This thesis examines the implementation of an actor-training programme in the context of Spanish drama schools during 2004-2005. Reflecting through the student's practice as well as my own practice as a teacher, actor and director, I investigate how a bodymind training based on martial arts disciplines and designed by Phillip Zarrilli may contribute to understand the theory and the practice of an actor's use of the imagination as Michael Chekhov proposes it. Core questions arise from the evaluation of what is the professional knowledge that the integration of both systems of training brings to the students. The action of research is placed in how the process of learning such competencies take place and become informative of both the research and the acting practice. The concept of acting is being analysed by looking at the significance of the actor's imagination from a phenomenological rather than a psychological perspective. The discussion includes the challenge that developing a new pedagogy in a drama school brings up to a better understanding of contemporary paradigms of theatre practice and education.'Interpretación Gestual' is since 1992 an established branch in the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático de Madrid (RESAD). Acting in physical (gestural) theatre conveys some problematic issues concerning its theory and practice within both professional and pedagogical contexts. Implementing a new and specific teaching programme for the preparation of professional actors in the context of the RESAD urges me to clarify inpractice certain issues about these two different approaches to actor training, as well as their presence in today's education within the curriculum of official drama schools in Spain.

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Simulation en temps réel de scènes audio-visuelles complexes reste difficile en raison du processus de rendu techniquement indépendant mais perceptivement lié à chaque modalité. En raison de la dépendance cross-modale potentiel de la perception auditive et visuelle, l'optimisation de graphiques et de rendu sonore, tels que le niveau de détail (LOD), doit être considéré de manière combinée, mais pas comme des questions distinctes. Par exemple, dans l'audition et de la vision, les gens ont des limites perceptives sur la qualité de l'observation. Techniques de LOD conduit par la perception pour les graphismes ont été grandement progressé depuis des décennies. Cependant, le concept de LOD est rarement pris en compte dans l'évaluation et le rendu crossmodal. Cette thèse porte sur l'évaluation de la perception crossmodale sur le rendu LOD audiovisuel par des méthodes psychophysiques, sur lequel on peut appliquer une méthode fonctionnelle et générale, à terme, d'optimiser le rendu. La première partie de la thèse est une étude des problématiques. Dans cette partie, nous passons en revue les différentes approches LOD et discutons les issues, en particulier du point de vue au niveau de la perception crossmodale. Nous discutons également les résultats principaux sur le design, le rendu et les applications interactives des scènes audio et graphiques dans le cadre du projet ANR Topophonie dont la thèse a eu lieu. Une étude des méthodes psychophysiques pour l'évaluation de la perception audio-visuelle est également présentée afin de fournir une solide connaissance du design expérimentale. Dans la deuxième partie, nous nous concentrons sur l'étude de la perception des artefacts d'image dans le rendu LOD audio-visuel. Une série d'expériences a été conçue pour étudier comment la modalité audio supplémentaire peut influer sur la détection visuelle des artefacts produits par la méthode LOD d’imposteur. La troisième partie de la thèse est axée sur le X3D étendu que nous avons conçu pour la modélisation de LOD audio-visuel. Dans la dernière partie, nous présentons le design et l'évaluation du système original par le rendu LOD crossmodal. L'évaluation de la perception audio-visuelle sur le système LOD crossmodal a été atteinte grâce à une série d'expériences psychophysiques. Notre contribution principale est que nous offrons une compréhension originale de LOD crossmodal avec de nouvelles observations, et l'explorer par des expériences et des analyses perceptives. Les résultats de notre travail peuvent être, éventuellement, les preuves empiriques et des lignes directrices pour un système de rendu LOD crossmodale conduit par la perception. / Real-time simulation of complex audio-visual scenes remains challenging due to the technically independent but perceptually related rendering process in each modality. Because of the potential crossmodal dependency of auditory and visual perception, the optimization of graphics and sound rendering, such as Level of Details (LOD), should be considered in a combined manner but not as separate issues. For instance, in audition and vision, people have perceptual limits on observation quality. Techniques of perceptually driven LOD for graphics have been greatly advanced for decades. However, the concept of LOD is rarely considered in crossmodal evaluation and rendering. This thesis is concentrated on the crossmodal evaluation of perception on audiovisual LOD rendering by psychophysical methods, based on that one may apply a functional and general method to eventually optimize the rendering. The first part of the thesis is an overview of our research. In this part, we review various LOD approaches and discuss concerned issues, especially from a crossmodal perceptual perspective. We also discuss the main results on the design, rendering and applications of highly detailed interactive audio and graphical scenes of the ANR Topophonie project, in which the thesis took place. A study of psychophysical methods for the evaluation on audio-visual perception is also presented to provide a solid knowledge of experimental design. In the second part, we focus on studying the perception of image artifacts in audio-visual LOD rendering. A series of experiments was designed to investigate how the additional audio modality can impact the visual detection of artifacts produced by impostor-based LOD. The third part of the thesis is focused on the novel extended-X3D that we designed for audio-visual LOD modeling. In the fourth part, we present a design and evaluation of the refined crossmodal LOD system. The evaluation of the audio-visual perception on crossmodal LOD system was achieved through a series of psychophysical experiments. Our main contribution is that we provide a further understanding of crossmodal LOD with some new observations, and explore it through perceptual experiments and analysis. The results of our work can eventually be used as the empirical evidences and guideline for a perceptually driven crossmodal LOD system.

A violência sexual é um problema de saúde pública que afeta boa parte da população mundial. Seu estudo, entretanto, é marcado por dificildades conceptuais, legais, epidemiológicas e metodológicas. Dentre os diversos modos de se entender e examinar a violência sexual, as atitudes são comumente investigadas, sobretudo com o emprego de escalas Likert. Contudo, o escalonamento psicofísico pelos métodos de Thurstone possui características típicas de escalas intervalares que lhe conferem vantagens em relação às escalas ordinais. O principal objetivo da presente pesquisa foi construir uma escala de distâncias psicológicas de descritores sexuais para cada grupo experimental através do Caso V da Lei do Julgamento Comparativo de Thurstone. 132 participantes, divididos em três grupos controle, sobreviventes (mulheres vítimas de violência sexual) e reeducandos (homens agressores sexuais) avaliaram oito termos sexuais (cócegas, cheiro, toque, beijo, nudez, agarrar, esfregar e gemer) pelo método de escolha forçada de julgamento de pares. A cada par de termos sexuais apresentado aleatoriamente, os sujeitos deviam escolher aquele com o maior conteúdo sexual. Resultados indicaram que os descritores toque, cheiro e cócegas foram constantemente julgados com os menores conteúdos sexuais entre os três grupos, enquanto beijo e gemer foram os que mais alteraram de ordem entre os grupos. Literatura sobre aspectos linguísticos dos estímulos utilizados não foi suficiente para explicar a escolha de uma palavra em detrimento de outra, reforçando-se a ideia de que os julgamentos foram diferenciais de acordo com as variáveis e o grupo ao qual os participantes pertenciam. Dessa maneira, homens julgaram os descritores com valores próximos, deixando a escala com menor amplitude, o que indica baixa discriminação e necessidade de menos conteúdo sexual para que as palavras fossem percebidas sexualmente. Reeducandos apresentaram o mesmo padrão de resultados, mas de maneira acentuada. Mulheres, por outro lado, tiveram boa discriminação dos termos sexuais e apresentaram maior amplitude na escala. Para as sobreviventes, o padrão de resultados foi o mesmo das mulheres, com poucas variações. As diferenças encontradas entre grupos podem ser decorrentes de atitudes sexuais e em relação à violência sexual e do modo como mulheres e homens processam informação sexual, sendo atravessadas por questões sociais de gênero / Sexual violence is a public health problem that affects a portion of the world population. Its study, yet, is marked by conceptual, legal, epidemiological, theoretical and methodological difficulties. Among the various ways of understanding and examining sexual violence, attitudes are commonly investigated, mainly by employing Likert scales. However, psychophysical scaling by Thurstones methods possess characteristics typical of interval scales, which gives it advantages over ordinal scales. The major goal of the present research was to build a scale of psychological distances of sexual descriptors for each experimental group through the Case V of Thurstones Law of Comparative Judgment. One hundred and thirty two participants, divided in three groups control, survivors (female victims of sexual violence) and inmates (male sex offenders) evaluated eight sexual words (tickle, smell, touch, kiss, nude, grab, rub, and moan) by the forced choice method of pairwise judgment. To each word pair was presented randomly, subjects were asked to choose the one with the higher sexual content. Results indicated that the descriptor touch, smell, and tickle were constantly judge as having the lowest sexual content amongst the three groups. Literature abou linguistic aspects of the used stimuli was nou sufficient to explain the choice of one word over another, reinforcing the idea that the judgments were differential according to the variables and the group to which the participant belonged. Thus, men judged the descriptors as having similar values, making the scales amplitude smaller, which indicates lower discrimination and the need for less sexual content for the words to be perceived sexually. Inmates showed the same pattern of results, but in a accentuated manner. Women, on the other hand, had good discrimation of the sexual descriptors and exhibited higher scale amplitude. For the survivors, the pattern of results was the same as for the women, with few variations. The found differences between groups may be due to attitudes toward sexuality and sexual violence, and to the way women and men process sexual information, being permeated by gender social issues

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:39:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pedro Otavio Barretto Prado.pdf: 2458555 bytes, checksum: 716a7b8919997d32dae998594e16854b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-09-01 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Empirical evidence indicates the importance of the Rolfing Method of Structural Integration for the field of Psychology. Ida P. Rolf s work is a holistic approach of organizing the human body structure in the gravitational field by rebalancing the myofascia (connective tissue) through special touch and movement education. The objective of the study described herein is to provide a systematic and consistent method for investigating the psychobiological nature of Rolfing and its intersection with the domain of psychosomatics. The author studied the power of questionnaires that had been developed for clinical research at NAPER (Brazilian Rolfing Association s Center for Clinical Practice, Research and Studies on Rolfing) and at Rolfing schools in Brazil and the United States, where the author had participated in the simultaneous elaboration, application and evaluation of the questionnaires. The questionnaires were used in connection with the Rolfing processes of 874 clients in three groups: 714 at NAPER and 160 in the Rolfing schools (55 in Brazil and 105 in the US). The questionnaire responses were evaluated both within each and among all of these three groups. The responses to closed questions were subjected to an SPSS quantitative analysis, applying statistical tests appropriate to the metrics of the questions and responses themselves. The responses to open questions were qualitatively analyzed with an SPAD.T method: for particular words, the frequencies and contexts of their uses were tabulated; then, words were grouped by conceptual affinity, and the contexts in which they appeared were analyzed. The themes that emerged from the responses, as well as their frequencies, were noted. These analyses of the data gathered in response to the questionnaires demonstrated the presence of a psychobiological dimension of Rolfing and, what s more, demonstrated to be an efficient tool for practitioners and students alike, regardless of cultural milieu. At the schools, clients perceptions concerning their quality of life before and after the Rolfing process were evaluated through the WHO-QOL questionnaire. The results were significant, and corroborated the indications of the NAPER results. The questionnaires also addressed the pre- and post-process intensity and frequency of reported pain; and indicated a significant decrease of both intensity and frequency of pain after the process. This was the case for both recent-onset and chronic pain, regardless of the location of the pain. The author posits that use of the questionnaires is, in and of itself, a mental reflexive activity an activity that makes salient the psychobiological dimension of Rolfing and it s value as a psychosomatic method. What s more, because the questionnaires further clinical, educational and research objectives simultaneously, their use highlights the relationship among those objectives. Based on his review of the evidence, the author sets forth a proposal for a revised questionnaire that comprises two levels, which could be explored independently or jointly. The first level consists of closed questions, which facilitates the collection of data for investigation. The second consists of open questions, which elicits reflection upon the psychobiological dimension of the work. Taken as a whole, this proposed questionnaire is an instrument of both research and teaching / Evidências empíricas apontam o valor do Método Rolfing de Integração Estrutural no Campo da psicologia. O trabalho de Ida P. Rolf é uma proposta holística, de organização da estrutura humana no campo gravitacional, pela reorganização do tecido miofascial, por toques especializados e educação pelo movimento. O objetivo deste trabalho é dar continuidade à investigação da natureza psicobiológica do método Rolfing e sua intersecção com o domínio da psicossomática. Estudou-se o alcance de questionários desenvolvidos em pesquisa-ação no NAPER (Núcleo de Atendimento, Pesquisa e Estudo em Rolfing, São Paulo, Brasil) e nas Escolas de Rolfing, no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos, onde o autor participou de um programa em que a elaboração, aplicação e avaliação dos questionários ocorriam simultaneamente. Os questionários foram usados nos processos de Rolfing de 874 clientes, sendo 714 do serviço de atendimento do NAPER e 160 clientes de classe das Escolas de Rolfing e, destes, 55, no Brasil e, 105, nos Estados Unidos. Foram avaliadas as respostas aos questionários das três amostras, isolada e comparativamente, tendo sido feita uma análise quantitativa das perguntas fechadas, utilizando-se o SPSS, e tendo aplicados testes estatísticos de acordo com o nível de mensuração das amostras. Realizou-se uma análise qualitativa das respostas às perguntas abertas em que se utilizou o SPAD.T, fazendo-se um levantamento das freqüências das palavras utilizadas nas respostas, agrupamentos das palavras por afinidade conceitual, além da busca e da análise do contexto em que foram utilizadas. Também foi feito o levantamento dos temas emergentes nas respostas e suas freqüências. Verificou-se que os questionários trouxeram dados que apresentam a dimensão psicobiológica do método Rolfing em todas as amostras, revelando-se eficientes no uso com profissionais formados, com alunos nas escolas e em diferentes culturas. Foram comparadas a localização, a intensidade e a periodicidade de dores relatadas, e notou-se tendência significativa para a diminuição da intensidade das dores antes e depois do processo, e diminuição na periodicidade tanto de dores recentes como crônicas em todas as localizações descritas. Nas Escolas, foi avaliada a percepção dos clientes quanto à sua Qualidade de Vida pelo WHOQOL-BREF, antes e depois do processo de Rolfing, com resultados significativos, corroborando os resultados apontados pelos questionários. O autor considera que o utilizar questionários representa atividade mental reflexiva, e que o emprego deles serve simultaneamente a propósitos de atendimento, de pesquisa e de educação, sendo o elo metodológico entre estas dimensões do trabalho, permitindo-se, assim, alavancar a percepção da dimensão psicobiológica do Rolfing e seu valor como metodologia em psicossomática. Foi feita uma revisão e uma proposta de uma bateria de questionários que possuem dois níveis: um, de perguntas fechadas e, outro, de perguntas abertas, que podem ser usados independentemente ou acoplados, e que atuam concomitantemente na investigação dos dados e eliciam a reflexão sobre a dimensão psicobiológica: um instrumento ao mesmo tempo de pesquisa e pedagógicos

Le rôle du collicule inférieur dans les divers processus auditif demeure à ce jour méconnu chez l’humain. À l’aide d’évaluations comportementales et électrophysiologiques, le but des études consiste à examiner l’intégrité fonctionnelle du système nerveux auditif chez une personne ayant une lésion unilatérale du collicule inférieur. Les résultats de ces études suggèrent que le collicule inférieur n’est pas impliqué dans la détection de sons purs, la reconnaissance de la parole dans le silence et l’interaction binaurale. Cependant, ces données suggèrent que le collicule inférieur est impliqué dans la reconnaissance de mots dans le bruit présentés monauralement, la discrimination de la fréquence, la reconnaissance de la durée, la séparation binaurale, l’intégration binaurale, la localisation de sources sonores et, finalement, l’intégration multisensorielle de la parole. / The role of the inferior colliculus in human auditory processing is still poorly understood. We report the results obtained from a 12-year-old boy who suffered a very circumscribed lesion at the level of the right inferior colliculus without additional neurological damage. The child underwent an extensive battery of psychophysical and electrophysiological tests. Results revealed that tonal detection thresholds, speech recognition in the absence of competing auditory input and performance on binaural interaction tasks were unimpaired. However, the pattern of results suggests that auditory functions such as the recognition of low-redundancy speech presented monaurally, frequency discrimination, the recognition of tone-duration patterns, binaural separation, binaural integration, sound-source localization in space as well as mutlisensory integration depend on the integrity of the bilateral auditory pathways at the level of the inferior colliculus.

Age-related maculopathy (ARM) is a central retinal disease with unclear pathogenesis. It is the major cause of permanent vision loss in adults over 50 years and is increasing in prevalence and incidence, faster than the aging population would suggest. Early in the disease process (early ARM) there is little or no vision loss and there are only slight retinal changes with abnormal deposits within Bruch's membrane. As the disease progresses (late ARM or age-related macular degeneration, AMD) vision loss may be quite severe due to atrophy (dry AMD) or the development of chorioretinal neovascularisation (CNV, wet AMD). It is hard to predict from conventional eye examinations and clinical vision tests which cases will progress to the severe, dry or wet forms of the disease. Moreover, most of the conventional clinical tests are based upon subjective vision measures. Objective tests which detect ARM earlier would be a useful aid to diagnosis and to monitoring progression. The multifocal electroretinogram (mfERG) is a relatively new clinical tool which enables the recording of electrical potentials from multiple, small areas of the central retina and thus assesses function from specific retinal locations. It is therefore useful in detecting focal retinal diseases such as hereditary or acquired maculopathies or in monitoring retinal laser or surgical treatment effects. There is cone and rod impairment in ARM and histopathological and psychophysical evidence for a preferential vulnerability of rods compared to cones. This research project investigated if an objective tool such as the mfERG could detect early ARM,its progression and the treatment effects of multiple photodynamic therapies (PDT) on retinal function in late ARM, prior to a battery of subjective vision measures. For comparison purposes a subjective assessment of central retinal function was performed using high and low contrast distance visual acuities (VA), near VA, low luminance VA (SKILL cards), contrast sensitivity (Pelli-Robson, P-R), saturated and desaturated Panel D-15 (sat Panel D-15, desat Panel D-15) and central visual fields (Humphrey 10-2, mean sensitivity, MS and mean defects, MD). As an objective assessment of central retinal function the cone- and rod-mediated multifocal electroretinograms were recorded. Subjective and objective tests of retinal function were compared in early ARM and an age-matched control group (chapter 3). Seventeen eyes of seventeen subjects with early ARM and twenty control subjects with normal vision were measured. For the cone-mediated mfERG responses conventional averaging methods were used and results were correlated with subjective vision tests. The conventional cone-mediated mfERG failed to distinguish between the early ARM and control subjects whereas subjective vision measures such as HC- and LC-VA, desat Panel D-15, MS, P-R were significantly reduced in the ARM group. However, there were significant correlations between the cone-mediated mfERG and the desat Panel D-15 results in the ARM group. This suggests that the mfERG measures similar retinal processes that detect colour vision deficiency under desaturated conditions. There was no significant correlation between cone-mediated mfERG measures and funduscopic changes. The conclusion from this study was that the subjective vision tests detected early ARM better than the objective cone-mediated mfERG. Thus the aim of detecting early ARM objectively was not met by the cone-mediated mfERG suggesting the need to develop other objective tests such as a rod-mediated mfERG. Whether the preferential rod vulnerability others have reported in early ARM could be detected by the rod-mediated mfERG was determined in the next study (chapter 4). A protocol for recording rod-mediated mfERG responses was developed by determining the optimal testing luminance to reduce the effect of stray light and elicit maximal rod-mediated responses. Sixteen of the seventeen ARM subjects and seventeen control subjects from the previous study were tested. For analysis, a customized computer template fitting method was developed in MATLAB (Mathworks, Natick, MA, USA). This method has been shown to be useful for low signal-to-noise ratio responses that characterize the rod-mediated mfERG. Significantly delayed rod-mediated mfERG responses were found whereas cone-mediated mfERG responses were within the normal range. This suggested that the effect of ARM on the rod system could be detected objectively with the rod-mediated mfERG before changes in the cone-mediated mfERG. Which of the tests best detected progression of vision loss was investigated in chapter 5. Visual function of 26 (13 ARM and 13 control subjects) of the original 37 subjects (17 ARM and 20 control subjects) had cone- and rod-mediated mfERG and the subjective vision measures repeated after one year. The main purpose was to determine which of the tests best detected progression of vision loss. The mfERG results were analysed by using both averaged and local responses and by using the computer template fitting procedure. On average no significant worsening of either objective or subjective function measures was evident after one year. These results reinforce the slow progression of the disease. With a longer follow-up period progression of ARM may translate into measurable changes in the mfERG and the other visual function tests. The effect of multiple photodynamic therapies (PDT) on cone- and rod-mediated function was assessed with the mfERG in the last study (chapter 6). The cumulative treatment effects of PDT in five subjects with late ARM were determined. Having demonstrated that the rod-mediated mfERG was applicable in early ARM, this study also aimed to investigate how useful it was in late ARM where there is substantially greater rod loss. Cone- and rod-mediated mfERGs, visual acuities, contrast sensitivities and central visual fields were investigated a week before treatment began and then one month after each PDT treatment. The subjects received three treatments each over an average period of five and a half months. In some subjects there were significant transient reductions in cone- and rod-mediated amplitudes possibly reflecting alterations in choroidal hypoperfusion dynamics one month after treatment. Further, b-wave component of the mfERG became increasingly misshapen after each PDT treatment suggesting an ischemic insult mainly targeting post-receptoral sites. However, objective and subjective function was stabilized after multiple PDT treatments in most of the subjects. This pilot study of five cases showed that there was no additional damage to cone- and rod-mediated outer retinal function after three PDT treatments. One of the novel findings of this research was that the rod-mediated function measured with the mfERG was impaired in early ARM. This finding supports histopathological and psychophysical evidence of rod vulnerability in early ARM. The results of these studies also suggest that early ARM affects different aspects of visual function which is reflected by different outcomes from objective and subjective vision tests. A model (chapter 7) based upon the results was developed proposing a hypoxic insult with a preferential alteration of post-receptoral sites in early ARM. The cone-mediated mfERG documented the retinal damage and possible treatment effects on outer retinal function of the multiple PDTs which did not further deteriorate. Thus, this technique might assist in the development of optimal treatment modalities for ARM, especially in retreatment regimes. Greater variability was found for the rod-mediated mfERG and its clinical use in PDT treatment regimes still needs to be investigated. In conclusion, this research has provided a better understanding of the disease process and treatment effects in ARM and might contribute to improvements in diagnosis and treatment of ARM.

Spinoza, parce qu’il est à la pointe de la pensée scientifique de son époque, Freud, parce qu’il prétend fonder une nouvelle science de la nature sans se référer spécifiquement aux sciences humaines, adhèrent à un modèle épistémologique issu de la science déterministe classique. En étendant son application à l’âme humaine, tous deux ont, chacun à sa manière, bouleversé la conception de l’unité psychophysique de l’individu et proposé de nouveaux modèles de compréhension de ses rapports avec les autres et avec le monde.Or, partir de la question du corps pour remonter progressivement jusqu’à celle du mal, point névralgique de la pensée de la liberté, permet de mettre en évidence ce qui les rapproche et ce qui les sépare. Si, en situant la source de la destructivité à l’intérieur de la psychè et en dialectisant les différentes tendances qui la constituent, Freud adopte une perspective non spinoziste, sa conception de la mémoire, de la représentation, du langage, du rêve et du délire, se rapproche beaucoup de celle de Spinoza et permet d’éclairer aussi bien les virtualités que les points explicites de son système.Inversement, Spinoza, par les choix doctrinaux qui marquent l’évolution de sa pensée comme par les stratégies pédagogique et éthique qu’il met à l’œuvre dans ses textes, produit une illustration en acte de ce qui favorise la puissance de l’âme et de ce qui l’entrave. Sans créditer le mal d’une essence positive, il reconnaît néanmoins à ses principales figures : finitude, privation, crime, une efficience historique, dont la compréhension peut fonder une vigilance prophylactique. / Spinoza, at the top of the scientific thought of his time, and Freud, intending to found a new science of nature without specifically referring to human sciences, adhere to an epistemological model coming from the classical determinist science. Extending its application to the human mind, they both have, each in their own way, drastically changed the conception of the psychophysical unity of the individual and proposed new models of understanding his relationships with the others and the world.And yet, starting with the question of the body to progressively reach the question of evil so problematic for the thought of freedom makes it possible to reveal what separates and brings them closer. Setting sources of destructivity inside the psyche and giving a dialectical representation of its different constituent motions, Freud adopts a non-Spinozist perspective. But his conception of memory, representation, language, dream and delirium, gets closer to that of Spinoza and allows to throw light on potentialities as much as on the explicit points of his system. Conversely, Spinoza, marking the evolution of his thought by doctrinal choices and using pedagogical and ethical strategies in his texts, gives an acting illustration of what favours and hampers the power of the mind. Nevertheless without giving a positive essence to evil, he recognizes the historical efficiency of its main figures: finiteness, deprivation and crime whose understanding can found a prophylactic vigilance.

Tactile perception is considered an important contributor to the overall consumer experience of a product. However, what physical properties that create the specifics of tactile perception, are still not completely understood. This thesis has researched how many dimensions that are required to differentiate the surfaces perceptually, and then tried to explain these dimensions in terms of physical properties, by interconnecting human perception measurements with various physical measurements. The tactile perception was assessed by multidimensional scaling or magnitude estimation, in which methods human participants assign numbers to how similar pairs of surfaces are perceived or to the relative quantity of a specified perceptual attribute, such as softness, smoothness, coarseness and coolness. The role of friction and surface texture in tactile perception was investigated in particular detail, because typically tactile exploration involves moving (at least) one finger over a textured surface. A tactile approach for measuring friction was developed by means of moving a finger over the surfaces, mounted on a force sensor. The contribution of finger friction to tactile perception was investigated for surfaces of printing papers and tissue papers, as well as for model surfaces with controlled topography. The overarching research goal of this thesis was to study, systematically, the role of texture in tactile perception of surfaces. The model surfaces displayed a sinusoidal texture with a characteristic wavelength and amplitude, fabricated by surface wrinkling and replica molding techniques. A library of surfaces was manufactured, ranging in wavelengths from 270 nm up to 100 µm and in amplitudes from 7 nm up to 6 µm. These surfaces were rigid and cleanable and could therefore be reused among the participants. To my knowledge, this is the first time in a psychophysical experiment, that the surface texture has been controlled over several orders of magnitude in length scale, without simultaneously changing other material properties of the stimuli. The finger friction coefficient was found to decrease with increasing aspect ratio (amplitude/wavelength) of the model surfaces and also with increasing average surface roughness of the printing papers. Analytical modeling of the finger’s interaction with the model surfaces shows how the friction coefficient increases with the real contact area, and that the friction mechanism is the same on both the nanoscale and microscale. The same interaction mechanism also explains the friction characteristics of tissue paper. Furthermore, it was found that the perceptions of smoothness, coarseness, coolness and dryness are satisfactorily related to the real contact area at the finger-surface interface.  It is shown that it is possible to discern perceptually among both printing papers and tissue papers, and this differentiation is based on either two or three underlying dimensions. Rough/smooth and thin/thick were the two main dimensions of surface feel found for the printing papers, whereas friction and wavelength were strongly related to the perceptual cues employed in scaling the model surfaces. These experimental results support the duplex theory of texture perception, which holds that both a “spatial sense”; used to discriminate the roughest textures from the others, and a “vibration sense”; used to discriminate among the smoother textures, are involved. The perception of what is considered rough and smooth depends on the experimental stimulus context. It is concluded that friction is important for human differentiation of surface textures below about 10 µm in surface roughness, and for larger surface textures, friction is less important or can even be neglected. The finger friction experiments also allowed the following conclusions to be drawn: (i) The interindividual variation in friction coefficients is too large to allow direct comparison; however, the trends in relative friction coefficients for a group of participants are the same. (ii) Lipids are transferred to the test surface of study, and this lowers the friction. (iii) Many of the studies point to a characteristic frequency during sliding of about 30 Hz, which is both characteristic of the resonance frequency of skin and the expected frequency associated with the fingerprints. (iv) The applied load in surface interrogation is in fact regulated in response to the friction force. The limits in tactile perception were indirectly researched by similarity scaling experiments on the model surfaces. Wrinkle wavelengths of 760 nm and 870 nm could be discriminated from untextured reference surfaces, whereas 270 nm could not. The amplitude of the wrinkles so discriminated was approximately 10 nm, suggesting that nanotechnology may well have a role to play in haptics and tactile perception. / Taktil perception bidrar starkt till den sammantagna upplevelsen av en produkt, men hur materials olika ytegenskaper påverkar och styr perceptionen är ännu inte helt klart. Den här avhandlingen undersöker hur många och vilka egenskaper som är viktiga när känslan mellan två ytor jämförs. Tillvägagångssättet är tvärvetenskapligt där fysikaliska mätningar kopplas ihop med perceptions mätningar där människor används som instrument. Två typer av perceptionsförsök har utförts, multidimensionell skalning där försökspersoner sätter siffror på hur lika två ytor känns, samt magnitud estimation där i stället intensiteten på specifika perceptuella storheter som t.ex. upplevt lenhet, upplevd mjukhet och upplevd strävhet bedömdes. Eftersom taktil perception innebär kontakt samt relativ rörelse mellan hud och ytor, har fokus i avhandlingen varit att undersöka hur friktion och ytans struktur (ytråhet) påverkar och bidrar till den taktila perceptionen. Förutom fysikaliska mätningar på friktion och ytstruktur har värmekonduktivitet, mjukhet samt olika standard mätningar inom pappersindustrin mätts. En metod för att mäta friktion mellan ett finger och olika ytor har utvecklats för att i möjligaste mån återspegla friktionskomponenten i upplevt taktil perception. Friktionskoefficienter beräknades och jämfördes mellan alla ytor. De stimuli som har studerats är tryckpapper och mjukpapper samt modellytor, gjorda för att systematiskt undersöka hur ytstruktur påverkar perceptionen. Tillverkningsmetoden för modellytorna valdes så att ytorna var tåliga och kunde tvättas och därmed återanvändas. Strukturen på ytorna bestod av ett vågformat mönster där våglängden varierade mellan 270 nm och 100 µm och amplituden mellan 7 nm och 6 µm. Enligt vår vetskap är det första gången som strukturer i de här skalorna har gjorts utan att samtidigt ändra andra material egenskaper. Friktionskoefficienten minskade med ökad kvot mellan amplituden och våglängden på modellytorna samt med ytråheten på tryckpappren. En analytisk modell tillämpades på kontakten mellan ett finger och ytorna som visade att friktionskoefficienten beror av den verkliga kontaktarean. För de mycket grövre mjukpappren uppmättes inga stora skillnader i friktion förmodligen för att kontakarean mellan de olika mjukpapprena var lika. Den faktiska kontakarean visade sig också vara viktig för perceptionen av lenhet, strävhet, torrhet och svalhet. Det visade sig vara en stor perceptuell skillnad mellan olika typer av tryckpapper och mjukpapper utifrån hur stimuli placerade sig på en taktil karta. För de tre materialen användes enbart två alternativt tre egenskaper hos materialet för att särskilja mellan alla olika par. För tryckpapper verkade en viktig dimension kunna beskrivas av alla de perceptuella och fysikaliska egenskaper som har med kontaktarean att göra, d.v.s. lenhet, svalhet, torrhet, ytråhet, värmekonduktivitet samt friktion. För att taktilt särskilja mellan olika ytor där bara strukturen är varierade, kunde friktion och våglängden relateras till spridningen i kartan. Båda studierna stödjer duplex theory of texture perception, där ett spatialt sinne används för att särskilja en av de grövre ytorna från en slät, och ett vibrationssinne för att särskilja mellan olika släta strukturer. Friktionen visade sig alltså vara en viktig fysikalisk egenskap för strukturer under åtminstone 10 µm i ytråhet. Från fingerfriktions mätningar kunde även följande slutsatser dras: (i) Stora skillnader i friktionskoefficient mellan olika personer uppmättes, men trenderna mellan olika individer var samma, vilket gör att relativa skillnader i friktion från en individ är representativa. (ii) Lipider (fingerfett) som överförs från fingret till ytan vid kontakt sänker friktionen. (iii) Frekvensinnehållet i friktionskraften varierar mellan olika ytor och den frekvenstopp som ses vid 30 Hz kan möjligtvis bero på fingrets struktur eller resonansfrekvensen på huden. (iv) Den pålagda kraften under en friktionsmätning visar sig omedvetet regleras av den friktionskraft som fingret möter under rörelse.  Hur små strukturer som kan diskrimineras har indirekt undersökts genom likhetsförsöket på modellytorna där försökspersoner skulle bedöma hur lika alla par av ytor kändes. Resultaten visade att ytorna med våglängder på 760 nm och 870 nm upplevdes olika jämfört med referens ytor utan något systematiskt mönster, medan ytan med 270 nm i våglängd inte kunde särskiljas. Amplituden på ytan som kunde diskrimineras var endast ca 10 nm, vilket indikerar att nanoteknologi mycket väl kan bidra inom haptiken och för att i framtiden kontrollera den taktila perceptionen. / <p>QC 20121026</p>