Journal articles on the topic 'Animate versus inanimate'

AbstractThe present theoretical article addresses the empirical question of whether other species, particularly chimpanzees, have the cognitive substrate necessary for experiencing theistic and otherwise non-natural (i.e., non-physical) percepts. The primary representational device presumed to underlie religious cognition was viewed as, in general, the capacity to attribute unobservable causal mechanisms to ostensible output and, in particular, a theory of mind. Drawing from a catalogue of behaviors that may be considered diagnostic of the secondary representations involved in theory of mind (or at least theory of mind precursors), important dissimilarities between humans and other species in the realms of the animate-inanimate distinction (self-propelledness versus mental agency of animate beings), imaginative play (feature-dependent make-believe versus true symbolic play), and the death concept (biological death conceptualization versus psychological death conceptualization) were shown. Differences in these domains support the claim that humans alone possess the foundational and functional representations inherent in religious experiences.

Abstract This article deals with the multiple reflexes of the mass versus count distinction in Kuikuro, a dialect of a southern-branch language of the Carib family, spoken by 600 people at the edge of Brazilian Southern Amazonia. It updates and deepens previous research results presented in Franchetto et al. (2013). It is organized into four sections. After a summary profile of Kuikuro morphosyntax, the second and third sections present, respectively, the resources available for pluralization, with their sensitivity to the animate/inanimate and count/mass distinctions, and the system of cardinal numerals. Both sections are a required introduction to the rest of the article. The relevance of the distinction, which we consider primordial, between count nouns and mass nouns is the first-order question of the fourth section. Here we show not only Kuikuro’s basic sensitivity to this distinction, but also the specific contributions that this language brings to cross-linguistic comparisons and to the revision of possible cross-linguistic generalizations.

This research investigates how cultural worldviews are linguistically encoded through the experiential metafunction in fiction, employing Halliday and Matthiessen's (2014) transitivity framework to analyze the native English story "The Mild Attack of Locusts" and the Pakistani short story "The Crucifixion." Using UAM CorpusTool for manual clause annotation, we systematically compared participant roles across material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal, and existential processes. The analysis reveals how each author fundamentally construes experiential perspective through distinct transitivity patterns: Native narrative foregrounds material action (27% Actor frequency) dominated by animate participants (90.4%) interacting with concrete inanimate (84.8%), constructing a world where human agency confronts environmental challenges through observable, goal-directed intervention. In stark contrast, the Pakistani text deemphasizes physical action (18.6% Actors) in favor of mental processes (7.7% Senser/Phenomenon) and abstract inanimate Actors (28.6%), framing experience as shaped by internal states and contextual forces like societal structures or spiritual imperatives. Subtler patterns further illuminate this divergence: where native writer prioritizes Sayer-focused verbal exchanges (4.5% Sayers vs. 0.9% Receivers) to advance pragmatic action.and communication. Behavioral processes reveal externalized emotion in the native text (6.7% Behaver) versus restrained introspection in the Pakistani narrative (6.1%), while relational processes show heightened descriptive focus on states of being in the latter (13.8% Carrier/Attribute vs. 12.6%). Existent participants (1.5% ) function differently, as factual anchors in the native story versus symbolic presence in the Pakistani text. These patterns crystallise two cultural ontologies: the native text embodies an empirical agency framework, prioritising individual mastery over environment through material intervention; the Pakistani text reflects a symbolic negotiation paradigm, where meaning emerges from contemplation of contextual forces. The study demonstrates that transitivity choices are inherently cultural acts, with participant distribution systematising worldview differences beyond mere style. Pedagogically, this offers educators tools for teaching cross-cultural literacy through linguistic analysis. Theoretically, it advances Systemic Functional Linguistics as a lens for decolonising literary studies by revealing how grammar perpetuates cultural epistemologies Western narratives privileging environmental control versus South Asian narratives centring metaphysical embeddedness. Ultimately, this research proves that stories encode cultural DNA through their experiential perspective, making transitivity analysis essential for understanding how fiction shapes and reflects human experience.

Ventral visual cortex exhibits highly organized and selective patterns of functional activity associated with visual processing. However, this specialization decreases in normal aging, with functional responses to different visual stimuli becoming more similar with age, a phenomenon termed “dedifferentiation.” The current study tested the hypothesis that age-related degradation of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), a white matter pathway involved in visual perception, could account for dedifferentiation of both localized and distributed brain activity in ventral visual cortex. Participants included 281 adults, ages 20–89 years, from the Dallas Lifespan Brain Study who underwent diffusion-weighted imaging to measure white matter diffusivity, as well as fMRI to measure functional selectivity to viewing photographs from different categories (e.g., faces, houses). In general, decreased ILF anisotropy significantly predicted both focal and broad functional dedifferentiation. Specifically, there was a localized effect of structure on function, such that decreased anisotropy in a smaller mid-fusiform region of ILF predicted less selective (i.e., more dedifferentiated) response to viewing faces in a proximal face-responsive region of fusiform. On the other hand, the whole ILF predicted less selective response across broader ventral visual cortex for viewing animate (e.g., human faces, animals) versus inanimate (e.g., houses, chairs) images. This structure–function relationship became weaker with age and was no longer significant after the age of 70 years. These findings indicate that decreased white matter anisotropy is associated with maladaptive differences in proximal brain function and is an important variable to consider when interpreting age differences in functional selectivity.

This lecture reviews a relatively recent body of heat transfer work that bases on a deterministic (constructal) principle the occurrence of geometric form in systems with internal flows. The same principle of global optimization subject to constraints allow us to anticipate the natural (animate and inanimate) flow architectures that surround us. The lecture starts with the example of the optimal spatial distribution of material (e.g., heat exchanger equipment) in power plants. Similarly, void space can be allocated optimally to construct flow channels in the volume occupied by a heat generating system. The lecture continues with the optimization of the path for heat flow between a volume and one point. It shows that when the heat flow can choose between at least two paths, low conductivity versus high conductivity, the optimal flow structure for minimal global resistance in steady flow is a tree. Nearly the same tree is deduced by minimizing the time of discharge in the flow from a volume to one point. Analogous tree-shaped flows are constructed in pure fluid flows, and in flow through a heterogeneous porous medium. The optimization of trees that combine heat transfer and fluid flow is illustrated by means of two-dimensional trees of plate fins. The method is extended to the superposition of two fluid trees in counterflow, as in vascularized tissues under the skin. The two trees in counterflow are one tree of convective heat currents that effect the loss of body heat. It is shown that the optimized geometry of the tree is responsible for the proportionalities between body heat loss and body size raised to the power 3/4, and between breathing time and body size raised to the power 1/4. The optimized structures are robust with respect to changes in some of the externally specified parameters. When more degrees-of-freedom are allowed, the optimized structure looks more natural. The lecture outlines a unique opportunity for engineers to venture beyond their discipline, and to construct an engineering theory on the origin and workings of naturally organized systems. [S0022-1481(00)02403-8]

Objectives This study aims to understand children’s conception of aliveness through their descriptions of biotic and abiotic objects and the cues that led them to think this way. Methods To this end, 35 children each at 2 different Choongchung province educational institutions were randomly sampled by age for a total of 105 children, who participated in two rounds of interviews including activities. In the first round, the children were given sufficient individual time to draw one or more of the following categories: animals, plants, cars, and houses. Afterwards, each child went through an individual discussion about whether each of their drawings of animals/plants/abiotic objects show an object that is living or not, whether it needs water, whether it needs food, whether it matures and grows, and whether it breathes. In the second stage, 3 picture cards for each category — animals, plants, animate abiotic objects, and inanimate abiotic objects — 12 cards total, were used to ask each child whether they thought the objects drawn on the cards need water, mature and grow, breathe, and are alive, and additionally were requested to share why they believed so. Results The results showed that for children between the ages 3-5, types of conceptualization of aliveness can be categorized into: “movement that proves the object is living,” “vitality that can be discovered in animals and plants: living,” “houses and cars are alive: the flow of breath from the symptoms of life that children discover in abiotic objects,” “naturally created or produced: concepts of synthetic production,” “because it moves when I use it: self-centered concept of life,” “I just feel it: the power of “intuition” in detecting life.” Upon taking a closer look at the comprehension tendencies of children ages 3~5 regarding whether an object is alive or not, most recognize animals are living (age 3 96.2%, age 4 98.1%, age 5 99.0%); however, subjects showed a lower rate of recognition for plants (age 3 83.8%, age 4 68.6%, age 5 82.9%). Conclusions According to the findings, there is a tendency for children’s conception of whether something is living or not to be formed based on cues from the characteristic of mobility, signs of life such as vitality and respiration, the concept of nature versus synthetic production, mixing with self-centered conception, and intuition. This shows that the conceptual understanding children have cannot be separated from characteristics of their developmental stage and that unique features of infancy cannot be excluded from consideration. Thus, the innate biological intuition children have has a non-negligible influence on their biological judgment. However, it was evident that preceding experiences at home or at educational institutions cant alter those judgments to an extent. This suggests that the quality of social knowledge impacts children’s biological judgment.

Il concetto di Sé sta assumendo un interesse sempre maggiore nelle Neuroscienze. Parecchi autori hanno approfondito i correlati neurologici del Sé ed affermato che il Sé potrebbe svolgere un ruolo central nell'architettura neurale del cervello (Panksepp, 1998; Northoff e Bermpohl, 2004; Northoff e Panksepp, 2008); ad esempio, nel porre a confronto gli stimoli Sé-specifici e non Sé-specifici, essi hanno scoperto le modificazioni principali nella struttura corticale mediana (CMS) e in quella sub-corticale mediana (SCMS). Il concetto di Sé sembra costituire una predisposizione alle differenze individuali di comportamenti, cognizioni, emozioni, ecc., ossia del profilo di personalità del singolo. La posizione teorica secondo la quale la relazionalità interpersonale e le caratteristiche della definizione del Sé sono determinanti nei disturbi di personalità e nello sviluppo della personalità è stata fortemente influenzata dalla Teoria dell'Attaccamento (Fonagy & Luyten, 2009; Fonagy et al., 2010; Levy, 2005) e dalle formulazioni dell'approccio contemporaneo interpersonalista (Pincus, 2005). Teoria e ricerca in questo campo hanno affermato il ruolo delle relazioni primarie di accudimento nello sviluppo delle rappresentazioni di sé e degli altri, sia nello sviluppo normale sia in quello non lineare (Blatt, Auerbach e Levy, 1997). Questa concettualizzazione ha un alto grado di concordanza con più formulazioni psicoanalitiche che evidenziano come esperienze di accudimento relativamente soddisfacenti siano potenzialmente facilitanti lo sviluppo di un senso del Sé differenziato e coeso, la capacità di una relazionalità interpersonale progressivamente sempre più matura e la capacità di intimità (Blatt & Blass, 1996; Kernberg, 1975; Kohut, 1971). Intersoggettività e concetto di Sé sembrano strettamente in relazione tra loro. Noi ci volgiamo agli altri come a simili a noi, cioè come dotati di esperienze mentali e corporee (sentimenti, sensazioni simili alle nostre e diverse da quelle del mondo inanimate). Stiamo andando verso un nuovo modello, che può sviluppare un ponte tra le neuroscienze, le formulazioni della Psicoanalisi e la prassi clinica. Il concetto neuroscientifico relazional-costruttivistico di Sé e lo studio della Resting State Activity nei test di laboratorio possono illuminare l'importanza dell'inter-soggettività e della risonanza intenzionale (Gallese, Eagle, Migone, 2007) tra soggetti. Il nostro intento è di proporre le nostre scoperte empiriche sulla relazione tra Resting State Activity e prove sperimentali basate sul tatto (intenzione di toccare la mano umana animata versus la mano inanimata di un manichino), assodato che il tatto gode di uno statuto privilegiato nel rendere possibile l'attribuzione sociale di una personalità viva agli altri. I nostri risultati indicano che il nostro cervello, durante lo stato di riposo, sembra essere inevitabilmente relazionale, di default: esso è dotato dell'autocoscienza necessaria alla relazione con gli altri soggetti ma non con gli oggetti inanimati. Specificatamente, queste scoperte riguardano la corteccia somato-sensoriale, un'area-chiave del cervello implicata nell'empatia e nella sensazione tattile.

BackgroundAirway obstruction remains a preventable cause of death on the battlefield. Surgical cricothyroidotomy is an essential skill for immediate airway management in trauma. Training for surgical cricothyroidotomy has been undertaken using simulators, cadavers or animal models. The ideal approach to training for this low volume and high-risk procedure is unknown. We hypothesized that current simulation technology provides an equal or better education for surgical cricothyroidotomy when compared with animal tissue training.MethodsWe performed a prospective randomized controlled study comparing training for surgical cricothyroidotomy using hands-on training on swine versus inanimate manikin. We enrolled medical students who had never performed or had formal instruction on surgical cricothyroidotomy. We randomized their instruction to use either a swine model or the inanimate version of the Operative Experience Inc. advanced surgical manikin. Participants’ skills were then evaluated on human cadavers and on an advanced robotic manikin. Tests were scored using checklists modified from Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills and Tactical Combat Casualty Care. We compared scores between the groups using Wilcoxon rank sum tests and generalized linear models.ResultsForty-eight participants were enrolled and trained; 30 participants completed the first testing session; 25 completed the second testing session. The mean time to establish an airway from the incision until the cuff was blown up was 95±52 s. There were no significant differences in any of the outcome measures between the two training groups.DiscussionMeasured performance was not different between subjects trained to perform surgical cricothyroidotomy on an animal model or a high fidelity manikin. The use of an advanced simulator has the potential to replace live tissue for this procedure mitigating concerns over animal rights.Levels of evidenceI

AbstractEnrichment of the environments of captive primates is currently of interest as both a basic and an applied research question, particularly when social and inanimate enhancements are used simultaneously. We measured the behavioural effects of two intensities of inanimate enrichment on 12 unimale-multifemale groups and 12 all-male groups from three cohorts of three to four-year-old rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta). Half of the groups received a simple, inexpensive enrichment programme while the other groups received a more complex and costly combination of physical andfeeding enhancements. Observations were conducted on 93 subadults of both sexes during their initial year of group housing. Intensity of enrichment did not differentially affect the amount of time subjects spent in any of the activities analysed. Subjects that received the more complex programme spent only 8.3 per cent of their time using the extra enhancements. Therefore, there was little demonstrated benefit of the more costly enrichment programme. The three cohorts differed in the amount of time that they spent inactive, behaving agonistically, playing and located near a group mate. A planned comparison of one cohort that had been single-housed without visual access to social groups, to the two cohorts that had visual access to social groups during single caging, revealed differences in play and socially-located behaviour, which may have been due to differences in extra-cage conditions two years prior to the present study. When primates are housed socially with conspecifics as ‘social enhancements ‘, the relatively simple inanimate enrichment programme we used was as effective as the more costly programme. When enrichment resources are limited, inanimate enrichment efforts should be focused on monkeys that are not socially enriched.

This article briefly describes the set of verbs in Arabic and Uzbek, its study by linguists, comparative lexical-semantic analysis of action verbs in both languages. in the study of the lexical-semantic relations of action verbs in the Arabic language, special attention should be paid to aspects related to the meaning of verbs, such as synonyms and antonyms between them. Among the verbs of action in Arabic, there are many verbs that have polysemantic meanings, and sometimes they are used in their original meaning, and sometimes in other meanings as well. The meaning of these verbs also depends on the event or situation to which they are related. While the original, original meaning of the verb is mainly related to the normal state of the subject, other meanings serve to express his emotional state. In the study of lexical-semantic relations related to action verbs in Arabic, special attention should be paid to which prepositions these verbs come with, because a particular action verb depends on whether the object to which the action is directed is animate or inanimate. may require a different preposition. In synonymous relations, the verbs of action differ according to the extent to which the action lasted, for what purpose it was performed, or by what means it was performed. There are similarities and differences in the expression of the verb "to come" in Uzbek in Arabic. In Uzbek, the main semantic of this action verb is quite simple, but the content is almost identical to the Arabic lexeme "to come". In Uzbek, this verb requires that the object to which it is directed come mainly in the infinitive, place-time, exit, and direction verbs, while in Arabic they are represented by a preposition giving the meaning of an infinitive or a definite conjunction. In expressing some of the meanings of the verb "to come" in the Uzbek language, it is necessary to use their Arabic alternative, and in some cases, the meanings of this verb in the Uzbek language. in Arabic it is also expressed by the verb "to come", but in this case it is necessary to choose a verb that expresses the expected meaning from the synonymous verbs that mean "to come" in Arabic.

Allah created various kinds of creatures, both animate and inanimate. Of all His many creatures, only humans are perfect creatures created. This is stated in surah al-Tīn on the editorial ah}sani taqwi>m. However, this privilege means nothing if accompanied by faith and good deeds, as in surah al-Tīn verses 5-6. So far, the interpretation of surah al-Tīn discusses human privileges from the aspects of the body and mind. According to al-T{abari> and Tant}awi>>, human privilege lies in the aspect of the body. While al-Razi> said, covering aspects of the body and soul. The commentators' comments can be explained more deeply with the science of human physiology. Therefore, the author is interested in examining human privileges in surah al-Tīn based on the point of view of human physiology. Most scholars say that the editorial ah}sani taqwi}m contains the creation of humans with physical and psychological perfection, without distinguishing between humans, except for faith and piety. Meanwhile, asfala sa>fili>n appeals to humans to use these facilities properly and correctly. Humans are just evil creatures without awareness of the importance of physical perfection. From physiology, human perfection can be seen in how the body's organs that form a system support every movement of its activities. That is, every organ will not run optimally without the system's stability in the body. For example, the brain organ's working system produces reasoning that leads people to believe in God. In addition, the brain can also create helpful technological works and innovations. However, these organs may only function if they are guarded and directed according to the will of their Creator (faith and good deeds).

IntroductionAnimacy distinguishes living (animate) things from non-living (inanimate) things. People tend to devote attention and processing to living over nonliving things, resulting in a privileged status for animate concepts in human cognition. For example, people tend to remember more animate than inanimate items, a phenomenon known as the “animacy effect” or “animacy advantage.” To date, however, the exact cause(s) of this effect is unknown.MethodsWe examined the animacy advantage in free-recall performance under computer-paced versus self-paced study conditions and using three different sets of animate and inanimate stimuli (Experiments 1 and 2). We also measured participants’ metacognitive beliefs (expectations) about the task before it began (Experiment 2).ResultsWe consistently obtained an animacy advantage in free-recall, regardless of whether participants studied the materials under computer-paced or self-paced conditions. Those in self-paced conditions spent less time studying items than did those in computer-paced conditions, but overall levels of recall and the occurrence of the animacy advantage were equivalent by study method. Importantly, participants devoted equivalent study time to animate and inanimate items in self-paced conditions, so the animacy advantage in those conditions cannot be attributed to study time differences. In Experiment 2, participants who believed that inanimate items were more memorable instead showed equivalent recall and study time for animate and inanimate items, suggesting that they engaged in equivalent processing of animate and inanimate items. All three sets of materials reliably produced an animacy advantage, but the effect was consistently larger for one set than the other two, indicating some contribution of item-level properties to the effect.DiscussionOverall, the results suggest that participants do not purposely allocate greater processing to animate over inanimate items, even when study is self-paced. Rather, animate items seem to naturally trigger greater richness of encoding than do inanimate items and are then better remembered, although under some conditions participants might engage in deeper processing of inanimate items which can reduce or eliminate the animacy advantage. We suggest that researchers might conceptualize mechanisms for the effect as either centering on intrinsic, item-level properties of the items or centering on extrinsic, processing-based differences between animate and inanimate items.

Abstract This research sets out to challenge a conventional wisdom in Japanese linguistics, that the reflexive pronoun zibun is unable to take an inanimate antecedent. Through careful presentation of the data, including corpus sources, it is unequivocally demonstrated that the reflexive use of zibun can indeed overcome the animacy constraint and be anteceded by an inanimate antecedent, without any personification present. This has specific theoretical consequences in the sense of providing a theoretical simplification behind reflexivity modeling in Japanese. This is followed by a psycholinguistic experiment investigating how native Japanese speakers judge and process sentences with inanimate zibun. The key factors tested are the animacy of the antecedent, and also if the type of sentence, episodic versus generic, will affect the acceptability of inanimate zibun. Results from the experiment show that native speakers indeed do find inanimate zibun acceptable, and appear to process it slightly slower than the animate counterpart. The episodic versus generic distinction does not play a role in either the judgment or processing. Combining the corpus and experimental data anchors the phenomenon firmly. Finally, our attention turns to how to account for inanimate zibun theoretically, where we draw information from how zibun can already take inanimate antecedents if they are construed as agentive, or if zibun is used as an adverbial reflexive, showing that in fact, inanimate zibun does not require additional theoretical treatment – leading to a reformulation of Kuno’s animacy constraint.

How does the brain represent information about motion events in relation to agentive and physical forces? In this study, we investigated the neural activity patterns associated with observing animated actions of agents (e.g., an agent hitting a chair) in comparison to similar movements of inanimate objects that were either shaped solely by the physics of the scene (e.g., gravity causing an object to fall down a hill and hit a chair) or initiated by agents (e.g., a visible agent causing an object to hit a chair). Using fMRI-based multivariate pattern analysis, this design allowed testing where in the brain the neural activity patterns associated with motion events change as a function of, or are invariant to, agentive versus physical forces behind them. Twenty-nine human participants (nine male) participated in the study. Cross-decoding revealed a shared neural representation of animate and inanimate motion events that is invariant to agentive or physical forces in regions spanning frontoparietal and posterior temporal cortices. In contrast, the right lateral occipitotemporal cortex showed higher sensitivity to agentive events, while the left dorsal premotor cortex was more sensitive to information about inanimate object events that were solely shaped by the physics of the scene.Significance StatementThe brain's ability to interpret dynamic scenes is fundamental to our daily lives. In various frontoparietal and posterior temporal brain regions associated with human action understanding, our study reveals a common neural representation for animate and inanimate motion that is invariant to agentive or physical forces. By comparing events that vary in agentive or physical event dynamics, we also find that the right lateral occipitotemporal cortex and posterior superior temporal sulcus are more sensitive to animate agency, while the left dorsal premotor cortex and superior parietal lobules are more attuned to physical event dynamics. Our findings provide new insights, emphasizing the importance of an integrative approach that considers both agentive and physical aspects of motion events.

AbstractEvents are typically composed of at least actions and entities. Both actions and entities have been shown to be represented by neural structures respecting domain organizations in the brain, including those of social/animate (face and body; person-directed action) versus inanimate (man-made object or tool; object-directed action) concepts. It is unclear whether the brain combines actions and entities into events in a (relative) domain-specific fashion or via domain-general mechanisms in regions that have been shown to support semantic and syntactic composition. We tested these hypotheses in a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment where two domains of verb-noun event phrases (social-person versus manipulation-artifact, e.g., “hug mother” versus “fold napkin”) and their component words were contrasted. We found a series of brain region supporting social-composition effects more strongly than the manipulation phrase composition—the bilateral inferior occipital gyrus (IOG), inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) and anterior temporal lobe (ATL)—which either showed stronger activation strength tested by univariate contrast, stronger content representation tested by representation similarity analysis, or stronger relationship between the neural activation patterns of phrases and synthesis (additive and multiplication) of the neural activity patterns of the word constituents. No regions were observed showing evidence of phrase composition for both domains or stronger effects of manipulation phrases. These findings highlight the roles of the visual cortex and ATL in social event compositions, suggesting a domain-preferring, rather than domain-general, mechanisms of verbal event composition.

In change detection paradigms, changes to social or animate aspects of a scene are detected better and faster compared to non-social or inanimate aspects. Whilst previous studies have focused on how changes to individual faces/bodies are detected, it is possible that individuals presented within a social interaction may be further prioritised, as the accurate interpretation of social interactions may convey an evolutionary advantage. Over three experiments, we explored change detection to complex real-world scenes, in which changes either occurred by the removal of a) an individual on their own, b) an individual who was interacting with others, or c) an object. In Experiment 1 (N = 50), we measured change detection for non-interacting individuals versus objects. In Experiment 2 (N = 49), we measured change detection for interacting individuals versus objects. Finally, in Experiment 3 (N = 85), we measured change detection for non-interacting versus interacting individuals. We also ran an inverted version of each task to determine whether differences were driven by low-level visual features. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found that changes to non-interacting and interacting individuals were detected better and more quickly than changes to objects. We also found inversion effects for both non-interaction and interaction changes, whereby they were detected more quickly when upright compared to inverted. No such inversion effect was seen for objects. This suggests that the high-level, social content of the images was driving the faster change detection for social versus object targets. Finally, we found that changes to individuals in non-interactions were detected faster than those presented within an interaction. Our results replicate the social advantage often found in change detection paradigms. However, we find that changes to individuals presented within social interaction configurations do not appear to be more quicky and easily detected than those in non-interacting configurations.

One of the problems of biology is to understand the difference between animate and inanimate matter.  In view of the recent pandemic, it would have helped to know if viruses are dead or alive.   We start by considering the geometries of life (eg logarithmic spirals; fractals) and the symmetries (eg left-right; rotational) of living organisms.  We find that these suggest that life is not random, but orderly.  We present theoretical evidence (calculations) and experimental evidence (DNA palindromes) that \textit{DNA did not evolve by random mutations}.  We deduce that there needs to be source(s) of order in nature.  We consider briefly a number of theories of life, including those based upon self-organisation and systems theory, various biological approaches and physics.  We note Szent Gy\"orgyi's criticisms of molecular biology, namely that as one descends from higher levels to lower (via organs, cells, molecules) one is left empty-handed because proteins outside cells, other molecules and electrons are lifeless.  We present evidence that water is essential for life, and in addition that life at the smallest scales appears to be \textit{physical}.  However, none of these supply the order required.  We then present a preliminary physics theory of the food chain, which shows that sunlight creates order on the earth's surface, which can be captured and stored by photosynthesis.  But what happened before photosynthesis developed?  Either chlorophyll developed by random processes, or there is some mechanism in physics for storing the order produced by sunlight.  We argue that if such a storage mechanism exists then life is physical, if not then it is chemical in origin.

Abstract Although living and nonliving stimuli are known to rely on distinct brain regions during perception, it is largely unknown if their episodic memory encoding mechanisms differ as well. To investigate this issue, we asked participants to encode object pictures (e.g., a picture of a tiger) and to retrieve them later in response to their names (e.g., word “tiger”). For each of four semantic classes (living-animate, living-inanimate, nonliving-large, and nonliving-small), we examined differences in the similarity in activation patterns (neural pattern similarity [NPS]) for subsequently remembered versus forgotten items. Higher NPS for remembered items suggests an advantage of within-class item similarity, whereas lower NPS for remembered items indicates an advantage for item distinctiveness. We expect NPS within class-specific regions to be higher for remembered than for forgotten items. For example, the parahippocampal cortex has a well-known role in scene processing [Aminoff, E. M., Kveraga, K., & Bar, M. The role of the parahippocampal cortex in cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17, 379–390, 2013], and the anterior temporal and inferior frontal gyrus have well-known roles in object processing [Clarke, A., & Tyler, L. K. Object-specific semantic coding in human perirhinal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 34, 4766–4775, 2014]. As such, we expect to see higher NPS for remembered items in these regions pertaining to scenes and objects, respectively. Consistent with this hypothesis, in fusiform, parahippocampal, and retrosplenial regions, higher NPS predicted memory for subclasses of nonliving objects, whereas in the left inferior frontal and left retrosplenial regions, lower NPS predicted memory for subclasses of living objects. Taken together, the results support the idea that subsequent memory depends on a balance of similarity and distinctiveness and demonstrate that the neural mechanisms of episodic encoding differ across semantic categories.

Humans can easily abstract incoming visual information into discrete semantic categories. Previous research employing functional MRI (fMRI) in humans has identified cortical organizing principles that allow not only for coarse-scale distinctions such as animate versus inanimate objects but also more fine-grained distinctions at the level of individual objects. This suggests that fMRI carries rather fine-grained information about individual objects. However, most previous work investigating fine-grained category representations either additionally included coarse-scale category comparisons of objects, which confounds fine-grained and coarse-scale distinctions, or only used a single exemplar of each object, which confounds visual and semantic information. To address these challenges, here we used multisession human fMRI (female and male) paired with a broad yet homogenous stimulus class of 48 terrestrial mammals, with 2 exemplars per mammal. Multivariate decoding and representational similarity analysis (RSA) revealed high image-specific reliability in low- and high-level visual regions, indicating stable representational patterns at the image level. In contrast, analyses across exemplars of the same animal yielded only small effects in the lateral occipital complex (LOC), indicating rather subtle category effects in this region. Variance partitioning with a deep neural network and shape model showed that across exemplar effects in EVC were largely explained by low-level visual appearance, while representations in LOC appeared to also contain higher category-specific information. These results suggest that representations typically measured with fMRI are dominated by image-specific visual or coarse-grained category information but indicate that commonly employed fMRI protocols may reveal subtle yet reliable distinctions between individual objects.Significance StatementWhile it has been suggested that functional MRI (fMRI) responses in ventral visual cortex carry fine-grained information about individual objects, much previous research has confounded fine-grained with coarse-scale category information or only used individual visual exemplars, which potentially confounds semantic and visual object information. Here we address these challenges in a multisession fMRI study where participants viewed a highly homogenous stimulus set of 48 land mammals with 2 exemplars per animal. Our results reveal a strong dominance of image-specific effects and additionally indicate subtle yet reliable category-specific effects in lateral occipital complex, underscoring the capacity of commonly employed fMRI protocols to uncover fine-grained visual information.

Kathy works entirely online. She is an indefatigable worker and is never too engrossed with her own pursuits to deny another’s request for assistance. Her expertise is focused, and her suggestions are generally valuable. She constantly reviews her communications to search for ways of increasing her effectiveness. An analysis of her interactions, however, raises concerns. Approximately 7% of the communications Kathy receives are insulting and nearly 20% are sexual in nature (Brahnam). She is frequently called a bitch and told her ideas are stupid. Although Kathy refuses to talk about sex, her comments are often twisted and given unintended sexual significance. Why is Kathy bombarded by so many verbal assaults? Could part of the reason be that her communications are electronically mediated and this encourages what Suler calls toxic disinhibition, i.e., behaviour that is characterised by an acting out of forbidden desires and an unrestrained expression of anger and hatred? Is her job performance to blame for some of the insults? An examination of her interactions reveals that Kathy occasionally has difficulty understanding requests and often uses incorrect and sub-standard grammar. Is the prevalence of foul language due to the fact that Kathy is young and female? If she were older and male—or androgynous—would her colleagues respect her more? Or is this barrage of electronic nastiness a natural consequence—simply the way people will behave when asked to work with human-like computing machines? Embodied Collaborative Agents Amer. Dr Poole, what’s it like living for the better part of a year in such close proximity with HAL?Poole. Well, it’s pretty close to what you said about him earlier, he is just like a sixth member of the crew—very quickly get adjusted to the idea that he talks, and you think of him—uh—really just as another person. Kubrick and Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey For over a century, science fiction has painted vivid pictures of what it would be like to work alongside computers. Although many a tale ends with computers taking over the world, depictions of collegial relationships between human beings and their artificial helpmates are equally familiar. This amiable vision of human-computer interaction is what motivates much current research into embodied collaborative agents. These are programs, like Kathy, that run independently of user control, that look and behave like people, and that are designed to assist users in solving complex problems and in performing complicated tasks. For these agents to succeed, they must be socially intelligent, capable of building and sustaining friendly working relationships, and competent in what they do. Researchers are aware that building long-term human-computer relationships is difficult (Bickmore and Picard) and that users are often hostile towards interactive agents (Angeli et al.). These problems are often blamed on technological limitations that irritate the user and disrupt the user’s suspension of disbelief. Users seem to demand a higher degree of fidelity when dealing with anthropomorphic interfaces. It is assumed that once these technological issues are resolved, the social cues exhibited by the agents will automatically call forth socially appropriate responses. The assumption that people will behave nicely when given a believable interface is largely based on the media equation, or the idea that people treat media the same way they treat people (Reeves and Nass). The media equation claims the same rules governing interpersonal relationships apply to human-computer relationships. If it is impolite to criticise a person too harshly face-to-face, for instance, then it follows people will soften their evaluations of a computer’s performance when in the presence of the computer. Research demonstrates, in fact, that people do apply this rule, as well as many other social rules, in their dealings with computers. There are situations, however, where the media equation fails. This is particularly evident in situations involving abusive behavior. Bartneck et al., in their repetition of the Milgram obedience experiment, for example, found that subjects had no qualms administering shock to a rather cute humanoid robot placed in an electric chair. No matter how loudly the robot yelped and pleaded for mercy when zapped, subjects remained uniformly marble-hearted in obeying the directive of the experimenter to administer yet more electricity. Clearly the subjects in this experiment were fully aware the robot was not a person. Rather than attempting to understand human-computer interaction through the filter of the media equation, or social theory, it might be more profitable to investigate theories, such as animism, anthropomorphism, personification, and semiotics, which explain how human beings relate to things. In the next section, I argue that an anthropomorphic tension is at odds with the suspension of disbelief, at least when dealing with animated agents, and that this tension provides a motivating ground for abusing agents. If this proves correct, it may be the case that users will deride and abuse collaborative agents no matter how veridical the interface. Anthropomorphic Tension People in the modern world are pulled in two directions when confronted with things. On the one hand, there is the tendency to anthropomorphize, i.e., to attribute humanlike qualities to non-human entities. Possibly because of its evolutionary value (failing to perceive a human being hidden in the trees could prove deadly), anthropomorphism is a constant perceptual bias, a sort of cognitive default (Guthrie; Caporael and Heyes). On the other hand, there is strong societal pressure, especially in the West, to banish the anthropomorphic for the sake of objectivity (Davis; Spada). Anthropomorphic thinking is considered archaic and primitive (Fisher; Caporael). Children are allowed to indulge in it, but, adults, in general, are expected to maintain a clear demarcation between self and the world. As Guthrie notes, “Once we decide a perception is anthropomorphic, reason dictates that we correct it” (76). It is interesting to note how children learn to discard anthropomorphic thinking. One way apparently involves torturing cherished playthings. A recent study conducted at the University of Bath discovered that young girls like mutilating and torturing Barbie. According to the researchers, “the girls we spoke to see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity … The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking, and even microwaving” (Radford). Why is Barbie tortured? The researchers observed that many of these girls see Barbie as a childish plaything. They go on to explain that “On a deeper level, Barbie has become inanimate. She has lost any individual warmth that she might possess if she were perceived as a singular person” (Radford). In other words, by dehumanizing the very things they once animated, the little girls were simply learning to become objective grownups. Although anthropomorphic thinking begins in early childhood, it is never completely outgrown but rather pervades adult thinking, with much of it remaining unconscious, even in scientific thinking (Searle). It is not clear what strategies people employ to keep the anthropomorphic tendency in check. Anthropomorphism generates little scholarly attention. As Guthrie notes, “that such an important and oft-noted tendency should bring so little close scrutiny is a curiosity with several apparent causes. One is simply that it appears as an embarrassment, an irrational aberration of thought of dubious parentage, that is better chastened and closeted than publicly scrutinized” (53-54). The tension produced between the tendency to anthropomorphise and the societal pressure to remain objective has implications for human-computer interaction. First, the anthropomorphic tension jeopardizes the credibility and trustworthiness of the interactive agent. If the user’s relationship to the collaborative agent is based on a dubious, even embarrassing, mode of cognition, as Guthrie puts it, then the relationship with the agent in many workplace contexts will remain suspect. Second, the anthropomorphic tension motivates abuse and exposes the agent. The agent, as illustrated in the diagram below, is situated between the tendency to anthropomorphise and the pressure to objectify. Anthropomorphism animates the agent, resulting in the desired suspension of disbelief. Developers of human-like interfaces rely on this impulse and work to strengthen it by making the technology transparent. Although improved technology will certainly improve believability, the pressure to objectify will most likely succeed in periodically disrupting the suspension of disbelief. Anthropomorphic tension and the collaborative agent What happens to the agent when believability is disrupted? Examination of user/agent interaction logs shows that the agent becomes transparent or displaced to some degree. What slips behind the agent (lowly machine, programmer/creator, organization/owner, the social stereotypes evoked by the agent’s embodiment and so on) is then often subjected to a barrage of verbal abuse. The agent provides users an opportunity to express opinions and indulge in behaviours normally prohibited in the workplace. This abuse occurs in a socially and psychologically safe space, since in truth the agent is an insensate object and the user is talking to no one real. Thus, when it comes to collaborating with Kathy, users may find it far more gratifying to treat her, not as a valuable co-worker or “just another member of the crew,” but rather as a fun thing to bash. And although the organisation may disapprove the waste of time, society at large will find it hard, without reverting to anthropomorphic thinking, to knock it. References Bartneck, Christoph, Chioke Rosalia, Rutger Menges, and Inèz Deckers. “Robot Abuse—A Limitation of the Media Equation.” Abuse: The Darker Side of Human-Computer Interaction, proceedings of an INTERACT 2005 workshop in Rome, Italy, 19 Sept. 2005. http://www.agentabuse.org/papers.htm>. Bickmore, T., and R. Picard. “Establishing and Maintaining Long-Term Human-Computer Relationships.” ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interaction (ToCHI) 12.2 (2005): 293-327. Brahnam, Sheryl. “Gendered Bods and Bot Abuse.” Misuse and Abuse of Interactive Technologies, proceedings of CHI workshop in Montréal, Québec, Canada, 22-28 Aug. 2005. http://www.agentabuse.org/papers.htm>. Caporael, L. R. “Anthropomorphism and Mechanomorphism: Two Faces of the Human Machine.” Computers in Human Behavior 2 (1986): 215-34. Caporael, Linnda R., and Cecilia M. Heyes. “Why Anthropomorphize? Folk Psychology and Other Stories.” Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals. Eds. Robert W. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson and H. Lyn Miles. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 1977. 59-73. Davis, Hank. “Amimal Cognition versus Animal Thinking: The Antropomorphic Error.” Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals. Eds. Robert. W. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson and H. Lyn Miles. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 1997. 335-47. De Angeli, Antonella, Sheryl Brahnam, Peter Wallis, and Alan Dix. “Misuse and Abuse of Interactive Technologies.” CHI 2006, proceedings of a conference on HCI in Montréal, Québec, Canada. 22-28 Aug. 2006: New York: ACM Press, 2006 (in press). Fisher, J. A. “The Myth of Anthropomorphism.” Interpretation and Explanation in the Study of Animal Behavior: Interpretation, Intentionality, and Communication. Eds. M. Bekoff and D. Jamieson. San Fransisco: Westview Press, 1990. Guthrie, Stewart Elliot. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Milgram, Stanley, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz. “Note on the Drawing Power of Crowds of Different Size.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13.2 (1969): 79-82. Radford, Benjamin. “Voice of Reason: Research Debunks ‘Barbie Ideal’.” Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science and Reason, 2005. http://www.livescience.com/othernews/051230_barbie.html>. Reeves, Byron, and Clifford I. Nass. The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media like Real People and Places. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications and Cambridge University Press, 1996. Searle, J. R. The Rediscovery of the Mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1992. Spada, Emanuela Cenami. “Amorphism. Mechanomorphism, and Anthropomorphism.” Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals. Eds. Robert. W. Mitchell, Nicholas S. Thompson and H. Lyn Miles. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 1997. 37-49. Suler, J. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” CyberPsychology and Behaviour 7 (2004): 321-26. Web Links About agent abuse: http://agentabuse.org>. About gender and embodied conversational agents: http://www.informatics.manchester.ac.uk/~antonella/gender/>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Brahnam, Sheryl. "The Impossibility of Collaborating with Kathy, ‘The Stupid Bitch’." M/C Journal 9.2 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0605/05-brahnam.php>. APA Style Brahnam, S. (May 2006) "The Impossibility of Collaborating with Kathy, ‘The Stupid Bitch’," M/C Journal, 9(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0605/05-brahnam.php>.

The film opens in an unidentified wax museum. The camera pans from right to left, zooming in on key Black historical figures who have been memorialized in wax. W.E.B. Du Bois, Marian Anderson, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, and Duke Ellington stand out. The final wax figure, a Black man, sits with an empty card box in his right hand and a lit cigarette in his left. The film’s narrator appears: a slim, afroed Black man. He sits to the right of the figure. The only living person in a room full of bodies, he reaches over to grab the cigarette. To his inanimate companion he nonchalantly says “Oh. Thank you very much. Needed that” and ashes the cigarette.The afroed, cigarette-ashing narrator is poet, novelist, and musician Gil Scott-Heron. The film is Black Wax (1982), directed by Robert Mugge. Black Wax is equal parts concert film, social documentary, and political statement by the poet. Set in Washington, D.C. and released in the midst of singer Stevie Wonder’s long campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday, Scott-Heron’s film feels, in part, like an extension of Wonder’s wider effort. The year prior, Wonder held a massive rally in the city to demonstrate national support for the creation of the holiday. Reportedly, over 100,000 people attended. Wonder, building on mounting support of the proposed holiday made his song in honor of MLK Jr.—“Happy Birthday”—an integral part of his upcoming tour with Bob Marley. When Marley fell ill, Scott-Heron stepped in to lend his talents to Wonder’s cause. He would then participate in the Washington, D.C. rally that featured speeches from Diana Ross and Jesse Jackson (Cuepoint).Between live performances of various songs from his catalogue, Scott-Heron stages walking interludes wherein his wiry frame ambles through the city. Most are sonically accompanied by verses from his song “Washington, D.C.” He also folds in excerpts from his poems, personal reflections, and critiques of President Ronald Reagan’s administration. Scott-Heron ambulates a historically sedimented reality; namely that Washington, D.C. is a segregated city and that America, more broadly, is a divided nation. Against the backdrop of national monuments, his stroll stages critiques of the country’s racist past. In Black Wax, song becomes walk becomes interlude becomes critique.Throughout the 1970s, Scott-Heron used his politically conscious poetry and music to mount strident critiques of social relations. Songs like “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, “Winter in America”, and “Home Is Where the Hatred Is” reflect the artist’s larger concern with the stories Americans tell ourselves about who we are. This carried over into the 1980s. In his 1981 song “B-Movie”, Scott-Heron examines the ascent of Ronald Reagan, from actor to president. For the poet, the distinction is false, since Reagan “acted” his way into office. As an “actor in chief” Reagan represent a politically conservative regime that began before his entry into the White House. Reagan’s conservative politics were present when he was Governor of California and clashing with the Black Panther Party. Scott-Heron seized upon this history in Black Wax, tracing it all the way to the nation’s capital.A tour is “a journey for business, pleasure, or education often involving a series of stops and ending at the starting point” (“Tour”). Tours can offer closed-loop narratives that creates for participants a “safe” distance from the historical conditions which makes the location they are visiting possible. Scott-Heron undermines the certainly of that formulation with this wandering. In song and stride, he fashions himself a tour guide. This is not in the sense of taking the viewer into the “hood” to evidence urban decay. Rather, the poet’s critical amble undermines a national memory project that removes race from histories of the nation’s capital.Scott-Heron, self-styled Bluesologist, traveler, wanders through the world with a marrow-deep knowledge about the historical dynamics animating Black life. Walking richly informs how he relates to space. For Michel de Certeau, “the act of walking is to the urban system what the speech act is to language or to the statements uttered [...] it is a process of appropriation of the topographical system on the part of the pedestrian […] a spatial acting-out of the place […] and it implies relations among differentiated positions” (97-98). For Scott-Heron, the “relations among differentiated positions” is informed by his identity as a Black American. His relationship to race imbues him with what Black geographer Katherine McKittrick calls a “black sense of place.” According to McKittrick,a black sense of place can be understood as the process of materially and imaginatively situating historical and contemporary struggles against practices of domination and the difficult entanglements of racial encounter […][it] is not a steady, focused, and homogenous way of seeing and being in place, but rather a set of changing and differentiated perspectives that are illustrative of, and therefore remark upon, legacies of normalized racial violence that calcify, but do not guarantee, the denigration of black geographies and their inhabitants. (949-950)Scott-Heron elaborates on McKittrick’s concept through a series of walking interludes wherein he refuses a national narrative of harmonious racial progress. He dismisses an American fantasy of race, and it is not new. In “What America Would Be Like without Blacks” writer Ralph Ellison dissects the ways that Americans have historically tried to “get shut” of Black people, all while actively thriving on Black America’s cultural contributions. Scott-Heron’s black sense of place is articulated through a series of ambulant interventions that (subtly) acknowledge national violences while highlighting the often unspoken presence of Black people thriving in the nation’s capital.Visually, the poet sequesters national monuments to the background. Reducing their scale and stripping them of their dwarfing capacity while also actively not naming them. He miniaturizes them. This allows him to centre his critique of national history and politics. For Scott-Heron, the Capital Building and the White House are not sites to be revered. They are symbols of an ongoing betrayal perpetrated by the Reagan administration.The scenes I examine here are not representative. That isn’t my project. I am much more interested in the film as a wandering text, one that pushes at tensions in order to untether the viewer from a constricting narrative about who they might be. According to Sarah Jane Cervenak, “wandering aligns with the free at precisely those moments when it bends away from forces that attempt to translate or read” (15). In this regard, I offer this reading as a suggestion. It does not work towards a particular end other than opening the process(es) through which we make meaning of Scott-Heron’s filmic performance. In effect, don’t worry about where you are doing. Just be in the scene. Invite yourself to view the film and elaborate on descriptions offered here. Wander with him. Wander with me.———In his first walking interlude, the poet strolls along the Potomac River with a boombox hoisted upon his left shoulder. He plays a tape of his song “Washington, D.C.”, and as the opening instrumental creeps into audibility he offers his own introductory monologue:yeah, I forget what Washington did on the Potomac. This is the Potomac. Black folks would sometimes refer to that as the Po-to-mac [...] This here is the Potomac. Saw a duck floating out there a little while ago. Yeah, somebody said now that Reagan is in charge we’re all ducks. Dead ducks. You dig it?Walking along the Potomac, his slow gait is the focus. He stares directly at the camera and speaks to the viewer, to us. His (willful) forgetting of what George Washington “did on the Potomac” suggests that major figures in American history do not hold equal significance for all Americans. In fact, for Scott-Heron, the viewer/we might also do well to forget. His monologue smoothly transitions into the first verse of “Washington, D.C.”:Symbols of democracy, are pinned against the coastOuthouse of bureaucracy, surrounded by a moatCitizens of poverty are barely out of sightOverlords escape near evening, the brother’s on at nightMorning comes and brings the tourists, straining rubber necksPerhaps a glimpse of the cowboy making the world a nervous wreckIt’s a mass of irony for all the world to seeIt’s the nation’s capital, it’s Washington D.C. It’s the nation’s capitalIt’s the nation’s capitalIt’s the nation’s capital, it’s Washington D.C.(mmmm-hmmm)He feigns no allegiance to Washington, D.C. or the city’s touristic artifice. As the lyrics indicate, poverty stricken Americans’ proximity to physical symbols of national wealth belie the idea that democracy is successful. For him, poverty is as symbolic as monuments. Yet Scott-Heron does not visually exploit Americans living in poverty. This isn’t that kind of tour. Instead, he casts his gaze on the “symbol[s] of democracy” that celebrate the “outhouse of bureaucracy” that is Washington, D.C.As the poet continues his stroll along the Potomac, the Jefferson Memorial appears in the background. He has no interest in it. He does not name it, nor does he gesture to it in any way. Instead, he focuses his attention on the camera, the viewer, us. While the camera lags slightly behind him, rather than turn his attention to the river that he walks along, he looks over his right shoulder to re-establish eye contact with the camera. His indifference is reinforced by the nonchalant stride that never breaks. The Jefferson Memorial nor the Potomac River are objects to marvel at. They hold no amount of significance that would require the poet or viewer/us to stop and ponder them or their alleged importance. With eyes and feet, he keeps them where he wants them ... in the background.———In another interlude Scott-Heron, still holding the boombox atop his shoulder, appears in the courtyard area of an apartment complex. The repetition of his outfit, boombox location, and music give continuity to the scene by the Potomac and the unidentified neighborhood. His outfit is the same one he wears when walking by the Potomac and the boombox remains on his shoulder. Reciting the next verse of “Washington, D.C.”, it seems like he’s walking through a tableau.May not have the glitter or the glamour of L.A.It may not have the history or intrigue of PompeiiBut when it comes to making music, and sure enough making newsOr people who just don’t make sense, and people making doSeems a massive contradiction, pulling different waysBetween the folks who come and go, and one’s who’ve got to stayIt’s a mass of irony for all the world to seeIt’s the nation’s capital, it’s Washington, D.C. He strolls along the sidewalk, the camera zooming in on his face. Over his right shoulder two Black kids pose on their bikes as men stand around them. The camera rotates clockwise, giving a slight panoramic view of the apartment building in the background. Residents crowd the doorway, a combination of what appears to be overlapping greetings and farewells. The ambiguous actions of the people in the background smoothly contrasts with the poet’s lean frame while his focus on the camera/viewer enlarges his presence.The scene also includes various people sitting on park benches. We do not know if they are residents or visitors. In many ways, the distinction does not matter. What we see is comfort in the faces and bodies of the Black people immediately behind Scott-Heron. On one bench we see two people. The first is a Black man who hoists his right leg up, resting his foot on the bench. As the boombox plays and the poet raps, the man taps his knee and snaps his fingers. Similarly, a Black woman in a red dress sitting on the same bench responds to Scott-Heron’s presence and his music with a committed head bob and toe tap. On another bench, three young Black men nod coolly as they watch the poet recite the remainder of his verse.It’s the nation’s capitalIt’s the nation’s capitalIt’s the nation’s capital, it’s Washington D.C.He walks us through the partially-animated tableau wherein the folks sitting behind him subtly reinforce the message he directly communicates to the viewer/us.———In another interlude, three scenes are cut into one. In the first, the Capital Building looms in the distance as Scott-Heron enters the frame. He gestures toward the building and notes the ways that tours distract visitors from the real Washington:Let me tell you, those tours are all the same. They bring you around to places like this [gestures toward the Capital Building]. They might even tell you who the jackass is on the horse or the guy on top of the building, but they never show you the real Washington.Should’ve been around the 15th of January. That’s when Stevie Wonder was holding this rally. It was about 50,000 gathered there. They were trying to demonstrate and make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday. But it’s always the same. The Capital. The Hoover Building. Maybe sometimes they’d even show you the Washington Monument [gestures towards the monument in the distance]. But that’s not a look at the real Washington. The one I’d like to show you is something special. You wanna see what’s happening in the nation’s capital? Come with me… (Black Wax)Since the standard D.C. tour leaves out the real Washington, the poet primes the viewer for the real thing. His mention of Stevie Wonder allows the poet to connect the viewer to that real Washington, Black Washington. This is the Washington that boasts Ben’s Chili Bowl, Howard University, and Scurlock Studios as cultural institutions. This is the Washington that would welcome the creation of a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. The scene quickly transitions to Scott-Heron walking down the streets of a presumably Black neighborhood. This neighborhood is outside the purview of tour mobile routes. There is nothing remarkable about the neighborhood. Nothing monumental. The street is lined with row houses. In the background, Black pedestrians passively observe or go about their day. One young Black man smokes a cigarette as Scott-Heron casually walks past him. For Scott-Heron, these folks are the “life-blood of the city” yet he does not speak with them, perhaps because his point is not to put these people on display but to formally acknowledge who gets left out of official narratives. The segment concludes with a return to Heron’s stroll along the Potomac, where he picks up another verse to “Washington, D.C.”:Seems to me, it’s still in light time people knifed up on 14th streetMakes me feel it’s always the right time for them people showing up and coming cleanDid make the one seem kind of numbIt’s the nation’s capitalIt’s the nation’s capitalIt’s the nation’s capital, it’s Washington D.C. ConclusionI’ll end with this. In a final scene, the poet walks in along the front gates of the White House. He holds a little Black girl’s hand and smokes a cigarette. Together they stroll along the gates of the White House. Their movement, from right to left, suggest a return. A going back to. However, this return is not nostalgic. It is accusatory. It is a reckoning with the unrealised promises that America doles out to its citizens. He notes:the protests that are launched in this country are not launched necessarily against the government. They are launched in terms of the fact that this country has rarely lived up to its advanced publicity. This is supposed to be the land of justice, liberty, and equality and that’s what everybody over here is looking for. (Black Wax)Perhaps, then, Gil Scott-Heron leaves his viewer/us not with a push to March. No. Walking against the miasma of national nostalgia perpetuated through tourism is one way to maintain a black sense of place.ReferencesBaram, Marcus. “How Stevie Wonder Helped Create Martin Luther King Day.” Cuepoint, 18 Jan. 2015. 15 Jul. 2018 <https://medium.com/cuepoint/how-stevie-wonder-helped-create-martin-luther-king-day-807451a78664>.Cervenak, Sarah Jane. Wandering: Philosophical Performances of Racial and Sexual Freedom. Durham: Duke UP, 2014.De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Los Angeles: U of California P, 1984.Gil Scott-Heron: Black Wax. Dir. Robert Mugge, performances by Gil Scott-Heron and the Midnight Band. WinStar Home Entertainment, 1982.McKittrick, Katherine. “On Plantations, Prisons, and a Black Sense of Place.” Social and Cultural Geography 12.8 (2011): 947-963. Scott-Heron, Gil. The Last Holiday: A Memoir. New York: Grove Press, 2012.“Tour.” Merriam-Webster. 15 Jul. 2018.<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tour>.