Humans and other animals discount the value of future rewards, a phenomenon known as delay discounting. Individuals vary widely in the extent to which they discount future rewards, and these tendencies have been associated with important life outcomes. Recent studies have demonstrated that imagining the future reduces subsequent discounting behavior, but no research to date has examined whether a similar principle applies at the trait level, and whether training visualization changes discounting. The current study examined if individual differences in visualization abilities are linked to individual differences in discounting and whether practicing visualization can change discounting behaviors in a lasting way. Participants (n = 48) completed the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) and delay discounting task and then underwent a 4-week intervention consisting of visualization training (intervention) or relaxation training (control). Contrary to our hypotheses, participants who reported greater visualization abilities (lower scores) on the VVIQ were higher discounters. To further examine this relationship, an additional 106 participants completed the VVIQ and delay discounting task. In the total sample (n = 154), there was a significant negative correlation between VVIQ scores and discount rates, showing that individuals who are better visualizers are also higher discounters. Consistent with this relationship but again to our surprise, visualization training tended, albeit weakly, to increase discount rates, and those whose VVIQ decreased the most were those whose discount rates increased the most. These results suggest a novel association between visualization abilities and delay discounting.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

“Truth happens only by establishing itself in the strife and the free space opened up by truth itself. Because truth is the opposition of clearing and concealing, there belongs to it what is here called establishing.”[i]—Martin Heidegger All things contain their own individual existence. When I look at objects I notice material, tradition, individual history. These are starting points for my imagination to seed and germinate. My ideas are fragmented, nonlinear and nonsensical to others but they hold honesty to me. Honesty is powerful and is worth sharing. This document is an examination of my work during my graduate studies. I will explain the importance of my relationship with: the imagination, jokes, materials, traditions and process as these are constant variables of my art practice. [i] Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Works of Art” in Tanke, Joseph J., and Colin McQuillan. The Bloomsbury Anthology of Aesthetics. 394. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2012

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Hume, no Tratado da Natureza Humana, afirma haver duas formas de o hábito atuar na produção de inferências, a saber, conforme princípios regulares e irregulares da imaginação. Em decorrência, estipula determinadas regras gerais para marcar a atuação do hábito no primeiro modo, restringindo a ela o espaço da causa e efeito. A intenção desta tese é investigar o estatuto dessas regras, bem como as suas consequências quanto ao estabelecimento das fronteiras entre a razão e a imaginação. Trata-se de questionar, inicialmente, qual é o parâmetro que permite uma separação, nos juízos, entre operações regulares e irregulares da imaginação, considerando-se que Hume mostra não haver uma justificativa racional para a relação de causa e efeito. Em contrapartida, pretende-se indicar em que medida uma nova noção de racionalidade experimental é configurada a partir da interposição desse novo critério, bem como discutir como é também a estabilização do agir do entendimento sobre a imaginação que se encontra no horizonte da normatividade instaurada pela regulação, via regras gerais do juízo. / In \"A Treatise of Human Nature\", Hume claims that there are two manners through which custom influences the production of inferences, namely, according to regular and irregular principles of imagination. Consequently, he stipulates certain general rules in order to point out the influence of custom on the first manner, circumscribing the realm of cause and effect to it. This thesis investigates these rules as well as their consequences regarding the establishment of the boundaries between reason and imagination. Considering that, according to Hume, there is not any racional justification to the cause-effect relationship, first we must question which is the parameter that allow us to separare, in reasoning, regular and irregular operation of the imagination. On the other hand, we intent to point in what extend a new notion of experimental rationality is constituted from the intervention of this new criteria. We also intent to discuss how the estabilization of understanding act works over imagination, which is placed in the range of normativity established by regulation, through the general rules of judgment.

Esta tese toma o pensamento de Henri Bergson como objeto de reflexão. Ao mesmo tempo que situa o homem como tema central nesse universo teórico, pretende perscrutar a natureza da subjetividade que nele se delineia. Acompanha, assim, a crítica bergsoniana à psicologia, cujo intento de subsumir o humano à matéria condena ao fracasso sua pretensão de conhecê-lo. A superação da visão associacionista, tal como Bergson a desenha, evidenciará a natureza de uma subjetividade outra, obscurecida pelas instâncias mais superficiais, nas quais se configura a consciência que julgamos conhecer. O alcance dessa dimensão mais profunda do Eu impõe a inspeção acerca da inteligência racional, orientada por uma temporalidade ficitícia e pela linguagem, de modo que se esclareça a distância entre a superficialidade da consciência e a subjetividade livre e indômita, cuja natureza, aliás,é a do tempo, ou seja, a duração criadora que nos ultrapassa e nos vincula ao ser em geral. Ante os obstáculos apresentados pela consciência na persecução de nossa interioridade movente, recursos outros que não os conceituais, pertinentes ao pensamento analítico e científico, passam a figurar como alternativa para o conhecimento da interioridade humana, quais sejam, as imagens qeu se originam justamente nas regiões mais recônditas do Eu. Atribuir às imagens a potencialidade de nos conduzir ao ser, leva-nos ao equacionamenteo do lugar a elas conferido pela tradição - cópia/coisa, simulacro, erro, alteridade do ser. Pretendemos, pois, interrogar se Bergson logra ou não um rompimento com o pensamento tradicional, visto que as imagens precedentes da memória pura e do esforço imaginante passam a ser consideradas meios privilegiados que nos conectam ao ser. Nessa senda, tematizaremos a ambiguidade que a imagem assume na obra bergsoniana, uma vez que ora se coaduna à realidade da coisa, ora nos revela o ser temporal e criador que nos habita. Posto que o conhecimento do tempo em seu movimento criador se dá pela intuição, e que os recursos da inteligência não logram a sua tradução ou comunicação, as imagens resultantes do esforço criador, as imagens prevalecentes na arte, cuja natureza se aproxima da duração, revelar-se-ão como o caminho da expressão daquilo que o conhecimento intuitivo nos revela. Particularmente, as imagens literárias, decorrentes de uma linguagem que se volta contra si mesma, tornam-se a referência privilegiada para a expresssão filosófica do ser e para o alcance da interioridade criadora que nos constitui. / This thesis takes Henri Bergson´s thought as its object of reflection. Focusin on mankind as its central subject in that theoretical univers, it intends to search the nature of the subjectivity sketeched in it. It thus folloes bergsonian criticism of psychology, whose intente do subsume human realm into matter condemns its purpose of knowing it to failure. The overcoming of the associacionist view, the way Bergson portrays it, will attest the nature of a differente subjectivity, blurred by instances most superficial, in which the consciousness we believe to know is delineated. the reach of this mor profound dimension of the self imposes the inspection concerning rational intelligence, guided by a fictititous temporality and by language, so that we carify the distance between consciousness ´superficiality and free untamed subjectivity, whose nature is that of time, that is, the creative duration which surpasses us and entails us to being in general. Berfore the obstacles introduced by consciousness in pursuit of our moving interiority, resources other than conpectual, relevant to analytic and scentific thougt com as an alterntive for the knowledge of human interiority, which ar the imagens originatede precisely in the most hidden regions of the Self. To attribute images the potentiality of guiding us to Being leads us to the questioning of the place given to them by tradition - copy/thing, simulacrum, misake, alterity of Being. we intend thus to question whether Bergson succeeds or not at breaking with traditional thinking, inassmuch as the imagens comin from pure memory and from the imagining effort come to be considered the privileged means that connect us to being. In this way, we will discuss the ambiguity that images take on in Bergsonian work, since it now combines with the reality of the thing, now reveals us the temproal and creative being which inhabits us. Since knowledge of time in its creative action is given by intuition, and that intelligence´s resources do not provide its translation or communication, the resulting images of the creative effort, those images prevailing in arte, whose natue approaches duration,will reveal themselves particularly, which como from a language that goes against itself, become the reference for the philosophical expression of being and for reaching the creative interiority that constitutes us.

Este trabalho investiga discursos e modelos de amor romântico construídos em filmes do cinema hollywoodiano, especialmente nas décadas de 1990 e 2000. Debate-se o papel do cinema na constituição de referências sobre a idealização e a experiência de relacionamentos amorosos e como esse contribui para reproduzir crenças e valores morais a respeito do amor que são pertinentes à modernidade e suas especificidades sociais, culturais e históricas. Nisso, observam-se no período analisado citações constantes de produções de outras épocas, indicando, especialmente em um contexto de grande presença de mídias audiovisuais na vida cotidiana, que o próprio cinema se utiliza como referência ao tratar do tema amor e reproduz isso como algo corriqueiro e culturalmente estabelecido. / This research investigates the discourses and models of romantic love constructed in Hollywood movies, more specifically in the 90s and 2000s. One argue the role of cinema in constituting references about the idealization and experience of love relationships and how this cinema contributes on reproducing beliefs and moral values about love that are pertinent to modernity and its social, cultural and historical specificities. Thus, in the analysed period, it could be observed constant quotations of films from other times, suggesting, especially in a context of great presence of audiovisual medias in everyday life, that cinema uses itself as reference when it comes about love and reproduces it as a commonplace, culturally established.

Thesis advisor: Thomas Groome / What is at the root of the struggles in faith of today’s American Catholics? What can Catholic religious educators do to promote faith in the present postmodern context? In an effort to address these pressing questions, this dissertation argues for the central role of the imagination in human cognition and living, faith, and religious education. Following an initial survey of sociological data that points to disruption of traditional Christian patterns of imagining as a major factor in Catholics’ current struggles in faith, subsequent chapters analyze how the human imagination functions and malfunctions and how religious education can help to reintegrate it when it is disrupted. Building upon these findings, later chapters lay out an imagination-centered pedagogical process whereby religious educators can invite learners to participation in the reign of God and to greater integration in their lives. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.

Thesis advisor: Christopher J. Kelly / This dissertation is a study of the moral and political significance of the imagination in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's <italic>Emile</italic>. Rousseau attributes to the imagination a pervasive influence over human life, claiming that it "gives birth not only to the virtues and vices, but to the goods and ills of human life" and that its "empire" makes men "good or bad, happy or unhappy on this earth." The dissertation examines the ambivalence of Rousseau's account, and shows how the model "natural education" of Emile depends on the proper handling of the imagination to cultivate virtue and to secure individual happiness. After first establishing what Rousseau means by "natural education" and what its particular goals are, I turn to the threat the imagination poses to the success of that education. Rousseau's attack on the imagination centers on its power to open the human heart to infinite desire. By generating ever-new and ever-expanding desires, the imagination renders men necessary to one another, causing dependence, weakness, and, ultimately, wickedness, and unhappiness. As a principal agent of man's departure from natural self-sufficiency, the imagination is at the center of the process that transforms natural self-love (<italic>amour de soi</italic>) into <italic>amour-propre</italic>, and makes genuine human satisfaction fundamentally elusive. Following these introductory chapters, the remainder of the dissertation argues that, despite this critique, Rousseau in fact relies on the imagination in the successive stages of Emile's moral education to protect his independence and to strengthen those aspects of natural self-love (<italic>amour de soi</italic>) that lend themselves to the cultivation of the social virtues. Tracing the role of the imagination through Emile's education in compassion, justice, natural religion, love, and virtue, I argue that the proper habituation of the imagination proves to be indispensable for securing both happiness and morality, for defending individual autonomy in the context of social life, and for reconciling, to the extent possible, the private and the public good. Moreover, although Rousseau's recourse to the imagination might initially seem to introduce an element of irrationality into Emile's education, Emile's imagination in fact aids his ability to live not only a moral life but also a rational life. In a variety of ways, detailed in the dissertation, Rousseau employs the imagination and its illusions to forestall other more crippling illusions, to reveal the social world and the passions of men for what they truly are, and to make Emile both moderate and wise. Finally, however, while Emile's moral education engages his imagination in the most salutary manner possible, both for himself and for others, it cannot wholly prevent the imagination from giving birth to desires that betray a disruption of natural wholeness. While these desires present a complicated set of issues, in general, they represent the compromise with natural self-sufficiency that is involved in even the most promising moral education. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.