TV warping minds

(PhysOrg.com) -- If your best friend is a guy from "The Office" or a young doctor on "Grey's Anatomy," you may be relying too much on TV shows to fill a social void in your life.
A new study from the University of Michigan says lonely people may use television characters to cope with solitude and to feel a sense of belonging.
The study examines how social and emotional tendencies—social inclusion needs and solitude experiences—are related to people's imagined intimacy with media characters and emotional connection with television programs.
"Media programs are, after all, inherently social and may offer individuals a soothing if temporary replacement for genuine social interaction," said Dara Greenwood, assistant professor of communications studies who co-authored the study with Christopher Long, an assistant professor of psychology at Ouachita Baptist University.
More than 300 participants completed a questionnaire that looked at how the need to belong and different experiences of solitude (such as inspiring self-discovery, diversionary activities, or loneliness) contributed to increased emotional connection to TV characters and programs.
Solitude was defined for participants as time spent alone—or, if in the presence of others, without any social interaction. Participants rated the frequency with which they experienced different types of solitude as well as the importance they placed on these experiences.
After participants identified a favorite character or personality and the show they are featured on, they responded to 15 items to determine what imagined friendship and affinity for a media persona. Items include "My favorite TV personality seems to understand the things I know," and "My favorite TV personality keeps me company when his or her program is on television."



Results showed that increased affiliation needs (e.g., "I try hard not to do things that will make other people avoid or reject me") and lonely solitude experiences predicted increased emotional involvement with media characters. Engaging more intensely with media may be one way that individuals with unmet intimacy goals cope with loneliness, the research indicated.
Solitude experienced as self-discovery also predicted increased involvement with TV characters and programs.
"This underscores the emotional versatility of entertainment media and suggests that the alternative realities of movies or television programs may provide opportunities for imaginative and emotional processing that facilitate personal growth," she said.
This study found that, not surprisingly, the most popular characters were drawn from successful TV programs like "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Office." Most participants (218 people) selected fictional characters; the next most frequently chosen characters were real people, such as Oprah, reality show participants, and Jon Stewart (53 people); followed by cartoon characters (20 people).
"However, there may be a downside to this kind of attachment if the viewer in question idealizes the character and consequently holds her or himself up to unrealistic standards of physical attractiveness, romantic, or professional success," said Greenwood, whose research focuses on emotional well-being and media involvement and on young women's media affinities and self/body image.
Future research will continue investigating the conditions under which media involvement may be more or less beneficial to emotional well-being over the short and long term.
The findings appear in the current issue of Communication Research.

how TV works..

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Perceiving yourself outside of your body/and N.D.E

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When you feel you are being touched, usually someone or something is physically touching you and you perceive that your "self" is located in the same place as your body. In new research published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, neuroscientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, investigated the relationship between bodily self-consciousness and the way touch stimuli are spatially represented in humans. They found that sensations of touch can be felt and mislocalised towards where a "virtual" body is seen. These findings will provide new avenues for the animation of virtual worlds and machines.





This study demonstrates that changes in self-consciousness ('where am I located?' and 'what is my body?') are accompanied by changes in where touch sensations are experienced in space. Importantly, these data reveal that brain mechanisms of multisensory processing are crucial for the "I" of conscious experience and can be scientifically manipulated in order to animate and incarnate virtual humans, robots, and machines.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the Public Library of Science

Psychokinesis / Chi / Qui Gong

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Qigong (or ch'i kung) is an internal Chinese meditative practice which uses slow graceful movements and controlled breathing techniques to promote the circulation of qi within the human body, and enhance a practitioner's overall health. References to things analogous to the qi taken to be the life-process or “flow” of energy that sustains living beings are found in many belief systems, especially in Asia. Philosophical conceptions of qi date from the earliest recorded times in Chinese thinking. One of the important early cultural heroes in Chinese mythology is Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor). He is identified in the legends of China as the one who first collected and formalized much of what subsequently became known as traditional Chinese medicine.

The term psychokinesis (from the Greek ψυχή, "psyche", meaning mind, soul, heart, or breath; and κίνησις, "kinesis", meaning motion; literally "movement from the mind"),^[1][2] also known as telekinesis (Greekτῆλε + κίνησις, literally "distant-movement"), sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term coined by publisher Henry Holt to refer to the direct influence of mind on a physical system that cannot be entirely accounted for by the mediation of any known physical energy. Examples of psychokinesis could include distorting or moving an object,^] and influencing the output of a random number generator.

The study of phenomena said to be psychokinetic is an aspect of parapsychology. Some paranormal researchers believe that psychokinesis exists and deserves further study, although the focus of research has shifted away from large-scale phenomena to attempts to influence dice and then to random number generators.

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Remote Viewing

REMOTE VIEWING is a term coined by Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ to describe a form of psychic functioning historically known as clairvoyance.1 Dr. Puthoff and Mr. Targ, both formerly with Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International, have researched this phenomenon since the early 1970s, and their results are published in several books.2 Their research was concentrated on training selected individuals to "see" or "view" a scene or event that was occurring at a distant location. In addition, the ability to "view" the scene at different times -- past, present and future -- was established.



Dr. Hein is the director of the Institute for Resonance in Boulder, Colorado. The Institute is devoted to the study of subtle-energy sciences including remote viewing, crop circles and related subjects. Dr. Hein has a Ph.D. in sociology and has previously taught research methodology and statistic courses. Dr. Hein first learned remote viewing in 1996 and subsequently became involved in crop circle research.

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