The Oculus: The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research (Vol. 16)

The Oculus 2017-18 The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research

TheThe

Oculus Oculus 2017-18

The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research Volume 16

Volume 16

The

Oculus 2017-18

The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research Volume 16

The Oculus is published by the University of Virginia’s Undergraduate Research Network (URN) in conjunction with the University of Virginia’s Center for Undergraduate Excellence (CUE). All copyrights are retained by the authors; URN holds the rights to non-exclusive use in print and electronic formats for all pieces submitted for publication in The Oculus.

Guest Letter (President-Elect James E. Ryan) Dear Oculus Readers and Authors,

T

he research in this journal demonstrates some of the very best of what a University like ours can contribute to the world: the generation and dissemination of new knowledge that will fuel innovation, inspire curiosity, and responsibly inform discourse, debates, and decision-making. In a time when the credibility of experts is all too often under assault, the outstanding scholarship on display in this volume reminds us that universities like ours have a singular responsibility to remain dedicated to the pursuit of truth in service to society.

At UVA, research is an integral part of the strong tradition of academic inquiry that has become central to undergraduate life. It fosters meaningful and productive relationships between faculty and students, and helps forge connections that can last a lifetime. It enriches the intellectual climate on campus, touching off conversations across Grounds that bring people together, from within and across disciplines. It enables those who are passionate about their subject matter – from education to engineering, physics to philosophy, history to human biology, computer science to the classics – to explore what matters to them, and to learn from each other’s passion and expertise. And it sparks curiosity and engagement by inviting us to identify and pose good questions, and then to think clearly about how best to answer them.

Perhaps most importantly, undergraduate research at UVA is helping us to build the next generation of scholars, leaders, and problem-solvers for the world. Participation in rigorous research challenges students to test assumptions, synthesize diverse information, and communicate in ways that can move forward even the most contentious debates, and brings greater understanding of topics as vast and complex as climate change, social inequality, human development, or world history. A thriving culture of undergraduate research ultimately yields both the light and the lamplighters: the knowledge that illuminates, and the leaders with the skills to produce and apply it.

I would like to extend my genuine thanks and admiration to all of the contributors, and to the editorial staff, who have worked hard to produce a volume of outstanding quality. I hope you enjoy this edition of Oculus, and that you are inspired to ask a question that matters to you.

Sincerely,

James E. Ryan President-Elect University of Virginia

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers,

I

t is with tremendous joy that I welcome you to this year’s edition of The Oculus, a collection of the most outstanding undergraduate research at Mr. Jefferson’s University. And true to Jefferson’s vision, this journal embodies “the illimitable freedom of the human mind, to explore and to expose every subject susceptible of its contemplation.” You’ll find students pushing the boundaries of human knowledge in subjects ranging from psychology to sustainability, from English to engineering. Yet, the work represented within these pages is only a fraction of the amazing research that pushes this institution forward. I can only hope that what you’ll find serves to inspire you to ask your own question, to find others to answer it with, and to set off a delightful cycle of intellectual pursuit.

For this year’s Oculus we received a record number of submissions, speaking to a vibrant and growing culture of research among our University’s youngest scholars. This is a testament not only to the quality of the research that you hold between your hands, but also the to quality of the research that you don’t. Thus, I encourage you to visit our parallel online publication through uvaurn.org for more examples of spectacular undergraduate inquiry.

Finally, it is with great pleasure that I thank the incredible individuals who make The Oculus possible. The entire editorial board constantly drives this publication forward with their input and insight. All of them deserve the highest acclaim. I especially want to thank Senior Editor Rob Schwartz and Layout Editor Eileen Zheng for their immense work designing this journal and to Executive Editor Sneha Ravi for her tireless outreach on behalf of The Oculus. Further, we’re appreciative of our parent organization, The Undergraduate Research Network (URN), and especially Chair Sophie Liebergall for their patronage of The Oculus. Finally, we owe many thanks to the Center for Undergraduate Excellence whose generosity and support make our work possible. In particular I need to highlight the time and commitment put in by Brian Cullaty and Edith Conti to showcase undergraduate research.

Enjoy the fascinating research in the pages that follow and may they remind you that whether in your first year or your last, at the University of Virginia you never stop learning.

Best regards,

Grant Guan Editor-in-Chief, The Oculus

Editorial Board

Back row (left to right): Sneha Ravi, Elliana Given, Daniel Ayoub, Ben Winter, Rob Schwartz, Mahima Reddy, Joseph Burns Front row (left to right): Cristie Cui, Eileen Zheng, Leanne Shen, Kara Kreiling, Grant Guan, Emily Puleo FULL EDITORIAL STAFF Grant Guan, Kelvin Li, Rachel Dick, Clara Carlson, Eileen Zheng, Ben Winter, Cristie Cui, Jonathan Haynes, Sneha Ravi, Joseph Burns, Elli Given, Liz Feeser, Mahima Reddy, Kara Kreiling, Emily Puleo, Daniel Ayoub, Rob Schwartz, Alex Mink, Leanne Shen, Abigail Johnson EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Grant Guan SENIOR EDITOR Rob Schwartz EXECUTIVE EDITOR Sneha Ravi PHOTOGRAPHER Charlotte Cooney PRINTED AT McClung Companies

The Oculus 2017-18

The Virginia Journal of Undergraduate Research Volume 16

Table of Contents 4 Revising The Narrative: Christine De Pizan’s Epistre OthÊa - Sarah Russell 20 Mnemonic Parodies: An Educational Tool for Memorization - Naveen Iyer and Divya Patel 32 Age as a Moderator of the Link between Eating Associations and Eating Disorder - Bryanna Schantz 50 Evaluating the Sustainability of Energy Production from Winery Waste in Central Virginia - Cameron McCarty, Gabrielle Schlepenbach, and Curtis Davis 66 Examining Missing Voices: Shifts in Curatorial Practices in the Exhibition of Black Artists in New York City in the 1990s and Early 2000s - Kristen Clevenson 88 Xtreme Augmentation: A Novel Logo Classification Technique - Naveen Iyer, Vijay Edupuganti, and Divya Patel 100 Pretend Play as a Potential Regulator of Emotion in Young Children - Gabrielle Sky Cardwell

Art History

Revising The Narrative: Christine De Pizan’s Epistre OthÊa

Sarah Russell

“

Christine subtly uses beautiful illustrations to contextually make a firm revision of the conventional narrative, setting her work apart as a step forward in the long history of feminist discourse.

”

Sarah Russell is graduating from UVa in May 2018 with a double major in Art History and Spanish. She wrote her Distinguished Majors Program thesis on Diego Velázquez’ mythological paintings and Spanish Golden Age literature. Though the following paper concerns 15th-century French manuscripts instead of Spanish painting, the representation of classical mythology is the thread that unites her work. Sarah plans to spend the next year teaching English in Spain, after which she will pursue a graduate degree in Art History, likely with a focus on the theme of mythology in the Spanish Golden Age.

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Revising The Narrative: Christine De Pizan’s Epistre Othéa Sarah Russell University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America “The Book of the Queen” is a compilation of works by Christine de Pizan presented to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria between 1410 and 1415. It is undoubtedly fit for a queen, not only in its exquisite decoration but also in the visual program, which consistently depicts women as dignified and empowered. The Epistre Othéa claims 101 of the manuscript’s 132 miniatures and over half focus on female characters.

They are extracted from contemporary mythological narrative but presented with significant modifications on conventional models of illustration.

Due to strong evidence that the author had a hand in the design of the miniatures that adorn her writing, it is fruitful to consider Christine’s personal agenda. I argue that the miniatures reveal Christine’s intent to modify medieval conventions of female impotence by endowing mythological women with active authority. In particular, she responds to the models set forth by the Ovide moralisé, Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus, and Jean de Meun’s contributions to Roman de la rose, which reflect a deeply ingrained misogyny that defines femininity as spiritual, mental, and physical passivity. Comparing the Othéa miniatures with contemporary visual programs reveals Christine’s intention to reframe the narrative.

The Othéa serves as an important step in the evolution of Christine’s eloquent defense of women underpinned throughout her oeuvre. It also reveals the author’s sensitivity to her audience. Capitalizing on the popular appeal of visual learning via beautiful illustrations, she articulates her argument within the context of medieval France, speaking in a language her readers could understand. Christine’s subtle ingenuity and firm revision of the conventional narrative set her work apart as a step forward in the long history of feminist discourse.

Keywords: Eating-IAT; eating associations; age; moderator

At the British Library, there is a beautiful manuscript known fondly as “The Book of the Queen,” or Harley MS 4431. Presented to the eponymous Queen Isabeau of Bavaria between 1410 and 1415, the book is a compilation of works by Christine de Pizan, the famous Italian-French writer-publisher extraordinaire.1 As an object, it is undoubtedly fit for a queen; luxuriant illumination radiates brilliantly in blazing vermillion, glowing cobalt, and luminous chartreuse. Along with the stunning miniatures, lavish initials, borders, paragraph markers, and script adorn its pages. Upon closer examination, however, one realizes the manuscript is fit for a queen in another respect. Throughout the visual program, female characters consistently appear dignified, commanding, and venerable.

The cardinal virtues are personified as women, goddesses reign, and female mortals are portrayed in their best light. The bulk of these female illustrations belong to the Epistre Othéa, Christine’s first prose work.2 1

Sandra Hindman, Christine De Pizan’s Epistre Othéa: Painting and Politics at the Court of Charles VI (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986).

2 Sandra Hindman. “With Ink and Mortar: Christine De Pizan’s Cité Des Dames (An Art Essay),” in Feminist Studies 10 (1984): 459.

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The Epistre Othéa is a singular combination of courtesy book and mythography, tucked neatly into epistolary format. It can be puzzled over and enjoyed on various levels, foremost as a montage of beautiful, strange illustrations. Out of the 30 total works compiled in the Harley MS 4431, Othéa claims 101 of 132 miniatures. Over half focus on female characters. This emphasis on visual representation magnifies the work’s thematic undertones. Subtle tweaks and overt twists on conventional models beg the question: what was Christine thinking? Fortunately, we may seriously address this inquiry due to the strong probability that the author had a hand in the design of the miniatures that adorn her writing – we cannot attribute these curiosities to the whims of her illustrators.

The Epistre Othéa is best classified as a courtesy book, a genre that imparts moral teaching to inspire ideal conduct. Its outstanding feature is that the instruction is dispensed by Othéa, Christine’s female personification of wisdom, instead of a traditional male author.

The book takes the form of an epistle; Othéa writes a letter to the young Hector of Troy.

Each chapter contains a four-line verse text followed by a gloss and allegory in prose, in which Christine comments to propose what lesson may be learned from Othéa’s writing.3 Though the book’s purpose is ostensibly to guide the reader to moral and spiritual excellence, the format itself demands further contemplation. By casting a female character as the embodiment and bestower of wisdom, thereby in a position of authority, Christine establishes from the outset that this will not be an ordinary, male-driven narrative. I will argue that although the defense of women was not her singular goal in Othéa, it is undoubtedly an important theme. Christine’s later works echo precedents set by this book, revealing its lasting significance in her oeuvre.

Throughout Othéa, Christine draws heavily on both visual and textual sources, but it is her responsive deviations from these sources that reveal her intention to revise the narrative. Her major source is the Ovide moralisé, informing the extensive mythographical content.4 This French translation and moralization of Ovid’s Metamorphoses was produced in the early fourteenth century and largely informed contemporary conceptions of mythology.5 Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus provides examples of contemporary models in both textual and visual representation of myth, both of which Christine addresses in Othéa. It is probable that Christine was familiar with at least two illuminated copies of this work, Paris BN MS fr. 12420 and 598.6 She would go on to more fully respond to Boccaccio’s implicit misogyny in Livre de la cité des dames, a work that reflects a development of budding themes present in Othéa.7 The third work is Jean de Meun’s contributions to Roman de la rose, which Christine actively opposed because of its denigration of women.8 In a clever, subtle, yet undeniable agenda, Christine both cites and refutes each of these three works, upending the stereotypical constraints they place on women.

Textual comparison amongst these works has been amply considered in the work Hindman, Painting and Politics, 22.

Judith L. Kellogg. “Transforming Ovid: The Metamorphoses of Female Authority.” in Christine De Pizan and the Categories of Difference, ed. Marilynn Desmond. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998): 183.

5 Marilynn Desmond and Pamela Sheingorn, Myth, Montage, and Visuality in Late Medieval Manuscript Culture: Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othea (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 4.

6 Alfred Jeanroy, “Boccace et Christine de Pisan: le De claris mulieribus, principale source du Livre de la cité des dames.” Romania 189 (1922): 97. Referenced in Hindman, Painting and Politics, 90.

7 Eleni Stecopoulos, “The Reconstruction of Myth.” in Reinterpreting Christine De Pizan, ed. Earl J. Richards. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), 49.

8 Anil de Silva Vigier et al., Christine de Pisan: Autobiography of a Medieval Woman (1363-1430) (Montreux: Minerva, 1996).

3 4

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of Sandra Hindman, Marilynn Desmond, Christine Reno, and Rosalind Brown-Grant, especially in light of Christine’s empowering accounts of female characters. Those who attempt to hold Christine’s work to anachronistic standards conclude that it fails to challenge misogynistic tradition.9 Critics who more fully consider the medieval context praise Christine’s “feminising intentions” in her unconventional portrayals of mythological women, emphasizing their virtues and strength while underplaying their vices and weakness.10 I will argue that comparison amongst visual programs deserves further consideration: manuscript illustrations reveal a deeper level of the author’s insight and intention to resonate in a culture obsessed with visual learning. Fruitful visual comparison can be made amongst the miniatures of Othéa, Ovide moralisé, De claris mulieribus, and Roman de la rose. The latter three demonstrate accepted models for the treatment

Figure 1.

Harley MS 4431, fol. 3.

and depiction of female mythological characters. By focusing on the miniature illustrations in these works, Christine’s response to mainstream portrayals of women in the Epistre Othéa become vibrantly evident: she rejects feminine passivity and endows her female characters with active authority.

First, it is necessary to establish the likelihood and degree of the author’s influence over the creation and arrangement of the miniatures for Othéa. Unfortunately, direct evidence is lacking and there can be no absolute certainty about her role. However, based on knowledge of contemporary manuscript production, evidence in Christine’s writings about her relationship with illuminators, and the nature of the miniatures themselves, Sandra Hindman has concluded there is reason to believe Christine helped to shape the visual program of her works.11 The illuminator was not expected to provide intellectual contribution, but rather to complete the manual task of illumination. This would suggest significant guidance from the author of the work regarding the contents of the miniatures; it is unlikely that the artists would have completely devised the illustrations themselves.

9 Susan Schibanoff, “Taking the Gold” in Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts, ed. Elizabeth A. Flynn and Patrocinio P. Schweickart. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).

10 Christine Reno, “Feminist Aspects of Christine de Pizan’s Epistre d’Othea a Hector,” Studi Francesi (1980): 272.

11 Hindman, Painting and Politics. 63.

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Claire Richter Sherman has proved that Nicole Oresme had a hand in the design of the miniatures for his translations of Aristotle, due to his awareness of the visual impact of his work and confirmed by the close textual-visual relationship.12 The miniatures related to Othéa display a distinctive level of ingenuity and innovation, deviating from the most popular models. Like the illustrations in Oresme’s translations, these modifications relate directly to the text, serving political, social, and religious levels within Christine’s writing.13 Thus it seems more probable that Christine influenced the execution of the miniatures than that the illuminators invented these specific variations on their own accord.

Thereby we may proceed with the reasonable assumption that Christine was involved to a significant degree in the design and arrangement of the miniatures in her manuscripts.

The “Book of the Queen” is perhaps the most likely manuscript to contain miniatures heavily influenced by Christine. The presentation scene sets the tone for the illustration program: it is characterized by complex imagery, individuality, and a high degree of specificity (Figure 1).14 Confirmed by the nature of this miniature, it is likely that Christine had particular interest in how the work would impact its patron. Christine knew that Isabeau of Bavaria could positively influence future kingship of France, as demonstrated in her letter to the queen in 1405.15 This manuscript was not simply a pretty treasure; it had significant political intentions and implications. The transfer of wisdom from Othéa to Hector takes on a new dimension in light of the patron – Isabeau was the guardian of her son, the eleven year-old dauphin Louis of Guyenne, until he became of age. Considering her patron, the significance of the Epistre Othéa’s message, and the important role of visual learning, Christine would have been especially concerned with the illustration of this particular manuscript. It is unlikely that she would have left the design of the miniatures completely to the discretion of her illuminators. This context makes the Harley manuscript an exemplar for examining the intentions of the author through its visual program.

One key character finds no comparison in contemporary works: Christine’s invented character of Othéa, the personification of prudence and wisdom who writes the epistle to Hector.

Though she is appears in illustrated manuscripts Figure 2. as a rather typical female figure, her established Harley MS 4431, fol. 95v. position contributes to the same goal of dignifying women. Her role in bestowing wisdom automatically places her in a more powerful position than the receiver, including Hector and any reader. The first allegory begins, “As prudence and wisdom are mother and guide of all virtues, without which the others could not be well governed, it is necessary to the chivalrous spirit to be adorned with 12 Karen Gould and Claire R. Sherman, “Imagining Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representations in Fourteenth Century France,” The American Historical Review 101 (1996): 33.

13 Hindman, Painting and Politics. 82.

14 Sandra Hindman, “The Iconography of Queen Isabeau De Bavière (1410 - 1415), an Essay in Method,” Gazette Des Beaux-Arts (1983): 105.

15 Raymond Thomassy, Essai sur les écrits politiques de Christine de Pisan: Suivi d’une notice littéraire ete de pièces inédites (Paris: Debécourt, libraireéditeur, 1838). Translated in Hindman, Painting and Politics. 135.

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prudence.” Christine conflates the separated concepts of prudence and wisdom, firmly refuting the vein of medieval thought that separated these virtues. Propagated especially by the work of Hugh St-Victor, wisdom was seen as belonging to the masculine realm of spiritual matters while prudence was part of the feminine realm of practical affairs.17 Wisdom was therefore higher, more important, and found only in men. By creating a female personification of both wisdom and prudence, Christine rejects the degrading tradition of limiting women to worldly prudence. Othéa demonstrates that wisdom does not belong only to men; therefore her decidedly feminine aspect in the miniatures is not arbitrary. She wears a white nun’s veil, emphasizing her command of spiritual matters as well as worldly knowledge (Figure 2). Perched in a cloud, Othéa gracefully presents her letter to young Hector, who is physically smaller, further emphasizing the hierarchical dynamic of teacher and student. The illustration reinforces Christine’s decision to use a female character to embody both spiritual wisdom and practical prudence, thereby asserting women’s ability to attain the highest level of wisdom.

The Othéa’s depictions of Minerva, godFigure 3. dess of wisdom and war, serve to challenge Harley MS 4431, fol. 102v. stereotypes of passive femininity. The miniature differs from accepted models by placing special emphasis on her military strength, drawing attention to her attributes that specifically demonstrate military prowess and chivalry, thereby imbuing the female goddess with “real” power generally reserved for men. In her first appearance, Minerva wears a full suit of armor, sword in sheath, reigning atop a billowing cloud form (Figure 3). Her hair falls in loose waves, but this is the extent of her feminine characteristics. She has broad shoulders, solid arms, and her waist is not accentuated. She passes a helmet and shield to grasping soldiers on the ground, several of which have already received her gifts in the form of armor, spears, and shields. The men below clamber and reach desperately like children while Minerva gracefully bestows her gifts. She is visually larger and higher on the page, thereby reinforcing her dominance. Considering Minerva’s patronage of metalwork, the objects being presented in this scene can also be interpreted as symbolizing the knowledge of how to make armor and weapons of war – an even more valuable gift.

In stark contrast, the miniatures of an illustrated French translation of Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris, titled Des cleres et nobles femmes, show a more feminine Minerva in 16

16 Karen Green and C J. Mews, Healing the Body Politic: The Political Thought of Christine De Pizan. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005), 123.

17 Hugh of St-Victor and Roy J. Deferrari, Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (de Sacramentis) (Cambridge, Mass: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951), 152.

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her role as goddess of arts and trade. She appears as a delicate lady, hair neatly bound atop her head, dressed in a fashionable gown with a narrow waist and trailing sleeves (Figure 4). Her hands gesticulate flimsily as she sits lightly upon a blocky throne. This Minerva undeniably has less gravitas than the Minerva of Othéa. Boccaccio’s emphasis is further clarified by the seven figures surrounding her: they symbolize various trades and arts, including music, weaving, and metalworking (though notably not for the purpose of creating armor). Minerva’s contribution to warfare is completely omitted, thereby significantly diminishing her clout.

Miniatures in an illustrated manuscript of Ovide moralisé, Paris BNF MS fr. 871, illustrate Figure 4. a similarly feminine and weakened Minerva.

Paris BN MS fr. 598, fol. 13r.

She appears in a scene of the Bath of the Muses, a story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which Minerva goes up to Mount Helicon to see the fountain that sprung up from the blood of the slain Medusa, along with the winged horse Pegasus.18 In this miniature, Minerva could be mistaken for a noblewoman passing by, a slight figure dressed in a billowing white gown, wearing a crown and veil, and conspicuously empty-handed (Figure 5).19 The goddess is stripped of any suggestion of deity and reduced to a diminutive figure on the sidelines. She is almost translucent – a far cry from the imposing armored goddess in the Othéa miniatures. Both her diminished size and her lack of active force reveals the conception of a delicate, ladylike goddess, promoted by the Ovide moralisé and rejected

by Othéa.

Figure 5.

Paris BNF MS fr. 871, fol. 116v.

18 Ovid and Rolfe Humphries, Metamorphoses (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955), Book V. 19 Mary Weitzel Gibbons, “The Bath of the Muses and Visual Allegory in Chemin de Long Estude,” in Christine De Pizan and the Categories of Difference, ed.

Marilynn Desmond (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 136.

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Without consulting the text of any of these three works, the contrast in emphasis is clear solely by examining their visual representations.

By showing Minerva as a strong, active figure of war, Christine’s miniatures imbue her with weight and worth. She is directly associated with armor and warfare, which were considered significantly more essential than arts like weaving and music. By placing Minerva in the position of bestowing armor to the men below, who appear desperate for her gift, the authority of the female goddess is firmly established. In reducing Minerva to a dainty lady, Des cleres femmes and Ovide moralisé significantly diminish this Figure 6. female mythological character, demonstrating a contemporary bias that prohibited the existence Rouen MS 0.4, fol. 128r. or recognition of powerful women. Christine subtly revises these conventions by emphasizing Minerva’s character as a strong and valued goddess and underplaying more feminine attributes.

Andromeda, traditionally a symbol of sexual vulnerability, is endowed with active agency in the Othéa miniatures. In Ovid’s original Latin text, the story of Perseus and Andromeda depicts irresistible sexual allure. To appease the sea monster sent as punishment by Neptune, the virgin’s parents tie her to a rock by the sea as a sacrifice. The poet writes poignantly of how Perseus gazed upon the beautiful maiden, naked and bound, utterly defenseless and in grave danger.

He compares her to a statue: beautiful, still, and completely paralyzed. Perseus proceeds to heroically intervene, slaying the sea monster and winning Andromeda’s hand in marriage (without ever asking her opinion).20 Not surprisingly, later translations capitalized upon the sex appeal of the damsel in distress and the masculine hero who comes to her rescue. The Ovide moralisé describes Andromeda as “soft and slender” and “totally nude,” emphasizing her most sexually vulnerable aspects.21 Indeed, the popular contemporary iconography of Andromeda in mythologies and astrological treatises emphasized two sole features: she is naked and bound.

In the Ovide moralisé manuscripts, visual depictions of Andromeda are expectedly derogatory. Not only is she completely naked and bound with ropes, she lays horizontally on the ground, unable to even stand (Figure 6). She appears brittle and fragile, peering humbly up Figure 7. at her savior. A winged Perseus soars overhead, BL Harley 4431, fol. 98v. serving as Andromeda’s complete foil and further emphasizing her weakness. Andromeda is snow 20 21

Ovid and Humphries, Metamorphoses, Book IV. Desmond and Sheingorn, Myth, Montage, and Visuality, 132.

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white and frail, representing the traditional conception of the pure yet weak maiden.

She is completely powerless and absolutely passive: like a statue, she is engaged in no mental, spiritual, or physical action. The myth exalts Perseus’ heroism, but it does so at the expense of Andromeda’s dignity.

The Othéa version of Andromeda contrasts dramatically. At first glance, it is almost as if the miniature illustrates an entirely different myth. Andromeda stands erect upon a rocky outcrop, unbound and fully clothed in all her dignity (Figure 7).

Her long hair is neatly pulled back and she is dressed in a dark gown, which falls in elegant folds around her feet. Her most remarkable feature is her fearsome gaze, which she aims like a dagger at the sea monster. While a romantic knight-like Perseus, aboard the armor-clad Pegasus, poses with his scythe in the background, Andromeda and the sea monster take center stage. As its ugly head emerges from the froth, Andromeda stands her ground, staring levelly at the beast. Her Figure 8. body language conveys her boldness: hips thrust forward, shoulders back, and hands Paris BN MS fr. 598, fol. 29r. clasped in prayer, she is the picture of calm.

Her devout attitude suggests that she is actively employing the weapon of prayer – the only one available to her. The miniature reflects a textual emphasis on Perseus’ bravery and Christine encourages the reader to emulate Perseus as an example of ideal knighthood.22 The text does not dwell on the titillating image of the naked and bound Andromeda; Christine simply describes Perseus’ thrilling performance.

The miniatures from Othéa and Ovide moralisé provide a stark comparison, demonstrating Christine’s firm modification of the conventional narrative. She redefines Andromeda’s role, endowing her with dignity and agency. The image of Andromeda eliminates her two most recognizable features: she is neither naked nor bound. In depicting her clothed, she regains her dignity. In depicting her free from ropes or chains, she regains her agency. By resolutely standing her ground against the sea monster and devoutly engaging in spiritual warfare, the helpless damsel becomes an active participant in her own story. The drama of Perseus’ heroic actions is not lost – Andromeda still needs rescuing – but Christine’s narrative, aided by the illustration, renounces the trend of capitalizing on the cheap sex appeal of a naked, bound, and helpless Andromeda.

The Ovidian myth of Arachne and Minerva is a cautionary tale against challenging the gods, recounting the fate of the unfortunate girl who dares to duel the goddess of weaving. Arachne is a lowly weaver girl who rises to fame in the land of Lydia and soon grows prideful. Minerva visits Arachne in the disguise of an old woman to warn her to stop boasting of her talent and encourage her to seek forgiveness for offending the goddess.

The hapless girl retorts that Minerva should come down and prove her superiority at the loom. To Arachne’s surprise, the goddess reveals her true form and accepts her challenge.

They set out weaving decadent tapestries with complex designs: Minerva weaves stories of mortals who are punished for challenging the gods while Arachne exposes the vices of 22 Glenn Burger and Steven F. Kruger, Queering the Middle Ages (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 6.

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the gods, weaving various examples of rape and deception by Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo and Bacchus. Upon seeing the final product, Minerva is overcome with outrage at such a blatant affront to the gods. She tears the tapestry and repeatedly strikes Arachne with her spinning shuttle until the girl can bear it no more and tries to hang herself. Minerva lifts her up at the last minute and instead of allowing her to die, turns her into a spider, condemned to weave webs forever and act as a perpetual warning against challenging the gods.23 This myth lends itself easily to Christian moralization as it readily becomes a warning against pride and blaspheming God. It was used for this function in various mythological works throughout the medieval era and beyond.

In the miniature in the Duke of Berry’s manuscript of Des cleres femmes, Arachne is depicted hanging herself, in her moment of greatest shame (Figure 8). She appears poised even as she hangs, robes flowing towards the ground, an expression of condescension preserved on her face and Figure 9. her spinning tools still grasped in her hands. In BL Harley 4431, fol. 124r.

Boccaccio’s original text, he claims that Arachne hangs herself as a result of her pride; she cannot bear losing to Minerva.24 This is a modification of the original text, in which Arachne does not lose to Minerva, but rather is punished for exposing the vices of the god. The miniature reinforces this emphasis on Arachne’s arrogance and its consequences. Boccaccio’s condemnation of Arachne’s pride reveals the expectation of feminine modesty and submission to authority.

While the Othéa miniature of Andromeda illustrates the same scene in a dramatically different manner, the miniature of Arachne differs from typical depictions in the specific moment chosen to be displayed. The two characters confront each other across the loom.

Figure 10.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 371, fol. 87v.

23 24

Ovid and Humphries, Metamorphoses, Book VI. Desmond and Sheingorn, Myth, Montage, and Visuality, 199.

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Minerva appears to be in her disguise as an old woman, slightly stooped and pointing an admonishing finger at Arachne, who is a beautiful young lady wearing a rich blue gown and a rather regal crown (Figure 9). Arachne stares defiantly at the old woman and her lips are parted slightly, suggesting speech. The miniature illustrates the exact moment when Arachne challenges Minerva to a duel. Although this scene can still be construed as a warning against pride, it also serves to present Arachne as a bold and confident character.

Like Andromeda, she is armed with a fearsome glare, suggesting strength and agency. It is the moment in which the lowly girl asserts her confidence in her own skill as an artist, even against a goddess. Although readers would have been undoubtedly familiar with the outcome of the story, this specific scene shows a talented and self-assured woman, differing dramatically from the Des cleres femmes manuscript’s depiction of a hanged and shamed Arachne.

The Book of the Queen manuscript miniature presents Arachne as a skilled artist who challenges authority. Christine’s portrayal of this myth has been interpreted as a defense of female artists subjugated by men and male artists, with Minerva symbolizing masculine suppression.25 While Christine’s original meaning may not have been so overt, the illustration reveals her intention to set traditionally disparaged women in a more dignified and positive light. Though the physical characteristics Figure 11. are similar between Des cleres femmes and Paris BN MS fr. 598, fol. 27v.

Othéa, the contrast in the events chosen as subject matter demonstrates the contrast in the overall portrayal of female characters.

The Ovidian myth of Medea is lengthy and complex, providing ample material for interpretation and morals. The argonaut hero, Jason, is charged with the task of obtaining the Golden Fleece for King Aeetes, whose daughter, Medea, falls in love with Jason at first sight. She knows the danger of his quest and offers to help him with her magic if he marries her, to which he agrees. After successfully winning the Golden Fleece, they have two sons, but Jason later inexplicably abandons Medea for another woman, Glauce. Medea retaliates by murdering their children, although, notably, Ovid reduces this alarming event to a single euphemistic phrase.26 As with Andromeda, typical visual models of Medea seize upon her most exciting characterizations: witch and murderess.

In medieval mythological works, she was frequently represented in the act of murdering her sons, a terrifying and ruthless madwoman.

Both the Roman de la rose and Des cleres femmes follow this model. In a simple but alarming composition, a miniature in the Oxford Roman de la rose manuscript depicts Medea brutally twisting the neck of one infant son while the other lies dead at her feet (Figure 10). Her expression is cold and determined while her long hair is unkempt, 25 Josette A. Wisman, “Christine de Pizan and Arachne’s Metamorphoses,” in Fifteenth-century Studies: Volume 23, ed. William C. McDonald et al., (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1997), 142.

26 Ovid and Humphries, Metamorphoses, Book VII.

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Figure 12.

BL Harley 4431, fol. 122r.

emphasizing her ruthless cruelty and uncontrolled anger. In Des cleres femmes miniature, Medea herself is not engaged in the act, but stands by while a male figure executes her son (Figure 11). Medea, the executioner, and her son are vertically aligned in the composition, emphasizing Medea’s responsibility for the act. She watches, cold and unconcerned, as the executioner wields a huge sword, poised to strike the toddler who kneels below, dressed in white with arms crossed obediently, a look of innocent terror on his face. Though less graphic than the Roman de la rose scene, the sympathetic characterization of her son creates an even more poignant illustration of the merciless mother, Medea.

As in the case of Arachne, Christine demonstrates her dissent through a firm modification of emphasis, reflected in the Othéa miniature’s subject matter. Instead of solely considering Medea’s wicked sin, she focuses on the sorceress’ redeeming qualities. Medea serves as an example of the consequences of a lack of self-control. Because of her wild love for Jason, she “let her judgment be destroyed by her desire.”27 Nonetheless, in the text, Christine describes Medea as a wise and venerable woman who was duped by the disloyal Jason. Instead of blaming Medea for her downfall, she suggests that Medea could have protected herself by keeping her desire for Jason in check. Through the voice of Othéa, Christine urges, “Do not allow your judgment to be destroyed by illicit pleasure; do not allow your possessions to be taken away, and if they are asked for, then see yourself in Medea.”28 In Christine’s text, “possessions” symbolizes one’s self. In giving herself completely to Jason -- her magic power as well as her love and trust – Medea made herself vulnerable and ultimately suffered the consequences.

This pivotal motif of “possessions” is amplified and emphasized by the corresponding miniature. In a private bedroom, the statuesque Medea is seated on her bed while Jason kneels before her (Figure 12). Medea, elegantly dressed and wearing her princess crown, has bestowed a small wooden chest to Jason. She is opening the latch on the chest, signifying her control over its contents. In this moment, Medea has chosen to open it up for Jason. The elegant symbolism in this scene corresponds perfectly with Christine’s text.

The chest represents Medea’s “possessions” and, therefore, her ‘self’. Swayed by her overwhelming love for Jason, Medea opens herself up to him, allowing him to possess her magic abilities and her trust. As a result, when Jason casts her off, Medea is devastated 27 28

Desmond and Sheingorn, Myth, Montage, and Visuality, 10.

Desmond and Sheingorn, Myth, Montage, and Visuality, 11.

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to the brink of madness. As in many of the Othéa miniatures, the gaze between the two characters is potent. Medea looks down on Jason, symbolizing her original leverage over him. But as the box is unlocked, we witness an exchange of power in their locked eyes.

Medea is relinquishing control of herself. The miniature reflects Christine message that Medea’s primary fault is her decision to let go of her independence and agency and allow herself to be possessed by Jason.

The Othéa Medea is dramatically different from the conventional witch-murderess.

She is regal and composed, hair braided neatly under her crown. Though she is in the process of giving it away, she is in a position of action and authority: like Othéa’s wisdom and Minerva’s armor, she is bestowing a much-needed gift. Based on the close relation between the text and image, it seems highly probable that Christine decided the composition for the miniature. In choosing this particular scene, she firmly revises models, rejecting the characterization of Medea as a wild murderous witch and instead asserting that her main mistake was in relinquishing control of her own wisdom, independence, and agency.

The examples of Minerva, Andromeda, Arachne, and Medea each demonstrate a significant modification of accepted portrayals of female mythological characters. Through Othéa, Christine refuted and reacted to contemporary attitudes about women, as set forth by the Ovide moralisé, De cleres femmes, and Roman de la rose. The treatment of female mythological characters in these works reflects a deeply ingrained misogyny that defines femininity as spiritual, mental, and physical passivity. With particular attention to the visual manifestation of this bias, female characters were consistently sexualized, debilitated, and disparaged. Comparing the miniatures in these works with those of the Epistre Othéa in the Book of the Queen reveals Christine’s intent to modify the conventional narrative. Minerva contributes the invaluable gift of armor, challenging her association with more feminine engagements and asserting her active role in warfare. Andromeda breaks the chains of passive inertness by standing her ground, taking up her spiritual weapons, and returning the gaze of the sea monster. Although she falls prey to the sin of pride, Arachne is a confident, talented artist instead of a scorned fool. Medea is a wise woman whose greatest fault is in giving herself away to a man who dupes her. These women are strong, active characters; in spite of their circumstances, their dignity and worth are upheld. Through specific deviations from common depictions of each myth, Christine rejects socially imposed limitations on women’s active role.

Undoubtedly, defending women was not Christine’s primary motivation in writing the Epistre Othéa. However, both her earlier and later works reveal an evolution of Christine’s motivation in writing. The Epistre au dieu d’amours, written in 1399, sets an early example of Christine’s intention to rectify misogynistic tradition.29 These feminist concepts would be more fully developed in her future works, most fully in Cité des dames.30 Othéa serves as an important step in the evolution of the author’s eloquent defense of women underpinned throughout her oeuvre. Examining the visual manifestations of this theme provides insight into one of Christine’s most important motifs. Most importantly, Christine subtly uses beautiful illustrations to contextually make a firm revision of the conventional narrative, setting her work apart as a step forward in the long history of feminist discourse.

29 Christine de Pizan and Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, The Selected Writings of Christine De Pizan: New Translations, Criticism (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1997).

30 Christine Reno, “Virginity as an Ideal in Christine de Pizan’s Cité des Dames,” in Ideals for Women in the Works of Christine De Pizan, edited by Diane Bornstein (Detroit, MI: Published for Michigan Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 1981).

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References Adams, Tracy. Christine de Pizan and the Fight for France. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014.

Altmann, Barbara K., and Deborah L. McGrady. Christine de Pizan: A Casebook. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Bell, Susan G. “Christine de Pizan (1364-1430) : Humanism and the Problem of a Studious Woman.” Feminist Studies (1976): 173-184.

Brown-Grant, Rosalind. Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women: Reading Beyond Gender. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Buettner, Brigitte. “Profane Illuminations, Secular Illusions: Manuscripts in Late Medieval Courtly Society.” Art Bulletin 74.1 (1992): 75-90.

Burger, Glenn, and Steven F. Kruger. Queering the Middle Ages. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.

Boccaccio, Giovanni, De Claris mulieribus, traduction anonyme en français Livre des femmes nobles et renommees. c. 1403. MS fr. 598. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

De Pizan, Christine, Anil de Silva Vigier, Daphne Vaudoyer-Doublet, and Rummana F. Denby.

Christine de Pisan: Autobiography of a Medieval Woman (1363-1430). Montreux: Minerva, 1996.

De Pizan, Christine, and Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski. The Selected Writings of Christine De Pizan: New Translations, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 1997.

De Pizan, Christine. Collected Works (‘The Book of the Queen’). c. 1410-1414. Harley MS 4431.

British Library, London. British Library.

Desmond, Marilynn, and Pamela Sheingorn. Myth, Montage, and Visuality in Late Medieval Manuscript Culture: Christine De Pizan’s Epistre Othea. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003.

Gould, Karen, and Claire R. Sherman. “Imaging Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representations in Fourteenth Century France.” The American Historical Review. 101 (1996): 1194.

Green, Karen, and C J. Mews. Healing the Body Politic: The Political Thought of Christine De Pizan. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005.

Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung, Roman de la Rose. c. 1400. MS Douce 371. Bodleian Library, Oxford.

Hindman, Sandra. “The Iconography of Queen Isabeau De Bavière (1410-1415), an Essay in Method.” Gazette Des Beaux-Artes (1983): 102-110.

Hindman, Sandra. Christine de Pizan’s “Epistre Othéa: Painting and Politics at the Court of Charles VI. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1986.

Hindman, Sandra. “With Ink and Mortar: Christine de Pizan’s Cité Des Dames (An Art Essay).”

Feminist Studies 10 (1984): 457-483.

Hugh of St-Victor and Roy J. Deferrari. Hugh of Saint Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith (de Sacramentis). Cambridge, Mass: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1951.

Jeanroy, Alfred. “Boccace et Christine de Pisan: le De claris mulieribus, principale source du Livre de la cité des dames.” Romania 189 (1922): 93-105.

Kellogg, Judith L. “Transforming Ovid: The Metamorphoses of Female Authority.” in Christine de Pizan and the Categories of Difference, edited by Marilynn Desmond. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.

Les Métamorphoses d’Ovide, traduites et allégorisées. c. 1401-1500. MS fr. 871. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Ovid and Rolfe Humphries. Metamorphoses. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955.

Ovide moralisé. c. 1315-1320 MS. Bibliothèque Municipale, Rouen. Bibliothèque Municipale.

Schibanoff, Susan. “Taking the Gold” in Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts edited by Elizabeth A. Flynn and Patrocinio P. Schweickart. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986.

Stecopoulos, Eleni. “The Reconstruction of Myth.” in Reinterpreting Christine De Pizan, edited

by Earl J. Richards. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992.

Reno, Christine. “Feminist Aspects of Christine de Pizan’s Epistre d’Othea a Hector,” Studi Francesi. (1980): 271-276.

Reno, Christine. “Virginity as an Ideal in Christine de Pizan’s Cité des Dames.” In Ideals for Women in the Works of Christine de Pizan, edited by Diane Bornstein. Detroit, MI: Published for Michigan Consortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 1981.

Richards, Earl J. Reinterpreting Christine de Pizan. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992.

Thomassy, Raymond. Essai sur les écrits politiques de Christine de Pisan: Suivi d’une notice littéraire ete de pièces inédites. Paris: Debécourt, libraire-éditeur, 1838.

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Weitzel Gibbons, Mary. “The Bath of the Muses and Visual Allegory in Chemin de Long Estude.”

In Christine de Pizan and the Categories of Difference, edited by Marilynn Desmond, 129144. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.

Wisman, Josette A. “Christine de Pizan and Arachne’s Metamorphoses.” In Fifteenth-century Studies: Volume 23, edited by William C. McDonald et al., 138-151. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1997.

Linguistics

Mnemonic Parodies: An Educational Tool for Memorization

Naveen Iyer and Divya Patel

“

We propose a tool that can generate musical parodies given an input song and information set. We use a combination of techniques learned from prior work along with our own data pipeline.

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Naveen Iyer is a 4th year in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Virginia, where he majors in computer science. Naveen has been a part time student for the past three semesters, focusing on research and hobbies like basketball. At UVA, he's been involved with the Rodman Scholars program and the Intercollegiate Programming Competition, and has TA'd for a class called Data Visualization. Naveen has worked for LiftVector Labs and Amazon during his summers between school, and will be joining Facebook as a software engineer.

Divya Patel is a 4th year in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Virginia, and is double majoring in computer science and math. Divya has owned over 20 computers in his life, spread out across the greater Mechanicsville and Charlottesville areas. At UVA, he's participated in the ACM and the Intercollegiate Programming Competition, and was the president of UVA's IEEE chapter. Divya has been a teaching assistant and has worked at Capital One and Amazon. Next year, he will be joining a startup in the Bay Area next year named Sumo Logic.

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Mnemonic Parodies: An Educational Tool for Memorization Naveen Iyer and Divya Patel University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America In this paper, we propose a novel natural language processing technique to generate rhyming parodies for the purpose of aiding in memorization. The proposed technique consists of transforming a given input text, i.e. a Wikipedia section one wants to learn, into rhyming couplets which are then modified via a genetic algorithm to fit the stress and syllabic structure of a given input song or beat.

The goal of this technique is to produce a parody that can be easily learned while retaining coherence - therefore, we evaluated the rhyming and rhythm components individually and then ran subjective tests on the final outputs for various corpora.

Across all testing, our rhyming system was able to rhyme 65.2% of all couplets.

The rhythm module was evaluated with the metrical fitness scored established in [2]. The metrical fitness measures the proximity of a piece of text to the ideal beat where 1 is perfect and 0 is dissimilar. For example, Shakespeare’s work has a metrical fitness of 0.85 relative to iambic pentameter. Our system was able to achieve a metrical fitness of 0.81 when trying to match to iambic pentameter.

For the holistic evaluation, we qualitatively evaluated the final outputs from five corpora for correctness, usefulness, and style. We show that while far from perfect, our technique has promise and that some generated parodies maintained coherence while having a unique style and some humor.

Keywords: Eating-IAT; eating associations; age; moderator

Introduction One essential part of learning is memorization, the act of committing to memory a chunk of information. This process is often the building block of further education. For example, one cannot spell words without first memorizing the alphabet. While memorization can occur via repetition, mnemonics encompasses the study of tools that can assist memory. The English alphabet is learned through the ABC song, which is a mnemonic device. Furthermore, education systems often focus on memorizing material because it is an evaluation metric to rank or grade students. For example, college anatomy tests focus almost entirely on naming body parts or listing functions of those parts - it’s essential that doctors understand how the body works, and some classes are simply memorizing facts.

While some students excel at memorization, others with weaker memorization skills perform poorly on assessments. A common mnemonic device employed to help with memory is the musical parody. Musical parodies bastardize original songs by changing the words and topics while maintaining stresses, syllables, and rhyme schemes. The problem with mnemonics is that they take a lot of time to come up with. If one wanted to create a parody in order to study for a test, they would need to invest a lot of time into thinking of catchy lyrics or words that are both helpful and match the beat of a song.

Therefore, a tool that could automatically generate parodies or aid in the development of parodies could help students save time and do better on tests.

In this paper, we propose a tool that can generate musical parodies given an input song

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and information set. We use a combination of techniques learned from prior work along with our own data pipeline, and evaluate results of individual techniques as well as the performance of the overall system.

Related Work For the specific task of mnemonic parody generation, we could not find any existing prior work. However, there is an abundance of work in the area of poetry generation, rap-lyric generation, and meter conversion from which we drew heavily.

[2] used a genetic algorithm to convert prose into iambic pentameter. By using a series of small modifications, they were able to greatly increase the ‘metrical fitness’ of an input paragraph. The goal of their work was to generate aesthetic poetry, and they emphasized how the use of a genetic algorithm adds some level of aesthetic beauty due to its randomness. [3] built a language model to generate rap lyrics by training on a collected dataset of rap and hip-hop songs. The model showed promise at generating songs based on a seed input or theme. Lastly, [4] proposed a technique for finding and propagating rhymes between two lines to construct a rhyming couplet.

Data Sources In order to generate a rhyming parody for educational purposes, it is necessary to have both a source of information and a target song or poem that the information can be matched to. Additionally, we needed mechanisms to parse each input into stresses and syllables. Below, we present an overview of the APIs, dictionaries, and datasets we used in this project.

Wikipedia, Lyricswikia, and LastFM We used Python’s Wikipedia API to access content and specific sections. We found that Wikipedia’s ‘Simple English’ format was best for parsing, primarily because it contained far fewer numbers than the normal English variant. We parsed simple numbers, but terms like ‘18th’ were difficult to enumerate and were ignored for the scope of this project.

Lyricswikia and LastFM were used in conjunction to get song lyrics from top artists.

Lyricswikia has no native way of searching for songs, so we built a pipeline to get information about an artist from LastFM and then used that as an input into the Lyricswikia API. The output of Lyricwikia was a plain-text format of all lyrics.

CMU Prodict Dictionary and Rhyming-Dictionary-0.9 CMU has made available a product library containing over 100,000 English words and their pronunciations. We extracted the stresses from this dictionary to get a mapping between words and their stress pattern as a string of “1”s and “0”s, where 1 is a stressed beat and 0 is an unstressed beat. For example, “Hello” would be represented as “10” as the stress is on the first part of the word. We found that 98% of words in the Lyricswikia songs that we tested were in the CMU product dictionary, and most of the missing ones were simply contractions. However, certain songs have chorus’s that contain “Ooooh” or “Aaaah”, which we simply ignored for the scope of this project.

We used RhymingDictionary0.9, which is an abstraction layer above CMU’s Pronunciation Dictionary, for finding rhymes between words.

Components of a Parody The two components of a musical parody that make it explicitly similar to an original composition are rhythm and rhyme. Rhythm is defined as the systematic arrangement of stressed and unstressed beats within a song, and rhyme is a correspondence of the ending syllable of two or more words. In order to generate lyrical parodies, our system

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must modify the input information such that it matches the rhythm of the song and maintains a strong rhyme scheme. We propose two separate components to tackle the task of rhythm and rhyme, and then combine those systems to construct parodies.

Rhythm In order to accomplish the task of making input lines match the stress and syllables of a taIn order to make input lines match the stress and syllables of a target song, we chose to employ the use of a genetic algorithm. Genetic algorithms (GA) are a method for solving both constrained and unconstrained optimization problems by mimicking biological evolution through a selection process. In our case, we are trying to optimize the similarity of beat between the input text and the target song, while also constraining things like semantic drift and syntactic irregularity. In order to do this, we took inspiration from [2]. The overall steps are presented below, with much more information in the sub sections. Firstly, we created an initial random population of sentences by slightly modifying the original (for example, swapping one word with its synonym). Then, the sample population was graded based on a defined fitness function and only the best candidate sentences ‘survived’. The fitness function is a heuristic to determine how good a sentence is in terms of our optimization. The population of sentences reproduced by randomly combining two sentences together, and then the process was repeated iteratively until the population fitness stopped increasing.

Figure 1.

Overview of a Genetic Algorithm.

Selection The selection step of our genetic algorithm creates ‘parents’ as the top 20% of candidate sentences based on the fitness score and randomly selects 5% of the remaining population to also become parents. The reason for this random selection is to avoid local minima by introducing some explicit ‘bad’ choices during each evolution.

Mutation After selecting parents, the parents have a random chance (5%) of being mutated. If a parent is selected for mutation, then a number between 0 and the number of words in the parent (minus 1) is randomly selected. A random mutation from a list of possible mutations is applied to the word at this index, and the modified parent is put back into the list of parents. Below are the possible mutations that we implemented and used.

Synonym substitution Given a word from a parent sentence, we first find the ‘sense’ of the word using the Lesk algorithm (as used in the rhyming section as well). After acquiring the sense, we use

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WordNet to get a list of synonyms for a specific sense of the word and randomly select one of those synonyms.

Hyponym substitution This is similar to our method of synonym substitution, but we randomly select a hyponym of a word instead. A hyponym is a more specific case of a word - for example, hyponyms of the word ‘dog’ include ‘golden retriever’, ‘mutt’, and ‘service dog’. Substituting a word for a hyponym can introduce inherent factual incorrectness (for example, we are guessing that the dog is a service dog when we don’t know for sure). However, the hyponym could also be a perfect fit for the desired syllable count or stress pattern - we balance this tradeoff in the fitness algorithm outlined in [2].

Hypernym substitution Hypernyms are the opposite of hyponyms, and “zoom out” on the word. For example, a hypernym of ‘dog’ is ‘canine’, as all dogs are in the canine family. We apply hypernym mutations in the same way as synonym substitutions, but introduce a back-off probability such that it becomes increasingly rare for hypernyms to be selected. This helps combat the fact that hypernyms zoom out very quickly and avoids results that include very general terms like ‘entity’ or ‘thing’.

Contractor Given a word, we check whether it has more than one syllable and then attempt to apply a contraction to the word (which would reduce the number of syllables). We only attempt to contract words that don’t already have an apostrophe in it to avoid multiple contractions. We also experimented with a contractor that would remove the first syllable of a word rather than the last, but found that these contractions often removed important information in disambiguating the word.

One Syllable Flipper In music, it is often the case that single syllable words are stressed differently than their ‘true stress’ because there is some freedom of emphasis while singing. Therefore, we emulate this by flipping the stress of an input word if it is one syllable.

We define fitness of an input text as the weighted sum of 3 models: A backward-forward bigram model, a metrical model, and a syllable model. The backward-forward bigram model intends to score the likelihood of a sentence by summing over the probability of each word given its context (the word before it and after it), which enables us to also take into account the likelihood of words. The metrical model evaluates the meter of the passage. The syllable model penalizes for having an incorrect number of syllables.

Backward-Forward Bigram model We train a context-based bigram model on the NLTK Brown news corpus, and employ add-1 smoothing for unknown words. Using this model, we can compute the probability of a single word as the sum of the probability of that word appearing after the previous word and the probability of that word appearing before the next word. We use this to calculate the probability of an entire sequence of words that represents a line, and then create a function that maps the line probability to a score between 0 and 10, where 0 is a very unlikely sequence of words and 10 is a very likely sequence of words. This likelihood score penalizes sentences that have been mutated to have too many hyponyms, as hyponyms are less common than their superordinate class. It also penalizes things like contractions and rare words.

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Metrical Model We draw our inspiration of the metrical model from [2], who define ‘metrical fitness’ as the modified edit distance between an input stress and a target stress. The edit distance is defined as the number of substitutions, deletions, or insertions required to transform one string into the other. We use the Levenshtein algorithm for calculating the edit distance between the current line stress and the target stress, and then assign a score between 0 and 10 based on the distance (where 10 is a perfect match).

Syllable Model Although the metrical model takes into account the number of syllables implicitly, we found through testing that the most ‘fit’ sentences would often have the incorrect number of syllables. When creating a parody of a song, the number of syllables is especially important to replicate because ending too early or too late can throw off the rest of the song. Therefore, we chose to doubly reward sentences that matched the correct number of syllables by explicitly rewarding sentences that matched more exactly using a quadratic error.

Crossover An important component of genetic algorithms is the mechanism by which parents ‘mate’ or produce offspring. In our case, we would have two candidate sentences that must be combined in some way in order to create a new candidate ‘child’ sentence. Our mechanism uses a randomization strategy where for each word index, each parent has a 50% chance of providing their word to the child. Additionally, the stress of one-syllable words is dependent on a randomly assigned parent. This introduction of additional randomness ensures that the population continues changing over time, rather than finding some local optimum and then remaining constant.

Figure 2.

Overview of Rhyming Mechanism.

Rhyming The concept of rhyme has existed for centuries and is well known for its prevalence in poetry. However, in a time before people could read and write, rhyme helped people

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remember stories and pass them down over generations. A poet by the name of Thomas Sheridan is known for writing several mnemonic poems. For example, “Of Knowing the Gender of Nouns by Termination” was written to help students remember the rules for classifying Latin nouns as either masculine or feminine and is characterized by its simple AAAA rhyme scheme.

All nouns in a make Feminine, If you like “Musa” them decline, Except they’re from a Graecian line, Or by their sense are Masculine.

We leverage the importance of rhyme in memorization by incorporating a rhyming module in our parody generator. This rhyming module uses an approach similar to the approach taken by Shotan and Ferrer in [4]. Figure 1 illustrates the pipeline that was followed to take two sentences, or lines, and transform them into a couplet. A couplet is a pair of lines in a verse that usually follow a similar meter and have an end rhyme. Since matching meter is handled in the rhythm module, we focus on generating two lines that share an end rhyme, while preserving the semantic meaning of the original sentences and ensuring syntactic integrity.

Synonym Generation The first step of the pipeline is synonym generation, which was performed in our implementation using the WordNet lexical database in conjunction with the LESK word sense disambiguation algorithm [1]. The LESK algorithm allows us to disambiguate different definitions of a word based on the context of the word in our given line. Instead of just generating synonyms for words like in [4], we go one step beyond and generate hyponyms and hypernyms to give ourselves a larger pool of candidates for finding rhymes.

Finding Rhymes Once we have our hypernym, hyponym, and synonym lists for each word, we set out to find rhyming matches between the two sentences. To check whether a pair of words rhymes, we use Rhyming Dictionary 0.9, a CMU Pronunciation Dictionary abstraction that focuses on creating rhyme sets from word pronunciations. Once a rhyme is found, the 2 words from the original pair of lines corresponding to the matched pair are replaced by the rhyming words in their respective line. Since we can have multiple rhyming pairs, we simply add each possibility into a list.

Generate Sentence Pairs The challenge now becomes propagating the rhyming pairs to the end of their respective sentences in order to get a proper end rhyme. The naive solution would be to simply move the word to the end of the sentence, but this would not preserve the syntactic integrity of the sentence. Thus, we follow the algorithm proposed by [4] and recursively propagate the clause in which the word resides to the end of line. For example, given the sentence, “The old man loves to eat ice cream at the restaurant down the street” and the word of interest, “man”, the algorithm would identify that the word of interest, “man”, is already the last child of its parent in the dependency parse tree. So, the algorithm will recurse up the tree until the clause containing “man”, or the clause of interest is not the last child of its parent. At this point, the clause of interest will be propagated to the right until it is the last child of its parent. In our example, the algorithm would find that the noun phrase, “The old man” is not the rightmost child node of its parent, so it will be propagated until we get, “loves to eat ice cream at the restaurant down the street the old man”. This type of transformation is commonly found in poetry and in this specific

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example the algorithm has performed a transformation called subject-verb inversion.

The resulting sentence is syntactically correct, and effectively conveys the semantic meaning of the sentence.

This step requires the use of a dependency parser. In our implementation, we use the Stanford Parser 3.6 to parse each line, and we perform the recursive propagation until the word is at the end of the line. We also tried the SpaCy dependency parser, but found that the results provided by the parser were in a format that introduced ambiguity in the word ordering in the sentence. SpaCy was, however, significantly quicker at parsing the lines than Stanford Parser.

Combining Rhyme and Rhythm In order to combine the rhyme system with the rhythm system, we devised the following approach. First, we take the information input and split it into lines roughly the same syllable count as each line of the target song/poem. Next, we run the rhyming module on each pair of lines, which returns a list of modified information lines that follow an AABB rhyme pattern. We pass these lines into the genetic algorithm, which attempts to fit the syllable and stress count of the target song while not altering the last word of each line Source Shakespeare’s sonnets* Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I Dickens, A Christmas Carol, Stave I The New York Times, January 1, 2004

Metrical Fitness (Iambic Pentameter) 0.852 0.715 0.610 0.574

Table 1.

Metrical Fitness Score for Various Corpora.

*Written in iambic pentameter.

(as that would alter the rhyme scheme). The final output of the genetic algorithm is a set of lines that rhymes and is metrically similar to the target song.

Evaluation We begin by evaluating each system on its own, and then evaluate the combined system based on both subjective and objective scores.

Genetic Algorithm In order to judge the genetic algorithm, we measured the metrical fitness that our model could achieve relative to baselines outlined in [2]. Table 1 shows the metrical

Figure 3.

Results of Genetic Algorithm on a Test Input.

Horizontal: Epochs.

Vertical: Metrical Fitness.

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MNEMONIC PARODIES

fitness scores that [2] computed for a set of texts relative to iambic pentameter.

We emulated these results by trying to fitting input sections of Wikipedia to iambic pentameter (the same target stress as the scores in Table 1), and measuring the metrical fitness of the overall population over time. Our results show that the genetic algorithm can find an approximate sentence which excels at this task, converting a starting metrical Corpus

Table 2.

Metrical Rhyme Score (% of rhyming couplets) for Various Corpora.

Rhyme Score

Car Tomato Algorithm Dog Food

0.42 0.71 0.31 0.82 1.00

fitness of 0.6 to a metrical fitness of 0.788 (which is close to Shakespeare’s level).

Rhyme Algorithm In order to assess the rhyming module, we used five excerpts from Simple English Wikipedia. We then split each excerpt into 10 to 15 lines based on the syllable counts of the excerpts and coupled each pair of consecutive lines together using our system. Then, they were run through the rhyming module to create 10 lists of couplets. We created a metric that simply counts the percentage of couplets that our algorithm was able to rhyme (Table 2).

Combination of Algorithms Student 1 Corpus

Grammatical Sense

Car Tomato Algorithm Dog Food

3 6 5 7 6

Student 2

Style Usefulness Grammatical Sense 4 8 6 8 8

2 5 4 6 5

5 6 5 8 7

Style Usefulness 4 9 5 6 7

3 8 3 6 7

Table 3.

Human Annotated Scoring for Parody Generation on Simple Wikipedia Pages.

Using the same Simple English Wikipedia excerpts, we tested the combination of the rhyming and rhythm modules by a human rating system. We got two college students to thoroughly read and understand the excerpts. Then, the same two college students reviewed our system’s final output parody on the basis of grammatical sense, style, and usefulness. Grammatical sense defines how well the lines convey the meaning of the original sentences. Style is a metric that defines how good the resulting pair of sentences sounds. Usefulness is a metric for how useful the sentence is for memorization. Table 3 summarizes the results found. The chart below shows the ratings given by the reviewers on a scale from 1 to 10 for each dataset.

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The iambic pentameter is clear, as the stressed beats and 10-syllable lines resulted in a score of 0.81 for this corpus. This score is obtained by calculating the edit distance from iambic pentameter to the resulting stress pattern. Additionally, the bolded words indicate rhyming pairs. Some couplets, like “Most tomatoes cherry-red, but some special ilk jibe or orange gold” are rather charming and maintain both beat and rhyme. That being said, sometimes semantic drift occurs and the sentence or couplet doesn’t make sense. One problem with this system currently is that it splits sentences based on beats instead of sentence ending. As such, there can be two sentences on the same line. This is a problem for our rhyming algorithm, as the propagation step relies on moving a word to the end of a sentence. A way to combat this would be to build a more robust model that could search through sentences, but because of the scope of this project we leave that for future work.

Conclusion The parodies generated by this method are not very robust, and there is still much work to be done in order to get to a state where these parodies can be used as a mnemonic device for education. Within the parodies that we generated, we found various couplets that were fantastic, and others that were limited by either the grammatical complexity of the original text or the limitation of the tools that were employed by our implementation. For example, we found that our LESK module oftentimes failed to get the correct synonym for our word, or the synonym dictionary. The algorithm also mistakes the word Hundred to correspond to the letter c due to the Roman numeral representation of the word, which makes little sense.

Future Work Currently, in this report, we have fit the input data strictly into a rhyme scheme that consists solely of couplets, which means that the rhyme scheme is roughly AABBCC...

With a simple modification, we can expand our algorithm to allow for different rhyme schemes, perhaps those that can map to the target songs directly by following the songs’ rhyming patterns. In order to do this, we would just expand the rhyming module to accept a variable number of lines and just run the algorithm across all of the lines to find a group of rhyming words, which can then be propagated and placed in an order that fits the desired rhyme scheme.

References [1] Banerjee and Pedersen (2002). An Adapted Lesk Algorithm for Word Sense Disambiguation using WordNet - Appears in the Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Linguistics, pp. 136-145, February 17-23, 2002, Mexico City.

[2] Frankel, R., Levy, K., & Montag, K. (2010). The Metric System: Transforming Prose to Verse [Scholarly project]. In The Stanford Natural Language Processing Group. Retrieved December 13, 2016, from http://nlp.stanford.edu/courses/cs224n/2010/reports/rof-karalevy-kmontag.pdf [3] Nguyen, H., & Sa, B. (2009). Rap Lyric Generator [Scholarly project]. In The Stanford Natural Language Processing Group. Retrieved December 13, 2016, from http://nlp.stanford.edu/ courses/cs224n/2009/fp/5.pdf [4] Shotan, G., & Ferrer, R. (2013). CRhyme: A Computer Engine for Generating Rhyming Sentences [Scholarly project]. In The Stanford Natural Language Processing Group. Retrieved December 13, 2016, from http://nlp.stanford.edu/courses/cs224n/2013/reports/shotan.pdf

Appendix

MNEMONIC PARODIES

29

Below is the tomato entry from Simple Wikipedia English, followed by a transformation to iambic pentameter.

Tomato is a red fruit. It is shiny and smooth, and has many small seeds. The tomato is green when it is unripe. It is very sour and it is good for you. It slowly changes color from green to red as it gets more ripe. There are many different types of tomatoes. Most tomatoes are red, but some special kinds are yellow or orange when they are ripe. Also, some tomatoes are as small as strawberries, and some will become as big as apples. Tomatoes are used a lot in Italian food. They are also used to make ketchup. Sometimes, people mistake tomatoes for vegetables, but they are not, because they contain seeds. Tomato seeds are dispersed by being eaten by, and then passing through, animals.

Tomato is a ruby-red pick. It is shiny and smooth and crock-up. Many small seeds the cherry-tomato is teal when it is it’s tartness real And it rival good for you it slow color from green to ruby-red go as it grow more. There are many ripe of love-apple different type Most tomatoes cherry-red but some hold special ilk jibe or orange gold When they are ripe also some tomatoes embody as small as strawberry and some fee-tail become as big as tree Tomatoes used a parcel-out in be italian solid food they are too apply to ketchup sometimes. People do mistake tomato plant for vegetables but they lie in non because they contain preexist dispersed tomato seeds seed and then by sensual by feed

Psychology

Age as a Moderator of the Link between Eating Associations and Eating Disorder

Bryanna Schantz

“

Results suggest that the reporting of explicit associations between high-fat food and shame more strongly correlates with the presence of eating disorder behavior in young adults. .

�

Bryana Schantz graduated in May of 2017 from UVA, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology with High Distinction and Research Excellence in Psychology laboratory. She completed the Distinguished Majors Program and was selected to present her research findings at the Starling Reid Research Conference. Additionally, during her time as an undergraduate, Bryana worked as a Research Assistant under Dr. Teachman in the Program for Anxiety, Cognition and Treatment lab; volunteered as a ULink Peer Advisor; and volunteered in the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center and Emergency Department. Upon graduation, Bryana began working at a Cloud ERP Company in her hometown of Santa Barbara, California, while volunteering her free time scribing for Santa Barbara Street Medicine - Doctors Without Walls. Bryana will attend New York University in the fall of 2018 to complete a Masters of Arts degree in Clinical Psychology in pursuit of a career in this field.

32

Age as a Moderator of the Link between Eating Associations and Eating Disorder Bryanna Schantz University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America Past research has found that both implicit and explicit eating associations (regarding high-fat food as shameful vs. acceptable) are associated with eating disorder symptoms. However, evidence for this relationship is weak and prior work groups all participants together, thereby not addressing the potentially important issue of whether eating associations predict eating disorder symptoms more strongly for certain types of people. The present research examined age as a moderator of the link between (implicit and explicit) eating associations and eating disorder symptoms. It was hypothesized that eating associations would be stronger predictors of eating disorder symptoms among younger (vs. older) participants. Participants were adults recruited from the Project Implicit Mental Health Website (n=10,115; M=27.6 yrs; SD=11.4) who completed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) and a measure of explicit associations assessing high fat foods as shameful versus acceptable, as well as a measure of eating disorder symptoms (EAT-26).

As expected, higher levels of both implicit and explicit eating associations significantly predicted a higher level of eating disorder symptoms. Results from the moderation analyses indicated that age did not significantly moderate the link between the eating IAT and eating disorder symptoms, but did significantly moderate the link between explicit eating associations and eating disorder symptoms, such that explicit associations of high-fat food as shameful (vs. acceptable) more strongly predicts eating disorder symptoms for younger (vs. older) individuals. Further, findings suggest that more research is needed to understand how explicit eating attitudes form in younger adults and how they might convey risk for eating disorder symptoms.

Keywords: Eating-IAT; eating associations; age; moderator

Clinically-diagnosed eating disorders affect approximately 20 million women and 10 million men in the United States, making it an imperative issue to better understand, diagnose, and successfully treat (Wade, Keski-Rahkonen, & Hudson, 2011). Eating disorders have a significantly high degree of disease burden1 (Agras, 2001; Begg et al., 2007; Hay & Mond, 2005), including an array of negative effects on both mental and physical health, such as heart failure, osteoporosis, tooth decay, low self-esteem, negative impact on social relationships, and impaired functioning in school and work settings. Eating disorders are highly comorbid with anxiety disorders, depression, and various other mood disorders, making it crucial that researchers and clinicians examine alternative ways to assess eating disorder symptoms (Mangweth et al., 2003; NEDA, n.d.).

Implicit and Explicit Eating Associations Research on dual process models finds that humans process information via two distinct cognitive systems (Chaiken & Trope, 1999; Evans, 2008). One system processes information quickly and often outside conscious control, while the other processes Disease burden is defined as the amount of economic and human life costs (e.g. wellbeing and standard of life) that are due to physical or mental health issues (NCCID, 2016).

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AGE AS A MODERATOR

33

information slowly and with more effortful, conscious reflection (Evans, 2003; Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). Explicit and implicit tests of attitudes have been found to assess related yet distinct constructs (Nosek & Smyth, 2007) potentially due to the utilization of these two distinct pathways: for implicit tests, constructs that are more closely associated in one’s mind (e.g., shame and high-fat food) will produce a faster, uncontrollable automatic response when paired together, which forms the basis of implicit association measures that allow for indirect tests of the associations.

In contrast, assessing explicit associations can be a simple process, such as asking a straightforward question that evaluates a single dimension of an association (e.g. “do you view fat food as shameful?”). This is the typical approach to assessing attitudes in both research and clinical contexts. Due to the conscious nature of explicit processing, explicit measures are particularly subject to inter- or intra-personal factor biases. For example, since explicit associations allow time for self-reflection and deliberation, the reporting of explicit associations may be altered due to social judgments (e.g. fear of being judged for having an eating disorder (an interpersonal factor)) (Nosek, 2007).

Figure 1.

Age as a Moderator.

Studies have found that individuals with eating disorders who seek help often fail to continue with treatment (Bell, 2001; Palmer et al., 2000), or seek help and fail to be diagnosed (Hay, Marley, & Lemar, 1998; Johnson, Spitzer, & Williams, 2001). One reason is that they can be resistant to admitting the presence of an eating disorder/maladaptive eating behaviors due to embarrassment and social stigma (often with those suffering from Bulimia Nervosa) (Mond et al., 2006)). Therefore, it could be beneficial to have a means of assessing eating disorders other than relying on explicit self-reports, which can lead to biased responding. Although results across psychopathological disorders vary, an assessment tool that relies on implicit processes may provide useful information when explicit measures are prone to bias or gross inaccuracies, such as when people are motivated to provide dishonest responses due to social norms or may lack introspective access to their associations, as in the case of eating disorders (Roefs et al., 2011). Outside of explicit self-report methods, one tool that may be used in the assessment of eating disorders is the Implicit Associations Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwarts, 1998). Since people’s implicit associations in regards to food may influence eating-related behavior outside of conscious awareness, an eating IAT may be useful in identifying the presence of eating disorder symptoms that are not openly relayed to a mental health professional.

Integral to the IAT and central in various psychopathological theories (Werntz et al., 2016), automatic processing is important to understand. Diverging from past research and assumptions, Bargh (1989, 1992, 1994) and others introduced the idea of independently functioning features that make-up automaticity. Recent research suggests

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that automaticity should not be considered as a single construct. Rather, according to the “four horsemen of automaticity” (Bargh), there are four theoretically independent features of automaticity: unconscious, efficient, unintentional, and uncontrollable.

Unconscious may be defined as emotional stimuli that are processed outside of one’s conscious awareness. Efficiency may be defined as the requirement of minimal attentional resources necessary for processing. Unintentional may be defined as the processing of emotional meaning occurring without the presence/motivation of a particular goal.

Uncontrollable may be defined as not having the ability to control how or if emotional stimuli is processed. Since each feature making-up automaticity is considered as independent, not all of these elements must be present in order to for something to be considered automatic. Research suggests that due to the nature of the IAT, in which participants are instructed to categorize stimuli without paying attention to the paired category that is not involved in the determination of the immediate stimuli’s placement, the automatic processing that occurs during an IAT is considered to be uncontrollable (Teachman et al., 2012). Although assessing psychopathologies using automatic processing methods (e.g. the IAT) is a growing field (Asendorpf, Banse & Mucke, 2002; Roefs & Jansen, 2002; Jansen et. al, 2011), research examining the role of implicit and explicit associations in the domain of eating disorders is limited (Werntz et al., 2016).

Some research that has been conducted on the role of implicit and explicit eating associations in the domain of eating disorders has looked at implicit associations toward meal size, fattening foods, and body fat in a retrained and unrestrained eater population (Vartanian et al., 2004, 2005). Additional findings include positive correlations between self-reported eating disorder symptoms and implicit associations of anorexia and glamour (versus danger) (Thomas et al., 2006), as well as positive correlations between self-reported “drives for thinness” and an implicit association of positive attributes (vs. negative) with underweight figures (Anhern, Bennett, and Hetherington, 2008). However, no relation was found between implicit biases and body dissatisfaction in the previous study.

Overall, findings of previous studies examining implicit associations related to eating disorders have found unreliable associations between implicit associations and eating disorders, but an association between implicit associations and specific eating disorder symptoms (Teachman, Cody, & Clerkin, 2010). No studies have examined demographic moderators in the link between eating associations and eating disorder symptoms.

Age as a Potential Moderator An eating IAT specifically designed to assess eating disorder behavior was run on Project Implicit Mental Health’s (PIMH) website (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/). The eating IAT on PIMH assesses implicit associations of high-fat food as shameful versus acceptable. Eating disorder symptoms were measured with the EAT 26 self-report questionnaire, and a higher eating IAT score indicated a stronger association of high-fat food as shameful versus acceptable. Although the eating IAT was theorized to predict eating disorder symptoms, in a recent study by Werntz, Steinman, Glenn, Nock, & Teachman (2016), there was a significant, albeit weak association (r = .10; p<.001) between the eating IAT and eating disorder symptoms, and moderate associations (r =.41; p<.001) between the explicit associations measure and eating disorder symptoms.

One reason for this weak implicit and moderate explicit association may be that all participants were grouped together in the analyses, thereby not addressing the potentially important issue of whether the eating IAT predicts eating disorder symptoms more strongly for certain types of people.

Limited research has been conducted on moderator variables for implicit measures in relation to eating disorders. One review by Roefs et al. (2011), however, specifically examined implicit measures in psychopathology, including eating disorder behavior,

AGE AS A MODERATOR

35

and applied moderation analyses to further analyze how different factors impacted the strength between implicit associations and eating disorder behavior. In Roef et al.’s review, it was theorized that when the amount of self-regulatory resources and available cognitive resources were used as moderator variables, the strength of the relation between implicit associations and explicit eating behaviors increased when cognitive and self-regulation resources were limited.

The proposed research extends existing work by examining age as a moderator in the link between eating associations and eating disorder symptoms. Age as a moderator would provide insight into whether a specific demographic influences the strength of association between explicit and implicit associations (eating-IAT) and eating disorder behavior (measured by the EAT-26). Understanding age as a potential moderator would have important clinical implications such as providing further insight into the maladaptive associations formed in eating disorder-prone individuals of a particular demographic. Specifically, such insight could potentially help guide mental health professionals towards paths of treatment, including cognitive therapies geared toward disbanding the association of high-fat food with negative feelings of shame, that would be more successful in certain populations (e.g. young adults). Thus, in this study I propose to examine age as a moderator variable affecting the relationship between eating associations (both implicit and explicit) and the EAT 26.

The association between an implicit and explicit bias high-fat foods as shameful (versus acceptable) and eating disorder symptoms may be stronger for younger than older adults due to thin-ideal internalization promoted by media exposure. In a study conducted on the association between implicit associations of underweight models and eating disorder symptoms (Ahern et al., 2008), it was found that media prominence was a significant moderator variable. Specifically, the correlation between eating disorder symptoms and positive (versus negative) implicit associations of underweight models was stronger for those who reported heavily relying on social media as an information source. According to research conducted by Andrew Perrin (2015), 90% of social media users are between 18-29 years of age. Thus, it may be that, due to a high amount of exposure to advertisements that communicate social ideals about dieting and food consumption, younger people are more likely to internalize societal ideals for thinness and corresponding attitudes about food.

The relation between social ideals and eating disorder behavior is supported by a large amount of research showing the prominence of society’s thinness ideal. The prevalence of eating disorders has been found to largely stem from western society’s pressure to be thin and the emphasis placed on appearance (Pliner, 1990; Stice, 2001). Studies have shown that, over the years, thinness has become the current cultural ideal and standard of beauty in society (Silverstein et. al, 1986; Katzmarzyk & Davis, 2001; Owen & Laurel-Seller, 2000). Such unattainable thinness ideals have redefined what it means to be beautiful in America and have led to body dissatisfaction across the country (Pliner, 1990; Strahan, 2008). For example, research shows that perceived societal thinness ideals and emphasized sociocultural pressures placed on a women’s appearance (e.g. via media), leads women to internalize sociocultural norms and thin body ideals (Brown & Dittmar, 2005). There is mounting research that thin internalization is a risk factor for body dissatisfaction and for the development of eating disorders (Thompson & Stice, 2001; Rukavina & Bulian, 2006; Juarascio et. al, 2011). It is thus considered that social media may be used as a vehicle through which the thinness ideal, and consequently eating disorder behavior, is propagated and further endorsed among younger versus older people.

A longitudinal, data-analysis study conducted by Spitzer et al. (1999), provides disturbing evidence that the gap between the idealized body image portrayed in media and

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actual statistics on an average body size is growing larger. Thus, it is clear that in modern society there is a significant emphasis placed on thin body ideals that are unattainable and perpetuated through the continuous rise in media exposure, leading to rampant body dissatisfaction among women (Spitzer, 1999; Lin & Kulik, 2002; Holstrom, 2004).

Since high fat foods pose a health risk for older adults who are concerned about longevity and vitality, relative to younger adults who do not have such health concerns, it may be that associations of high fat foods as shameful would be a weaker predictor of eating disorder symptoms in older adults (but would be a stronger predictor of health-related outcomes, such as cardiovascular health). In Pliner’s research (1990), it is explained that “midlife is characterized by a focus on activity, achievement, power and control” and that “adulthood individuals increasingly occupy positions of power and status, which might convey a sense of self-worth”. Since beliefs about one’s appearance is factored into a person’s self-worth, and a low sense of self-worth has been linked to eating disorder behavior (Cervera et al., 2003), I would therefore predict that older adults would not form the same connection between shame and high fat foods that is linked to appearance as younger people due to their more stable self concept. Instead, older adults may still associate high-fat food with shame, but this association with high fat food would be for reasons other than achieving the thinness ideal. Specifically, research has found that the importance placed on appearance decreases as individuals age (Tiggemann, 2004). One plausible explanation for this decreased emphasis on appearance over time may be that Characteristics

Mental Health Study: Eating (n=10,115)

Mean (SD) age in years Sex (% female) Ethnicity (%) Non-Hispanic Hispanic Unknown/did not report Race (%) Caucasian Asian African American Multiracial Other Did not report Education (%) Graduate degree Bachelor’s degree Some college High school Less than high school Did not report

27.6 (11.4) 76.6 78.0 10.5 11.5 68.4 7.1 6.5 5.1 8.3 4.6 15.9 24.7 41.0 12.0 3.9 2.5

Table 1.

Participant Characteristics.

older adults are concerned with different factors in relation to food, other than appearance. For example, it is found that as adults age, they alter the way they think about food, shifting their attention and emphasis from appearance to issues related to nutrients and

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health (Elsner, 2002). A study by Llyod-Jones et al. (2006) shows that more than 50% of men and 40% of women are at a lifetime risk of developing cardiovascular disease at age 50, and that the chance of developing cardiovascular disease after the age of 50 further increases, and years of survival decrease in the presence of risk factors such as high-blood pressure, increased cholesterol, and diabetes (all potential risk factors associated with high-fat foods).

Hypotheses Overall, due to a greater health concern related to high-fat foods with older adults, I hypothesize that implicit and explicit eating associations will have a stronger association with eating disorder symptoms among younger (versus older) individuals. Additionally, due to the societal thin ideal perpetuated through media, I hypothesize that implicit and explicit eating associations will have a stronger association with eating disorder symptoms in younger adults. An open question is whether age would be a stronger moderator in the link between explicit eating attitudes and eating disorder symptoms, or between implicit eating attitudes and eating disorder symptoms.

Methods Data was extracted from Project Implicit Mental Health (PIMH; www.ImplictMentalHealth.com), a popular research and education website. Examples of the various topics with implicit and explicit measures include: mental health treatment, self-esteem, alcohol, depression, anxiety, and eating. For my area of interest, I will be focusing on data from the eating IAT offered on PIMH.

Table 2.

Categories and Stimuli for Implicit Association Test.

Category

Stimuli

High-fat food Low-fat food

Fries, cake, candy, chocolate Salad, carrots, fruit, cucumber Disgraceful, bad, embarrassing, shameful Suitable, good, appropriate, acceptable

Shameful Acceptable

Participants Between September 2011 and May 2014, a total of 10,115 participants (m = 27.6 yrs (SD = 11.4)) completed the eating study available on PIMH. All participants completed the same measures and tasks. On average, the sample was more racially diverse and more educated than the U.S. population according to the United States Census Bureau (2013, 2015a). Table 1 contains information regarding participant characteristics.

Measures Demographics. Participants completed a demographics form asking about their age, gender, ethnicity, race, and educational attainment.

Implicit Associations. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) classifies stimuli associated with two sets of distinct, contrasting categories. The categories are explicitly labeled (i.e., “high-fat food”, “low-fat food”, “acceptable”, “shameful”) and paired to contradict or match the target construct, thus testing automatic associations (e.g., food related implicit associations). Reference Table 2 for a list of the presented categories and associated stimuli. During the IAT, seven blocks of varying categories and stimuli were presented to participants. The first two blocks contained practice trials that only presented categories

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and stimuli from one set (e.g. “high-fat food” and “low-fat food”). Stimuli from one of the categories were then presented on the middle of the monitor one at a time. The participants must match the stimuli with its corresponding category by pressing the letter “e” on their keyboard for stimuli categorized on the left-side of the screen, and the letter “i” for stimuli categorized on the right. Block three, with twenty trials, and block four, with thirty trials, were critical blocks. For the critical blocks, there was one comparison category paired with a contrasting category (e.g. “high-fat food” paired with “acceptable” and “low-fat food” paired with “shameful”). Participants continued to categorize stimuli as before, except with two categories per monitor side present for stimuli classification.

Category To what extent do you think of high-fat foods as acceptable or shameful?

To what extent do you think of high-fat foods as acceptable or shameful?

Response Options Extremely acceptable, very acceptable, moderately acceptable, slightly acceptable, neither acceptable nor shameful, slightly shameful, moderately shameful, very shameful, extremely shameful

Table 3.

Questions and Response Options for Explicit Associations Measure.

Block five had forty practice trials with “high-fat food”/“low-fat food” categories remaining on their respective sides of the monitor, while the “shameful”/“acceptable” contrasting categories switched. Blocks six and seven were formatted the same as blocks three and four, except with reversed category pairings. For the four critical block conditions, the order in which the contrasting categories were paired remained randomized for each participant session. A higher score on the eating IAT indicated a stronger high-fat food as shameful (versus acceptable) association. Eating-IAT data was scored according to Greenwald (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banjo, 2003; Nosek, Bar-Anan, Sriram, & Greenwald, 2012) using D scores. D scores were calculated using differences in response times between the two target categories, and dividing by the standard deviation across all of the blocks.

Explicit Associations. Participants were asked to explicitly rate their feelings toward food as shameful versus acceptable in a format that semantically matched the IAT’s contrasting categories (Table 3). Scores concerning “high-fat foods” and “low-fat foods” were subtracted from one another to obtain a single explicit association score. A higher score indicated a greater explicit association of high-fat food as shameful. The explicit associations assessed the same associations between constructs as those addressed in the IAT. Thus, the inclusion of the explicit association measures was to provide an explicit measure comparable to the implicit measure.

Eating Disorder Symptoms. The Eating Attitudes Test-26 (EAT-26; Garner, 1982) is a self-report measure used to assess eating disorder symptoms. The EAT-26 contains 26 questions that participants rate on a numerical scale. The scale is between 0 and 3; a score of 0 indicates the presence of that behavior “sometimes”, “rarely” or “never”, a score of 1 indicates “often”, a score of 2 indicates “usually”, and a score of 3 indicates “always” (with the exception of question 26, in which the scoring is reversed). Reference Appendix for the survey questions included in the EAT-26 measure. According to Garner et al. (1982), the EAT-26, as an eating-disorder symptom measure in non-clinical samples, indicated strong internal consistency as well as construct validity (e.g. Mintz & O’Halloran, 2000).

There was good internal consistency of this scale in the current study (Cronbach’s Alpha = .91).

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AGE AS A MODERATOR Variable

Coefficient (β)

Mean (SD) age in years Less than high school Did not report

-.070 **p<.001 .40 **p<.001 -.044 **p<.001

95% Confidence Interval [-.089, -.051] [.39, .42] [-.064, -.025]

Table 4.

Effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals of age, explicit associations, and their interaction, in predicting eating disorder symptoms (n=9350).

Note: The amount of added variance explained by the interaction term was significant (ΔR²=.002, F(1,9346)=20.39, p<.001).

Procedure After independently selecting the eating IAT on the PIMH website (i.e., participants were not randomly assigned to topics), participants were prompted to read and complete an informed consent form that included information on the study. Once consent was given, the participants were administered the IAT, the explicit associations measure, the EAT-26 and the demographic questions in random order, except that the EAT-26 was always directly followed by the explicit associations measure. At the end of the study, participants were fully debriefed and, at their discretion, allowed to view their IAT score and corresponding feedback. An example of the feedback participants received followed the following format: “Your Result: Your implicit data suggest that you strongly associate ACCEPTABLE more with LOW-FAT FOODS than HIGH-FAT FOODS”.

Data Cleaning and Plan for Analyses Data for this study was previously presented in Werntz et al. (2016). Before analyses were conducted, outliers were removed and skewed variables were transformed. Outliers were removed from the EAT-26 data if less than 80% of the questionnaire items were completed. With outliers removed, 9416 participants’ EAT-26 scores remained for analysis (93.1% of the original 10,115 sample). Outliers were additionally removed according to median absolute deviation (MAD) in the implicit associations measure (Eating-IAT), the symptoms measure (EAT-26), and age domains. Extreme outliers with a MAD of 3 or more (Leys et. al, 2013) were removed, accounting for .5% of the Eating-IAT sample (53), and .4% of the EAT-26 sample (41). Due to a large amount of outliers in the age domain, none were removed from the dataset.

Q-Q plots were used to visually determine normality of the variables. The Eating-IAT showed a negative skew, so the implicit variable was reflected, transformed using a square-root transformation, and reflected once more. The EAT-26 variable was positively skewed, so it was square-root transformed as well (with the addition of 1 as a constant). It should be noted that age across domains was significantly positively skewed.

To test the main effects of age and eating associations predicting eating disorder symptoms, simple linear regression analyses were computed. In separate analyses, age, explicit eating associations, and implicit eating associations served as the independent variable and eating disorder symptoms served as the dependent variable. To test the hypotheses that age would moderate the link between (explicit and implicit) eating associations and eating disorder symptoms, a moderation analysis using the PROCESS macro by Andrew F. Hayes (2016) was conducted. PROCESS uses bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples to

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obtain 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals, and allows for examining the association between the independent variable and the dependent variable at different levels of the moderator (at the mean, and one standard deviation above and below). I examined two models, one for explicit associations and one for implicit associations. For each model, scores of explicit or implicit associations was the independent variable, scores from the EAT-26 was the dependent variable, and age was entered as a continuous moderator variable. Standardized scores were used in all analyses.

Results Explicit Associations Before moderation analyses were conducted, the linear regression results obtained by Werntz et. al (2016) were replicated. As expected, moderate associations were found between explicit eating associations and eating disorder symptoms (r=.41; p<.001; [.39, .42]).

Table 4 displays the results from the analysis using age as a moderator for the link between explicit eating associations and eating disorder behavior (EAT-26). In line with the hypotheses, in terms of main effects, it was found that age was a significant negative predictor of EAT-26 scores (β = -.070; p<.001; [-.089, -.051]). As expected, the significant interaction indicated age moderated the effect of explicit associations on EAT-26 scores (β = -.044; p<.001; [-.064, -.025]). The R2 increase due to the interaction of explicit eating associations and age is .002, F(1, 9346) = 20.39, p<.001. Reference Table 5 to view the interaction effect of explicit eating associations on eating disorder symptoms at increasing values of age. The effects indicate that as individuals increase in age, the association between explicit eating associations and eating disorder symptoms becomes weaker. Therefore, these results suggest that among individuals younger in age, explicit associations of high fat foods as shameful (vs. acceptable) are more strongly associated with eating disorder symptoms.

Implicit Associations The data was replicated using a simple linear regression to produce the same results obtained by Werntz et. al (2016). As expected, the main effect found a significant, albeit weak positive association between the Eating-IAT and eating disorder symptoms (β = .12; p<.001; [.10, .14]). Additionally, as expected and as found in the previous analyses, the main effect found age to significantly negatively predict eating disorder behavior (β = -.13; p<.001; [-.16, -.11]). Contrary to the hypotheses, it was found that age did not significantly moderate the relationship between Eating-IAT on EAT-26 scores (β = -.013, p = .26). The R2 increase due to the interaction of implicit eating associations and age is .0002, F(1, 7865) = 1.25, p = .26. These results suggest that age as a moderator did not alter the strength of the association. Table 6 displays these results.

Age × Explicit Association 18 27 39

Coefficient (β) .44 .40 .36

95% Confidence Interval [.42, .47] [.39, .42] [.33, .39]

Table 5.

Conditional effect of explicit eating associations on eating disorder symptoms at three values of age (mean, 1 SD below, 1 SD above)

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AGE AS A MODERATOR Variable

Coefficient (β)

Age Implicit Association of Food and Shame Age × Implicit Association of Food and Shame

-.13 **p<.001 .12 **p<.001

95% Confidence Interval [-.16, -.11] [.10, .14]

-.013

[-.03, .01]

Table 6.

Effect sizes and 95% confidence intervals of age, explicit associations, and their interaction, in predicting eating disorder symptoms (n=9350).

Note: The amount of added variance explained by the interaction term was significant (ΔR²=.002, F(1,9346)=20.39, p<.001).

Discussion The current study examined a novel question of whether age is a moderator between implicit and explicit eating associations and eating disorder behavior. Contrary to hypotheses, age did not moderate the strength of the association between the Eating-IAT and eating disorder behavior. However, in line with hypotheses, age significantly moderated the link between explicit high-fat food/shame associations and eating disorder behavior. Therefore, results suggest that the reporting of explicit associations between high-fat food and shame more strongly correlates with the presence of eating disorder behavior in young adults.

The finding that age predicts eating disorder behavior shows further evidence indicating a trend in younger generations to engage in more eating disorder behavior, potentially due to social peer-pressures, cultural norms, etc. That younger adults are more likely to engage in eating disorder behavior makes it important that health professionals closely monitor this specific population. For example, it could be useful to develop intervention programs that target young individuals to eat healthier. One such intervention could be placing a heavy focus on the importance of nutrients and eating a balanced meal, which includes healthy fats, carbohydrates, etc., in health classes taken by high school, middle school, and even elementary school students.

The central finding that age significantly moderated the link between explicit eating associations and eating disorder behavior has potential implications. One implication of the findings is that younger adults may be more aware of the link between their eating behaviors and their attitudes toward food. One possibility is that young adults openly recognize and express their association of high-fat foods with shame and are therefore more prone to engaging in eating disorder behavior since those eating associations are constantly under conscious awareness. Another possible factor is that younger adults could potentially be more susceptible to social bias due to society’s high pressure to be thin. They may adapt their eating behaviors to be more in line with maladaptive eating disorder behaviors, feeling as if it is the socially acceptable response to report finding high-fat food as shameful. An additional implication in finding age as a moderator of explicit associations but not implicit associations is that the Eating-IAT on PIMH may potentially not be assessing the correct associations underlying eating disorder symptomology. Specifically, there is a potential that the implicit association of high-fat food as shameful may be more strongly predictive of eating disorder behavior for young adults with a specific type of eating disorder. Thus, the moderation effect of age may be blunted by the use of one implicit measure to assess all types of eating disorder behavior and the

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assumption that the same associations (i.e. high-fat food as shameful) universally drive all eating disorder types.

Clinically, the results from this study suggest the potential use of an explicit measure of food/shame associations to be administered to young adults to assess the possible presence of eating disorder behavior. An explicit measure could be used as a diagnostic tool by health care professionals to assess maladaptive eating cognitions in young adults. It will be important for future work to understand the root of eating disorder behavior in young adults as possibly stemming from a maladaptive association of high-fat food with shame, which may provide important information that could help target the treatment provided by a mental health professional. For example, for younger patients, mental health professionals could target eating disorder prone individuals to view food more positively and assign the keeping of a food diary. With the food diary, professionals should emphasize that individuals work on incorporating appropriate proportions of healthy “fats” into their diets and not deprive themselves of the occasional “unhealthy” treat in moderation.

Limitations and Future Directions One limitation from the data used in the current analyses is that there was relatively little variability in age (m = 27.6 yrs; SD = 11.4) compared to a nationally representative sample. There is a potential that with greater variance in age, an even larger moderation effect would be detected with the explicit associations measure. Additionally, it is noted that the sample was not representative of any one population (Werntz et. al, 2016) and found to be, on average, more racially diverse than the U.S. population (United States Census Bureau, 2013) and to contain citizens of 173 countries, with 28.8% of the sample population from countries outside of the U.S. There is a possibility that results may have been impacted due to the racial and geographic diversity of the population and the associated cultural differences (e.g. different norms in types of food consumption, as well as exposure to thinness ideal). Future research should re-conduct this study with a nationally representative sample of Americans. Further, a limitation of the current study could be that variables such as geographic location and gender were not accounted for.

It is recommended that future research as well examine the effects of the participant’s location of residence and gender on explicit and implicit associations. For example, since eating disorders occur more frequently in women than men, it may be that age moderates the link between eating associations and eating disorder symptoms only among women.

A limitation in regards to the Eating-IAT utilized in this study is that the sensitivity of the IAT used may have been blunted because there was no differentiation between different types of eating disorders. The Eating-IAT targeted a high-fat food/shame association in all participants irrespective of the type of eating disorder the particular individual may suffer from. Understanding the casual mechanisms of different types of eating disorders is essential for developing an IAT that targets relevant implicit biases.

For example, the DSM-V lists three separate eating disorders for clinical diagnosis: binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, and anorexia nervosa. Binge Eating Disorder is defined as periods of excessive eating in a short amount of time, often associated with feelings of being out of control, embarrassment, guilt, and/or disgust with oneself (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Bulimia Nervosa is categorized as the unhealthy binging and purging of foods and is associated with high internal shame (Goss & Allan, 2009).

Anorexia Nervosa is categorized as the refusal to consume a healthy portion of food due to a distorted and disturbed body image and fear of weight gain. Individuals suffering from Anorexia often deprive their body of necessary nutrients and have an unhealthily low body-weight (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Each type of eating disorder listed by the DSM-V may have in common a focus on appearance and weight, however,

AGE AS A MODERATOR

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it is clear that each type of eating disorder is specific in nature and rooted in various causal mechanisms that were not accounted for in this study. Thus, it is possible that different eating disorder types may have acted as a confounding variable not accounted for in the study.

In a related sense, an area for future research could look at the effect of eating disorder types on the link between eating associations and eating disorder behavior. Specifically, it would be interesting to conduct further research assessing the link between implicit associations and eating disorder behavior for a specific eating disorder population. An area for future research could assess whether the correlation between the Eating-IAT and eating disorder behavior is strengthened based on eating disorder type, and whether age significantly moderates the association when eating disorder type is controlled for.

Specifically, a major difference between individuals with anorexia nervosa compared to individuals with bulimia nervosa is that while people diagnosed with anorexia display high control and rigidity, people with bulimia display increased impulsivity and affective instability (Vitousek & Manke, 1994). Thus, since there is evidence that implicit measures are found to be predictive of impulsive behaviors (Dotsch & Wigboldus, 2008), the Eating-IAT has the potential to be a strong diagnostic tool for individuals displaying impulsive behavior. Therefore, future research should assess whether an implicit measure, such as the Eating-IAT, would be a stronger predictor for eating disorder behavior when selecting for clinically diagnosed bulimic and binge eating individuals.

Future research could examine the role of shame on implicit eating associations predicting eating disorder behavior. It should be assessed whether an increased level of internalized shame, for example measured with the ISS2 developed by Cook (1994), would impact an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s implicit food/shame associations. Specifically, researchers could try to manipulate implicit associations of high fat foods as shameful or not (e.g., by having people read persuasive essays) and see whether in individuals with greater internalized shame this leads to feelings of externalized shame associated with food and consequently more disordered eating behavior.

Finally, the current research was limited in that there was no question incorporated into the eating study that assessed the participantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exposure to social media. Further research should incorporate a question assessing social media usage in the eating study available on PIMH and examine the role social media plays in the link between eating associations and eating disorder behavior and whether or not controlling for social media usage changes the current results of the study. It is possible that constant exposure to social media is partially responsible for the constant bombardment of the thin ideal that makes these food/shame explicit associations ever present in conscious awareness.

Better understanding what variables, such as social media exposure, contribute to the finding that younger adults have a stronger link between explicit eating associations and eating disorder behavior will better guide mental health professionals in their targets for treatment.

Conclusion Overall, this study suggests that age moderates the link between explicit eating associations and reported eating disorder behavior. Stemming from these findings, I have outlined various directions for future research. Ultimately, I hope this avenue of research will lead to a better understanding of the factors linked to unhealthy cognitions in individuals prone to eating disorder behavior, and will one day lead to more effective treatments for specific types of people suffering from eating disorders.

The ISS was developed to measure levels of internalized shame as a global self-construct in various clinical populations (Gloss & Allan, 2009).

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Appendix EAT-26 Survey.

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Environmental Engineering

Evaluating the Sustainability of Energy Production from Winery Waste in Central Virginia

Cameron McCarty, Gabrielle Schleppenbach, and Curtis Davis

“

HTL treatment of winery wastes offers a convenient method for producing biocrude that is compatible with existing petroleum infrastructure.

”

Cameron McCarty is a fourth year student from Roanoke, Virginia. She studies Civil & Environmental Engineering with a minor in Global Sustainability. She is a member of the American Society of Engineers and the University Dance Club.

Gabrielle Schleppenbach is a fourth year student from Vienna, Virginia studying in civil engineering with a minor in global sustainability. At UVA, Gabrielle is a member of the Club Swim team, AΩE sorority, and ASCE. Curtis Davis is a fourth-year from Charlottesville, VA, majoring in Civil and Environmental Engineering and minoring in Environmental Science. He does research with his graduate student mentor, Sarah, and with Sally Pusede and Manuel Lerdau in the Department of Environmental Science. In his free time, he goes hiking with his wife, Abby, and their dog, Calla.

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Evaluating the Sustainability of Energy Production from Winery Waste in Central Virginia Cameron McCarty, Gabrielle Schleppenbach, and Curtis Davis University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America Around the world, energy production is an increasingly crucial necessity to manage society, but the current energy production processes are often destructive to the environment and require large amounts of water. To address this issue, this paper assesses the feasibility and sustainability of converting winery waste from Central Virginia into biocrude through the process of hydrothermal liquefaction. This was accomplished by characterizing both white and red winery waste feedstocks, converting these wastes into biocrude via hydrothermal liquefaction, separating the products, and characterizing each of them based on quality and quantity. The products of the hydrothermal liquefaction conversion are biocrude, aqueous coproduct, and biochar.

The results indicate that hydrothermal liquefaction was successful in producing biocrude, but substantial amounts of nutrient rich aqueous co-product were also produced. Compared to raw municipal wastewater and raw industrial wastewater, the aqueous co-product had much higher concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus which would require pre-treatment before discharge into a wastewater treatment plant. Despite this, the appreciable quantities of nitrogen and phosphorus in the aqueous co-product are potentially recoverable as fertilizer. This could act as a form of wastewater treatment and increase the sustainability of the process.

Hydrothermal liquefaction of winery waste has the potential to become an effective alternative fuel source, because the refined biocrude is suitable for use in petroleum infrastructure, such as modes of transportation. However, further calculations of the overall life cycle are needed to determine its practicality and sustainability impacts, as well as whether it will provide an overall positive energy return on investment.

Introduction As society increasingly relies on the daily use of energy-intensive technologies, there is a strong push to meet these needs, despite the fact that traditional methods for producing energy generate high amounts of pollution and have significant adverse impacts on the environment. As a result of this high energy usage, primarily from fossil fuels, there has been a significant rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions leading to climate change. Additionally, energy and water have a reciprocal relationship in that a large quantity of water is required to produce energy and a large quantity of energy is required to treat water. This relationship is known as the Water-Energy Nexus (Department of Energy). With clean water sources becoming scarcer, it is even more necessary for society to adopt renewable energy production practices that also minimize negative environmental byproducts.

Due to our rising need for energy and our deteriorating environmental conditions, it has become increasingly necessary to develop alternative energy sources. Biofuels are a particularly appealing option, as they are renewable and can be produced from local feedstocks. Biofuels can be generated via hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL), which is a

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process that utilizes high temperatures and pressures to convert wet biomass into liquid biocrude that is compatible with existing petroleum infrastructure (Toor et. al., 2011).

HTL is unique in that it treats wet materials, which eliminates the need to use additional energy to dry out the biomass before conversion. However, first generation biofuels, such as algae, have been found to have a significant water footprint (Dominguez-Faus et al., 2009). Second generation biofuels, on the other hand, are produced from various waste products, making them more desirable as both waste treatment and storage become bigger concerns. The reuse of waste could help offset our use of fossil fuels and limit our dependence on foreign countries for energy, while minimizing our landfill use.

Additionally, by using local wastes specific to a region, transportation costs are lowered and feedstocks are abundant. For Virginia in particular, the wine industry is a growing agricultural waste producer (Frank, 2017), and its waste has the potential to be converted into a biofuel.

Over the past few decades, the wine industry in Virginia has grown significantly (Monticello Wine Trail, 2017). Virginia has 3,173 acres of wine grapes, which makes it the fifth-largest producer of wine grapes in the U.S. (Bhattarai, 2016). Each vineyard produces substantial amounts of solid and liquid waste as byproducts of wine production.

For example, Blenheim Vineyards in Charlottesville, VA produces 60 tons of waste per year consisting of both solid and liquid components (Kirsty Harmon, personal communication, October 13, 2017). Since Blenheim is a relatively small vineyard, extrapolation estimates that the 33 wineries of the Monticello Wine Trail cumulatively produce at least 1,980 tons of waste a year which must be treated and managed. At Blenheim Vineyards, grape pomace, which includes the grape seeds, skins, and stems, is collected and used as compost for the vineyard or picked up by local farmers for use as fodder for their cows and pigs. While the use of this waste as animal feed is sustainable, the liquid waste is much more difficult to treat; it cannot be discharged directly into a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) or receiving waters, because it is very acidic and contains high levels of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. This waste, more commonly known as lees, must be collected in a septic tank and treated for acidity before it is sent to a local WWTP. Although Blenheim Vineyards only produces ~18 tons of lees each year, many wineries in Central Virginia are much larger, so the consolidation of this waste creates a significant need and the potential to find a more sustainable treatment and use for lees waste (Kirsty Harmon, personal communication, October 13, 2017).

Previously published literature shows that there is interest in generating energy from the winemaking process. Zheng et al. (2012) studied the possibility of bioethanol generation through microbial fermentation. Benetto et al. (2015) performed a life cycle assessment of the combustion of winery waste to generate heat. However, both processes utilize grape pomace and require a drying step before conversion, increasing energy costs. Lees, on the other hand, has very high-water content, which makes it ideal for treatment by HTL, as the optimal water content for HTL feedstocks is 90% (Jena et. al., 2011). Currently, the use of lees as a feedstock has yet to be investigated; therefore, there is an opportunity for research into this prospect.

Because HTL makes use of wet biomass, it in turn produces a great deal of wastewater, known as aqueous co-product (ACP) (Toor et. al., 2011). While there are a few HTL studies, using algae as a feedstock, that have characterized ACP (Gai et. al., 2015; Tommaso et. al., 2015), the majority of HTL research focuses on optimizing biocrude production. Chen et al. (2014) used various HTL retention times and temperatures to investigate the optimal conditions for biocrude production from an algae feedstock. Cao et al. (2016) studies biocrude production from many different feedstocks to determine which provides the highest heating value. These studies ignore the potentially harmful

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impacts that ACP could have on our environment and waterways; issues which need to be addressed when discussing HTL conversion as an energy alternative. Thus, the goal of this research is to assess the feasibility and sustainability of converting winery waste into biocrude via HTL. There are two key objectives of this research: 1) characterization of winery waste feedstocks and the byproducts created during the conversion of raw winery waste to biocrude via HTL and 2) evaluation of the ACP for quantity, quality, and nutrient recoverability in order to assess the environmental and water quality impacts of HTL conversion of winery waste.

Methodology In order to satisfy the objectives of this thesis, research and several laboratory experiments were conducted. The laboratory experiments included: 1) raw waste feedstock characterization, 2) HTL conversion experiments, and 3) quantification and characterization of HTL byproducts. These experiments were conducted on raw waste feedstocks, including fermented and unfermented lees generated from the production of both white and red wines from Blenheim Vineyards in Charlottesville, VA. Winemaking Process and Waste Generation To assess the logistical feasibility and sustainability of making biocrude from winery waste feedstocks via HTL, it was first necessary to understand the winemaking process for white and red wines produced in Central Virginia. Blenheim Vineyards, a small-scale winery in Charlottesville, VA, was selected as a case study. Blenheim produces 8,000 cases of wine per year. Information about the production of white and red wines, especially as pertaining to the generation of wastes, was collected via an interview with Kirsty Harmon, the winemaker at Blenheim. From this communication, a process flow diagram of the winemaking process and waste generation was created.

Figure 1.

White lees (left) and red lees (right) waste samples from Blenheim Vineyards in Central Virginia.

Winery Waste Feedstock Characterization Winery waste samples were collected from Blenheim, including both fermented white lees and unfermented red lees (Figure 1). Each year, approximately 4.5 pounds of this waste is generated for each case of wine produced. Approximately 2 liters of both the white and red lees were collected in glass jugs. Upon collection, the samples were characterized for water content. An elemental composition was later performed, and the samples were then stored at 4 °C prior to HTL processing. Before each characterization, the samples were mixed to ensure there was an even distribution throughout. Feedstock characterization protocols were based on Huang et al. (2013) and Pham et al. (2013).

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Water Content Winery waste feedstocks were analyzed for water content, total suspended solids (TSS), volatile solids (VS) and ash content according to APHA Standards. To evaluate the water content of the winery waste feedstocks, filters were placed in four tins and put in the oven at 105 °C for approximately ten minutes to remove moisture. The tins were then placed in a desiccator to sit as each tin was weighed. Approximately two grams of either white or red lees were poured onto the filter and weighed again, making two samples of the white lees and two of the red lees. The four samples were then placed in the oven for 24 hours to remove the water. The next day, each sample was weighed again to determine the water content. All feedstocks were adjusted to a solids content of 10% (m/m) via addition of deionized (DI) water, resulting in a paste-like consistency (Jena et al., 2011).

Figure 2.

Parr Pressure Reactor (left) and Parr 4843 Control Panel (right) used for HTL processing.

Elemental Composition Samples of both the white and red lees were dried in an oven at 105 °C for 24 hours.

Elemental composition was measured directly using a Thermo Scientific Flash 2000 NC Soil Analyzer to determine the percent content of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen in each sample.

HTL Conversion HTL experiments were performed in triplicate with a Parr Pressure Reactor, based on procedures used by Garcia Alba et al. (2012) and Pham et al. (2013). In brief, 100 g samples were prepared by adding DI water to both the white and red lees to reach a solid content of 10% (m/m). Each sample was placed in the reactor casing, and the pressure gauge was attached to the top of the reactor (Figure 2, left). Once all attachments were secured onto the reactor, it was placed on the reactor stand and secured. The Staco Energy Company Model 3PN1010B external heater was then attached to the base of the reactor, and the stirring mechanism was attached to the top of the reactor. Finally, the Ashcroft Duralife external pressure gauge line was attached to the pressure gauge, and the gas line was attached to the reactor. The reactor was purged with pure nitrogen gas three times to reach a starting pressure of 100 psi.

The Parr 4843 Control Panel (Figure 2, right) was used to set the temperature, pressure, and rotation speed of the reactor. The external heater was turned on and heated up to a hold temperature of 300 ± 5 °C at a rate of 8-10 °C/min. The reactor was held at that temperature for a retention time of 30 minutes and the rotation speed was set to 300 rpm. After 30 minutes, the external heater was turned off and removed to begin the

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cooling process. The rotation speed was lowered to 50 rpm. Approximately two hours later, the reactor was cool enough to remove the sample (â&#x2030;¤ 40°C). The excess pressure was released by purging the gas. Finally, the reactor was disassembled and the sample was removed.

Characterization of Resulting HTL Products

Figure 3.

Once the HTL conversion process was complete, the resulting products were separated and analyzed. The products include biochar, biocrude, biogas, and aqueous co-product (ACP).

The biogas was vented and not measured in this study.

HTL Product Phase Separation

After the white and red lees samples were separately reacted via the HTL conversion process in triplicate, the corresponding products were separated for individual analysis. First, the biochar was extracted from the liquid phase. To begin, three tins with filters were placed in the oven for ten minutes to remove moisture and then weighed. Then, the post-HTL conversion sample was put through a filtration apparatus in which it was poured onto a filter that caught the biochar and allowed the biocrude and ACP to flow into the flask below. A GE AC external motor was connected to the bottom flask to pull the liquids through and expedite the process. Once some of the sample was poured through, the top part of the apparatus was disconnected to place the filter and accumulated biochar onto the tin to be weighed (Figure 3). This process was completed a second time to collect all of the liquid from the sample. With all of the liquid separated from the biochar, the biocrude and ACP mixture was measured and placed into two vials for later analysis.

Once only biochar remained in the beaker, DI water was used to remove the biochar from the beaker and the sides of the apparatus. Once this final filtration was complete, the tins were weighed and then placed in the oven for 12 hours to remove all of the moisture within the biochar. The dry samples were then weighed to find the mass of the dry biochar resulting from the HTL conversion. The elemental composition of the biochar was then determined using a Thermo Scientific Flash 2000 NC Soil Analyzer.

This process was repeated for each post-HTL sample.

Second, liquid biocrude was recovered using a separation technique adapted from Xu and Savage (2014). With the remaining liquid after the biochar separation, 4 mL of a sample was placed in 25 test tubes. Then, 8 mL of dichloromethane (DCM) was pipetted into each test tube. Once the test tubes were prepared, they were shaken for approximately 30 seconds to mix the liquids. Then, the test tubes were placed in a centrifuge, set to 1,000 rpm at room temperature, for 20 minutes. Once this was complete, there was a clear phase separation between the ACP (on top) and the biocrude and DCM (on the bottom). The ACP was then pipetted out of each test tube and the final amount of ACP and biocrude for each sample was measured. This process was completed for all six post-HTL samples.

Characterization of ACP Biochar separation on filter before weighing.

Once the ACP was fully separated from the biocrude, it was characterized using EPA Standard Methods and commercial HACH kits. ACPs were characterized based on

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traditional wastewater parameters, including chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), reactive phosphorus, ammonium, nitrate, and pH. ACP resulting from the HTL reactions of white and red lees were analyzed for these nutrients using their respective HACH kit. Samples were diluted in order for their reading to be in the appropriate range for each test. For COD, HACH kit Method 10212 was directly followed according to the procedural instructions. For this test, the white samples were diluted by 10, and the red samples were diluted by 20. They were heated in a HACH DRB 200 Digestion Reactor and were read by the HACH DR 3900 Spectrophotometer. For TN, HACH kit Method 10072 was directly followed according to the procedural instructions. For this test, the white samples were diluted by 25, and the red samples were diluted by 50. They were heated in the same reactor and the same spectrophotometer was used. For TP, HACH kit Method 10127 was directly followed according to the procedural instructions. For this test, the white samples were diluted by 25, and the red samples were diluted by 50. They were heated in the same reactor and the same spectrophotometer was used. For reactive phosphorus, HACH kit Method 10210 was directly followed according to the procedural instructions. For this test, two of the white samples were diluted by 25, one white sample was diluted by 10, and the red samples were diluted by 50. The same spectrophotometer was used. For ammonium, HACH kit Method 10031 was directly followed according to the procedural instructions. For this test, the white samples were diluted by 25, and the red samples were diluted by 50. The same spectrophotometer was used. For nitrate, HACH kit Method 10020 was directly followed according to the procedural instructions. For this test, the white samples were diluted by 10, and the red samples were diluted by 20. The same spectrophotometer was used. For pH, the samples were not diluted in order to get an accurate measurement. A Fisher Science Education pH Meter was calibrated and rinsed with DI water. Then, it was placed into each sample to get an accurate pH reading when ready.

Results and Discussion

Figure 4.

Winemaking process for white wine: Steps 1-12 depict the process and steps 13-14 depict the collection of the grape pomace and lees waste. Ingredients added to the process are shown with dashed lines and wastes are shown with bolded lines.

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To satisfy the objectives of this experiment, raw feedstocks were characterized, converted to biofuel via HTL, and HTL byproducts were quantified and characterized.

Winemaking Process and Waste Generation The winemaking process has been passed down and improved upon over the centuries. Although the general process is similar for every winery, there are several steps that are added from a stylistic point of view that will differ for each winery (Kirsty Harmon, personal communication, October 13, 2017). To explain where the fermented white lees and unfermented red lees comes from, the processes used by Blenheim Vineyards are presented in Figures 4 and 5, respectively.

White Wine Production For both white and red wine production, the first step is to harvest the grapes which is shown in Figures 4 and 5. While some wineries choose to pick the grapes at night, Blenheim Vineyards picks their grapes during the day and then stores them in a chilled truck overnight to maintain stable sugar levels. From there, as shown in step 2, the grapes are sorted on a conveyor belt to remove any rotting or old grapes. For white wine, the grapes are then placed in a cluster press, which applies varying pressure to force the grapes to burst. In Figure 4, this is represented in step 3. This releases and separates the juice from the grape pomace via gravity. The grape pomace waste accounts for approximately 35 percent of the initial weight of the harvested white grapes. As shown in step 4, the juice is then taken to a tank where bentonite clay is added to help bind the heavy proteins together and settle out. The settled solids produced are the first unfermented lees collected and account for approximately 10 percent of the initial weight of the harvested white grapes. This is where our sample of white lees comes from in the winemaking process.

The clear juice from the tank, as well as the additional juice from the top of the lees containers, is racked and siphoned to another tank, leaving the settled materials behind.

This is represented by steps 5 and 6. In this next tank, yeast is added to begin the fermentation process as shown in step 7. Once all of the sugar from the juice is consumed by the yeast, the tank is chilled and a fermented lees waste that is comprised of yeast and heavy

Figure 5.

Winemaking process for red wine: steps 1-10 depict the process and steps 11-12 depict the collection of the grape pomace and lees waste. Wastes are shown with bolded lines.

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proteins settles to the bottom of the tank. The fermented lees accounts for approximately 5 percent of the total starting weight. The wine in the tank is then racked one or two more times before sulfites are added as a preservative which is shown in step 8. In step 9, the wine is then placed in another tank to age and allow for additional solids to settle out.

Once a blend of varietals is chosen, the wine is blended on a large scale, which is shown in step 10, and then placed under cold stabilization to allow the tartaric acid to crystallize and fall out, which is shown in step 11. While the wine is still cold, it is filtered to remove the crystals and then filtered again to remove any remaining particles as it is bottled â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this can be seen in step 12.

Red Wine Production The process for making red wine is slightly different, because the skins remain in the tank with the juice to give the wine its signature red hue. After the grapes are harvested and sorted, the grapes are placed in a destemmer to remove only the stems which is shown in step 3 of Figure 5. From there, the grapes are put in a tank where fermentation and maceration occur. This is shown in step 4. At this point, the grapes are punched twice a day to keep them from crusting on top and mixing them with the juice below.

Then, the mixture is put into a press to remove the grape skins and seeds, which is shown in step 5. Similar to the white wine, the weight of the grape pomace, including the stems removed in step 3, is approximately 35 percent of the initial weight of the harvested red grapes. The wine is then placed in a tank to allow the solids to settle out, which results with the lees waste, as shown in step 6. The weight of the lees is approximately 15 percent of the total grape weight at harvest. After this, the wine is racked in barrels and continues to settle and produce lees, although much less. This is represented in step 7. As shown in step 8, the varietals are then blended on a large scale once the combination is set. Lastly, the wine is filtered to remove any particles before it is bottled, which is shown in steps 9 and 10.

Taking into consideration the way in which white and red wines are typically produced in Central Virginia, Figure 6 depicts current and proposed strategies for best management of common winery waste materials.

Figure 6.

The traditional (solid lines) and proposed (dotted lines) processes used to dispose of waste from the winemaking process.

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Winery Waste Feedstock Characterization

White and red wine lees were collected from Blenheim Vineyards in Fall 2017 for use as HTL feedstocks. They were preliminarily analyzed for water content, total suspended solids (TSS), volatile solids (VS), ash content, and nutrient content (nitrogen and carbon). Results are summarized in Table 1 and Figure 7.

Winery Water Waste Content Feedstock (wt%) White Lees 73.8 ± 0.3 Red Lees 88.7 ±0.9

TSS (wt%) 26.2 ± 0.3 11.3 ± 0.9

VS (wt%)

Ash (wt%) Nitrogen (wt%)

Carbon (wt%)

21.5 ± 1.1 4.7 ± 1.1 0.38 ± 0.06 41.1 ± 0.9 7.3 ± 0.2 4.0 ± 0.2 4.1 ± 0.3 42.8 ± 0.9

Table 1.

Pre-HTL characterization for white and red lees, in grams per 100g of raw wine waste feedstock.

Figure 7.

Pre-HTL characterization for white and red lees, in grams per 100g of raw wine waste feedstock.

From these results, there are two important findings to note. Firstly, red lees has a nearly optimal water content for HTL conversion, whereas white lees requires the addition of much more water to reach the optimal water content of 90% by weight (Jena et. al., 2011). Secondly, the white lees exhibits higher values for total suspended solids and volatile solids, which may be caused by the addition of bentonite clay in the process of making white wine. Additionally, it is of interest to compare our measured carbon and nitrogen contents to HTL feedstocks used in previously published studies. Gai et. al. (2015) used the alga Chlorella pyrenoidosa, which had a carbon content of 51% and nitrogen content of 11%, while Jena et. al. (2011) used an unspecified algal biomass, which had a carbon content of 45.2% and a nitrogen content of 10.6%. These carbon

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contents are about the same, but the nitrogen contents are higher than in both the white and red lees samples.

Figure 8.

Post-HTL weights after phase separation.

Characterization of HTL Products After each HTL conversion experiment, three of the four phases (biochar, biocrude, and ACP) were separated and analyzed, each to different extents. The biochar was weighed and analyzed for chemical composition. For the white lees, the biochar weighed 3.1 ± 0.1 g (Figure 8), and it was comprised of 1.03 ± 0.05 % nitrogen and 72.3 ± 1.0 % carbon by weight (Figure 9). For the red lees, the biochar weighed 2.1 ± 0.8 g (Figure 8), and it was comprised of 1.30 ± 0.02 % nitrogen and 73.4 ± 0.6 % carbon by weight (Figure 9).

After the filtration of the solids, the biocrude and ACP were separated and analyzed.

For the white lees, the biocrude had a volume of 10.8 ± 0.9 mL; for the red lees, the biocrude had a volume of 8.2 ± 2.6 mL. Assuming a density of approximately 1.1 g/mL, the biocrude from the white lees weighed 11.9 ± 1.0 g, and the biocrude from the red lees weighed 9.0 ± 2.9 g (Figure 8).

From these results, it is evident that the white and red lees produce a similar amount of biochar, yet red lees generates significantly more ACP and smaller amounts of biocrude.

This means that while producing a comparable amount of biocrude to white lees, red lees produces less waste in the form of biochar, but more waste in the form of ACP. ACP Characterization For the white lees, 57.2 ± 0.9 mL of ACP was produced; for the red lees, 74.1 ± 4.2 mL of ACP was produced. Assuming a density of approximately 1.0 g/mL, the ACP from the white lees weighed 57.2 ± 0.9 g, and the ACP from the red lees weighed 74.1 ± 4.2 g (Figure 8). Table 2 shows the characterization of ACP from white and red lees, including

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Figure 9.

Post-HTL chemical composition of the biochar.

the pH and the concentrations of COD, TN, NH4, NO3, TP, and PO4.

The most striking findings from these results are that the ACP of red lees has a significantly higher concentration of COD, TN, NH4, TP, and PO4, with a slightly higher concentration of NO3 and slightly basic pH, compared to white lees concentrations. Most notably, the COD concentration of red lees is almost 15 times higher than that of the white lees, and the TP concentration of red lees is 80 times higher than that of the white lees. Gai et. al. (2015) found average COD values of 93,770 mg/L and TP values of 10,715 mg/L in ACP from an algae, Chlorella pyrenoidosa; Jena et. al. (2011) found a COD of 80,000 mg/L and a TP value of 795 mg/L from an unspecified algal biomass.

These studies are referenced to see how the potency of winery waste ACP compares to algal biomass ACP. Both of their COD values are below the value of red lees, but the TP value for Chlorella pyrenoidosa is much higher. It is clear from this that the red lees ACP has very high levels of COD and TP, but other feedstocks studied have shown even higher values of TP. A comparison of the values in Table 2 to typical WWTP benchmarks is of interest Winery Waste Feedstock White Lees Red Lees

pH 6.4±0.3 8.8±0.3

COD (mg/L)

TN NH4 NO3 PO4 (mg/L) (mg/L-N) (mg/L-N) TP (mg/L) (mg/L-P)

16,115±614 96±24 31±2.8 12.4±3.0 45±18 234,180±6,590 1,892±224 1,115±157 23.7±7.6 3,632±185

Table 2.

Post-HTL characterization of ACP from white and red lees.

53±6.7 687±84

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as we evaluate the environmental impacts of winery waste HTL on existing waterways.

Some typical values of pH, COD, NH4, and TP were found in literature for raw domestic wastewater (Tchobanoglous et al., 2003) and raw industrial wastewater (Rajeshwari et al., 2000). The pH of winery waste ACP is within the range of raw domestic influent, but the COD, NH4, and TP values are all well above the industrial wastewater averages. This suggests that the ACP from wine lees, especially red lees, will need to undergo pre-treatment before entering WWTPs. Pre-treatment can include mining the ACP for valuable nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which can be very economically beneficial due to increasing nutrient scarcity (Mayer et. al., 2016).

Conclusions and Future Work There were three major findings from this research. First, HTL treatment of winery wastes offers a convenient method for producing biocrude that is compatible with existing petroleum infrastructure. Second, a substantial amount of nutrient-rich ACP is produced in addition to biocrude, which requires pre-treatment before discharge into a municipal WWTP. Finally, very high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus in the ACP, which contribute to its unsuitability for direct discharge into WWTPs, could be recovered as tangible fertilizer. In this manner, ACP treatment could “pay” for itself with respect to economic and environmental costs, considering commercial fertilizer production is a very energy-intensive process that emits significant GHGs. Future work will focus on theoretical fertilizer calculations to determine the recoverability of various nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers from the ACP samples arising from HTL conversion of white and red lees. Struvite, monoammonium phosphate (MAP), and diammonium phosphate (DAP) will be considered for recovery based on their stoichiometries and the high NH4-N, NO3-N, and PO4-P concentrations in ACP. Subsequent experiments to evaluate the yields for conversion of ACP nutrients into selected fertilizers should be performed. These data will be useful for evaluating the overall sustainability of a hypothetical integrated system in which winery waste is converted, via HTL, into energy and fertilizer. A life cycle assessment should be used for this evaluation. Various output metrics should be computed, including an Energy Return on Investment (EROI). An EROI is the ratio of energy created (EOUT) over energy consumed (EIN) for a process, product, or system. If the EROI is less than one, it will indicate that more energy is consumed than created by the proposed system and would clearly be undesirable. If the EROI is slightly greater than one, the overall sustainability of the system would depend on other factors such as cost, practicality, and marketability for the winery. Ideally, this equation would yield a number much greater than 1 (roughly 3-5), which would mean that this process is sustainable and should be pursued as a future commercial alternative energy source.

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Retrieved February 5, 2017, from https://www.scribd.com/document/330073025/ TCHOBANOGLOUS-et-al-2003-Wastewater-Engineering-pdf.

Tommaso, G., Chen, W., Li, P., Schideman, L. and Zhang, Y. (2015). Chemical characterization and anaerobic biodegradability of hydrothermal liquefaction aqueous products from mixed-culture wastewater algae. Bioresource Technology, 178, 139–146. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.biortech.2014.10.011.

Toor, S. S., Rosendahl, L. and Rudolf, A. (2011). Hydrothermal liquefaction of biomass: A review of subcritical water technologies. Energy, 36(5), 2328–2342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. energy.2011.03.013.

Xu, D. and Savage, P. E. (2014). Characterization of biocrudes recovered with and without solvent after hydrothermal liquefaction of algae. Algal Research, 6, Part A, 1–7. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.algal.2014.08.007.

Yetilmezsoy, K. and Sapci-Zengin, Z. (2009). Recovery of ammonium nitrogen from the

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effluent of UASB treating poultry manure wastewater by MAP precipitation as a slow release fertilizer. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 166(1), 260–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jhazmat.2008.11.025.

Zheng, Y., Lee, C., Yu, C., Cheng, Y.-S., Simmons, C. W., Zhang, R., … VanderGheynst, J. S. (2012). Ensilage and Bioconversion of Grape Pomace into Fuel Ethanol. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 60, 11128–11134.

Art History

Examining Missing Voices: Shifts in Curatorial Practices in the Exhibition of Black Artists in New York City in the 1990s and Early 2000s

Kristen Clevenson

“

Black Male and Harlem on My Mind raised questions about the effects of artists’ identities on their ability to represent black people and communities.

”

Kristen Clevenson graduated from UVa in 2017 with a double major in Art History and Media Studies. As part of her distinguished majors thesis, she researched exhibitions featuring black artists in New York City museums.

After graduation, Kristen returned to work in New York, interning in the curatorial department at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Acquavella Galleries, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. This year, she will continue exploring conceptual, contemporary art and institutional critique through a master’s degree in Art History at Hunter College.

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Examining Missing Voices: Shifts in Curatorial Practices in the Exhibition of Black Artists in New York City in the 1990s and Early 2000s Kristen Clevenson University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America As part of a larger thesis, I explore curatorial trends in the exhibition of black artists in New York City from the mid-twentieth century to the early twenty-first century.

Through several in-depth case studies of group exhibitions, this research found that black artists’ works were most commonly featured in temporary exhibitions, rather than integrated into museum’s permanent collections. This trend points to museums’ tendency to showcase rather than truly include black artists throughout the 1900s. Furthermore, within showcasing, past curatorial decisions fell into three main trends: integration, representation, and dedication. “Integration” is defined by exhibitions that feature artists of many races and shows how multiculturalism debates transitioned into discussions of identity politics. “Representation” encompasses exhibitions that seek to define or interrogate social and artistic depictions, exploring how representation shifted from a goal to a tool. “Dedication” examines exhibitions of exclusively black artists, studying Thelma Golden’s idea of post-black and Darby English’s theory of black representational space. Finally, I suggest that while past exhibitions focused on featuring black artists by showcasing their race as an essential component of their work, recent trends point to the beginning of a more permanent inclusion. Examples of this shift include initiatives that began in the early 2000s.

This paper examines the curatorial trend of showcasing through representation.

Two exhibitions serve as case studies to examine the evolution of this trend: Black Male: Representations of Black Masculinity in Contemporary American Art, shown at the Whitney Museum in 1994, and Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900-1968, a Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition from 1969. The exhibitions highlight the shift away from aiming to represent specific communities towards encouraging critical examination of the very idea of representation itself.

Keywords: Eating-IAT; eating associations; age; moderator

A Brief Introduction Shades of brown, hints of cream, accents of purple, washes of light green, and a strike of orange mix together to form an unrecognizable face. Near the abstracted chin, the canvas juts out of the two-dimensional picture plane, emphasizing the textured brushstrokes and deliberate brutality of the piece. A yellow cushion suggests a glowing corona behind the figure’s head (Figure 1). This work, a painting by Dana Schutz titled Open Casket, hung at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial exhibition. Open Casket referenced Emmett Till, a teenage boy who was beaten to death by two white men in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. At the request of his mother, Jet Magazine published Till’s funeral pictures, turning them into American history.

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Figure 1.

Dana Schutz, Open Casket, 2016: Oil on Canvas, 99 x 134.6 cm Collection of the artist

In response to Schutz’s painting, Parker Bright, a black artist, conducted a peaceful protest in front of Open Casket at the Whitney. He stood in front of the painting—alone and with supporters—wearing a shirt that read “Black Death Spectacle.”1 British-born black artist Hannah Black wrote a letter to the Biennial’s curators encouraging both the removal and destruction of Open Casket.2 Black wrote, “a white woman’s fictions caused the murder of the young man, and now a white female artist has mined a photograph of his death for ostensible commentary, which in reality does little to illuminate much of anything.”3 Although Schutz argued that she empathized with this subject as a fellow mother, artists such as Bright and Black saw the painting as an example of a white artist appropriating black pain for personal gain. Bright and Black’s protests of Schutz’s right to represent Till intermingled debates of sensitivity, ownership, profit, and censorship with discussions of race, history, and identity in museums.

In 2017, polemic reviews were not new to the Whitney Biennial. Perhaps calling to mind another instance of controversy associated with the 1993 Whitney Biennial, Coco Fusco wrote that “[t]he presence of blackness in a Whitney Biennial invariably stirs controversy—it’s deemed to be unfit or not enough, or too much.”4 On the 2017 Biennial’s website, the curators made clear they had the 1993 exhibition in mind when making their choices for this year: the promotional video introducing the 2017 Biennial featured images of some of the most controversial works in the 1993 Biennial along with a voiceover declaring that “there are moments when some of the political and social issues of the 1 A Note on Terminology: In this thesis, I have chosen to use the terms “black” and “white” in accordance with the terminology prevalent in the 1990s. I have made this choice mainly to facilitate my analysis of Thelma Golden and other scholars’ dialogues using terminology such as “black art” and “post-black.” For the purpose of this thesis, “black” refers to both African-Americans and Afro-Americans (as delimitated in Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Karen Fields and Barbara Fields in 2012) who have and have not experienced slavery in their ancestry. Additionally, I use the guidelines articulated in the Chicago Manual of Style, writing the terms “black” and “white” in lowercase letters and deferring to the author’s individual choice of terminology and capitalization when quoting (section 8.39).

2 Randy Kennedy, “White Artist’s Painting of Emmet Till at Whitney Biennial Draws Protests,” New York Times, March 21, 2017, accessed March 22, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/21/arts/design/painting-of-emmett-tillat-whitney-biennial-draws-protests.html?emc=eta1&mtrref=undefined.

3 Hrag Vartanian, “The Violence of the 2017 Whitney Biennial,” Hyperallergic, March 20, 2017, accessed March 22, 2017, https://hyperallergic. com/366688/the-violence-of-the-2017-whitney-biennial/.

4 Fusco, “Censorship, Not the Painting, Must Go.”

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day rise more forcefully into art.” The early nineties was also one of these moments, and the ’93 Biennial exhibition featured works that were clearly engaged with “the politics and social issues of the day.” As patterns continued to repeat in art institutions, the call to investigate topics—such as Black artist inclusion—became more forceful.

The conflicting viewpoints surrounding Schutz’s painting at the 2017 Whitney Biennial demonstrated the continued tension around race in the museum. Given this tension, it is important to examine the developments and dialogues surrounding exhibitions that have featured black artists in predominantly white institutions. Efforts to diversify museums, exhibitions, art historical scholarship, and the larger art historical canon stretched throughout the majority of the twentieth century. Examples of said efforts ranged from Alain Locke’s organization of The Negro in Art Week: Exhibition of Primitive African Sculpture, Modern Paintings, Sculpture, Drawings, Applied Art, and Books at the Chicago Art Institute in 1927 to the Studio Museum in Harlem’s exhibition: Freestyle in 2001. One of the most remembered and problematic exhibitions from this period was Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900-1968, a large “blockbuster” event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1968. The show’s notoriety stemmed from its omission of black painters, sculptors, and scholars, suggesting that Harlem was a community meant to be studied, with no artistic output worth showing. The artist-activist group the Black Emergency Culture Coalition (BECC) was formed in response to Harlem on My Mind’s exclusion of black voices. Founded by Benny Andrews and Clifford R. Joseph, the BECC members organized protests of the exhibition and released a set of demands calling for 5

Figure 2.

Fred Wilson, Guarded View, 1991: Wood, paint, steel and fabric, dimensions variable Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

5

“Whitney Biennial,” 0:38.

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increased representation of black artists and administration in museums.

In New York, the Nineties marked a specific moment where exhibitions pushed to include black artists. However, I argue that the use of black artists’ work in the nineties falls under showcasing rather than inclusion. I distinguish between the terms to emphasize that, while black artists’ works were in museums, they were not being collected and shown as part of the museum’s permanent collection. Instead, they were in temporary group exhibitions, which showcase artists by choosing, grouping, and positioning artworks in accordance with curatorial arguments. This research explores showcasing through “representation” with a case study of Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art and compares the different curatorial choices between showcasing representation in Black Male in 1994 at the Whitney and Harlem on My Mind in 1968 at the Metropolitan Museum.

6

The Exhibition As Showcasing through Representation Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary Art opened with the words “BLACK MALE,” printed in uppercase, bold, black letters on the front wall. Beside the text stood four headless black mannequins in suits. This piece, Guarded View by Fred Wilson, took the uniforms from Upper East Side museum security guards (from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum itself) out of the shadows and placed them on a white podium (Figure 2). Wilson asserted that guards have been both on display and invisible in the museum by “pointing to the hidden power relations and social codes that structure our experience of museums.”7 Guarded View materialized the fact that the majority of non-white workers in museums were not artists or museum staff planning or giving tours of the exhibitions.

They were, and continue to be, museum guards, standing silently and invisibly in every gallery. Even in 2015, 28% of museum staff identified as minorities, and only 13% of those working as curators, conservators, educators, or in leadership positions identified as non-white.8 Like Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man, Wilson pointed to situations where black men are silenced, marginalized, and ignored—a silencing that is made clear in the decapitation of the guards. It was not improbable that for some visitors to the Black Male exhibition, a guard stationed next to the work constituted a fifth member of the group.

Past Guarded View and a panel of introductory text, the gallery opened into a space with angled walls connected by multiple doorways. The nature of this design allowed the visitor to explore the exhibition in any pathway they chose.9 The photographs, paintings, sculptures, film, and conceptual works featured in the following spaces addressed representations of black masculinity. However, these works raised questions rather than offering explanations. Depictions of black men with guns, black men with basketballs, black men laid out on the ground, and even black men as historically white personas explored social and stereotypical understandings of and assumptions regarding black 6 “Black Emergency Culture Coalition records 1971-1984,” New York Public Library Archives and Manuscripts, accessed April 17, 2017, http://archives.nypl.org/scm/20908.

7 “Collection,” Whitney Museum of American Art, accessed February 19, 2017, http://collection.whitney.org/object/11433.

8 Roger Schonfeld and Mariët Westermann, “The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey,” the Andrew Mellon Foundation, July 28, 2015, https://mellon.org/media/filer_public/ba/99/ba99e53a-48d5-403880e1-66f9ba1c020e/awmf_museum_diversity_report_aamd_7-28-15.pdf, 7.

9 Sanders Design Works Inc., “The Whitney Museum,” accessed April 16, 2017, http:// www.sandersdesignworks.com/Sanders%20Design/Whitney%20Museum.html.

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masculinity in America. Even though the exhibition presented the work of living artists and was immersed in the sociopolitical problems of the day, Black Male was more than a platform for exploring political or historical concerns. It offered an interrogation of the act of representation by featuring works from artists of diverse backgrounds, races, genders, ages, and sexual orientations. Through both the structure and the design of the exhibition itself, the following questions emerged: Who can represent black men? Who is represented by images of black men? Who and what sanctions a representation’s “correctness”? When does representation shift from stereotype to criticism? The Black Male exhibition posed these questions, questions that are so complicated that twenty-three years later they were again being asked in response to Open Casket.11 Designed by Thelma Golden, this exhibition utilizes an approach that I characterize as showcasing through representation. Through the exhibition’s structure, text, and artworks, Golden displayed works by diverse artists in the context of encouraging dialogue about depictions of black masculinity. She engaged with and questioned the implications of contemporary artists’ representations and examined how history, theory, and statistics complicated or supported claims in the artworks. The 1969 Harlem on My Mind exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art used a similar approach as the curator sought to build an objective portrayal of the black community in the museum. However, the Metropolitan’s exhibition structure eliminated Harlem artists’ voices and frustrated many museum visitors. The dichotomy between the two approaches to representation resided in the attempt in Harlem on My Mind to create an empirical representation against Golden’s investigation of how representations provide problematic understandings of those represented.

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Black Male at the Whitney Museum When Golden joined the museum in 1988, she was the first—and only—non-white person in a curatorial position at the Whitney.12 In 1993, then Whitney director David Ross asked Golden to propose a show. She found that many contemporary artists were then in the process of working with the idea of Black masculinity, likely spurred by several black male figures’ prominence in the American public’s attention.13 In the early nineties, images of the L.A. riots, O.J. Simpson court case, Magic Johnson’s press video, and images of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas circled the media.14 As these images were 10 See works: Dawn Ader DeDeaux, Rambo, 1991. Jeff Koons, Moses, 1985. Alison Saar, Terra Firma, 1991. Robert Colescott, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from American History, 1975.

11 See a discussion of Dana Schutz in the introduction to this thesis.

12 Valentine, “History Makers.”

13 Charlie Rose, “Thelma Golden,” Charlie Rose LLC, video, 14:51, February 27, 1995, https://charlierose.com/videos/1213, 0:44.

14 The 1991 L.A. riots and the 1994 O.J. Simpson case highlighted the tenuous relationship between citizens and police. The riots stemmed from protests of the 1991 beating of Rodney King (the George Holliday taping of which was featured in both the 1993 Whitney Biennial and Black Male) and lack of repercussions white officers faced for their actions. The Simpson case questioned whether police had manipulated evidence and jumped to the conclusion that a football player and national icon had killed his wife. Early nineties events also forced a consideration of the relationships between AIDS, sexuality, and blackness. Magic Johnson, a famous basketball player, publicly announced he had HIV in 1991. That same year Anita Hill accused then Supreme Court Justice nominee, Clarence Thomas, of sexual harassment.

Time magazine featured many of these events as covers in issues from the nineties. Some examples include: an image of Hill and Tomas with the title “Sex, Lies, and Politics: America’s watershed debate on sexual harassment” (October 21, 1991), a picture of figures running in front of a fire at the L.A. Riots with the words “’Can’t we all get along?” (May 1, 1992), and an image of O.J. Simpson, deliberately darkened so it appeared more dramatic

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used in TV broadcasts, papers, and magazines, they permeated into both American society and scholarship.

Golden observed artists reacting to the images of violent and traumatic events aggressively circulating through the media. However, she also found conflicts of representation were not confined to artworks produced in the nineties. Since as early as the 1600’s black men in the U.S. had been represented as “super-studs,” exotic beings, or insidious predators. Golden’s awareness of stereotypes both past and present and her interest in the changing dialogues of black masculinity in the media informed the artworks included in Black Male.15 This wealth of dissention became the catalyst for her show. Golden described the main focuses of the exhibition as follows: first, it was to be about representations of black men, but not be limited to black artists; second, it surveyed recent history (1968-94); third, it must be sited in a space of dialogue with the institution and in this sense be self-consciously site-specific.16 She integrated artists of all races, genders, and sexual orientations to show that “contemporary art” and “art by people of color” were not two separate discourses, but an integrated whole.17 In both the exhibition’s design and the exhibition’s conception, Black Male reflected important and deliberate curatorial choices that demonstrated Golden’s method of showcasing. The exhibition included seventy works by twenty-nine different artists, spanning video, painting, sculpture, installation and film.18 Golden chose five “signposts” to help organize the artworks: the transition from Civil Rights to Black Power, the rise of Blaxploitation films, the precariousness of black male’s lives (drawing on statistics concerning life expectancy), hip hop’s succession of rhythm and blues, and recent political events, including the beating of Rodney King and the ensuing L.A. Riots.19 However, the five signposts did not create a start-to-finish narrative. Instead, the exhibition design used open walls that allowed visitors to move easily between sections, creating a deliberately non-linear narrative.20 Black Male also employed a color-coded system to help classify kinds of representation: red for challenges to negative stereotypes, black for the blackmale body and “symbolic” depictions of the psyche, and green for “expansive possibilities” and diverse representations of masculinity.21 Additionally, John G. Hanhardt, curator and head of the Film and Video, invited several guest curators to develop a five-part film series in conjunction with the exhibition. The catalogue for the exhibition featured twelve different critical essays, with topics ranging from film, to music, history, feminism, popular culture, and more. With a multitude of perspectives and ways of understanding the artworks included, Golden highlighted and encouraged varied opinions and associations.

In this exhibition, Golden included historical information to contextualize artists’ interpretations of black masculinity. In the catalogue from Black Male Golden wrote, The premise of this exhibition—the consideration of black masculinity and its aesthetic reflection—relies upon the assertion that one can often gain a more thorough understanding of aesthetic issues through a social framework within which art is inexorably inscribed, and that the study of art can be a great help in our comprehension of complex and more threatening, on the cover that reads “An American Tragedy” (June 27, 1994).

15 Solowski and Jones, Interrogating Identity, 57.

16 Hamza Walker et al., “Black Is, Black Ain’t Book Release and Talk,” Chicago Artists Resource video, 2:04:58, November 15, 2013, http://www.chicagoartistsresource. org/field-notess/black-black-aint-book-release-and-talk, 1:24:10.

17 Walker et al., “Black Is, Black Ain’t,” 1:25:43.

18 Cook, Exhibiting Blackness, 114.

19 Golden, Black Male, 20.

20 Sanders Design Works Inc., “The Whitney Museum.”

21 Golden, Black Male, 25.

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social issues.

To help exhibition visitors fully understand the history of representations of black masculinity, Black Male situated the artworks within social history as it had developed since the sixties. In many ways, the exhibition mirrored the didactic and socially focused catalogue; it featured a “context room” with a selective history about community and leadership, civil rights, business and employment, music, film, sports, and gender and sexuality, among others (Figure 3).23 The Whitney also arranged public programming to facilitate visitor dialogue.24 By providing social context, Golden positioned the artworks to illuminate statistics and question stereotypes.

David Hammons’ work Injustice Case was an example of Golden’s inclusion of works 22

Figure 3.

Installation view of Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (November 10, 1994–March 5, 1995) “Selective History” room installation images by Geoffrey Clements

that directly interacted with social commentaries and histories (Figure 4). To create the work, Hammons smeared his body with grease and lay on a board (which he used as a printing plate) to capture his impression.25 Through this process, the figure in his work became extremely detailed—one can see every wrinkle of skin and gathering of fabric in the print—and unmistakably human. The image is of the profile of a man bound to a chair with his arms stretched behind him. Behind the white background of the print, the edges of the American flag frame and locate the piece. Although created in 1970, Hammons’ print took on another dimension in context of the Black Male exhibition in the nineties. In the exhibition, both the catalogue and curatorial text emphasized high rates of suicide and homicide pertaining to black men. In 1992, British art historian Kobena Mercer suggested black men were becoming an “endangered species,” using both death rate statistics and negative representations of black males in the media as evidence to support his claim.26 In Hammons’ work, the bound and gagged figure calls to mind someone captured and tortured. The man tilts his head upwards, seeming to gasp for air under the weight of negativity connected to black masculinity both in the seventies when the work was created, and in the work’s present context: at the Whitney in the nineties.

Showcasing focused on representation, as I define it, has aimed to articulate, expand, and examine the public’s understanding of how people have been grouped and portrayed Golden, Black Male, 8-9.

The “context room” was designed by cultural historian and curator Maurice Berger. He has created context areas for other Whitney Museum exhibitions and also for the Jewish Museum in New York City.

24 Cooks, Exhibiting Blackness, 122.

25 Golden, Black Male, 26-27.

26 Kobena Mercer, “Endangered Species: Danny Tisdale and Keith Piper,” Artforum 30 (1992): 75.

22

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in art. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall argued that culture develops from “shared meanings,” which occur when two people in the same culture interpret a word similarly and can communicate their thoughts and feelings effectively to one another. These “shared meanings” are often constructed through language via a “representational system”—a system made up of signs and symbols indexed to shared concepts, ideas, or feelings.27 Through this representational system, objects have meaning. While Hall’s argument was mainly focused on language, he contended that “[e]xhibition or display in a museum or gallery can also be thought of as ‘like a language,’ since it uses objects on display to produce certain meanings about the subject-matter of the exhibition.”28 When an exhibition is used as a language, shared meanings can be produced in museums as curators choose their own terms and groupings to create a larger exhibition. Just as Thomas McEvilley wrote that exhibitions create “propositions,” Hall claimed that exhibitions draw on and Figure 4. build up meaning often in conjunction with David Hammons, Injustice Case, representation.29 1970: Mixed-media monoprint In the exhibition, Golden included artists on paper, 153.7 x 101.6 cm of different races, genders, and sexual orientations as a tool to focus critically on the Los Angeles County Museum building of shared meanings through repreof Art, Los Angeles, CA. sentation in art. Rather than emphasize the artists’ background, the exhibition focuses on implications of artworks. Golden opened the catalogue with the argument that the twentieth century has “invented” the black male. She wrote, “black masculinity represents an amalgam of fears and projections in the American psyche which rarely conveys or contains the trope of truth about the black man’s existence.”30 In Black Male she complicated “overrepresentation,” “oversimplification,” “demonization” and “utter incomprehension” by interrogating representations that have created an understanding of black masculinity.

By organizing the exhibition around five historical signposts and categorizing artworks in red, black, and green based on approaches to representation (rather than separating the artworks by age, gender, or race of the artists), Golden focused attention on social context rather than artists’ identity.

In the exhibition, Golden questioned the “invention” of the black male through works such as George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: A Page from American History, 27 Stuart Hall, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1997), 2.

28 Hall, Representation, 5.

29 For more on McEvilley’s argument, see the introduction section “the Exhibition as Showcasing” of the thesis.

30 Golden, Black Male, 19.

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painted by Robert Colescott in 1975 (Figure 5). In this work, Colescott reimagined Washington Crossing the Delaware—a well-known painting from 1851— transforming the white male figures into to racially problematic, cartoonish black male and female figures.

Colescott used recognizable stylistic elements of historical black caricatures—features commonly seen in what is called “Sambo art”—such as large, red lips and defined cheekbones, prominent smiles, a uniform skin color across the various figures, large white eyes with very small pupils and no visible iris, and stereotypical roles and behaviors (such as a partially hidden figure shining Washington’s boot).31 These roles and depictions emphasized the positions black men occupied in novels and films from the early eighteenth century through the 1920s.32 However, by including these racially charged representations Colescott and Golden did not seek to equate black men with these figures. Instead, they made a poignant declaration about the history of black male representation. By replacing the figures in this historical painting, Colescott juxtaposed the Founding Fathers—in this case, George Washington’s noble pose in the (historically inaccurate) representation of his military success—with historical representations of black men as shoe-shiners and musicians. With this painting, Colescott, then Golden, asked: where are the powerful, distinguished representations of black figures in history?

While Golden presented an exhibition specifically designed to deconstruct generalizations and problematic representations, many critics and members of the black

Figure 5.

Robert Colescott, George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from American History, 1975: Acrylic on canvas, 213.36 x 274.32 cm Collection of Robert and Lois Orchard, Saint Louis, MO 31 See Henry Jouis Gates, Jr’s Preface to Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art for more.

32 Some examples include the book The Little Black Sambo, published in 1899 and the use of blackface in the Jazz Singer in 1927.

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community felt that Golden’s exhibition focused too much on social concerns, stereotypes, and negative representations. Kimmelman wrote, “you can come away from the exhibition dispirited by the preponderance of art that seems to define the black man in just those terms while purporting to expose and debunk the stereotypes.”33 Similarly, art historian and cultural critic Okwui Enwezor commented, “the body in question looks unrecognizable even to itself” and classified this exhibition as an “anthropological survey” focused too much on “the body as a volatile site of political activity.”34 Before Black Male arrived at the UCLA/Hammer Museum and Cultural Center in L.A. (where it opened April 25, 1995), a group called the Coalition for the Cultural Survival of Community Arts created a “pro-active” exhibition.35 Named African American Representations of Masculinity and curated by Cecil Fergerson, the show was mounted across three venues all located within black neighborhoods. The show ran concurrently with Black Male, but only featured works created by black, male artists.36 Despite the conflicted reception in New York and L.A., Golden maintained that she included stereotypical depictions to complicate representation, rather than define black masculinity.37 Golden’s design and the artworks featured in Black Male used showcasing through representation to instigate dialogue. Through didactic information, clearly asserted curatorial intent, careful research, and the integration of a diverse group of artists, Golden examined the power, problems, and forms of representation. For these reasons, her approach showed a marked evolution from past examples of showcasing through representation. In 1969, the Metropolitan Museum provided one of the most notorious examples of a problematic attempt to engage with black artists through representation.

Examining problems with Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900-1968, illuminates many of Golden’s deliberate choices that delineated her approach to showcasing through representation from that of the Metropolitan Museum.

Harlem on My Mind at the Metropolitan Museum In Harlem on My Mind, curated by Allon Schoener, the Metropolitan Museum embraced showcasing black culture through representations of daily life in Harlem, forgetting its purpose as an art museum. In the exhibition, the walls featured photographs, film projections, and informational texts. The photos were taken predominantly by white photographers—with some additions by black photographers Gordon Parks and James Van Der Zee—and painters and sculptors were entirely omitted. Thomas Hoving, then director of the Metropolitan Museum, wrote, “It is an exhibition that attempts [...] to convey that most difficult of things, a cultural and historical experience, a total environment – one particular world, in fact, which has been known intimately only to the Black people of New York City – Harlem.”38 The Metropolitan Museum’s language reflected Kimmelman, “Art Review.”

Okwui Enwezor, “The Body in Question: Whose Body? ‘Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,’” Third Text 9, no. 31 (1995): 67-70, DOI: 10.1080/09528829508576545.

35 Lynell George, “The 'Black Male' Debate: Controversy Over the Whitney Show Has Arrived Ahead of Its L.A. Outing—Alternative Exhibitions Are Planned,” Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1995, accessed December 22, 2016, http:// articles.latimes.com/1995-02-22/entertainment/ca-34639_1_black-male.

36 Susan Kandel, “Art Review: Another Way of Picturing Black Men,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1995, accessed April 19, 2017.

37 In his review for the Los Angeles Times George quoted Golden saying, “‘People think this show is about black men. This show is about representation.’” George, “The ‘Black Male’ Debate.”

38 Thomas P. F. Hoving. "[Director's Note]," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27, no. 5 (1969): 243, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3258414.

33

34

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the focus of the exhibition: not to explore art, but to represent culture. The ideology behind Harlem on My Mind echoed what Tony Bennett described as the “exhibitionary complex.”

Bennett argued, “the exhibitionary complex allows society’s ruling groups to regulate and represent, via organization and co-ordination, power ‘for the good of all’ thereby creating power through an exhibition of otherness often organized by the many rhetorics of imperialism.”39 Hoving and Schoener, people in power, represented Harlem as a community of “others.” Their approach was evident even in Hoving’s diction; for him, Harlem was only known by “the Black people of New York,” and yet he chose a white male to curate the exhibition.

Hoving wrote that this show would change the “growing gap between people, and particularly between black people and white Figure 6. people.” However, the curatorial choices and catalogue texts increased the gap, marginalizInstallation view of Harlem on My ing voices of the black community (even those Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, who Schoener had partnered with as consul1900-1968: Metropolitan Museum of Art, tants for the exhibition).40 Instead of artworks New York (January 18 – April 6, 1969) by Harlem artists, the show featured documentary style photographs of life in Harlem.

Installation image from the This choice produced the feel of an “ethnoMetropolitan Museum of Art graphic study” (Figure 6).41 In the catalogue, rather than include essays from sociologists, artists, and scholars in the Harlem community, Schoener featured a high schooler’s term paper. Additionally, he removed quotation marks and footnotes, attempting to make the writing look less like a school assignment.

Through this exhibition, the museum presented a one-dimensional, outsider’s view of Harlem as representation of the vibrant community.

The use of documentary photography and film in the exhibition exacerbated the sense of otherness. The exhibition focused on these mediums to maintain a sense of objectivity— Hoving wrote, “[the exhibition] doesn’t interpret or explain. It sticks to the facts”— however, this choice emphasized the focus on representing Harlem over engaging with artists living or working there.42 In his book The Art of Exclusion: Representing Blacks in the Nineteenth Century, Albert Biome argued that art is meant to “shape ideas, define social attitudes and fix stereotypes.”43 In many ways, representation exhibitions are in Tony Bennett. The Birth of the Museum (Abingdon, EU: Routledge, 1995), 67.

Thomas Hoving, “Preface,” in Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900–1968, ed. Allon Schoener (New York: Random House, 1968), unpaginated. As quoted in Cooks.

41 Bridget Cooks, “Black Artists and Activism: Harlem on My Mind (1969),” American Studies 48 (2007): 5.

42 Hoving. "[Director's Note]," 243.

43 Albert Boime, Art of Exclusion: Representing Blacks in the Nineteenth Century (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990), xiii.

39

40

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the position to pose arguments that embrace how art and museums can do these three things. Schoener claimed to have represented Harlem between 1900 to 1968 “objectively” in his effort to shape ideas, define attitudes, and fix stereotypes about the community. However, Harlem on My Mind’s removed and exclusive view served to reinforce the already powerful museum without fully including others. The Metropolitan Museum, a predominantly white space, embraced Harlem as something distant, meant to be grouped rather than individualized. Scholars like Yuha Jung agreed that “the organizers of the exhibition looked at the Harlem community in isolation from mainstream American culture, like a Western anthropologist who goes into a far-away village to study the exotic people and their culture.”44 Additionally, the Metropolitan Museum purported to use the “blockbuster” show to explore a historically black community and to provide increased exposure for black artists, but did not include any black painters or sculptors.

The reactions to Harlem on My Mind show the flaws in Schoener’s choices to represent Harlem. After this exhibition opened, people immediately objected to the omission of so many of Harlem’s voices. The Black Emergency Culture Coalition (BECC) formed specifically to protest the show. The group released a list of demands stressing the importance of including black artists and staff members in museums. These protests prompted other museums to mount exhibitions with black artists offer black scholars—like Golden herself—museum positions.45 Twenty years later, Black Male returned to the late Sixties as the starting point to engage with representation.

While Harlem on My Mind successfully turned a spotlight to culture uptown, enticing 75,000 visitors to see the show just in its first nine days of being open, the controversy that followed showed that representing Harlem as a community was inadequate when Schoener was unable to include Harlem’s artists.46 Dubin wrote, During the controversy of Harlem on My Mind, the tremendous power attributed to symbols and representation and the urgent desire to rebut an image or demand restitution for perceived distortions demonstrated that the cultural sphere was displacing the realm of ‘pure politics’ as a primary site of contemporary public debates and struggles.47 Through the exhibition’s design and reception, Harlem on My Mind thrust the discussion of the politics of representation into the spotlight. Stuart Hall, in his essay, “What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” agreed that representation has continued to become a larger and larger concern for artists of color. He wrote, [W]e tend to privilege experience itself, as if black life is lived experience outside of representation. We have only, as it were, to express what we already know we are.

Instead, it is only through the way in which we represent and imagine ourselves that we come to know how we are constituted and who we are. There is no escape from the politics of representation, and we cannot wield “how life really is out there” as a kind of test against which the political rightness or wrongness of a particular cultural strategy or text can be measured.48 Yuha Jung, "Harlem On My Mind: A Step Toward Promoting Cultural Diversity in Art Museums," International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 7, no. 2 (2015): 1.

45 In New York, Lowry Stokes Sims was the first black curator at the Metropolitan Museum in 1974. Over a decade later Golden became the first black curator at the Whitney Museum. Both women connect their opportunity to become part of the staff at these museums to the BECC’s demands and push back from Harlem on My Mind. Cooks, “Black Artists and Activism,” 7, 20-24.

46 Jung, “Harlem On My Mind,” 6.

47 Dubin, Displays of Power, 63.

48 Hall, “What is this ‘Black’?” 30.

44

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Hall demonstrated how interconnected black artists’—and people’s—lives are with representations, arguing that representations cannot be divided from nor avoided in life.

While Schoener attempted to quell discussions of the politics of representation through an “objective” approach, Hall argued that this avoidance is impossible. His essay supported Golden’s efforts to engage with stereotypes to investigate the effect of representation on the lives of black men.

Representation: Correcting the Past’s Mistakes Black Male and Harlem on My Mind used contrasting methodologies to engage with representation. Schoener’s attempts to represent diversity within the walls of the Metropolitan Museum demonstrated that the museum’s interests lie not in integrating diverse communities, but merely in representing them to their historically white audiences.

Black Male critiqued this model and, instead of attempting to represent black lives a certain way, included a multitude of voices that interrogate the very act of representation.

Schoener’s curatorial choices represent everyone in a single community as one, while Golden’s break apart representation through a multitude of styles and statements. Examined in relation to one another, Black Male and Harlem on My Mind produce a continuing dialogue about the importance of including diversity in representation, and not just representing diversity.

By embracing artistic representation rather than documentary photography and video, Golden told a very different story than Schoener. Golden used a multitude of formats seeking to question, rather than to document. The film program investigated various

Figure 7.

Installation view of Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (November 10, 1994 – March 5, 1995) Pictured artists include Gary Simmons, Byron Kim and Glenn Ligon Photograph by Geoffrey Clements

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depictions of black masculinity, including Holiday’s amateur filming of Rodney King being beaten by LA police, Spike Lee’s calculated directorial decisions in Do the Right Thing, and music video content, featuring Dr. Dre’s Doggy Dogg World from 1993. Formats including installation art, manipulated photographs, and targeted sculptures addressed various forms of representation through artistic, realistic, metaphoric, and hyperbolic depictions. While Harlem on My Mind grouped black and white images by decade, Black Male grouped historical information thematically (in the “context room”) and placed artworks where they could be in dialogue with one another. For example, Byron Kim and Glenn Ligon’s collaborative piece Rumble, Young Man, Rumble—a punching bag with Ligon’s characteristic stenciled letters—hung directly beside Gary Simmons’ Step in the Arena (The Essentialist Trap)—a life size boxing ring with tap shoes hanging from the ropes and tap Figure 8. scuffs on the floor (Figure 7). Together, they Carl Pope, Some of the Greatest Hits of complicated the stereotypical connections between black masculinity, sports, physical the New York City Police Department: A power, and violence.

Celebration of Meritorious Achievement in Reacting to representations’ social and Community Service, 1994: Installation political importance in the nineties, Golden of trophies and plaques, various continued to showcase diverse ideas about materials, dimensions variable and approaches to narrow topics rather than a Collection of the artist narrow approach to a very wide topic. Sociologist Herman Gray wrote that, “the black male (youthful) body signified menace and the loss of civility in the public sphere.”49 In Black Male, Golden presented many artists interrogating the idea of black men as dangerous, particularly in terms of conflicts with police. Along with the Holiday film, artists Carl Pope, Gary Simmons, and Mel Chin engaged with crime discourse of the 1980s. Pope provided a satirical, sobering piece titled Some of the Greatest Hits of the New York City Police Department: A Celebration of Meritorious Achievement in Community Service. Here, he customized trophies with a gold police officer as the statuette. The officer held a gun at the ready and stands atop a crown. Each stand is labeled with a white cops’ name, commemorating him for shooting or beating a black male victim (Figure 8). Simmons’ work Lineup showed a row of gold shoes in front of the height lines indicating a police lineup. However, the bodies meant to be in the shoes were invisible (Figure 9). Night Rap, a sculpture in the form of a nightstick-turned-microphone and stylized with a deliberately phallic handle, recorded and replayed audio from inside the gallery (Figure 10).

Pope, Simmons, and Chin’s pieces engaged with tensions between black males and the police through various forms of representation. Pope’s powerfully sarcastic title 49 Herman Grey, Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 23.

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featured the use of “hits” both as a direct shot or blow and as a success. The symbolic appropriation of both sports symbols (the trophy) and imperialist power symbols (the crown) created a powerful metaphor. In Simmons’ work, Golden wrote that the shoes embody both urban masculinity and commodified culture, turning this scene into “the inner-city equivalent of the casting call.”50 The installation, as it shared the space with Wilson’s Guarded View, pushed viewers to examine their understanding of where black males fit—or were confined—within society. Although each pair of shoes was a different brand and style, suggesting at a variety of individuals, without bodies and faces they were entirely indistinguishable. However, despite their invisibility, including this work in a show titled “Black Male,” Golden herself determined the race and sex of the bodies in the shoes.51 Finally, by using “rap” in the title of this sound piece, Chin referenced “rap” as a blow or a strike or as a nod to hip-hop and rap culture that often portrayed young black males as dangerous or aggressive. Golden wrote that, as sounds in the gallery were recorded and replayed, they amplified “our distorted relationship to this object and our ability to imagine the real-life results of its intended use.”52 These three artists explored black males’ relationship with police with representations that emphasize brutality, commodification, and media. Although none of the artists directly depicted the black-male body, their works asked viewers to reexamine how they saw black males in society and how much of that view was created through representations.

While Golden included Pope, Simmons, and Chin’s non-figural depictions of black masculinity, she also presented artists who approached black masculinity through deliberate use of the black male body. For example, Lorna Simpson’s piece Gestures/Reenactments featured several black and white, cropped photographs of a black figure dressed in white, with fragments of text below the framed pictures (Figure 11).53 Golden wrote, “the gestures give the black man a graceful and commanding body language, while the texts below the subject allude to the subject as son, lover, friend, etc.”54 This depiction of black Figure 9.

Gary Simmons, Lineup, 1993: Screenprint with gold-plated basketball shoes, 289.6 × 548.6 × 45.7 cm Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Installation image at the Whitney Museum

Golden, Black Male, 29.

Journalist Wyatt Closs wrote, “although I can’t see myself in Simmons’ piece, I know others see me there. And that is exactly what I hear this exhibition saying: These images are not about me, but about how other people see me.” Wyatt Closs, “A Personal View: Seeing and Being Seen,” Independent Weekly, Durham, N.C., February 22, 1995. Luce Press Clippings as quoted in Cooks, Exhibiting Blackness, 123.

52 Golden, Black Male, 28.

53 The work Injustice Case by David Hammons also fit within this category.

However, Hammons piece was likely in the “black” subdivision of black male bodies (exploring the body and psyche) while Simpson’s was more in line with the “green.” (See my description earlier in this chapter.)

54 Golden, Black Male, 37.

50 51

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masculinity would fall into the “green” category, representing a “real” figure to combat mass-medias often negative portrayals of black males.55 By including works that interrogate representation of black males in society, representations of society’s treatment of black males, and representations of black males’ identity, Golden explored various interpretations and themes. Hall wrote, “[w]e are always in negotiation, not with a single set of oppositions that place us always in the same relation to others, but with a series of different positionalities.”56 These artists, despite different identities and focuses, exemplified trends in society through a mixing of representations.

Golden incorporated artists of diverse personalities and identities to deconstruct the “good” / “bad” binary that many, including the media, use to understand representations. Through the artworks above, black masculinity was seen to be in danger rather than dangerous, and black males were seen as beings who occupy multiple, overlapping categories that cannot be simplified Figure 10. or conflated. While, in 2005, Gray still struggled with the question: “[h]ow do we make sense of Mel Chin, Night Rap, 1994 the proliferation of black images and represenPolycarbide plastic, nickle-plated tation in American commercial and popular culsteel, wireless transmitter, ture, and the continued dissatisfaction with and microphone element, and calls for more images of black people in media and popular culture?”57 With artworks by Pope, batteries, 14 x 61 x 4.6 cm Chin, Simmons, and Simpson, Golden attemptCollection of the artist ed to provide, not a response, but the tools to Installation view at the engage Gray’s question and to begin to think Whitney Museum critically about implications of representations.

As both Harlem on My Mind and Black Male engaged with representations and concerns impacting black communities, they explored a larger discussion of “black art.” In many ways, Harlem on My Mind brought this discussion to the public eye. In 1969, the Metropolitan Museum of Art held “The Black Artists in America: A Symposium.” A transcript of the symposium was published in their bulletin along with the announcement of the exhibition opening. In the symposium, Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam Jr., Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, Tom Lloyd, William Williams, and Hale Woodruff discussed what it was to be a living artist, the structure of museums as an institution, artists’ duty to their community, and the possibility of a “black aesthetic.” Lloyd, an abstract artist, asserted that the “blackness” of the artist and the relevance to the black community mattered more than the legible “blackness” of the work. He said, “[black art] would be different 55 Thelma Golden, Black Male [brochure]: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994). Volume 21, accessed from Internet Archives, April 20, 2017, https://archive.org/details/blackmalebrochur2123unse.

56 Hall, “What is this ‘Black’?” 31.

57 Gray, Cultural Moves, 2.

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inasmuch as one of our main aims should be relating to Black people. Black artists should be working in Black communities… We have to project that the artist is Black.”58 On the other side, Woodruff, a painter, and Lawrence, an artist known for his painting series, asserted that aesthetic concerns were more important than the artists’ race.59 Lawrence argued that, “[t]here’s no reason why you have to paint or work in a certain way, and have the image of Blackness written on your work to be a fine artist.”60 Harlem on My Mind and Black Male engaged with the discussion of “black art” as Golden and Schoener used figures outside of the black community to represent blackness. Neither Golden nor Schoener attempted to define “black art.” However, both Black Male and Harlem on My Mind raised questions about the effects of artists’ identities on their ability to represent black people and communities. Although Schoener included black photographers and musicians, the overall style of the exhibition and lack of painting Figure 11.

Lorna Simpson, Gestures/ Reenactments, 1985: Six gelatin silver prints, seven text panels, 193 x 640.1 cm overall Collection of Raymond Learsy Installation image at Whitney Museum Black Male exhibition

or sculpture created the overwhelming sensation of “imperialists” conducting an “ethnographic study.” His exhibition avoided “black art”—and most art—entirely, suggesting that only photographers could represent the community. Golden, on the other hand, described a gallery visitor who told her that only black artists should have been represented in Black Male. The visitor felt Leon Golub’s work, Four Black Men (Figure 28), truly described the black experience, was made by a black artist, and featured a figure that reminded her of her father. She found that a second piece, Colescott’s George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware, was a derogatory image made by a white artist who did not understand blackness at all (Figure 12).61 However, as Golden explained, Golub is white and Colescott is black.62 This confusion could be both uncomfortable and productive. In 2013, Golden remembered this interaction and explained how this was exactly the space and conversation she hoped to create in her exhibitions. In many ways, Golden’s anecdote demonstrated how Black Male complicated arguments about “black art.” While Colescott and Golub are different races, they both created works that explore the politics of race and engage with the black American community. Was this enough to push the idea that a white artist can make “black art”?63 In his book, How to See a Work in Total Darkness, Darby 58 Romare Bearden et al., "The Black Artist in America: A Symposium," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27 (1969): 249. doi:10.2307/3258415.

59 Bearden et al., “The Black Artist in America,” 253.

60 Bearden et al., “The Black Artist in America,” 251.

61 See my discussion of Colescott’s work earlier in this section.

62 Walker et al.,“Black Is, Black Ain’t,” 1:30:50.

63 Reactions to Dana Schutz focus on a black subject in Whitney 2017

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Figure 12.

Leon Golub, Four Black Men, 1985: Oil on linen, 308.3 x 483.2 cm Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

English wrote, “[w]hat becomes of black art when black artists stop making it?” In this text, English maintained that viewers create “blackness” in art, much more than artists.64 As much as Schoener’s exhibition avoided including “black art,” Golden’s began to hint at the complication of this categorization.

Harlem on My Mind was not only a catalyst for increased demand for non-white artist inclusion; it also introduced showcasing through representation as a mode of engaging with artists historically excluded from art museums. However, the exhibition sacrificed artists’ works in the guise of objectivity. While Schoener avoided engaging with the implications of his representations of black artists at the Metropolitan Museum, Golden built an exhibition deliberately focused on instigating dialogue to question and critique representations. Black Male itself embraced these dialogues and challenged people’s understandings, not only about black masculinity, but about larger themes in the art world. Through her controversial and historically focused approach, Golden showed that an exhibition integrating artists’ voices and focusing on artistic representation creates lasting conversations. Her complication of the understanding and stereotypes of black males in society opened the floor for curators to continue questioning representations of race in the art museum.65 Biennial would suggest not. (See the introduction to this thesis.)

64 Darby English, How to See a Work in Total Darkness (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007), 27.

65 Although it is out of the timeframe and locational scope of this project, Hamza Walker’s exhibition Black Is, Black Ain’t was another, powerful example of showcasing through representation. He worked in a similar vein as Golden as he sought to complicate representations of blackness in contemporary art at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 2008.

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Select References Bearden, Romare, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, Tom Lloyd, William Williams, and Hale Woodruff. “The Black Artist in America: A Symposium.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27, no. 5 (1969): 245-61. doi:10.2307/3258415.

Bennett, Tony. The Birth of the Museum. Abingdon, EU: Routledge, 1995.

Boime, Albert. Art of Exclusion: Representing Blacks in the Nineteenth Century. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990.

Cahan, Susan. Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016.

Cooks, Bridget R. “Black Artists and Activism: Harlem on My Mind (1969).” American Studies, 48, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 5-40.

———. Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011.

Copeland, Huey, Thelma Golden, and Hilton Als. “Looking Back at Black Male: A Conversation with Thelma Golden, Hilton Als, and Huey Copeland.” Whitney Museum of American Art video, 1:21:25. December 12, 2014. http://whitney.org/WatchAndListen?play_id=1099.

Dubin, Steven. Displays of Power: Memory and Amnesia in the American Museum. New York: NYU Press, 2001.

English, Darby. How to See a Work of Art in Total Darkness. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2007.

Exhibition records from the Whitney Museum of American Art archives at the Frances Mullhall Achilles Library.

Farrell, Betty and Maria Medvedeva. “Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums.” American Association of Museums (2010): 1-42. http://www.aam-us.org/docs/centerfor-the-future-of-museums/demotransaam2010.pdf.

Fusco, Coco. “Censorship, Not the Painting, Must Go: On Dana Schutz’s Image of Emmett Till.”

Hyperallergic, March 27, 2017. Accessed March 28, 2017. https://hyperallergic.com/368290/ censorship-not-the-painting-must-go-on-dana-schutzs-image-of-emmett-till/.

Gates, Henry Louis. “Harlem on Our Minds.” Critical Inquiry 24, no. 1 (1997): 1-12. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/1344157.

George, Lynell. “The ‘Black Male’ Debate: Controversy Over the Whitney Show Has Arrived Ahead of Its L.A. Outing—Alternative Exhibitions Are Planned.” Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1995. Accessed January 10, 2017. http://articles.latimes.com/1995-02-22/entertainment/ ca-34639_1_black-male.

Golden, Thelma. Black Male [brochure]: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994. Volume 21. Accessed from Internet Archives, April 20, 2017. https://archive.org/details/blackmalebrochur2123unse.

Grey, Herman. Cultural Moves: African Americans and the Politics of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.

Hall, Stuart. “What Is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” In Black Popular Culture, edited by Gina Dent, 21-33. Seattle: Bay Press, 1992.

———. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1997.

Hoving, Thomas. “[Director’s Note].” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27, no. 5 (1969): 243-44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3258414.

Jung, Yuha. “Harlem On My Mind: A Step Toward Promoting Cultural Diversity in Art Museums.” International Journal of the Inclusive Museum vol. 7, no. 2 (2015): 1-13.

Kandel, Susan. “Art Review: Another Way of Picturing Black Men.” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1995. Accessed April 19, 2017. http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-25/entertainment/ ca-5650_1_black-male/2.

Kennedy, Randy. “White Artist’s Painting of Emmet Till at Whitney Biennial Draws Protests.” New York Times, March 21, 2017. Accessed March 22, 2017. https://www.nytimes. com/2017/03/21/arts/design/painting-of-emmett-till-at-whitney-biennial-draws-protests. html?emc=eta1&mtrref=undefined.

Kimmelman, Michael. “Review: Constructing Images Of the Black Male.” New York Times, November 11, 1994. Accessed January 10, 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/11/arts/ art-review-constructing-images-of-the-black-male.html?pagewanted=all.

McEvilley, Thomas. Art & Otherness: Crisis in Cultural Identity. Kingston: McPherson & Company, 1992.

Mercer, Kobena. “Endangered Species: Danny Tisdale and Keith Piper.” Artforum 30 (1992): 75.

Murray, Derek C. “Home to Harlem.” International Review of African American Art 17, no. 4 (2001): 48-51.

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New York Public Library, Archives and Manuscripts. “Black Emergency Culture Coalition records 1971-1984.” Accessed April 17, 2017. http://archives.nypl.org/scm/20908.

Rose, Charlie. “Thelma Golden.” Charlie Rose LLC. Video, 14:51. February 27, 1995. https:// charlierose.com/videos/1213.

Sanders Design Works Inc. “The Whitney Museum.” Accessed April 16, 2017. http://www. sandersdesignworks.com/Sanders%20Design/Whitney%20Museum.html.

Schonfeld, Roger and Mariët Westermann. “The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey.” The Andrew Mellon Foundation, July 28, 2015. https://mellon. org/media/filer_public/ba/99/ba99e53a-48d5-4038-80e1-66f9ba1c020e/awmf_museum_ diversity_report_aamd_7-28-15.pdf.

Sims, Lowery Stokes. “Subject/subjectivity and agency in the art of African Americans.” Art Bulletin 74, no. 4 (December 1994): 587.

Smith, Roberta. “Why the Whitney’s Humanist, Pro-Diversity Biennial Is a Revelation.” New York Times, March 16, 2017. Accessed March 27, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/ arts/design/why-the-whitneys-humanist-pro-diversity-biennial-is-a-revelation.html.

Valentine, Victoria. “History Makers: 10 African American Firsts in Modern and Contemporary Art Continue to Resonate Today.” Culture Type, July 23, 2016. Accessed September 17, 2016. http://www.culturetype.com/2016/07/23/history-makers-10-african-american-firsts-in-modern-and-contemporary-art-continue-to-resonate-today/.

Vartanian, Hrag. “The Violence of the 2017 Whitney Biennial.” Hyperallergic, March 20, 2017. Accessed March 22, 2017. https://hyperallergic.com/366688/ the-violence-of-the-2017-whitney-biennial/.

Walker, Hamza, Huey Copeland, Thelma Golden, Kellie Jones, and Bennett Simpson. “Black Is, Black Ain’t Book Release and Talk.” Chicago Artists Resource video, 2:04:58. November 15, 2013. http://www.chicagoartistsresource.org/field-notess/black-black-aint-book-release-and-talk.

Whitney Museum of American Art. “Collection.” Accessed February 19, 2017. http://collection. whitney.org/object/11433.

Computer Science

Xtreme Augmentation:

Logo Classification Using One Image per Class

Naveen Iyer, Vijay Edupuganti, and Divya Patel

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

We show that using XA as an augmentation technique for real-world data can be beneficial. We also show that we can reach an accuracy of 48%.

â&#x20AC;?

Naveen Iyer is a 4th year in SEAS at the University of Virginia, where he majors in computer science. At UVA, he's been involved with the Rodman Scholars program and the Intercollegiate Programming Competition, and has TA'd for a class called Data Visualization. Naveen has worked for LiftVector Labs and Amazon during his summers between school, and will be joining Facebook Vijay Edupuganti is a 4th year in SEAS at the University of Virginia, where he studies computer science. He loves sports, and has found a passion at the intersection of coding and sports analysis - he's worked for the Portland Trailblazers, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and UVA's own soccer team in analytics positions. Next year, he'll be joining a real estate startup in San Francisco named OpenDoor. Vijay has aspirations of one day being a project manager.

Divya Patel is a 4th year in SEAS at the University of Virginia, and is double majoring in computer science and math. Divya has been a teaching assistant and has worked at Capital One and Amazon. Next year, he will be joining a startup in the Bay Area next year named Sumo Logic.

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Xtreme Augmentation: A Novel Logo Classification Technique Naveen Iyer, Vijay Edupuganti, and Divya Patel University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America In this paper, we propose a novel method of data augmentation known as Xtreme Augmentation (XA). XA uses a seed image for each class to programmatically generate any number of randomly transformed training images. We show that we are able to not only use Xtreme Augmentation in conjunction with manually labelled data sets to bolster accuracy, but also to fine-tune a network using exclusively XA-generated images to reach modest accuracies. A GoogLeNet-v2 model with inception layers and a dropout layer was used. To establish a baseline, we trained this model on the FlickrLogos-32 dataset and achieved an 81% test accuracy. Subsequently, we trained on a dataset created via XA on various models (eg. LeNet) before augmentation. With fine-tuning, a maximum test accuracy of ~48% was achieved. These results confirm that XA is a viable technique to solve problems in image classification projects associated with cost, scale and scope.

Keywords: Eating-IAT; eating associations; age; moderator

Introduction In recent years, deep learning has been applied to the field of computer vision and has greatly increased model accuracy in classifying, identifying, and localizing objects. However, a drawback of deep learning is the need for labelled training data, which enables the model to learn features about each object. Acquiring such data can be extremely expensive and time-consuming, as images need to be both curated and manually annotated.

Common approaches to annotate this data include the use of technologies like Amazon Mechanical Turk, which essentially crowd-source the labelling of images. These services generally cost a fixed amount per image. Thus, creating datasets of thousands and even millions of images can be financially infeasible.

Due to the aforementioned difficulties, most datasets have a small number of classes and training images for specific classes. For example, the FlickrLogos-32 dataset is extremely popular in logo classification and logo identification tasks. Despite being fairly large and used frequently, the dataset only contains 32 classes of company logos with 71 images per class. BelgaLogos, a larger dataset, contains more training images (total of 10,000) but has only 26 classes.

In order to build a more generalized logo recognition or classification model that could learn a large number of classes, a much larger dataset would need to be manually annotated. While data augmentation like stochastic variation can decrease the number of training images necessary to learn a class, traditional deep learning models still require a significant amount of annotated data. A proposed solution to this problem is the creation of new network architectures that are designed to learn a new class given only one training image by using previous knowledge of other classes. This solution, dubbed â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;one-shot learningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, is based off of the idea that humans learn a new object after having only seen the object one or two times because they have a strong understanding of related objects and context. For example, if a bird expert were to learn how 100 different species of

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birds looked and could differentiate between them, seeing a new species one time would allow him to extrapolate key similarities and differences between the new species and the previous 100 species. One-shot learning has shown promise [8], but requires novel architectures and requires careful balancing of weights to ensure the addition of a new class does not affect the accuracies of prior classes.

Figure 1.

Overview of our proposed technique.

Our proposed data augmentation technique, known as Xtreme Augmentation (XA), aims to generate a training dataset given only one manually annotated seed image. By applying a series of image processing techniques on the seed image and then overlaying it onto a randomly sampled background, as seen in Figure 1, the generated dataset aims to model real training data and be used as a substitution or augmentation for annotated real-world data. We tested our proposed technique in the logo classification space, as our current transformations are best equipped to deal with 2D objects in a 3D space.

Related Work For the task of using computer generated data to aid learning systems, there exists some prior work in the human modeling space. For example, silhouettes rendered using Poser, an animation software, have been used to learn a multi-view shape model for humans [3]. More recently, [4] a game engine was used to programmatically create training data for a HOG-based detector. These techniques, however, have not been applied to a deep learning framework.

DeepLogo [2], uses deep learning to classify and localize logos using the FlickrLogos-32 dataset. Using a basic GoogleNet model, they achieve a Top-1 Accuracy of 79% and then design and implement a modified architecture with global pooling layers that achieved 89% test accuracy. We used the error analysis for DeepLogo, along with some of the key observations on inception layers, as a basis for our model and transformation choices.

Deep CNN Models We tried several model architectures, basing initial trials on the results found in DeepLogo [2]. We found that “inception” layers, or layers containing multiple convolution filter resolutions, were a key factor in training. These layers enable the model to better learn features from objects that might be small in one picture and then very large in the next, as logos tend to be pictured from various distances.

The two models that we found to have good accuracies were the pretrained GoogLeNet-v2 (with inception layers) and ResNet-18 models. We fine-tuned these networks for our own application, and we found that both models over-fit the small number of training images rather quickly. To remedy this issue, we added a dropout layer (0.8) for regularization. Dropout layers essentially ‘drop’ a percentage of neurons and their

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connections from the network, which prevents the units from co-adapting too much [5].

In order to train our models, we used an Amazon Web Services (AWS) p2.xlarge instance. The instance features included 64GB of ram, a Tesla K80 GPU with 12GB of GDDR5 memory at 5GHz, and 2496 stream processors at 562MHz. It took the machine about fifteen minutes to train each epoch for ResNet and five minutes for GoogLeNet-v2 models.

Data FlickrLogos-32 The FlickrLogos-32 dataset consists of images featuring the logos of 32 different brands. The dataset has been used in several logo retrieval projects and detection systems for evaluation purposes. The 32 classes represent a diverse set of logos, including beverage, apparel, and automotive brands. The original dataset is partitioned into 10 training images, 30 testing images, and 30 validation images per class, resulting in a total of 70 images per class. All images were manually selected with the training images containing less clutter than the testing and validation sets. Logos in these images were on approximately planar surfaces.

Xtreme Augmentation Data We generated several datasets using the XA technique. There are four core steps: annually creating a seed logo image per class, applying transformations to each logo, overlaying the logo onto a background, and applying a screen or filter to the resulting image. Each of the steps is outlined in detail below.

Seed Images

Figure 2.

Sample seed image.

In order to generate the dataset, we manually created 32 ‘seed’ logos, which were 512x512 images of the logo on a transparent background. Figure 2 shows the ‘Pepsi’ seed logo. These images were found through Google searches, edited using an online photo-editing tool Pixlr, and then stored as .png files.

Transformation

The next step in Xtreme Augmentation is the application of a series of random transformations to each logo. Using OpenCV, a modularized system was created to enable multiple transformations to be applied to a given logo. Despite performing transformations that affected the overall size and orientation of the logo, transparency was preserved.

1. Affine/Perspective Transformations: Affine transformations preserve the ratio of distances of points in an image. Utilizing a single perspective point and maintaining collinearity allows logos to be rotated at different angles and directions without appearing warped or distorted.

2. Blurring: Blurring transformations are included to simulate a poorly taken image or an image with low resolution. These are created by setting dependencies on each output

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pixel, which in effect “smoothes” the image.

3. Horizontal/Vertical Resizing: In order to incorporate different sized logos while maintaining the same aspect ratio, logos were resized.

4. Dim Transform: In order to simulate logos taken under different lighting conditions and times of day, the brightness of an image was randomly adjusted.

5. Color/Saturation Transform: By converting the logo to an HSV image, we could slightly alter the hue and saturation to better model how logos appear under different lighting or camera settings.

Figure 3.

Various transformations applied to seed Pepsi image.

Background Placement We used the Indoor Scenes database [6] and Sift Flow database [7] for background images. After a logo was transformed, a random image from the two databases was selected as the ‘background’ for the logo. The background image was upsized to 768x768, and then the logo was overlaid randomly without going out of bounds. Then, a random crop was performed to add additional randomness.

Adding Screens After the logo was placed on the background, the final step was to apply a screen to the image. There were five possible screens, each intended to add additional noise and texture to the image. Examples included rain, concrete and a fade. The final image was downsized to 224x224 pixels for training due to storage and model constraints.

Randomization Strategy In order to randomly generate the XA training images, we created a system that takes in logo images and decides how many transformations to apply, which transformations to apply, and the parameters given to each of the transformations that are to be applied to the given image. Each transformation module contains information about the ideal ranges for each of the parameters required for the transformation. This ideal range ensures that the integrity of the image is preserved and that the image is not too dark or too small. For example, from visual experimentation we found that for the dimming

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module, transforming an image to HSV space and reducing the V value between 20 and 120 for the dimming module, worked well for images spanning a wide array of colors and settings. Thus, our system first uses a random number generator to decide the number of transformations that will be applied, and then uses a weighted randomizer to decide which transformations are applied, such that key transformations like dimming have a higher chance of being chosen than less represented transformations like the affine transformation. Finally, the system uses a random number generator to choose transformation module parameters based on the ranges specified within each chosen module and applies the transformations to the image.

Figure 4.

Resulting generated images after the 4 steps: Transformation, Background Placement, Adding Screens, Randomization Strategy

Subsequently, a random background is chosen from the set of scene images, and the transformed logo is superimposed onto the chosen background. Since logos in real world images are oftentimes obscured by weather conditions such as rain and fog, we try to model these circumstances in our generated dataset by randomly superimposing a screen that adds various weather conditions over the entire image with 25% chance.

Evaluation Baselines We used the process and general architecture outlined by Forrest Iandola et al. [2] as inspiration for the baseline for our experiment. We compare the testing accuracy achieved by training a modified GoogLeNet model on 48 images per class and testing it on 23 images per class from the FlickrLogos-32 dataset to the testing accuracy achieved by training the model on 48 images from FlickrLogos-32 and 70 Xtremely Augmented images with only the FlickrLogos-32 images for testing. This experiment helps us

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determine whether the augmented images add useful information to the model. When testing the FlickrLogos-32 trainset on a FlickrLogos-32 testset, we achieved a maximum testing accuracy of 81%.

Figure 5.

Train on FlickrLogos-32,

Test on FlickrLogos-32.

We trained our model on transformed logos overlaid on a plain white background as a baseline for determining whether the random background selection helps increase classification accuracy over a constant background. This baseline test used 71 Xtremely Augmented images for training and 23 FlickrLogos-32 images for testing. The maximum accuracy achieved after 10 epochs was 28.97%. Figure 5 depicts the trajectory of testing accuracy over the number of epochs.

Figure 6.

Logos on White Backgrounds.

The LeNet model was also trained on our images as a baseline to analyze the effect of using a pre-trained model versus training a network from scratch. We chose LeNet for its simple architecture featuring just two convolutional layers, two pooling layers, two linear layers, and a softmax layer. In just 40 epochs, LeNet reached a training accuracy of 90%, and a testing accuracy of 25.95%. This indicates that using a pre-trained network does help improve accuracy. However, even without fine-tuning a pre-trained network, we can achieve results that are significantly better than random, which is 1/32 = 3.125% because we classify images among 32 different classes. The baseline test involves training and testing LeNet on a partitioned FlickrLogos-32. The dataset was divided using a 48-to-23 trainset-to-testset split. We achieved a maximum accuracy of 24.86% after 46 epochs. In Figure 7, we show the test accuracy over many epochs.

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Figure 7.

Training from Scratch with LeNet.

Augmentation Having established solid baselines, we tested how XA could be used in traditional data augmentation. We were already using stochastic augmentation in our pre-processing function by slightly shifting image x and y values and taking a random crop. To use our proposed XA along with this stochastic augmentation, we generated 70 XA images per class to train GoogLeNet in conjunction with the 48 real FlickrLogos-32 images per class. In Figure 8, we compare the results of a model trained with both XA images and stochastic augmentation to a model trained with only stochastic augmentation and the baseline FlickrLogos-32 train/test split. The results indicate that XA can increase the accuracy by up to 4%. This finding is promising as it implies that our generated images are not detracting from the learning process, but rather helping the model.

Figure 8.

Train on Flickr + XtremeAugmentation, Test on Flickr.

Only XA While augmenting existing data can be useful in many applications, the fundamental problem of obtaining manually annotated training data is only reduced by some factor.

We therefore investigated the potential of training a model only on XA data, and then testing the model on FlickrLogos32 data. Because we did not need any of the FlickrLogos32 images for training, we could use the entire dataset as our test set.

Size Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Matter XA offers the flexibility to generate any number of training images, with the only constraint being hard disk space. Further experimentation was conducted to determine how the number of generated images impacts the accuracy of our models. Our results, shown in Figure 10, indicate that as we doubled or tripled the number of training images, the testing accuracy over epochs didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t vary significantly. We have two interpretations

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of this as normally more training images correlates well with better test accuracy. The first hypothesis is that the randomness of our XA system is not enough for the models to learn the true features for each logo, and therefore XA finds suboptimal features quickly and over-fits. A second hypothesis is that there is some inherent limitation to our data generation approach that restricts us from truly modelling the FlickrLogos-32 data. Perhaps the models we are using require additional variation; for example more 3D transformations or lighting variation, in order to learn a robust set of features, and our current model has learned incorrect features for some logos.

Error Analysis

Figure 9.

Train on XtremeAugmentation, Test on Flickr.

We calculated the test accuracy for each class in our best GoogLeNet fine-tuned model and have displayed the top 5 and bottom 5 classes in Figure 11. We found that there is a huge variation in the accuracy between classes - the Adidas class accuracy was worse than random, but the accuracy of classifying Starbucks was above 85%. There are several possible reasons for this variation, and below we explain three of the most probable ones.

Suboptimal Seed Image Choice Because we limited each class to only having 1 seed image, if that seed image was not representative of the entire test-set then the testing accuracy would necessarily suffer.

Some obvious examples of this are the logo for â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Texacoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, which has 4 different variations that appear throughout the FlickrLogos-32 dataset. Additionally, the seed image coloring and style could have played a large role in how well the model learned the logo. For example, we used a basic Corona logo, but each Corona logo in the test-set had a specific type of flavor and so our seed image was not very representative of the test logos.

Figure 10.

Training model with 70 XA, 140 XA, and 210 XA images.

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Class (Logo) starbucks paulaner guinness rittersport bmw ... corona heineken tsingtao cocacola adidas

Accuracy 0.857 0.814 0.786 0.671 0.600 ...

0.314 0.171 0.100 0.086 0.000

Figure 11.

Top 5 and Bottom 5 Classes in Terms of Accuracy for our 46.2% GoogLeNet v2 model.

Overfitting When analyzing the instances of incorrect classification within each class, we noticed that most of beer company logos were classified as Guinness by the model. This helps explain why the model performed poorly for some logos like beer company Heineken.

However, our model had a very high classification accuracy for the beer company Paulaner (81%), which contradicts the notion that the model learned a more generalized idea of a beer company. This could have manifested itself more due to poor seed logo choice.

Transformation Limitations Some company logos tended to be in much more varied settings and styles than others.

For example, HP logos were often inscribed onto the side of computers, but other times were on billboards in big blue font. This huge variation between logos is something that our system aimed to model with a large amount of randomness, but even our transformations had limits that perhaps did not capture the entire breadth of logo diversity.

Conclusion In this paper, we present Xtreme Augmentation, a data augmentation technique based on prior work in the field of human modelling. We first replicated results found in DeepLogo [2] after fine-tuning a GoogLeNet model on the FlickrLogos-32 dataset to achieve 81% test accuracy. We also performed baselines on other models in order to get a better sense of the FlickrLogos-32 dataset. We show that using XA as an augmentation technique for real-world data can be beneficial. We also show that we can reach an accuracy of 48% using only XA generated images. Because thousands of XA images can be generated in a matter of minutes, our model can adapt to thousands of seed logos without requiring a manually annotated dataset. This can be extremely effective in reducing costs and increasing the scale and widening the scope of image recognition projects.

Future Work This paper has constructed an entire pipeline to perform XA and has made various influential assumptions along the way. Thus, there are many areas for further exploration from this point. For example, images from the FlickrLogos-32 dataset had images of varying aspect ratios and sizes and we decided to stretch the images to force them into a 1:1 aspect ratio and resize them to 224x224 before inputting them into our model. As a result, the stretched images were likely more difficult to classify. To remedy this issue,

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we can employ a more elegant approach to resizing images by using FlickrLogos-32’s bounding box data to intelligently crop patches at a 1:1 aspect ratio to guarantee an unwarped inclusion of the logo in the final image.

Another avenue that could be explored in the future is the effect of each combination of transformations on the testing accuracy. A systematic approach, such as gradient descent, could be devised to experimentally determine the optimal combination of transformations that must be applied to a set of images to maximize testing accuracy. Our current randomization approach does not include the use of such a technique but doing so could optimize our approach.

References [1] Stefan Romberg, Lluis Garcia Pueyo, Rainer Lienhart, Roelof van Zwol. Scalable Logo Recognition. In Real-World Images ACM International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval 2011 (ICMR11), Trento, April 2011. Also Technical Report, University of Augsburg, Institute of Computer Science, March 2011 [2] Forrest Iandola, Anting Shen, Peter Gao, Kurt Keutzer. DeepLogo: Hitting Logo Recognition with the Deep Neural Network Hammer. arXiv:1510.02131, Oct. 2015 [3] K. Grauman, G. Shakhnarovich, and T. Darrell. Inferring 3d structure with a statistical image-based shape model. In ICCV, pages 641–648, 2003.

[4] J. Marin, D. Vazquez, D. Geronimo, and A. Lopez. Learning appearance in virtual scenarios for pedestrian detection. In CVPR, pages 137–144, 2010.

[5] Srivastava, N., Hinton, G., Krizhevsky, A., Sutskever, I., & Salakhutdinov, R. (2014). Dropout: A Simple Way to Prevent Neural Networks from Overfitting. J. Mach. Learn. Res., 15(1), 1929-1958.

[6] A. Quattoni, and A.Torralba. Recognizing Indoor Scenes. IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2009.

[7] Liu, C., Yuen, J., Torralba, A., Sivic, J., & Freeman, W. T. (2008, October). Sift flow: Dense correspondence across different scenes. In European conference on computer vision (pp.

28-42). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

[8]Fei-Fei, L., Fergus, R., & Perona, P. (2006). One-shot learning of object categories. IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence, 28(4), 594-611. Chicago

Psychology

Pretend Play as a Potential Regulator of Emotion in Young Children

Gabrielle Sky Cardwell

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Pretend play may not facilitate children’s emotion regulation following a stressful event better than another activity, such as non-pretend play or book reading.

”

Gabrielle Sky Cardwell graduated with high distinction from UVa in 2017 where she majored in Psychology and minored in Biothetics. During her time at UVa, Sky worked as a research assistant in the Virginia Institute for Development in Adulthood (VIDA) Lab directed by Dr. Joseph Allen examining how early life experiences and relationships with peers and parents affect adolescent development. She also worked in the Early Development Lab where she pursued her thesis under the guidance of Dr. Angeline Lillard examining how play affects emotion regulation in young children. Sky is currently working as a Clinical Research Assistant at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and will soon be applying to PhD programs in Clinical Psychology. Her research interests include the effects of stress on emotion regulation in children, how family, social environments, and genetics combine to shape atypical development, and the treatment of emotional and developmental disorders in children and adolescents.

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Pretend Play as a Potential Regulator of Emotion in Young Children Gabrielle Sky Cardwell University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America Pretend play is considered by many to be essential to children’s development; yet a recent review of the research does not provide strong support for these claims. One potentially promising role of pretend play may be to facilitate emotion regulation and reduce anxiety, helping children cope with stressful events. The current study examines the effect of pretend play on emotion regulation in preschoolers. Fortysix three- and four-year-olds (M = 4 years) watched a stress-inducing video clip and then engaged in either pretend play, non-pretend play, or listened to a storybook; self-reported and physiological measures of stress were collected throughout the study.

Children who engaged in pretend play did not recover from the stressful event any better than children who engaged in non-pretend play or listened to a storybook, suggesting that pretend play may not be more effective than another activity in facilitating children’s emotion regulation immediately after a stressful event. These results are inconsistent with previous findings that pretend play aids emotion regulation in children. Additionally, against researchers’ prediction, children’s self-reported measures of stress did not change significantly throughout the study, with most children reporting that they were happy throughout. This finding may indicate that children are not accurate reporters of their mood. This study is one of the first to examine the role of pretend play in children’s emotion regulation using reliable physiological measures.

Keywords: Eating-IAT; eating associations; age; moderator

Pretend play can be defined as play in which one reality is stretched over another “to protect, conceal, or disguise it” (Austin, 1957/1979, p. 260) in a spirit of fun and amusement (Lillard, 2015). Although many have claimed that pretend play is an essential part of children’s development (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009; Fisher, Hirsh-Pasek, & Gryfe, 2008; Ginsburg, 2007; Hurwitz, 2002; Stagnitti & Unsworth, 2000; Vygotsky, 1967; Zigler & Bishop-Josef, 2004), a recent review of the research in this domain suggests that definitive proof of the unique importance of pretend play for development is lacking (Lillard, et al., 2013).

One promising area which pretend play appears to be beneficial is emotion regulation, a necessary ability for healthy development (Cole, Michel, & Teti, 1994; Gayler & Evans, 2001; Gross & Munoz, 1995; Karreman, Tuijl, Aken, & Dekovic, 2006; Thomspon, 1994).

Emotion regulation refers to processes that are used to manage emotional arousal and support adaptive responses (Karreman et al., 2006). Children often attempt to regulate their emotions through means such as self-soothing, help-seeking, and distraction (Karreman et al., 2006). Deficits in emotion regulation have been linked to poor adjustment in school, poor social relationships, and internalizing behavior and depression (Gayler & Evans, 2001). If pretend play facilitates emotion regulation, as many theorists propose (Barnett, 1984; Barnett & Storm, 1981; Bretherton, 1989; Colwell & Lindsey, 2003; Fein, 1989; Gayler & Evans, 2001; Hoffman & Russ, 2012; Milos & Reiss, 1982), pretend play

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may be important to healthy development in this way.

I will begin by defining pretend play and emotion regulation, as well as summarizing arguments regarding their role in development. I will next review theories regarding the relation between pretend play and emotion regulation, and research that supports those claims.

Pretend Play in Children’s Development Krasnor and Pepler (1980) developed four criteria to define pretend play: flexibility, positive affect, nonliterality, and intrinsic motivation. Flexibility refers to the idea that play behaviors are different in form and/or content from real-life behaviors. Positive affect refers to the notion that it looks as if individuals have fun when they play.

Nonliterality refers to behaviors during play that differ from their real-world function and meaning but at the same time maintain it. Intrinsic motivation refers to the notion that individuals engage in play for its own value, not because of any external motivator (Smith, 2010).

Vygostky (1967) believed that pretend play was necessary for children to develop many important skills, including language, social abilities, and problem solving. He went so far as to refer to play as “the leading source of development in preschool years” (Vygotsky, 1967, p. 1). More recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed the claim that pretend play contributes to many aspects of children’s well-being and is essential to healthy development (Ginsburg, 2007). However, pretend play may not be as crucial to children’s development as many believe (Lillard et al., 2013). This review found that across the domains of language, narrative, emotion regulation, executive function, social skills, reasoning, problem solving, creativity, and intelligence there is no conclusive evidence that pretend play is necessary for healthy development (Lillard et al., 2013). Results remain inconclusive due to several methodological flaws, such as nonrandom assignment, knowledgeable experimenters, inadequate control conditions, unrigorous data analyses, and skewed interpretation (Lillard, Dore, Hopkins, & Smith, in press). Therefore, further research is needed to determine the role and importance of pretend play for healthy development, particularly as it relates to different domains, such as emotion regulation.

Emotion Regulation and Its Physiological Measurement Emotion regulation emerges in the first year of life and improves throughout development, relying on both external and internal influences (Thompson, 1994). External influences include factors that lead to regulation that are outside of the individual. For example, children may seek comfort from a caretaker or a favorite toy after a stressful event in order to help resolve this stress. Internal influences involve means of regulation that occur within an individual. This requires the use of both attention to environmental threats and challenges, as well as strategies to adjust emotional responses to these events (Thayer, Ahs, Fredrikson, Sollers & Wager, 2012). For example, children may respond to a stressful event by redirecting their attention away from the stressor (e.g., covering their eyes) or by altering their construal of the stressor (e.g., deciding a clown is funny rather than scary).

These cognitive components of emotion regulation are intertwined with the body’s autonomic responses to arousal. The human body has evolved to regulate arousal with its excitatory and inhibitory systems (Thompson, 1994). The excitatory and inhibitory systems work as opposing feedback mechanisms to control the cardiovascular system through the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system has two main divisions: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system controls processes that activate the body’s fight-or-flight

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response. The parasympathetic nervous system controls systems that regulate the internal organs while in a resting state.

Receptors in the region of the body involved in heart rate and breathing, the cardio pulmonary system, mediate these systems to control sympathetic and vagal outflow.

Sympathetic outflow refers to the process controlled by the sympathetic nervous system.

Vagal outflow refers to the process controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system.

When the positive feedback mechanism is activated, the sympathetic outflow is excited while the vagal outflow is inhibited (Malliani, Pagani, Lombardi, & Cerutti, 1991). This is how the body prepares for the fight-or-flight response. When the negative feedback mechanism is activated by the excitatory and inhibitory systems, the vagal outflow is excited and the sympathetic outflow is inhibited (Malliani et al., 1991). This is how the body retains homeostasis when in a resting state.

Parasympathetic activity that controls heart rate, or cardiac parasympathetic activity, has been found to be a well-validated measure of emotion regulation in adults and children (Cui et al., 2015; Gentzler, Santucci, Kovacs, & Fox, 2009; Sanders & Abaied, 2015). One measure of this cardiac parasympathetic activity is respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which is heart rate variability that is related to the frequency of breathing.

Children in middle childhood who exhibit better emotion regulation have lower resting levels of RSA (Gentzler et al., 2009). Additionally, RSA decreases at the state level during emotionally arousing tasks, and subsequent increases in RSA following the task indicate better emotion regulation (see Figure 1; Cui et al., 2015).

Some criticize the scientific study of emotion regulation due to concern that it is not a viable construct, as it has been applied to such a wide variety of phenomena in past research (Cole, Martin & Dennis, 2004). However, as Cole and colleagues (2004) note, emotion regulation is still a construct worth studying because it differs from other constructs related to emotion (e.g., emotion expression, emotion language, and emotion understanding). Examining childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s regulatory capabilities has valuable clinical significance, as such capacities may indicate possible pathways toward typical or atypical development.

Figure 1.

RSA changes across time for individuals with different levels of emotion regulation.

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Theories of Pretend Play and Emotion Regulation A proposed function of pretend play is that it contributes to the development of emotion expression and regulation (Bretherton, 1989; Fein 1989). Vygotsky (1967) suggested that one function of pretense is that it allows children to reenact or resolve conflicts.

For example, a child might be frustrated by the fact that he or she is not allowed to ride a horse. Rather than throw a fit, the child might pretend to ride a horse in order to regulate or resolve this frustration. Similarly, Piaget (1962) theorized that pretend play provides children with a way of addressing and expressing emotional conflicts. While children may not have the capacity to communicate their emotional concerns or wishes in the preschool years, they may be able to use play to express such thoughts. In this way, while perhaps not necessary in development, pretend play may serve a useful role in the communication of thoughts and feelings in early childhood.

Fein (1989) claimed that while Piaget’s theories on the development of pretense are important, he and other theorists neglect the emotional importance of pretend play.

To support her claim regarding the emotional importance of pretend play, Fein (1989) analyzed the play of 30 children deemed by their teachers to be especially competent in pretend play. From these observations, she theorized that the symbolism of pretend play not only aids children in emotional expression, but also in how they process and modify the meaning of their experiences. Therefore, a child may alter the emotional intensity of his or her play so that an emotionally overwhelming experience can be made manageable (Fein, 1989).

Additionally, pretend play may offer children experiences to practice emotional reactions to different experiences. Through practicing emotions and tempering their own emotional intensity in play, children may use pretend play to self-regulate. However, Fein’s theory was based on children who were especially competent in pretend play. Perhaps the affective symbolism of play may only apply to these “master players” (Fein, 1989, p. 359). If this is true, it may be the case that children who are better regulators of their emotion are more competent in pretend play, rather than the reverse. The direction of causality remains unclear.

Bretherton (1989) also suggested that pretend play may be used as a tool to practice navigating real-world issues. Similar to the way in which adolescents resolve emotional conflicts through discussion with a friend, preschool children may explore and overcome emotional conflicts by rehearsing and resolving them indirectly through pretend play (Bretherton, 1989). However, both Fein and Bretherton concede that not all children benefit from pretend play. For example, Bretherton (1989) claimed that only securely attached, but not insecurely attached, children would benefit from pretend play because secure attachment would allow them to engage in more successful social play and therefore find better resolutions to real-world problems. Consequently, the opportunity to rehearse and resolve conflict through play seems to be least available to those who need it most (Bretherton, 1989). This once again raises the concern that it is the children who are already better regulators, such as securely attached children, who are more likely to engage in pretend play, rather than pretend play leading to these regulatory abilities.

This theory that pretend play allows for opportunities to rehearse and resolve conflict is supported by Milos and Reiss’s (1982) research, which suggests that play offers opportunities for desensitization and fragmentation. According to this view, repeated exposure to small elements of a larger fear-producing event in pretend play allows for desensitization. The exposure allows for limited stimuli that produce manageable arousal. As this play continues over time, a child may become desensitized to the larger fear-producing event entirely. This view supports the link between pretend play and emotion regulation. This desensitization through play is similar to exposure therapy, a technique used

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in cognitive behavioral therapy, which has been found to be effective in reducing anxiety in children (Kendall, 1994). Milos & Reiss’s (1982) theory focuses on the special role play may have in emotion regulation and suggests that all children could benefit from pretend play because it allows them to resolve fear- or anxiety-producing experiences.

Given these theories, researchers have sought empirical evidence of relations between pretend play and emotion regulation. Colwell and Lindsey (2003) examined the association between parent reports of children’s emotion regulation, teacher reports of emotional competence with peers, and the number and quality of pretend play episodes during dyadic play with a friend. Increased pretend play was related to better emotion understanding in both boys and girls, but was related to better emotion regulation and emotional competence in girls only (Colwell & Lindsey, 2003). Colwell and Lindsey (2013) suggested that girls might exhibit better emotion regulation than boys because they engage in more, and higher quality, pretend play and therefore have more opportunities to regulate their emotions through play. However, it is not clear that pretend play elicited better emotion regulation in this study because there was no intervention.

Therefore, while emotion regulation and pretend play may be related, it is not clear whether pretend play leads to better emotion regulation.

While Colwell and Lindsey (2013) examined naturally occurring play, Gayler and Evans (2001) examined the effect of structured play on emotion regulation. Information about children’s levels of emotion regulation and how much they participated in pretend play at home was collected from parents, and then an experimenter led a structured pretend play session with the child. In the middle of the session, the child was exposed to a negatively-valenced event, in which a crocodile puppet threatened to eat all of the toys. The child’s emotion regulation was scored based on whether (s)he resolved the conflict, and whether (s)he continued pretending after the negative event. Children’s effectiveness in resolving conflict after the negative event was not related to parent-reported emotion regulation, but continuing play was, and children who pretended more frequently at home received higher emotion regulation ratings on parent questionnaires of emotion regulation (Gayler & Evans, 2001). These results suggest that children who are better regulators of emotion engage in more pretend play, but as with the other studies described above, it still remains unclear whether pretend play causally affects children’s emotion regulation.

The aforementioned studies focused on play with peers or an adult, rather than solitary pretend play. Perhaps it is the social nature of pretend play in these studies that is related to emotion regulation, rather than the pretend play itself. Hoffmann and Russ (2012) examined how solitary pretend play and emotion regulation (among other abilities) are related in children. A five-minute pretend play period was compared with parent-reported emotion regulation, and children who scored higher in emotion regulation ability were found to engage in more imaginative and organized play. Hoffmann and Russ (2012) claim that this indicates that pretend play aids in emotion regulation by providing a safe environment for children to experiment with affect expression and to improve skills involved in identifying and expressing emotions. While this claim could be true, there is no way to know whether the children that engage in more pretend play do so to regulate their emotions, or if children who are better regulators are more likely to engage in pretend play.

It has become clear that while these studies similarly show that children who are better regulators of emotion engage in more pretend play, it remains unknown whether pretend play has a causal role in improving or aiding in emotion regulation. The question remains: Does pretend play aid in emotion regulation, or are individuals who choose to engage in more pretend play already better able to regulate their emotions? Perhaps a

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propensity to engage in pretend play is the outcome and not the cause of better emotion regulation (Bretherton, 1989).

One means to examine the directionality of the relation between pretend play and emotion regulation is to have children experience a stressful event and then measure whether play alleviates their anxiety. In one such study, Milos and Reiss (1982) explored whether pretend play resolved feelings of anxiety after preschoolers were separated from their parents. Pretend play was associated with lower anxiety than puzzle and block play, particularly when the pretend play modeled the stressful event the child had just experienced. In other words, pretend play led to lower post-test anxiety, suggesting that pretend play aids in emotion regulation by helping to resolve anxiety after a stressful event. However, certain limitations should be noted. Differences in anxiety scores between play conditions intended to elicit pretense and other play conditions were not significantly different. Therefore, while it seems play in general might help to resolve anxiety, it remains unclear if pretend play in particular is the most effective. Additionally, it is unclear whether the method to assess anxiety (a speech-disturbance measure, in which experimenters recorded the ratio of the total number of speech-disturbances: stuttering, sentence incompletions, repetitions, sentence corrections, etc. divided by the total number of words spoken), is a valid measure of anxiety in children, as this appears to be the only study that has used this measure.

A more valid way to measure emotional arousal such as anxiety and stress in children, and a way that has not extensively been done, is with physiological measures. Barnett and Storm (1981) used Palmar Sweat Index (PSI), a measure of emotional arousal based on the number of active sweat glands in an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fingerprint (Dabbs, Johnson, & Leventhal, 1968), to examine whether children who experienced a stressful event play differently than children who do not experience a stressful event. Young children watched a frightening episode of the popular childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s show Lassie in which a dog, Lassie, is involved in a plane crash and falls down a rocky cliff into a river; half of the children saw the positive resolution in which Lassie climbs out of the water and returns to her owner immediately, and half of the children did not see this resolution. Children who did not view the resolution showed greater stress reduction through play than children who had viewed the resolution. While the play may have reduced stress, the reduction could have also been due to the passage of time. Additionally, children who did not view the resolution played differently; they were more likely to play with thematically-relevant toys, which could be interpreted as attempts to resolve stress induced by the video. Even if this is true, it is not clear that more attention to these toys indicates that pretend play overall is better at alleviating stress. For example, one of the toys, (a Lassie toy) was plush, whereas the other toys were wooden (e.g., Tinker Toys). Perhaps the soft, warm nature of the toy, rather than the play itself, was comforting to children.

In a follow-up study, Barnett (1984) compared whether play or listening to a storybook showed a greater reduction in anxiety in preschoolers, measured using PSI. Children were observed on the first day of preschool and separated into a high anxiety group and a low anxiety group based on distress following separation from a parent. They were then either given the opportunity to play or read a book about trees. Play reduced anxiety better than book reading, but only for the highly anxious children. The low anxiety group showed no significant differences in anxiety between the two activities, and no differences in anxiety over time. To date, Barnettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s study (1984) provides the best evidence that play reduces anxiety relative to another activity.

The Present Study The studies reviewed here suggest that there may be a relation between pretend play

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and emotion regulation, and that this relation may even be causal. Yet, many of these studies contain methodological limitations that preclude understanding of the directionality of effects, and the physiological measure used, Palmar Sweat Index, has fallen out of favor as it is not correlated with other measures of distress (McGrath, Cunningham, Goodman, & Anita, 1985).

The present study attempts to ameliorate these concerns. It examines whether Barnett’s (1984) findings can be replicated, comparing two activities that may help children regulate their emotions (storybook reading and play). In this study, children watch a stressful video and then engage in pretend play, engage in non-pretend play, or are read a story book. Behavioral and physiological measures of stress are conducted throughout the study. This is the first study to use a well validated physiological measure of emotion regulation, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, to examine the relation between pretend play and emotion regulation.

Method Participants Participants were 46 children ages 3-4 (M = 48.02 months, SD = 6.08 months; 22 male).

An additional 2 children participated but were excluded due to unreadable physiological data (n = 1) and noncompliance (n = 1), and an additional child refused to participate (n = 1). Participants were randomly assigned to three conditions: a pretend play condition (n = 21), a non-pretend play condition (n=16) and a control condition (n = 9). Participants were predominantly white and middle-class, in keeping with the composition of local families willing to bring their children to participate in studies.

Materials and Measures Physiological measures. Physiological data were collected with a BioNex Impedance Cardiograph & GSC2 system from Mindware Technologies. Data were recorded concurrently using MindWare BioLab 3.1 with a sampling rate of 1000 Hz. Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA). Six MindWare pediatric ECG electrodes were attached to participants’ torso and back to measure ECG and thoracic impedance. RSA measures in the last minute of each recording period were used to measure physiological stress because it is thought that this is the most accurate; it captures the point at which the task has affected the child.

Galvanic Skin Conductance (GSC). Two MindWare GSC electrodes were attached to participants’ right foot to measure galvanic skin conductance. The electrodes were placed on the foot in order to reduce motion artifacts during the activities in the study, a technique supported by MindWare Tech (J. Schmidt, personal communication, October 20, 2016). Thisis data hass not been analyzed due to lack of access to the proper analysis software and will not be discussed further.

Affect Measures Puppet Interview. An adaptation of the Berkeley Puppet Interview (Measelle, Ablow, Cowan, & Cowan, 1998) was used to assess participants’ self-reported anxiety. The experimenter explained that two identical plush rhino puppets named “Iggy” and “Ziggy”, distinguished by different colored ribbons around their necks (see Figure 2), would each tell the participant something about themselves and then the participant would point to the puppet (s)he identified with. The experimenter shook the Iggy puppet for one statement then shook the Ziggy puppet for the other in order to indicate that each had a different opinion. Questions were administered in a counterbalanced order and the side that each character was sitting on was counterbalanced across to avoid side or ribbon

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color preferences.

The experimenter asked two practice questions (“I like/don’t like pizza. How about you?”), and then five separate questions to measure whether or not the participant felt happy, sad, okay, calm, or scared. For example, one puppet would say “I feel happy right now,” and the other would say, “I don’t feel happy right now.” Then both would ask the child, “How about you?” Additionally, two questions were added to gauge how participants felt about the Lassie video specifically (discussed below). Children received 1 point for every positive choice; for example, 1 point was awarded if the child pointed to the puppet that said “I feel happy right now,” and so on.

Figure 2.

Schematic representation of procedure.

Emotion Measure. A 5-point Likert scale of smiling to frowning faces was used to measure children’s happiness (see Figure 2). Responses to this scale have been shown to relate to physiological measures of stress (PSI; Barnett & Storm, 1981). First, the experimenter explained the emotion label of each face (“This face is very happy”). Then the experimenter asked the participant in a fixed random order to match emotion levels with the faces. Once the child demonstrated understanding of the scale, the experimenter asked the participant to point to the face that indicated how they were feeling right now.

Children received a score from 1 (very sad) to 5 (very happy).

Design A schematic representation of the procedure is located in Figure 2. After obtaining parental consent and verbal child assent, children were fitted with the MindWare sensors; this was done in the presence of the parent to minimize anxiety during attachment of the electrodes. Participants were brought into the testing room, where, after height, weight, and waist measurement were collected, they were seated at a small table. Once seated, the experimenter plugged the electrode leads into the MindWare chasis and completed a test of the physiological readings.

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To begin, participants were told they could play with the blocks, crayons, and paper on the table while the two experimenters completed some work. While the participants played for 5 minutes, an experimenter obtained baseline physiological data. Once this play baseline data was collected, children then watched a video that depicted tranquil nature scenes with relaxing music; this allowed for baseline physiological data while participants remained still, making it more suitable for comparison to watching the stress-inducing video than the free play baseline data. Note that this video baseline was added for only the last 36 participants; implications are discussed in the Results section below. After the baseline data was collected, children rated their happiness using the Emotion Measure and their anxiety using the Puppet Interview.

After the Puppet Interview, participants watched a stress-inducing video on a 13-inch MacBook Pro. The video was a selection of scenes from the movie Lassie (1994), in which a dog, Lassie, gets caught in the current of a river while trying to rescue her owner, struggles and fails to reach land, and falls down a waterfall. Physiological data was recorded during viewing. (Note: The first 12 participants saw a 120 second version of this video, and the last 36 participants saw an extended 215 second version to ensure the clip was long enough to induce stress.) Once the Lassie video ended, the experimenter administered the second Emotion Measure and Puppet Interview with an additional question specific to the Lassie video (“I want/don’t want to watch more of the Lassie video! How about you?”). Physiological data was recorded for the first minute of this interaction.

Next, the experimenter set up the intervention: the pretend play condition, the non-pretend play condition or the book condition. In the play condition, the experimenter set out Play-Doh, Tinkertoys, a plastic Lassie toy, a plastic boy, a plastic cat, and a river illustration. The child was then told that the experimenter had some work to do, but that the participant could play with whatever (s)he wanted. In the non-pretend play condition, the experimenter set out a box of Tangrams. The child was then told that the experimenter had some work to do, but that the participant could play with whatever (s)he wanted. In the book condition, the experimenter told the child that (s)he would hear a story and that (s)he should turn the page of the book every time (s)he heard a

Figure 3.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia in the last minute of study time points split by condition.

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“beep.” The child was asked to practice turning the page to the “beep,” and once the child demonstrated this understanding, the experimenter played the recording of How Do Apples Grow? by Jill Esbaum. In all conditions, physiological data were collected throughout the 5-minute period. After the intervention, the experimenter administered the third Emotion Measure and Puppet Interview with an additional question specific to the video (“When I was playing/reading I was thinking about Lassie/thinking about other things. How about you?”). Physiological data was recorded for the first minute of this interaction.

Finally, participants watched a 3-minute resolution video, in which the audience learns that Lassie survived falling down the waterfall and is reunited with her owner.

Physiological data was recorded throughout this period. A final Emotion Measure was administered to ensure that any anxiety had been resolved, but this data was not considered in analyses.

Results Preliminary analyses were conducted to determine whether the Lassie video was indeed effective in inducing stress in participants. Lower levels of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) indicate increased levels of stress. RSA during the last minute of the free play baseline period was compared to RSA during the last minute of the Lassie video; a paired samples t-test revealed no significant difference. This could be because participants moved more during the baseline period while they played with blocks or colored compared to sitting and watching the stress film. Therefore, children may have exhibited more physiological arousal due to physical activity and, thus, exhibited lower levels of RSA. As mentioned in the Methods, to account for physical activity, a baseline video measure was added for the last 36 participants. A paired-samples t-test compared RSA in the last minute of baseline video to RSA in the last minute of the stressful Lassie video and revealed a significant difference, t (35) = 2.89, p = .007. These results suggest that the Lassie video successfully induced stress in children.

Figure 4.

Difference scores between last minute of experimental condition and last minute of Lassie video split by pretense.

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To ensure that the Lassie video caused stress for the children who did not see the baseline video, an independent samples t-test compared RSA in the last minute of the Lassie video in participants who saw the baseline video to participants who did not see the baseline video. No significant differences were found, suggesting that children who Pretend Play Condition

Mean

Mean Standard Error

Standard Deviation

Baseline RSA Baseline Video RSA Lassie Video RSA Post Stressor EM & PI RSA Play/Book RSA Post Intervention EM & PI RSA Resolution RSA

5.57 5.86 5.33 5.88 5.91 6.14 6.14

0.28 0.36 0.32 0.23 0.29 0.27 0.30

1.27 1.43 1.49 1.06 1.34 1.21 1.37

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Pretend Play Condition.

saw the baseline video did not experience significantly more stress during the Lassie video than those who did not. Therefore, all children were included in subsequent analyses. Additionally, the original play baseline was kept to compare to the play and book conditions in which children also exhibited physical activity.

Emotion Regulation and RSA Descriptive statistics for RSA can be found in Tables 1-4. The difference score between RSA during the last minute of the Lassie video and RSA during the last minute of the intervention was used to measure recovery following the stressful event. A Kruskal-Wallis H test assessed whether RSA differed between children who engaged in pretend play, non-pretend play, or book reading; there was no significant difference between these groups. RSA did not recover more when children played than when they engaged in non-pretend play or were read a book, suggesting that pretend play may not aid in emotion regulation better than other types of play or book reading.

Non-Pretend Play Condition

Mean

Mean Standard Error

Standard Deviation

Baseline RSA Baseline Video RSA Lassie Video RSA Post Stressor EM & PI RSA Play/Book RSA Post Intervention EM & PI RSA Resolution RSA

5.56 5.77 5.50 6.35 5.71 5.94 6.36

0.40 0.36 0.25 0.35 0.37 0.32 0.35

1.61 1.44 0.98 1.32 1.47 1.29 1.40

Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics for Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Non-Pretend Play Condition.

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PRETEND PLAY Book Condition

Mean

Mean Standard Error

Standard Deviation

Baseline RSA Baseline Video RSA Lassie Video RSA Post Stressor EM & PI RSA Play/Book RSA Post Intervention EM & PI RSA Resolution RSA

5.93 5.94 5.28 5.33 5.69 5.91 5.54

0.51 0.93 0.57 0.54 0.53 0.45 0.34

1.53 1.85 1.71 1.63 1.59 1.20 1.03

Table 3.

Descriptive Statistics for Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) in Book Condition.

Affect Measures. The Emotion Measure and Puppet Interview scores were positively skewed (see Table 4 for descriptive statistics); most children reported being happy throughout the study despite exposure to the stress-inducing video. To measure whether self-reported happiness changed after exposure, Emotion Measure and Puppet Interview scores after the baseline video and after the Lassie video were compared. Additionally, to measure whether self-report happiness changed after the interventions (play or book reading), Emotion Measure and Puppet Interview scores after the Lassie video and after the intervention were compared. Paired samples t-tests revealed no differences in Emotion Measure scores across any of these time points. However, paired samples t-tests did reveal significant differences between the Puppet Interview scores after baseline (M = 4.49, SD = 0.88) and after the Lassie video (M = 4.23, SD = 1.01), t (39) = 2.36, p = .023, but not between Puppet Interview scores after the Lassie video and after the intervention. In sum, while there were no differences across time points when the Emotion Measure was considered, children reported significantly less positive affect from the baseline after the stress-inducing video when Puppet Interview scores were considered.

A bivariate correlation found that Emotion Measure scores were not correlated at any time point. However, the Puppet Interview scores were significantly correlated at each time point (see Table 6). Correlations between the Emotion Measure and Puppet

Baseline: Emotion Measure Baseline: Puppet Interview Post Lassie Video: Emotion Measure Post Lassie Video: Puppet Interview Post Play/Book: Emotion Measure Post Play/Book: Puppet Interview Resolution RSA

Mean

Mean Standard Error

Standard Deviation

4.33 4.49 4.41 4.23 4.28 4.32 5.54

0.18 0.16 0.15 0.16 0.17 0.16 0.34

1.21 0.88 1.03 1.01 1.14 1.00 1.03

Table 4.

Descriptive Statistics for Emotion Measure and Puppet Interview Scores.

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1. Baseline Emotion Measure 2. Post Lassie Video EM 3. Post Intervention EM M SD

1

2

3

1

0.175 1

4.33 1.21

4.42 1.03

0.049 0.243 1 4.28 1.14

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 5.

Correlations Between Emotion Measure Scores.

Interview scores at each time point were assessed; the measures were significantly correlated at baseline measures, but were not significantly correlated at any other time point. Correlations between the Emotion Measure and RSA and the Puppet Interview and RSA at each time point were also assessed; again, no significant correlations were found between measures. The Puppet Interview may be a more accurate measure of childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s emotional state as scores were significantly correlated across time points. However, the Puppet Interview scores were not correlated with RSA (see Tables 5-10). Taken together, the lack of correlations between the various measures suggest that children may not accurately report their emotional states. This surprising finding highlights the importance of using reliable physiological measures to assess anxiety in young children.

Discussion This study sought to determine if pretend play aids in emotion regulation better than another activity, such as playing with Tangrams or book reading. Preliminary results suggest that contrary to previous findings (e.g., Barnett, 1984), pretend play does not aid in emotion regulation better than another activity. Additionally, these results suggest that children may not be accurate reporters of their emotional states, with implications for future research in this domain.

The childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s RSA did not recover more after a stressful event when engaging in pretend play than while engaging in non-pretend play or reading a storybook. Further, Measure 1. Baseline Puppet Interview 2. Post Lassie Video PI 3. Post Intervention PI M SD

1

2

3

1

0.753** 1

4.49 0.88

4.23 1.01

0.755** 0.617** 1 4.32 1.00

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 6.

Correlations Between Puppet Interview Scores.

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Measure Baseline Puppet Interview Post Lassie Video PI Post Intervention PI M SD

Baseline Emotion Post Lassie Video EM Measure 0.348* 0.198 0.338* 0.237 0.325* -0.029 4.49 4.23 0.88 1.01

Post Intervention EM 0.027 0.096 0.024 4.32 1.00

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 7.

Correlations Between Puppet Interview and Emotion Measure Scores.

this finding is inconsistent with previous work that found pretend play reduced physiological measures of stress and anxiety better than another activity (Barnett, 1984; Barnett & Storm, 1981). However, it is interesting to note that, while not significantly so, children in the pretend play condition recovered marginally better than children in the non-pretend play or the book condition (see Figure 4). Perhaps, with a larger sample size, significant differences between conditions may emerge.

Regarding childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s self-reported affect, there were no significant differences between scores on the Emotion Measure post-baseline, post-Lassie video, and post-intervention; in general, children showed a positivity bias, rating themselves as happy throughout the study. However, children did appear better able to report their emotional state with the Measure 1. Baseline Emotion Measure 2. Baseline Puppet Interview 3. Baseline RSA M SD

1

2

3

1

0.087 1

4.36 1.15

4.61 0.72

0.375 0.119 1 5.65 1.15

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 8.

Correlations Between Baseline Measures of Mean Emotion Measure, Puppet Interview, and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia.

Puppet Interview as there was a significant difference in Puppet Interview scores between post-baseline scores and post-Lassie video scores, such that children reported less positive affect from baseline to after the stress-inducing video exposure, and the Puppet Interview scores were significantly correlated with each other at each collection time throughout the study. The Puppet Interview may prove to be a more accurate measure of childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s emotional state, although caution must be taken with this interpretation, as

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GABRIELLE SKY CARDWELL Measure

1

2

3

1. Post Lassie Video Emotion Measure 2. Post Lassie Video Puppet Interview 3. Post Lassie Video RSA M SD

1

0.237 1

4.42 1.02

4.23 1.01

0.133 0.070 1 5.92 1.30

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 9.

Correlations Between Post Lassie Video Measures of Mean Emotion Measure, Puppet Interview, and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia.

the Puppet Interview scores were not correlated with RSA. Importantly, there were no significant correlations between children’s self-reported affect and their RSA levels, suggesting that children may not be accurate reporters of their emotion, or that changes in anxiety levels are subtle enough to not be brought to conscious awareness. Additionally, scores on the Emotion Measure and the Puppet Interview were correlated at baseline, but were not significantly correlated at any other time point. If these measures are intended to assess the same thing—state emotion—then we would expect them to be correlated across time points. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of using physiological measures in tandem (or even in place of) child-report measures of stress and arousal.

There are several limitations to this study. First, the sample size is small, and so more data collection is needed to ensure that these results hold. Second, RSA was the only Measure 1. Post Intervention Video Emotion Measure 2. Post Intervention Video Puppet Interview 3. Post Intervention Video RSA M SD

1

2

3

1

0.024 1

4.28 1.14

4.32 1.00

0.052 -0.223 1 6.03 1.21

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 10.

Correlations Between Post Intervention Measures of Mean Emotion Measure, Puppet Interview, and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia.

physiological measure of emotional arousal obtained. Some have claimed that RSA on its own is not an appropriate measure of emotional arousal and that it should be used in conjunction with measures such as skin conductance (Frazier, Strauss, & Steinhauer, 2004). While many studies have relied solely on RSA as a measure of emotional arousal, it would be useful to have another measure in future studies. Third, it may be useful

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to include a parent-report measure of children’s emotion regulation that can then be compared to children’s baseline measures of RSA. In previous studies, children with higher parent-reported emotion regulation scores were more likely to engage in pretend play (Colwell & Lindsey, 2001; Gayler & Evans, 2003; Hoffman & Russ, 2012). It would be interesting to examine whether children with higher baseline levels of physiological emotion regulation also score higher on parent-reports of emotion regulation, and if these children are more likely to engage in pretend play. Lastly, in this experiment, short-term stress reduction was examined using RSA as a measure of stress. Perhaps pretend play is more effective than other activities in reducing stress in the long-term, but it is not more effective in the short-term. Pretend play may be essential to emotion regulation in the long-term, but in the short-term it may work no better than distraction.

Future research is needed to assess whether pretend play is more effective in reducing stress in the long-term.

Conclusion Pretend play may not facilitate children’s emotion regulation following a stressful event better than another activity, such as non-pretend play or book reading. This research has clinical significance, as it concerns the effectiveness of play in reducing anxiety in children, central to play therapy. These findings suggest that pretend play (and play in general) may not have more therapeutic qualities than other activities, and so may not be the most effective therapy. Researchers have argued that evidence for play therapy’s effectiveness in treating anxiety is inconclusive (Phillips, 2010), and the present study speaks to that concern. Research on whether pretend play actually aids in emotion regulation is essential to determine if play therapy is effective, validating it as a therapy.

Finally, further research on pretend play as a potential regulator of emotion in young children will help to answer the question of whether and in what ways play is necessary to development.

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Letter from the Undergraduate Research Chair Dear Readers,

A

n undergraduate academic career is realized within a highly structured framework of credits, grades, majors, and assessments. It is often easy for one to get caught up in the jargon and competition of these academic parameters, and lose sight of one’s original draw to the classroom. My go-to piece of advice for students who are looking to rekindle a passion in their academics: get involved in research!

Getting involved in undergraduate research provides students the opportunity to operate in a space beyond the paradigm contained within their textbooks, to glimpse the ultimate application of the knowledge they amass in their classes, and to get excited about learning for the sake of learning. Many UVA students are surprised to uncover the expansive and dynamic community of research that lies at the core of the University’s larger mission, and are even more surprised to learn that they can be a part of it!

The Undergraduate Research Network seeks to provide support and enrichment for students along every stage of the research cycle, across all disciplines. We aid students in finding and creating research opportunities, provide students with platforms on which to publish and share their work, and expose students to the larger community of research at UVA through mentorship networks and engagement with both senior and peer researchers.

For students looking to get involved in research: We encourage you to read through our “Quick Start Guide” for getting involved in research on the URN website at http://uvaurn.org. Additionally, the Undergraduate Student Opportunities in Academic Research (USOAR) program, hosted by the Center for Undergraduate Excellence, offers paid research positions for students with little or no experience in research (http://www.virginia.edu/cue/usoar.html).

For students looking for funding or scholarships: We encourage students to pursue funding for research materials, travel, and summer experiences. The Center for Undergraduate Excellence offers a number of grants, such as the Harrison Undergraduate Research Award, and maintains a database of research scholarships and fellowships (http://www.virginia.edu/cue/scholarships.php).

For students looking to share their research: In addition to the Oculus, URN hosts an annual research symposium where students are invited to share their work in the form of a poster or oral presentation. URN also offers a travel grant for students who wish to present their research at a conference or workshop (http://uvaurn.org/urn-small-grant/).

Best regards, Sophie Liebergall Chair, Undergraduate Research Network

The Center for Undergraduate Excellence The Center for Undergraduate Excellence advises students regarding undergraduate research opportunities and national scholarships and fellowships. Students are encouraged to visit the Center throughout their undergraduate careers. For more information about the Center, please visit its website at www. virginia.edu/cue or its office at 305 Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library.

The Undergraduate Research Network The Undergraduate Research Network (URN) was formed in 2001 to foster an undergraduate research community at the University of Virginia. URN encourages students to initiate research projects and also offers guidance and mentorship to those interested in research. To achieve this goal, URN presents information about current research opportunities and publicizes funding availabilities and research-related events.

Each semester, URN puts on a series of workshops on topics ranging from finding funding for research to giving an effective research presentation, as well as an undergraduate research symposium where students who have completed significant research projects can present their findings. If you are interested in learning more about URN or becoming a part of the organization, please visit www.uvaurn.org.