Attention Shoppers: Everybody Please Rise

April 13th, 2006 Fred McVittie

A spectator has the unique power to wield attention. The ability to capture and hold the attention of spectators is a desirable skill for any performer to have, and is part of a raft of skills and tools utilised by performers which collectively result in ’stage presence’.

From the point of view of cognitive linguistics, when we use these metaphors we are not simply making poetic allusions in place of more symbolically structured knowledge or transcendent reason. Rather in using these and related metaphors to describe the performance event we are relating the formal structure of thinking itself. From this perspective, almost all thinking is metaphorical and these metaphors (which ultimately are sourced from bodily experience) overlap and inter-relate to form what we think of as bodies of knowledge. This paper will use the cognitive linguistic approach developed by Lakoff and Johnson and others to excavate the metaphors and image schemas associated with attention in relation to performance. Particular attention (sic) will be given to the use of metaphors used in performer training as a possible means of empowering the performer and developing stage presence.

Posted in Attention, Cognitive Linguistics, Conference Abstract, Johnson, Mark, Lakoff, George, Performance, Presence, Schema | No Comments »

The Kinesiology of Intuitive Listening

June 28th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Acts of organised intuition, such as are routinely attributed to such practices as psychotherapy and counselling, as well as creative practice and problem solving, routinely contain a phase referred to as ‘listening’ (1). This use of an embodied metaphor to describe an abstract concept, in this case the physical sense of listening standing in for the mental state of intuitive ’sensing’, is in line with the conceptual metaphor theories of Lakoff, Johnson and others. The cognitive concept of listening provides the image schema which structures the concept.

The close relationship between the physical schemata of the body and the image schemata which structure cognition suggests that the functioning of these metaphorical organs can be enhanced by engaging the body in specific behaviours. Intuitive listening, for example, can be enhanced by paying attention to the kinesiological or proprioceptive accompaniments to the act of normal auditory listening. Typically, active auditory listening is accompanied by specific postural and somatic realignments; eye gaze direction, head tilt, breath control, etc. Adopting these postures, either physically or imaginatively with the metaphorical body, can enhance or facilitate intuitive listening.

Petitmengin-Peugeot, C. (1999). “The Intuitive Experience.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 6(2-3): 43-77.

Posted in Hearing, Intuition, Johnson, Mark, Lakoff, George, Metaphor, Petitmengin-Peugeot, C., Proprioception, Schema | No Comments »

Disgusting Girls (and Ron Athey)

June 29th, 2006 Fred McVittie

One of the presentations today included some footage of a Ron Athey piece, which some people in the audience were clearly having problems with. It is interesting to note what people do when they are disgusted by something. There was a lot of squirming. According to the conceptual metaphor theory of Lakoff and Johnson and others, a possible reason why they/we were doing this is because of a process of cognitive metaphor creation. The mind effectively maps the structure of the physical and emotional response from the concrete concept of something pathogenically disgusting like a toxic substance onto the abstact concept of ‘deviant’ sexuality, such that we get ‘DEVIANT’ SEXUALITY IS A TOXIC SUBSTANCE. The details of the behavior which follows, lip curling (as if at a bitter taste), nose wrinkling (as if at a bad smell), and mouth gape (in preparation for vomiting) are metaphorical projections from the concrete concept onto the abstract concept enacted as a physical schema or performance.

Another revealing feature of the disgust reflex is that, once learnt through embodied experience with real TOXIC SUBSTANCES, the behaviour is then available not only for unconscious metaphorical mapping onto abstract concepts (as in the case of the Ron Athey video) but as an intentional gestalt performance which can be consciously activated to indicate moral or ethical disgust. An interesting example of this from my own experience is observing my children, both boys, metaphorically mapping GIRLS ARE A TOXIC SUBSTANCE. Before the age of around 6 this mapping did not exist, but from 6 onward the presence of a girl stimulated all aspects of the disgust reflex indicated above. From the age of around 12 however, this physical schema has become more of a conscious performance which is activated only in certain contexts (when they are with their friends), and which is clearly in competition with other physical schema presumably appropriate to metaphors such as GIRLS ARE RARE AND UNUSUAL OBJECTS, and even GIRLS ARE PEOPLE.

Posted in Art, Gesture, Johnson, Mark, Lakoff, George, Metaphor, Performance, Schema, Story | No Comments »

Presence and Proprioception

November 8th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The number and complexity of the detailed physical nuances which must be adjusted to improve ‘presence’ is such that this adjustment cannot (usually) be made through the conscious training of each individual nuance. Instead, this adjustment is best carried out by using the more holistic method of the adopting of appropriate body images or physical schemas. As an analogy, one way of learning the correct position of the hands and arms for downhill skiing is to imagine oneself carrying a tray of drinks. This holistic image, when activated in the imagination, organises the proprioception of the hands and arms such that they adopt the correct configuration. Similarly, learning to dance the ‘twist’ (certainly when I was at school in the 1960’s) involved imagining drying one’s back with a towel whilst simultaneously grinding out a cigarette butt under the ball of one’s foot. This combination of physical schema produce a gestalt movement which corresponds to the required dance move. The adjustment of behaviour which produces the peculiar dance of ‘presence’ is most effectively and economically produced by a similar activation of an imagined image; an image which organises the proprioception of the body such that the many subtle detailed actions of the body produce the effect of ‘presence’.

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Art and Gist

December 15th, 2006 Fred McVittie

Brainerd and Reyna propose a process for the relationship between knowledge and memory which they refer to as the ‘fuzzy trace’. This concept identifies a cognitive structure in the brain which is formed by repeated exposure to, and education about, specific experiences. So, for example, the experience of learning to drive a car, and of repeated driving behaviours, will create a mental schema or ‘trace’ of this behaviour. Similarly, repeated exposure to art, and education about art, will create a ‘trace’ of this art. This fuzzy trace is a kind of abstraction of all of the experiences, and represents the core, crystallised knowledge about the subject, and all of the individual experiences can be seen as ‘instances’ of this trace, (and I realise I am mixing metaphors wildly here). Significantly, this trace, or ‘gist’ as Brainerd and Reyna more colloquially call it, is then mobilised when new, related, experiences are encountered. So when driving a car, our moment by moment experience is referred to the existing ‘gist’, and this referring affects our actions and behaviour. Similarly, when we experience a new work of art, this experience is evaluated and understood in reference to our existing ‘gist’, and this referring produces the (critical) action and behaviour we have with regard to this artwork. This process works entirely subconsciously, and we do not think rationally prior to making a response or producing an action. Instead we get a feeling of ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’; an intuition about the experience which guides our behaviour.

Posted in Art, Brainerd, C. J. & Reyna, V. F., Fuzzy trace, Gist, Schema | No Comments »

Acting the Subtext - Chekhov and Gist

December 30th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The rehearsal technique known as ‘acting the subtext’ is a method for developing, in an embodied fashion, the physical schema articulating the competing or complementing psychological sense present in a performance. In this technique, the subtextual ‘gist’ of a scene is made physically available such that gestures, actions, etc might be constructed appropriate to this gist. This gist is then available as a non-conscious schema or trace which might then inflect the overt schema representing the surface text. One example of a technique which utilises this combination of schema is the ‘psychological gesture’ of Michael Chekhov.

Posted in Acting, Chekhov, Michael, Gesture, Gist, Schema | No Comments »

Abstract Competency and Chekhov

January 9th, 2007 Fred McVittie

Knowledge transfer and acquisition (learning) consists not only of the gaining of certain facts and physical routines, but also in the creation of a level of abstract competency or schema in the flexible application of these facts and routines.

The specific process of learning discussed in this paper is the training of actors, which entails assisting the actor in the development of such abstract competencies as are appropriate to that activity; maintaining a character, establishing circles of attention, delivery of text, stage ‘presence’, and conveying the illusion of naturalism. Some of these activities are incredibly subtle and detailed, and involve the shaping of multiple simultaneous actions. The successful delivery of such actions is dependent upon the smooth functioning of both the actor’s body and also their body of knowledge. This particular learning activity is interesting because it involves a complex mix of practical and intellectual knowledge which the competent actor needs to integrate into a unified competency.

Approaches to the development of such a body of knowledge can be characterised as favouring one of two possible approaches. Borrowing terminology from Artificial Intelligence research, these approaches might be termed Bottom Up and Top Down. The Bottom Up approach introduces the actor to a wide range, and a large number, of learning experiences, including skills training, workshops, examples, improvisations, rehearsals, etc. Through frequent exposure to these experiences, and extensive feedback including the selective reinforcement of appropriate behaviour in response to these experiences (applause, praise etc), the actor gradually builds up the abstract competencies that are required to perform at a high level. The Top Down approach has the same goal, the creation of the abstract competencies noted above, but instead of relying on the emergence of these competencies out of the (quasi-Darwinian) processes indicated, these schema are created through the application of higher order concepts. These higher order concepts might take the form of beliefs, theories, or intentions which organise the body of knowledge developed by the actor such that the necessary competencies are realised. This paper will discuss these two approaches as they are manifest in some of the established training techniques currently used for the training of actors in the academy, with particular reference being made to the work of Michael Chekhov, the Russian émigré director and coach who worked extensively with actors in the UK and America in the early 20^th Century, and whose techniques are still taught today.

Posted in Chekhov, Michael, Knowledge, Schema | No Comments »

Effects of Multiple Schema in Performance

January 13th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The ‘gist’ or schema associated (possibly metaphorically) with a physical behaviour organises the proprioception involved in the carrying out of that behaviour, particularly taking care of the details. Sometimes different schema can be mobilised simultaneously, as when we are required to perform two tasks at once, or when we conceive (consciously or unconsciously) of a single task as being composed of two other tasks, (as for example when we learn to dance ‘the twist’ be imagining drying our back with a towel whilst grinding out a cigarette end under a foot). It is likely that, in addition to such potentially useful or complementary schema, there are also occasions when competing or conflicting schema are operating simultaneously, which would negatively affect the carrying out of the desired action. This may be evidenced in theatrical performance contexts when a nervous actor may be operating a ‘hide’ schema alongside other behaviours.

Posted in Gist, Performance, Proprioception, Schema | No Comments »

Image Schema List

April 17th, 2007 Fred McVittie

Lists of image schemas

While Johnson provided an initial list of image schemas in The Body in the Mind (p. 126), his diagrams for them are scattered throughout his book and he only diagrammed a portion of those image schemas he listed. In his work, Lakoff also used several additional schemas.

Johnson 1987:

Spatial motion group

Containment
Path
Source-Path-Goal
Blockage
Center-Periphery
Cycle
Cyclic Climax

Force Group

Compulsion
Counterforce
Diversion
Removal of Restraint
Enablement
Attraction
Link
Scale

Balance Group

Axis Balance
Point Balance
Twin-Pan Balance
Equilibrium

Listed but unsketched and undiscussed in Johnson

Contact
Surface
Full-Empty
Merging
Matching
Near-Far
Mass-Count
Iteration
Object
Splitting
Part-Whole
Superimposition
Process
Collection

Additional schemas discussed in Lakoff 1987:

Spatial group

Above
Across
Covering
Contact
Vertical Orientation
Length (extended trajector)

Transformational group

Linear path from moving object (one dimensional trajector)
Path to endpoint (endpoint focus)
Path to object mass (path covering)
Multiplex to mass (possibly the same as Johnson’s undefined Mass-Count)
Reflexive (both part-whole and temporally different reflexives)
Rotation

Image schemas proposed and discussed by others:

Rough-smooth/Bumpy-smooth (Rohrer; Johnson and Rohrer)

Posted in Johnson, Mark, Lakoff, George, Schema | No Comments »

Meat Knowing

July 5th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The body knows the world in its experiencing of that world. Knowledge, in embodied terms, is coexistent with experiencing and is therefore inevitably limited to the unalloyed affordances of the body. In this regard, ‘experiential knowledge’ refers to that subset of knowledge which is directly apprehensible to the senses and which is capable of being represented within the sensorimotor system of the body.

It could be argued that, since the mind is also ultimately embodied, in the sense that the conceptual mechanisms of thought are derived from the affordances of the body, then all knowledge is ‘experiential’, sharing a consilient body-based vocabulary of image schema and metaphor. However, there are significant differences between knowledge which is based on the language of experience, call it ‘embodied conceptualisation’, and knowledge which is embodied experience itself. One key difference lies in the necessary consistency which marks embodied experience and which is absent from embodied conceptualisation. Embodied experience involves the active engagement with the physical objects of the world; when learning to operate a lathe for example, one is actively connected to the material reality of the lathe and to the material one is working. The embodied experience or tacit knowledge which this activity produces is dependent upon, and constrained by, the necessary constancy of the lathe and the material. In simple terms, the lathe will not change into a container or into an animal half way through the process. The material one is working with will not usually transform into a liquid or volatalise away into gas the moment the chuck key is tightened on it. That is not the way the real world works, and the embodied knowledge of using a lathe is constrained by this reality.

Embodied conceptualisation, being a form of knowledge which uses the language of embodiment but does not operate in the real world, has no such constraints. When constructing knowledge or communicating knowledge which has no literal physical correlates, knowledge concerning some abstract entity such as justice for example, there is no demand for ontological consistency and no need for the constancy of material properties which mark the real world. When using embodied concepts, in metaphor for example, it is commonplace for the guiding metaphor to shift many times during the course of a single sentence. If we wish to create or share knowledge about justice we may find ourselves alluding to metaphorical swords, scales, blindfolds, etc, and moving between these allusions seamlessly and unproblematically. The ontology and materiality of such a concept is not constrained by the physics of the real world but rather has a fluidity which gives it its power. It has been suggested that the very act of mixing metaphors is a strategy for the advancement of conceptual knowledge, these mixings acting as ‘engines of organisational enquiry’(1).

(I am aware that even in talking about such conceptualisation I am making use of the very capacity under discussion. Most of the above paragraphs have been chains of shifting metaphors employed to organise the enquiry I am engaged in.)

1. Boland, Richard J. Jr. & Tenkasi, Ramkrishnan V.
Metaphor and the Embodied Mind: An Engine of Organizational Inquiry.
SPROUTS: Working Papers on Information Environments, Systems and Organizations
Volume 1 Issue 1 Article 2 – 2001

Posted in Affordance, Boland, Richard J. Jr. & Tenkasi, Ramkrishnan V., Embodiment, Metaphor, Schema | No Comments »

A World Without Cycles

July 9th, 2007 Fred McVittie

Prior to the invasion of the Conquistadors into South America the local culture, although it was highly advanced in many ways, was a civilisation without the wheel. Actually this is not entirely true, apparently they did have toys which had wheels, and devices such as spinning tops which used the principle of the wheel, but they did not have wheeled vehicles. Let us pretend that they didn’t though. Nor, for the sake of argument, did they have roulette wheels, plate-spinning jugglers, rotating potter’s wheels, lathe’s, or indeed anything which involved the rotation of a circular object. In such a civilisation would it be possible for the concept of a ‘cycle’ to emerge as an organisational structure such as the ‘cycles’ we talk about when discussing history, industrial production, time, etc.? When ‘cycle’ is used in these ways it is a metaphor to indicate some phenomenon which repeats, which involves the constant return of a limited pattern of events, and which ‘comes around’ with the regularity of a turning wheel. Our conception of such phenomena depends upon our previous embodied familiarity with the wheels we come across in everyday life. Presumably without this familiarity and the Image Schema which we possess based on our interaction with the wheel, then this metaphor of the cycle would not be available to us.

Posted in Cycle, History, Metaphor, Schema | No Comments »

Metaphor Theory as a Conceptual Framework

November 4th, 2007 Fred McVittie

Conceptual metaphor theory provides a meta-analytic framework to consider a range of different types of writing: scientific, poetry, impressionistic, anecdotal, imagistic, and technical. All of these highly varied writing forms, and the concepts they refer to, are ultimately grounded in the common vocabulary of the body and the sensorimotor system. Indeed, there is no good reason why non-written forms might not also be embraced within the terms of CMT since pictures, actions, objects, etc are as susceptible to metaphor analysis as written or spoken texts.

George Lakoff in ‘Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things’ begins just such a cross-modal analysis in his discussion of the concept of anger. Through the identification of a key metaphor for anger in which it is conceived of as pressure in a sealed container, (usually in the presence of heat), he is able to track this idea across personal narratives, cartoon images, fictional writings, and scientific (psychoanalytic) texts.

The common ground of conceptual metaphor in which all expression operates, regardless of its status as objective or subjective, personal or interpersonal, scientific or artistic, provides a space in which all of these expressive forms can be considered.

It further seems likely that the organisational devices that hold together individual and collective pieces of writing might also function metaphorically, as for example when we understand a story as having a ‘narrative arc’. The ‘arc’ of a story, whilst evidently abstract and intangible, is conceptualised through embodied experiences of similar arcs in the physical world, the most common being the flight of a projectile or possibly the swinging of the limbs during walking. These physical schema provide the source metaphor for an embodied understanding of the structure through which ideas are expressed. It may be interesting to consider what embodied schema may (or may not) be mobilised in the understanding of texts which have non-linear structures, this blog for example.

Posted in Binding, Metaphor, Schema, Theory, thesis | No Comments »

Emergence Metaphors of Consciousness

November 9th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The term ‘emergent’ is used extensively to describe the appearance of a property which is associated with a complex system but which is not easily described or predicted from an analysis of the individual components which make up that system. An oft-quoted example of an emergent entity is consciousness, (see Hameroff 1994, Diaz 2000, Jordan & Ghin 2006, Seager 2006)which seems inexplicable as a phenomenon from an examination of the substance or actions of neurons in the brain with which it is obviously associated. This is the so-called ‘hard problem’ identified by David Chalmers.

This ‘emergence’, it is worth noting, is obviously a metaphorical concept, mobilised to provide a framework for understanding something that would otherwise be incomprehensible (c.f. Lakoff and Johnson 1987). Given the metaphorical status of the concept, it is also significant that when the term is used to explain a phenomenon like consciousness only part of the metaphor is used. There are entailments to the metaphor (or more accurately ’schema’), that problematise the overall understanding of emergence, particularly its status as an alternative to the more metaphysical interpretations of consciousness implied by panpsychism.

The ‘emergence’ metaphor structures an understanding of consciousness using a variation of the widespread ‘containment’ schema described by Johnson which underpins much of our understanding of categories and the ‘movement’ of concepts into and out of those categories. So, for example, we talk of someone being ‘in the army’ in which ‘the army’ is considered as a kind of container with an interior, an exterior, and some kind of boundary separating these two regions, the ‘walls’ of the container. This metaphorical container also has a portal of some kind which allows for limited and controlled movement across the boundary from one region to the other. So in this example the interior and exterior regions are ‘army life’ and ‘civilian life’ and the portal is constituted of the various protocols which allow one to move from one to the other. To go from the outside to the inside is to ‘go into’ the army, and to move in the opposite direction is to ‘leave’ the army. The ‘emergence’ metaphor clearly relates to this overall schema in its mobilisation of our understanding of portals and containers. To ‘emerge’ is to move from an interior space to an exterior space (as a bear might emerge from a cave). It is also significant that this imaginary interior space is hidden from sight; whatever processes cause this emergence are invisible to us. So in the case of emergent phenomena, whatever interactions take place between the individual physical components, neurons in the case of consciousness, the particular processes which cause it to emerge are consigned to the interior space behind the boundary. The idea that consciousness ‘emerges’ therefore determines its apparently unknowable nature; there is no way within the schema activated by the ‘emergence’ metaphor that a satisfactory explanation of consciousness could be found, since the metaphor demands that such explanation lies in an inaccessible interior conceptual space.

A second aspect of ‘emergent’ consciousness which is usually overlooked when this particular metaphor is used is the requirement that there be an exterior space for the phenomenon to emerge into. In the example noted above, the person who is ‘in the army’, that is, who is categorised using the metaphor of containment, clearly emerges into civilian life when their time in the service is complete. The exterior of the ‘army’ container/category is well-defined and maps accurately onto the lived and embodied experience of the individual concerned. The emergence of consciousness, however, shows no such consistency. It is far from clear what aspect of lived experience maps onto the exterior region that consciousness emerges into.

Díaz, José-Luis (2000). Mind-body unity, dual aspect, and the emergence of consciousness. Philosophical Psychology 13 (3):393-403.

Hameroff, Stuart R. - Quantum coherence in microtubules: A neural basis for emergent consciousness? Journal of Consciousness Studies, Volume 1, Number 1, 1994 , pp. 91-118(28)

Jordan, J. Scott & Ghin, Marcello (2006). (Proto-) consciousness as a contextually emergent property of self-sustaining systems. Mind and Matter 4 (1):45-68.

Seager, William (2006). The emergence of consciousness. Philosophic Exchange 36:5-23.

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Why Up is Good

March 17th, 2008 Fred McVittie

The superior access to knowledge that is implied by the use of height metaphors may also contribute toward the forming of a well-established metaphor which associates height with the abstract concept of ‘value’ or ‘goodness’. This is usually expressed within the conventional syntax of Conceptual Metaphor Theory as UP IS GOOD. Like all such metaphorical mappings this draws upon routine embodied sensorimotor experiences to structure and articulate what would otherwise be inconceivable; values such as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are easily experienced in the particular but as general terms they make no impact on the senses, and can therefore only be conceptualised through the use of an organizing metaphor.

Evidence for the existence of the UP IS GOOD metaphorical mapping can be found in the extensive use of terms relating height to positive value or quality; we speak of ‘high value’, ‘high quality’, and ‘high performance’, and positive progress is usually considered as movement in an upward direction. When we wish to cite the ultimate authority we might refer to a ‘higher power’, or in more Earthly terms to someone who is at the top of their field, the top of their game, or the height of their success. We indicate value in commerce by saying that sales are up, production is up, employment is up, and profits are up, and we show this elevation on graphs and charts. We reach for the stars, climb the career ladder, move up the league, reach the top of the charts, and if we are churlish we might look down on those who are not at our level. In all of these instances the metaphorical correspondence between height and positive value is clear. In all cases UP IS GOOD. This consistency, in which positivity in many different areas is expressed using the same organizing metaphor, is strong evidence for its being grounded in a single experience or a small set of related experiences, ultimately originating in a common feature of our embodiment and the affordances it offers in relation to the environment in which it is embedded. Further evidence of the coherence and non-arbitrary nature of such an embodied metaphor is the fact that there is a complementary set of organizing metaphors which relate lack of height to negative value, expressible in the standard syntax as DOWN IS BAD. This is revealed in the badness of being ‘down in the dumps’, ‘beneath contempt’, ‘low on the totem pole’, a member of the ‘lower classes’ or possibly even the ‘underclass’, or ‘under the weather’. This correspondence in the relationships GOOD IS UP and DOWN IS BAD is a clear illustration of the non-arbitrary nature of these conceptual metaphors. The dimension of height, together with possible movement in this dimension, is an ‘image schema’ which structures a wide range of value-related concepts.

The most often cited origin for this schema refers to the common experience of acquiring and using material resources. In accumulating some kind of valuable resource, firewood for example, it is an obviousness that the more of this resource we accumulate the higher the pile will be. It follows from this completely embodied and indeed ancient fact of life that the pile of firewood which is high will have more value that one which is more lowly. Similarly, the height of a pile of fish, fruit, dead rabbits, projectile-sized rocks, gold, or any other substance which confers health, survival, or status, is a direct measure of the value of that pile. In terms of value, when it comes to the height of a pile of desirable material stuff, UP IS GOOD. This unambiguous and intuitive fact provides the concrete source from which we can structure, organise, and conceptualise the relative values of non-concrete entities such as ‘performance’, ‘esteem’, ‘profits’, ‘social status’, or ‘mood’. We may not be able to literally pile our achievements up and compare them to the pile of the guy next door, but when we use height-related terms to carry out such an evaluation that is, metaphorically, what we are doing.

Posted in Dimension, Feeling, Metaphor, Schema, Space, Up | No Comments »