Search

This thesis investigates the decline of a particular form of art criticism, embodied by the English art critic and editor, Peter Fuller. Fuller's criticism developed out of a Kantian tradition, presenting judgements of objective worth arrived at through the exercise of taste, and championed what he described as the British or English Romantic landscape tradition. Central to the decline was the displacement of art criticism and the art critic in the creation and articulation of value in art worlds. Through a historiographical study of Modern Painters, the publication founded by Fuller in 1988, the thesis explores the changing relationship between the art magazine and the art world in order to identify and analyse the complex relationships between different agents acting within it. The thesis begins by examining Fuller's critical position at the time he founded Modern Painters. This positions Fuller in relation both to Modernism and Modernist criticism, and to his contemporaries including John Berger. A particular focus is on Fuller's attitudes towards history and tradition. I then assess the extent to which the magazine's content evidences and confirms Fuller's position as expressed through his own writing on criticism. On Fuller's death, Karen Wright took over as editor of Modern Painters, and an editorial board was convened. The content of the magazine during this period is analysed to assess the extent to which Fuller's values did or did not remain integral to the editorial policy and subsequent content. Modern Painters and contemporaneous publications and criticism are compared and contrasted, examining shifting contexts in art criticism. In 1976 Fuller wrote an article for Studio International that sets out his model for a magazine unaffected by market forces. Modern Painters (under Fuller) is analysed in relation to his model. The extent to which editorial content in the magazine may or may not have been influenced by the market during his editorship is assessed, and the changing nature of the relationship between criticism and the market discussed. An analysis of the relationship between Modern Painters, its editors and writers, and the exhibition Sensation: Young British Artist from the Saatchi Collection at the Royal Academy of Arts, and the trajectory of the magazine over the following years, reveals the changing relationships between agents within the art world, and their role in the decline and displacement of art criticism and the art critic.

This thesis examines the turn to affect in both philosophy and neurobiology beginning in the 1990s. Both fields shared themes of a return to emotional aspects of the body; a rapprochement between natural sciences and humanities; and rethinking of causality, intentionality, identity and temporality. Yet the field remains contentiously divided. Disputes arise mainly from differences in understanding of key terms (notably between affect and emotion) and the place of the intentional subject within expanded, flattened conceptions of agency, causality and the animate/inanimate, differences ultimately between implications in and overcomings of past metaphysics of coupled opposites and the philosophy of the subject. Implication because conceptions of affect have been historically dominated by the active and passive understood as a doing and being done to; affects then become quantitative, external impositions disrupting purely self-present subjects requiring philosophies of defence that privilege sameness over difference. Whereas overcomings posit a pure activity or passivity, simultaneities of active and passive, or a non-temporal 'before' prior to activity/passivity. This thesis explores the alternative possibility that 'active/passive' never really translated the Greek ποιεῖν/πάσχειν that is its root and root of affect as translation of πάθος. The thesis is in two parts: in philosophy, I uncover a broader sense of πάσχειν as bindings of implicit differences prior to any explicit separation of agent and patient. Meanwhile, in contemporary neuroscience, action is being redefined through 'prediction processing' theories where error as the difference between world and an organism's implicit models of that world motivates action. Affective neurobiology then describes this radical contingency of expectation and actuality in specifically affective terms as the organism in its self-difference. I conclude by binding the radical transformations in active and passive each turn effects to understand affect still as a pairing of active/passive but where these terms signify not an oppositional agent acting on patient, but as the binding of contingent, implicit differences with their making explicit through the affections of error in the organism's necessary difference and togetherness with world.

This dissertation investigates the rise of a set of sensory technologies that transformed rituals of bodily care in modern American culture. It spotlights four specific sensory features that have become iconic and intuitive experiences of modern personal care: the scent of synthetic musk, the smooth white bar of soap, heaping handfuls of fluffy foam, and the vigorous blast of aerosol spray. As these four case studies show, these sensory experiences were not inherent to or necessary for the strict function of cleaning; rather, their value was defined by another equally important function: crafting the feeling of cleanliness. At the turn of the 20th century, consumer goods manufacturers began to research and manipulate these sensory technologies, and they would soon discover that selling sensory perception—an uplifting aroma, a refreshing mist—was a powerful engine of profit. In these early decades, industrialists and consumers alike celebrated the ever-finer manipulations of smell, color, and touch that flooded shops and promised an unprecedented degree of control over the human body. And yet, the very same technologies provoked fears of over-manipulation, over-modernization, and over-civilization of the human animal. Indeed, in the years after WWII, the chemicals that enabled such pleasing sensations were found to be environmental pollutants, and public outcry led to regulatory pressure and outright bans. Consumers struggled to reckon with such small, humble, and pleasurable products that carried alarming consequences for human and environmental health. This dissertation, too, grapples with the enormous historical significance of such seemingly ordinary and simple technologies. By recovering their surprising trajectories through colonial plantations, warzones, chemical labs, and psychological consulting rooms, I explore the technological and cultural meanings of these “small” rituals of care that contain vast histories, shaped by the forces of Western imperialism, industrial chemistry, mass manufacturing, gender politics, and the rise of a mass consumer culture that idealized new physical sensations as hallmarks of modern selfhood and the good life.

The goal of this thesis was to reassess the relationship between the moving body and technology, and more specifically, to focus on recent perspectives in the performing arts which inscribe new manifestations and dynamics of cross-pollination between the somatic and technology. According to Dr. Andrea Davidson, 'Such research has rarely been formally identified with the specialised field of somatics' (2013, p.3). The thesis thus proposes to reflect on the experience and conception of the performative body in the link it entertains with technology. Investigating this relationship, it defines a new paradigm, that of an 'interfaced intercorporeality'. This paradigm is constructed with special attention to a different relationship revealed between the interface and the notion of a corporal potentiality or 'interval'. In particular, the thesis focuses on the concept of a 'collective body' based on this relationship and on practical research conducted within the framework of my research, along with the methodology that supported it. The research and creative work that are presented derive from experiments I conceived, conducted and participated in making. My analysis is thus based on direct experience. The relationship between the somatic and technology notably led me to focus on the notion of embodied cognition or 'bodily knowledge' and for this, to re-examine the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. As a consequence, this return to the experiential also required revisiting definitions given by the Greeks concerning the aesthetic as a reference to sensation and the ability to perceive. The thesis approaches the body as the ground and basis for creating work, as well as for testing the effect(s) that technology has on it. Experiments conducted sought to develop greater sensory and perceptual awareness in order to invest the relationship of somatics/technology in a dimension that could potentially constitute a transformation of self, of one's relationship to others and to the world. Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological existentialism formed the basis for explorations made to forge links between the somatic and technology. However, it is important to clarify that my intention was not to make an analysis of phenomenology per se. It was rather referenced as a means to explain the framework of my research in relation to lived experience, sensation, and specifically, to my creative approach involving new technologies. Merleau-Ponty's methodology includes subjective, first-person accounts of 'lived experience'. Third-person accounts, or so-called 'objective' positions, are also included. These accounts are then shown to evolve towards an ecosystem of interaction and movement in order to experience and test the production of theory and practical experimentation involved in the methodology I adopted. The thesis incorporates knowledge from several disciplines, but principally from the field of dance and technology. Highlighting sensorial and perceptual phenomena related to the transformation of the body through technology and subjective experience, it takes into account an interdisciplinary perspective that is linked to this problematic. The thesis begins with an introduction to phenomenology in which the concepts and positions of Merleau-Ponty are outlined, including those of anti-dualism, the lived body, the ontology of the body, corporeality, intercorporeality and the flesh. Chapter 1 looks at the evolution of this philosophical movement throughout history and continues with a history of the body in phenomenology, an analysis of certain applications of phenomenology in the field of dance and subsequently, in the specific field of dance related to technology. Chapter 2 comprises a literature review. It also presents the bases of reductionist thinking, the proposition of a return to integrative thinking and issues concerning instrumentalisation, the double and the complexification of the self. It further examines the history of ideas surrounding the relationship between the body and technology, notions of the real-virtual-actual and a history and problematics of the interface. It concludes with a presentation of theories on the notions of potentiality, the interval and real-time. Chapter 3 presents my artistic background, an historical overview of the trends and principal ideas that have influenced my work, as well as an examination of the field of dance and technology from the point of view of its history and more recent developments. Chapter 4 is dedicated to an analysis of the research methodologies employed in the practical research for this thesis and identifies related issues. An analysis of problems encountered with existing methodologies notably highlights a need to invest in other methodological modes for practical research of an interdisciplinary nature. The chapter continues with a presentation of some of the methodologies currently used in the field of dance related to technology. The principles underpinning the specific creative research methodology I experimented with are then presented, proposing an adaptation of the aforementioned methodologies in order to respond to the dynamics of collective research of an empathic nature that are specific to my approach and also in order to invest in the link between the somatic and technology my project proposes. This proposition modestly attempts to respond to the lack of methodologies observed in the field of artistic practical research. A discussion of the experimentation involved in the practical research for the thesis is made in Chapter 5. Two creative experiments are analysed. Their aim was to investigate and develop a collective physical body composed of five dancers in constant contact, whose movement and relationships create what I call a 'collective sound body'. This collective entity produces sound in real-time which is simultaneously spatialised. The analysis takes into account the ways these two bodies are interdependent and constantly interrelated. Schematically, the first experiment served as a basis on which to found principles related to the collective body, while the second experiment developed them. The chapter further outlines creative strategies that were employed to test principles of self-organisation linked to sensation and stemming from the somatic techniques employed. It also returns to some of Merleau-Ponty's main concepts that were implemented and tested in performative experience: intercorporeality, the lived body, the dynamic of continual transformation and the principle of coexistence. Lastly, Merleau-Ponty's investigation of sensation and perception and his concept of sensory chiasms are related to the experiments' multisensory exploration and theme of intersubjectivity which are then proposed as leading to the possibility of intercorporeality. Chapter 6 forms the conclusion and seeks to identify new knowledge generated in the thesis. Essentially articulating another vision of the performative body as developed through its contact with technology, the findings, both practical and theoretical, bring to light a different understanding of the body rendered through a dissolution of psychophysical borders in the development of the performative model I called the 'collective body'. The thesis further proposes that the 'collective body' and its evolution as the 'collective sound body', open up the path to a new approach to interfaces and further, to what I propose as a theory of interfaced intercorporeality. This research aims to reintroduce the body and its specific intelligence in the understanding and building of relationships that can be renewed. The technology used in these experiments was considered as a physicality and the activator of a reconfiguration of sensory-perceptual processes that the thesis argues can lead to the final paradigm of 'interfaced intercorporeality' it proposes.

The ability to sense humidity and wetness is an important sensory attribute for many species across the animal kingdom, including humans. Although this sensory ability plays an important role in many human physiological and behavioural functions, as humans largest sensory organ i.e. the skin seems not to be provided with specific receptors for the sensation of wetness (i.e. hygroreceptors), the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying this complex sensory experience are still poorly understood. The aim of this Thesis was to investigate the neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning humans remarkable ability to sense skin wetness despite the lack of specific skin hygroreceptors. It was hypothesised that humans could learn to perceive the wetness experienced when the skin is in contact with a wet surface or when sweat is produced through a complex multisensory integration of thermal (i.e. heat transfer) and tactile (i.e. mechanical pressure and friction) inputs generated by the interaction between skin, moisture and (if donned) clothing. Hence, as both thermal and tactile skin afferents could contribute significantly to drive the perception of skin wetness, their role in the peripheral and central sensory integration of skin wetness perception was investigated, both under conditions of skin s contact with an external (dry or wet) stimulus as well as during the active production of sweat. A series of experimental studies were performed, aiming to isolate the contribution of each sensory cue (i.e. thermal and tactile) to the perception of skin wetness during rest and exercise, as well as under different environmental conditions. It was found that it is not the contact of the skin with moisture per se, but rather the integration of particular sensory inputs which drives the perception of skin wetness during both the contact with an external (dry or wet) surface, as well as during the active production of sweat. The role of thermal (cold) afferents appears to be of a primary importance in driving the perception of skin wetness during the contact with an external stimulus. However, when thermal cues (e.g. evaporative cooling) are limited, individuals seem to rely more on tactile cues (i.e. stickiness and skin friction) to characterise their perception of skin wetness. The central integration of conscious coldness and mechanosensation, as sub-served by peripheral cutaneous A-nerve fibers, seems therefore the primary neural process underpinning humans ability to sense wetness. Interestingly, these mechanisms (i.e. integration of thermal and tactile sensory cues) appear to be remarkably consistent regardless of the modality for which skin wetness is experienced, i.e. whether due to passive contact with a wet stimulus or due to active production of sweat. The novelty of the findings included in this Thesis is that, for the first time, mechanistic evidence has been provided for the neurophysiological processes which underpin humans ability to sense wetness on their skin. Based on these findings, the first neurophysiological sensory model for human skin wetness perception has been developed. This model helps explain humans remarkable ability to sense warm, neutral and cold skin wetness.

This thesis examines representations of sensation within modernist novels alongside contemporary philosophical debates over the concept of qualia. Concentrating on the work of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Percy Wyndham Lewis, and Samuel Beckett, it confronts a longstanding critical tradition that has tended to obscure or misunderstand the implications of arguments made by philosophers of mind in relation to literary descriptions of sensation. That the mind is a thing, and that modernist narrative fiction is particularly successful at representing that thing, has become a critical commonplace. In this thesis I argue that interpretations of modernism’s supposed ‘inward turn’ are founded on a mistaken notion of ‘cognitive realism’, a critical position endorsing the idea that it is both possible and desirable to describe the mind (conceived of as a stable and unchanging object) without loss through the development and judicial deployment of new literary techniques. The myth of the inward turn in its various incarnations – the psychologised modernism described by many literary critics in the 50s and 60s, and the neuromodernism subscribed to by many contemporary critics – is, I argue, largely the result of a set of inter-linked misconceptions which attend the cognitive realist paradigm. The notion of qualia is central to my thesis. Defined as the ineffable, irreducible, and subjective properties of conscious experience, qualia emerge concomitantly with modernism, developing out of G. E. Moore’s definition of ‘sense-data’ and Bertrand Russell’s category of ‘sensibilia’. Though still disputed within contemporary philosophy, qualia create huge problems for materialist theories of consciousness, threatening to undermine critical approaches to literature which contend that formal literary strategies can ever hope to transcend the limitations of symbolic language in conveying sensation. The ‘problem’ of qualia referred to in this thesis, therefore, is the problem the concept poses for symbolic descriptions (either mathematic, psychological, or literary) of mental states, especially when those descriptions make special claims (or are interpreted as making special claims) of mimetic veracity. The problem emerged within philosophy at precisely the point at which the representative claims of literature came under direct attack. This thesis argues, therefore, that it is a profoundly literary problem, and that the absence of ‘sensation’ from the written is simply a manifestation of the inherent limitations of language. A critical tendency to re-insert sensory experience into the process of reading – through phenomenological interpretations of modernism, or in contemporary ‘neuroaesthetic’ approaches to literature – thus point to a general anxiety that manifests itself most forcefully in relation to modernist fiction’s ability to ‘write’ sensation. This thesis employs the concept of qualia as a way of contextualising narratives of the mind – philosophical, literary and scientific – from the period. In doing so it seeks to historicise modernism’s ‘crisis of the senses’; locating this argument in a broader theoretical space and questioning the relevance (and novelty) of contemporary approaches to reading the senses in modernism.

In this thesis I present and defend an interpretation of Kant’s theory of experience as it stands from the viewpoint of his empirical realism. My central contention is that Kant’s is a conception of everyday experience, a kind of immediate phenomenological awareness as of empirical objects, and although he takes this to be representational, it cannot itself amount to empirical knowledge because it can be non-veridical, because in such experience it is possible to misrepresent the world. I outline my view in an extended introduction. In Part I I offer a novel interpretation of Kant’s doctrine of sensibility and sensation. Utilizing a data-processor schematic as an explanatory framework, I give an account of how outer sense, as a collection of sensory capacities, is causally affected by empirical objects to produce bodily state sensations that naturally encode information about those objects. This information is then processed through inner sense to present to the understanding a manifold of mental state sensations that similarly encode information. I also give accounts of how the reproductive imagination operates in hallucination to produce sensible manifolds in lieu of current causal affection, and of the restricted role that consciousness plays at this low level of cognitive function. In Part II I turn to the role of the understanding in experience. I offer a two-stage model of conceptual synthesis and explain how Kant’s theory of experience is a unique blend of conceptualist and non-conceptualist elements. I show that it explains how our experience can provide us with reasons for belief while at the same time accounting for the fact that experience is what anchors us to the world. Finally, I return to non-veridical experience. I confront recent naïve realist readings of Kant and argue that, for Kant, the possibility of non-veridicality is built into the very nature of the human mind and the way it relates to the world.

Following stroke, a patient may fail to report touch administered by another person but claim that s/he feels touch when it is self-administered. In Part One, the self-touch rubber hand paradigm was used to investigate different explanations for this phenomenon, termed self-touch enhancement. The most important finding was that patients reported touch based on feeling rather than by using proprioceptive information. Some patients have residual sensation that could be targeted in sensory rehabilitation. Part Two is a systematic investigation of the illusion of self-touch conducted with neurologically healthy participants. Participants used the right hand to administer touch to a prosthetic hand while the left (receptive) hand, positioned 15 cm from the prosthetic hand, received Examiner-administered touch. Proprioceptively perceived position of the administering and receptive hand was measured. Most participants experienced the single event of self-touch at the location of the receptive hand. Previous investigations have relied on measurement of only one hand and have concluded that participants experience self-touch at the location of the prosthetic hand. Our findings have implications for the role of ownership in this illusion. There is also a series of experiments in Part Two which test four potential constraints on the illusion of self-touch – violated expectations about the object that is administering touch, increased distance between the hands, alignment mismatch, and anatomical implausibility. For example, one study uses a novel paradigm to demonstrate that, although the subjective intensity of the illusion of self-touch is diminished by anatomical implausibility, most participants report the impossible experience of touching their left elbow with their own left index finger. Taken together, these experiments highlight the malleability of body representation, and provide a comprehensive framework for understanding the illusion of self-touch.

This thesis proposes a test method for evaluating the perceived vibration which occurs at the driver's hand in automotive steering wheel interface. The objective of the research was to develop frequency weightings for quantifying the human perception of steering wheel hand-arm vibration. Family of frequency weightings were developed from equal sensation curves obtained from the psychophysical laboratory experimental tests. The previous literature suggests that the only internationally standardised frequency weighting Wh is not accurate to predict human perception of steering wheel hand-arm vibration (Amman et. al, 2005) because Wh was developed originally for health effects, not for the human perception. In addition, most of the data in hand-arm vibration are based upon responses from male subjects (Neely and Burström, 2006) and previous studies based only on sinusoidal stimuli. Further, it has been continuously suggested by researchers (Gnanasekarna et al., 2006; Morioka and Griffin, 2006; Ajovalasit and Giacomin, 2009) that only one weighting is not optimal to estimate the human perception at all vibrational magnitudes. In order to address these problems, the investigation of the effect of gender, body mass and the signal type on the equal sensation curves has been performed by means of psychophysical laboratory experimental tests. The test participants were seated on a steering wheel simulator which consists of a rigid frame, a rigid steering wheel, an automobile seat, an electrodynamic shaker unit, a power amplifier and a signal generator. The category-ratio Borg CR10 scale procedure was used to quantify the perceived vibration intensity. A same test protocol was used for each test and for each test subject. The first experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of gender using sinusoidal vibration with 40 test participants (20 males and 20 females). The results suggested that the male participants provided generally lower subjective ratings than the female participants. The second experiment was conducted using band-limited random vibration to investigate the effect of signal type between sinusoidal and band-limited random vibration with 30 test participants (15 males and 15 females). The results suggested that the equal sensation curves obtained using random vibration were generally steeper and deeper in the shape of the curves than those obtained using sinusoidal vibration. These differences may be due to the characteristics of random vibration which produce generally higher crest factors than sinusoidal vibration. The third experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of physical body mass with 40 test participants (20 light and 20 heavy participants) using sinusoidal vibration. The results suggested that the light participants produced generally higher subjective ratings than the heavy participants. From the results it can be suggested that the equal sensation curves for steering wheel rotational vibration differ mainly due to differences of body size rather than differences of gender. The final experiments was conducted using real road signals to quantify the human subjective response to representative driving condition and to use the results to define the selection method for choosing the adequate frequency weightings for the road signals by means of correlation analysis. The final experiment was performed with 40 test participants (20 light and 20 heavy participants) using 21 real road signals obtained from the road tests. From the results the hypothesis was established that different amplitude groups may require different frequency weightings. Three amplitude groups were defined and the frequency weightings were selected for each amplitude group. The following findings can be drawn from the research: • the equal sensation curves suggest a nonlinear dependency on both the frequency and the amplitude. • the subjective responses obtained from band-limited random stimuli were steeper and the deeper in the shape of the equal sensation curves than those obtained using sinusoidal vibration stimuli. • females provided higher perceived intensity values than the males for the same physical stimulus at most frequencies. • light test participants provided higher perceived intensity than the heavy test participants for the same physical stimulus at most frequencies. • the equal sensation curves for steering wheel rotational vibration differ mainly due to differences in body size, rather than differences of gender. • at least three frequency weightings may be necessary to estimate the subjective intensity for road surface stimuli.

This thesis explores how two of Wilkie Collins’s sensation novels, The Woman in White(1859) and The Moonstone (1868), grapple with the drastic increase in textual production,circulation, and consumption that characterized Victorian-era England. Through thenovels’ multi-narrator, text-based structures, Collins forwards multiple modes of textualengagement in order to defy literary hierarchies that privilege certain readers, texts, andforms of textual engagement over others. This emphasis on multiplicity allows Collins toeducate his readers about sensational reading practices that contradict the idealized realistpractices of the day without setting up sensational reading practices as a new ideal in anew hierarchy. Hence, the novels suggest that the Victorian literary market has space fordiverse readers and texts.

This dissertation is a post-structuralist philosophical analysis of the aesthetic experience of New Media Art. The work of New Media Art is configured by the participants’ free and autonomous actions, which foster a childlike sense of wonder and allow fun with a responsive environment. Considering these characteristics, this dissertation looks at a mode of play which has a structural affinity with the artwork, affirming chance and becoming from an ontological perspective. This ontological play explains the relation of the being of the artwork to the interaction of heterogenous elements—human participants, a technical system, surroundings, a particular time and space, and a unique atmosphere. The relationship between human being and non-human being is immanently and expressively woven into New Media Art. In this context, this dissertation illuminates the participant’s experience through a theory of sensation. Since each participant’s body movements in an interaction with the heterogeneous elements are unique and expressive, they become materials for a work of art. In particular, the body movements present “becoming something else” when the body is placed in an intensive state and expresses sensations. This aesthetic experience of “becoming something else” deals with the genesis of sensation and locates a work of art in a being of the sensible. Consequently, the artwork no longer deals with the interpretation of signification but rather with the experimentation of forces in terms of producing new sensations. Regarding the experience of “becoming something else” as the outcome of the ontological play, this dissertation understands the aesthetics of New Media Art as a theory of the sensible. To develop these arguments, Gilles Deleuze’s differential ontology and his theory of sensation are applied as a theoretical methodology.

Sensation fiction allows Victorian women the space to develop apart from the desired angel in the house archetype that is prominent within the realist genre. Pamala Gilbert and Janice Alan are among scholars that outline the social construction of sensation fiction through the middle- and upper-class perceptions as the reader’s reactions elicit the desired sensational effect. However, what is causing these reactions? In order to analyze sensation fiction’s social influence on women more closely, it should be studied alongside its muse, realism to further understand the potential reactions of Victorian audiences. There are clues found within Victorian marriages that uncover a new discourse for women through the comparison of mirroring genres. I have paired two realist novels alongside two sensation novels to study the parallels between each main female protagonist and their marriages; highlighting where genre-defining boundaries blur and female desire runs rampant. Studying genre in this way establishes sensation fiction as an exaggerated version of realism through bigamy plots, hidden identity, and discovery of individualism.

This dissertation explores the experiences of people affected by symptoms associated with depersonalization/derealization disorder. This condition entails sensorial alterations resulting in a defamiliarization with the world and their bodies. The American Psychiatric Association, however, admits that depersonalization/derealization may be a part of meditative practices and should not, in certain cultural contexts, be diagnosed as a psychological disorder. Through a comparison of two distinct sensory cultures—communities of Vipassana meditation practitioners and patient-led communities—I explore the sense-making work that people perform to render destabilizing somatic sensations congruent with either medical or spiritual cultural worldviews. Drawing from personal narratives, online data, and psychiatric case studies, I argue that a sociocultural cosmic order, in which people ongoingly appraise sensory experiences in terms of their potential to foster “self-actualization,” largely determines whether social actors interpret these dissociative destabilizations as either pathological or aspirational—a process I term “sensory instrumentalization.” This comparative study adds to our understanding of how macro-level sociocultural arrangements may profoundly impact the subjective dimensions of experience. I contend that further exploring episodes of defamiliarization, which encompass instances in which social actors come to sense that the familiar world and their bodies are imbued with strangeness, may contribute to social scientists’ empirical and theoretical understanding of a tacit, sensory dimension of social experience.

By any measure, Mary Elizabeth Braddon was one of the most successful novelists of the Victorian era, publishing more than eighty novels between 1860 and 1915 and earning the title of “queen of the circulating libraries.” Yet her books disappeared from bookshelves within a few years of her death. In recent decades, although scholars have renewed their interest in Braddon’s work and rescued her from obscurity, few have pursued the pivotal role of literary allusion and the physical act of reading by her characters. An irony of Braddon’s career is the degree to which she integrated so many rich literary references into novels that critics condemned for their artlessness. Indeed, this thesis argues that Braddon thoughtfully layers literature into her novels through multiple techniques, including overt references to fictional works, character profiles defined by their reading tastes, the usage of an intrusive narrator, and chapter mottoes that function as meta-fictional clues for the attentive reader to decipher. This thesis demonstrates how Mary Elizabeth Braddon sought to elevate her fiction, producing novels that she intended to be sensational and literary at the same time. Furthermore, this thesis contends that Braddon consciously exploited her popularity and the circulating library paradigm to engage her female readers in questioning prevailing rules on what they should know, what they should read, and how they should behave.

The cerebral cortex is responsible for neural functions ranging from basic sensory processing to complex decision making. However, the underlying neural processes and the precise function of some cortical areas are not well understood. For humans the cortex is invaluable, providing us with our most powerful cognitive traits. For some species, the cortex can be removed leaving only minor deficits. Stark contrasts like these blur the overall function and importance of cortex. Recent advancements in recording and analysis technology present us with a unique opportunity to search for neural processes previously impossible to find. Recent work has found cortical regions in mice that do more than their functional name implies, in contrast to the specialized cortical regions in higher order species. In this study we explore the hidden functions of mouse motor cortex and elaborate on its role in the whisker system. The mouse whisker system is traditionally divided into sensory regions and motor regions, with sensory cortex (vS1) and motor cortex (vM1) sitting on the border. The functional divisions between sensory and motor cortex have recently blurred, both regions able to drive movements and encode sensory information. Whisker motor cortex, specifically, exhibits disparate functions, making it an ideal place to study multirole cortex. Here we take advantage of advanced neural recording and analysis techniques and uncover a motor cortex that acts as a sensory and possibly a higher order cortical region as well.In chapter 1, I provide an overview of how cortical regions were defined and then summarize how modern research is blurring the lines between functionally defined cortical areas. I then introduce sensory processing in the mouse whisker system with a focus on motor cortex, a cortical region where its function is increasingly blurring, and then describe how my research explored non-motor functionality in a motor region. In chapter 2, I present my first first-author publication where we determined if somatosensory cortex integrates sensory information over short or long timescales in order to estimate “mean” variables. In this work I first use neural decoding to quantify how well each neuron represents pieces of sensory information and find that some neurons correlate with choice. Chapter 3 is work that I collaborated on, we determined how multiple sensors contribute to the receptive field of individual neurons and the broader population. We discovered a map of sensory space distributed across somatosensory cortex and determined the map was dependent on neurons integrating information from multiple sensors in parallel. Chapter 4, we explore whether somatosensory cortex is necessary for a whisker dependent discrimination task and further determine what arrangement of sensors are required for task completion. Finally, in Chapter 5 I present my main project investigating vibrissae motor cortex. Here I study the sensory responses present in motor cortex, quantifying vM1 sensory tuning for the first time, and ultimately determining that vS1 does not drive the activity as previously thought. Incredibly, vM1 is not required for whisker movements in general but is required during demanding whisker dependent contexts, such as a whisker discrimination task, affecting both choice, whisker movements, and onset of lick response. Finally, in Chapter 6, I summarize what this tells us about sensory processing, propose some ideas for future research, and discuss how modern tools can enable us to find hidden functionality.

This work seeks to explore the unmeasurable qualities of architecture that enrich the architectural experience, with a focus on the roles of light, sound, and memory as they interact with architecture in the making of that experience.

While the philosophy of Immanuel Kant is not often analyzed in conjunction with the theory of architecture, there is a strong possibility Richard Neutra was consciously aware of Kant philosophy and might have utilized Kants ideas in his architectural design. This thesis mines Neutras various connections historically in terms of what he read as well as various connections with historical figures such as Adolf Loos in order to discover the ways in which their ideas have served as a secondary conduit between Kant and Neutra. It also analyzes heavily Richard Neutras original writings and reveals that the ideas of Neutra can be considered practical applications of Kants ideas.Immanuel Kant states that we first know the world through our senses, then through a mental system and finally judgements are made upon perception. In his writings, Richard Neutra coveys the same ideas that design needs to be based upon the senses, that the senses are not the end of perception, and that understanding of human psychology in necessary in order to design for humans. Kant lays out an extensive system detailing perception itself while validating science and establishing a base for psychology to emerge. Neutra’s applied psychological approach to architecture bares resemblance to general Kantian ideas as well as more specific ideas.This thesis examines primary sources by Immanuel Kant and Richard Neutra. Secondary sources from authors such as David Leatherbarrow, Dietrich Neumann, and Tomas Hines are taken into consideration when interpreting historical events, built projects, and various theoretical ideas by Neutra. Other writings about Immanuel Kant and architecture are briefly mentioned as well. Looking at these secondary sources affirm the relevance and originality of this topic.

GOAL: The goal of this dissertation is to investigate several factors influencing multisensory processing using a well-established Bayesian computational framework. Specifically, this project explores how systematic biases in human spatial perception, recalibration of the tendency to integrate sensory signals, and selective attention may (or may not) influence both likelihoods and priors in Bayesian models that can account for human performance quite well in a number of sensory tasks. These explorations are motivated by the following aims:AIM 1: Exploring computational mechanisms underlying spatial biases in human visual, auditory, and audiovisual perception of space. Many investigations over the past twenty years have shown that human localizations along azimuth in both the visual and auditory modalities are often biased away from the true locations of the sensory stimulus. However, these investigations have often used small sample sizes and suboptimal paradigms to explore the nature of these spatial biases. In the first study of this dissertation, a dataset of unprecedented size (384 subjects) is used to explore the presence, magnitude, and direction of biases in humans’ visual, auditory, and audiovisual perception. Following this behavioral exploration, several versions of a Bayesian causal inference model are tested to see whether these spatial biases are best accounted for by biases in sensory representations of space (i.e. likelihoods), pre-existing biases for localization (i.e. priors), or a combination of these mechanisms. The best-fitting model from this investigation is then used as a computational tool in subsequent investigations.AIM 2: Investigating how to recalibrate the tendency to integrate multisensory signals. It has previously been demonstrated in several multisensory investigations that human perception of auditory space can shift based on previous multisensory experiences, and that this effect can be computationally accounted for in a shift in the auditory likelihood distributions. However, little (if any) evidence has shown whether or not the a priori tendency to integrate multisensory signals can be recalibrated by previous sensory experiences. In regards to this second aim, six experiments are conducted to determine (1) whether the tendency to integrate can change to due simple, brief (10-minute) exposure tasks, and if so, (2) what the spatial and temporal rules are that the brain uses to update its tendency to bind.AIM 3: Examining the effects of selective and divided attention on sensory integration. While the phenomenon of selective attention has been explored extensively by previous research, little consensus exists regarding the mechanism that enables enhanced perception for an attended stimulus. In this investigation, several experiments are conducted requiring subjects to allocate attention either selectively to one modality (vision or audition), or to divide attention across modalities, while performing either (1) a spatial task, or (2) a numerosity task. Data from both the spatial and temporal tasks are modeled to determine whether selective attention impacts the tendency to integrate multisensory stimuli, the sensory representations, or spatial priors. Leaving behind the antiquated idea of attention simply serving as a Bayesian prior, this series of studies demonstrates that attention primarily impacts sensory representations, and does not significantly impact the tendency to integrate multisensory stimuli.

In my work, traditional printmaking techniques are pushed to their limits as a foundation for cut-paper installations and sculptures. The work reflects on notions of interiority and exteriority in relation to the body and nature, drawing from my experiences in meditation to create a two and three-dimensional visual play primarily using paper. Because of their illustrative looseness, the biomorphic structures convey a variety of sensations, shapes, and movements that are related to the interior of the body and exterior forces in nature. In this report, I plan to discuss topics of process, materiality, sensation, objecthood and phenomenology within the context of my work and as these topics relate to other artists such as: Lee Bontecou, Francis Bacon, Oskar Fischinger, Richard Serra, and Judy Pfaff. I also plan to indicate a contemporary and art historical context for the work, placing my pieces within a specific canon of visual culture.

The orofacial area stands apart from other body systems in that it possesses a unique performance anatomy whereby oral musculature inserts directly into the underlying cutaneous skin, allowing for the generation of complex three-dimensional deformations of the orofacial system. This anatomical substrate provides for the tight temporal synchrony between self-generated cutaneous somatosensation and oromotor control during functional behaviors in this region and provides the necessary feedback needed to learn and maintain skilled orofacial behaviors. The Directions into Velocity of Articulators (DIVA) model highlights the importance of the bidirectional relationship between sensation and production in the orofacial region in children learning speech. This relationship has not been as well-established in the adult orofacial system. The purpose of this observational study was to begin assessing the perception-action relationship in healthy adults and to describe how this relationship may be altered as a function of healthy aging. This study was designed to determine the correspondence between orofacial cutaneous perception using vibrotactile detection thresholds (VDT) and low-level static and dynamic force control tasks in three representative age cohorts. Correlational relationships among measures of somatosensory capacity and low-level skilled orofacial force control were determined for 60 adults (19-84 years). Significant correlational relationships were identified using non-parametric Spearman’s correlations with an alpha at 0.1 between the 5 Hz test probe and several 0.5 N low-level force control assessments in the static and slow ramp-and-hold condition. These findings indicate that as vibrotactile detection thresholds increase (labial sensation decreases), ability to maintain a low-level force endpoint decreases. Group data was analyzed using non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis tests and identified significant differences between the 5 Hz test frequency probe and various 0.5 N skilled force assessments for group variables such as age, pure tone hearing assessments, sex, speech usage and smoking history. Future studies will begin the processing of modeling this complex multivariate relationship in healthy individuals before moving to a disordered population.

An exploration of simultaneous presence and absence in Architecture and Landscape. The site of memory as metaphor[m] and narrative. Architecture persists the metapsyche glimpse into the infinite. A gestalt of space and time relative to an obscur sensory perspective. Architecture defines place within space. That the vague sphere of mental and psychological perception extends infinite past any boundary. It is these boundaries that awaken the thought of a simultaneous absence and presence within nature. Dimension is witnessed and felt by our need to justify this simultaneity. In this way, Architecture binds and manipulates the infinite [space] into a place of memory. It can then be conceived, conjured, realized, and memorialized as a metaphor of space and time. For the progression of Architecture, Architecture must be a fragment and artifact of the collective narrative. I'm not designing buildings. I'm creating graves to mark where conception and creation dance infinitely.

A phenomenological examination of the respiratory process reveals that possessing the ability to breathe carries with it more significance than an action that solely supports life: capable of leaving the immediate confines of the body, the breath is an enigmatic extension of the self. This particular traversing capability of the active body challenges notions of what it means to be fully embodied by indicating the possibility of subjective expansion outside that which is tangible and fleshly. Due to the intertwining and exchanging characteristics implicit within respirational activity, the sensational boundaries of subject and object become conflated with one another; the sensations experienced and transferred between the two must then be considered as a critical component in the development and evaluation of an embodied being. Phenomenal embodiment extends beyond an individual's habitation solely within and for itself; it manifests within the recognition of sensation through an exchangeable respiration between bodies. Drawing from the theoretical considerations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, this thesis will focus primarily on the treatment of respiration and sensation within Christina Rossetti's mythic poem 'Echo,' establishing the ways in which the intercorporeal crossing of subject and object upon the intersection of their breath is the communicative catalyst through which the phenomenal presence of one's sense of self is engendered and sustained.

While Elaine Showalter argues that the 'crisis in masculinity' occurs with the emergence of the New Woman and the fin de sicle, this thesis suggests that men, specifically here wealthy men, were in crisis long before these phenomena due to their dissolved understanding of their place and position amidst immense changes in Victorian England. An interrogation of 1860s sensation fiction, and specifically Wilkie Collins's Basil and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, suggests that men grappled with their position and masculinity prior to the fin de sicle as evidenced by the heroine-prescribed social deaths of Basil and George Talboys. After historical and legislative events of the 1850s--Crimean War, Indian Mutiny of 1857, and the Matrimonial Causes Act--men's competency and position as empowered patriarchs was questioned, and thus New Men emerged, who are recognized for this thesis's purposes as aristocratic men who fail to socially evolve amidst these changes and thus are ultimately rendered as socially dead, feminized figures who reside as dependents with their sisters. This transformation from patriarchal figures to ornaments who disappear within the domestic sphere ultimately suggests that these men become strangers effectively threatening British national identity.

This study uses the Deleuzian understanding of a body to rethink contemporary architecture beyond building(s) and to reimagine architectural practice as a creative, dynamic and performative process. The Deleuzian body is not necessarily a human body, but a corporeal intensity, capable of metamorphosis, transformation, and becoming.1 For Deleuze, bodies have the ability to extend beyond the boundaries that are designed to contain them, such as science, medicine, or the justice system, which have always understood the body as a privileged object of investigation or a static site through which institutional power can be exercised. Drawing on this expanded understanding of the body, I will address modes of architectural thinking that are not constrained by traditional or static notions of architectural space, but that dynamically engage with life, generating connections, affects and intensities. In particular, this thesis will explore these themes through a close analysis of a 2006 project by the Australian artist Janet Laurence, entitled Water Veil, wherein the artist uses the body to create a time-space of investigation and enact an expressive and performative architectural process.1 Bruce Baugh. “Body,” in The Deleuze Dictionary, Ed. Adrian Parr (New York: Colombia University Press, 2005),30-32.

Cryotherapy and sensory level interferential electrical stimulation (IFC) have been shown to be effective at producing analgesia. There is limited research on the anesthetic effectiveness of cryotherapy, IFC, and the combination of the two. This study compared the rates of onset of anesthesia and the duration of sensory effects between the three treatments. Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments were used to determine sensation every 2 min throughout a 20 min session for each treatment to determine the rate of onset of anesthesia. Sensation testing was conducted every 2 min following termination of the treatment to determine the duration of sensory effects. Results indicate a statistically significant difference in time to onset of anesthesia, as well as the time to return to baseline sensation level between the three treatment groups (p

Abstract: This study explores the effects of surgical reconstruction and nerve repair on sensorimotor function and quality of life (QOL) for patients with base of tongue (BOT) cancer compared to healthy, age-matched adults. Sensations were tested on the anterior two-thirds of the oral tongue for two-point discrimination, light touch, taste, temperature, form and texture on 30 patients with BOT reconstruction with radial forearm free-flap and on 30 controls. Results indicated sensation for the unaffected tongue side and affected side with lingual nerve intact was comparable to controls, with poorer sensory outcomes for nerve repair. However, lingual nerves repaired with reanastomosis provided superior results to cable-grafting and severed nerves. Patients had decreased motor function only when the hypoglossal and lingual nerves were affected. Patients' QOL responses on the UW-QOL and EORTC QLQ-H&N35 revealed involvement of lingual and hypoglossal nerves resulted in poorer QOL outcomes. QOL interviews revealed additional problematic issues in this population not identified by standardized questionnaires.

Purpose: There is empirical evidence to suggest that fatigue may contribute to altered neuromuscular awareness and reduced control of the lower limb leading to a subsequent reduction in proprioception and dynamic joint stabilization. This dissertation comprises a literature review which identifies the need to investigate the effect of local muscular fatigue on joint position sense and hence proprioception. Due to epidemiological data stating the high prevalance of knee injury it was decided to study the knee joint of asymptomatic untrained males. Methodology: The sample involved sixteen male subjects selected on the criteria that they were all aged between 20-35 years, and did not have an abnormal knee range of motion, exceptional motor skills (i.e. elite athlete), vestibular/neuromuscular disorders, or osteoarthritis anywhere in the lower limb. All subjects completed a familiarization protocol then performed a series of knee joint repositioning exercises at three randomly selected, standardized target angles both before and immediately after a fatigue protocol. Absolute error in joint repositioning from the target angle was compared between the three different angles at baseline and post-fatigue. The fatigue intervention was complete when a subject’s maximal force output fell below 50% of their initial performance in both flexion and extension. All data were collected using a Biodex Isokinetic Dynamometer. Results: Proprioceptive acuity was not substantially affected by fatigue of the knee joint flexor and extensor muscles. An overall increase in joint repositioning efficacy of 3.3% occurred following the fatigue intervention. The type of error (overshoot or undershoot) in repositioning the limb was influenced by the position of the limb at the target angle with a more flexed target position leading to a predominance in overshoot (extension) error and vice versa. Conclusion: Fatigue does not appear to have a substantial effect on knee joint position sense, therefore, muscular fatigue in young healthy males does not appear to compromise proprioception. The position of the knee joint may influence an individual’s proprioceptive perception of an appropriate corrective/protective movement.

Experientialism proposes a new way to address the mind:body problem in philosophy. Traditional notions of mind (i.e. the mental) and body (i.e. the physical) are integrated into a philosophical perspective that, arguably, refuses to let the mind be separated from the body without distorting reality as determined by human beings. It asserts that experience defined as the necessary combination of cognition, affect, behavior, sensation, environment, and the “I” is equal to reality, thus arguing against realism and philosophies derivative of realism, rationalism and philosophies derivative of rationalism, and the dualistic philosophies that combine realism and rationalism (e.g. empiricism, phenomenology, etc.). If we cannot remove ourselves from experience, as so defined, then traditional objective reality exists within the experiential structure and traditional relative reality necessarily contains objective aspects. Within experientialism, objective philosophies are understood as meta-experiential constructs, i.e. distortions of reality, and relative philosophies are understood as naïve.

This thesis will discuss previous hypotheses for the cognition of autism and present a new model to more fully explain the cognition of autism. The Theory of Mind Hypothesis, the Executive Dysfunction Hypothesis, and the Weak Central Coherence Hypothesis will be noted as valuable but incomplete explanations of autism. These hypotheses all highlight the existence of a specific deficit in autism, but these deficits cannot singularly explain the cognition of autism. The Componential Model of Theory of Mind will be discussed as a more comprehensive explanation of autism. The Revised Componential Model will be introduced as a new model that generalizes the Componential Model of Theory of Mind beyond the social realm. This model will emphasize lower-level cognitive components, namely perception and processing. Furthermore, the model will show that lower-level cognitive components have a significant influence on higher-level cognitive components. Future directions for research will be discussed.

Employing the faculty of perception marks the only possible means by which we can gather knowledge of our environment. Despite this, in roughly the century and a half leading up to Reid’s Intellectual Powers, philosophers had widely turned from viewing this wondrous faculty as our companion in the quest for knowledge. Descartes, along with Galileo and Gassendi, begins a trend which, as Reid sees it, culminates in Hume. These thinkers, in increasing degrees, began to harbor a suspicion that our senses cannot be trusted with any epistemologically important responsibilities. This attitude was grounded upon a belief that the immediate objects of perceptual states are not external objects, but rather ideas and impressions. Reid argues that this doctrine, which he calls the ‘Way of Ideas’ and the ‘Ideal Theory’ was as philosophically feeble as it was popular. In the earliest parts of his philosophical career Reid found himself party to a broadly Berkeleyan view of mind and world, but appreciating the implications of Hume’s theories revealed to Reid the error of his ways. From that point onward, Reid takes it upon himself to rehabilitate the study of perception in order to show that, contrary to the Way of Ideas, we—that is, both philosophers and non-philosophers—have knowledge of our environments. This includes not only knowledge that there is an external world, but specific knowledge of some of its contents. While the origins of Reid’s interest in the study of perception are perhaps more complicated than they seem, the importance of his work is quite clear, particularly in the face of revivals of the Way of Ideas in contemporary work on both cognition and perception. The purpose of this work is to systematically present Reid’s theory of the mind and its relation to the world. I intend to make clear Reid’s differences with his predecessors about the nature of thought, the structure of the process of perception and about perceptual learning.

None provided.