Ostension and the nature of multimodal referential relations

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Noureddine Elouazizi & Maite Taboada (SFU)

Saturday, May 19th
Buchanan B213

1. Background
Using a multimodal corpus, constructed from TED videos, and adopting a corpus-based linguistic analysis, this paper examines the uses and referential properties of demonstrativesbased ostensions in multimodal contexts. The context of demonstratives-based ostension is a multimodal deictic context wherein the semantic meaning of the demonstrative is fixed, but its denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place of the utterance (Kaplan 1978; Evans 1982; Webber 1991; Hedberg et al 2007; among others). We assume that the ostensive use of the demonstratives is also accompanied by a visualization of the referent through visual and non-vocal clues (a gaze, an eye movement, a head tilt, etc.) that serve to signal a referent and relate that referent to a common perceptual ground shared by the speaker and the addressee.

2. Previous studies
The interpretation of the referential relations of a demonstrative-ostensive is relative to the context of the utterance in terms of many cross-dependent variables, and it is not entirely clear whether the referential dependency established in ostension contexts is a referential proposition or a quantificational proposition (Evans 1982). Early studies have addressed the interpretative properties of demonstratives and ostension, using logical, philosophical, and linguistic approaches (Russell 1905; Quine 1968; Kaplan 1977, 1978; Evans 1982; Webber 1991; Nunberg 1993; among others). In this study, we examine the causal links that can determine how ostension mediates referential relations in a spoken context. We explore these causal links through asking whether the referential relations between the object pointed to and the object referred to are reinforced by ostension.

3. Results and analysis
We propose that the referential dependencies established in ostension contexts can be either a referential proposition or a quantificational proposition, and that these two referential dependencies are not mutually exclusive. The examination of naturally occurring instances of demonstratives-based ostension in our multimodal corpus shows that: (i) there are individual differences in the frequency of demonstratives-based onstension (ranging from 1% to 40% of the total number of demonstratives), with some that can be characterised as referential in nature and others that can be characterized as quantificational, (ii) the differences in the rate of the occurrences of demonstratives-based ostension seem to correlate with the topic/object being discussed. The lowest occurrences of demonstratives-based ostension are observed with topics that require an abstract (metalanguage) discussion. The use of ostensives increases in the context of dialogues, (iii) our corpus analysis shows that the occurrences of the demonstratum as a state, activity or an event are less frequent than its occurrences as an object, and (iv) the demonstratum is referred to in terms of its structure in whole as well as in parts (properties, features). We analyze these properties as the by-product of the fact that the referential relations expressed by ostension can but need not reinforce the relation between the linguistic form and the object this form refers to.

References

Evans, G. (1982). The Varieties of Reference. Oxford: OUP.

Kaplan, David. (1977). Demonstratives. In Themes from Kaplan, eds J. Almog, J. Perry and H. Wettstein, 481-564. Oxford: OUP.

Kaplan, David. (1978). On the logic of demonstratives. Journal of Philosophical Logic 8. 81–98.

Hedberg, Nancy, Jeanette K. Gundel, and Ron Zacharski. (2007). Directly and indirectly anaphoric demonstrative and personal pronouns in newspaper articles. In Antonio Branco et al. (eds.), Proceedings of DAARC-2007 – the 6th Discourse Anaphora and Anaphora Resolution Colloquium, pp. 31–36.

Nunberg, G. (1993). Indexicality and deixis. Linguistics and Philosophy 16, 1-44.

Quine, W. V. (1968). Ontological relativity. Journal of Philosophy 65, 185-212.

Russell, B. (1905). On denoting. Mind 14, 479-493.

Webber, Bonnie. (1991). Structure and ostension in the interpretation of discourse deixis. Natural Language and Cognitive Processes, 6(2):107–135.

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Formalizing an interconnected syntax for Picasso’s creative process in producing Guernica

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Steve DiPaola & Allison Smith (SFU)

Saturday, May 19th
Buchanan A201

Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica and his creative process that gave fruition to it, has been the subject of major debate on how the creative mind works by many art historians (Arnhiem, Tankard) and more recently cognitive scientists (Simonton, Gabora). One reason Guernica has become the rubric for discussing the ‘creative process’ is Picasso, in untypical fashion, deeply documented his short, motivated and unrelenting creative process from the day he heard about the Guernica bombing to the final large canvas with approximately seventy dated images in forty five days, leaving us with significant data to pontificate the understanding the creative mind. However, the family of Guernica sketches are not easily diagnosed, containing many themes, experimental deviations, historical references, epochs of different creative directions and much more. Many researchers have underestimated the complexity involved in Picasso’s creative tour de force. Our research creates a multi-dimensional syntax of the work, from all its intertwined thematic, milestone, experimental and creative levels with the goal of creating an interactive system that allows lay viewers and experts alike to explore the complex archive of evidence.

that allows lay viewers and experts alike to explore the complex archive of evidence. Picasso’s creative process can be explored both internally, by focusing exclusively on the Guernica studies (Arnheim), and within a broader scope that analyzes the sketches’ relation to a broader collection of various artworks and themes (Russell, Chipp). The creative process when viewed internally, presented creative epochs that marked breakthroughs in the Guernica studies. For Picasso, an object’s form is typically a part of the artwork’s message, and that form might need to be experimentally manipulated in many deviations. The experimentation of form may have helped Picasso to research which symbolic variations best convey inter-related sentiments of despair, anguish and strength. Even in this abstracted work, realistic or picturesque versions of his major themed bull, women and anguished heads were drawn to help Picasso see a character in its “normal” state (fig. 1). In order to create disturbing visuals of a contorted war scene, Picasso wanted to study the natural state of a character in order to know how to distort it (fig. 2).

His creative process has systolic and diastolic stages, the former demonstrating abstract or minimal shapes and the latter exerting excessive detail. The systolic stages can be beneficial in studying the bare structure of a character or composition in a quick and physically easy manner. The diastolic states helped Picasso achieve all the details, so he could start exploring which details to dispose in the final painting. Picasso’s process appears to have more in common with syntactic exploration of a narrative or linguistic intertwined related set of themes, similar to historical deviations of a word rather than a creative depiction of a tragic event.

Our methodological process has involved parsing the various time stamped images both internally and in relation to other artwork, symbolic and mythological themes (Granell), and art critical and historical resources to produce a networked quantitative language based framework in the form of a syntactic database which is then controlled and visualized via an interactive user interface.

(See the attached PDF for figures and references)

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Computationally modeling creativity: implementation and response to a computer being creative on its own

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Steve DiPaola (SFU)

Friday, May 18th
Buchanan B213

Is it possible to make a computer program creative own its own. If you did, how would you evaluate the human response to its creative output? Through neuroimaging studies, theoretical and empirical work on the psychology of creativity, and simulation, we are gaining insight into the once mysterious process of creativity (Andreasen, Boden, Feinstein, Gabora).

Our main research direction is to explore computer creativity modeling as a technique to better understand the creative mind. Our work is based on new discoveries in human creativity, especially in terms of fluid contextual focus (Gabora), which has been implemented into this evolutionary software (DiPaola). Human creativity is not just a matter of eliminating rules but assimilating and then breaking free of them where warranted. Indeed a considerable body of research suggests that the creative process involves not just increased fluidity or free associative thought, but increased fluidity tempered with increased restraint. From this human creativity research we have created a computer evolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) program that is fluid between being tightly focuses on the portrait resemblance (similarity to the sitter image, which in our case is John Collier’s famous portrait of Charles Darwin) or can swing, based on functional triggers, towards a more open associative process around intertwining and at times contradicting ‘rules’ of abstract portrait painting (DiPaola, Gabora). The approach gives us novelty and innovation from within, or better said, responding to a structured system — a trait of human creative individuals. The computer code is capable of abandoning a focused goal like resemblance, in favor of wider creative pursuits associated with art making (composition, color theory over resemblance), which paradoxically often allows the focused goal to be better achieved.

The automatic creative output was generated over ~ thirty days of continuous computer use. Example pieces (40 images) were then framed and submitted to galleries. The output has been accepted (juried) and exhibited at six major galleries and museums including the TenderPixel Gallery in London, Emily Carr Galley in Vancouver, and Kings Art Centre at Cambridge University as well as the MIT Museum in Boston, and the High Museum in Atlanta. This gallery of work has been seen by tens of thousands of viewers who see the related artwork as an aesthetic piece that ebb and flows through seemly creative ideas even though it was solely created by an AI genetic computer program using models of human creativity. While these are subjective measures, they are standard in the art world. It should be noted that no attempt to create a ‘creativity Turning Test’. Besides the issues surrounding the validity of such a test (Jennings), it was not feasible in such reputable and large art venues.

We will discuss our technique for parsing cognitive mechanisms of human creativity such as contextual focus and evolving visual grammars, and blending these metaphors syntactically into a computer artificial intelligence AI program. We will also document the human response to the family of work situated in art galleries and museums around the world.

(See the attached PDF for figures and references)

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Multimodal Communication as a Dynamic Network

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Rick Dale (UC, Merced) & Max M. Louwerse (U Memphis)

Friday, May 18th
Buchanan B213

During a bout of face-to-face interaction, such as sharing a joke, a whole suite of dynamic processes unfolds between people. For example, the speaker may gesture and smile while the listener nods in eager anticipation. At the punch line, the two may engage in shared laughter. These bouts of interaction, stretching just over several seconds or minutes, are constituted by multiple behavioral and linguistic dimensions. This seems to be one of the most impressive properties of our ability to communicate: Human language makes use of the many degrees of freedom of our minds and bodies to engage in shared experience. In just a few moments of interaction, the cognitive system juggles numerous channels, such as joint gaze, body posture and gesture, physical properties of speech, all weaved into discourse management in order to succeed in a goal as cognitively complex as making one of our conspecifics laugh.

Studying these cognitive and behavioral channels has been the subject of diverse subfields of cognitive science, from speech processing to discourse comprehension. In typical research in these subfields, relevant channels are isolated, sometimes individually or in pairs, to identify the manner in which the channels systematically relate during language behavior. Consider the channels relevant to naturalistic, face-to-face interaction. Several studies suggest that speaker and listener knowledge influences language production and comprehension. For example, if you know someone is new to your region of the country, you will adapt how you give directions to a landmark. These so-called “audience-design” effects found in discourse suggest that there is an important mutual influence between knowledge states of interaction partners and their language production and processing systems.

A fuller picture of this process will come from an integration of the many channels that are adapted simultaneously during discourse. Here we present a formal characterization and analysis of this mutual influence that permits exploration of a very large number of channels simultaneously: sequential dynamical systems. This approach, derived from widely used methods of network analysis and graph theory, offers a new level of analysis in conceptualizing complex linguistic interaction. We import ideas from network analysis, applied in a wide variety of domains such as social network analysis, brain structure and function, and genomics. In this framework, a multimodal interaction is conceptualized as a graph structure. In this structure, different channels (e.g., gesture, eye movements, lexical and syntactic choice, discourse moves) are represented as nodes. Edges between these nodes are defined by data analytic considerations: E.g., what is the functional relationship between gesturing and nodding during interaction? The result is a holistic representation of the overall multimodal interaction. This “bird’s-eye view” of discourse offers the view of face-to-face interaction as a loosely coupled, adaptive multimodal network.

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Visualizing vocal iconicity: Empirical and graphical methods for investigating pitch contours

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Nathaniel Clark  & Marcus Perlman (UCSC)

Saturday, May 19th
Buchanan A hallway on the 2nd floor.

While iconicity is becoming more widely acknowledged as commonplace, even in spoken language (Perniss, et al., 2010), the empirical study of iconicity in speech is hampered by a reliance on comparing averages for acoustic variables across whole words or phrases. The collapse of continuous prosodic information into averages greatly reduces the level of detail that can be examined in studies of vocal iconicity (e.g., Shintel, et al., 2006.) This paper presents a novel methodological approach, borrowing ideas from mousetracking, to explore the iconic potential of pitch and other continuous prosodic variables. We summarize the method with a graphical analysis of pilot data, and discuss two statistical methods which will be applied to data from an ongoing study. Finally, we discuss some implications and future uses of this work.

The pilot results we present here are derived from an earlier study (Perlman, et al., under review), in which participants read short stories discussing physical and abstract instantiations of UP and DOWN. We focused on the phrase “all the way,” which appeared in two stories describing vertically-oriented physical motion. One story described Chris riding an elevator up (down) to the top floor (basement) of a skyscraper, and the other described Melinda reaching up (bending down) to get an item from the very top (bottom) shelf at a store. The phrase was identical across conditions; only context varied. Thus, differences between pitch contours should be due to semantic context rather than phonological content. Each of the 30 participants recruited for this study read both of these stories, 15 with Chris in the UP condition and 15 with Melinda in the UP condition.

We segmented the phrases in Praat (Boersma and Weenick, 2011). A script sliced each phrase into 20 intervals and computed the average pitch in each ventile. For the graphical analysis, we normalized for individual differences in pitch by dividing each observation by that speakers’ baseline pitch, calculated from control utterances.

Figure 1 illustrates the results of this analysis. The very large confidence intervals at the left and right extrema indicate problems with missing data due to pitch tracker inaccuracies and amodal voicing. The critical section, though, is the 11th through 15th intervals, in which the CIs for UP are wholly above those for DOWN, indicating that participants exhibit an iconically motivated difference in pitch of about 8% (for all 5, t(29) > 2.19, p < .05).

Based on these promising results, we are implementing a new set of stimuli designed specifically for this methodology. Our first statistical method is a bootstrap analysis (cf. Dale, et al., 2007), to identify a significance criterion for consecutive outcomes and reduce the risk of Type-I error. Second, growth curve analysis (cf. Mirman, et al., 2008) will be used to probe for significant differences in change in pitch over time. This method takes into account the data’s temporal sequence, and has the additional advantage of obviating the need for normalization across speakers, since the hierarchical nature of the model is well-suited for individual differences.

While vocal iconicity has been notoriously intractable to empirical study (e.g., McNeill, 2005), these mouse-tracking derived approaches offer powerful tools for future examination. By affording two-dimensional visualizations of acoustic variables, they permit more fine-grained analysis of continuous speech, and ultimately allow for more sophisticated comparisons to visual iconic gesture.

(See the attached PDF for figures and references)

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Interactive Animated Visuals as Elastic Anchors for Imaginative Conceptual Blends

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Kenny Chow (Hong Kong) & D. Fox Harrell (MIT)

Saturday, May 19th
Buchanan A201

Introduction
In today’s digital environments, we not only watch, but also interact with animated graphics in user interfaces, videogames, and computer-based artworks. The experience of interactive animated images relies on both sensory and motor apparatuses, constituting an embodied cognitive process. [1] We call this process “material-based imagination.” Through sensorimotor experience of interactive animation, a user recalls and infers associated visceral sensations. Furthermore, users elaborate imaginative experiences from the embodied sensations based on dynamically generated animated visuals. Drawing upon theories of conceptual blending [2-4], material anchors [5], and neuroscience results regarding mirror neurons [6], we present our concept of “elastic anchors” to explicate the meaning-making process in interactive animation. We analyze examples from a range of digital artifacts, including graphical user interfaces, viral websites, videogames, and computer-based artworks.

Theoretical
Idea In this paper, we build on Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner’s theory of conceptual blends and Edwin Hutchins’s theory of material anchors. In particular, we argue that interactive animated images function as what we call “elastic” anchors for conceptual blends. Elastic anchors not only “hold” conceptual structures in place like material anchors, but also “embody” dynamic sensational meanings in sensorimotor experience for users to elaborate imaginatively. We argue that material anchors, whose physical structures faithfully and stably represent conceptual elements for reducing memory and cognitive processing loads in goal-specific human-performed computational tasks, may not necessarily apply to process-driven imagination-laden activities such as storyboarding in filmmaking or practicing Chinese calligraphy.

The material artifacts being produced in many expressive activities blend with mental concepts in the creators’ minds, forming new imaginative images as input into the next iteration of the material artifacts. In animation, this reflective and iterative process becomes instantaneous and continuous. Consider for example, shadow puppeteers adjusting their hand movements in real-time to create shadow characters. Such phenomena mobilize a motor-sensory feedback loop in which imaginative meaning construction and elaboration take place through successive conceptual blends of animated images and mental images, converging toward interpretations of the images as being “lifelike.” Interactive animation, as enabled by today’s real-time control and rendering technologies, trigger this kind of reflective process that we call material-based imagination.

Illustrative
Analyses User experience of elastic anchors is ubiquitous in digital environments. Here, we present analyses of how users of digital animation elaborate imaginative meaning at the immediate and the metaphorical levels. For example, see Figure 1 (a phone showing animated water level), 2, and 3 below for a condensed sample analysis.

Implications
Through these analyses, we reveal the important role of imaginative blends in making multiple levels of meaning through sensorimotor experience of interactive animated visuals. The analyses collectively support the need for an embodied cognition approach to understanding animation phenomena and, more broadly, to expressive production in cognitive science research.

(See the attached PDF for figures and references)

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The tacit and the trace: Towards syntax of the creative act

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Suk Kyoung Choi, Steve DiPaola, and  Thecla Schiphorst (SFU)

Sunday, May 20th
Buchanan A201

Tacit knowledge represents an embodied understanding of experience which shapes our form and action (Polanyi). For this study, the mimetic transformation of this ‘hidden’ knowledge is described as a process of active engagement in order to arrive at a conditional representation of experience that may be tested for efficacy in the world.

Drawing from the seminal definition of the principles of abstract art posed by Kandinsky in the early years of the twentieth century, and contextualizing that knowledge in contemporary cognitive metaphor theory (Johnson and Lakoff), the study attempts to arrive at an understanding of how cognitive structure emerges in pragmatic self-observation during the artistic process. Through application of the concept of “enaction” (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch), the research proposes a first-person approach to the exploration and derivation of a syntax of interactive creativity.

We attempt to define a cognitive framework capable of representing the artist’s pre-expressive state (the tacit) and its relationship to the final realized artwork (the trace). An artist’s embodied experience constitutes an experiential understanding of interactive creativity, an understanding that takes as its foundation the practice of intentional expression and reflective self-observation of contextual response (fig. 1, fig. 2). This creative conceptual engagement of expressive and reflective perspective constitutes process in the act of painting (Kandinsky, Dewey, Arnheim). The polarities of this process define a space of interaction that begins with the latent intentionality of the pre-expressive moment of the artist and ends with the creative artifact (Bloom; Levinson, Kornblith; Thomasson).

The artist’s embodied experience therefore presents a lived, if unspoken, understanding of how spontaneous variation emerges in the creative act through an embodied shaping of conscious thought by the cognitive unconscious (Baars, Johnson and Lakoff ). The syntax of creative experience may then be framed as a Deleuzian perpetual becoming, where “the abstract doesn’t explain but must itself be explained”. This framework may be used to represent the spatial and temporal dimensions of the artistic impulse and its representation in the procedural space of an emergent grammar of artistic process (fig. 3).

In our case study, we investigate this act and artifact pairing between a fine art painter and the realized painting through a comparative analysis of the discourse around process and the emergent artifact of that process. It is hypothesized that the artist’s engagement within this framework forms a discernibly continuous and dynamic modeling of the tacit.

This preliminary investigation invites contributions from a wide range of disciplines engaged cognitive research to contribute in a discussion towards the development of an interdisciplinary understanding of interactive creativity.

(see the attached PDF for figures and references)

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The Poetics of Analogy at the Limits of Blending Theory

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Mark J. Bruhn (Regis U)

Friday, May 18th
Buchanan B213

This paper explores the ways in which Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (1792-1822) analogical poetics at once anticipates and challenges contemporary cognitive-scientific models of conceptual structure. Section 1 outlines unresolved logical and motivational issues that limit the explanatory power of conceptual metaphor and blending theories with respect to conceptual conflict and creativity. The deficiency may be supplied with recourse to English Romantic theories of poetic imagination, which are centrally occupied with the logic of conceptual conflict and the motive for creativity. Particularly pertinent are Percy Shelley’s suggestive hypotheses about the projective processes that drive novel metaphoric conceptualization, which he (in company with cognitive theorists) posits as the engine and outpost of creativity. To document the plausibility of Shelley’s hypotheses, section 2 marshals as evidence early 20th-century literary-critical responses to Shelley’s poetics, especially as enacted in his 1820 ode “To a Sky-lark.” These diverge in their evaluations of the poem, but they nevertheless converge in their descriptive accounts of the peculiar cognitive effect primed by Shelley’s complexly metaphoric verse, which orients attention not to emergent meanings or achieved mental representations but rather to underlying processes of meaning-making and representation that precede, produce, and ceaselessly replace any such products of (literary) cognition. Section 3 attributes this peculiarly dynamic effect to the poem’s insistent violations both of consistent conceptual structure and of “directionality” constraints on metaphoric projections from one conceptual domain to another. These violations upset deeply ingrained habits of conceptualization, frustrating the normally automatic processes that generate more or less consistent mental representations and thereby rendering those processes perceptible. The analysis thus illustrates a reciprocal exchange between poetics and cognitive science: the systematic deviances of Shelley’s verse can be exactly characterized in terms developed by cognitive metaphor theory; so characterized, those deviances may in turn be systematically manipulated to test and improve blending theory’s account of what it itself describes as “the mind’s hidden complexities” (Fauconnier and Turner 2002).

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“Space-Time Hallucinations:” A Cognitive Poetic Approach to Time in Comics

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Mike Borkent (UBC)

Saturday, May 19th
Buchanan A201

The field of comics studies has abundantly illustrated the creativity facilitated by the medium. However, the crucial questions of how words and images seamlessly meld within and between panels—what McCloud (1993) influentially called “closure”— remain under-theorized and problematic (Cohn 2010). A discussion of the construction of time makes evident the need for a more nuanced approach.

Time in comics emerges through imagic and textual prompts within or between panels (see Cohn’s [2010] overview). Temporal understanding can be prompted through three basic configurations: panel specific prompts, inter-panel connections, and panel layouts and sizes. For example, single panels can have multiple time-frames invoked simultaneously (Eisner 1985), such as through complex dialogue (which could take minutes to actually occur) tied to a single static image (which captures only a fleeting moment). Similarly, a series of panels can create a sense of temporal stasis (through repetitive imagery or language) or rapidity (through dramatic changes between panels). The size of panels and the layout of the page also suggest durational qualities, such as of rapidity through a series of panels that vertically descend the page, concluding the reading process more quickly. These three intra and inter-panel configurations— which variably include blends of images, texts, and layouts—prompt an array of temporal qualities that complicate a simple notion of closure. To survey these types of temporal construction, I will examine panels and sequences from a few works, including Chris Ware’s influential graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000), which offers “a mind-boggling polyphony of space-time hallucinations” (Raeburn 2004: 9. Cf. Banita 2010; Kuhlman & Ball 2010).

To unpack the construction of these “hallucinations,” I will suggest a cognitive methodology that illustrates the complex processes behind them, thereby offering a more nuanced view of closure. My proposed methodology will link the theories of embodiment, mental simulation, and conceptual integration (CIT or blending) to elaborate on how we make inferences and develop emergent understandings about time from visual and verbal prompts. These prompts are distinguished, selected, and crossmodally blended to create emergent understanding (Fauconnier & Turner 2003; Narayan 2012; Parrill & Sweetser 2004). Cognitive embodiment offers the infrastructure that creates coherence by maintaining connections to multimodal experience, grounding and constraining content mappings (Gibbs 2005). Mental simulation provides the inferential process that draws from embodied knowledge to facilitate the blending of modes for comprehension by distinguishing the salience of prompts and their applicability to the emergent meaning (Bergen 2005). This proposed methodology offers a means of tracing and explaining the three basic constructional strategies in comics, addressing the question of closure while promoting an explicit integration of these cognitive theories. This approach to comics further corroborates recent cognitive research on space-time (Casasanto & Boroditsky 2008), but also extends it to suggest the central role of mental simulation as a mechanism for explaining the implicit judgments, intuitions, and mental recycling necessary for understanding. By drawing these theories together through an analysis of comics, I suggest an embodied and constructional view of temporal understanding.

(See the attached PDF for references)

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Situated and social: A (re)consideration of terminology for actors

By Serina on April 17, 2012

Rhonda Blair (Southern Methodist)

Saturday, May 19th
Buchanan B213

This paper considers possible applications of research in select areas of cognitive science to acting and actor training.

Cognitive science research, particularly in areas such as situated cognition and social neuroscience, is increasingly complicating our sense of what it means to be a “self” or an “individual,” and to challenge typical western (and perhaps most specifically American) views of autonomy and independence. The research encourages us to think of the boundaries and agency of a “self” or “individual” in terms that are simultaneously more contingent, dynamic, and constrained. This nuanced understanding of a self that cannot be separated from its material conditions (or, to use the terms from situated cognition, a self that is embodied in the individual’s body, embedded in the physical environment in which it functions, and extended into the minds of the other individuals it encounters) is useful in finding – or at least refining – effective vocabularies for working with and teaching actors.

Many, if not most, traditional western approaches to actor training focus on the individual actor. This is understandable and no doubt necessary, but it is just part of the actor’s work. A decontextualized, or insufficiently contextualized, approach to a character typically results in actors not taking into account the environment in which their character will “live” sufficiently. Drawing on the science, I hypothesize possible applications for working with actors, particularly addressing ways of engaging actors with the constellation of elements in their and their character’s environments, as well as “interior life.” I focus on traditional western acting vocabulary terms and how these inhibit the actor’s efficacy; based on insights from social neuroscience, situated cognition, and cognitive linguistics, I will discuss how the actor’s vocabulary might be refined or shifted to allow her a more dynamic and specific engagement with the role and rehearsal process. This builds on my past work in applying cognitive science in the acting studio and rehearsal process, to take the next step in thinking about how the relationships among language, understanding, imagination, and action work for the actor.

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