abstract: In two separate publications, the average patterns of, and individual differences in, preschoolers' selective attention processes were investigated using a multilevel modeling framework. In Publication 1, using two independent samples (Ns= 42, 75), preschoolers' selective attention towards different types of emotions (both positive and negative) was examined using two eye-tracking tasks. The results showed that, on average, children selectively attended to valenced emotional information more than neutral emotional information. In addition, a majority of children were able to detect the different emotional stimulus among three neutral stimuli during the visual search task. Children were more likely to detect angry than sad emotional expressions among neutral faces; however, no difference was found between detection of angry and happy faces among neutral faces. In Publication 2, the associations of children's anger and sadness proneness to their attention biases towards anger and sad emotional information, respectively, and the relations of these biases to various aspects children's social functioning and adjustment were examined among preschool-aged children (N = 75). Children's predisposition to anger and sadness were shown to be related to attentional biases towards those specific emotions, particularly if children lacked the ability to regulate their attention. Similarly, components of attention regulation played an important role in moderating the associations of biases towards angry information to aggressive behaviors, social competence, and anxiety symptoms. Biases towards sadness were unrelated to maladjustment or social functioning. Findings were discussed in terms of the importance of attention biases and attention regulation as well as the implications of the findings for attention training programs.   / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Family and Human Development 2014

<p> In an age where dance can instantly be viewed online and then just as quickly be forgotten, what is it about certain videos that resonate with us after viewing them? &nbsp;Is it possible to retain the integrity and intent of the choreographer&rsquo;s vision on film, especially with instances when it was originally intended to be performed on a stage in front of a live audience? The still evolving art of screendance brings together two different art practices and creates a hybrid art form, sharing a vision with audiences that is unique and can resonate deeply with the viewer. Unraveling the mystery of how it affects us is not easy to answer, but there are proven strategies and theories behind why certain decisions work that can lead artists towards more effective choices.</p><p>

<p> This paper combines concepts from Romantic and Gothic literature with ecocriticism in order to discuss eco-zombies in Mary Shelley&rsquo;s <i> Frankenstein</i> as well as the film, <i>28 Days Later</i> and the texts that follow the film: the graphic novel, <i>28 Days Later: The Aftermath</i> by Steve Niles, and the comic books series, <i> 28 Days Later</i>, by Michael Alan Nelson. Throughout this paper, nature, primarily through the eco-zombie interpretation of it, is read as a character in order to determine how much agency nature has over the human characters within the texts and film being discussed. The use Todorov&rsquo;s narrative theory, in this paper, depicts the plots of these stories, specifically the changes to the lives of these characters and how they are affected by nature in various ways, to depict nature&rsquo;s ever growing assertiveness over the humans that encounter it as well as how those humans attempt to overcome the disruptions that nature places on their sense of self. Both Frankenstein&rsquo;s monster and the infected in <i>28 Days Later</i>, when seen as eco-zombies, and therefore granting agency to nature, exert power of humans through physically affecting them as well as mentally.</p>

<p> Textual genre criticism and close readings of novels and films reveal that, in addition to chronicling catastrophes&rsquo; aftermaths, the post-apocalyptic genre envisions a future world in which traditional apocalyptic ideology is inadequate and unsatisfactory. While the full apocalyptic trajectory traditionally includes an end met by a new beginning, moments of cultural crisis have questioned the efficacy of apocalyptic metanarratives, allowing for a divergent, post-apocalyptic imagination that has been reflected in various fictional forms. </p><p> The post-apocalyptic genre imagines a post-cataclysmic world cobbled together from the remnants of our world and invites complicated participation as readers and viewers engage with a world that resembles our own yet is bereft of our world&rsquo;s meaning-making structures. The cultural history of the genre is traced through early nineteenth-century concerns about plagues and revolutions; <i>fin-de-si&egrave;cle</i> anxieties and the devastation of the First World War; the post-apocalyptic turn in the cultural imagination following the Second World War, the atomic bombs, and the Holocaust; the Cold War and societal tensions of the 1960s and 1970s; late twentieth-century nationalism and relaxation of Cold War tension; and renewed interest in post-apocalypticism following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. </p><p> Textual analysis reveals that the genre is particularly interested in formal experimentation and other postmodernist ideas, carnivalesque transgression, and concerns about survivorship and community. The mobilization of these themes is examined in case studies of the novella &ldquo;A Boy and His Dog,&rdquo; the novels <i>The Quiet Earth</i> and <i>The Road</i>, and the films <i>Idaho Transfer, Night of the Comet</i>, and <i> Mad Max: Fury Road</i>.</p><p>

<p> Pixar&rsquo;s <i>Toy Story</i> (John Lassiter, 1995) is not just a story about toys and the children that play with them, but a demonstration of how we interact with the world. This thesis looks at the way in which both main children, Andy and Sid, interact with their toys and how this interaction is one that is structured by way of what Martin Heidegger calls &ldquo;Enframing.&rdquo; In this modality of playing, toys and other things and entities in the world, and the world itself, appear to the children as on-hand resources for use at any time and can be molded, as if plastic, to fit their needs. I problematize this way of interacting with the world by looking at not only it manifests in Toy Story, but also in the process of the film&rsquo;s production, Silicon Valley aesthetics, our reliance upon plastics, neoliberal capital in light of the &ldquo;1099 economy,&rdquo; and ecological ramifications of these practices as seen in the ecological registers. Through these metaphysics, we seek to mold the world in accordance with human-centered interests as we play within the world. My thesis also turns to understand how metaphysics has transformed over time so that we can work towards bringing forth a different way of relating to the world that is sustainable, ethical, and one of care. I argue for an understanding of things in the world likened to an interconnected and interdependent network that we are always connected to, and in an &ldquo;interplay&rdquo; with. I conclude the project by arguing for a possible turn to the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, and other philosophers who work in process metaphysics for a possible reinvigoration of &ldquo;apparatus theory,&rdquo; which has lost favor with many film scholars since the 1970s/1980s. I argue that a process framework could provide fresh light on the cinematic apparatus in light of digital at-home streaming services, as well as work towards revealing stronger interlinked connections between media, economics, ecology, geopolitics, etc.</p><p>

<p> Scholars have long been dismissive of the viability of long-range tonal organization in film music. Controversy over questions of authorial intent, aural perception and tonal memory, and the ability of a sound track to function as a cohesive "work" have led scholars to steer dear of (or reject) the concept of tonal design in film. To date, filmic tonal design has been explored by only a few scholars in the context of a few films. Having analyzed over sixty films, my work addresses this lacuna, and establishes a systematic methodology for tonally analyzing film sound tracks. My analyses reveal overarching tonal organization and elaborate networks of harmonic relationships, in which specific keys serve explicit functions within the filmic narrative and structure. In addition to overturning prevalent assumptions about the feasibility of large-scale tonality in film, my findings foster a fascinating new level of engagement between a film's music and narrative, and challenge the sedimented notion that key is an irrelevant parameter in the study of film music.</p><p> The following films will be analyzed: <i>The Talented Mr. Ripley </i> (1999), <i>The English Patient</i> (1996), <i>Breaking and Entering</i> (2006), <i>The Grand Budapest Hotel </i>(2014), <i> The Royal Tenenbaume</i> (2001), <i>Fantastic Mr. Fax</i> (2009), <i> Moonrise Kingdom</i> (2012), <i>The Darjeeling Limited</i> (2007), <i>Persuasion</i> (1995), <i>Emma</i> (1996), and <i>Amadeus</i> (1984). i</p>

[From the introduction]: Vigilantism. Its act or mere mention can have a polarising effect, provoking fear or excitement, disapproval or endorsement, and even imitation in the American public. Vigilantism features regularly in American history, news reports and popular culture references alike, a subtle yet pervasive feature of American life. It is also often highly political, prompting contemporary debates amongst critics and politicians into issues such as self- defence and gun laws, rising crime and social breakdown, and suggests a tendency of the American people to employ or resort to violence. Such debates are not new, however, with outspoken critics on each side of the argument. Ted Robert Gurr, for instance, writing from a conservative perspective, argues that recorded crime rates in America have been inconsistent and are artificially inflated. He states that such claims are exaggerated and have supported a wider perception of American society as being an overtly violent one (1989: pp.21-54). Although Gurr aims to challenge the perception of violence as being generally high in America, he wrote his initial essay for a government report into violence during the 1970s, suggesting a potentially biased perspective. Such an approach ignores the significance of particularly persistent forms of violence in American society, like vigilantism. In contrast, and writing specifically in relation to the often overlooked prevalence of vigilantism in American life, Arnold Madison argues that vigilantism is a persistent feature of American history that will continue to efface American society until the nation’s proclivity to employ violence in such a manner is confronted (1973: p.214). Such opposing outlooks and approaches make clear that vigilantism is a controversial issue that causes extreme responses on both sides of the political spectrum. More so, it can often encompass or be related to other complex social issues, such as anarchism, terrorism and even euthanasia. This highlights the problem of classification surrounding the topic and suggests its applicability to many often conflicting and controversial aspects of modern life. As such, vigilantism is not often recognised as an entity worthy of discussion in its own right, and is often shied away from completely. This thesis will demonstrate how Dexter (Cr. Jeff Lindsay and James Manos Jr, Showtime Networks, US, 2006-2013) is a highly pertinent text through which in-depth, nuanced and wide-ranging discussions of vigilantism are possible, and can inform future subsequent research on the topic.

The objective of this thesis is to establish meme theory as an analytical paradigm within the fields of screen and fan studies. Meme theory is an emerging framework founded upon the broad concept of a “meme”, a unit of culture that, if successful, proliferates among a given group of people. Created as a cultural analogue to genetics, memetics has developed into a cultural theory and, as the concept of memes is increasingly applied to online behaviours and activities, its relevance to the area of media studies materialises. The landscapes of media production and spectatorship are in constant fluctuation in response to rapid technological progress. The internet provides global citizens with unprecedented access to media texts (and their producers), information, and other individuals and collectives who share similar knowledge and interests. The unprecedented speed with (and extent to) which information and media content spread among individuals and communities warrants the consideration of a modern analytical paradigm that can accommodate and keep up with developments. Meme theory fills this gap as it is compatible with existing frameworks and offers researchers a new perspective on the factors driving the popularity and spread (or lack of popular engagement with) a given media text and its audience. Following overviews of meme theory and fan studies, this thesis synthesises methods from both fields to analyse one of this generation’s most notable televisual fan-texts, The Simpsons, and its fandom. The memetic analysis thereof, integrated with the works of fan theorists including John Fiske and Henry Jenkins, reveals the implications of the fan-text’s memetic content in the economic, cultural and social capital interests of its creators, distributors, and fans. The revelations credited to the memetic aspect of the analysis support the conjecture that it is a suitable analytical framework for the fields of fan and screen studies.

The thesis analyses contemporary South Korean films from the late 1980s up to the present day. It asks whether Korean films have produced a new cinema, by critically examining the criteria by which Korean films are said to be new. Have Korean films really changed aesthetically? What are the limitations, and even pitfalls in contemporary Korean film aesthetics? If there appears to be a true radicalism in Korean films, under which conditions does it emerge? Which films convey its core features? To answer these questions, the study attempts to posit a universalising theory rather than making particular claims about Korean films. Where many other scholars have focused on the historical context of the film texts’ production and their reception, this thesis privileges the film texts themselves, by suggesting that whether those films are new or not will depend on a film text’s individual mode of address. To explore this problem further, this study draws on the concept of ‘concrete universality’ from a Lacanian/Žižekian standpoint. For my purpose, it refers to examining how a kind of disruptive element in a film text’s formal structure obtrudes into the diegetic reality, thus revealing a cinematic ‘distortion’ in the smooth running of reality. The thesis will demonstrate that Im Kwon-taek’s Beyond the Years, Bong Joon-Ho’s The Host, and Zhang Lu’s Grain in Ear and Hyazgar show how an excessive element in the formal aspect of the film text explodes an explicit narrative line, thus allowing us to redefine the whole narrative line. In my chapter on how Korean films screen the past, I find that Beyond the Years provides a dialectical way of moving out of the alleged Koreanness, by posing a third party between official historiography and popular memory. In the chapter on how Korean blockbusters invent the Other and how the subjects respond to the encounter with the Other through an ethical framework, I suggest that The Host reveals the fundamental antagonism at the heart of contemporary South Korean society, thus confronting viewers with truly ethical concerns. In the chapter on how cinematic strategies are used in depicting the shadowy underside of the law, I demonstrate through a close reading of Zhang Lu’s films that the radicalism of Korean cinema does not stem from the empirical description of a wretched reality but from disclosing an ontological shift in filmic images.

Among the variety of content emerging on the Internet during the past few years, foreign language films stand out as one of the most accessible sources representing foreign cultures in the U.S. media landscape. With the prevalence of broadband in the U.S., online viewing provides opportunities for many video contents rarely seen on the mainstream media platforms such as on TV and in theatre. Based on a review of foreign language cinema’s past performance in the U.S. and an examination of its current situation, this research explores the uncharted terrain in which the audience is engaged with foreign language films through the Internet. This dissertation applies various research methodologies including secondary data analysis, survey research, and interviews to find out how does online viewing affect the existing pattern of foreign language films viewing in the U.S. and what does it mean for the new cultural arena.