Considerable research has examined strategies involved in spatial navigation, and what factors determine which strategy an individual will use. The little research that has examined strategy adoption has produced conflicting results. The present study investigated the relative rate of adoption of allocentric and egocentric strategies in an environment that allowed individuals to adopt one or the other, or switch between them. Results indicated that by the end of testing nearly all participants had adopted one strategy or the other. Also, more participants were using an allocentric strategy than an egocentric strategy. However, strategy selection was not related to gender, or the relative efficiency of the two strategies. Analysis of gaze position at the start of trials showed that those who adopted an allocentric strategy tended to focus their attention on the distal (landscape) features of the environment whereas those who adopted an egocentric strategy tended to focus their attention on the proximal object features. However, vertical gaze position could not be used to reveal the rate of adoption of an egocentric strategy, because this did not vary over trials. Analysis of gaze position using “regions of interest” overcame this problem and showed that both strategies are adopted at a similar rate early in trials. Comparison of strategy by gaze position and strategy by navigation probe indicated that these two metrics were measuring two different stages of navigation. Finally, analysis of the navigational efficiency of different strategies indicated that the best navigators were those who used both strategies. These findings indicate allocentric and egocentric strategies are adopted at a similar rate and that within the space of a few seconds, individuals may use different strategies for orientation and navigation. / Graduate

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have been characterised as hyper-sociable, showing an extreme compulsion to engage in communication with other people, whilst the opposite has been cited regarding autism. The most important social cue in our environment is the human face, which must be successfully recognised and interpreted for communicative signals. Although clear differences are apparent in social skills, individuals with WS and autism have been described as showing similarly atypical face processing styles. The present research addressed issues of face perception in Williams syndrome and autism to gain further insights into social abilities of individuals with these developmental disorders. Importantly, the research was grounded in typical face perception methods. The investigation began with a large-scale exploration of face skills, probing identity, eye gaze, expressions of emotion and lip reading to ask how these two disorders uniquely impact upon performance. Participants with WS and autism could be dissociated from those with general developmental delay and from each other primarily on the basis of eye gaze ability. Participants with WS showed strong eye gaze abilities whilst participants with autism had extreme difficulties. Although interpretation of expressions of emotion also showed a difference between groups, autism and WS did not uniquely impact upon the processing of identity or lip reading. The exploration also allowed the consideration of models of face perception; characterised by a typical modular structure in WS but a lack of modularity in autism. The second line of inquiry considered identity processing and firstly asked whether participants were more accurate at matching faces from internal or external features. Participants with WS showed an atypical use of internal features for matching unfamiliar faces, which may be linked to an atypical interaction style and exaggerated interest in unfamiliar people. Participants with autism used the same strategy to match faces of familiar and unfamiliar people and hence familiarity did not impact upon processing style. Subsequent chapters probed feature salience (eyes .v. mouth) and structural encoding. Across paradigms typically developing participants and those with WS showed greater accuracy using the eye than mouth region, a pattern not evident in autism. Regarding structural encoding, individuals with WS showed use of configural cues under the task demands implemented in this thesis, where individuals with autism were only able to interpret featural cues. Previous evidence of similar face processing styles in WS and autism were not supported. Taken together the findings provide further insights into face perception and social functioning in WS and autism. The research used the same participants across paradigms, considered level of functioning on the autistic spectrum and included investigations of WS and autism in the same research programme. Additional to the main experimental studies, pilot data is provided to open a new line of investigation into physiological arousal associated with holding eye contact in WS. Therefore, on the basis of the experiments conducted here, a number of suggestions are made to carry the research forward in future investigations. Throughout the thesis as a whole, comparisons are made between individuals with WS and autism that further our understanding of the links between face processing and social expertise.

Eye movements during picture description were used to investigate the time course for structuring embedded clauses. According to the frame-based model of language production (e.g., Garrett, 1975; Ferreira, 2000) speakers make decisions about syntactic structure using structural frames corresponding to clauses or verb phrases. On-line theories allow structure to be built piecemeal corresponding to individual words and phrases (e.g., Kempen & Hoenkamp, 1987). These predictions were tested in two studies where speakers answered questions based on scenes that depicted someone communicating or thinking about an embedded event, eliciting descriptions like A woman is thinking about (a man being chased by a bear/a bear chasing a man). Based on previous eye movement studies (e.g., Meyer & Van Der Meulen, 2000), gaze shifts between agents (bear) and patients (man) were expected to occur less often after hearing biased questions, which provided multiple structural cues, than after unbiased ones. The timing of a difference in gaze shifts would then reflect when speakers considered order of mention and committed to an active or passive structure. Study 1 partially supports a frame-based theory of the syntactic planning while study 2 did not provide evidence for either model. Results are discussed in terms of models of language production and reiterate the need for experimental paradigms that use on-line methods in the investigation of the time-course structuring spoken utterances.

Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

Peter Weir is one of Australia’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful directors. Ever since Weirs feature film debut with The Cars that Ate Paris in 1974, his work has been explored for unifying themes. Scholars have analysed his films from many perspectives: the establishment of identification and identity especially through binary oppositions in the diegesis; the creation of an oneiric atmosphere as a way of exploiting the spectators dream experience; a clash of value systems; the ambiguous nature of narrative structure and character motivations leading to the creation of a sense of wonder; the experience of the protagonist placed in a foreign culture wherein conflict arises from social clashes and personal misunderstandings; and at the particular ways his films adapt generic codes in service of a discernible ideological agenda. . To the best of my knowledge there has been no study of the mystical element of Weirs work in relation to the construction of a cinematic mystical gaze or act of spectatorship. / Within a culture defined by its secularity and a national cinema marked by quirky comedies and social realism, almost all of Weirs films have been described as mystical, arcane or interested in metaphysics. Such an observation could warrant no further investigation if it is held that this critical commentary is but hyperbole in its attempt to grasp what constitutes a Peter Weir film. If, however, language constructs meaning, then the recurrence of references to Weirs mysticism needs to be taken seriously to see what effect this might have exerted on the nature and structure of the Weir text. I will argue that the major consequence of Weirs fascination with the mystical has been the construction of a mystical mode of spectatorship. Furthermore, because other directors and films have been described in similar ways this study opens up a discussion about whether these observations about the mystical qualities in the viewing experience hold importance for other filmmakers, and theories of the gaze in the cinema.

Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- McMaster University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 263-273). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2008. / Typescript. Accompanying CD-ROM includes JPG versions of the thesis photographs. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 28-29).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves lxxxvii-lxxxix).