Veronica Roth argues that “if there’s no conflict, there are no stories worth telling – or reading.” Not only do I agree with her claim, but I would extend this argument to any experience. Games, […]
Witches and Beatniks
Originally a place to promote my dark humor writing. Presently, a media psychology blog
Heartbreaking. Gut-wrenching. Devastating. Why do we like sad stories?
This is a digested version of my —very long— doctoral dissertation. The “sadness paradox,” deriving pleasure from the consumption of sad stories, has intrigued philosophers and psychologists for a very long time. Why do we […]
Can immersive media be more engaging than traditional media?
This post summarizes a study I did at Vertebrae, Inc. last year: Interactivity and Realism as Determinants for Engagement: A Comparison Between Immersive and Traditional Media Effects.
Most successful advertising relies on a storytelling format and persuading via modeling, consumers see a behavior that leads to failure/success and avoid or imitate that behavior, or via pavlovian conditioning, consumers associate a brand with an affective state.
So you want to upload your “consciousness” to the cloud?
The year is 2045, and you just watched a marathon of Black Mirror. Feeling that the end is near but that you still have much to accomplish, you decide to upload your consciousness to the cloud, so that a virtual you can finish what you couldn’t. Or would it be actually you living on the cloud after all if your whole consciousness is transferred? That Star-Trek homage episode, USS Callister, left you full of philosophical questions!
Chapter 5. In which the mother finishes her confession
The priest seemed to have aged a decade.
“Two years?”
“She deserved twenty. She remained in that cage until she grew too big to fit in it and she merely broke the crate from the inside.”
“But—” The priest stole another quick look at the young girl. She had brought a plate of soup for the witch and patiently held it by her side waiting for the woman to finish. “How did she—?”
A Physiological Model of Boredom and its Relationship with Depression: A research Proposal
Abstract
Based on empirical evidence that suggests that failing to recognize a stimulus as emotionally relevant results in hypoactivity of the orexinergic cells in the hypothalamus, this article proposes a physiological model of boredom that makes depression a consequence of a chronic reduction of monoamines in the brain combined with increased levels of norepinephrine and cortisol. The studies proposed here look to find supportive evidence for two assumptions of this model: 1. That the negative affect associated with boredom results from a conscious assessment of the situation; 2. That activity of the orexinergic neurons can increase both positive and negative affect, depending on the assessed valence of a stimulus.
My definition of Love
Berscheid (2010) argues that love is difficult to define because of all the instances of love that exist: romantic love, fraternal love, friendship, which vary in much more than a degree of liking. Love is […]
How to deal with your racist uncle
I see people constantly shaming other peoples’ identities on social media about racial issues (i.e. if you voted for Trump you’re racist) and I think: that ain’t going to help. So I wrote this, an explanation of why shaming doesn’t reduce prejudice, where prejudice comes from, the effect of media on reinforcing stereotypes, and how a curated media diet can induce feelings of empathy and compassion and, thus, reduce prejudice.
The War on Love
I got this crazy idea about how to include men in the fight for women’s reproductive rights, and so I wrote a paper about it, below. On October 6, 2017, the Trump administration rolled back […]
Turn it into a game. Applying Principles of Gamification to Create Better Stories
Storytellers want their stories to be addictive so that the readers keep turning pages and viewers keep asking for more. How does one achieve that? What does engagement entail? My proposal here is to turn […]
