Pleasure experienced in an unpleasant film genre, like horror, has prompted numerous discussions in film studies. Noted scholars like Carol J. Clover and Noël Carroll have rationalized spectatorial enjoyment of a genre that capitalizes on human anxieties and complicates cultural categories. Clover admits that horror initially satisfies sadistic tendencies in young male viewers but then pushes them to cross gender lines and identify with the strong female heroine who defeats the film's threat. Carroll provides a basic explanation, citing spectators' cognitive curiosity as the source of pleasure. Both scholars are right to consider emotional, psychological, and cognitive experiences felt by viewers, but the main objective of this thesis moves beyond one particular demographic and considers how spectatorial experiences can differ radically but still offer pleasure. This work involves a methodology, Theory of Mind (ToM), that addresses the basic yet complex issues that inform spectatorial interactions with the horror film. Clover, Carroll, and others agree that viewers realize violations to cultural conventions occur in horror. Therefore, these anticipations, anxieties, curiosities, and tendencies of the spectator exist before and after a film rather than taking place within the two hours of watching its narrative. ToM is a cognitive ability that allows individuals to predict and make sense of others' behavior and underlying mental states and is a hardwired faculty that undergoes constant conditioning to ensure individuals can better interact with their environments, whether real or fictional. With horror, expectations are challenged, since spectators are forced to renegotiate cultural knowledge, as horror does not adhere to convention. Horror exercises ToM intensely, but as this project proves, it is a pleasurable workout. Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror film, Alien, is this work's case study, because it falls into the horror genre and challenges a few culturally-imposed binaries that are entangled in the film, including human/android and masculine/feminine. As this thesis shows, these entanglements demonstrate how ToM is both biological/cultural and is not categorized as a programmed mechanism in humans. With these enmeshed binaries, this study argues that Alien involves posthumanism, because it rejects traditional categories of identification and information and embodies fluidity. This works for ToM, since it is an ever-developing and conditioned process of observing and anticipating behavior. ToM is also posthuman, because information does not remain stagnant but is challenged or modified constantly in pleasurable ways. By witnessing the contradictions and complications of cultural categories through Alien's characters, spectators can learn to observe the flux of identity outside the film's narrative, too. Because this learning process is in constant motion, this thesis points out how horror's stimulation and development of it are enjoyable.

Магистерская диссертация Макуриной А.Ю. "Воображение как когнитивный процесс" посвящена воображению как когнитивному процессу и к проблеме его развития в процессе когнитивной деятельности. В известных психологических концепциях (Леонтьев В.Г., Майер Г., Маслоу А., Рибо Т. и другие). нет единого подхода к классификации воображения, нет определенного понимания когнитивной деятельности, нет единого взгляда на виды воображения. Целью исследования является изучение воображения как когнитивного процесса и его развития в процессе когнитивной деятельности. Объект исследования - воображение как когнитивный процесс и психическая деятельность. Предмет исследования – факторы развития воображения в процессе когнитивной деятельности. Работа состоит из двух глав. В первой главе рассмотрена дефиниция понятия «воображение», принятая в психологии, исследовано воображение как творческий процесс и форма психической деятельности, проанализирован онтогенез воображения и проведено разграничение понятия «воображение» от понятий «мышление», «представление», «память». Во второй главе дано подробное определение когнитивной деятельности, когнитивной мотивации и рассмотрено их влияние на развитие воображения, изучен феномен понимания и его связь с воображением. / Master's thesis of Makurina A.Y. "The imagination as a cognitive process" devoted to the imagination as a cognitive process and the issue of its development in the process of cognitive activity. In the known psychological concepts (V.G. Leont'ev, G. Meyer, A. Maslow, T. Ribot and others), there is no unit approach to the classification of the imagination, there is no certain understanding of cognitive activity, there is no common view on the types of imagination. The aim of the study is the investigation of imagination as a cognitive process and its development in the process of cognitive activity. The object of study - the imagination as a cognitive process and mental activity. Subject of research - the factors of development of imagination in the process of cognitive activity. The work consists of two chapters. The first chapter examined the definition of the concept "imagination", adopted in psychology, studied the imagination as a creative process and a form of mental activity, to analyze the ontogeny of the imagination and held distinction between "imagination" of the concepts of "thinking", "view", "memory". The second chapter provides a detailed definition of cognitive activity, cognitive motivation, and examines their impact on the development of imagination, also examines the phenomenon of understanding and its relationship with the imagination.

Магистерская диссертация Оглуздина К.А. "Когнитивная модель агента в качестве интеллектуальной системы, взаимодействующей с внешней средой" посвящена проблеме моделирования когнитивных агентов. В XX веке разрабатывались особого типа машины, которые могли бы осуществлять мыслительную деятельность, сопоставимую с человеческой. Этот проект был назван искусственный интеллект. Исчерпывающие представления об области искусственного интеллекта можно получить из работ С. Рассела, П. Норвинга, Гаазе-Рапопорт М. Г., Поспелова Д. А., Редько В. Г. и других. Объектом исследования являются искусственные интеллектуальные системы, а предметом - искусственные интеллектуальные агенты. Целью исследования является выявление основных свойств искусственных интеллектуальных агентов. Работа состоит из двух частей, каждая из которых поделена на два раздела. В первой части работы, в первом блоке изучается понятие интеллекта и его особенностей относительно естественных и искусственных систем, а второй блок посвящен анализу понятия агент, рассмотрению классификаций искусственных агентов в целом, и когнитивных агентов в частности. Во второй части работы, в первом блоке мы рассматриваем архитектуры когнитивных агентов, а также проведён их сравнительный анализ. Второй блок посвящен проблеме взаимодействия агентов в многоагентной системе. / Master's thesis of Ogluzdin K.A. "The cognitive agent model as an intellectual system interacting with the external environment" is devoted to the modeling of cognitive agents. In XX century, there was developed a special type of machine that could perform mental activity comparable to that of the human. This project was called artificial intelligence. Comprehensive understanding of the field of artificial intelligence can be obtained from the works of S. Russell, P. Norvinga, M.G. Haase-Rapoport, D.A. Pospelov, V.G. Redko and others. The object of study is the artificial intelligence system, and the subject is artificial intelligent agents. The aim of the study is to identify the basic properties of artificial intelligent agents. The paper consists of two parts, each of which is divided into two blocks. In the first part, in the first block there is studied the concept of intelligence and its features with respect to natural and artificial systems, while the second block is devoted to the analysis of the concept of agent, considering the classification of artificial agents in general, and cognitive agents in particular. In the second part, there is studied in the first section the architecture of cognitive agents, and there is conducted comparative analysis. The second block is devoted to the interaction between agents in multi-agent system.