Text World Theory

Yesterday, I finished a MOOC (massive online online course) called How to Read a Mind. It concerned cognitive poetics (no, even with a degree in English and years of teaching the subject, I'd never heard of this either) and included study of ToM (Theory of Mind); deictic markers; scalable person-ness; and many other items of pretentious guff dressed up as semiotics! Week 1 was partially incomprehensible, but the second week has been interesting not least because it dropped most of the jargon and got down to talking about what happens when we read literature; particularly how we develop emotional connections with fictional characters; what is happening during transportation and immersive reading.

In light of this, I haven't posted the magnificent head close-up of the swan on Drumpellier Loch but instead the candid shot which was 180 degrees to my left with the long lens. Here is what immersive reading looks like; maybe not literature but certainly fiction and just what this guy needed on a chilly but sunny day at lunch time.. I don't think he's much interested in "the textual mechanics of mind modelling"!