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In this thesis, multivariate statistical modelling approaches are applied to longitudinal data to examine how social and non-social abilities in infancy relate to later developmental and clinical outcomes in infants at high- and low-risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). ASD is a heritable developmental disorder, rarely diagnosed before 2 years, and characterised by impairments in social interaction, communication and restricted and repetitive behaviours (DSM-IV-TR, American Psychiatric Association, 2000). The application of multivariate techniques to experimental, clinical and questionnaire data from 54 high-risk infants (who have an older sibling with ASD) and 50 low-risk controls, seen at 7, 13, 24 and 36 months, enables the simultaneous modelling of multiple factors in relation to ASD outcome. In Chapter 3, eye-tracking of gaze following behaviour demonstrated that infants who later develop ASD symptoms can correctly follow another person's eye-gaze, but by 13 months they show reduced looking to the gazed-at object compared to typically developing infants. Looking time is an index ofreferential understanding and was also related to children's subsequent receptive vocabulary. Chapter 4 reported that both high- and low-risk 24-montholds can apply mutual exclusivity (the principle that each object has one name) to make a word-object mapping. However, high-risk toddlers did not use social feedback to learn the word, and this difficulty was related to their lower receptive vocabularies. Further, 13 month looking time (from the gaze following task) predicted later learning from reinforcing feedback, suggesting a degree of continuity in children's social understanding across development. Finally, Chapter 5 found that social (gaze following) and non-social (disengagement) attention independently predict ASD, and while disengagement predicts looking time early in development, the measures become de-correlated over time. The findings suggest that in order to understand the variable developmental trajectories leading to ASD, multiple risk markers over time should be analysed.

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How were Greek plays viewed in the fifth century BCE and by deepening our understanding of their visual dimension might we increase our knowledge of the plays themselves? The aim of this study is to set out the importance of the visual (opsis) when considering ancient Greek drama and provide a basis for constructing a form of “visual dramaturgy” that can be effectively applied to the texts. To that end, this work is divided into five sections, which follow a “top-down” analysis of ancient dramatic visuality. The analysis begins with a survey of the prevailing visual culture and Greek attitudes about sight and the eye. Following this is an examination of the roots of drama in the performance of public collective movement forms (what I have called “symporeia”) and their relationships to the environments they moved through, including the development of the fifth century theatre at the Sanctuary of Dionysos Eleuthereus in Athens. The focus then falls on the dramatic mask and it is proposed here that operating in this environment it was the visual focus of Greek drama and the primary conveyer of the emotional content of the plays. Drawing on new research from the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience relating to facial processing and recognition, gaze direction, foveal and peripheral vision and neural responses to masks, movement and performance, it is explained how the fixed dramatic mask was an incredibly effective communicator of dramatic emotion capable of eliciting intensely individual responses from its spectators. This study concludes with a case study based on Aeschylus Oresteia and the raising of Phidias’ colossal bronze statue of Athena on the Acropolis and the impact that this may have had on the original reception of the trilogy.

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The commentary is composed of two parts, Introduction and Commentary proper (including a Metrical Appendix). The Introduction discusses the legends, the date of the play, the treatment of the legends by Euripides, the suspected mutilation of the text, the themes of the play, and the transmission of the text. It is argued that the text is substantially correct and unrevised, and that the "epeisodic" nature of the play is satisfactorily explained by the main theme, Athens' successful defence of suppliants against an arrogant invader of Attica, a theme full of rapid action far removed from the plots of Euripides' "psychological" dramas. The date is established as Spring 430 B.C., just prior to the second invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesian forces. Therefore much emphasis is evident in the play on the correct behaviour of the Athenians, their suppliants and particularly that of Iolaos as opposed to that of Eurystheus and his herald. The Commentary owes much, as all commentaries must, to the work of previous editors, in particular to that of A.C. Pearson whose edition of the Herakleidae in 1907 is the latest of that play in English. Apart from the essential treatment of grammatical and syntactical difficulties, the Commentary is concerned with dramatic interpretation and with contemporary Athenian attitudes to morality. The text on which the Commentary is based is, for reasons of convenience, that of G. Murray (Oxford Classical Texts, 1901), but I have discussed in the Commentary many emendations of my own and of others which i believe should be incorporated in any future revision of the text. The work of G. Zuntz on the Byzantine Transmission of the plays of Euripides (v. Bibliography) has formed the basis of my attitude to the text.