Please join Lit and Mind for the Story and the Brain undergraduate discussion group! Undergraduates are especially welcome. This Story and the Brain session will be dedicated to a little "experiment." If you choose to participate, you will be helping Dr. van de Ven with her research project ‘TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read): Close and hyperreading of literary texts and the modulation of attention’.
There are three different levels on which you can contribute and be part of the meeting:
Read the selected short story (“Where are you going, where have you been” by Joyce Carol Oates), and attend the discussion. Tip: pick a quiet moment in your day and try to read the story in one sitting. Try to detach yourself from your surroundings and limit distractions. Warning: this story can be sensitive as it has stalking as a theme. However, it is not of a graphic nature.
Same as [1] but monitor your attention. While reading the story, color-code the words / lines where.....
you experienced a heightened, focused attention (red)
you experienced a more shallow mode of attention, or felt the urge to skim (green)
you skipped certain words or zoned out (blue)
Same as [2] but in addition: annotate the text with the thoughts that pop into your head while reading the story. Use comments in Word to attach a description of the thought to the exact place where you had it. If you want, you can include thoughts that are related to the story (associations, aesthetic judgments, and memories), as well as unrelated ones, that distracted you from following it (e.g., "I shouldn’t forget to walk my dog after this"). If you notice your attention is interrupted by external factors, like an incoming text or ringing doorbell, you can make a note of this as well.
You can upload your color-coded and/or annotated files anonymously in this Google drive folder. You could also send them in by email to Aili Pettersson Peeker: apetterssonpeeker@ucsb.edu. It would be great if you could do this by Friday May 14, so that Dr. van de Ven can give an overview of our collective attentional modulations and mind wanderings during the session. However, if you prefer to upload or send your document after the session, it would still be very useful. And, again, people are most welcome to join the meeting without having annotated their reading experience too.
Please find the Zoom link for this event below and feel free to spread the word and invite people who might be interested. No prior knowledge or familiarity is needed to attend!
Please note that this meeting will be recorded (for research purposes only).
Aili Pettersson Peeker is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Story and the Brain with Dr. Inge van de Ven
Time: May 17, 2021 05:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
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https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/86819448956?pwd=L0QzcmNiYzlOZ3BlYTBZVkhwcjQ1dz09
Meeting ID: 868 1944 8956
Passcode: 326241
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Meeting ID: 868 1944 8956
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