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> Young children start off fascinated by those insects, Watts says, "but when they get around 13 years old, something happens and they think [weta] are just hor

> Young children start off fascinated by those insects, Watts says, "but when they get around 13 years old, something happens and they think [weta] are just horrible." I admire the battle to save these creatures...it's hard enough to get people on board that cute animals need to be saved. This has to be a real uphill battle.

21 8y ago
> but when they get around 13 years old, something happens and they think [weta] are just horrible. Yeah, the brain starts working a bit better :)
rhcom2 8y ago
It's rather portly body kinda makes it cute... kinda.
- qbrass 8y ago
  Just needs a tophat and a jacket like Jiminy Cricket.
vanderZwan 8y ago
> "but when they get around 13 years old, something happens and they think [weta] are just horrible." Yes, that's when puberty hits and they really start caring more about what they think society tells them to consider good or bad, rather than about what their own intuition tells them. It's tied to the development of theory of mind. Some people grow out of it later, and some are stuck with thinking the social norms they know are the same as absolute truths. They are just interpretive frames, of course.
- qqqturing 8y ago
  Do you have studies or some data you can link ? I'm interested to read more.
  - vanderZwan 8y ago
    I base this on Michael J. Parsons five-stage model for aesthetic development from childhood to adulthood (and professional interpretation)[0]. But I think that it applies here, since deciding whether insects are cute or gross is very much an aesthetic judgment. Here[1] is for example a paper linking the work to theatre: > In the specific domain of visual art, Michael Parsons has proposed a developmental framework of aesthetic epistemology that describes how we move through stages or “sets of ideas” when discussing artworks’ subject matter, artists’ expressions, the forms and styles of visual media, and our judgments about each of these concepts. Like epistemologists, he marks the boundary of each stage by cognitive shifts in: 1) our primary mode of inquiry (i.e., perception, interpretation, and evaluation), 2) our expectations about the purposes of art, 3) our primary sources of artistic knowledge, and, 4) our primary criteria for making evaluative claims. Numerous studies in the visual arts have supported his framework with various populations, yet to date no one has offered an analogous epistemological framework for the domain of theatre. One criticism of Parsons' model is that it's hierarchical in a way that implicitly suggests that later stages are "better" than earlier stages (in typical Western fashion). Then again, it is tied to cognitive development and growing more mature so how could you not end up with a staged one-follows-the-development-of-the-other ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. For a more recent, more elaborate model that is inspired by Parsons' model, see[2]. [0] Michael J. Parsons, How We Understand Art: A Cognitive Developmental Account of Aesthetic Experience (New York: Cambridge U P, 1987). [1] Jeanne Klein, Mapping aesthetic development and epistemological understanding, https://journals.ku.edu/jdtc/article/download/4376/4104 https://journals.ku.edu/jdtc/article/download/4376/4104 [2] http://ppcms.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/usermounts/lederh7/1993-2004/LederBelkOebAugBJP2004.pdf http://ppcms.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/usermounts/lederh7/1993-...

21 8y ago

> but when they get around 13 years old, something happens and they think [weta] are just horrible. Yeah, the brain starts working a bit better :)

rhcom2 8y ago

It's rather portly body kinda makes it cute... kinda.

qbrass 8y ago
Just needs a tophat and a jacket like Jiminy Cricket.

vanderZwan 8y ago

> "but when they get around 13 years old, something happens and they think [weta] are just horrible." Yes, that's when puberty hits and they really start caring more about what they think society tells them to consider good or bad, rather than about what their own intuition tells them. It's tied to the development of theory of mind. Some people grow out of it later, and some are stuck with thinking the social norms they know are the same as absolute truths. They are just interpretive frames, of course.

qqqturing 8y ago
Do you have studies or some data you can link ? I'm interested to read more.
- vanderZwan 8y ago
  I base this on Michael J. Parsons five-stage model for aesthetic development from childhood to adulthood (and professional interpretation)[0]. But I think that it applies here, since deciding whether insects are cute or gross is very much an aesthetic judgment. Here[1] is for example a paper linking the work to theatre: > In the specific domain of visual art, Michael Parsons has proposed a developmental framework of aesthetic epistemology that describes how we move through stages or “sets of ideas” when discussing artworks’ subject matter, artists’ expressions, the forms and styles of visual media, and our judgments about each of these concepts. Like epistemologists, he marks the boundary of each stage by cognitive shifts in: 1) our primary mode of inquiry (i.e., perception, interpretation, and evaluation), 2) our expectations about the purposes of art, 3) our primary sources of artistic knowledge, and, 4) our primary criteria for making evaluative claims. Numerous studies in the visual arts have supported his framework with various populations, yet to date no one has offered an analogous epistemological framework for the domain of theatre. One criticism of Parsons' model is that it's hierarchical in a way that implicitly suggests that later stages are "better" than earlier stages (in typical Western fashion). Then again, it is tied to cognitive development and growing more mature so how could you not end up with a staged one-follows-the-development-of-the-other ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. For a more recent, more elaborate model that is inspired by Parsons' model, see[2]. [0] Michael J. Parsons, How We Understand Art: A Cognitive Developmental Account of Aesthetic Experience (New York: Cambridge U P, 1987). [1] Jeanne Klein, Mapping aesthetic development and epistemological understanding, https://journals.ku.edu/jdtc/article/download/4376/4104 https://journals.ku.edu/jdtc/article/download/4376/4104 [2] http://ppcms.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/usermounts/lederh7/1993-2004/LederBelkOebAugBJP2004.pdf http://ppcms.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/usermounts/lederh7/1993-...