Ian Coe), but since I *use* the result a lot, it is worth noting the
proper citation:
"Connections From Kafka: Exposure to Meaning Threats Improves Implicit
Learning of an Artificial Grammar" by Travis Proulx and Steven J
Heine, Psychol Sci 20(9):1125-31 (2009)
The abstract is as follows: "In the current studies, we tested the
prediction that learning of novel patterns of association would be
enhanced in response to unrelated meaning threats. This prediction
derives from the meaning-maintenance model, which hypothesizes that
meaning-maintenance efforts may recruit patterns of association
unrelated to the original meaning threat. Compared with participants
in control conditions, participants exposed to either of two unrelated
meaning threats (i.e., reading an absurd short story by Franz Kafka or
arguing against one's own self-unity) demonstrated both a heightened
motivation to perceive the presence of patterns within letter strings
and enhanced learning of a novel pattern actually embedded within
letter strings (artificial-grammar learning task). These results
suggest that the cognitive mechanisms responsible for implicitly
learning patterns are enhanced by the presence of a meaning threat."
Of course, there's plenty of chances for just this sort of "uncanny"
stuff on the internet -- including this video by Rich Ragsdale, which
both explains and illustrates the idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqcx6r57GRI
"The story of The Sandman as told by E. T. A. Hoffman intrigued the
great Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Freud attempted to
describe Nathaniel's state of mind upon realizing that his true love
was in actuality a mechanical doll! He labelled this confusion
between the human and the artificial 'The Uncanny!'"
Such "artificiality" can include many things. Consider *this*
marvelously "flat" beginning:
"I was in great difficulty. An urgent journey was facing me. A
seriously ill man was waiting for me in a village ten miles distant. A
severe snowstorm filled the space between him and me." -- A Country
Doctor, Franz Kafka
In the world of the story, of course, the premise is not flat -- it's
urgent, there is a seriously ill man, etc.! However, my confusion is
oh so real, and it is precisely the confusion between this
"artificial" story and my real life and emotions. Hence, a little
later on in the story when we read --
"The servant girl stood beside me. 'One doesn't know the sorts of
things one has stored in one's own house,' she said, and we both
laughed." -- ibid.
we're likely already to be caught up in the story, but perhaps also
somewhat uneasy about this fact. As the poor girl (whom we have known
for all of a few hundred characters) is quite brutally victimized in
very short order, I'm sure I care about her more than the narrator
himself, who gets swept up in his own story, and he, almost
conveniently, appears to meet his own doom by the end of the story
anyway. We need not go into further detail:
"Once one responds to a false alarm on the night bell, there's no
making it good again—not ever." -- ibid.
That's just the point: this is all of us responding exactly to such a
false alarm at each moment! This is *how* we "learn novel patterns",
precisely *through* our response to "unrelated meaning threats". In
other words, we emote about whatever it is that comes to mind, our
feelings become "ingrained" or learnt -- in an effort to maintain some
kind of self-unity, say -- and meaning is built and/or maintained as
an end or as a side-effect (it almost doesn't matter which one)
through or throughout this process.
Kafka has a way of showing precisely how uncanny and even sinister
*life* is in its essential nature...
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