, P., Van Der Werff, S., Van Der Does, A. W. (2014). Attentional bias and attentional control in posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal Of Anxiety Disorders, 28(2), 203-210. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2013.10.001 Theeuwes, J. (1992). Perceptual selectivity for color and form. Perception Psychophysics, 51(6), 599-606. doi:10.3758/BF03211656 Theeuwes, J. (2010). Top-down and bottom-up control of visual selection. Acta Psychologica, 135(2), 77-99. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.02.006 Tulving, E., Schacter, D.L. (1990). Priming and human memory systems. Science, 247(4940), 301-306. doi: 10.1126/science.2296719 Vecera, S. P., Cosman, J. D., Vatterott, D. B., Roper, Z. J. (2014). The control of visual attention: Toward a unified account. In B. H. Ross, B. H. Ross (Eds.) , The psychology of learning and motivation, Vol. 60 (pp. 303-347). San Diego, CA, US: Elsevier Academic Press. Vogel, E.K., Woodman, G.F., Luck, S.J. (2006). The time course of consolidation in visual working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance,32(6), 1436-1451. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.32.6.1436

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Common Features of a Shakespeare Comedy

Common Features of a Shakespeare Comedy What makes a Shakespeare comedy identifiable if the genre is not distinct from the Shakespeare tragedies and histories? This is an ongoing area of debate, but many believe that the comedies share certain characteristics, as described below: * Comedy through language: Shakespeare communicated his comedy through language and his comedy plays are peppered with clever word play, metaphors and insults. 1. Love: The theme of love is prevalent in every Shakespeare comedy.Often, we are presented with sets of lovers who, through the course of the play, overcome the obstacles in their relationship and unite. Love in Shakespearean comedy is stronger than the inertia of custom, the power of evil, or the fortunes of chance and time. In all of these plays but one (Troilus and Cressida), the obstacles presented to love are triumphantly overcome, as conflicts are resolved and errors forgiven in a general aura of reconciliation and marital bliss at the play's c lose.Such intransigent characters as Shylock, Malvolio, and Don John, who choose not to act out of love, cannot be accommodated in this scheme, and they are carefully isolated from the action before the climax. * * Complex plots: The plotline of a Shakespeare comedy contains more twists and turns than his tragedies and histories. Although the plots are complex, they do follow similar patterns. For example, the climax of the play always occurs in the third act and the final scene has a celebratory feel when the lovers finally declare their love for each other.Moreover, the context of marriage—at least alluded to, is the cap-stone of the comedic solution, for these plays not only delight and entertain, they affirm, guaranteeing the future. Marriage, with its promise of offspring, reinvigorates society and transcends the purely personal element in sexual attraction and romantic love. * Mistaken identities: The plot is often driven by mistaken identity. Sometimes this is an inten tional part of a villain’s plot, as in Much Ado About Nothing when Don John tricks Claudio into believing that his fiance has been unfaithful through mistaken identity.Characters also play scenes in disguise and it is not uncommon for female characters to disguise themselves as male characters, seen in Portia in the Merchant of venice. Shakespeare’s 17 comedies are the most difficult to classify because they overlap in style with other genres. Critics often describe some plays as tragi-comedies because they mix equal measures of tragedy and comedy. For example, Much Ado About Nothing starts as a Shakespeare comedy, but takes on the characteristics of a tragedy when Hero is disgraced and fakes her own death.At this point, the play has more in common with Romeo and Juliet, one of Shakespeare’s key tragedies. The 18 plays generally classified as comedy are as follows: 1 All's Well That Ends Well 2 As You Like It 3 The Comedy of Errors 4 Cymbeline 5 Love's Labourâ⠂¬â„¢s Lost 6 Measure for Measure 7 The Merry Wives of Windsor 8 The Merchant of Venice 9 A Midsummer Night's Dream 10 Much Ado About Nothing 11 Pericles, Prince of Tyre 12 The Taming of the Shrew 13 The Tempest 14 Troilus and Cressida 15 Twelfth Night 16 Two Gentlemen of Verona 7 The Two Noble Kinsmen 18 The Winter's Tale 2. 3. Comedy is a drama that provokes laughter at human behavior, usually involves romantic love, and usually has a happy ending. In Shakespeare's day the conventional comedy enacted the struggle of young lovers to surmount some difficulty, usually presented by their elders, and the play ended happily in marriage or the prospect of marriage. Sometimes the struggle was to bring separated lovers or family members together, and their reunion was the happy culmination (this often involved marriage also).Shakespeare generally observed these conventions, though his inventiveness within them yielded many variations. 4. Eighteen plays are generally included among Shakespe are's comedies. In approximate order of composition, they are. These works are often divided into distinct subclasses reflecting the playwright's development. The first seven, all written before about 1598, are loosely classed as the ‘early comedies', though they vary considerably in both quality and character.The last four of these—Loves Labour's Lost, the Dream, the Merchant, and the Merry Wives—are sometimes separated as a transitional group, or linked with the next three in a large ‘middle comedies' classification. The Merry Wives is somewhat anomalous in any case; it represents a type of comedy—the ‘city play', a speciality of suchwriters as Ben Jonson and Thomas Dekker—that Shakespeare did not otherwise write. The next three plays. Much Ado, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night, are often thought to constitute Shakespeare's greatest achievement in comedy; all written around 1599-1600, they are called the romantic, or mature, comedies. The next group of three plays, called the Problem Plays, which include Alls Well that Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and Measure for Measure that were written in the first years of the 17th century, as Shakespeare was simultaneously creating his greatest tragedies. The final cluster, all written between about 1607 and 1613, make up the bulk of the playwright's final period. They are known as the Romances which include Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and often The Two Noble Kinsman. (The problem plays and romances were intended to merge Tragedy and comedy in Tragicomedies.Many minor variations in this classification scheme are possible; indeed, the boundaries of the whole genre are not fixed, for Timon of Athens is often included among the comedies, and Troilus and Cressida is sometimes considered a tragedy. 5. Shakespeare's earliest comedies are similar to existing plays, reflecting his inexperience. The Comedy of Errors—thought by many scholars to be h is first drama, though the dating of Shakespeare's early works is extremely difficult—is built on a play by the ancient Roman dramatist Plautus. Characteristically, Shakespeare enriched his source, but with material from another play by Plautus.The Subplot of The Taming of the Shrew was taken from a popular play of a generation earlier, and the main plot was well known in folklore, though the combination was ingeniously devised. The Two Gentlemen of Verona likewise deals with familiar literary material, treating it in the manner of John Lyly, the most successful comedy writer when Shakespeare began his career. 6. However, the young playwright soon found the confidence to experiment, and in Loves Labour's Lost, the Dream, and the Merchant, he created a group of unusual works that surely startled Elizabethan playgoers, though pleasurably, we may presume.In the first he created his own main plot and used a distinctively English variation on the Italian Commedia Dell’Arte traditions for a sub-plot. He thus produced a splendid array of comic situations. The play's abundant topical humor was certainly appreciated by the original audiences, although today we don't always know what it is about. In any case, the major characters are charming young lovers, the minor ones are droll eccentrics, and the closing coup de theatre, with which a darkening mood brings the work to a close, is a stunning innovation. Already, the eventual turn towards tragicomedy is foreshadowed.A Midsummer Night's Dream mingles motifs from many sources, but the story is again the playwright's own; moreover, the play's extraordinary combination of oddity and beauty was entirely unprecedented and has rarely been approximated since. The Merchant of Venice mixes a social theme, usury, into a conventional comedy plot to deepen the resonance of the final outcome as well as to vary the formula. Here, the threat that is finally averted is so dire as to generate an almost tragic mood, again a nticipating developments later in the playwright's career. . The mastery that Shakespeare had achieved by the late 1590s is reflected in the insouciance of the titles he gave his mature comedies (Twelfth Night's subtitle—'What You Will'—matches the others). That mastery is accompanied by a serious intent that is lacking in the earliest comedies. Shakespeare could not ignore the inherent poignancy in the contrast between life as it is lived and the escape from life represented by comedy. In Much Ado, as in The Merchant of Venice, a serious threat to life and happiness counters the froth of a romantic farce.Even in As You Like It, one of the most purely entertaining of Shakespeare's plays, the melancholy Jaques interposes his conviction that life is irredeemably corrupt. Feste’s song at the close of Twelfth Night gives touching expression to such sentiments, as he sends us from the theatre with the melancholy refrain, ‘the rain it raineth every day' (5. 1. 3 91). We are not expected to take him too seriously, but we cannot avoid the realization that even the life of a jester may be a sad one.The mature comedies thus further a blending of comedy and tragedy. 8. In the end, however, all of Shakespeare's comedies, including the later problem plays and romances, are driven by love. Love in Shakespearean comedy is stronger than the inertia of custom, the power of evil, or the fortunes of chance and time. In all of these plays but one (Troilus and Cressida), the obstacles presented to love are triumphantly overcome, as conflicts are resolved and errors forgiven in a general aura of reconciliation and marital bliss at the play's close.Such intransigent characters as Shylock, Malvolio, and Don John, who choose not to act out of love, cannot be accommodated in this scheme, and they are carefully isolated from the action before the climax. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 9. In their resolutions Shakespeare's comedies resemble the medieval Morality Pl ay, which centeres on a sinful human who receives God's mercy. In these secular works, a human authority figure—Don Pedro or Duke Senior, for instance—is symbolically divine, the opponents of love are the representatives of sin, and all of the participants in the closing vignette partake of the play's love and forgiveness.Moreover, the context of marriage—at least alluded to at the close of all but Troilus and Cressida—is the cap-stone of the comedic solution, for these plays not only delight and entertain, they affirm, guaranteeing the future. Marriage, with its promise of offspring, reinvigorates society and transcends the purely personal element in sexual attraction and romantic love. Tragedy's focus on the individual makes death the central fact of life, but comedy, with its insistence on the ongoing process of love and sex and birth, confirms our awareness that life transcends the individual. 10.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Comparison Between Two Poems By Two Different Poets About London †Wordsworth and Blake Essay

William Blake and William Wordsworth’s poems have influenced people from all over the world by the feelings that each of their poems have expressed, the ability which the poems have of captivating the reader’s attention and the variety of differences each of the poets have with each other as well as the different perspectives each poet sees the world. William Blake as well as being an English poet, was renowned for his artwork and for his engraving. With these fairly random abilities and talents, Blake cold creates a unique from of illustrated verse. Born on the 28th November 1757, as the son of a hosier, Blake grew up as a Londoner and lived in London for the majority of his life where most of his inspiration as an artist in both poetry and painting originated. Beginning his life as a poet at an early age of twelve it is seen that Blake was able to give and show his views of London and its population as both a child and as an adult. Much of his work symbolises religion as many forms of animals and other forms of species. His contradictory view on life with poems like; ‘the Lamb,’ and its other half ‘the Tyger,’ show life and feelings from different perspectives. William Wordsworth was also an English poet who was the most significant of English romantic poets. Born later than Blake on 7th April 1770, he lived in a family of high status unlike Blake. He went to school at Saint John’s College where he was inspired by its places of scenic beauty in his poems. His love for his family also provoked him to write poems also, for example the poem ‘To My Sister.’ Wordsworth never deepened his meanings of his poems as much as Blake but nevertheless did they show lack of depth. The first poem ‘London’ by William Blake tells us only that the poem is about London. It is obviously difficult to make any predictions regarding what the components of the poem are, but it enables the reader to assume that it is a topic Blake considers very seriously. The first line: ‘I wander thro’ each charter’d street†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ more or less points out that the poem is in fact one of Blake’s experiences, as if he himself is telling a story in a lyrical sense. The words: ‘I wander†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ stand out very much compared to the remaining part of the line. It gives the impression that the poem is a personal feeling of maybe angst or depression of the poet about living in a city such as London consisting of a fairly large population that at times it becomes overcrowded and people are unable to withstand themselves from feeling the same depression as their neighbours would feel. Or perhaps, because of living in the city for so long Blake had witnessed the sadness of his fellow Londoners as the words: ‘And mark in every face I see Marks of weakness, marks of woe†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ indicate. The technique of which is considerable effective and a tactful approach used by Blake so the reader does not suffer from boredom by usage of the invariable words. The pun of the repetitive word ‘mark’ or ‘marks’, means in the first line it is used, that Blake had noticed the emotions revealed by the Londoners’ faces and taken into account from indication in the second line the signs of weakness and woe that seemed to burden ‘every face’ he saw. His creativity of maybe exaggerating what he truthfully had seen also ‘marks’ the reader with the same weaknesses and woes that can felt by the people being described in the poem. The next two verses become even more depressing and unfold into a deepening pessimistic view of London and its inhabitants. Blake still exaggerates his views on London, for example: ‘every Man†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢, ‘every Infant’s†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢, ‘every voice†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ This overemphasis of these nouns also brings out the imagery of the scene about every person feeling what is said in the poem. However the most emphasis is on the line: ‘The mind forg’d manacles I hear.’ This is a good technique used by Blake as the word ‘manacles’ means a device for shackling the hands or something that confines or restrains. In this part of the poem however, Blake indicates that he hears ‘mind forg’d manacles’ which in this poem signifies that he was probably being pinned down or handcuffed in his mind symbolising in a way a form of depression because of the unhappiness which he saw and he himself felt from the cries of men, and the cry of fear of infants and the voices of bans. The third verse continues the form of dramatic melancholy with the words: ‘How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry Every black’ning Church appals;’ Refers to only one chimney sweep and not ‘every’ chimney sweep, as was the case at the beginning of the poem. Religion is brought into the poem here by references to the Church. However, these churches are portrayed as quite the opposite to what we would probably expect in the twenty-first century. In this poem, Blake conveys them to appal the cry of the Chimney sweep rather than show concern for the boy. Where it says ‘black’ning Church’, Blake could be trying to show that the churches were turning a blind eye to the suffering population of London as the colour black is usually associated with and symbolises death and hard-heartedness in our society. The remaining lines of the third verse which draws attention to soldiers could imply that Blake was trying to link together the suffering of people to the ‘Seven Year War’ which had affected Great Britain greatly during Blake’s period. In this particular part of the verse, Blake indicates that maybe the number of people suffering extends to the outskirts and beyond London. The last lines of the verse: ‘And in hapless Soldier’s sight Runs in blood down Palace walls.’ is a good use of imagery used by Blake. It is obvious that the blood, which runs down the Palace walls, is the blood of the dying or dead soldiers. The reason for this particular image is that Blake is trying to suggest that the blood being on the walls of the Palace is another way of conveying that the soldiers of the war had been the Palace’s responsibility and them dying had caused them to be guilty of their deaths and the blood horrifyingly reveals this. The last verse of the poem seems to portray a very enigmatic view to the reader. It brings the poem to a tense end. Words of destruction are used in this verse, for example: ‘Blasts’ and ‘blights’. This verse tells more of a story than the other verses. It seems to depict the story of a young prostitute ‘a youthful Harlot’ who owns a child of whom she causes to cry and for this reason, as well as her ‘plagues’, which could indicate a sexually transmitted disease, she cannot marry and so Blake uses the last words: ‘Marriage hearse’ showing that she has no chance in marriage because of her problems. The poem written by William Wordsworth portrays a completely different view to that of William Blake. The poem is considerably optimistic and, unlike the disturbing story Blake was articulating, Wordsworth was giving a description or his account of London and the view with which he could write a poem with. As Wordsworth was a poet who was inspired to write poetry from his love of nature it seemed only a natural thing to do to write an account on what he saw of London while on a coach to France. The main difference to Blake’s poem on London was Wordsworth’s opening line: ‘EARTH has not anything to show more fair:’ in which he seems also to exaggerate what he sees as Blake had but in a sanguine manner. as Blake also had done, Wordsworth had used imagery about what he saw of London. He uses rich words to portray a more regal city than that of what Blake saw, for example: ‘majesty,’ ‘glittering,’ ‘bright,’ ‘smokeless,’ ‘beautifully,’ and ‘mighty heart.’ The imagery that he used was: ‘This City now doth, like a garment†¦.’ which indicates that like a dress on a woman fits well, the beauty of the City of London also fits the scenery which Wordsworth saw. He had probable seen the City in the morning when everything had been quiet as the words: ‘Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!’ Many people across the world even in the time of Wordsworth would hardly ever refer to London as being calm. The description of nouns and some by adjectives such as: ‘Ships,’ ‘towers,’ ‘domes,’ ‘theatres,’ ‘temples,’ ‘smokeless air,’ and ‘river glideth,’ create a clam and sweet mood. The poem is not so much created by the people who live in the City but only of what Wordsworth had seen which then makes the poem unreliable if the reader wants to find out about what the people who live in his poems are like. He talks also to God about the splendours that he sees and how calm he seems to think London is. ‘Dear God! The very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!’ This indicates that Wordsworth may believe that London is a place where there is opportunity. In some cases this can be agreed but in others it just shows how much a look can deceive. The poem which affected me most was the poem by Blake. The interesting parts of the difference of these poems were that they were written at different times, Blake’s before Wordsworth’s, and that they both emphasised on different things. Wordsworth’s poem even though very descriptive and managing to capture the reader’s imagination was not as effective as Blake’s because Blake showed more of an insight to London which many of us in our society would and will never see. The way in which he was able to tell the story of only a few people’s lives yet it seemed it was happening to everybody was equally effective. Hi use of imagery and puns made the reader think more about what he was feeling and how he was seeing London more than Wordsworth’s poem. Another interesting perspective of these two poems was the fact that how much the view of a person living in London could differ so much from an outsider looking into the city.

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Evoked R-States with Progressive Muscle Relaxation (Pmr)...

Evoked R-states with Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) and yoga stretching Psychology 1100 051 The present article summarizes Ghoncheh and Smith’s (2004) 5 week study of the evoked effects of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) and yoga stretching on R-states. Smith’s (1999a, 1999b, 2001, 2002) Attentional Behavioral Cognitive (ABC) relaxation theory proposes 15 psychological relaxation-related states (R-States): Sleepiness, Disengagement, Physical Relaxation, Mental Quiet, Rested/Refreshed, At Ease/At Peace, Energized, Aware, Joy, Thankfulness and Love, Prayerfulness, Childlike Innocence, Awe and Wonder, Mystery, and Timeless/Boundless/Infinite. Smith’s theory (1999a, 1999b, 2001, 2002) suggests â€Å"that different approaches†¦show more content†¦Each group met once mid-week for 30 minutes and each session targeted the same 11 muscle-group combinations. Uniform scripts were presented to both groups (Smith, 1999b). For a period of 5 weeks, each group practiced a sustained focus on either tensing up and letting go (PMR) or stretching (yoga ) (as cited by Ghoncheh Smith, 2004). Ghoncheh and Smith, (2004) measured the impact of their exercise by using the Smith Relaxation States Inventory test (SRSI; Smith, 2001); a 30 item self report questionnaire measuring the 15 R-states and 3 stress states (Somatic Stress, Worry, and Negative Emotion). A 1 to 4 scale was used to rate their present feelings. Over the 5 week period participants were required to complete 12 tests; 10 before and after each session and 2 additional tests completed 3 minutes after the posttests of week 1 and 5. Findings registered the predicted results with R-states; Disengagement, Physical Relaxation, Joy, and Mental Quiet scoring higher with PMR, while yoga stretching induced contradictory effects with unpredicted R-state Physical Relaxation, scoring higher at week 1. In addition R-state findings Energized and Aware did not differ between the 2 independent variables at week 1 and week 5 (Ghoncheh Smith, 2004). Both relaxation methods show distinctnes s in evoking different R-states, supporting Smith’s (1999a, 1999b, 2001, 2002) ABC theory and prove to be inconsistent with both Benson’s (1975) and