psychology

Immersion is a metaphorical term derived from the physical experience of being submerged in water. We seek the same feeling from a psychologically immersive experience that we do from a plunge in the ocean or swimming pool: the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus. We enjoy the movement out of our familiar world, the feeling of alertness that comes from being in this new place, and the delight that comes from learning to move within it. –Janet Murray, Hamlet on the HolodeckStorytelling is an attempt to convey the subjective human experience; with emerging media and heightened levels of interactivity, authors/artists are finding new ways to more fully immerse the reader into their world, what Murray calls “digital swimming.” ii — in the white darkness by Reiner Strasser and M.D. Coverley is an example of an immersive work of electronic literature, that attempts to convey the process of memory loss in conditions like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. With virtual reality, that Chris Milk calls “the ultimate empathy machine,” we sink into simulated fictional worlds, ideally allowing composers to push subjective experience even further, fully immersing reader/viewer/participants into an experience. John Hull’s Notes on Blindness VR experience, for instance, conveys an experience of blindness that is indescribable in words and has to be told through feeling. Both of these texts utilize the affordances of their media to convey a subjective experience and evoke empathy, Notes on Blindness through a more internal empathetic experience. And isn’t this our desire, to convey subjective human experience to others—to experience, to understand, to grow?Murray, in her article, “Not a film and not an empathy machine,” says of VR: “To invent a new medium you have to find the fit between the affordances of the co-evolving platform and specific expressive content — the beauty and truth — you want to share that could not be as well expressed in other forms. There is no short-cut to creating it.” Each medium has unique affordances and can be immersive in different ways—by highlighting the materiality of the text or by attempting to remove the materiality altogether, render it transparent, and immerse us in an alternate reality. The medium depends on the message. What story do we want to tell? How does it ask to be told? In my presentation, I will explore the gaps between the idealistic view of empathetic response in a VR experience and the realities of the technology. Including theory from Janet Murray, Marie-Laure Ryan, and Nathaniel Stern, I plan to investigate the complications of augmented and virtual reality narratives. I will discuss how they alter ideas of embodiment and immersive narrative, how we can define boundaries within them, how they turn the tables on reader/author relationships, how we need to consider their unique affordances in storytelling, their potential for evoking empathy and compassion, and how they are, inevitably, the storytelling of our future. 

Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred

Jeffrey J. Kripal

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Print.

Investigating the Anomalies: Mysteries from Behind the Former Iron Curtain

Vladimir V. Rubtsov

Kharkov, Ukraine: Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena, 2011. Kindle eBook.

Wonders in the Sky: Unexplained Aerial Objects from Antiquity to Modern Times

Jacques Vallee and Chris Aubeck

New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2010. Print.

From the heavens to the stars, the number three has often been tied to the occult. Carrying on this tradition, Rob Swigart has brought together three books that investigate the anomalous, address the unexplained, and answer the impossible. The truth is in here.

(source: http://electronicbookreview.com/thread/criticalecologies/anomalous)

While the ideas underlying hypertext have been around for a long time, it is only comparatively recently that the availability of powerful desktop microcomputers has enabled hypertext systems to become commercially viable tools. While developments in hypertext in recent years have been very much technology-oriented, interest is now centring on the effects of the technology from a human psychological perspective.

Written by leading figures in the field the authors look at the psychological considerations such as memory, education and navigation underlying the design of hypertext systems. Addressing itself to the full range of psychological issues, with direct reference to practical applications, this book places the technology within the domain of human activities and thereby provides a broader perspective on the role and value of emerging information systems.

Readership: Researchers, postgraduates and senior-level undergraduates in psychology and cognitive science. Also of interest to students and researchers in information science, computer science, ergonomics, software design, educational technology and human factors.

Contents

Chapter 1: Why Psychology? Cliff McKnight, Andrew Dillon and John RichardsonChapter 2: An Alternative Rhetoric for HypertextPeter WhalleyChapter 3: The Textbook of the FutureDonald J. Cunningham, Thomas M. Duffy and Randy A. KnuthChapter 4: Learning with Hypertext: Problems, Principles and ProspectsNick HammondChapter 5: Enhancing the Usability of Text Through Computer Delivery and Formative Evaluation: the SuperBook ProjectThomas Landauer, Dennis Egan, Joel Remde, Michael Lesk, Carol Lochbaum and Daniel KetchumChapter 6: To Jump or Not to Jump : Strategy Selection While Reading Electronic TextsPatricia WrightChapter 7: Effects Of Semantically Structured Hypertext Knowledge Bases on Users' Knowledge StructuresDavid H. JonassenChapter 8: Space -- the Final Chapter or Why Physical Representations are not Semantic IntentionsAndrew Dillon, Cliff McKnight and John Richardson

(Source: Publisher's catalogue copy)