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Since the beginning of life, all plant and animal kingdoms have been developed or modified based on gravity along with atmospheric composition and solar radiation existing on Earth. Gravity is mainly encoded by the otolithic sensors of the vestibular system but its role has been largely underestimated in favor of the vestibular semicircular canals and reduced to oculomotor and postural coordination. Over the last decade, it has been demonstrated that sensory information provided by the vestibular system is crucial in spatial-memory processes in rats and humans. More recently a role in attention processes has been raised. This topic aims to report and demonstrate the role and integration of vestibular information in cognitive processes in rodent models and human at the behavioral, imaging and electrophysiological levels.
Our ability to be conscious of the world around us is often discussed as one of the most amazing yet enigmatic processes under scientific investigation today. However, our ability to imagine the world around us in the absence of stimulation from that world is perhaps even more amazing. This capacity to experience objects or scenarios through imagination, that do not necessarily exist in the world, is perhaps one of the fundamental abilities that allows us successfully to think about, plan, run a dress rehearsal of future events, re-analyze past events and even simulate or fantasize abstract events that may never happen. Empirical research into mental imagery has seen a recent surge, due part...
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The Coloniality of Animal Monstrous Othering in Children’s Books, Films, and Toys examines how the portrayal of animals as physically distorted, behaviorally depraved, and intellectually defective serves to justify their debasement, violation, and destruction in materials directed toward young consumers. The author argues that this animal monstrous Othering arises from the Eurocentric belief in humans’ natural superiority over animals and the right to categorize animals in accordance with a scale of worthiness that parallels the subjugation of racialized persons. The chapters examine a variety of canonical figures like the dissolute wolf of Red Riding Hood stories and the disfigured titular character of the Wonky Donkey picture book alongside non-canonical animals including reprobate pigs, degenerate sharks, self-centered flamingos, and wicked piranhas. To counter this animal debasement, Varga juxtaposes these readings with an examination of materials that articulate harmonious animal-human interrelationships without dependence on styles of anthropomorphism that diminish animality.