Asemic Sentics

A lot of asemic writings have an element of expressive handwriting.
I thought this was an interesting experiment by scientist/mucisian Manfred Clynes.



(emotion : pressure + time)


"Specific emotions --- anger, hate, grief, love, sex, joy and reverence --- produce distinct muscle movement. They’re the same in Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, and upstate New York." (.. ) (.. )"I decided to use the expressive pressure movement of one finger as a standardized basic measure of expressed fantasized emotion. In my experiments, the subject sits in a straight-back chair and rests the middle finger of his right hand on a finger rest. I ask him to fantasize a given emotion (say, anger or love) for the next few minutes. Whenever he hears a signal --- a soft click --- he is to express that emotion as precisely as possible through the single, transient pressure of the finger."

I tested it in this drawing; (pressure roughly translated in speed+size). Looks like the loveline probably had quite a bit of sex in it ...


It seems rather obvious if you're used to drawing a lot, but maybe A.I. professor Marvin minsky offered an intersting viewpoint; "For if distinct signals arouse specific states, the child can associate those signals with those states. Just knowing that such states exist, that is, having symbols for them, is half the battle. If those signals are uniform enough, then from social discourse one can learn some rules about the behavior caused by those states. Thus a child might learn that conciliatory signals can change anger into affection. Given that sort of information, a simple learning machine should be able to construct a 'finite-state person model."

Or maybe in combination with Tim Gazes' text-image continuum ....