TITLE:
Can Images—As a Result of Processing Metaphorical Brain—Be Processed by Quantitative Metrics?
AUTHORS:
Victorița Trif
KEYWORDS:
Spatial Cognition, Image, Representation of Military Space, Qualitative Research, Social Cognition
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.4 No.3,
March
22,
2016
ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the spatial and visual constraints of the prison as a military space. In an original design, we examine mental processes involved in images of the prison in general and of the Jilava prison as a concrete space. The qualitative approach develops an innovative methodology as scientific studies on brain are focused on the quantitative paradigm. The paper aims to examine the prison-in general-in terms of spatial cognition and to analyze the images of Jilava described by the students from the vantage point of quantitative metrics. A metaphoric description of the Romanian Jilava prison according to Ana Blandiana becomes the stimulus for the research based on interviews. Approximately, 130 students from the University of Bucharest were asked questions about the prison. The data collected were processed in terms of current neurosciences. The findings demonstrate that the results of content analysis of narratives are similar with quantitative investigations: the semantic network of judging images is involved in the visual and spatial representation of an object. To conclude, the results do not contradict the previous inferences concerning the paradox of the brain functioning (analogue and propositional code); spatial cognition is interrelated with social and moral cognition of the prison as a military space; images of Jilava confirm the role of implicit memory in visual and spatial representation.