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Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-03-03T00:25:01Z

The village was a very interesting movie that threw seemingly endless twists and turns throughout the plot. The movie takes place in a lush green village, where it looks as though the time takes place in the 1800’s. The people in the community seem happy and content with their surroundings and resources. Word gets out that one of the fellow members of the community wants to venture outside of the village to obtain medication. This stirs controversy because it is forbidden to leave the territory because of danger of “those we do not speak of”. The elders warn that stepping outside of the boundaries will provoke the “bad” people to do terrible things. When one of the main characters gets stabbed by a mentally ill resident , his blind fiancée is determined to leave the village to get him the medicine he needs to save his life. After getting approval from her father, one of the elders, we learn that on her discovery there is no bad people, and that they are actually living in a modern world. After a harsh journey she is able to retrieve the medicine from a park ranger to treat her future husband.
The are many psychological functions that I can think of when analyzing this movie. Perception is the first thing that comes to mind. The elders have successfully convinced their village that this is real life. They live their lives in an extremely different fashion than the rest of America, but because they are not allowed to see the outside world this is all they perceive to know is true. Fear also plays a crucial role. If these people didn’t have a fear of the outside world than they probably would not be able to preserve the lifestyle that the elders created for the village. Fear is so much engrained by the elders that they are taught to fear the color red, as it is thought of as a bad color from the people on the outside. Memory also plays a defining role in the big picture of this film. The elders had such horrible memories of their lives beforehand that they sought to live a life where no such pain or wrongdoing could exist. There was also a mentally challenged man who seemed to have autism, and the female lead who although could not see, was able to perceive colors as a way of visualizing things.
“Your hiding place” seemed to relate to the movie on many levels. The elders created a hiding place to get away from all of the cruel mishaps that society has to offer. They created a place that was safe and enabled them to shelter their children from the evil facts of life. The song demonstrates that you can have a hiding place within you, one that makes you laugh or feel good. Basically you can have that hiding place within you, instead of building a village.

Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-03-01T18:10:17Z

For the majority of the movie, “The Village”, you are lead to believe a small town is entrapped, unable to leave their barriers because of an outside source. This outside source is known by the villagers to be dangerous and referred to as “those we do not speak of”. If they abide by the barrier, they will not be harmed. As the movie progresses, a villager is hurt and in need of certain medications that the town does not store. The wounded villager’s lover is set on a mission to retrieve the medical items. As she leaves the town, the audience discovers they are living in present day America but residing in an atmosphere of the early 1900’s.
Their purpose of creating such an environment is to bestow innocence back in the human mind. However, based on the movie it can be debated whether certain human acts are born within us. For example, the character… Is displayed to have a mental illness. He is not able to comprehend on the level of most people his age. Like a mind of a child, he could be seen as a source of innocence. However, he is brought to an act of violence upon another. And so we have to wonder, if this person was raised and developed in an environment so protected then how could he invoke such an act? Regardless of his upbringing is he just born a killer?

The elders were trying to create a place they could hide from the evils in society. Which is alluded to in the song by BLT called “You’re Hiding Place”.

Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-02-28T20:30:05Z

(continued)

The movie focuses on the village throughout, so it is finally exposed how long the village had to exist as they’re clothing and whole existance seems to stay in a generation long ago.

The song, Your Hiding Place, relates to the movie as the actual village is the townspeople’s real life hiding place. In the song however, it speaks of laughter and a place you can go more in your mind. A positive place that can be created if you’re feeling down. As opposed to The Village however, it is not just a place in one’s imaginary mind, but an actual place that they have built to truly escape from the real world.

Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-02-28T20:27:55Z

The film, The Village, is a story about a small town in the middle of the forest that was started by a group of individuals who wanted to escape from the big towns where they once lived. Each individual had experienced their own horrific event that occurred in the town which effected them greatly (i.e. the murder of one's father, the rape of another's sister, the beating of one's mother, etc.) causing them to leave due to fear. This group of people raised and brought up a whole village under the misconception of false tales of monsters throughout the forest and superstitions, and had everyone believe that the towns were comprised of evil. Once a member of the village falls ill due to a stab wound, it is the first time that someone in the village is compelled to venture into the towns to find medicine. The movie relates to the course of Cognitive Psychology in many ways. Since the entire village is deceived from the day they are born w/ false tales of the area in which they live, they are raised to fear the unknown and to take necessary precautions to avoid certain situations, as they do when protecting themselves from “those they do not speak of” (a.k.a. monsters in the surrounding forests). The originators of the village instill these beliefs which cause fear in the members of the village to keep them from venturing out of their safe haven, enabling them to keep the village going w/ several generations.

Members’ of the village decision making and problem solving who believe in the false tales seem to always assess whether a situation is safe or not, even in the comforts of their own home & village. They believe in bad colors (red) and good colors (yellow), believing that red berries for example, are a symbol that will attract the monsters or they see it as a sign that the monsters may be near or something negative is soon to come. When venturing through the forest on the way into the town, they wore yellow cloaks, to protect them from any evil. They also exhibit magical thinking, as evidenced by carrying ‘magic rocks’ to help keep them safe. The entire village lived in fear, stress and paranoia, again, all encoded by the elders to ‘protect’ the village from the realities of the real world.

I was glad to see a bit of rationality in Ivy’s father, when he allows her to venture into the town to try to obtain medicine for her dying husband. This must have been extremely hard for him, as it shows he had to negate from his normal mental processes which usually involve coming to an irrational decision. If they had proper medical care in the village, the stab victim would not have fallen so close to death, and perhaps Ivy would not be 100% blind, and perhaps Noah’s intellect could have risen just a bit if exposed to more education that they would have received in the towns. I was also surprised to see how modern the town was, evidenced by the type of truck the ranger was driving and his uniform.

Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-02-27T19:32:48Z

Your Hiding Place:

Like the person(s) in Dr. BLT’s lyrical content, the people of “the Village” had their hiding place as well, but in a more literal sense of the term. The term “hiding place” in BLT’s song seems to be a metaphor for the storage of unpleasant thoughts in one’s mind or a sanctuary in one’s mind away from the pain and sadness in his/her life. Hiding places may be useful as temporary shelter from an over abundance of stressful stimuli in one’s life, but it would seem a fragile structure to enclose one’s self in for any length of time. Not even the third pig’s seemingly impervious brick house can withstand the stress of the Big Bad Wolf’s onslaught of persistent huffing and puffing. Eventually even the brick house is blown down and the frightened little pig is left helpless and vulnerable to the wolf and its insatiable appetite.

Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-02-27T19:30:13Z

Hidden Village

WARNING: Reading this blog will give away the clever M. Night Shyamalan twist and ruin the film for potential viewers.

Things in “the Village” are not what they seem. There is something in the woods surrounding the village, something the villagers do not speak of, or at least they refer to the things in the woods as “those we do not speak of”. Yet, ironically, those they do not speak of are mentioned quite often throughout the film. And it turns out that the reason that those they do not speak of are spoken about so much in the village is because those they do not speak of are fictitious creatures created by the village elders in order to control the young people of the village, but not merely for power as many religious sects have done in the past, but to protect the young from potentially real dangers that lurk beyond the village in the real world. At some point in the film it is also revealed that each of the town elders had experienced some profound tragedy in their lives or had just become so disenfranchised with the evils and chaos that exist in modern society that they retreated to the solitude and quiet simplicity of the village. Then, in order to keep their children from wanting to venture beyond the confines of the village, the elders developed the myth of the monsters in the woods.

In the village we see the phenomenon of selective attention occurring, where the young people’s attention is being diverted by the elders’ imaginary creatures. The theory of selective attention suggests that people can only process certain parts of their environment by cognitively ignoring other parts. For example, in the village, there should have been lots of environmental cues, such as airplanes flying overhead, which should have revealed the truth of their existence. By constantly reminding the young people in the town of the monsters in the woods with scary noises, and elaborate costumes, the village elders were able to create enough distractions to interfere with the young people’s ability to properly process and accurately encode information about their environment.

It has also been theorized that an individual’s arousal levels are directly correlated with selective attention. In other words, the level of stress an individual might experience due to specific stimulus may cause that individual to focus primarily on that stimulus, thus ignoring other less stressful stimuli.

By creating such distractions in the village, the town elders were able to precariously control the young people through fear of perceived threat. Also, by keeping the young people in a constant state of stress, it was easier for the elders to keep the youngsters in the dark (unaware) concerning the facts surrounding what they perceive to be reality.

http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/students/arousal.htm

Comment on The Neurosurgeon's Methods Dance

2010-02-24T23:03:29Z

One of the neuro pioneers mentioned in the lyrics of The Neurosurgeon’s Dance is Roger Sperry. Sperry is best known for his research on “split-brain” in which, along with his colleagues, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Split brain refers to a procedure where the corpus callosum is cut in order to treat symptoms of epilepsy. Sperry would study the reactions of patients who had the procedure to tasks known to be dependent on specific hemispheres of the brain thereby establishing the lateralized function of the brain. The next pioneer mentioned was Wilder Penfield, who is known for his work using neural stimulation. Along with his colleague, he invented the Montreal procedure where he destroyed nerve cells in the same location of the brain where epileptic patients experienced their seizure. From this work, he developed a way to stimulate the brain with electrical probes on a conscious patient and observe their responses in order to better determine the area of the brain to treat. This procedure allowed him to map the sensory and motor cortices of the brain and reduce the side-effects of the surgery on his patients. The last neuropioneer mentioned in the lyrics was Endel Tulving. Tulving focused his research on episodic memory, which is the memory of autobiographical events that can be explicitly stated. He worked with a patient who had amnesia and had intact semantic memory( memory of meanings, understanding and other concept-based knowledge unrelated to specific experiences) but no episodic memory. From his work with this patient he developed the theory of encoding specificity, which simply stated means that memories are linked to the context where they are created.
The neuro-imaging techniques alluded to in the lyrics of the song include Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI), Computed Tomography (CT), and Positron Emission Tomography (PET). The MRI monitors systematic activity of atoms in the presence of magnetic files and radio-wave impulses. It can show a three- dimensional view of the brain, serving as a diagnostic tool for brain abnormalities, such as tumors. A functional MRI allows for observation of brain function. The CT scan used X rays that are passes through the body at various angles and orientations. Tumors or injuries to the brain, as well as the structural bases for chronic behavior or psychological disorders can be seen by using CT scans. Lastly, PET involves radioactive substances that are ingested. Active brain areas eventually absorb the substance and the PET scanner can reveal distribution of the substance. This PET scan can show how various tasks like reading a book, affect different parts of the brain.

Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-02-24T14:12:54Z

In particular, the cerebral cortex which is the seat of higher mental processes and the ability to reason and solve problems, was used by Ivy when she thought of a way to capture the creature. She remembered the experience of almost falling into the ditch herself, which involved the hippocampus. She then took that experienced and created a plan to trick the creature into falling into the pit by moving out of the way at the last moment before it pounced on her. Her thalamus was also essential to executing her plan because it is the gathering point for sensory input, where information is combined and relayed. She had to feel the roots of the toppled to tree with her hand to know that she was in the right spot. Plus, Ivy had to listen for the creature’s approach to know when to jump out of the way.

The song, Your Hiding Place, relates to the theme of the movie in that the community was the hiding place for the villagers who sought shelter and protection from the creatures. The song also addresses a hiding place where people seek protection and shelter. Instead of a village, the place is in the hearts of loved ones who can provide comfort during difficult emotional times.

Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-02-24T14:10:31Z

The movie The Village is about a group of adults who meet at a counseling clinic and bond together over the shared experience of losing a love one to a traumatic and violent crime. These adults, who in the movie are known as the elders, decide to pool their resources to create an experimental utopian society deep in the woods of an animal preserve that they have purchased. In order to escape from modern society, where violent crime is a part of life, they agree to assume the lifestyle of an Amish-like community in early 1900s. The elders decide to trick their offspring into believing that the year is 1897 and that they are living in a 19th century village instead of modern times. The elders are motivated by a desire to live in the more peaceful and family center lifestyle of those times. In order to perpetuate this myth, and to keep the younger generations from venturing outside of the preserve and into the real world, the elders pretend the village is surrounded by evil and deadly creatures that react violently towards the color red. The elders’ offspring are told that they must never travel outside of the village or risk being killed by these make-believe creatures. Ironically, a violent crime does befall this community when a young man with a mental handicap stabs another young man, Lucuis, in a jealous rage because Lucuis becomes engaged to a woman that he is in love with. This young, blind woman, Ivy, must leave the village to seek medicine to heal her fiancé. In order for her to successfully get to the medicine the main elder, Ivy’s father Edward, must reveal to her the truth about the make believe creatures in the forest and risk Ivy discovering the larger truth about the entire utopian experiment.
The most relevant principle of neuropsychology demonstrated in the movie was the use of fear to control the village inhabitants from leaving the village and learning the truth about the world. How fear is processed by the brain is summarized below. The image of the mythical creatures in red would induce in the villagers the flight or fight response, also called the "acute stress response," which is the first stage of a general adaptation syndrome that regulates stress responses in humans and other organisms.
In a potentially dangerous situation, the hypothalamus signals the adrenal glands to begin secreting the hormones norepinephrine and epinephrine into the blood. These hormones, in turn, produce energizing effects on the body, increasing heart rate and directing blood and oxygen flow to energy-demanding cells throughout the body. This prepares the body for action, enhancing the likelihood of survival.

Essentially, all areas of the brain and their functions were evident in scenes from the movie. The scene where Ivy tricks the creature into falling into the pit involved the structures of the forebrain, which is responsible for high mental functions.

Comment on Neuropsychological analysis of the movie, "The Village"

2010-02-23T22:44:55Z

The Village is a film about an isolated community who lives fearful of some mysterious creatures who haunt the neighboring woods. The townspeople have a pact with the creatures, so long as no body ventures into the woods, the creatures will stay out of the village. However, as it turns out that the creatures are not real, but fabricated by the towns elders to keep the villagers from venturing out from their town. The town, which for all apearances is set in some historic puritanical American era, is exposed to exist in modern times.

The movie can be related to cognitive psychology in several ways. For one, it is highly demonstrative of the workings of perception. The elders, for example, percieve ways of the past as superior or emotionally/physically safer than modern societies. They had all experienced some trauma in their former, more modern lives, and the effects of that stress appears to have skewed their perception of reality. It also shows how the effects of that stress contributed to their decision making process and led them to live lives out of touch with reality, and to justify thier lies to future generations with in the community.

Also, the villagers percieve the imaginary threats as very real. This is aquired through social conditioning and the human tendency to view things in binary terms, which leads individuals to find patterns in things when there exist none. In this way,unrelated events will be deemed the consequence of the mysterious creatures, and taken as proof positive of their existence.