Per Aage Brandt, Case Western Reserve University
Laughter in Europe
The role of humor in mutual interpretation and understanding. A cognitive-semiotic analysis of intercultural representations and identitary passions expressed through inter-ethnic, inter-gender, and inter-nation stereotypes in European anecdotes, jokes, and cartoons as tokens of The Laughable Other.
Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, Maria Giulia Dondero, University of Liège
The tacit dimension of visual perception in contemporary religious iconography
This project aims at demonstrating the ability of visual language to incorporate the tacit and more or less explicit vision of the transcendental dimension in contemporary life. Studying the multiple visualisations of contemporary iconography of the transcendence (and particularly fine art photography and documentary one) will allow us to understand how tacit knowledge influences the process of producing images and interpreting (one’s own and other) cultures.
Søren Overgaard, University of Copenhagen
The tacit dimensions of mindreading: A phenomenological approach
Discussions on social cognition typically revolve around two families of views: “theory-theorists” claim that we use tacit knowledge and inferences to attribute mental states to others, whereas “simulation theorists” stress the role of simulation routines. Phenomenologists generally contest both these views, maintaining that the mental states of others can be more immediately accessible, given an appropriate context (including a common cultural background). So far, however, the structure of this enabling context – including, in particular, its tacit intentional “horizons” – has not been analyzed phenomenologically. This is what the project undertakes to do.
Hanna Risku, Eva Mayr, University of Krems
The role of artefacts in externalising and communicating tacit knowledge across cultures. An ethnographic analysis of user-centred IT development teams
Tacit knowledge is one of the hidden “powers” of situated action and cognition, but it is externalised in the design of artefacts. Artefacts are a central part of the cultural curriculum; the ability to form, use and interpret them in a culture-specific way is acquired during the socialisation within a culture.
The aim of this project is to study how tacit knowledge influences the design of artefacts. We focus on the question of how artefacts that are shared across cultures can mediate between two cultures as boundary objects: Can they reduce misunderstandings? Do they facilitate tacit knowledge exchange and the generation of a common ground across cultures (and if so, how)?
Kristian Tylén, Aarhus University
Toward a cultural interobjectivity
How is tacit cultural cognition manifested in the way we employ material structures, objects and technologies to enable, constrain and sustain social interactions and relations? How do objects become invested with cultural meanings by a history of interactions and manipulations? And how do they come to shape tacit cognitive processes in cultural practices on various time scales?
Jordan Zlatev, Lund University
Our tacit knowledge of emotions: Interaction between subjective experience and linguistic mediation
As well known, emotions affect our cognition and behavior strongly, and are at the same time difficult to fully express in language. Non-verbal means in the form of facial expressions and gestures may be to some extent universal (as claimed by Ekman and colleagues), but beyond a core of “basic emotions” there is extensive cross-cultural variation. Hence, emotional knowledge appears to be a prime case of tacit knowledge – with is potentials for understanding, and risks for misunderstanding. The project will focus on the linguistic expressions of emotions, both non-metaphorical (e.g. jealousy, hate, sad) and metaphorical (e.g. crush, soar, depress) across languages and cultures. Previous such comparisons have revealed both differences and commonalities, but no comprehensive study has so far attempted to map these out in detail. As a step in this direction, the project will provide an extensive analysis of emotion expressions of 4 Indo-European and 4 non-Indo-European languages and in this way help understand the complex interaction between (possibly pan-human) emotional experiences, and their cultural and linguistic representations.
Cognitive schemas, cultural variation and the tacit dimension of intercultural exchange
The study of cultural phenomena encompasses both a comparative dimension with a focus on the variable manifestations across different cultural communities, and a descriptive dimension, which arises from the former and seeks to recognize and describe what remains constant and stable above cultural variation. This project aims at studying how these two dimensions are combined, and moreover at describing what the role of tacit knowledge contributes to this process. The point of departure will be an experimental design, intended for a comparative intercultural survey: subjects from different cultural backgrounds will be prompted with a skeletal representation of force dynamic schemas. They will be elicited to verbalize the events implied by the schemas. The preliminary hypothesis is that whereas the schemas will remain stable, as they are cognitively shared, the actualization of the schemas in verbalization will reveal variable cultural imprint. A follow up survey (contrastive) will help determine in how far this variation derives from the tacit dimension of the subjects’ knowledge: a latent ineffable dimension of knowledge, which is constrained by an individual’s development in a given cultural environment.
No comments:
Post a Comment