In this work, the author aims to trace some of the transformative effects of televisual technologies in contemporary post-industrial culture, and to critically assess their impact on the way knowledge is produced, and experience a sense of embodiment and social agency. The relation between humans and tools is questioned, and the hybridity of words such as technoculture and biotechnology is investigated, arguing that the separation of human and technology,and body and tool, at the level of both existence and knowledge is a synthetic distinction. Specifically, the author concentrates on some of the medium specific effects of postclassical visualising technologies, from high-end ensembles such as virtual reality and medical imaging apparatuses, to the mundane apparatus of television and the remote control device. Such ways of seeing, it is argued, collaborate in producing an emergent tele-body, or a telesomatic mode of perception and knowing which exceeds standard epistemologies of vision in both science and the everyday. This work thus aims to develop a theoretical and conceptual framework for understanding the variable effects of postclassical technovision and televisuality upon our modes of embodiment. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis describes the development of a model of the relationships between the designer and their visual outcome that is intended to assist the designers understanding and management of the viewer experience. To date the focus of design discourse has been towards theories of interpretation that offer methods to decode messages, one of the more significant being semiotics. The application of semiotic theory to the field of design has enabled a greater understanding of how meaning is produced in visual communication, it does not account for how the designer affects the type of engagement the viewer has with the material which is a significant aspect of the communication process. The aim of this research is to develop a model of the design/visual outcome relationship that will assist designer’s management of viewer experience. To develop this model, the author examined literary theory as it is a discourse that has analysed its own creative process extensively. While there are many useful parallels that can be drawn between design and literary discourses, it is the notion of distance that is the most useful for this research. Through modifying the textual devices used by an author to create these varying distances, a model that identifies four types of visual narrators was developed – Idiosyncratic, Implicit, Imperative and Esoteric. This research demonstrates the effectiveness of the design concept of distance as a method of analysis for design and proposes how the designers might adopt distance method for considering the viewer experience during the design process, as opposed to leaving it to semioticians to critique post-publication / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Design)

The theory of Gestalt was proposed in the nineteenth century to explain and predict the way that people perceptually group visual elements, and it has been used to develop guidelines for designing visual computer interfaces. In this thesis we seek to extend the use of Gestalt principles to the design of haptic and visual-haptic displays. The thesis begins with a survey of Gestalt research into visual, auditory and haptic perception. From this survey the five most commonly found principles are identified as figure-ground, continuation, closure, similarity and proximity. This thesis examines the proposition that these five principles can be applied to the design of haptic interfaces. Four experiments investigate whether Gestalt principles of figure-ground, continuation, closure, similarity and proximity are applicable in the same way when people group elements either through their visual (by colour) or haptic (by texture) sense. The results indicate significant correspondence between visual and haptic grouping. A set of haptic design guidelines for haptic displays are developed from the experiments. This allows us to use the Gestalt principles to organise a Gestalt-Taxonomy of specific guidelines for designing haptic displays. The Gestalt-Taxonomy has been used to develop new haptic design guidelines for information displays.

Research over the last decade has shown that auditorily cuing the location of visual targets reduces the time taken to locate and identify targets for both free-field and virtually presented sounds. The first study conducted for this thesis confirmed these findings over an extensive region of free-field space. However, the number of sound locations that are measured and stored in the data library of most 3-D audio spatial systems is limited, so that there is often a discrepancy in position between the cued and physical location of the target. Sampling limitations in the systems also produce temporal delays in which the stored data can be conveyed to operators. To investigate the effects of spatial and temporal disparities in audio cuing of visual search, and to provide evidence to alleviate concerns that psychological research lags behind the capabilities to design and implement synthetic interfaces, experiments were conducted to examine (a) the magnitude of spatial separation, and (b) the duration of temporal delay that intervened between auditory spatial cues and visual targets to alter response times to locate targets and discriminate their shape, relative to when the stimuli were spatially aligned, and temporally synchronised, respectively. Participants listened to free-field sound localisation cues that were presented with a single, highly visible target that could appear anywhere across 360° of azimuthal space on the vertical mid-line (spatial separation), or extended to 45° above and below the vertical mid-line (temporal delay). A vertical or horizontal spatial separation of 40° between the stimuli significantly increased response times, while separations of 30° or less did not reach significance. Response times were slowed at most target locations when auditory cues occurred 770 msecs prior to the appearance of targets, but not with similar durations of temporal delay (i.e., 440 msecs or less). When sounds followed the appearance of targets, the stimulus onset asynchrony that affected response times was dependent on target location, and ranged from 440 msecs at higher elevations and rearward of participants, to 1,100 msecs on the vertical mid-line. If targets appeared in the frontal field of view, no delay of acoustical stimulation affected performance. Finally, when conditions of spatial separation and temporal delay were combined, visual search times were degraded with a shorter stimulus onset asynchrony than when only the temporal relationship between the stimuli was varied, but responses to spatial separation were unaffected. The implications of the results for the development of synthetic audio spatial systems to aid visual search tasks was discussed.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1982. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 130-135). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (B.Psy.Sc.(Hons.)) - University of Queensland, / Includes bibliography.

This investigation sought to evaluate the claim by art educators that cumulative general experiences in art develop specific visual skills. The primary objective was to assess the influence of an individual's amount of experience in art upon the two selected visual skills of visual perception and picture memory. The secondary objective included the assessment of the relationship between these skills as well as the relationship of age and gender to picture memory.Three instruments were identified or developed. The Art Experience Form (AEF) determined a subject's amount of experience in art while the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) assessed visual perceptual style and Wiley's Unique Visual Imagery Test (WU IT) evaluated picture memory ability. Results from these instruments provided scores which were correlated to determine if significant relationships existed.A total of fifty subjects were assembled from three source groups likely to display variance in amounts of art experience, undergraduate non-art majors, undergraduate art majors, and graduate art majors. All attended Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana during Spring Quarter of 1983. Random subject selection was accomplished by university placement into intact classes.All subjects received similar tasks during two sessions seventy days apart. In session one each subject completed the AEF, the CEFT and WUVIT Part L WUVT.T Part I required each subject to analyze and classify three unique and fifteen ordinary pictures. "Unique" pictures were those which contained possible but improbable subject matter relationships such as an octupus in a barnyard. Ordinary pictures contained normal subject relationships. In session two, the subjects were required to recall all eighteen pictures from within the seventy-two pictures of WUVI T Part II.Pearson Product-Moment Coefficients of Correlation were used to test seventeen hypotheses at the .05 level. The results indicated that as amount of experience in art increased, visual perceptual style tended toward field independence and memory for ordinary pictures increased. Conversely, as art experience decreased, visual perceptual style tended toward field dependence and memory for ordinary pictures decreased. Memory for unique pictures was consistently high for all subjects regardless of amount of art experience, visual perceptual style, age or gender.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, 2004. / Bibliography: leaves 113-120. Also available in print form.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.