A methodological study was performed in order to derive a suitable procedure for the study of the Muller—Lyer illusion in the pigeon. Pigeons were trained to peck at one key when the middle wing in a Muller-Lyer figure was displaced towards one of the outside wings, and at the other key when it was displaced towards the other outside wing. The subjects were then presented with varied settings of the middle wing in order to determine the setting at which they would switch from one key to the other. It was found that, in a two-key situation, the pigeon developed a "preference" for one key over the other and that this tendency, carried over into the testing situation, influenced the "switchover point in a direction determined by the key preference. This evidence enabled the derivation of a more suitable method, which is suggest for use in further research on the Muller-Lyer illusion in the pigeon. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Parmi les thèmes qui traversent l’œuvre de Huysmans celui du rêve a fait l’objet d’une attention soutenue mais restreinte à quelques œuvres, principalement À Rebours et En Rade. Pourtant, dès ses premiers romans, Huysmans met en scène des rêveurs, taraudés par le désir d’être autres ou d’être ailleurs. Dans ses croquis, ses comptes rendus de Salons, il s’intéresse aux virtualités, aux hypothèses et délaisse la chose vue pour explorer des potentialités. La conversion ne met pas fin à cet attrait, exacerbant au contraire le rejet du monde et la tentation de l’au-delà. Ainsi, l’onirique n’est pas qu’une parenthèse dans des vies médiocres, c’est aussi une modalité de l’écriture. L’attention de Huysmans se porte sur le surgissement : les rêves au cœur du sommeil mais aussi le fantastique du quotidien, le retour du souvenir, les mystères de ce que l’on appelle déjà l’inconscient. Notre ambition est, dans une perspective synchronique, de relever la présence du rêve dans son œuvre et d’envisager les formes qu’il peut prendre. Il s’agit de se demander comment le rêve s’inscrit dans la narration et d’évaluer ce qu’il apporte à des textes dont on sait que le romanesque n’est pas la préoccupation principale. Cependant, il faut se garder de donner de Huysmans l’image d’un idéaliste : son œuvre est fortement marquée par un naturalisme revendiqué et l’auteur exprime constamment son rejet d’un style tiède ou vaporeux. Au désir de « substituer le rêve de la réalité à la réalité même » (À Rebours) s’oppose en permanence une volonté de détruire ces simulacres, de dénier au personnage toute échappatoire. L’ambition formulée d’un naturalisme spiritualiste, dont le modèle lui est fourni par la peinture des Primitifs flamands, permet à l’auteur de concilier ces deux exigences et l’engage sur la voie du roman moderne. / Dreaming is one of the well-known themes of Huysmans’ work. It has been well studied as far as Against nature or En Rade are concerned. However, since his earliest writings, Huysmans has presented dreamers who attempt to be somebody else or try to be somewhere else. When writing sketches and art criticism, he takes an interest in different possibilities or assumptions and abandons what he sees to explore virtuality. His conversion does not put an end to this interest, but emphasizes the rejection of the world and the temptation of the beyond. Thus the dream is not a parenthesis in narrow lives, it is also a way of writing. Huysmans’ attention is focused on what springs up: dreams in the heart of sleep but also the fantastic side of everyday life, memories coming back, and the mysterious aspects of what is already called the unconscious. The purpose of this study is to detect, in a synchronic perspective, the presence of dreams in his work and to consider what form they can take. It also wants to show how dreaming is included in the narrative and to evaluate what it brings to novels which reject the romanesque. However, we will be careful not to show Huysmans as an idealist: his work is strongly influenced by naturalism and constantly claims his rejection of a colourless or sentimental style of writing. The desire to “substitute the vision of a reality for the reality itself” (Against nature) is faced with a permanent will to destroy simulacra, to prevent the characters from escaping the real world. Huysmans’ doctrine of spiritual naturalism allows him to reconcile these two requirements and set him as a forerunner of the modern novel.

Le vieillissement amoindri de façon régulière les capacités physiques, sensorielles et parfois cognitives des individus. Le vieillissement du corps transforme également l'image offerte à autrui et à soi-même. La perception que la personne âgée a alors d’elle-même est une question qui n’est pas sans conséquence. La perception réaliste de ses capacités physiques semble nécessaire dans la réalisation d’actes moteurs alors que la perception optimiste de soi et de l’environnement semble nécessaire au maintien du moral. Notre objectif est d’étudier de façon relativement globale la perception de soi chez la personne âgée. Pour cela, nous étudions les perceptions qu’ont les personnes âgées a de leurs propres capacités dans la réalisation d’actes moteurs (posturabilité sur pente, enjambement d’obstacle), la perception qu’elles ont d’elles-mêmes par la réalisation de questionnaires d’auto-évaluation, en particulier la perception qu’elles ont de leur âge. Nous examinons également les perceptions qu’elles ont d’autrui, en particulier celles qu’elles ont d’autres personnes âgées. L’objectif est d’étudier les impacts positifs et négatifs sur leur santé des perceptions correctes ou erronées des séniors. Nos deux premières études ont mis en évidence l’existence d’un biais de surestimation de capacités posturales chez les participants âgés, qui pourrait être en lien avec une vision positive d’eux-mêmes. Ensuite nos recherches de sont intéressées à l’existence de cette surestimation des capacités motrices chez les personnes âgées présentant une détérioration cognitive (Maladie d’Alzheimer à un stade débutant). Dans une seconde partie, nos recherches se sont tournées vers l’estimation que les personnes âgées ont d’elles mêmes, en étudiant en particulier l’auto-estimation et l’hétéro-estimation de l’âge. Nos études ont montré que les personnes âgées adoptaient en général une vision optimiste d’elles-mêmes et de leurs capacités motrices ne correspondant pas à la réalité. Cette vision optimiste, bien que permettant de maintenir un bon moral peut être liée à la mise en danger sur le plan moteur. / Elderly steadily diminished physical, sensory and sometimes cognitive individuals abilities. The aging body also converts the image presented to others and to oneself. The perception that the elderly person then herself is a question which is not inconsequential. Realistic perception of physical seems necessary in motor actions while the optimistic perception of self and the environment seems necessary to maintain morale.Our goal is to study a relatively comprehensive self-perception in the elderly. For this, we study the perceptions of older people has their own abilities in performing motor acts (posturability on slope, crossing over an obstacle), their perceptions of themselves by achieving of self-assessment questionnaires, particularly their perceptions of their age. We also examine the perceptions they have of others, especially those that have other seniors. The objective is to study the positive and negative impacts on their health perceptions of older correct or incorrect. Our first two studies showed the existence of a bias of overestimating postural abilities among older participants, which could be related to a positive vision of themselves. Then our research is concerned with the existence of this overestimation of motor skills in older people with cognitive impairment (Alzheimer's disease at a beginning stage). In the second part, our research turned to the estimate that seniors have of themselves, especially in student self-assessment and hetero-age estimation.Our studies showed that older people usually adopted an optimistic view of themselves and their motor skills do not match reality. This optimistic view, although to maintain morale may be related to the endangerment on the motor.

This is a creative practice-based photographically researched project that is contextualised by a written exegesis. I am attempting to conceptualise the apparent visual experiences that occur during the dying process, death, and rebirth as believed within Tibetan Buddhism. The Bardo of life is also relevant as it pre-ordains the visual context of the experiences within the dying, death and rebirth Bardos.Through the medium of photography, my methodology and practice are reflective of two fundamental ideas. These are: Luminosity and Illusion. They are supported by my research into the phenomenon of the 'Near Death Experience' and the Jungian concept of the conscious and subconscious mind. These states of reality are explored in relation to the Tibetan Book of the Dead's concept of the Bardo. My focus is to photograph the four elements of Earth, Fire, Air and Water as mediums familiar to all human beings and relate these in context to the Tibetan Book of the Dead's description of entering the Bardo of death. Illusion and luminosity are discovered by 'seeing' these within the four elements, and are related in context to the Tibetan Buddhists' belief of an after-death reality. This transition from the dying process into the unknown Bardo of death is supported by the familiarity of these four elements in life, and the mind's notion of reality.

This project is an investigation of visual illusions created through the interaction of light on different surfaces and structures. Illusion implies deception - an optical illusion, in a sense is misunderstood information that creates a 'false' visual reality. This project incorporates macro and non-macro photography to generate illusion through scale and shape. Through deliberate acts of deception the images play on the human desire for mystery. It is through the 'eye of the imagination' that the images reveal themselves. The photographic images are of dioramas created on the top of a light box, using everyday substances and materials such as glass, felt, coloured transparencies, detergents and liquids of varying consistencies. This project reveals the extraordinary in the ordinary. The outcome of this project is a photographic body of work, the product of my experimentation and research, in which the ambiguous content of the composition, compels the viewer to their own interpretation. Translating some of the resulting images into a three-dimensional light based installation of an illusory nature invites people to take on a participatory role, furthering their experience with the artwork. This project makes us aware of our role within the experiential process, ma king us appreciate and question its very nature.

The ability to accurately predict object weight is essential for skilled manipulation and recent studies suggest that such prediction is based, in part, on learned size-weight maps associated with families of objects. Weight prediction based on size-weight maps is also involved when judging weights; there is strong evidence that weight judgments are biased by expected weight, based on size. This bias is revealed by the size-weight illusion (SWI) whereby the smaller of two equally weighted and otherwise similar objects is judged to be heavier because it is heavier than expected based on its size. The overall aim of the current set of studies was to examine how size-weight maps for different families of objects are organized and represented at the perceptual and sensorimotor levels. We found that distinct and independent size-weight maps, used to predict weight, were used when lifting objects and judging their weights. At the perceptual level, interference between size-weight maps for the different sets of cubes was observed; participants could learn the inverted size-weight relationship for the green cubes when experienced alone but not when experienced along with the black cubes with a normal size-weight relationship. However, about half of participants learned to scale lift forces accurately for both sets of cubes indicating that the sensorimotor system can learn, without interference, opposite size-weight maps. We further investigated why not all participants learned to accurately scale their lift forces and found that learning to lift objects with different and arbitrary size weight maps involves visuomotor working memory resources. Moreover, an outside task that steals attentional resources can interfere even after previous learning of the size-weight maps. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-30 12:51:49.413

Background. Tripping is a common factor in falls and a typical safety strategy to avoid tripping on steps or stairs is to increase foot clearance over the step edge. In the present study we asked whether the perceived height of a step could be increased using a visual illusion and whether this would lead to the adoption of a safer stepping strategy, in terms of greater foot clearance over the step edge. The study also addressed the controversial question of whether motor actions are dissociated from visual perception. Methodology/Principal Findings. 21 young, healthy subjects perceived the step to be higher in a configuration of the horizontal-vertical illusion compared to a reverse configuration (p = 0.01). During a simple stepping task, maximum toe elevation changed by an amount corresponding to the size of the visual illusion (p<0.001). Linear regression analyses showed highly significant associations between perceived step height and maximum toe elevation for all conditions. Conclusions/Significance. The perceived height of a step can be manipulated using a simple visual illusion, leading to the adoption of a safer stepping strategy in terms of greater foot clearance over a step edge. In addition, the strong link found between perception of a visual illusion and visuomotor action provides additional support to the view that the original, controversial proposal by Goodale and Milner (1992) of two separate and distinct visual streams for perception and visuomotor action should be re-evaluated. / College of Optometrists

This is a creative practice-based photographically researched project that is contextualised by a written exegesis. I am attempting to conceptualise the apparent visual experiences that occur during the dying process, death, and rebirth as believed within Tibetan Buddhism. The Bardo of life is also relevant as it pre-ordains the visual context of the experiences within the dying, death and rebirth Bardos.Through the medium of photography, my methodology and practice are reflective of two fundamental ideas. These are: Luminosity and Illusion. They are supported by my research into the phenomenon of the 'Near Death Experience' and the Jungian concept of the conscious and subconscious mind. These states of reality are explored in relation to the Tibetan Book of the Dead's concept of the Bardo. My focus is to photograph the four elements of Earth, Fire, Air and Water as mediums familiar to all human beings and relate these in context to the Tibetan Book of the Dead's description of entering the Bardo of death. Illusion and luminosity are discovered by 'seeing' these within the four elements, and are related in context to the Tibetan Buddhists' belief of an after-death reality. This transition from the dying process into the unknown Bardo of death is supported by the familiarity of these four elements in life, and the mind's notion of reality.

Diss.--Universität Bonn, 1987.

The present study examined choice and preference of slot machines between two groups based on the themes of slot machine. Twenty-one participants split into two group based on random assignment. A choice group that had the opportunity to change slot machines at any time, and the preferred choice group that only could play on the most preferred slot machine, were compared on the dependent measures of betting and response latency. Results demonstrated that there was no significant differences between groups on the dependent measure. Further analysis of within subjects demonstrated that wins in one phase was somewhat correlated with bets in the following phase; however, these effects were not at a significant level. Implications of this research are discussed.