document_title: List of The Late Late Show with James Corden episodes (2017)

question_text: when does bts go on the james corden show

text: January[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

277

January 3, 2017
Milo Ventimiglia, Janelle Monáe
James Arthur

James Tribute To George Michael, Emoji News

278

January 4, 2017
Jim Parsons, America Ferrera
Glass Animals

Best New TV Shows In 2017, Dust In The Wind

279

January 5, 2017
Jamie Foxx, Kirsten Dunst, Zoe Saldana
N/A

Public Domain Songs

280

January 9, 2017
Neil Patrick Harris, Sienna Miller, Tom Ford
N/A

Admiring The Hot Turkish Butcher, Broadway Riff-Off

281

January 10, 2017
Mark Wahlberg, Jeremy Renner, Joel Edgerton
Gabriel Iglesias

Side Effects May Include

282

January 11, 2017
Khloé Kardashian, Pharrell Williams, Cameron Dallas
N/A

Tonight I Learned, Spill Your Guts/Fill Your Guts

283

January 12, 2017
Bryan Cranston, Giovanni Ribisi, Jessica Biel
Jamie T

TV Roundup, Kanye West Soap Opera

284

January 17, 2017
Kate Hudson, Anders Holm, Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Jim James

Honest Headlines, Toddlerography

285

January 18, 2017
Vin Diesel, Deepika Padukone
OK Go

Where's Reggie

286

January 19, 2017
Chris Hardwick, Nina Dobrev
Fitz and the Tantrums

Magic Trick, Nuzzle Whaaa?

287

January 30, 2017
Drew Carey, Keke Palmer
Take That

Post-Ban Trip To LAX, No Scrubs

288

January 31, 2017
Johnny Galecki, Sting
N/A

Side Effects May Include, Battle of the Singing Waiters

text: February[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

289

February 1, 2017
Aaron Paul, Jermaine Fowler, Jenny Slate
N/A

Tonight I Learned, Price Is Right Redemption

290

February 2, 2017
Mindy Kaling, Bill Paxton
Queen + Adam Lambert

Front Man Battle, Stage 56 Bar Tricks

291

February 13, 2017
Ice Cube, Ike Barinholtz
Steve Aoki & Louis Tomlinson

Audience Q&A, Rooftop Basketball

292

February 14, 2017
Katherine Heigl, Lars Ulrich, Andrew Rannells
Lisa Hannigan

Emoji News

293

February 15, 2017
Laura Dern, Zach Galifianakis
Glen Hansard

Like Us On, Visiting Super Bowl LI

294

February 16, 2017
Matt Damon, Will Arnett
Bibi Bourelly

Visiting The Grammy's

295

February 21, 2017
Trevor Noah, Laverne Cox, Luke Wilson
Noah Cyrus

Seated Ballet

296

February 22, 2017
Bob Odenkirk, David Oyelowo
Bebe Rexha

Side Effects May Include, The Zach Galifianakis Problem

297

February 23, 2017
Jordan Peele, Nick Kroll
Ryan Adams

Remembering a Break-up Changes James's Mood, Thr33way

298

February 27, 2017
Chris O'Donnell, Sara Bareilles
Linkin Park featuring Kiiara

La La Land' Audition, Emoji News

299

February 28, 2017
Michelle Monaghan, Bradley Whitford
London Grammar

Honest Headlines, Hidden Talents

text: March[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

300

March 1, 2017
Hayden Panettiere, Shirley MacLaine
Myq Kaplan

Celebrity Noses, Taller or Shorter

301

March 2, 2017
Idris Elba, Jessica Lange, Scott Foley
Earl St. Clair

Behind The Curtain

302

March 6, 2017
Patrick Stewart, Rupert Grint, Dan Stevens
New Kids on the Block

Tonight I Learned

303

March 7, 2017
Alec Baldwin, Kerry Washington
José González

White House Tourists Review Donald Trump's Appearance, None Of The Above

304

March 8, 2017
Samuel L. Jackson, January Jones
Sting

The Late Late Show Without Women, Samuel L. Jackson Role Call

305

March 9, 2017
John Goodman, Adam Pally, Jack Hanna
Spoon

Spot The Difference

306

March 13, 2017
Leighton Meester, Dominic Monaghan, Blake Griffin
Judah & the Lion

Blake Griffin's New Life Coach

307

March 14, 2017
Gillian Jacobs, Jerrod Carmichael
Lea Michele

Late Late Show Record Collection, Were You Paying Attention?

308

March 15, 2017
Reese Witherspoon, Tony Goldwyn
Andy Shauf

Trump's Tax Returns, Crosswalk The Musical, Wig Little Lies

309

March 16, 2017
Vanessa Hudgens, Thomas Sadoski
Lil Rel Howery

Corporate Acronyms, Emoji News

310

March 20, 2017
Abigail Spencer, Ben Platt, Tim Minchin
Bea Miller

Donald: The Musical

311

March 21, 2017
Allison Williams, Darren Criss
The Band Perry

Donald: The Musical Alternative Titles/Like Us On, Audience Q&A

312

March 22, 2017
Josh Gad, Judy Greer
Maggie Rogers

Crashing The Late Late Show, James Discusses The Westminster Attack, Behind The Curtain

313

March 23, 2017
Terrence Howard, Jenna Elfman
Nicole Scherzinger

Reggie's Birthday Cake, Honest Headlines, Fake Or Flop

314

March 27, 2017
J. J. Redick, Scott Bakula, Pete Holmes
MisterWives

Tonight I Learned, Basketball Or Cake

315

March 28, 2017
Kristen Bell, Cheryl Hines
Little Mix

Side Effects May Include, Up Where We Belong

316

March 29, 2017
Victoria Beckham, Jessica Chastain, Lisa Kudrow
N/A

Love Triangle - Salt Bae Vs. Sax Bae, Flinch

317

March 30, 2017
Adam Scott, Michael Peña
Bea Miller

Let Me Break It Down: March 2017, Mannequin

text: April[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

318

April 3, 2017
Stephen Curry, Chris Paul, Steve Nash
N/A

Basketball Rap & Mascot Party, Live at the NCAA Tournament Final, Dance & Kiss Cams, Stephen Curry Has a New Life Coach, Human Basketball Hoop

319

April 4, 2017
Claire Danes, Christine Baranski, Jack McBrayer
Zara Larsson featuring Ty Dolla $ign

Katy Perry Soap Opera

320

April 5, 2017
Demi Lovato, Charlie Hunnam, Rupert Friend
N/A

Divas Riff-Off

321

April 17, 2017
Kumail Nanjiani, Riz Ahmed
Sabrina Carpenter

Like Us On..., Drop the Mic

322

April 18, 2017
Shania Twain, Tyrese Gibson, Whitney Cummings
Sabrina Carpenter

Tonight I Learned, Behind The Curtain

323

April 19, 2017
Adam Sandler, Kevin James
Bastille

Side Effects May Include..., Youth Soccer Dad Battle w/ Kevin James and Adam Sandler

324

April 20, 2017
Anne Hathaway, Armie Hammer, Rob Delaney
6LACK

Soundtrack to a Rom Com w/ Anne Hathaway

325

April 24, 2017
Jason Schwartzman, Nicole Richie, Geoffrey Rush
Depeche Mode

Celebrity Instagram

326

April 25, 2017
Amanda Peet, Kal Penn, Max Minghella
Kaleo

Were You Paying Attention?

327

April 26, 2017
Ludacris, Elisabeth Moss, Eugenio Derbez
The Head and the Heart

FaceApp, Flinch

328

April 27, 2017
Kurt Russell, Thomas Middleditch
Russell Howard

Breaking Down April 2017, Escape From Kurt Russell

text: May[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

329

May 1, 2017
Joel McHale, Jake Johnson
Lisa Hannigan

Honest Headlines, None Of The Above

330

May 2, 2017
Liev Schreiber, Kelly Osbourne
Ocean Park Standoff

Dogs In Sunglasses, Emoji News

331

May 3, 2017
Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Taylor Schilling
Ryan Adams

Tonight I Learned, Mystery Door

332

May 4, 2017
Jennifer Lopez, Terry Crews, Justin Theroux
Green Day

Record Collection

333

May 8, 2017
Caitlyn Jenner, Michael Weatherly
LP

James Has Eyes For France's Emmanuel Macron, Audience Q&A

334

May 9, 2017
Eva Longoria, Sam Richardson, Paul Feig
N/A

Side Effects May Include, Nuzzle Whaaa?

335

May 10, 2017
Betty White, Ben McKenzie, Amy Brenneman
Conor Oberst

Mom Face-Off

336

May 11, 2017
Goldie Hawn, Kevin Bacon
Dreamcar

Magic Trick, Celebrity Noses

337

May 15, 2017
Harry Styles, Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Harry Styles

Flinch

338

May 16, 2017
Ice Cube, Jason Derulo
Harry Styles

Side Effects May Include, James's New Girlfriend

339

May 17, 2017
Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup
Harry Styles

EXPLOSIVE Guest Lineup, Singing Problem

340

May 18, 2017
Benicio del Toro, Diane Lane, Michael Fassbender
Harry Styles

Harry Styles Carpool Karaoke, Heineken Commercial Parody

Special

May 22, 2017
N/A
N/A

Best of Carpool Karaoke (primetime special). Toddlerography, Like Us On, Carpool Karaoke with Katy Perry

341

May 22, 2017
Lionel Richie, Jenna Dewan Tatum
N/A

Carpool Karaoke Replay with Katy Perry

342

May 23, 2017
Jim Carrey, Al Madrigal, Andrew Santino
Erik Griffin

Dogs In Sunglasses

343

May 24, 2017
Ed Helms, Priyanka Chopra, Kaya Scodelario
Paramore

Stuck On The Ceiling

344

May 25, 2017
Orlando Bloom, Zac Efron, Zach Woods
Sigrid

The IT Guys

text: June[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

345

June 5, 2017
Gordon Ramsay, Michael Strahan
N/A

Touring Central Hall #LateLateLondon Set, Drive To LAX, Flight To London

346

June 6, 2017
Nicole Kidman, Kit Harington
Ed Sheeran

Celebrating London, Crosswalk The Musical - Mary Poppins, Carpool Karaoke with Ed Sheeran

Note: This episode was filmed in London, U.K.

347

June 7, 2017
Tom Cruise, Jennifer Hudson, Russell Brand, Anthony Joshua
Kings of Leon

Tom's Cruise On The River Thames Corden, Drop The Mic

Note: This episode was filmed in London, U.K.

348

June 8, 2017
David Beckham, Emily Blunt
Harry Styles

The Phone Is For You, Soundtrack To Romeo & Juliet, The Next James Bond

Note: This episode was filmed in London, U.K.

349

June 12, 2017
Salma Hayek, Sofia Coppola
Linkin Park

Take A Break, 1860's Girls Gone Wild

350

June 13, 2017
Jane Krakowski, Kate Mara, Lily James
Iggy Azalea

Facetime With Kevin Durant, Flinch

351

June 14, 2017
Fred Armisen, Tituss Burgess, Edgar Wright
Gavin DeGraw

Emoji News

352

June 15, 2017
Jamie Foxx, Ansel Elgort
Beth Ditto

Riff-Off

353

June 19, 2017
Ginnifer Goodwin, Eddie Izzard, Jillian Bell
Jason Derulo

None Of The Above

354

June 20, 2017
Chelsea Handler, Dean Norris
Khalid

HIV/AIDS Council Participants Resigning, Were You Paying Attention?

355

June 21, 2017
Seth Rogen, Will Arnett, Alison Brie
N/A

Record Collection

356

June 22, 2017
Dominic Cooper, Laura Haddock
N/A

Like Us On, Mystery Pizza Box

text: July[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

357

July 24, 2017
Anna Faris, Mark Hamill, Jenny Slate
Foster the People

Guest Lineup Too Good To Be True, I Am Your Father

358

July 25, 2017
Julie Chen, Edie Falco
Maz Jobrani

Usher Carpool Karaoke

359

July 26, 2017
Al Gore, Laura Linney
Mr Eazi

L-G-B-T Musical, Honest Headlines, Celebrity Noses

360

July 27, 2017
Matt Bomer, Niecy Nash
Julia Michaels

Like Us On, Visit To Los Angeles School of Gymnastics

361

July 31, 2017
Chris Bosh, Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass
N/A

Dogs in Sunglasses, Emoji News

text: August[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

362

August 1, 2017
Gordon Ramsay, Brendan Gleeson
Maggie Rogers

Tonight I Learned, MasterChef Junior Junior

363

August 2, 2017
Kate Beckinsale, Adam Scott
Poppy

Behind The Curtain

364

August 7, 2017
Anthony Mackie, Lily Collins
Børns

Obsessed With Sharknado 5, & None Of The Above

365

August 8, 2017
John Boyega, Jeffrey Tambor
Rag'n'Bone Man

Preview Of "Carpool Karaoke: The Series"

366

August 9, 2017
Elizabeth Olsen, Maya Rudolph
James Blunt

Audience Q&A, 'The Boyega Is Mine' - Brandy/Monica Parody

367

August 10, 2017
Aubrey Plaza, Jeremy Renner, Chris O'Dowd
Russ

Side Effects May Include

368

August 14, 2017
Billy Eichner, Riley Keough
Royal Blood

Drop the Mic

369

August 15, 2017
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
N/A

Emoji News

370

August 16, 2017
Harry Connick Jr., Willem Dafoe, Emma Bunton
Daniel Caesar

Floyd Mayweather's New Hype Man, Song Of The Summer About The Summer

371

August 17, 2017
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ray Romano
Billy Idol

James Corden's Message To Barcelona, Crosswalk The Musical

text: September[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

372

September 5, 2017
Kathy Bates, Ed Helms
Julian McCullough

Emoji News

373

September 6, 2017
Jim Gaffigan, James Van Der Beek
Liam Payne

Boy Bands v. Solo Artists Riff-Off

374

September 7, 2017
Dana Carvey, Lake Bell
The All-American Rejects

Tonight I Learned, Dogs In Sunglasses

375

September 8, 2017
Taron Egerton, Damian Lillard
N/A

Superfan Ruins Damian Lillard Interview, Reggie's Hobbies

376

September 11, 2017
Christian Slater, Adrianne Palicki
Circus 1903

Gwyneth Paltrow Interupts Monologue, Kick It Out/Bring It Back

377

September 12, 2017
Mindy Kaling, Olivia Munn
Fifth Harmony

Honest Headlines, Flinch

378

September 13, 2017
Michael Keaton, Dylan O'Brien
Superfruit

Celebrity Instagram, The "IT" Department

379

September 14, 2017
Andrea Riseborough, Jenna Fischer
Jesus Trejo

Side Effects May Include, Nick Jonas Is New Intern

380

September 18, 2017
Lonzo Ball, Sonequa Martin-Green, Robert Winston
N/A

Magic Trick, Taller Or Shorter

381

September 19, 2017
Alicia Vikander, Luke Wilson, Zach Woods
Sir Sly

James Wants To Be Lara Croft

382

September 20, 2017
Mayim Bialik, Susan Kelechi Watson
Billie Eilish

Carpool Karaoke with Foo Fighters

383

September 21, 2017
Judi Dench, Kyle MacLachlan
Kasabian

'Twin Peaks' Red Room, Lawrence O'Donnell's Freak Out

384

September 25, 2017
Jeremy Piven, America Ferrera, Lior Suchard
N/A

Tonight I Learned

385

September 26, 2017
Channing Tatum, Adam Scott, Diego Luna
N/A

Emoji News

386

September 27, 2017
Billie Lourd, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tim Roth
Macklemore

Magic Mike Live

387

September 28, 2017
Don Johnson, Minnie Driver
Barns Courtney

Apple Watch Hidden Figures, Wheelin' N Dealin' - Spin for Cash!

text: October[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

388

October 2, 2017
Jeff Goldblum, Jay Pharoah, Elizabeth Gillies
The Shins

James acknowledges the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, None Of The Above

389

October 3, 2017
Julia Roberts, Ben Schwartz
Shania Twain

Take A Break

390

October 4, 2017
Cheryl Hines, Mark Feuerstein
N/A

3 Minutes Of Christmas, Julia Roberts Role Call

391

October 5, 2017
Michael Fassbender, Ana de Armas, Jack Hanna
N/A

Like Us On, Audience Q&A

392

October 9, 2017
Jeff Bridges, David Boreanaz
Liam Gallagher

Jeopardy's Austin Rogers Is James Corden's New Bae, 'SEAL Team' for James' Billboard

393

October 10, 2017
Jennifer Connelly, Jason Alexander, Mark Consuelos
N/A

Miley Cyrus Carpool Karaoke

394

October 11, 2017
Josh Gad, Rachel Bloom, Michelle Dockery
Charlie Puth

Spill Your Guts Or Fill Your Guts

395

October 12, 2017
Luke Evans, Usher
Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie

Riff Off, SWAT Team Fail

396

October 23, 2017
Gabrielle Union, Method Man
Sabrina Claudio

Method Man Is Over Rhyming, Emoji News

397

October 24, 2017
Cedric the Entertainer, Usain Bolt
Jesus Trejo

Dogs In Sunglasses, James Challenges Usain Bolt To ALL The Games

398

October 25, 2017
Anna Wintour, Zac Posen
Everything Everything

UNBELIEVABLE List Of Upcoming Guests, Spill Your Guts Or Fill Your Guts

399

October 26, 2017
Dustin Hoffman, Kenneth Branagh, Jordan Spieth
N/A

Record Collection, Target Practice

400

October 30, 2017
Miles Teller, Whitney Cummings
Fergie

Drop The Mic

401

October 31, 2017
Allison Janney, Ludacris, Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Iliza Shlesinger

Politics At The Pub, Reggie Always Keeps Scaring James

text: November[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

402

November 1, 2017
Mila Kunis, Jim Parsons
N/A

Sam Smith Carpool Karaoke

403

November 2, 2017
Kristen Bell, Dianna Agron
Gary Clark Jr.

Thor: Ragnarok 4D

404

November 6, 2017
Matt LeBlanc, William H. Macy, Hailey Baldwin
Weezer

James acknowledges the Sutherland Springs church shooting, Nuzzle Whaaa?

405

November 7, 2017
Rainn Wilson, Jack Whitehall, Novak Djokovic
Ty Dolla $ign

Celebrity Noses, Target Practice

406

November 8, 2017
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Saoirse Ronan, The Cast of Stranger Things
Billy Corgan

The Upside Downs

407

November 9, 2017
Gael García Bernal, Jason Momoa
Sam Smith

Side Effects May Include, Animals Riding Animals

408

November 13, 2017
Jason Segel, Seth Rogen
Jaden Smith

Famine In Yemen, Were You Paying Attention

409

November 14, 2017
Emmy Rossum, January Jones
N/A

Pink Carpool Karaoke

410

November 15, 2017
Kim Kardashian West, Ludacris
Amy Shark

Celebrity Instagram, Spill Your Guts Or Fill Your Guts

411

November 16, 2017
Debra Messing, Taran Killam, Sam Rockwell
Bebe Rexha featuring Florida Georgia Line

None Of The Above

412

November 20, 2017
Kate Bosworth, Shemar Moore
Portugal. The Man

Mystery Pizza Box

413

November 21, 2017
Chris Hardwick, Camila Mendes
Rag'n'Bone Man

Face Your Father

414

November 22, 2017
Krysten Ritter, Josh Hutcherson
N/A

Late Late LIVE Tinder

415

November 29, 2017
Armie Hammer, Juno Temple
Charlie Puth

Kelly Clarkson Carpool Karaoke

416

November 30, 2017
Bryan Cranston, Timothée Chalamet
BTS

Honest Headlines, Flinch

text: December[edit]

text:
No.
Original air date
Guest(s)
Musical/entertainment guest(s)

417

December 4, 2017
Denis Leary, Bob Odenkirk
Stereophonics

Bryan Cranston Is The Elf on the Shelf

418

December 5, 2017
Matthew Broderick, Gina Rodriguez, Christopher Meloni
N/A

Omarosa's White House Job, Christmas Giveaway

419

December 6, 2017
Kristen Wiig, Seth MacFarlane
Romesh Ranganathan

Kristen Wiig Struggles with 'Hallelujah'

420

December 7, 2017
Morgan Freeman, Kobe Bryant, Glen Keane
N/A

Take A Break

421

December 11, 2017
James Franco, Dave Franco
Hanson

Emoji News, Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town' Carpool Karaoke

422

December 12, 2017
Owen Wilson, Jane Krakowski, Joel Edgerton
Seal

James Corden is out due to the birth of his newborn daughter, and is replaced by Harry Styles. Dogs In Sunglasses

423

December 13, 2017
Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black
Tim Minchin

James Corden is still out due to the birth of his newborn daughter, and is replaced by Bryan Cranston. Side Effects May Include, Animals Riding Animals

424

December 14, 2017
Hugh Jackman, John Cena
N/A

Crosswalk the Musical on Broadway


document_title: Weekend at Bernie's

question_text: who played the dead guy in weekend at bernie's

question_tokens: who played the dead guy in weekend at bernie 's

root

text: Weekend at Bernie's

text: Plot[edit]

text: Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman) are two low-level financial employees at an insurance corporation in New York City. While going over actuarial reports, Richard discovers a series of payments made for the same death. Richard and Larry take their findings to the CEO, Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser), who commends them for discovering insurance fraud and invites them to his Hamptons island beach house for the Labor Day weekend. Unbeknownst to Larry and Richard, Bernie is behind the fraud. Nervously meeting with his mob partner Vito (Louis Giambalvo), Bernie asks to have Larry and Richard killed. However, after Bernie leaves, Vito decides Bernie has been attracting too much attention with his greed and his relationship with Vito's girlfriend, Tina (Catherine Parks), and orders that he be killed instead.

tag: p

text: Bernie arrives at the island before Larry and Richard and plans the murders with Paulie (Don Calfa), the hitman, on the phone, unaware the conversation is being recorded on his answering machine. Bernie then plants cash and a fake confession note implicating Larry and Richard in the insurance fraud. Paulie arrives, killing Bernie with a drug overdose. When Larry and Richard arrive at Bernie's house, they find Bernie's body. Before they can call the police, guests arrive for a party that Bernie used to host every weekend. To Larry and Richard's amazement, the guests are too engrossed in their partying to notice he is dead, with the dopey grin from the fatal injection and his sunglasses concealing his lifeless state. Fearing implication in Bernie's death, and wanting to enjoy the luxury of the house for the weekend, Larry proposes he and Richard maintain the illusion that Bernie is still alive, a notion that Richard finds absurd. Only the arrival of Richard's office crush, Gwen Saunders (Catherine Mary Stewart), a summer intern for the company, convinces him to go along with Larry's plan.

text: Later that night, Tina arrives at the house, and has Larry and Richard direct her to Bernie. There, she also fails to realize he is dead. At that moment, Marty, one of Vito's mobsters witnesses the two of them apparently making love. Fooled into thinking Bernie's assassination failed, he notifies Paulie. The next morning, Richard is appalled to discover Larry furthering the illusion of Bernie being alive by manipulating his body's limbs. Richard attempts to call the police but instead activates the phone message detailing Bernie's plot against them. Unaware of the circumstances of Bernie's death, they mistakenly believe they are still the targets of a mob hit and decide to use Bernie's corpse as a prop for protection. Richard and Larry make various attempts to leave the island. All attempts are thwarted, as they repeatedly misplace and recover Bernie's body. Finally, Larry and Richard are forced to return to Bernie's home. Meanwhile, Paulie, unhinged at his apparent failure to kill Bernie, returns to the island.

text: At the house, Gwen confronts Larry and Richard, who confess that Bernie has been dead since their arrival. Paulie then appears and opens fire at Bernie, then turns his attention to Larry, Richard, and Gwen. Chasing after the trio, Paulie corners Larry, who clumsily manages to subdue him with a phone cord and a punch. The police eventually arrive and place Paulie under arrest, taking him away in a straitjacket as he continues to insist Bernie is still alive. Bernie is loaded into an ambulance, however, his gurney rolls away and topples off the boardwalk, dumping him onto the beach right behind Richard, Larry, and Gwen, who run away after noticing him. Eventually, a young boy comes along and starts to "play" with Bernie, scooping buckets of sand over his body.

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Andrew McCarthy as Lawrence "Larry" Wilson
Jonathan Silverman as Richard Parker
Terry Kiser as Bernie Lomax
Catherine Mary Stewart as Gwen Saunders
Don Calfa as Paulie
Catherine Parks as Tina
Eloise Broady as Tawny
Gregory Salata as Marty
Louis Giambalvo as Vito
Ted Kotcheff as Mr. Parker
Margaret Hall as Lomax's secretary
Jason Woliner as Bratty kid

tag: ul

text: Reception[edit]

text: The film received mixed reviews from critics, holding a 52% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[2] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called the film "tasteless" and "crude" and felt that in the end it was impossible to "drag one tired joke around for nearly two hours. Like Bernie, the movie ends up dead on its feet."[3] Roger Ebert echoed this sentiment, arguing that movies centered on dead bodies are rarely funny. Ebert gave the film 1 out of 4 stars overall.[4]

text: Nevertheless, the film was a financial success, grossing US$30 million at the box office, and was profitable on home video, as well as becoming a cult classic.[5][6]

text: Sequel[edit]

text: The film's commercial success inspired a 1993 sequel, Weekend at Bernie's II.

text: Lawsuit[edit]

text: On January 24, 2014, director Ted Kotcheff and screenwriter Robert Klane filed a lawsuit against Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and 20th Century Fox for breach of contract for profits they claimed were due from the film.[7][8][9]


document_title: Theory of mind

question_text: examples of theory of mind in child development

question_tokens: examples of theory of mind in child development

text: Theory of mind

text: Definition[edit]

text: Theory of mind is a theory insofar as the mind is the only thing being directly observed.[1] The presumption that others have a mind is termed a theory of mind because each human can only intuit the existence of their own mind through introspection, and no one has direct access to the mind of another. It is typically assumed that others have minds analogous to one's own, and this assumption is based on the reciprocal, social interaction, as observed in joint attention,[5] the functional use of language,[6] and the understanding of others' emotions and actions.[7] Having theory of mind allows one to attribute thoughts, desires, and intentions to others, to predict or explain their actions, and to posit their intentions. As originally defined, it enables one to understand that mental states can be the cause of—and thus be used to explain and predict—the behavior of others.[1] Being able to attribute mental states to others and understanding them as causes of behavior implies, in part, that one must be able to conceive of the mind as a "generator of representations".[8][9] If a person does not have a complete theory of mind it may be a sign of cognitive or developmental impairment.

text: Theory of mind appears to be an innate potential ability in primates including humans, that requires social and other experience over many years for its full development. Different people may develop more, or less, effective theory of mind. Empathy is a related concept, meaning the recognition and understanding of the states of mind of others, including their beliefs, desires and particularly emotions. This is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes". Recent neuro-ethological studies of animal behaviour suggest that even rodents may exhibit ethical or empathetic abilities.[10] Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development maintain that theory of mind is a byproduct of a broader hypercognitive ability of the human mind to register, monitor, and represent its own functioning.[11]

text: Research on theory of mind, in humans and animals, adults and children, normally and atypically developing, has grown rapidly in the 35 years since Premack and Guy Woodruff's paper, "Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?".[1] The emerging field of social neuroscience has also begun to address this debate, by imaging the brains of humans while they perform tasks demanding the understanding of an intention, belief or other mental state in others.

text: An alternative account of Theory of Mind is given within operant psychology and provides significant empirical evidence for a functional account of both perspective-taking and empathy. The most developed operant approach is founded on research on derived relational responding and is subsumed within what is called "relational frame theory". According to this view, empathy and perspective-taking comprise a complex set of derived relational abilities based on learning to discriminate and respond verbally to ever more complex relations between self, others, place, and time, and through established relations.[12][13][14]

text: Philosophical and psychological roots[edit]

text: Contemporary discussions of ToM have their roots in philosophical debate—most broadly, from the time of Descartes' Second Meditation, which set the groundwork for considering the science of the mind. Most prominent recently are two contrasting approaches in the philosophical literature, to theory of mind: theory-theory and simulation theory. The theory-theorist imagines a veritable theory—"folk psychology"—used to reason about others' minds. The theory is developed automatically and innately, though instantiated through social interactions.[15] It is also closely related to person perception and attribution theory from social psychology.

text: The intuitive assumption that others are minded is an apparent tendency we all share. We anthropomorphize non-human animals, inanimate objects, and even natural phenomena. Daniel Dennett referred to this tendency as taking an "intentional stance" toward things: we assume they have intentions, to help predict future behavior.[16] However, there is an important distinction between taking an "intentional stance" toward something and entering a "shared world" with it. The intentional stance is a detached and functional theory we resort to during interpersonal interactions. A shared world is directly perceived and its existence structures reality itself for the perceiver. It is not just automatically applied to perception; it in many ways constitutes perception.

text: The philosophical roots of the relational frame theory (RFT) account of ToM arise from contextual psychology and refer to the study of organisms (both human and non-human) interacting in and with a historical and current situational context. It is an approach based on contextualism, a philosophy in which any event is interpreted as an ongoing act inseparable from its current and historical context and in which a radically functional approach to truth and meaning is adopted. As a variant of contextualism, RFT focuses on the construction of practical, scientific knowledge. This scientific form of contextual psychology is virtually synonymous with the philosophy of operant psychology.[17]

text: Development[edit]

text: The study of which animals are capable of attributing knowledge and mental states to others, as well as the development of this ability in human ontogeny and phylogeny, has identified several behavioral precursors to theory of mind. Understanding attention, understanding of others' intentions, and imitative experience with other people are hallmarks of a theory of mind that may be observed early in the development of what later becomes a full-fledged theory. In studies with non-human animals and pre-verbal humans, in particular, researchers look to these behaviors preferentially in making inferences about mind.

text: Simon Baron-Cohen identified the infant's understanding of attention in others, a social skill found by 7 to 9 months of age, as a "critical precursor" to the development of theory of mind.[5] Understanding attention involves understanding that seeing can be directed selectively as attention, that the looker assesses the seen object as "of interest", and that seeing can induce beliefs. Attention can be directed and shared by the act of pointing, a joint attention behavior that requires taking into account another person's mental state, particularly whether the person notices an object or finds it of interest.  Baron-Cohen speculates that the inclination to spontaneously reference an object in the world as of interest ("protodeclarative pointing") and to likewise appreciate the directed attention and interests of another may be the underlying motive behind all human communication.[5]

text: Understanding of others' intentions is another critical precursor to understanding other minds because intentionality, or "aboutness", is a fundamental feature of mental states and events. The "intentional stance" has been defined by Daniel Dennett[18] as an understanding that others' actions are goal-directed and arise from particular beliefs or desires. Both 2- and 3-year-old children could discriminate when an experimenter intentionally vs. accidentally marked a box with stickers as baited.[19] Even earlier in ontogeny, Andrew N. Meltzoff found that 18-month-old infants could perform target manipulations that adult experimenters attempted and failed, suggesting the infants could represent the object-manipulating behavior of adults as involving goals and intentions.[20] While attribution of intention (the box-marking) and knowledge (false-belief tasks) is investigated in young humans and nonhuman animals to detect precursors to a theory of mind, Gagliardi et al. have pointed out that even adult humans do not always act in a way consistent with an attributional perspective.[21] In the experiment, adult human subjects made choices about baited containers when guided by confederates who could not see (and therefore, not know) which container was baited.

text: Recent research in developmental psychology suggests that the infant's ability to imitate others lies at the origins of both theory of mind and other social-cognitive achievements like perspective-taking and empathy.[22] According to Meltzoff, the infant's innate understanding that others are "like me" allows it to recognize the equivalence between the physical and mental states apparent in others and those felt by the self. For example, the infant uses his own experiences, orienting his head/eyes toward an object of interest to understand the movements of others who turn toward an object, that is, that they will generally attend to objects of interest or significance. Some researchers in comparative disciplines have hesitated to put a too-ponderous weight on imitation as a critical precursor to advanced human social-cognitive skills like mentalizing and empathizing, especially if true imitation is no longer employed by adults. A test of imitation by Alexandra Horowitz[23] found that adult subjects imitated an experimenter demonstrating a novel task far less closely than children did. Horowitz points out that the precise psychological state underlying imitation is unclear and cannot, by itself, be used to draw conclusions about the mental states of humans.

text: While much research has been done on infants, theory of mind develops continuously throughout childhood and into late adolescence as the synapses (neuronal connections) in the prefrontal cortex develop. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for planning and decision-making.[24] Children seem to develop theory of mind skills sequentially. The first skill to develop is the ability to recognize that others have diverse desires. Children are able to recognize that others have diverse beliefs soon after. The next skill to develop is recognizing that others have access to different knowledge bases. Finally, children are able to understand that others may have false beliefs and that others are capable of hiding emotions. While this sequence represents the general trend in skill acquisition, it seems that more emphasis is placed on some skills in certain cultures, leading to more valued skills to develop before those that are considered not as important. For example, in individualistic cultures such as the United States, a greater emphasis is placed on the ability to recognize that others have different opinions and beliefs. In a collectivistic culture, such as China, this skill may not be as important and therefore may not develop until later.[25]

text: Language[edit]

text: There is evidence to believe that the development of theory of mind is closely intertwined with language development in humans. One meta-analysis showed a moderate to strong correlation (r = 0.43) between performance on theory of mind and language tasks.[26] One might argue that this relationship is due solely to the fact that both language and theory of mind seem to begin to develop substantially around the same time in children (between ages 2–5). However, many other abilities develop during this same time period as well, and do not produce such high correlations with one another nor with theory of mind. There must be something else going on to explain the relationship between theory of mind and language.

text: Carol A. Miller posed a few possible explanations for this relationship. One idea was that the extent of verbal communication and conversation involving children in a family could explain theory of mind development. The belief is that this type of language exposure could help introduce a child to the different mental states and perspectives of others.[27] This has been suggested empirically by findings indicating that participation in family discussion predict scores on theory of mind tasks,[28] as well as findings showing that deaf children who have hearing parents and may not be able to communicate with their parents much during early years of development tend to score lower on theory of mind tasks.[29]

text: Another explanation of the relationship between language and theory of mind development has to do with a child's understanding of mental state words such as "think" and "believe". Since a mental state is not something that one can observe from behavior, children must learn the meanings of words denoting mental states from verbal explanations alone, requiring knowledge of the syntactic rules, semantic systems, and pragmatics of a language.[27] Studies have shown that understanding of these mental state words predicts theory of mind in four-year-olds.[30]

text: A third hypothesis is that the ability to distinguish a whole sentence ("Jimmy thinks the world is flat") from its embedded complement ("the world is flat") and understand that one can be true while the other can be false is related to theory of mind development. Recognizing these sentential complements as being independent of one another is a relatively complex syntactic skill and has been shown to be related to increased scores on theory of mind tasks in children.[31]

text: In addition to these hypotheses, there is also evidence that the neural networks between the areas of the brain responsible for language and theory of mind are closely connected. The temporoparietal junction has been shown to be involved in the ability to acquire new vocabulary, as well as perceieve and reproduce words. The temporoparietal junction also contains areas that specialize in recognizing faces, voices, and biological motion, in addition to theory of mind. Since all of these areas are located so closely together, it is reasonable to conclude that they work together. Moreover, studies have reported an increase in activity in the TPJ when patients are absorbing information through reading or images regarding other peoples' beliefs but not while observing information about physical control stimuli.[32]

text: Aging[edit]

text: In older age, theory of mind capacities decline, irrespective of how exactly they are tested (e.g. stories, eyes, videos, false belief-video, false belief-other, faux pas).[33] However, the decline in other cognitive functions is even stronger, suggesting that social cognition is somewhat preserved. In contrast to theory of mind, empathy shows no impairments in aging.[34]

text: There are two kinds of theory of mind representations: cognitive (concerning the mental states, beliefs, thoughts, and intentions of others) and affective (concerning the emotions of others). Cognitive theory of mind is further separated into first order (e.g., I think she thinks that…) and second order (e.g., he thinks that she thinks that…). There is evidence that cognitive and affective theory of mind processes are functionally independent from one another. [35] In studies of Alzheimer’s disease, which typically occurs in older adults, the patients display impairment with second order cognitive theory of mind, but usually not with first order cognitive or affective theory of mind. However, it is difficult to discern a clear pattern of theory of mind variation due to age. There have been many discrepancies in the data collected thus far, likely due to small sample sizes and the use of different tasks that only explore one aspect of theory of mind. Many researchers suggest that the theory of mind impairment is simply due to the normal decline in cognitive function. [36]

text: Empirical investigation[edit]

text: Whether children younger than 3 or 4 years old may have any theory of mind is a topic of debate among researchers. It is a challenging question, due to the difficulty of assessing what pre-linguistic children understand about others and the world. Tasks used in research into the development of ToM must take into account the umwelt—(the German word 'Umwelt' means "environment" or "surrounding world")—of the pre-verbal child.[clarification needed]

text: False-belief task[edit]

text: One of the most important milestones in theory of mind development is gaining the ability to attribute false belief: that is, to recognize that others can have beliefs about the world that are diverging. To do this, it is suggested, one must understand how knowledge is formed, that people's beliefs are based on their knowledge, that mental states can differ from reality, and that people's behavior can be predicted by their mental states. Numerous versions of the false-belief task have been developed, based on the initial task done by Wimmer and Perner (1983).[37]

text:
In the most common version of the false-belief task (often called the "'Sally-Anne' test" or "'Sally-Anne' task"), children are told or shown a story involving two characters. For example, the child is shown two dolls, Sally and Anne, who have a basket and a box, respectively. Sally also has a marble, which she places into her basket, and then leaves the room. While she is out of the room, Anne takes the marble from the basket and puts it into the box. Sally returns, and the child is then asked where Sally will look for the marble. The child passes the task if she answers that Sally will look in the basket, where Sally put the marble; the child fails the task if she answers that Sally will look in the box, where the child knows the marble is hidden, even though Sally cannot know this, since she did not see it hidden there. To pass the task, the child must be able to understand that another's mental representation of the situation is different from their own, and the child must be able to predict behavior based on that understanding.
Another example is when a boy leaves chocolate on a shelf and then leaves the room. His mother puts it in the fridge. To pass the task, the child must understand that the boy, upon returning, holds the false belief that his chocolate is still on the shelf.[38]

text: The results of research using false-belief tasks have been fairly consistent: most normally developing children are able to pass the tasks from around age four.[39] Notably, while most children, including those with Down syndrome, are able to pass this test, in one study, 80% of children diagnosed with autism were unable to do so.[40]

text: Also adults can experience problems with false beliefs. For instance, when they show hindsight bias, defined as: "the inclination to see events that have already happened as being more predictable than they were before they took place."[41] In an experiment by Fischhoff in 1975, adult subjects who were asked for an independent assessment were unable to disregard information on actual outcome. Also in experiments with complicated situations, when assessing others' thinking, adults can be unable to disregard certain information that they have been given.[38]

text: Unexpected contents[edit]

text: Other tasks have been developed to try to solve the problems inherent in the false-belief task. In the "Unexpected contents", or "Smarties" task, experimenters ask children what they believe to be the contents of a box that looks as though it holds a candy called "Smarties". After the child guesses (usually) "Smarties", it is shown that the box in fact contained pencils. The experimenter then re-closes the box and asks the child what she thinks another person, who has not been shown the true contents of the box, will think is inside. The child passes the task if he/she responds that another person will think that "Smarties" exist in the box, but fails the task if she responds that another person will think that the box contains pencils. Gopnik & Astington (1988)[42] found that children pass this test at age four or five years.

text: Other tasks[edit]

text: The "false-photograph" task[43][44] is another task that serves as a measure of theory of mind development. In this task, children must reason about what is represented in a photograph that differs from the current state of affairs. Within the false-photograph task, either a location or identity change exists.[45] In the location-change task, the examiner puts an object in one location (e.g., chocolate in an open green cupboard), whereupon the child takes a Polaroid photograph of the scene. While the photograph is developing, the examiner moves the object to a different location (e.g., a blue cupboard), allowing the child to view the examiner's action. The examiner asks the child two control questions: "When we first took the picture, where was the object?" and "Where is the object now?". The subject is also asked a "false-photograph" question: "Where is the object in the picture?" The child passes the task if he/she correctly identifies the location of the object in the picture and the actual location of the object at the time of the question. However, the last question might be misinterpreted as: "Where in this room is the object that the picture depicts?" and therefore some examiners use an alternative phrasing.[citation needed]

text: To make it easier for animals, young children, and individuals with classical (Kanner-type) autism to understand and perform theory of mind tasks, researchers have developed tests in which verbal communication is de-emphasized: some whose administration does not involve verbal communication on the part of the examiner, some whose successful completion does not require verbal communication on the part of the subject, and some that meet both of the foregoing standards. One category of tasks uses a preferential looking paradigm, with looking time as the dependent variable. For instance, 9-month-old infants prefer looking at behaviors performed by a human hand over those made by an inanimate hand-like object.[46] Other paradigms look at rates of imitative behavior, the ability to replicate and complete unfinished goal-directed acts,[20] and rates of pretend play.[47]

text: Early precursors[edit]

text: Recent research on the early precursors of theory of mind has looked at innovative ways at capturing preverbal infants' understanding of other people's mental states, including perception and beliefs. Using a variety of experimental procedures, studies have shown that infants in their second year of life have an implicit understanding of what other people see[48] and what they know.[49] A popular paradigm used to study infants' theory of mind is the violation of expectation procedure, which predicates on infants' tendency to look longer at unexpected and surprising events compared to familiar and expected events. Therefore, their looking-times measures would give researchers an indication of what infants might be inferring, or their implicit understanding of events. One recent study using this paradigm found that 16-month-olds tend to attribute beliefs to a person whose visual perception was previously witnessed as being "reliable", compared to someone whose visual perception was "unreliable". Specifically, 16-month-olds were trained to expect a person's excited vocalization and gaze into a container to be associated with finding a toy in the reliable-looker condition or an absence of a toy in the unreliable-looker condition. Following this training phase, infants witnessed, in an object-search task, the same persons either searching for a toy in the correct or incorrect location after they both witnessed the location of where the toy was hidden. Infants who experienced the reliable looker were surprised and therefore looked longer when the person searched for the toy in the incorrect location compared to the correct location. In contrast, the looking time for infants who experienced the unreliable looker did not differ for either search locations. These findings suggest that 16-month-old infants can differentially attribute beliefs about a toy's location based on the person's prior record of visual perception.[50]

text: Deficits[edit]

text: The theory of mind (ToM) impairment describes a difficulty someone would have with perspective-taking. This is also sometimes referred to as mind-blindness. This means that individuals with a ToM impairment would have a difficult time seeing phenomena from any other perspective than their own.[51] Individuals who experience a theory of mind deficit have difficulty determining the intentions of others, lack understanding of how their behavior affects others, and have a difficult time with social reciprocity.[52] ToM deficits have been observed in people with autism spectrum disorders, people with schizophrenia, people with nonverbal learning disorder, people with attention deficit disorder,[2] persons under the influence of alcohol and narcotics, sleep-deprived persons, and persons who are experiencing severe emotional or physical pain. Theory of mind deficits have also been observed in deaf children who are late signers (i.e., are born to hearing parents), but the deficit is due to the delay in language learning, not any cognitive deficit, and therefore disappears once the child learns sign language. [53]

text: Autism[edit]

text: In 1985 Simon Baron-Cohen, Alan M. Leslie and Uta Frith suggested that children with autism do not employ Theory of Mind[40] and suggested that autistic children have particular difficulties with tasks requiring the child to understand another person's beliefs. These difficulties persist when children are matched for verbal skills[54] and have been taken as a key feature of autism.

text: Many individuals classified as autistic have severe difficulty assigning mental states to others, and they seem to lack theory of mind capabilities.[55] Researchers who study the relationship between autism and theory of mind attempt to explain the connection in a variety of ways. One account assumes that theory of mind plays a role in the attribution of mental states to others and in childhood pretend play.[56] According to Leslie,[56] theory of mind is the capacity to mentally represent thoughts, beliefs, and desires, regardless of whether or not the circumstances involved are real. This might explain why some autistic individuals show extreme deficits in both theory of mind and pretend play. However, Hobson proposes a social-affective justification,[57] which suggests that with an autistic person, deficits in theory of mind result from a distortion in understanding and responding to emotions. He suggests that typically developing human beings, unlike autistic individuals, are born with a set of skills (such as social referencing ability) that later lets them comprehend and react to other people's feelings. Other scholars emphasize that autism involves a specific developmental delay, so that autistic children vary in their deficiencies, because they experience difficulty in different stages of growth. Very early setbacks can alter proper advancement of joint-attention behaviors, which may lead to a failure to form a full theory of mind.[55]

text: It has been speculated[47] that ToM exists on a continuum as opposed to the traditional view of a discrete presence or absence. While some research has suggested that some autistic populations are unable to attribute mental states to others,[5] recent evidence points to the possibility of coping mechanisms that facilitate a spectrum of mindful behavior.[58] Tine et al. suggest that autistic children score substantially lower on measures of social theory of mind in comparison to children diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.[59]

text: Generally, children with more advanced theory of mind abilities display more advanced social skills, greater adaptability to new situations, and greater cooperation with others. As a result, these children are typically well-liked. However, “children may use their mind-reading abilities to manipulate, outwit, tease, or trick their peers”.[60] Individuals possessing inferior theory of mind skills, such as children with autism spectrum disorder, may be socially rejected by their peers since they are unable communicate effectively. Social rejection has been proven to negatively impact a child’s development and can put the child at greater risk of developing depressive symptoms. [61]

text: Peer-mediated interventions (PMI) are a school-based treatment approach for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder in which peers are trained to be role models in order to promote social behavior. Laghi et al studied if analysis of prosocial (nice) and antisocial (nasty) theory of mind behaviors could be used, in addition to teacher recommendations, to select appropriate candidates for PMI programs. Selecting children with advanced theory of mind skills who use them in prosocial ways will theoretically make the program more effective. While the results indicated that analyzing the social uses of theory of mind of possible candidates for a PMI program is invaluable, it may not be a good predictor of a candidate's performance as a role model. [62]

text: Schizophrenia[edit]

text: Individuals with the diagnosis of schizophrenia can show deficits in theory of mind. Mirjam Sprong and colleagues investigated the impairment by examining 29 different studies, with a total of over 1500 participants.[63] This meta-analysis showed significant and stable deficit of theory of mind in people with schizophrenia. They performed poorly on false-belief tasks, which test the ability to understand that others can hold false beliefs about events in the world, and also on intention-inference tasks, which assess the ability to infer a character's intention from reading a short story. Schizophrenia patients with negative symptoms, such as lack of emotion, motivation, or speech, have the most impairment in theory of mind and are unable to represent the mental states of themselves and of others. Paranoid schizophrenic patients also perform poorly because they have difficulty accurately interpreting others' intentions. The meta-analysis additionally showed that IQ, gender, and age of the participants does not significantly affect the performance of theory of mind tasks.[63]

text: Current research suggests that impairment in theory of mind negatively affects clinical insight, the patient's awareness of their mental illness.[64] Insight requires theory of mind—a patient must be able to adopt a third-person perspective and see the self as others do.[65] A patient with good insight would be able to accurately self-represent, by comparing oneself with others and by viewing oneself from the perspective of others.[64] Insight allows a patient to recognize and react appropriately to his symptoms; however, a patient who lacks insight would not realize that he has a mental illness, because of his inability to accurately self-represent. Therapies that teach patients perspective-taking and self-reflection skills can improve abilities in reading social cues and taking the perspective of another person.[64]

text: The majority of the current literature supports the argument that the theory of mind deficit is a stable trait-characteristic rather than a state-characteristic of schizophrenia.[66] The meta-analysis conducted by Sprong et al. showed that patients in remission still had impairment in theory of mind. The results indicate that the deficit is not merely a consequence of the active phase of schizophrenia.[63]

text: Schizophrenic patients' deficit in theory of mind impairs their daily interactions with others. An example of a disrupted interaction is one between a schizophrenic parent and a child. Theory of mind is particularly important for parents, who must understand the thoughts and behaviors of their children and react accordingly. Dysfunctional parenting is associated with deficits in the first-order theory of mind, the ability to understand another person's thoughts, and the second-order theory of mind, the ability to infer what one person thinks about another person's thoughts.[67] Compared with healthy mothers, mothers with schizophrenia are found to be more remote, quiet, self-absorbed, insensitive, unresponsive, and to have fewer satisfying interactions with their children.[67] They also tend to misinterpret their children's emotional cues, and often misunderstand neutral faces as negative.[67] Activities such as role-playing and individual or group-based sessions are effective interventions that help the parents improve on perspective-taking and theory of mind.[67] Although there is a strong association between theory of mind deficit and parental role dysfunction, future studies could strengthen the relationship by possibly establishing a causal role of theory of mind on parenting abilities.

text: Alcohol use disorders[edit]

text: Impairments in theory of mind, as well as other social-cognitive deficits are commonly found in people suffering from alcoholism, due to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol on the brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex.[4]

text: Depression and dysphoria[edit]

text: Individuals in a current major depressive episode , a disorder characterized by social impairment, show deficits in theory of mind decoding.[68] Theory of mind decoding is the ability to use information available in the immediate environment (e.g., facial expression, tone of voice, body posture) to accurately label the mental states of others. The opposite pattern, enhanced theory of mind, is observed in individuals vulnerable to depression, including those individuals with past MDD,[69] dysphoric individuals,[70] and individuals with a maternal history of MDD.[71]

text: Specific language impairment[edit]

text: Children diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI) exhibit much lower scores on reading and writing sections of standardized tests, yet have a normal nonverbal IQ. These language deficits can be any specific deficits in lexical semantics, syntax, or pragmatics, or a combination of multiple problems. They often exhibit poorer social skills than normally developing children, and seem to have problems decoding beliefs in others. A recent meta-analysis confirmed that children with SLI have substantially lower scores on Theory of Mind tasks compared to typically developing children. [72] This strengthens the claim that language development is related to Theory of Mind.

text: Brain mechanisms[edit]

text: In typically developing humans[edit]

text: Research on theory of mind in autism led to the view that mentalizing abilities are subserved by dedicated mechanisms that can -in some cases- be impaired while general cognitive function remains largely intact.

text: Neuroimaging research has supported this view, demonstrating specific brain regions consistently engaged during theory of mind tasks. PET research on theory of mind, using verbal and pictorial story comprehension tasks, has identified a set of brain regions including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and area around posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), and sometimes precuneus and amygdala/temporopolar cortex.[73] Subsequently, research on the neural basis of theory of mind has diversified, with separate lines of research focused on the understanding of beliefs, intentions, and more complex properties of minds such as psychological traits.

text: Studies from Rebecca Saxe's lab at MIT, using a false-belief versus false-photograph task contrast aimed at isolating the mentalizing component of the false-belief task, have very consistently found activation in mPFC, precuneus, and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), right-lateralized.[74][75] In particular, it has been proposed that the right TPJ (rTPJ) is selectively involved in representing the beliefs of others.[76] However, some debate exists, as some scientists have noted that the same rTPJ region has been consistently activated during spatial reorienting of visual attention;[77][78] Jean Decety from the University of Chicago and Jason Mitchell from Harvard have thus proposed that the rTPJ subserves a more general function involved in both false-belief understanding and attentional reorienting, rather than a mechanism specialized for social cognition. However, it is possible that the observation of overlapping regions for representing beliefs and attentional reorienting may simply be due to adjacent, but distinct, neuronal populations that code for each. The resolution of typical fMRI studies may not be good enough to show that distinct/adjacent neuronal populations code for each of these processes. In a study following Decety and Mitchell, Saxe and colleagues used higher-resolution fMRI and showed that the peak of activation for attentional reorienting is approximately 6-10mm above the peak for representing beliefs. Further corroborating that differing populations of neurons may code for each process, they found no similarity in the patterning of fMRI response across space.[79]

text: Functional imaging has also been used to study the detection of mental state information in Heider-Simmel-esque animations of moving geometric shapes, which typical humans automatically perceive as social interactions laden with intention and emotion. Three studies found remarkably similar patterns of activation during the perception of such animations versus a random or deterministic motion control: mPFC, pSTS, fusiform face area (FFA), and amygdala were selectively engaged during the ToM condition.[80][81][82] Another study presented subjects with an animation of two dots moving with a parameterized degree of intentionality (quantifying the extent to which the dots chased each other), and found that pSTS activation correlated with this parameter.[83]

text: A separate body of research has implicated the posterior superior temporal sulcus in the perception of intentionality in human action; this area is also involved in perceiving biological motion, including body, eye, mouth, and point-light display motion.[84] One study found increased pSTS activation while watching a human lift his hand versus having his hand pushed up by a piston (intentional versus unintentional action).[85] Several studies have found increased pSTS activation when subjects perceive a human action that is incongruent with the action expected from the actor's context and inferred intention. Examples would be: a human performing a reach-to-grasp motion on empty space next to an object, versus grasping the object;[86] a human shifting eye gaze toward empty space next to a checkerboard target versus shifting gaze toward the target;[87] an unladen human turning on a light with his knee, versus turning on a light with his knee while carrying a pile of books;[88] and a walking human pausing as he passes behind a bookshelf, versus walking at a constant speed.[89] In these studies, actions in the "congruent" case have a straightforward goal, and are easy to explain in terms of the actor's intention. The incongruent actions, on the other hand, require further explanation (why would someone twist empty space next to a gear?), and then apparently would demand more processing in the STS. Note that this region is distinct from the temporo-parietal area activated during false belief tasks.[89] Also note that pSTS activation in most of the above studies was largely right-lateralized, following the general trend in neuroimaging studies of social cognition and perception. Also right-lateralized are the TPJ activation during false belief tasks, the STS response to biological motion, and the FFA response to faces.

text: Neuropsychological evidence has provided support for neuroimaging results regarding the neural basis of theory of mind. Studies with patients suffering from a lesion of the frontal lobes and the temporoparietal junction of the brain (between the temporal lobe and parietal lobe) reported that they have difficulty with some theory of mind tasks.[90][91] This shows that theory of mind abilities are associated with specific parts of the human brain. However, the fact that the medial prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal junction are necessary for theory of mind tasks does not imply that these regions are specific to that function.[77][92] TPJ and mPFC may subserve more general functions necessary for ToM.

text: Research by Vittorio Gallese, Luciano Fadiga and Giacomo Rizzolatti (reviewed in[93]) has shown that some sensorimotor neurons, which are referred to as mirror neurons, first discovered in the premotor cortex of rhesus monkeys, may be involved in action understanding. Single-electrode recording revealed that these neurons fired when a monkey performed an action, as well as when the monkey viewed another agent carrying out the same task. Similarly, fMRI studies with human participants have shown brain regions (assumed to contain mirror neurons) that are active when one person sees another person's goal-directed action.[94] These data have led some authors to suggest that mirror neurons may provide the basis for theory of mind in the brain, and to support simulation theory of mind reading (see above).[95]

text: However, there is also evidence against the link between mirror neurons and theory of mind. First, macaque monkeys have mirror neurons but do not seem to have a 'human-like' capacity to understand theory of mind and belief. Second, fMRI studies of theory of mind typically report activation in the mPFC, temporal poles and TPJ or STS,[96] but these brain areas are not part of the mirror neuron system. Some investigators, like developmental psychologist Andrew Meltzoff and neuroscientist Jean Decety, believe that mirror neurons merely facilitate learning through imitation and may provide a precursor to the development of ToM.[97][98] Others, like philosopher Shaun Gallagher, suggest that mirror-neuron activation, on a number of counts, fails to meet the definition of simulation as proposed by the simulation theory of mindreading.[99][100]

text: However, in a recent paper, Keren Haroush and Ziv Williams outlined the case for a group of neurons in primates' brains that uniquely predicted the choice selection of their interacting partner. These primates' neurons, located in the anterior cingulate cortex of rhesus monkeys, were observed using single-unit recording while the monkeys played a variant of the iterative prisoner's dilemma game.[101] By identifying cells that represent the yet unknown intentions of a game partner, Haroush & Williams' study supports the idea that theory of mind may be a fundamental and generalized process, and suggests that anterior cingulate cortex neurons may potentially act to complement the function of mirror neurons during social interchange.[102]

text: In autism[edit]

text: Several neuroimaging studies have looked at the neural basis theory of mind impairment in subjects with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism (HFA). The first PET study of theory of mind in autism (also the first neuroimaging study using a task-induced activation paradigm in autism) replicated a prior study in normal individuals, which employed a story-comprehension task.[103][104] This study found displaced and diminished mPFC activation in subjects with autism. However, because the study used only six subjects with autism, and because the spatial resolution of PET imaging is relatively poor, these results should be considered preliminary.

text: A subsequent fMRI study scanned normally developing adults and adults with HFA while performing a "reading the mind in the eyes" task: viewing a photo of a human's eyes and choosing which of two adjectives better describes the person's mental state, versus a gender discrimination control.[105] The authors found activity in orbitofrontal cortex, STS, and amygdala in normal subjects, and found no amygdala activation and abnormal STS activation in subjects with autism.

text: A more recent PET study looked at brain activity in individuals with HFA and Asperger syndrome while viewing Heider-Simmel animations (see above) versus a random motion control.[106] In contrast to normally developing subjects, those with autism showed no STS or FFA activation, and significantly less mPFC and amygdala activation. Activity in extrastriate regions V3 and LO was identical across the two groups, suggesting intact lower-level visual processing in the subjects with autism. The study also reported significantly less functional connectivity between STS and V3 in the autism group. Note, however, that decreased temporal correlation between activity in STS and V3 would be expected simply from the lack of an evoked response in STS to intent-laden animations in subjects with autism. A more informative analysis would be to compute functional connectivity after regressing out evoked responses from all-time series.

text: A subsequent study, using the incongruent/congruent gaze-shift paradigm described above, found that in high-functioning adults with autism, posterior STS (pSTS) activation was undifferentiated while they watched a human shift gaze toward a target and then toward adjacent empty space.[107] The lack of additional STS processing in the incongruent state may suggest that these subjects fail to form an expectation of what the actor should do given contextual information, or that feedback about the violation of this expectation doesn't reach STS. Both explanations involve an impairment in the ability to link eye gaze shifts with intentional explanations. This study also found a significant anticorrelation between STS activation in the incongruent-congruent contrast and social subscale score on the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised, but not scores on the other subscales.

text: In 2011, an fMRI study demonstrated that the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) of higher-functioning adults with autism was not more selectively activated for mentalizing judgments when compared to physical judgments about self and other.[108] rTPJ selectivity for mentalizing was also related to individual variation on clinical measures of social impairment: individuals whose rTPJ was increasingly more active for mentalizing compared to physical judgments were less socially impaired, while those who showed little to no difference in response to mentalizing or physical judgments were the most socially impaired. This evidence builds on work in typical development that suggests rTPJ is critical for representing mental state information, irrespective of whether it is about oneself or others. It also points to an explanation at the neural level for the pervasive mind-blindness difficulties in autism that are evident throughout the lifespan.[109]

text: In schizophrenia[edit]

text: The brain regions associated with theory of mind include the superior temporal gyrus (STS), the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), the precuneus, and the amygdala.[110] The reduced activity in the MPFC of individuals with schizophrenia is associated with the Theory of mind deficit and may explain impairments in social function among people with schizophrenia.[111] Increased neural activity in MPFC is related to better perspective-taking, emotion management, and increased social functioning.[111] Disrupted brain activities in areas related to theory of mind may increase social stress or disinterest in social interaction, and contribute to the social dysfunction associated with schizophrenia.[111]

text: Practical validity[edit]

text: Group member average scores of theory of mind abilities, measured with the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test[112] (RME), are suggested as drivers of successful group performance.[113] In particular, high group average scores on the RME are shown to be correlated with the collective intelligence factor c defined as a group's ability to perform a wide range of mental tasks,[113][114] a group intelligence measure similar to the g factor for general individual intelligence. RME is a ToM test for adults[112] that shows sufficient test-retest reliability[115] and constantly differentiates control groups from individuals with functional autism or Asperger syndrome.[112] It is one of the most widely accepted and well-validated tests for ToM abilities within adults.[116]

text: Evolution[edit]

text: The evolutionary origin of theory of mind remains obscure. While many theories make claims about its role in the development of human language and social cognition few of them specify in detail any evolutionary neurophysiological precursors. A recent theory claims that ToM has its roots in two defensive reactions, namely immobilization stress and tonic immobility, which are implicated in the handling of stressful encounters and also figure prominently in mammalian childrearing practices (Tsoukalas, 2017).[117] Their combined effect seems capable of producing many of the hallmarks of theory of mind, e.g., eye-contact, gaze-following, inhibitory control and intentional attributions.

text: Non-human[edit]

text: An open question is if other animals besides humans have a genetic endowment and social environment that allows them to acquire a theory of mind in the same way that human children do.[1] This is a contentious issue because of the problem of inferring from animal behavior the existence of thinking or of particular thoughts, or the existence of a concept of self or self-awareness, consciousness and qualia. One difficulty with non-human studies of ToM is the lack of sufficient numbers of naturalistic observations, giving insight into what the evolutionary pressures might be on a species' development of theory of mind.

text: Non-human research still has a major place in this field, however, and is especially useful in illuminating which nonverbal behaviors signify components of theory of mind, and in pointing to possible stepping points in the evolution of what many claim to be a uniquely human aspect of social cognition. While it is difficult to study human-like theory of mind and mental states in species whose potential mental states we have an incomplete understanding, researchers can focus on simpler components of more complex capabilities. For example, many researchers focus on animals' understanding of intention, gaze, perspective, or knowledge (or rather, what another being has seen). Call and Tomasello's study[19] that looked at understanding of intention in orangutans, chimpanzees and children showed that all three species understood the difference between accidental and intentional acts. Part of the difficulty in this line of research is that observed phenomena can often be explained as simple stimulus-response learning, as it is in the nature of any theorizers of mind to have to extrapolate internal mental states from observable behavior. Recently, most non-human theory of mind research has focused on monkeys and great apes, who are of most interest in the study of the evolution of human social cognition. Other studies relevant to attributions theory of mind have been conducted using plovers[118] and dogs,[119] and have shown preliminary evidence of understanding attention—one precursor of theory of mind—in others.

text: There has been some controversy over the interpretation of evidence purporting to show theory of mind ability—or inability—in animals.[120] Two examples serve as demonstration: first, Povinelli et al. (1990)[121] presented chimpanzees with the choice of two experimenters from whom to request food: one who had seen where food was hidden, and one who, by virtue of one of a variety of mechanisms (having a bucket or bag over his head; a blindfold over his eyes; or being turned away from the baiting) does not know, and can only guess. They found that the animals failed in most cases to differentially request food from the "knower". By contrast, Hare, Call, and Tomasello (2001)[122] found that subordinate chimpanzees were able to use the knowledge state of dominant rival chimpanzees to determine which container of hidden food they approached. William Field and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh have no doubt that bonobos have developed ToM and cite their communications with a well known captive bonobo, Kanzi, as evidence.[123]

text: In a 2016 experiment, ravens Corvus corax were shown to take into account visual access of unseen conspecifics. It is suspected that "ravens can generalize from their own perceptual experience to infer the possibility of being seen".[124]

text: A 2016 study published by evolutionary anthropologist Christopher Krupenye brings new light to the existence of ToM, and particularly false beliefs, in non-human primates.[125]


document_title: I Think It's Going to Rain Today

question_text: who wrote i think it's going to rain today

question_tokens: who wrote i think it 's going to rain today

text: I Think It's Going to Rain Today

text: This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

tag: table

text: "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" (or "I Think It's Gonna Rain Today") is a song by Randy Newman. It appears on his 1968 debut album Randy Newman, in The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1 (2003), and in Newman's official and bootleg live albums. It is one of his most covered songs.

text: Despite the many covers, it charted only twice, once in Canada in 1970 for Tom Northcott and in the UK in 1980 for UB40.[citation needed] The UB40 single was a double A-side with "My Way of Thinking", which was the first-named track and received most of the radio airplay. However, the German single (which appeared later) had "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" as the A-side.

text: Newman said in 2017, that he signed away the publishing rights on his first album, doesn't see any money from people doing covers of those songs and advised people getting into the business to never sign away their publishing.[1]


document_title: The Village (The Prisoner)

question_text: where was the tv series the prisoner filmed

text: The Village (The Prisoner)

text: Description[edit]

text: The location of the Village[2] is unknown for most of the series; clues in the series as to its whereabouts until the final episode are contradictory. In "Many Happy Returns", it is said to be on the coast of Morocco or southern Portugal, possibly an island, and is located by Number Six in this area while making reconnaissance passes in an aircraft. Prior to this, in "The Chimes of Big Ben", it is claimed to be located on the Baltic Sea. (The episode states "in Lithuania, 30 miles from the Polish border".) In the unbroadcast version of the episode "The Chimes of Big Ben", Number Six constructs a device that allows him to work out the Village's location; this scene was cut presumably to remove the reference to navigation by stars which would have allowed an estimation of the Village's region, at the least, thereby undermining the storyline of the episode (if not a key element in the entire series). This version of the episode is not considered part of the series canon.

text: The series finale episode, "Fall Out", reveals that the Village is located in the United Kingdom. Number Six and other characters are able to drive from the Village to central London. Although a line of dialogue in "Many Happy Returns" has a character speculating that the Village is on an island, this is never confirmed in the series, and in fact all given locations (save for that in "Fall Out") should be considered unreliable evidence given the fact they are mentioned as part of a deception aimed at getting Number Six to reveal why he resigned from his secret British government job.

text: The Italianate architecture of the Village is somewhat deceptive as the interiors of the buildings are frequently Georgian, 1960s 'Mod', or in a number of instances, an oddly sparse kind of 'ultra modern' design. Throughout the Village, music plays in the background, nearly all of it alternating between rousing marching band music and lullabies, periodically interrupted by public announcements. The media and signage consistently incorporate sailing and resort themes.

text: The Village has a logo in the form of a canopied penny-farthing bicycle (commonly referred to as an "Ordinary") which appears on almost everything, including the daily newspaper called the Tally Ho. Exactly who operates the Village is deliberately obscured. Ostensibly, the Village is run by a democratically elected council, with a popularly elected executive officer known as "Number Two" presiding over it and the Village itself, although internal dialogue indicates that the entire process is rigged. "Work units" or "credits" serve as currency in its shops, and are kept track of with a hole-punched credit card. Although various members of the community in the Village hold down jobs or even own businesses, most, including Number Six do not have jobs, though are given a comfortable lifestyle.

text: The exact size of the environs of the Village is never established on screen. Besides the townsite, which is known to include a hospital building, there are forested, mountainous and coastal areas. The Village is large enough that one episode ("Living in Harmony") established that an entire Old West town and environs was built somewhere in the vicinity. In "Arrival", "Many Happy Returns" and other episodes, Number Six actually views the Village from the air, yet is apparently unable to spot any surrounding towns or cities. In other episodes (depending upon the camera angle), buildings can clearly be seen on the far side of the bay. Nevertheless, all maps of the Village seen in the series display little beyond the central townsite, indicating that the village is surrounded on three sides by mountains (said mountains are seen by No. 6 in "Many Happy Returns") and sea on the fourth, though the map does show a road leading off the map which may connect to the other areas, such as the Village hospital which is depicted as being in a field-like area away from the core Village (at least in some episodes like "Arrival"; in others, such as "Chimes of Big Ben", it is shown to be overlooking the central plaza of the Village).

text: For official identification purposes, all residents and staff of the Village are assigned numbers in lieu of names, and with very few exceptions the use of proper names is forbidden. Numbers are reassigned as and when the current holder leaves the Village. The actual population of the Village is unknown - other than that there are some residents whose numbers are in the low triple digits (and in "The Schizoid Man" a private residence is briefly seen with the number 241) and save for Number 2, the numbering appears to have no bearing on one's authority or rank within the Village. Most identification badges are white, but some are black. The only character never seen wearing a number badge (other than Number 6, who refuses and is only seen wearing a badge on a couple of occasions) is the unnamed Butler who serves Number 2; his number (if he has one) is never revealed. Similarly, only one character - a woman in "The Schizoid Man" who befriends Number 6 - is consistently identified by a proper name, and never by her number.

text: Filming locations[edit]

text: Scenes of the Village were filmed in the grounds of Clough Williams-Ellis's Italianate Hotel Portmeirion, a resort near Penrhyndeudraeth in North Wales. Principal location shooting took place over four weeks in September 1966, with a return visit for additional, second unit-style shots for later episodes in March 1967. Sections of the resort (such as Number 6's residence interior with exterior) were replicated at MGM Borehamwood Studios in England. Later episodes were shot almost entirely on the sets on MGM's sound stages and backlot and locations within easy reach of the studio at Borehamwood, (e.g., in "It's Your Funeral", "A Change of Mind", "Living in Harmony", and "The Girl Who Was Death"), and by reusing Portmeirion footage from earlier episodes the production company was able to save the expense that further principal photography at Portmeirion would have cost. Note that Portmerion was used as a background in Danger Man to show a foreign location—the episodes were "View From The Villa", "Under the Lake", "The Honeymooners", "Find and Return", "The Journey Ends Halfway" and "Bury the Dead".[3]

text: Infrastructure[edit]

text: There is an extensive network of tunnels and caverns under the Village, connecting many of the public buildings, and a number of secret facilities and support services (plumbing, waste disposal, observation cameras, etc.). These are generally off-limits to all prisoners above, but they appear to be extensively utilised, given the amount of motorcycle traffic observed in them in the final episode. There appears to be a large liquid-filled underground chamber that looks similar to a lava lamp, probably a short distance off the coast, in which Rover resides when it is not being used. The normal background display of the large monitor in Number Two's office is a view of this chamber, and lava lamps are visible in virtually every public building in the Village, giving rise to the speculation that these lamps may have functioned as some extension of Rover itself. This was never directly referred to on screen.

text: The Village is a self-contained society, and appears to be mostly self-sufficient as well, although no farming areas are ever seen, so it appears that food and supplies are shipped in from outside. It is sprawling enough to contain several hundred prisoners, in a comfort level similar to that of a hotel or a resort. As seen in "The Girl Who Was Death", the population includes several children, implying that some prisoners are so resigned to their fates that they have married and started families.

text: The Village has its own daily newspaper (The Tally Ho), a cinema, a statue garden, a retirement home, a gymnasium, a fully equipped hospital, taxi service, a radio station (like George Orwell's telescreens in Nineteen-Eighty-Four, the receivers cannot be turned off), a television studio (used mostly for news reports and announcements), a restaurant, a music shop, several other stores, and its own graveyard. In addition, there are extensive recreation facilities. Although alcohol is officially outlawed in the Village, in one episode Number Six stumbles onto a hidden bar located in a cave on the beach, run by a single bartender and a home-made distillery that serves real alcohol. An old acquaintance he meets there informs him that the Village authorities tolerate its presence partially to mollify harder cases with alcohol, and because the proprietor is an eccentric genius who doodles groundbreaking equations when not serving customers, which the authorities periodically steal. The local economy functions on a credit chit system. The final episode also revealed that the Village conceals a missile launch facility deep underground.

text: The exact dimensions of the Village are never explicitly defined. Although a map of the Village is shown on screen on several occasions, it only seems to show the core residential and business area of the village, which is shown as being surrounded on three sides by mountain ranges and the fourth by "the sea". The episode "Living in Harmony" reveals that the Village is large enough to house a complete western town mock-up (presumably an area ear-marked for "official" use, and therefore not shown on the Village maps). Other episodes also indicate that the Village includes an expanse of beach and seaside cliffs (with caves). The jurisdiction of the Village over water is said to extend for several miles, or otherwise the range of Rover, the Village guardian system.

text: There is visual evidence in many episodes that the Village also includes large areas of countryside (with residences) as these are often visible in the distance in aerial shots and views looking out to sea.

text: The small Jeep-like vehicles used as taxis in the Village are Mini Mokes.

text: The Village's ubiquitous typeface is a modified Albertus.

text: Authorities[edit]

text: Ostensibly, the Village is run by a democratically elected council, with a popularly elected executive officer known as "Number Two" presiding over it and the Village itself. Though most Village inhabitants seem to go along with this, internal dialogue indicates that the entire process is rigged:

text:
“

Number Six: "Where'd you get this bunch of tailor's dummies?" (indicating the Council)
Number Two: "They'd be here when I arrived."

”

text: Whenever the council is seen, none of its members speak or move in any way.

text: In actuality, the Village is a brutal dictatorship, best described by Number Six himself as "This farce, this 20th century Bastille that pretends to be a pocket democracy." It is ruled by a revolving series of Chief Administrators designated "Number Two", some of whom return to the office after lengthy absences. They vary greatly in personality and in methodology: some of them are quite amiable, some are sadistic, and some are mere bureaucratic functionaries bordering on functional impotence.

text: Number Two appears to be directly answerable to unseen superiors, the shadowy "They" or "Number 1" pulling all the strings from behind the scenes, with direct contact via a red hotline phone. It appears that Number Two is continually being observed by hidden cameras, and indeed one of the Number Twos confides to Number Six in "The Chimes of Big Ben", "I'm as much of a prisoner here as you are. We're both lifers, my boy!" Whether Number Two literally means that he is a captive is not known for certain; several Number Twos are shown coming and going from the Village at will, and the very first Number Two, when he receives orders regarding his replacement in "Arrival", takes it calmly with understanding (as opposed to other Number Twos such as the one in "A. B. and C." who live in fear of such an order).

text: However, when the Number Two of "Chimes of Big Ben" returns in "Once Upon a Time", it is made clear that it is against his will. In the final episode, "Fall Out", Number Two makes it clear that he had been kidnapped in much the same way as Number Six, but chose to quickly give in instead of fighting his captors.

text: The episode "It's Your Funeral" suggests that most of the Number Twos encountered in the series are in fact only temporary appointments, standing in for an older Number Two who has been away from the Village for reasons not explained. This Old Number Two eventually returns, ostensibly in order to retire, but becomes the target of an assassination plot by the current "temporary" Number Two.

text: Exactly who operates the Village is deliberately obscured. At first glance, it appears to be run by Communist types, suggesting it is a holding cell for captured western agents. Later on it appears to be operating with some assistance from British Intelligence, implying that it is a holding area for western agents who have been compromised, or are feared to be untrustworthy by their own agencies. Several of the Number Twos in the course of the show appear to be unclear as to whom they are actually working for, and one explicitly says, "It doesn't matter 'who' Number One is. It doesn't matter which 'side' runs the Village [...] both sides are becoming identical. What in fact has been created [here]? An international community." Another Number Two implies that both East and West are covertly operating the Village together for unknown reasons. The overall impression given by the series is that some kind of nebulous organisation is manipulating all the Cold War powers for its own ends.

text: Security[edit]

text: Weapons, alcohol, and tools are forbidden in the Village, but there are no walls or visible barriers to prevent escape, and no apparent prison guards. Indeed, aside from Number Two functioning as warden, the Village at first appears to have no real security infrastructure. This is merely a ruse, however, as subsequent episodes reveal that many of the other people in the Village are, in fact, warders planted unobtrusively in the community and reporting back to the current Number Two. It is strongly implied that "They" (the never-revealed masters of the Village) have several plants in the Village as well, whose identities are unknown to Number Two, and who report back to Them directly; one of the more sadistic Number Twos (seen in "Hammer Into Anvil") is particularly paranoid about this possibility.

text: An underground control room monitors closed-circuit television cameras located throughout the Village. Observers continually spy on Villagers and foil escape attempts with the aid of Rover, a large white balloon-like device that chases would-be escapees. The perimeter of the Village is surrounded by a pleasant wooded area, including one or two caves (which may or may not connect to the network of underground tunnels). Beyond this, Rover patrols: if anyone ventures too far from town, they will be intercepted and nudged back towards home. If anyone attempts to escape, Rover will capture them and they wake up in the Village hospital. Rover has also been shown to kill on two occasions; the exact cause of death is not revealed (the target is "enveloped"/suffocated; this happens to the victims in "Arrival" and "The Schizoid Man"), however, in "Free for All", Number 6 it attacked in a similar manner, but survives.

text: Customs[edit]

text: Citizens use the phrase "Be seeing you" as a farewell, accompanied by a waving gesture consisting of thumb and forefinger forming a circle over the eye, then tipped forward in a salute. This may be a reminder that in the Village you are under constant surveillance; anyone may be a Warder, a stooge working for Number Two—although a simpler theory of the salute could be that the fingers are formed into the shape of a number six. Moreover, the hand gesture resembles the show's revolving penny-farthing bicycle logo. In their book, The Official Prisoner Companion, Matthew White and Jaffer Ali state that actress Norma West said that McGoohan told her the gesture was used by early Christians; it was the sign of the fish (the documentary The Prisoner Video Companion, originally released on VHS in the 1980s and later on DVD by A&E, also makes this statement). In Danger Man and Secret Agent, John Drake uses that expression often.

text: Most (but not all) guards wear the same style of resort clothing and numbered badges as the prisoners, and mingle seamlessly among the general population. Thus, it is nearly impossible for prisoners to determine which Villagers can be trusted and which ones cannot.

text: Fate[edit]

text: When last seen in the finale episode, "Fall Out", the residents of the Village are evacuated by helicopter after Number Six primes a missile or rocket (located within a silo beneath the Village) to launch. The episode and the series never reveal what happens to the Village or its people after Number Six finally escapes.

text: The Village did appear again in a DC Comics mini-series based on the series published in the 1980s, which picked up the story 20 years later. In this version (published later as the graphic novel, Shattered Visage), the Village is abandoned and falls into disrepair. Number Six seemingly never left the Village, instead choosing a hermit-like existence as its Number One. This existence comes to an end when Number Two writes a book about the Village, inspiring a joint effort by American and British agents to investigate the site. However, a young woman washes ashore before their arrival, awakening to find herself dubbed Number Six. One and Six are able to establish an odd camaraderie before Two arrives, seeking to complete unfinished business. Ultimately, in this version of the storyline, the Village is destroyed in a massive explosion.

text: In reality, Portmeirion continues to be a popular tourist attraction in Wales, and frequently hosts events related to celebrating the series. The building in Portmeirion shown in the series as Number Six's house was later converted into a shop selling Prisoner-related souvenirs, with a penny-farthing bicycle parked outside.

text: In other media[edit]

text: In The Simpsons episode "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes", Homer Simpson is imprisoned in a location called "The Island" after accidentally uncovering a secret flu shot scheme. He escapes by stealing Number Six's raft (which he had spent thirty years building) and uses a spork to pop the Rover sent to capture him. Patrick McGoohan guest-starred in the episode, reprising the role of Six. It is revealed in this episode that the reason for Six's imprisonment was his invention of the bottomless peanut bag.

text: In Alan Moore's crossover comic, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, The Village is stated as having been built by the Thought Police to house enemies of Big Brother. After the death of Big Brother and the collapse of the Ingsoc regime, MI5 continues to operate The Village. In the comic, The Village is specifically stated as being located in Portmeirion.

text: In the TV series 2Point4 Children, the episode "Seven Dials" sees one of the main characters Ben played by Gary Olson wake up in the Village at a Prisoner convention, as part of an ongoing and increasingly surreal vendetta plot with rival plumber Jake Klinger, played by Roger Lloyd-Pack.

text: In the TV series The Invisible Man (2000), the episode "A Sense of Community" featured a village called "The Community" where troublesome spies were forced to 'retire' to.

text: The Village is recreated in the late-1970s Edu-Ware computer game, The Prisoner and its sequel, Prisoner 2. In both games, however, the location is renamed "The Island".

text: In the 2009 remake, the Village is located in the middle of a desert, instead of by the sea, though it was later revealed that this version of The Village does not exist in reality, only in a virtual reality computer environment. The area that was used for filming was Swakopmund, Namibia.[4]

text: Iron Maiden wrote a song that appeared on their 1982 release of The Number of the Beast called "The Prisoner". The group later wrote a second composition that appeared on the Powerslave album called "Back in The Village".[5]

text: In the second volume of the Tales of the Shadowmen anthology series, Xavier Mauméjean's short story "Be Seeing You!" describes the origin of The Village. It was established in 1912 by Winston Churchill, the original Number 1, to interrogate his enemies, including Sherlock Holmes.

text: In the science fiction TV series Babylon 5, the culture of the Psi Corps organization pays homage to aspects of The Prisoner, including a modified salute and use of the phrase "Be seeing you".