Carefully Constructed Yet Curiously Real: How Major American Animation Studios Generate Empathy Through a Shared Style of Character Design

Contemporary computer-animated films by the major American animation studios Pixar, Disney and DreamWorks are often described as evoking (extremely) emotional responses from their ever-growing audiences. Following Murray Smith’s assertion that characters are central to comprehending audiences’ engagement with narratives in Engaging Characters: Fiction, Emotion, and the Cinema (1995), this article points to a specific style of characterization as a possible reason for the overwhelming emotional response to and great success of these films, exemplified in contemporary examples including Inside Out (Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen, 2015), Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014) and How to Train Your Dragon (Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, 2010). Drawing on a variety of scholarly work including Stephen Prince’s ‘perceptual realism’, Scott McCloud’s model of ‘amplification through simplification’ and Masahiro Mori’s Uncanny Valley theory, this article will argue how a shared style of character design – defined as a paradoxical combination of lifelikeness and abstraction – plays a significant role in the empathetic potential of these films. This will result in the proposition of a new and reverse phenomenon to Mori’s Uncanny Valley, dubbed the Pixar Peak, where, as opposed to a steep drop, audiences reach a climactic height in empathy levels when presented with this specific type of characterization.

A realidade das sensações: uma teoria filosófica e ética no romance A Costa dos Murmúrios, de Lídia Jorge / The Reality of Senses: A Philosophical and Ethic Theory in the Novel A Costa dos Murmúrios, by Lídia Jorge

Resumo: O artigo pretende provar que a valorização das sensações do mundo material como acesso ao real subjaz ao romance A Costa dos Murmúrios, de Lídia Jorge, e aí traduz uma teoria ético-filosófica. O realismo perceptivo de A. D. Smith e o valor cultural das sensações de Nadia Serematakis alicerçam teoricamente este artigo, numa metodologia comparativista, porque semiótico-contextual, comprovando, a partir de vários passos romanescos, que as sensações físicas estruturam e reestruturam a percepção do real: assim os murmúrios de atrocidades silenciadas, cometidas em contexto de Guerra Colonial, ou o verdadeiro “eu” por detrás da máscara de um noivo galante. A memória dos cheiros e cores da boda de Evita, o toque erótico de Luís Alex, serão, por isso, tão reais quanto a visão do sangue derramado de flamingos e das fotos escondidas de moçambicanos massacrados em contexto de Guerra Colonial, transformando a percepção que Evita, isto é, Eva Lobo, tem de Moçambique e do seu noivo Luís Alex e obrigando a reler a verdade do conto inicial inserido no romance, intitulado “Os Gafanhotos”.Palavras-chave: Lídia Jorge; A Costa dos Murmúrios; romance histórico português; Guerra Colonial; Moçambique; sensações; ética.Abstract: The article intends to prove that the valuation of senses as direct access to reality underlies the novel A Costa dos Murmúrios, by Lídia Jorge, and here sustains a ethical-philosophical theory. The perceptual realism by AD Smith and the different cultural valuation of senses by Nadia Serematakis base theoretically this article, following a comparative, semiotic-contextual, methodology, proving, from several novel passages, that physical sensations structure and restructure the perception of reality. As the murmurs from silenced atrocities committed in the context of Colonial War or the real “Me” behind the mask of a charming fiancé. The memory of the smells and colours of Evita’s wedding, the erotic touch of Luís Alex, will therefore be as real as the sight of the blood spilled from flamingos and the hidden photos of Mozambicans massacred in the context of the Colonial War, transforming the perception that Evita, that is, Eva Lobo, has of Mozambique and her fiancé Luís Alex and forcing to reread the truth of the initial tale inserted in the novel, titled “Os Gafanhotos”, The Grasshoppers.Keywords: Lídia Jorge; A Costa dos Murmúrios; Portuguese historical novel; Colonial War; Mozambique; senses; ethics.

Kames and the Argument from Perceptual Reliability

Critic and cousin to David Hume, Henry Home (1696–1782)—or Lord Kames, as he was known after his appointment to the Court of Session in 1752—had remarkably varied intellectual interests. His principal philosophical work is Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751, revised in 1758 and again in 1779), which contains constructive rejoinders to many of the sceptical arguments presented by Hume and Berkeley. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse Kames’s little-known defence of perceptual realism as it was set forth in the 1751 version of his Essays. As will become apparent in Chapter 3, Kames’s views about the nature of perception anticipated and inspired Thomas Reid’s plea for the view that we have immediate knowledge of a mind-independent world. This makes Kames the de facto founder of the Scottish common sense realist tradition.

The Rise and Fall of Scottish Common Sense Realism

This book tells the lively story of common sense realism’s rise and fall in Scotland. Chapter 1 explores the work of the Scottish common sense school of philosophy, whose representatives included Thomas Reid (1710–96), James Oswald (1703–93), James Beattie (1735–1803), and George Campbell (1719–96). Chapter 2 examines the earlier but little-known defence of perceptual realism mounted by Lord Kames (1696–1782), David Hume’s cousin and critic. Chapter 3 examines Reid’s defence of common sense realism and scrutinizes his campaign against the Cartesian assumptions on which the problem of the external world depends. Chapter 4 describes how Reidian common sense realism was propagated by two influential nineteenth-century philosophers: Dugald Stewart (1753–1828), who was content for the most part to expound Reid’s views eloquently, and the more ambitious Sir William Hamilton (1788–1856), who tried in vain to synthesize Reid and Kant. Chapters 5 and 6 highlight the two main contributions to the realism debate made by James Frederick Ferrier (1808–64): his no-holds-barred critique of Reid’s realism, and his novel argument for a form of idealism which is both neo-Berkeleyan and post-Kantian. Chapter 7 offers some reflections about the surprising direction Scottish philosophy took in the years following Ferrier’s death in 1864.

Realism and constructivism in social perception

Jussim's critique of social psychology's embrace of error and bias is needed and often persuasive. In opting for perceptual realism over social constructivism, however, he seems to ignore a third choice – a cognitive constructivism which has a long and distinguished history in the study of nonsocial perception, and which enables us to understand both accuracy and error.