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Gaze
Kinds of Gaze Terms modified by Gaze Selected AbstractsChallenging the Gaze: The Subject of Attention and a 1915 Montessori Demonstration ClassroomEDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 3 2004Noah W. Sobe The child's attention, how this attention is reasoned about, and how attention works as a surface for pedagogical intervention are central to understanding modern schooling. This article examines "attention" as an object of knowledge related to the organization and management of individuals. I address what we might learn about attention by studying one specific Montessori classroom, the glass-walled public demonstration set up at the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair. The pedagogy of attention on display and the spectatorship of the classroom provide an opportunity to rethink how power and subjectivity play in the formation of human attractions. I argue that thinking through Montessori offers important and relevant suggestions for present-day examinations of attention. The 1915 demonstration classroom can help us theorize the relation of attention to normalizing and governmentalizing practices. This specific study of how attention operates in one locale has implications for tactile learning theories and for the analytics of power to be used in studies of attention. [source] The Mirror of the Self: Sexuality, Self-Knowledge and the Gaze in the Early Roman Empire,by Shadi BartschGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 1 2010HELEN LOVATT No abstract is available for this article. [source] Transformed Social Interaction, Augmented Gaze, and Social Influence in Immersive Virtual EnvironmentsHUMAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, Issue 4 2005Jeremy N. Bailenson Immersive collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) are simulations in which geographically separated individuals interact in a shared, three-dimensional, digital space using immersive virtual environment technology. Unlike videoconference technology, which transmits direct video streams, immersive CVEs accurately track movements of interactants and render them nearly simultaneously (i.e., in real time) onto avatars, three-dimensional digital representations of the interactants. Nonverbal behaviors of interactants can be rendered veridically or transformed strategically (i.e., rendered nonveridically). This research examined augmented gaze, a transformation in which a given interactant's actual head movements are transformed by an algorithm that renders his or her gaze directly at multiple interactants simultaneously, such that each of the others perceives that the transformed interactant is gazing only at him or her. In the current study, a presenter read a persuasive passage to two listeners under various transformed gaze conditions, including augmented gaze. Results showed that women agreed with a persuasive message more during augmented gaze than other gaze conditions. Men recalled more verbal information from the passage than women. Implications for theories of social interaction and computer-mediated communication are discussed. [source] Infants' Evolving Representations of Object Motion During Occlusion: A Longitudinal Study of 6- to 12-Month-Old InfantsINFANCY, Issue 2 2004Gustaf Gredebäck Infants' ability to track temporarily occluded objects that moved on circular trajectories was investigated in 20 infants using a longitudinal design. They were first seen at 6 months and then every 2nd month until the end of their 1st year. Infants were presented with occlusion events covering 20% of the target's trajectory (effective occlusion interval ranged from 500,4,000 msec). Gaze was measured using an ASL 504 infrared eye-tracking system. Results effectively demonstrate that infants from 6 months of age can represent the spatiotemporal dynamics of occluded objects. Infants at all ages tested were able to predict, under certain conditions, when and where the object would reappear after occlusion. They moved gaze accurately to the position where the object was going to reappear and scaled their timing to the current occlusion duration. The average rate of predictive gaze crossings increased with occlusion duration. These results are discussed as a 2-factor process. Successful predictions are dependent on strong representations, themselves dependent on the richness of information available during encoding and graded representations. [source] Gaze Following in NewbornsINFANCY, Issue 1 2004Teresa Farroni Eye gaze has been shown to be an effective cue for directing attention in adults. Whether this ability operates from birth is unknown. Three experiments were carried out with 2- to 5-day-old newborns. The first experiment replicated the previous finding that newborns are able to discriminate between direct and averted gaze, and extended this finding from real to schematic faces. In Experiments 2 and 3 newborns were faster to make saccades to peripheral targets cued by the direction of eye movement of a central schematic face, but only when the motion of the pupils was visible. These results suggest that newborns may show a rudimentary form of gaze following. [source] Witnessing and the Medical Gaze: How Medical Students Learn to See at a Free Clinic for the HomelessMEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2000Beverly Ann Davenport This article analyzes doctor-patient communication as it is taught to medical students in a student-run free clinic for the homeless. Moving beyond Foucault's concept of the medical gaze, it incorporates Byron Good's theorizing about the soteriological aspects of medicine and medical education as well as aspects of practice theory as illuminated by Anthony Giddens. Ethnographic examples illustrate the necessary tension between objectification and subject-making that exists in the specific practices engaged in by both students and preceptors at the clinic site. [doctor-patient communication, medical education, homelessness, Foucault, practice theory] [source] The Development of Gaze FollowingCHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES, Issue 2 2008Chris Moore ABSTRACT,Gaze following is a fundamental component of object-focused social interaction that researchers have studied as a manifestation of early psychological understanding. This article reviews recent research on manipulations of gaze cues, target salience, spatial layout, and social-interactive context. The development of gaze following through infancy is a dynamic system that should be studied using a combination of empirical and modeling approaches. [source] Comparing Parameter Manipulation with Mouse, Pen, and Slider User InterfacesCOMPUTER GRAPHICS FORUM, Issue 3 2009Colin Swindells Abstract Visual fixation on one's tool(s) takes much attention away from one's primary task. Following the belief that the best tools ,disappear' and become invisible to the user, we present a study comparing visual fixations (eye gaze within locations on a graphical display) and performance for mouse, pen, and physical slider user interfaces. Participants conducted a controlled, yet representative, color matching task that required user interaction representative of many data exploration tasks such as parameter exploration of medical or fuel cell data. We demonstrate that users may spend up to 95% fewer visual fixations on physical sliders versus standard mouse and pen tools without any loss in performance for a generalized visual performance task. [source] Eye gaze in virtual environments: evaluating the need and initial work on implementationCONCURRENCY AND COMPUTATION: PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE, Issue 11 2009Norman Murray Abstract For efficient collaboration between participants, eye gaze is seen as being critical for interaction. Video conferencing either does not attempt to support eye gaze (e.g. AcessGrid) or only approximates it in round table conditions (e.g. life size telepresence). Immersive collaborative virtual environments represent remote participants through avatars that follow their tracked movements. By additionally tracking people's eyes and representing their movement on their avatars, the line of gaze can be faithfully reproduced, as opposed to approximated. This paper presents the results of initial work that tested if the focus of gaze could be more accurately gauged if tracked eye movement was added to that of the head of an avatar observed in an immersive VE. An experiment was conducted to assess the difference between user's abilities to judge what objects an avatar is looking at with only head movements being displayed, while the eyes remained static, and with eye gaze and head movement information being displayed. The results from the experiment show that eye gaze is of vital importance to the subjects correctly identifying what a person is looking at in an immersive virtual environment. This is followed by a description of the work that is now being undertaken following the positive results from the experiment. We discuss the integration of an eye tracker more suitable for immersive mobile use and the software and techniques that were developed to integrate the user's real-world eye movements into calibrated eye gaze in an immersive virtual world. This is to be used in the creation of an immersive collaborative virtual environment supporting eye gaze and its ongoing experiments. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] What do you think you're looking at?CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 2 2007Investigating social cognition in young offenders Aim,This small study was designed to assess the nature and severity of social-cognitive deficits in antisocial adolescents. Method,Thirty-seven boys aged 15,18 from a Young Offenders Institute and Community College participated. They were asked to complete a test of general intellectual ability and self-rating of social competence as well as tasks from the Skuse Schedules for the Assessment of Social Intelligence. Results,Young offenders were poor at recognizing the facial expression of anger, regardless of intellectual ability. They could not accurately identify the direction of another's eye gaze. Their performance on theory of mind tasks, however, was unimpaired. Conclusion,These preliminary findings imply selective impairment in the cognitive appraisal of threat, which may contribute to social maladjustment. Further such study of social cognition among young offenders is indicated. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Exploring Whiteness and Multicultural Education with Prospective TeachersCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 1 2002Alice McIntyre In this article, I describe how I initiate an examination of whiteness with predominantly white students in teacher preparation programs by the use of group collages,a pedagogical tool that combines visual, textual, and oral representations of subject matter. In doing so, I illustrate one of the ways teacher educators can provide students with opportunities to (1) "see" whiteness as an integral aspect of educational discourse, (2) fix their gaze on themselves as a collective racial group, and (3) engage in processes aimed at changing beliefs, stereotypes, and practices that reproduce social and educational injustice. [source] Touch attenuates infants' physiological reactivity to stressDEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2010Ruth Feldman Animal studies demonstrate that maternal touch and contact regulate infant stress, and handling during periods of maternal deprivation attenuates the stress response. To measure the effects of touch on infant stress reactivity during simulated maternal deprivation, 53 dyads were tested in two paradigms: still-face (SF) and still-face with maternal touch (SF+T). Maternal and infant cortisol levels were sampled at baseline, reactivity, and recovery and mother's and infant's cardiac vagal tone were measured during the free play, still-face, and reunion episodes of the procedure. Cortisol reactivity was higher among infants in the SF condition and while cortisol decreased at recovery for infants in the SF+T, it further increased for those in the SF. Vagal tone showed a greater suppression when SF was not accompanied by maternal touch. Touch synchrony during free play was associated with higher infant vagal tone, whereas touch myssynchrony , maternal tactile stimulation while the infant gaze averts , correlated with higher maternal and infant cortisol. In humans, as in mammals, the provision of touch during moments of maternal unavailability reduces infants' physiological reactivity to stress. [source] What are you looking at?DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2008Infants' neural processing of an adult's object-directed eye gaze Previous research suggests that by 4 months of age infants use the eye gaze of adults to guide their attention and facilitate processing of environmental information. Here we address the question of how infants process the relation between another person and an external object. We applied an ERP paradigm to investigate the neural processes underlying the perception of the direction of an adult's eye gaze in 4-month-old infants. Infants showed differential processing of an adult's eye gaze, which was directed at a simultaneously presented object compared to non-object-directed eye gaze. This distinction was evident in two ERP components: The Negative component, reflecting attentional processes, and the positive slow wave, which is involved in memory encoding. The implications of these findings for the development of joint attention and related social cognitive functions are discussed. [source] Predictive tracking over occlusions by 4-month-old infantsDEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 5 2007Claes Von Hofsten Two experiments investigated how 16,20-week-old infants visually tracked an object that oscillated on a horizontal trajectory with a centrally placed occluder. To determine the principles underlying infants' tendency to shift gaze to the exiting side before the object arrives, occluder width, oscillation frequency, and motion amplitude were manipulated resulting in occlusion durations between 0.20 and 1.66 s. Through these manipulations, we were able to distinguish between several possible modes of behavior underlying ,predictive' actions at occluders. Four such modes were tested. First, if passage-of-time determines when saccades are made, the tendency to shift gaze over the occluder is expected to be a function of time since disappearance. Second, if visual salience of the exiting occluder edge determines when saccades are made, occluder width would determine the pre-reappearance gaze shifts but not oscillation frequency, amplitude, or velocity. Third, if memory of the duration of the previous occlusion determines when the subjects shift gaze over the occluder, it is expected that the gaze will shift after the same latency at the next occlusion irrespective of whether occlusion duration is changed or not. Finally, if infants base their pre-reapperance gaze shifts on their ability to represent object motion (cognitive mode), it is expected that the latency of the gaze shifts over the occluder is scaled to occlusion duration. Eye and head movements as well as object motion were measured at 240 Hz. In 49% of the passages, the infants shifted gaze to the opposite side of the occluder before the object arrived there. The tendency to make such gaze shifts could not be explained by the passage of time since disappearance. Neither could it be fully explained in terms of visual information present during occlusion, i.e. occluder width. On the contrary, it was found that the latency of the pre-reappearance gaze shifts was determined by the time of object reappearance and that it was a function of all three factors manipulated. The results suggest that object velocity is represented during occlusion and that infants track the object behind the occluder in their ,mind's eye'. [source] Eye remember you two: gaze direction modulates face recognition in a developmental studyDEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 5 2006Alastair D. Smith The effects of gaze direction on memory for faces were studied in children from three different age groups (6,7, 8,9, and 10,11 years old) using a computerized version of a task devised by Hood, Macrae, Cole-Davies and Dias (2003). Participants were presented with a sequence of faces in an encoding phase, and were then required to judge which faces they had previously encountered in a surprise two-alternative forced-choice recognition test. In one condition, stimulus eye gaze was either direct or deviated at the viewing phase, and eyes were closed at the test phase. In another condition, stimulus eyes were closed at the viewing phase, with either direct or deviated gaze at the test phase. Modulation of gaze direction affected hit rates, with participants demonstrating greater accuracy for direct gaze targets compared to deviated gaze targets in both conditions. Reaction times (RT) to correctly recognized stimuli were faster for direct gaze stimuli at the viewing phase, but not at the test phase. The age group of participants differentially affected these measures: there was a greater hit rate advantage for direct gaze stimuli in older children, although RTs were less affected by age. These findings suggest that while the facilitation of face recognition by gaze direction is robust across encoding and recognition stages, the efficiency of the process is affected by the stage at which gaze is modulated. [source] The development of gaze following and its relation to languageDEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 6 2005Rechele Brooks We examined the ontogeny of gaze following by testing infants at 9, 10 and 11 months of age. Infants (N = 96) watched as an adult turned her head toward a target with either open or closed eyes. The 10- and 11-month-olds followed adult turns significantly more often in the open-eyes than the closed-eyes condition, but the 9-month-olds did not respond differentially. Although 9-month-olds may view others as ,body orienters', older infants begin to register whether others are ,visually connected' to the external world and, hence, understand adult looking in a new way. Results also showed a strong positive correlation between gaze-following behavior at 10,11 months and subsequent language scores at 18 months. Implications for social cognition are discussed in light of the developmental shift in gaze following between 9 and 11 months of age. [source] Legibility evaluation using point-of-regard measurementELECTRICAL ENGINEERING IN JAPAN, Issue 4 2008Daisuke Saito Abstract Web site visibility has become important because of the rapid dissemination of the World Wide Web, and combinations of foreground and background colors are crucial in providing high visibility. In our previous studies, the visibilities of several web-safe color combinations were examined using a psychological method. In those studies, simple stimuli were used because of experimental restriction. In this paper, legibility of sentences on web sites was examined using a psychophysiological method, point-of-regard measurement, to obtain other practical data. Ten people with normal color sensations ranging from ages 21 to 29 were recruited. The number of characters per line in each page was arranged in the same number, and the four representative achromatic web-safe colors, that is, #000000, #666666, #999999, and #CCCCCC, were examined. The reading time per character and the gaze time per line were obtained from point-of-regard measurement, and the normalized with the reading time and the gaze time of the three colors were calculated and compared. It was found that the time of reading and gaze become long at the same ratio when the contrast decreases by point-of-regard measurement. Therefore, it was indicated that the legibility of color combinations could be estimated by point-of-regard measurement. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 162(4): 35,42, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20612 [source] English in classrooms: only write down what you need to know: annotation for what?ENGLISH IN EDUCATION, Issue 1 2005Dr Carey Jewitt Abstract The annotation of texts in the school English classroom is central to the curriculum, examination and the history of English as a school subject. In this paper we explore ,the way it is done' across two different classrooms. We focus on the relationship between official definitions of annotation offered by national policies and examination syllabuses and its actualization in particular classrooms. The article takes a multimodal approach: attending to all modes of representation and communication in the teaching of English including image, gesture, gaze and the spatial organization of the classroom. [source] Neuronal substrates of gaze following in monkeysEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 8 2009Simone Kamphuis Abstract Human and non-human primates follow the gaze of their respective conspecific to identify objects of common interest. Whereas humans rely on eye-gaze for such purposes, monkeys preferentially use head-gaze information. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have delineated an area in the human superior temporal sulcus (STS), which is specifically activated when subjects actively follow the eye-gaze of others. Similarly, using fMRI, we have identified an analogous region in the monkey's middle STS responding to gaze following. Hence, although humans and monkeys might rely on different directional cues guiding their attention, they seem to deploy a similar and possibly homologous cortical area to follow the gaze of a conspecific. Our results support the idea that the eyes developed a new social function in human evolution, most likely to support cooperative mutual social interactions building on a phylogenetically old STS module for the processing of head cues. [source] Adult gaze influences infant attention and object processing: implications for cognitive neuroscienceEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 6 2005Vincent M. Reid Abstract Infants follow others' gaze toward external objects from early in ontogeny, but whether they use others' gaze in processing information about objects remains unknown. In Experiment 1, 4-month-old infants viewed a video presentation of an adult gazing toward one of two objects. When presented with the same objects alone a second time, infants looked reliably less at the object to which the adult had directly gazed (cued object). This suggests that the uncued object was perceived as more novel than the object previously cued by the adult's gaze. In Experiment 2, adult gaze was not directed towards any object. In this control experiment, infants looked at both objects equally in the test phase. These findings show that adult eye gaze biases infant visual attention and information processing. Implications of the paradigm for cognitive neuroscience are presented and the results are discussed in terms of neural structures and change over ontogeny. [source] Is there a role of visual cortex in spatial hearing?EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 11 2004Ulrike Zimmer Abstract The integration of auditory and visual spatial information is an important prerequisite for accurate orientation in the environment. However, while visual spatial information is based on retinal coordinates, the auditory system receives information on sound location in relation to the head. Thus, any deviation of the eyes from a central position results in a divergence between the retinal visual and the head-centred auditory coordinates. It has been suggested that this divergence is compensated for by a neural coordinate transformation, using a signal of eye-in-head position. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated which cortical areas of the human brain participate in such auditory,visual coordinate transformations. Sounds were produced with different interaural level differences, leading to left, right or central intracranial percepts, while subjects directed their gaze to visual targets presented to the left, to the right or straight ahead. When gaze was to the left or right, we found the primary visual cortex (V1/V2) activated in both hemispheres. The occipital activation did not occur with sound lateralization per se, but was found exclusively in combination with eccentric eye positions. This result suggests a relation of neural processing in the visual cortex and the transformation of auditory spatial coordinates responsible for maintaining the perceptual alignment of audition and vision with changes in gaze direction. [source] Neuroanatomical correlates of the near response: voluntary modulation of accommodation/vergence in the human visual systemEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 1 2000Hans O. Richter Abstract This study identifies brain regions participating in the execution of eye movements for voluntary positive accommodation (VPA) during open-loop vergence conditions. Neuronal activity was estimated by measurement of changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) with positron emission tomography and 15O-water. Thirteen naive volunteers viewed a checkerboard pattern with their dominant right eye, while a lens interrupted the line of gaze during alternate 1.5 s intervals. Three counterbalanced tasks required central fixation and viewing of a stationary checkerboard pattern: (i) through a 0.0 diopter (D) lens; (ii) through a ,5.0-D lens while avoiding volitional accommodation and permitting blur; and (iii) through a ,5.0-D lens while maintaining maximal focus. The latter required large-amplitude, high-frequency VPA. As an additional control, seven of the subjects viewed passively a digitally blurred checkerboard through a 0.0-D lens as above. Optometric measurements confirmed normal visual acuity and ability to perform the focusing task (VPA). Large-amplitude saccadic eye movements, verified absent by electro-oculography, were inhibited by central fixation. Image averaging across subjects demonstrated multifocal changes in rCBF during VPA: striate and extrastriate visual cortices; superior temporal cortices; and cerebellar cortex and vermis. Decreases in rCBF occurred in the lateral intraparietal area, prefrontal and frontal and/or supplementary eye fields. Analysis of regions of interest in the visual cortex showed systematic and appropriate task dependence of rCBF. Activations may reflect sensorimotor processing along the reflex arc of the accommodation system, while deactivations may indicate inhibition of systems participating in visual search. [source] Obsolescence and the Cityscape of the Former GDRGERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 4 2010Simon Ward ABSTRACT Paul Ricoeur claims that it is on the scale of urbanism that we best catch sight of the work of time in space. This article establishes two paradigmatic ways of seeing time in the city, the synchronic urban gaze and the urban memorial gaze, in order to explore how visualisations of the cityscape of the former GDR negotiate the significance of obsolescence, both ideological and physical. These paradigmatic forms can be associated with the ,official vision' of the cityscape, and ,alternative' visions respectively. While the state vision is evident in its urban planning, and the visual discourses at its disposal, the alternative visions are expressed in forms of visual culture (film and photography) that also explicitly engage with the visual discourses of urbanism. The article thus begins with an analysis of the official vision, through a consideration of the demolition of the Berlin Stadtschloss in 1950 as an act that may have been underpinned by both the ideological and physical obsolescence of the Schloss, but was ultimately justified by the need to create urban space for ideologically-motivated circulation. It then charts the changing relationship to obsolescence on the part of the regime's urban planners in the late 1960s, showing how this ostensibly dovetails with alternative ,subjective' visions of the cityscape in the 1970s in films such as,Die Legende von Paul und Paula,and,Solo Sunny, and in the photography of Ulrich Wüst. Such visions are widespread and largely permissible by the 1980s (with the notable exception of Helga Paris's study of Halle); and Peter Kahane's 1990s film,,Die Architekten, is read as offering a summary of these positions, as well as of the tensions between official and alternative ways of framing the manifestation of time in the cityscape. The article concludes by considering the afterlife of the obsolescent cityscapes of the former capital of the GDR within the new ,official' regime of representation that dominates in the ,new' Berlin. Paul Ricoeur behauptet, dass wir im Kontext des urbanen Raumes am besten betrachten können, wie sich die Zeit im Raum manifestiert. Diesem Aufsatz liegen zwei paradigmatische Sichtweisen auf die Stadt zugrunde, und zwar der synchronische Stadtblick (,synchronic urban gaze') einerseits und der zeitbezogene Stadtblick (,urban memorial gaze') andererseits, durch die Bedeutung und Rolle des physischen und moralischen Verschleißes in Darstellungen der Stadtlandschaft von Ostberlin, der Hauptstadt der DDR, untersucht werden können. Diese Sichtweisen lassen sich mit der ,offiziellen' Sichtweise, bzw. mit ,alternativen' Sichtweisen in Verbindung bringen. Die staatliche Sichtweise drückt sich in der Stadtplanung, aber auch in den visuellen Medien, die dem Staat zur Verfügung stehen, aus. Die alternativen Sichtweisen drücken sich auch in Formen der visuellen Vermittlung (Film, Fotografie) aus, die sich auch mit dem Urbanismus auseinandersetzen. Der Aufsatz beginnt daher mit der Analyse der offiziellen Sichtweise, und betrachtet den Abriss des Berliner Stadtschlosses im Jahre 1950 als einen Vorgang, der sowohl vom physischen wie auch ideologisch verschlissenen Zustand des Gebäudes ausging, aber letztendlich seine Legitimation aus dem Bedürfnis, urbanen Raum als Verfügungsmasse für ideologisch fundierte Tätigkeiten zu schaffen bezog. Diese Position des Regimes zum Verschleiß veränderte sich in den späten 1960er-Jahren, und diese neue Position hat scheinbare Ähnlichkeiten mit alternativen ,subjektiven' Vorstellungen der Stadtlandschaft in Filmen wie,Die Legende von Paul und Paula,und,Solo Sunny, und in der Fotografie von Ulrich Wüst. Solch alternative Visionen der Stadtlandschaft setzten sich mit weitgehender offizieller Duldung in den 1980er-Jahren fort (mit der berühmten Ausnahme der Halle-Arbeiten von Helga Paris); Peter Kahanes Film,,Die Architekten,(1990), bietet eine Zusammenfassung dieser Perspektiven und der Spannung zwischen der ,offiziellen' Sichtweise und dem alternativen Blick auf die verschlissene Stadt. Im Schlussteil untersucht der Aufsatz das Nach- oder Weiterleben der scheinbar obsoleten Stadtlandschaften der Hauptstadt der DDR in den offiziellen Formen der Stadtlandschaft, die im ,neuen Berlin' herrschen. [source] Der Erzähler als ,Popmoderner Flaneur' in Christian Krachts Roman FaserlandGERMAN LIFE AND LETTERS, Issue 2 2002Anke S. Biendarra Faserland (1995) exemplifies a new phenomenon in contemporary German literature. It cleared the way for a younger generation of writers and their description of the formerly marginalised experiences of everyday life, whose narratives focus is on the communication between narrator and reader. Hitherto, discussion of this novel has largely concentrated on its connection with ,pop literature', whilst its literary qualities and conceivable links with (post)modern literature have been ignored. Walter Benjamin's typology of the flâneur is used to illuminate the novel's aesthetic strengths, its narrative voice and textual structure. In taking into account historical developments, the interpretation characterizes the narrator as a ,popmodern flâneur', whose gaze no longer falls upon the metropolis but upon a frayed microcosm of German society. It suggests that the narrative report is a fictitious and imagined journey, which reveals itself as the narrator's failed attempt to ascertain a concept of subjectivity. In a world that presents itself as a Vanity Fair, the narrator's language, which retreats to the empty style of a world of commodities, fails. The poetic project of mastering experiences through narrative is equally unsuccessful. [source] PHOTOGRAPHS, SYMBOLIC IMAGES, AND THE HOLOCAUST: ON THE (IM)POSSIBILITY OF DEPICTING HISTORICAL TRUTHHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 2 2009JUDITH KEILBACH ABSTRACT Photography has often been scrutinized regarding its relationship to reality or historical truth. This includes not only the indexicality of photography, but also the question of how structures and processes that comprise history and historical events can be depicted. In this context, the Holocaust provides a particular challenge to photography. As has been discussed in numerous publications, this historic event marks the "limits of representation." Nevertheless there are many photographs "showing" the Holocaust that have been produced in different contexts that bespeak the photographers' gaze and the circumstances of the photographs' production. Some of the pictures have become very well known due to their frequent reproduction, even though they often do not show the annihilation itself, but situations different from that; their interpretation as Holocaust pictures results rather from a metonymic deferral. When these pictures are frequently reproduced they are transformed into symbolic images, that is, images that can be removed from their specific context, and in this way they come to signify abstract concepts such as "evil." Despite being removed from their specific context these images can, as this essay argues, refer to historical truth. First, I explore the arguments of some key theorists of photography (Benjamin, Kracauer, Sontag, Barthes) to investigate the relationship between photography and reality in general, looking at their different concepts of reality, history, and historical truth, as well as the question of the meaning of images. Second, I describe the individual circumstances in which some famous Holocaust pictures were taken in order to analyze, by means of three examples, the question what makes these specific pictures so particularly suitable to becoming symbolic images and why they may,despite their abstract meaning,be able to depict historical truth. [source] Technology and the World the Slaves MadeHISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 2 2006Robert Gudmestad The study of American slavery is a crowded field and each year the historical profession witnesses the publication of several new books. Despite this steady onslaught of scholarship, significant gaps remain in our understanding of slavery and its influence on the South. One area that has lacked sustained attention is the nexus of slavery and technological development. Several new books demonstrate that changes in technology profoundly altered the lives and labor of slaves. Historians have approached the presence of technology in a slave society from several different traditions. Some scholars argued that plantation development and mechanical progress were difficult to wed together, while others noted the progressive nature of southern agricultural production, but discussions of white attitudes and behavior overshadowed the effects of machinery on the lives of slaves. An innovative approach has emphasized the employment of slaves in factories, but such works have done little to provide insight into how technological innovation influenced plantation slaves. Several new studies have reversed these trends and promise to lead us in important directions. Examinations of the cotton gin, steamboats, sugar plantations, and clocks have revealed that technology brought enormous change to the bulk of slaves, not just those living in urban areas or working in factories. Patterns and practices of work, opportunities for autonomy, and time away from the master's unstinting gaze, all changed because of mechanical innovation. Taken together, these new works also provide clues to the making and remaking of the southern economy and society. [source] Direction-dependent visual cortex activation during horizontal optokinetic stimulation (fMRI study)HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 4 2006Sandra Bense Abstract Looking at a moving pattern induces optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) and activates an assembly of cortical areas in the visual cortex, including lateral occipitotemporal (motion-sensitive area MT/V5) and adjacent occipitoparietal areas as well as ocular motor areas such as the prefrontal cortex, frontal, supplementary, and parietal eye fields. The aim of this functional MRI (fMRI) study was to investigate (1) whether stimulus direction-dependent effects can be found, especially in the cortical eye fields, and (2) whether there is a hemispheric dominance of ocular motor areas. In a group of 15 healthy subjects, OKN in rightward and leftward directions was visually elicited and statistically compared with the control condition (stationary target) and with each other. Direction-dependent differences were not found in the cortical eye fields, but an asymmetry of activation occurred in paramedian visual cortex areas, and there were stronger activations in the hemisphere contralateral to the slow OKN phase (pursuit). This can be explained by a shift of the mean eye position of gaze (beating field) in the direction of the fast nystagmus phases of approximately 2.6 degrees, causing asymmetrical visual cortex stimulation. The absence of a significant difference in the activation pattern of the cortical eye fields supports the view that the processing of eye movements in both horizontal directions is mediated in the same cortical ocular motor areas. Furthermore, no hemispheric dominance for OKN processing was found in right-handed volunteers. Hum Brain Mapp, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Transformed Social Interaction, Augmented Gaze, and Social Influence in Immersive Virtual EnvironmentsHUMAN COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, Issue 4 2005Jeremy N. Bailenson Immersive collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) are simulations in which geographically separated individuals interact in a shared, three-dimensional, digital space using immersive virtual environment technology. Unlike videoconference technology, which transmits direct video streams, immersive CVEs accurately track movements of interactants and render them nearly simultaneously (i.e., in real time) onto avatars, three-dimensional digital representations of the interactants. Nonverbal behaviors of interactants can be rendered veridically or transformed strategically (i.e., rendered nonveridically). This research examined augmented gaze, a transformation in which a given interactant's actual head movements are transformed by an algorithm that renders his or her gaze directly at multiple interactants simultaneously, such that each of the others perceives that the transformed interactant is gazing only at him or her. In the current study, a presenter read a persuasive passage to two listeners under various transformed gaze conditions, including augmented gaze. Results showed that women agreed with a persuasive message more during augmented gaze than other gaze conditions. Men recalled more verbal information from the passage than women. Implications for theories of social interaction and computer-mediated communication are discussed. [source] Do 8-Month-Old Infants Consider Situational Constraints When Interpreting Others' Gaze as Goal-Directed Action?INFANCY, Issue 4 2010Yuyan Luo Some actions of agents are ambiguous in terms of goal-directedness to young infants. If given reasons why an agent performed these ambiguous actions, would infants then be able to perceive the actions as goal-directed? Prior results show that infants younger than 12 months can not encode the relationship between a human agent's looking behavior and the target of her gaze as goal-directed. In the present experiments, 8-month-olds responded in ways suggesting that they interpreted an agent's action of looking at object-A as opposed to object-B as evidence for her goal directed toward object-A, if her looking action was rational given certain situational constraints: a barrier separated her from the objects or her hands were occupied. Therefore, the infants seem to consider situational constraints when attributing goals to agents' otherwise ambiguous actions; they seem to realize that within such constraints, these actions are efficient ways for agents to achieve goals. [source] Can Infants Use a Nonhuman Agent's Gaze Direction to Establish Word,Object Relations?INFANCY, Issue 4 2009Laura O'Connell Adopting a procedure developed with human speakers, we examined infants' ability to follow a nonhuman agent's gaze direction and subsequently to use its gaze to learn new words. When a programmable robot acted as the speaker (Experiment 1), infants followed its gaze toward the word referent whether or not it coincided with their own focus of attention, but failed to learn a new word. When the speaker was human, infants correctly mapped the words (Experiment 2). Furthermore, when the robot interacted contingently, this did not facilitate infants' word mapping (Experiment 3). These findings suggest that gaze following upon hearing a novel word is not sufficient to learn the referent of the word when the speaker is nonhuman. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||