Regret as autobiographical memory

We apply all autobiographical memory framework to the Study of regret. Focusing oil the distinction between regrets for specific and general events we argue that the temporal profile of regret, usually explained in terms of the action-inaction distinction, is predicted by models of autobiographical memory. In two studies involving Participants in their sixties we demonstrate a reminiscence bump for general, but not for specific regrets. Recent regrets were more likely to be specific than general in nature. Coding regrets as actions/inactions revealed that general regrets were significantly more likely to be due to inaction while specific regrets were as likely to be clue to action as to inaction. In Study 2 we also generalised all of these findings to a group of participants in their 40s. We re-interpret existing accounts of the temporal profile of regret within the autobiographical memory framework, and Outline the practical and theoretical advantages Of Our memory-based distinction over traditional decision-making approaches to the Study of regret. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The portrait of the first poster artists of Spanish cinema: From the genre scene to the realistic portrait

The article, which is part of a more detailed piece of work, aims to highlight the use of the portrait on the film posters of the first Spanish poster artists before the Star-System was introduced in Spain. For this it is posed the evolution that occurs in the representation of the characters in the film poster from the second decade to the beginning of the thirties in the twentieth century, a historical period of profound influences of the artistic and advertising vanguards in our poster artists´ work. However, in the late twenties moving from the simple inclusion of the scene based on the picture of a film, to the chromatic and realistic representation of the star´s face. These were the years when the influence of the major North American studios began to show in Spain. Nevertheless, it highlights their technical and compositional freedom and their influence on subsequent poster artists, as many of them will integrate the portraits and settings on their posters, following the guidelines of the major studios or the independent ones. But without forgetting their own personal way of painting the film stars’ faces on their posters.

Performance, représentation et (il)lisibilité du genre dans la fiction sandienne des années 1830

Dans son premier roman, Indiana (1832), Sand établit un réseau de correspondances entre la langue, la performance et l'identité sexuelle qui n'ont pas encore fait l'objet d'une étude approfondie. Or, ces correspondances sous-tendent d'autres romans des années 1830, notamment Lélia (1833), Le Secrétaire intime (1834) et Gabriel (1839). Deux concepts – la performance et la lisibilité – fondent en fait les réflexions de Sand sur la représentation et le genre. Il s'agit dans cet article d'étudier ce réseau d'associations et d'explorer son évolution dans la fiction sandienne des années 1830. Cette analyse permettra de souligner comment, chez Sand, la performativité du genre met en question et trouble la représentation mimétique.

Chopper: From the Inside: Discourses of the "Celebrity" Criminal Mark Read

Popular culture has been inundated with stories and images of True Crime for a long time, which is testament to people’s enduring fascination with criminals and their deviant actions. In such stories, which present actual cases of notorious crimes in a style that often resembles fiction, criminals are either reviled as monsters or lauded as cultural icons. More recently, popular autobiographical accounts by criminals themselves have begun to emerge within this True Crime genre. Typically self-celebratory in nature, such representations construct a rather glamorized public image of the author. This article undertakes a multimodal analysis of what has been classed as one typical example of this True Crime sub-genre, Australian Mark Brandon Read’s autobiographical account Chopper: From the Inside. It thereby seeks to demonstrate that the book, while glamorizing and mythologizing its protagonist, simultaneously offers scope for a qualitative understanding of Read’s life of crime and the sensual dynamics of his violent offending. To this end, the analysis focuses on some of the linguistic and pictorial strategies Read employs in constructing a public image of himself that alternates between the dangerous ‘hardman’ and the ‘larrikin’ criminal hero. However, it is also shown that Read’s account reveals a degree of critical self-reflection. In addition to the multimodal analysis, the article also endeavours to explore the link between celebrity and crime, thereby engaging with the nature of popular culture’s fascination with celebrated criminals.

'Strange Visitor From Another Planet': Genre, Corporate Identity and the Arrival of American Telefantasy on British Television

While the BBC had been broadcasting television Science Fiction productions from as early as 1938, and Horror since the start of television in 1936, American Telefantasy had no place on British television until ITV’s broadcast of Adventures of Superman (1952-1958) in 1956. It would be easy to assign this absence to the avoidance of popular American programming, but this would ignore the presence of Western and adventure serials imported from the US and Canada for monopoly British television. Similarly, it would be inaccurate to suggest that these imports were purely purchased as thrilling fare to appease a child audience, as it was the commercial ITV that was first to broadcast the more adult-orientated Science Fiction Theatre (1955-7) and Inner Sanctum (1954). This article builds on the work of Paul Rixon and Rob Leggott to argue that these imports were used primarily to supply relatively cheap broadcast material for the new channel, but that they also served to appeal to the notion of spectacular entertainment attached to the new channel through its own productions, such as The Invisible Man (1958-1959) and swashbucklers such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-60). However, the appeal was not just to the exciting, but also to the transatlantic, with ITV embracing this conception of America as a modern place of adventure through its imports and its creation of productions for export, incorporating an American lead into The Invisible Man and drawing upon an (inexpensive) American talent pool of blacklisted screenwriters to provide a transatlantic style and relevance to its own adventure series. Where the BBC used its imported serials as filler directed at children, ITV embraced this transatlantic entertainment as part of its identity and differentiation from the BBC.

Autobiographical memory specificity, depression, and trauma in bipolar disorder

Objectives. In a bipolar disorder (BD) sample, the present study investigated: (i) the prevalence of trauma; (ii) the specificity of autobiographical memory (AM); (iii) the influence of childhood trauma on AM specificity, current inter-episode depressive mood, and BD severity; (iv) if AM specificity moderates the influence of childhood trauma on current inter-episode depressive mood and BD severity.

Methods. Fifty-two participants were recruited from a geographically well-defined mental health service in Northern Ireland. The AM test, self-report measures of lifetime experience of trauma, childhood trauma, and depression were administered. Severity of BD was estimated utilizing a systematic tool for reviewing all available clinical data of participants.

Results. A high prevalence of trauma was found. A total of 94.2% (49/52) of participants reported experiencing a traumatic event in either childhood or adulthood. AM specificity was significantly lower than previous reports of such in major depression. However, whilst childhood trauma predicted current inter-episode depressive mood, childhood trauma was not predictive of BD severity or AM specificity. Moreover, the association between childhood trauma and depressed mood was not moderated by AM specificity.

Conclusions. The findings of this study suggest a relationship between early psychosocial adversity and current inter-episode depressive mood in BD. In addition, levels of overgeneral AM are similar to that reported for depression, but are unrelated to childhood trauma, current inter-episode depressive mood, or BD severity. Clinical implications include the importance of routine assessment of trauma in BD and the need for adjunctive evidenced-based psychological therapies.