This thesis project focuses on the creation and usage of external light effects to accommodate the needs of competitive gamers. Prior to the creation of these light effects, the function of audio in films and games was analyzed by examining the works of Michel Chion, who is the leading scholar in studying audio-vision: the relationship between the screen and sound. Subsequently, the possible application of these theories onto the lighting domain was discussed, showing the similarities and usefulness of these two different modalities. The goal of the thesis project was to improve the gamers’ perceived and objective performance in first-person shooter games. A counterbalanced within-group study was conducted; each participant played the game Doom 3 for 25 minutes with and without light effects. Four functional and informative light effects were created to accommodate the in-game content in an attempt to improve their performance. The players were given identical instructions on how to play the game. Four Philips Hue Go lights were placed in a rectangular shape around the participant with the TV in front. An additional Philips Hue LED strip was placed behind the TV. After each session, a standardized Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ) was used to collect data on the players’ perceived performance. In-game logs were collected to determine how the players fared in combat. A linear checkpoint system was created to judge how far the participants progressed. The GEQ data showed that the light effects improved the players perceived performance. However, the results from the in-game logs and player progression are inconclusive and not statistically significant. The identified potential reasons were the low sample size (n=14), too little practice time, potential differences in player skill and physical light positioning. / Detta examensarbete fokuserar på skapandet och användandet av externa ljuseffekter  för att ackommodera tävlingsinriktade gamers behov. Inför skapandet av dessa  ljuseffekter genomfördes en utforskning av ljudets funktion i film och spel genom att  analysera Michel Chions verk inom audio-vision (eng); det vill säga förhållandet mellan  bild och ljud. Fortsättningsvis diskuterades huruvida dessa teorier kunde appliceras på  domänen ljus, genom att visa på användbarheten samt de likheter som dessa två olika  modaliteter har.    Målet för examensarbetet var att förbättra gamers upplevda och objektiva prestation i  förstapersonsskjutare (eng: First Person Shooter / FPS). En motviktad användarstudie  (within-group) genomfördes. Fyra funktionella och informativa ljuseffekter skapades för  att ackommodera spelets innehåll i ett försök att förbättra spelarnas prestation. Varje  deltagare spelade FPS-spelet ​Doom 3​ i 25 minuter med och utan ljuseffekter. Spelarna fick  identiska instruktioner om spelets grunder. Fyra Philips Hue Go-lampor var utplacerade  rektangulärt runt spelaren med TVn längst fram i mitten. En ytterligare Philips Hue LED  strip var placerad bakom TVn.    Efter varje session användes ett standardiserat Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ) för  att insamla data av spelarnas upplevda prestation. Data loggades även inifrån spelet för  att uppmäta hur spelarna presterade i strid. Ett linjärt kontrollstationssystem upprättades  för att avgöra hur långt in i spelet deltagarna nådde.    Datan från GEQ-enkäterna visade att ljuseffekterna förbättrade spelarnas upplevda  prestation. Datan från spelloggarna och kontrollstationssystemet gav ett ofullständigt  resultat och var statistiskt insignifikant. De identifierade potentiella anledningarna var det  låga antalet deltagare (n=14), för lite övningstid, skillnader i spelarfärdighet och fysisk  ljuspositionering.

When striving for realism in first-person games, the use of sampled audio has been frequent, and it is often argued that a higher level of auditory authenticity will lead to an increased realism.However, in this paper, it is argued that, for the purpose of realism, attention should instead be directed at making players themselves a more contributing factor to how sound is perceived; the more the audio of a game changes with, or adapts to, player input, the more realistic it should be perceived. This idea is tested in a first-person game where participants play two different levels where one level’s wind sound has audio parameters adapt to the camera’s yaw rotator value, while the other level’s wind sound does not adapt at all. The participants’ experience of each design approach is evaluated using a quantitative and qualitative analysis. Results suggests that an increase of adaptive audio can lead to an increase in perceived realism in first-person games. A difference could clearly be perceived between the approaches and there were indications of preference for the adaptive approach. First-person games, such as simulators, as well as VR games, may well benefit from this approach in that it could increase the perceived realism.

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This thesis investigates the effectiveness of third-person self-talk (TPST) as a strategy for managing work-related stress using imaginary scenarios. Employing an experimental design, the impact of TPST on stress was compared to first-person self-talk and control conditions. Six subscales (Upset, Afraid, Nervous, Irritated, Distressed, and Alert) of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) were used to measure negative affect, while trait anxiety was controlled using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) to control for its effect on the relationship between TPST and stress responses. Contrary to expectations, the findings did not support TPST's effectiveness in significantly reducing stress levels. Furthermore, trait anxiety appeared as a strong predictor influencing situational stress responses, indicating that TPST's effectiveness was limited compared to individual differences. Further research can explore TPST's applicability across cultures, using longitudinal or diary designs or distinguishing between self-talk of different natures (e.g., spontaneous and induced).

Thesis (MA (African Languages))-- University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The study on accounts examines how people account for the activities and experiences through our personal stories emanating from how they behave in the community, and because of the past stories they tell. The study thus provides an examination of accounts as well as account-giving. It provides a scientific understanding of the value and impact of personal stories and story-telling in people’s lives. The problem experienced in relation to accounts relates to how accounts impact on people and vice versa. One hypotheses of this study on accounts relates to the nature of the process associated with people’s presentation of personal account to others. The aims and objectives of this study crucially relate to providing an analysis and understanding of accounts. The research method used in this study provides a basis to the analysis and understanding of accounts in the sense that individuals who were interviewed in the process, provided informative accounts of their childhood stories, some of whom were not aware that they have or had an impact on their daily lives. The main findings of the research provide insights into accounts. The findings are informative and contribute to theory development as regard account-giving, including factors relating to deference and respect. The recommendation that given in this work is that personal stories have a scientific merit in terms of a comunication-theoretic approach to narratives, as shown in the study.

This dissertation comprises two parts: Part I, which discusses use of second person pronoun in contemporary American poetry; and Part II, The Museum of Coming Apart, which is a collection of poems. As confessional verse became a dominant mode in American poetry in the late 1950s and early 60s, so too did the use of the first-person pronoun. Due in part to the excesses of later confessionalism, however, many contemporary poets hesitate to use first person for fear that their work might be read as autobiography. The poetry of the 1990s and early 2000s has thus been characterized by distance, dissociation, and fracture as poets attempt to remove themselves from the overtly emotional and intimate style of the confessionals. However, other contemporary poets have sought to straddle the line between the earnestness and linearity of confessionalism and the intellectually playful yet emotionally detached poetry of the moment. One method for striking this balance is to employ the second person pronoun. Because "you" in English is ambiguous, it allows the poet to toy with the level of distance in a poem and create evolving relationships between the speaker and reader. Through the analysis of poems by C. Dale Young, Paul Guest, Richard Hugo, Nick Flynn, Carrie St. George Comer, and Moira Egan, this essay examines five common ways second person is employed in contemporary American poetry-the use of "you" in reference to a specific individual, the epistolary form, the direct address to the reader, the imperative voice, and the use of "you" as a substitute for "I"-and the ways that the second-person pronoun allows these poems to take the best of both the confessional and dissociative modes.

Avec l’essor du néo-féminisme en Italie à la fin des années 1960, un genre littéraire se développe rapidement : le roman féministe. Souvent relaté à la première personne, il présente des parcours de femmes aux prises avec une société patriarcale qui les opprime et dont elles tentent de se libérer. Dès ses premières oeuvres, Dacia Maraini s’inscrit dans cette veine narrative. Elle en fournira les exemples les plus célèbres (notamment avec Donna in guerra en 1975) et en assurera la diffusion même après la fin du féminisme militant dans les années 1980 avec des oeuvres moins marquées idéologiquement mais toujours inscrites dans une visée de dénonciation des inégalités. À mi-chemin entre création littéraire et engagement politique, les récits féministes à la première personne de Dacia Maraini s’attachent tout particulièrement à la question du corps, interface entre soi et les autres, entre le privé et le politique. Considérant la période 1962- 2001, ce travail montre comment l’auteure investit et questionne les territoires du genre, de la sexualité et de la maternité par le biais de fictions mais aussi d’oeuvres autobiographiques. Dans une optique pluridisciplinaire empruntant à la fois les outils de l’analyse littéraire et de l’histoire des idées, le je des récits du corpus est analysé en tant que modalité énonciative spécifique mais aussi en tant qu’instrument performatif de diffusion du féminisme marainien, dans un rapport circulaire entre art et société, entre culture et pouvoir. / With the rise of neo-feminism in Italy in the end of the 1960's, a new literary genre quickly developed: the feminist novel. The first-person narrative was frequently used to portray women who fought against an oppressing patriarchal society from which they tried to get free. From her first works, Dacia Maraini followed this narrative style. She provided its most famous examples (especially in Donna in guerra, in 1975) and she guaranteed its propagation – even after the end of activist feminism in the 1980's – through works that were not as ideologically engaged as the first ones but that still aimed at denouncing inequalities. Halfway between literary creation and political commitment, the first person feminist narrative of Dacia Maraini particularly focuses on the topic of the body, as a link between one and the others, between the personal and the political. I will study the 1962-2001 period, and I will show how the author concentrates on the territories of gender, sexuality and motherhood and how she questions them through fiction and autobiographical stories. I choose a multidisciplinary perspective that takes the tools of both literary analysis and the history of ideas, in order to analyse the use of the first person as a specific enunciative modality and as a performative instrument for the propagation of Marainian feminism in a circular relationship between arts and society, between culture and power.

O foco dessa dissertação é o estudo do narrador de uma importante fase da obra em prosa de Samuel Beckett. O período escolhido inicia-se com as novelas Premier Amour (1970), Lexpulsé, Le calmant e La fin (1955), primeiros textos em francês do autor, e encerra-se com a obra Textes pour rien (1955), o que abrange a produção em prosa de Beckett entre 1945 e 1950. A importância deste período está no surgimento e desdobramento do narrador em primeira pessoa tipicamente beckettiano, caracterizado por seu discurso instável, movido a impasses e questionamentos sobre a própria história narrada. O trabalho acompanha a trajetória deste narrador, discutindo também seu importante papel na ruptura com os moldes do realismo formal na narrativa do século XX. / This dissertation studies the narrator in Samuel Beckett s prose, particularly focusing on a critical phase in the authors literary production covering the years of 1945 to 1950. The chosen period begins with the novellas Premier Amour (1970), Lexpulsé, Le calmant and La fin (1955) Becketts first narratives written in French and closes with the work Textes pour rien (1955). The importance of this phase lies in the creation and development of Becketts characteristic first person narrator, whose unstable discourse is fraught with impasses, questioning the very story being narrated. The dissertation follows this narrators journey to discuss the key role it played in breaking with formal realism patterns of the twentieth centurys narrative.

O principal objetivo desta tese é a investigação do foco narrativo nos romances Nenhum olhar e Cemitério de pianos, de José Luís Peixoto, com vistas a defender a hipótese de que o narrador em primeira pessoa promove a assunção de duplos. Ambas as obras trazem personagens que contam a sua história e, no processo da narração, entram em contato consigo mesmas, sob uma perspectiva pautada nas deformações intrínsecas à passagem do tempo. Nesse sentido, a faculdade da memória assume um papel fundamental na relativização do passado. Trata-se, em primeiro lugar, de uma análise do plano da expressão. Concomitante à questão do narrador e seus duplos, observamos que o conteúdo de ambos os romances evoca o tema da busca da salvação. Compreendemos que a concepção de mundo que permeia as referidas obras está pautada na jornada de Cristo na Terra e, em especial, ao drama da Paixão. Concluímos, pois, que, ao desejo do narrador em primeira pessoa de contar a sua história, estão intimamente relacionados o fenômeno do duplo e a negação da morte. Desse modo, por meio da duplicação, as personagens entram em contato com uma realidade supratemporal, fundada no mito. / The main objective of this thesis is the investigation of narrative focus on novels Nenhum olhar and Cemitério de pianos, by José Luís Peixoto, in order to defend the hypothesis that the first-person narrator promotes the assumption of doubles. Both works bring characters to tell their story and in the process of narration, get in touch with themselves, a perspective based on the deformations intrinsic to the passage of time. In this sense, the faculty of memory plays a key role in the relativization of the past. It is, firstly, an analysis of the level of expression. Concomitant with the question of the narrator and his double, we observed that the contents of both novels evoke the theme of the quest for salvation. We understand that the world view that permeates these works is based on the journey of Christ on Earth and in particular the drama of the Passion. Therefore we conclude that the desire of the first-person narrator to tell his story, are closely related to the phenomenon of the double and the denial of death. Thus, by duplicating the characters come into contact with supratemporal reality, founded on myth.

A dissertação investiga possibilidades formais de articulação entre universos pessoais e processos históricos no campo da realização documentária em primeira pessoa. O ponto de partida são materiais e procedimentos advindos de um documentário de longa-metragem que atualmente desenvolvo, intitulado Bem vindos de novo. O filme aborda as experiências da minha família na imigração de nipo-brasileiros para o Japão, conhecida como \"fenômeno decasségui\". Nele, busco articular as experiências pessoais e familiares com aspectos mais amplos desse acontecimento histórico e social, de proporções internacionais, que atingiu, e continua afetando diretamente, cerca de 600 mil pessoas. Abordo três procedimentos formais empregados no filme: (1) a utilização de fotografias domésticas; (2) a elaboração da narração em voz over; (3) o emprego de filmagens históricas realizadas por Hikoma Udihara, colonizador e cinegrafista pioneiro da imigração japonesa no Brasil. Através do mapeamento de possibilidades formais relacionadas aos procedimentos em questão, busco identificar e analisar um conjunto de conceitos, de instrumentos críticos e teóricos, úteis para se pensar a articulação entre o íntimo e o histórico, o pessoal e o social, em documentários na primeira pessoa; em diálogo constante com aspectos concretos da realização cinematográfica. / This master\'s thesis investigates formal possibilities of articulation between personal universes and historical processes inside the first person filmmaking practice. The bases are materials and procedures related to a feature documentary film that I am now developing, called Welcome Back, Farewell (Bem vindos de novo). The film addresses my family experiences in immigration of Japanese-Brazilians to Japan, known as \"dekassegui phenomenon\". In the film, I try to articulate personal and familiar experiences with wider features of this historical and social event of international proportion, which reached, and still concerns directly to six hundreds thousand people. Three formal procedures of the film are covered: (1) the use of domestic photography; (2) the elaboration of the voice over narration; (3) the usage of historical footage produced by Hikoma Udihara, colonizer and pioneer amateur filmmaker of the Japanese immigration in Brazil. Through the organization of formal possibilities related with the previous procedures, the aim is to identify and analyze a group of concepts, of critical and theoretical devices, useful to think the articulation between the intimate and the historical, the personal and the social, within the first person documentary; in frequent contact with concrete features of the filmmaking practice.