More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
11 January
For Lucy Johnstone (@ClinpsychLucy) - written on a train into King's Cross
Some will be familiar with the idea of what is called (after the experimental psychologist of this name) a Skinner box, essentially a maze for rats, designed to test them (the rats) under different regimes and so make inferences about their psychological state, based on how they navigate the box.
Imagine such a box (or, rather, a series of them, say ten), on a relatively small scale, but designed to be resistant to the ingress of water. The experimental subject sees water (or a coloured liquid might be more effective) enter the system, and it is his or her job, each time, to direct it to a specified goal, either to the centre, or to one of a number of dead-ends, where there is a sink : the flow is such that, if the subject does not act reasonably quickly, the liquid will start to flow over the channels of the maze, which counts against him or her.
The subject directs the water by using baffles, i.e. insertable barriers that block the water from following any given route, and they represent means for closing off options that, once taken, cannot be undone. He or she is marked on criteria such as how quickly and effectively he or she directed the flow, whether the flow (and, if so, how much) ended up exiting from other sinks, and whether the flow ran over the channels. Say five times with each of ten target sinks, and this over ten boxes of different layout – no opportunity to run any one box successively, but in randomized order in which the five chances to tackle any given sink in any given box is allocated over the total runs, n = 500.
Analyse these data as one likes, say giving a weighting on which out of the five runs on this target in this box the results are for. Some statistically significant comparisons will result. Then imagine doing another 500 runs, and this just as training, but with the subject now told that he or she can operate freestyle, i.e. choosing the target sink, but, perhaps with penalty sinks (which might or might not be specified (beyond their existence and their number), which, if any liquid reaches first, stops the run and imposes a penalty, based on various criteria such as time elapsed, sinks blocked at that point, and a qualititative analysis of strategy. The subject would then be penalized, sometimes, for directing the water to a given sink, because it is an unstated penalty sink.
Now extrapolate all this to, say, human behaviour. X has been tested, for example, on the autistic spectrum, and been given a diagnosis. Does that mean, if the liquid is the flood of stimuli, inputs and other people’s behaviour, that we have done any more than establish that, over a thousand runs in life, X has adjusted to trying to deal with it in a number of symptomatic ways ? Maybe life has baffled X, and X has tried to understand or adjust to it, coming to find some strategies that are, if not better, than at least less bad than others for being effective, given the task specified – because of the flow, and the need to direct it, X was forced to block off some choices, and become more habituated to others.
Subject A has an experimental profile, over the two regimes of 500 runs apiece, which corresponds to what we might think of symptoms, and the tendency to exhibit or experience them, so does a similar Subject B. Otherwise, A and B may actually be more dissimilar than similar, seen in the round (outside these tests), but their test results bring them together into the same place on the spectrum – their humanity, interests, values, become valued less than what they happen to have in common :
A may resemble B, but also, otherwise, resemble C, but compare B and C and the match may not be statistically significant on a chi-squared analysis that compares their data. We could have an alphabet of subjects and more cases where the statistically significant comparisons do not predict the match with another who also matches one of the matching pair.
We could consider a tendency to depression, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia as other test-results, other matches or mismatches. Do they tend to persuade us that diagnosis is perhaps no more than picking and choosing between bundles of what we call symptoms, and inferring the existence of a diagnosable condition, when a rigid experimental testing such as imagined might throw us back on our common humanity, battling the flow of money, relationships, stress, etc., against time and other objectives ?
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
Showing posts with label Skinner box. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Skinner box. Show all posts
Thursday 23 January 2014
Friday 23 August 2013
I knew Don Pasquale as a Cambridge restaurant
More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2013
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
12 August
* Contains spoilers *
I went to that restaurant for the first time with a friend long since lost - the Varsity Handbook of the time said, deliberately cruelly, that it was about as Italian as Watney's (itself rather an anachronism).
By utter contrast, Donizetti's Don P., relayed live from Glyndebourne (a place that my rather more well-heeled friend would know - I know that he knows), was not anything like a tepid ale, but magnificent, piece and production.
With what little I know of opera buffa, principally from a Haydn caper (with another man led into a delusion, that time that he had been transported to the moon), I was expecting something...
Here, the craziness was introduced step by step into the action proper, though signalled by the doctor (Dr Malatesta*) climbing in and out of secret passages during the overture - he could, equally, have been a behavioural scientist, and the others rats in his Skinner box, because he knew their world better than they did, and, more or less, pulled all the strings. (A rocking-horse soon after carried by the Don onto the part of the set that represented his (adult) nephew's bedroom hints at absurdity - no one knows the true meaning of Dada (as in Dadaism), but it is the French term for such a creature.)
I say, more or less, because de Niese (as Norina) is his essential collaborator, and she really throws herself into it, more assiduous than even Malatesta 'to teach Pasquale a lesson' ! Echoes, in that objective, of The Madness of King George (1994), Twelfth Night, or even the framing-device of The Taming of the Shrew. Notions of moral worth and not having a swollen head, which give us the term shrink (from head-shrink). (The oysters referred to above (and all that they imply) appear when Pasquale flips a hinged painting over, hiding a contemplative skull as memento mori, showing where his libido is now seeking to lead him.)
Malatesta is as focused on ends not means as Norina is, hence her not being averse to taking a bubble-bath whilst he is around, or to his getting into it... Surely not in the libretto, but pointing up what's in it for him in all this !
Likewise, Pasquale's retainer cum nurse, who is both clearly jealous when Norina in disguise comes on the scene (or curious when Malatesta shuts her out), and part of the notion that what is 'wrong with' him is his miserly and stiff-necked attitude. As Pasquale, Alessandro Corbelli showed his experience, and brought out the comedy both of his folly before 'marrying', and when his 'wife' has revealed himself in her true colours : de Niese wonderfully went to town, and Corbelli was her perfect foil.
Malatesta, creeping around the place at night like some over-sized Borrower, has been mentioned above, and this is where the stage's potential first became apparent - he would slip through one aperture, and, as the scenes moved right to left, appear somewhere else. All creating a pretty creepy, almost delusional feeling, of someone unseen on manoeuvres when one is unawares, and a very convincing (and two-faced) portrayal from Nikolay Borchev - according to one person leaving a comment on the Glyndebourne web-site, Malatesta is supposed to be 'the moral fulcrum of the tale', not a 'self interested puppet master', but, equally, de Niese was 'miscast'.
I cannot see myself ever researching this matter far enough to know what the plain text says about Malatesta, but, quite apart from anything else, Borchev sang well, and my recollection is clear enough that, unless passages have been deleted, interpolated or simply added, morality only seemed the doctor's part in the sense of Shakespearean 'problem' plays, such as All's Well That Ends Well or Measure for Measure.
Nephew Ernesto, played by Alek Schrader, did seem to have been miscast by contrast, because, for me, his voice needed to be blended with that of other singers, but otherwise seemed reedy and exposed when he had a solo line. As to Donizetti's music, de Niese seemed to have a fine sense for delivering recitative, and the harmonies created with four voices were quite enchanting.
End-notes
* The name appears literally to mean 'bad in the head', but we need not worry, because Donizetti is drawing on figures from the Commedia dell'Arte.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)
12 August
* Contains spoilers *
I went to that restaurant for the first time with a friend long since lost - the Varsity Handbook of the time said, deliberately cruelly, that it was about as Italian as Watney's (itself rather an anachronism).
By utter contrast, Donizetti's Don P., relayed live from Glyndebourne (a place that my rather more well-heeled friend would know - I know that he knows), was not anything like a tepid ale, but magnificent, piece and production.
Excellent high-definition relay of Donizetti's Don Pasquale from @glyndebourne at @CamPicturehouse - beautiful writing for vocal quartet !
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 6, 2013
With what little I know of opera buffa, principally from a Haydn caper (with another man led into a delusion, that time that he had been transported to the moon), I was expecting something...
Interesting stage-business in Donizetti at @glyndebourne via @picturehouses : skull turns to oysters, Harry-Potter-type pictures as doors...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 6, 2013
Here, the craziness was introduced step by step into the action proper, though signalled by the doctor (Dr Malatesta*) climbing in and out of secret passages during the overture - he could, equally, have been a behavioural scientist, and the others rats in his Skinner box, because he knew their world better than they did, and, more or less, pulled all the strings. (A rocking-horse soon after carried by the Don onto the part of the set that represented his (adult) nephew's bedroom hints at absurdity - no one knows the true meaning of Dada (as in Dadaism), but it is the French term for such a creature.)
Danielle de Niese is stealing the show at @glyndebourne in Donizetti via @picturehouses - beautiful voice, wonderful and confident manner !
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 6, 2013
I say, more or less, because de Niese (as Norina) is his essential collaborator, and she really throws herself into it, more assiduous than even Malatesta 'to teach Pasquale a lesson' ! Echoes, in that objective, of The Madness of King George (1994), Twelfth Night, or even the framing-device of The Taming of the Shrew. Notions of moral worth and not having a swollen head, which give us the term shrink (from head-shrink). (The oysters referred to above (and all that they imply) appear when Pasquale flips a hinged painting over, hiding a contemplative skull as memento mori, showing where his libido is now seeking to lead him.)
Malatesta is as focused on ends not means as Norina is, hence her not being averse to taking a bubble-bath whilst he is around, or to his getting into it... Surely not in the libretto, but pointing up what's in it for him in all this !
Likewise, Pasquale's retainer cum nurse, who is both clearly jealous when Norina in disguise comes on the scene (or curious when Malatesta shuts her out), and part of the notion that what is 'wrong with' him is his miserly and stiff-necked attitude. As Pasquale, Alessandro Corbelli showed his experience, and brought out the comedy both of his folly before 'marrying', and when his 'wife' has revealed himself in her true colours : de Niese wonderfully went to town, and Corbelli was her perfect foil.
Nice use of a revolving-stage in Donizetti's Don Pasquale at @glyndebourne via @CamPicturehouse - quick-change moves between scenes, vibrant
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 6, 2013
Malatesta, creeping around the place at night like some over-sized Borrower, has been mentioned above, and this is where the stage's potential first became apparent - he would slip through one aperture, and, as the scenes moved right to left, appear somewhere else. All creating a pretty creepy, almost delusional feeling, of someone unseen on manoeuvres when one is unawares, and a very convincing (and two-faced) portrayal from Nikolay Borchev - according to one person leaving a comment on the Glyndebourne web-site, Malatesta is supposed to be 'the moral fulcrum of the tale', not a 'self interested puppet master', but, equally, de Niese was 'miscast'.
I cannot see myself ever researching this matter far enough to know what the plain text says about Malatesta, but, quite apart from anything else, Borchev sang well, and my recollection is clear enough that, unless passages have been deleted, interpolated or simply added, morality only seemed the doctor's part in the sense of Shakespearean 'problem' plays, such as All's Well That Ends Well or Measure for Measure.
Nephew Ernesto, played by Alek Schrader, did seem to have been miscast by contrast, because, for me, his voice needed to be blended with that of other singers, but otherwise seemed reedy and exposed when he had a solo line. As to Donizetti's music, de Niese seemed to have a fine sense for delivering recitative, and the harmonies created with four voices were quite enchanting.
End-notes
* The name appears literally to mean 'bad in the head', but we need not worry, because Donizetti is drawing on figures from the Commedia dell'Arte.
If you want to Tweet, Tweet away here
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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