The thesis examines the phenomenon of nonverbal communication via dance from the perspective of anthropology of dance. The objective of the thesis is to analyze the dance environment of contemporary and ballroom dance, based on the point of view of the dancers as well as of the audience. I determine the differences in the ways these forms of dance communicate through dance performances. I examine how dance functions as a means of language, on which level the communication is processing and what meanings and messages the audience decodes within the dance performance. The phenomenon of dance in its natural environment is studied semiotically, as a form of language in certain context. The fieldwork method is based on participant observation and semistructured interviews with both dancers and audience. The research was conducted in the studio of Nová scéna - Lidé v pohybu in Prague, which teaches contemporary dance, and in the dance club Akcent Dobruška, which focuses on ballroom dance. Keywords: Anthropology of Dance, Nonverbal Communication, Contemporary Dance, Ballroom Dance, Semiology, Performance, Audience, Meaning.

L'objectif de ce travail de thèse est de permettre sur le long terme de proposer des interactions sociales personnalisées exploitant l’attirance que les personnes souffrant de Troubles du Spectre Autistique (TSA) ont envers les robots humanoïdes, tels que Nao (Softbank Robotics), afin d’améliorer leurs capacités d’interaction sociale. Trois institutions spécialisées pour personnes atteintes de TSA participent à notre étude : l'IME Notre Ecole et l'IME MAIA, Institut médico-éducatif pour enfants et adolescents atteints de TSA et la Lendemaine, Foyer d’Aide Médicalisée pour adultes atteints de TSA.Les différences inter-individuelles sont très présentes dans les TSA et elles impactent différemment le comportement de chaque individu avec TSA dans sa vie (par exemples la communication, l'attention jointe, ou encore les troubles moteurs, à des degrés différents pour chaque individu), et dans cette étude, durant leur interaction sociale avec un robot.Afin d’envisager à long terme une interaction personnalisée pour chaque participant, une première étape a consisté à définir leur profil sensorimoteur. L'hypothèse qui guide notre étude est que l'intégration des informations visuelles et proprioceptives (perception, consciente ou non, de la position et des changements des différentes parties du corps) d'une personne joue un rôle sur ses capacités sociales. Une personne qui réagit peu aux informations visuelles et qui utilise les informations proprioceptives relatives à ses mouvements ou à la position de son corps de manière exacerbée, aurait plus de difficultés à s’engager et à maintenir une interaction sociale.Les profils sensoriels des participants ont été évalués à l’aide du test du Profil Sensoriel de Dunn et du test sensorimoteur impliquant une scène mobile virtuelle afin d’évaluer leur dépendance visuelle et proprioceptive. L'analyse des données a permis de classer nos participants en trois groupes montrant des comportements différents face aux informations proprioceptives et visuelles, et à leur intégration.Nous avons ensuite étudié les liens entre les profils sensoriels des participants et leurs différents comportements sociaux à travers plusieurs tâches impliquées dans les interactions sociales : (1) reconnaissance d'émotions exprimées par deux robots, un avatar et une personne ; (2) interaction sociale avec le robot Nao sur la salutation ; (3) attention conjointe avec le robot Nao, et (4) imitation avec le robot Nao. Cette dernière tâche a fait l’objet de sessions répétées sur huit semaines (modèle de thérapie sur l'apprentissage et de renforcement de l'imitation pour enfants avec TSA).A travers ces études, nous avons pu observer que les participants ayant une plus forte dépendance à la proprioception et une indépendance au champ visuel ont eu plus de difficultés à interagir avec le robot (moins de regards vers le robot, moins de réponses à l'attention conjointe, plus de difficultés à reconnaitre les émotions, et à imiter un partenaire) que les autres participants.Nous avons pu observer que les sessions avec le robot Nao ont eu un effet bénéfique chez les participants avec TSA. A la suite des sessions répétées avec le robot Nao, les participants ont montré une amélioration de leurs capacités sociales (regard vers le partenaire, imitations) vers un partenaire d'imitation humain.Ces résultats confortent l'idée d'utiliser les profils sensoriels des personnes avec TSA pour leur proposer, dans des recherches futures, des interactions personnalisées avec les robots. / The goal of this thesis is to provide contributions that will help in the long term to enable personalized robot-based social interaction for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). This work was done in collaboration with three care facilities for people suffering from ASD: IME MAIA (France) and IME Notre Ecole, medical and educative schools for children and teenagers with ASD, and FAM La Lendemaine (France), a medical house for adults with ASD.Inter-individual differences are present in ASD, and impact the behaviors of each individual in their lives, and in this study, during their interactions with a robot.The first step of our work was to propose an appropriate method to define the proprioceptive and visual profiles of each of our participants. We based our work on the hypothesis that the proprioceptive (the ability of an individual to determine body segment positions (i.e., joint position sense and to detect limb movements in space) and visual integration of cues of an individual with ASD is an indicator of their social and communication skills. We posit that a mitigated behavioral response (i.e., hyporeactivity) to visual motion and an overreliance on proprioceptive information are linked in individuals with ASD to their difficulties in integrating social cues and engaging in successful social interactions.We used two methods to define the proprioceptive and visual profile of our participant: a well-known questionnaire on sensory preferences and an experimental setup. With the setup, we were able to observe three different groups of postural behaviors in our participants. Thanks to these individual profiles, we could make assumptions on the behaviors that one can expect from each of our participants during interactions with the robot.We aimed to assess various social skills of our participants in regards to their profiles. We designed three single case studies: (1) emotion recognition with different embodiments (two robots, a virtual agent and a human); (2) a short greeting social task with the robot Nao; and (3) a game evaluating joint attention response to the robot Nao. We also conducted eight weeks-long sessions with an imitation task with Nao.Through these studies, we were able to observe that the participants that display an overreliance on proprioceptive cues and a hyporeactivity to visual cues had more difficulties to interact with the robot (less gaze towards the robot, less answers to joint attention initiation behaviors, more difficulties to recognize emotions and to imitate a partner) than the other participants.We were able to observe that the repeated sessions with the robot Nao were benefic for participants with ASD: after the sessions with the robot Nao, the participants showed an improvement in their social skills (gaze to the partner, imitations).Defining such individual profiles could provide promising strategies for designing successful and adapted Human-Robot Interaction for individuals with ASD.

University of the Witwatersrand Department of Humanities Wits School of the Arts Drama for Life: (MADT) Master of Arts in Drama Therapy / The body has always fascinated me! As a classically trained dancer with a Physical Theatre background, I learnt to use my body as a means of expressing myself. I saw the body as a means to performance, but I believed there was more to the body than just being put on show. In University I learnt about and came to understand the mind-body connection (Plamer, 2009). This interested me and I began to search deeper, with the question that if the body and mind are connected, where are our human memories stored? I have always wondered what moves me and what moves the people around me… This research was a platform for me to look into the notion of the mind, body connection and memory. Through the use of story and movement, I began to consider bullying as a memory which the body and mind both experience. Through the research I focused on where the body had stored this experience and what were the effects of this stored memory (the aftermath). The rest of this paper unpacks my research and my findings working with a client centred approach. In this paper I speak back to the approach I took during the research process, using Laban’s 8 Effort actions, Lahad’s 6 Part Story Method and Whitehouse’s Authentic Movement as part of the integration process speaking back to bullying.

Nonverbal communication in dance teaching - How do students experience and interpret the nonverbal communication of a dance pedagogue? The purpose of this thesis is to further the knowledge about how a dance pedagogue's nonverbal communication could be interpreted by dance students. The thesis focuses on four semiotic resources; placement in the room, facial expression, usage of voice, and body language. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used. A practical workshop was executed where demonstrations of various ways in using nonverbal communication within a dance class context was shown. A questionnaire was based upon these demonstrations. A group interview was conducted. In the process of making the content of the demonstrations, video filming was used. The theoretical framework is based on theories of social semiotics and multimodality. The results show that small details in the dance pedagogue's usage of nonverbal communication have great influence on students' experiences of the presence of a dance pedagogue, the clarity of the instructions from the dance pedagogue, and the power dynamics between dance pedagogue and student. The study shows that these components are crucial for students' comprehensions of the content of a dance class and their experiences of the social climate of the classroom. The study advocates the importance of consiousness among dance pedagogues about their usage of nonverbal communication in teaching.

Актуальность темы диссертации обусловлена расширяющимся сотрудничеством с представителями многочисленных культур, необходимостью учитывать культурные особенности стран в различных профессиональных контекстах. В то же время, данная тема недостаточно представлена в имеющихся информационных источниках. Работа состоит их двух глав, в которых детально проработаны теоретические и практические аспекты проблемы. Работа выполнена на высоком профессиональном уровне с учетом основных современных направлений исследования в представленной сфере. Особую значимость имеет сравнение трех различных культур (русской, английской и японской), выявление общих и специфических черт межкультурной коммуникации. Полученные данные возможно использовать при подготовке переговоров, визитов, организации выставочной деятельности. / The relevance of the topic of the thesis is due to expanding cooperation with the representatives of many cultures, the need to take into account the cultural characteristics of countries in various professional contexts. At the same time, the topic is underrepresented in the available information sources. The thesis consists of two chapters in which the theoretical and practical aspects of the problem are elaborated. The thesis is executed at a high professional level considering the main directions of contemporary research in the field provided. Of particular importance is the comparison of three different cultures (Russian, English and Japanese), identifying common and specific features of intercultural communication. The data obtained may be used in the preparation of negotiations, visits and organization of exhibition activities.

No description available.

Communication / MA (Communication)

The overarching aim of this study was to explore the similarities and differences in communication and other cultural practices in encounters between black indigenous Zambians and white Western migrants living in Zambia and the implications of these similarities and differences. The research adopted a qualitative research design, and focus group discussions were used as a data collection tool, using a video recorder to capture the discussions. The focus group comprised of 6 black indigenous Zambians and 6 white Westerners. The collected data was then transcribed from the video records and analysed using thematic analysis. The conclusion to this study is that the culture of black indigenous Zambians and that of white Westerners have both similarities and differences as far as communication practices and other practices are concerned. These similarities and differences influence communication encounters between the people of the two cultures either positively or negatively rendering communication either effective or non-effective. / Communication / MA (Communication)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / To access interactive systems, blind and visually impaired users can leverage their auditory senses by using non-speech sounds. The current structure of non-speech sounds, however, is geared toward conveying user interface operations (e.g., opening a file) rather than large theme-based information (e.g., a history passage) and, thus, is ill-suited to signify the complex meanings of primary learning material (e.g., books and websites). In order to address this problem, this dissertation introduces audemes, a new category of non-speech sounds, whose semiotic structure and flexibility open new horizons for facilitating the education of blind and visually impaired students. An experiment with 21 students from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ISBVI) supports the hypothesis that audemes increase the retention of theme-based information. By acting as memory catalysts, audemes can play an important role in enhancing the aural interaction and navigation in future sound-based user interfaces. For this dissertation, I designed an Acoustic EDutainment INterface (AEDIN) that integrates audemes as a way by which to vividly anticipate text-to-speech theme-based information and, thus, act as innovative aural covers. The results of two iterative usability evaluations with total of 20 blind and visually impaired participants showed that AEDIN is a highly usable and enjoyable acoustic interface. Yet, designing well-formed audemes remains an ad hoc process because audeme creators can only rely on their intuition to generate meaningful and memorable sounds. In order to address this problem, this dissertation presents three experiments, each with 10 blind and visually impaired participants. The goal was to examine the optimal combination of audeme attributes, which can be used to facilitate accurate recognitions of audeme meanings. This work led to the creation of seven basic guidelines that can be used to design well-formed audemes. An interactive application tool (ASCOLTA: Advanced Support and Creation-Oriented Library Tool for Audemes) operationalized these guidelines to support individuals without an audio background in designing well-formed audemes. An informal evaluation conducted with three teachers from the ISBVI, supports the hypothesis that ASCOLTA is a useful tool by which to facilitate the integration of audemes into the teaching environment.

The research was directed at setting up guidelines for an interdisciplinary team which deals with children suffering from nonverbal learning disorder in middle childhood. The primary motive for the study was to, in general, further greater awareness of nonverbal learning disorder with parents and the relevant professions, but in particular, the interdisciplinary team which therapeutically handles children with nonverbal learning disorder. For the purpose of this study Thomas and Rothman's Intervention Research Model was applied. Information from relevant literature and semi-structured interviews with expertise in the area of learning disabilities was combined in order to set up guidelines for nonverbal learning disorder in middle childhood.The researcher concludes that thorough background knowledge of child development should be a precondition before nonverbal learning disorder could be identified and diagnosed. Because areas of development function interdependantly of each other, the developmental defecits of the nonverbal learning disorder child can only be treated effectively in a therapeutic way through an interdisciplinary team approach. / Social Work / M. Diac. (Play therapy)