Sensory Modes Research Articles

Introduction

Introduction Tessa Dwyer (bio) and Jennifer O'Meara (bio) The paradoxes engendered by voice on-screen are manifold. Screen voices both leverage and disrupt associations with agency, presence, immediacy, and intimacy. Concurrently, they institute artifice and distance, otherness and uncanniness. Screen voices are always, to an extent, disembodied, partial, and unstable, their technological mediation facilitating manipulation, remix, and even subterfuge. The audiovisual nature of screen media places voice in relation to—yet separate from—the image, creating gaps and connections between different sensory modes, techniques, and technologies, allowing for further disjunction and mismatch. These elusive dynamics of screen voices—whether on-screen or off-screen, in dialogue or voice-over, as soundtrack or audioscape—have already been much commented on and theorized by such notables as Rick Altman, Michel Chion, Rey Chow, Mary Ann Doane, Kaja Silverman, and Mikhail Yampolsky, among others.1 Focusing primarily on cinema, these scholars have made seminal contributions to the very ways that film and screen media are conceptualized through their focus on voice, voice recording and mixing, and postsynchronization as fundamental filmmaking processes. Altman [End Page 153] and Chion, for instance, both note the vococentrism of cinema and the obsession with "moving lips" epitomized by classic shot–reverse-shot sequences. Indeed, Chion claims that the soundtrack, as such, does not exist, sound and image being utterly inseparable in cinema and unable to operate independently. So, why revisit the screen voice yet again? Significantly, despite the centrality of voice to screen since at least the "silent" era (through lecturing, live dubbing, and intertitles, for instance), it has been routinely marginalized within screen studies, with scholars repeatedly needing to rescue or resuscitate this essential, ubiquitous area of inquiry. It is this slippery complexity of the screen voice that this dossier addresses by prioritizing concepts and practices of vocal return and refashioning, voice doubling and dissemination, verbal tiers, folds, and modulation. Such tactics have always been integral to technologies of recorded voice on-screen, representing core, constituent practices rather than aberrant possibilities. As Yampolsky notes, the verbal "chimera" created by dubbing points to "fundamental characteristics of film" and "is present in an inconspicuous way in any sound film, since the voice in a film is never actually produced by the visible mouth on the screen; its source always lies outside the body of the speaker at the location of the sound system."2 The inherently split nature of voice on-screen (and of vocalization in general, according to Jacques Derrida), is brought to the surface via acts of vocal re-mediation, respeaking, and reconstruction deemed necessary because of the voice's entanglements with language and nation, difference, and translation.3 While film dubbing and sound engineering share entwined histories, practices, and processes, screen "audibilities" (according to Pooja Rangan, "the product of sonic forms and auditory practices of listening") also generate and rely on cultural specificities, performative politics, and identity play, producing mediated voices that echo across diverse, global screens.4 Examining instances of vocal remix and dubbing, live festival translation (during screenings) and subtitling, podcasting, and accent maneuvering and manipulation, the six essays in this dossier extend and build on seminal work by Chion, Silverman, Sarah Kozloff, and Hamid Naficy while also taking stock of more recent scholarship collected in anthologies such as VOICE: Vocal Aesthetics in Digital Arts and Media, Locating the Voice in Film, and Vocal Projections: Voices in Documentary.5 The dossier begins with examples tied to contemporary media formats and technologies, yet these are framed in relation to older practices (like the history of ventriloquism) and preexisting screen voices (now remediated via podcast), leading us into the diverse ways that the screen has been revoiced across time and place. Each of the six essays provides insights into specific [End Page 154] practices for vocal refashioning and demonstrates how such strategies are embedded in the broader traditions of audiovisual screen history and culture. In their opening essays, Jaimie Baron and Jennifer O'Meara consider how filmic enunciation is refracted and repurposed through social media, podcasting, and the televisual, exploring the digital dissemination and replay of screen voices in present-day mediascapes. Baron focuses on mechanisms of political critique through revoicings of Donald Trump on...

(Toward) A Phenomenology of Acting by Phillip Zarrilli

Reviewed by: (Toward) A Phenomenology of Acting by Phillip Zarrilli Stanton B. Garner Jr. (TOWARD) A PHENOMENOLOGY OF ACTING. By Phillip Zarrilli. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2019; pp. 304. As an actor, teacher, director, and performance ethnologist, Phillip Zarrilli left an indelible mark on intercultural performance studies. His final monograph, (toward) a phenomenology of acting, underscores his contributions as an acting theorist. Building on his earlier study Psychophysical Acting: An Intercultural Approach after Stanislavsky (2009), this impressive book extends Zarrilli's investigation of embodied performance by developing and refining its theoretical frameworks. Bringing together phenomenology, enaction theory, and the insights of Asian martial arts and meditative traditions, these frameworks are as intercultural as the theatrical projects that Zarrilli uses to illustrate his acting method. The book is equal parts theoretical treatise and practical guide for the actor or director who wants to mine the experiential possibilities of the theatrical present. Its goal, in Zarrilli's words, is to understand acting "as a dynamic, embodied/ enactive psychophysical phenomenon and process by means of which a (theatrical) world is made available at the moment of its appearance/experience for both actors and audience" (12). How, he asks, do awareness, intention, and action arise and shape themselves in the here-and-now of performance, and how can an understanding of this process deepen the actor's performance work? At the center of Zarrilli's performance phenomenology is the "bodymind," an embodied, non-dualistic awareness of experience as it unfolds in time and space. The book's early chapters discuss this awareness and the training regimen that Zarrilli developed to cultivate it in his actors. Using meditation and movement exercises drawn from the Kerala (Indian) martial art kalarippayattu, hatha yoga, and the Chinese martial art taiqiquan, actors training in his psychophysical method practice following the breath, which embodies qi (or ki), the vital principle in Chinese medicine that originates in the energy center (dantian) located in the lower-mid abdomen. Posture and movement training expand the actors' sensory perception beyond the visual while helping them develop three-dimensional awareness of their surroundings. Optimally, this sensory-kinesthetic work cultivates responsiveness, preparedness, and an openness to discovery in the performance moment. Much of Zarrilli's discussion in these chapters concerns the actor's relation to the performance score, "the repeatable structure or sequence of actions/reactions which guide an actor's performance" (34). Through extensive rehearsal, the actor internalizes this score so that she can adopt a state of unknowingness when carrying it out in performance. Instead of pre-rehearsal script analysis, where directors and actors discuss the background and psychological motivation of their characters, Zarrilli and his actors explore the moment-by-moment dynamics of awareness, sensation, and action within the score as a whole. As the book's later chapters argue, the embodied, pre-reflexive, and intersubjective field that is foregrounded by psychophysical training has implications for other elements of the actor's work. Imagination and image-work, for instance, are no longer limited to mental pictures, but expand to include kinesthetic and other sensory modes of engaging imaginary worlds. What does it mean to be alone yet constantly to imagine the presence of another, like the two figures in Zarrilli's co-created performance piece Told by the Wind (2010), who share the stage but are otherwise unaware of each other? Language and verbal performance are similarly reembodied when actors redirect attention from what words say to how they arise and vibrate within the voicing body. This verbal awareness extends to the interactional dynamics in performance when actors inhabit each other's words through mindful listening. In the rehearsals for his 2017 production of Beckett's Footfalls in Costa Rica, for example, the actors playing May and Voice silently voiced the other's lines as a way of inhabiting the intersubjective space between first, second, and third person in the text. Rehearsal accounts such as this play an important role in (toward) a phenomenology of acting. Because Zarrilli performed in many of the productions and training exercises he discusses, his phenomenological insights are generated and refined through first-person description. Some of his actors also provided valuable accounts of their experiences. This descriptive phenomenology...

Multiplicity, heterogeneity, and coordination: the production of food and nutritional care based on inter-consultation support practices

This ethnographic study aimed to understand the production process in food and nutritional care in the setting of primary healthcare, based on inter-consultation support practices. Fieldwork was conducted in two family health units and their respective territories, together with the team from the Expanded Center for Family Health and Basic Care. References for the data analysis were Deleuze and Guattari, Túlio Batista Franco, and researchers associated with Actor-Network Theory such as Annemarie Mol and John Law. The study found that the production of food and nutritional care emerged from links between multiple actors in dynamic and interconnected networks. The practices of care proved to be strongly linked to food's modes of insertion in the daily routines of health professionals and users, revealing paradoxes in the relations of mutual support and expansion of access to food in the territories. Comprising the material heterogeneity in the mediation of interactions, food has an outstanding capacity to spawn connections. Sharing meals mobilized subjectivities through the use of emotional and sensory modes of knowing, learning, and providing care. Experiencing inherent tensions, the relations between micro and macro policy, inter-consultation supporters, together with the other actors, coordinated the networks for the production of food and nutritional care in an open, dynamic, provisional, profuse, and shared process. This understanding can contribute to more active and conscientious positions that move towards shared responsibility in the struggle for the implementation and execution of public policies that guarantee the population's food and nutritional security.

Чуттєва культура і музикознавство: аналіз есею Жоржа Кастнера «Les Voix de Paris» (1857)

Переосмислення ролі тілесного досвіду в процесі пізнання себе й навколишнього світу стало маркером «чуттєвого зрушення» в сучасній гуманітаристиці. У статті окреслено шляхи перетинів між «сенсуальними студіями» і музикознавством. На основі аналізу літературно-музичного есею Жоржа Кастнера «Голоси Парижа» (1857) ми дійшли висновку, що культурні практики повсякденності безпосередньо впливають на режими сприйняття композитора і можуть реалізовуватися у тканині музичного твору. Іншими словами, твір мистецтва виступає матеріальним втіленням чуттєвого буття його автора.

Trophic interactions drive the emergence of diel vertical migration patterns: a game-theoretic model of copepod communities.

Diel vertical migration (DVM), the daily movement of organisms through oceanic water columns, is mainly driven by spatio-temporal variations in the light affecting the intensity of predator-prey interactions. Migration patterns of an organism are intrinsically linked to the distribution of its conspecifics, its prey and its predators, each with their own fitness-seeking imperatives. We present a mechanistic, trait-based model of DVM for the different components of a pelagic community. Specifically, we consider size, sensory mode and feeding mode as key traits, representing a community of copepods that prey on each other and are, in turn, preyed upon by fish. Using game-theoretic principles, we explore the optimal distribution of the main groups of a planktonic pelagic food web simultaneously. Within one single framework, our model reproduces a whole suite of observed patterns, such as size-dependent DVM patterns of copepods and reverse migrations. These patterns can only be reproduced when different trophic levels are considered at the same time. This study facilitates a quantitative understanding of the drivers of DVM, and is an important step towards mechanistically underpinned predictions of DVM patterns and biologically mediated carbon export.

Listening in: the importance of vibratory courtship signals for male eavesdropping in the wolf spider, Schizocosa ocreata

Multimodal courtship signals may compensate for environmental interference or loss of signals in some sensory modes but may also increase detection by eavesdroppers. Studies on the wolf spider Schizocosa ocreata (Hentz) have demonstrated that males eavesdrop on visual courtship cues of other males and subsequently initiate courtship. Since S. ocreata males use multimodal courtship signals, we examined responses of males to playback of signals in different sensory modes (visual, vibration, multimodal) to test their relative importance for eavesdropping on courting male rivals. We used a recently developed technique to present male wolf spiders with video and/or vibratory stimuli: (1) a multimodal courting male stimulus, with synchronous visual and vibratory cues; (2) a visual-only courting male stimulus (minus the vibratory cues); (3) vibratory cues only (minus the visual cues); and (4) a control (visual background, no courtship). In single-presentation (no-choice) tests, males displayed more courtship bouts and longer durations of courtship bouts to the vibratory stimulus compared with either the visual or multimodal stimuli. However, in two-choice tests where isolated vibratory cues were paired against visual or multimodal stimuli, test males responded with more courtship bouts and longer durations of courtship bouts to the multimodal and visual stimuli. Results of these experiments suggest that male wolf spiders may vary eavesdropping courtship behaviors to compensate for missing sensory information concerning the location and other distinguishing characteristics of the rival male and the whereabouts of the female. Social eavesdropping is used to exploit information in signals of conspecifics, e.g., as a means of mate competition. Studies on Schizocosa ocreata wolf spiders have shown that males eavesdrop on visual courtship displays of other males and subsequently initiate multimodal courtship. We used video/vibration playback to examine responses of males to signals in different sensory modes (visual, vibration, both) and determine their relative importance for eavesdropping on courting male rivals. Results suggest that depending on sensory modes of their rivals’ signals, males may vary their own courtship displays to compensate for missing information. For example, when signals are presented individually, eavesdropping male response patterns are distinctly different from when presented a choice between modes. Males show more displays with isolated vibratory signals, but given a choice, males more often increase their tapping when multimodal cues were present. Ultimately, eavesdroppers that adjust behaviors in response to available sensory cues would be able to “level the playing field” with rivals and potentially increase the probability of gaining attention of females.

The Nuclear Sensorium: Cold War Nuclear Imperialism and Sensory Violence

AbstractThis paper traces the sensory dimensions of nuclear imperialism focusing on the Cold War nuclear weapons tests conducted by the United States military in the Marshall Islands during the 1950s. Key to the formation of the “nuclear sensorium” were the interfaces between vibration, sound, and radioactive contamination, which were mobilized by scientists such as oceanographer Walter Munk as part of the US Nuclear Testing Program. While scientists occupied privileged points in technoscientific networks to sense the effects of nuclear weapons, a series of lawsuits filed by communities affected by the tests drew attention to military-scientific use of inhabitants’ bodies as repositories of data concerning the ecological impact of the bomb and the manner in which sensing practices used to extract this data extended the violence and trauma of nuclear weapons. Nuclear imperialism projected its power not only through weapons tests, the vaporization of land and the erosion of the rights of people who lived there, but also through the production of a “nuclear sensorium”—the differentiation of modes of sensing the bomb through legal, military, and scientific discourses and the attribution of varying degrees of epistemological value and legal weight to these sensory modes.

Perceiving the sea and crossing senses in La Chambre and La Vie tranquille

Abstract La Chambre (1988) is a short dance film by Compagnie l’Esquisse, which cites Marguerite Duras’s novel La Vie tranquille (1944). In La Chambre, the sea is not seen, but is present across different senses and in the dancers’ movements, as well as in the quotation from Duras’s novel with which the film opens, which contains the sentence: ‘J’ai pensé à la mer que je ne connaissais pas.’ I argue that in both the novel and the film, the sea is sensed across different modalities that influence one another. Whereas in the novel ‘sensory crossings’ are produced by interactions between the lexical fields of words, in the film they occur when stimuli are presented in ways that invite viewers to make cross-sensory connections. Cross-modality of the senses can make us aware of the reciprocal action of one sensory mode on another and intensify affective charge.

The subjective voice and hybrid documentary filmmaking strategies

In this case study Jill Daniels references several of her recent experimental documentary films that mediate memory, place and subjectivities: Not Reconciled (2009); The Border Crossing (2011); My Private Life (2013); My Private Life II (2015) and Journey to the South (2017). She proposes the notion that film communicates in a sensory mode that may defy written theorisation or interpretation, with a rigor and precision that is quite separate to that of written language, but that nevertheless films, like written language, may add to knowledge. She argues that film theory is essential to enable the filmmaker to raise their work above the narrow framework of craft. She interrogates the notion that experimentation in documentary films may avoid perceived constraints of certainty, evidence and veracity. She notes that as a practice researcher within the academy she has freedom to experiment, which has brought considerable benefits to her practice.

Have we overlooked the significance of multinodal hallucinations in schizophrenia?

Scant research attention has been devoted to the phenomenon of multimodal hallucinations, with majority of studies focusing on auditory hallucinations (AH) in psychosis. The current study aimed to explore the frequency and characteristics of these multisensory hallucinations in a primary AH cohort. It was concluded more than half of our sample reported comorbid hallucinations in one or more sensory modes. This conveys significant research and clinical implications, in terms of steps taken for adequate assessment and intervention.

Male courtship signal modality and female mate preference in the wolf spider Schizocosa ocreata: results of digital multimodal playback studies.

Females must be able to perceive and assess male signals, especially when they occur simultaneously with those of other males. Previous studies show female Schizocosa ocreata wolf spiders display receptivity to isolated visual or vibratory courtship signals, but increased receptivity to multimodal courtship. It is unknown whether this is true when females are presented with a choice between simultaneous multimodal and isolated unimodal male courtship. We used digital playback to present females with a choice simulating simultaneous male courtship in different sensory modes without variation in information content: 1) isolated unimodal visual versus vibratory signals; 2) multimodal versus vibratory signals; and 3) multimodal versus visual signals. When choosing between isolated unimodal signals (visual or vibratory), there were no significant differences in orientation latency and number of orientations, approaches or receptive displays directed to either signal. When given a choice between multimodal versus vibratory-only male courtship signals, females were more likely to orient to the multimodal stimulus, and directed significantly more orients, approaches and receptivity behaviors to the multimodal signal. When presented with a choice between multimodal and visual-only signals, there were significantly more orients and approaches to the multimodal signal, but no significant difference in female receptivity. Results suggest that signal modes are redundant and equivalent in terms of qualitative responses, but when combined, multimodal signals quantitatively enhance detection and/or reception. This study confirms the value of testing preference behavior using a choice paradigm, as female preferences may depend on the context (e.g., environmental context and social context) in which they are presented with male signals.

Fabrication and transient responses of highly flexible and humidity-insensitive ionic polymer–metal composites in different sensory modes

Ionic polymer–metal composites, although with attracting properties such as flexibility, easy processing, resilience, and high sensitivity, have some drawbacks including the fragility of electrodes and strong humidity dependence which limit their practical applications. This study aims to fabricate ionic polymer–metal composites with sputtered gold thin film electrodes and to coat them with a waterproof acrylic material to extend their consistent sensory response over time. For this aim, after explaining the sensing mechanism of ionic polymer–metal composites based on streaming potential hypothesis for compression, bending, and shear modes, the fabrication process of the proposed ionic polymer–metal composites is presented. A signal conditioner is designed based on the measurement results of the equivalent resistance and capacitance of the devices. A shock tube setup is then utilized to obtain the impulse response of fabricated ionic polymer–metal composite devices in different modes of deformation. To verify how this waterproof coating maintains the ionic polymer–metal composite’s sensing performance, some experiments are carried out over a period of 6 days after fabrication for both acrylic-coated and uncoated samples. Analyzing the results shows that fabricated ionic polymer–metal composites represent an appropriate linearity, sensitivity, and reliability over time and this coating approach not only suppresses the diluent permeation but also has a negligible effect on the ionic polymer–metal composite electromechanical properties.

An ant-inspired celestial compass applied to autonomous outdoor robot navigation

Desert ants use the polarization of skylight and a combination of stride and ventral optic flow integration processes to track the nest and food positions when traveling, achieving outstanding performances. Navigation sensors such as global positioning systems and inertial measurement units still have disadvantages such as their low resolution and drift. Taking our inspiration from ants, we developed a 2-pixel celestial compass which computes the heading angle of a mobile robot in the ultraviolet range. The output signals obtained with this optical compass were investigated under various weather and ultraviolet conditions and compared with those obtained on a magnetometer in the vicinity of our laboratory. After being embedded on-board the robot, the sensor was first used to compensate for random yaw disturbances. We then used the compass to keep the Hexabot robot’s heading angle constant in a straight forward walking task over a flat terrain while its walking movements were imposing yaw disturbances. Experiments performed under various meteorological conditions showed the occurrence of steady state heading angle errors ranging from 0.3∘ (with a clear sky) to 2.9∘ (under changeable sky conditions). The compass was also tested under canopies and showed a strong ability to determine the robot’s heading while most of the sky was hidden by the foliage. Lastly, a waterproof, mono-pixel version of the sensor was designed and successfully tested in a preliminary underwater benchmark test. These results suggest this new optical compass shows great precision and reliability in a wide range of outdoor conditions, which makes it highly suitable for autonomous robotic outdoor navigation tasks. A celestial compass and a minimalistic optic flow sensor called M2APix (based on Michaelis–Menten Auto-adaptive Pixels) were therefore embedded on-board our latest insectoid robot called AntBot, to complete the previously mentioned ant-like homing navigation processes. First the robot was displaced manually and made to return to its starting-point on the basis of its absolute knowledge of the coordinates of this point. Lastly, AntBot was tested in fully autonomous navigation experiments, in which it explored its environment and then returned to base using the same sensory modes as those on which desert ants rely. AntBot produced robust, precise localization performances with a homing error as small as 0.7% of the entire trajectory.

A Collaborative Review of Trinh Minh-ha's <em>Forgetting Vietnam</em>

Figure 1. “Sea and boat...it all began with two.” Still from Forgetting Vietnam. 35 Codex A Collaborative Review of Trinh Minh-­ ha’s Forgetting Vietnam Specular Vietnam and the Cinematics of Distraction Trung Phan Quoc Nguyen There is a scene in Trinh T. Minh-­ ha’s provocative portrait of postwar Vietnam in Forgetting Vietnam (2015) that names a genre of dysphoric subjectivity under global capital. In an underexposed room backlit by the noon sun, the camera captures a fleeting moment of diverted attention. A figure, whose mahogany robes and shaved head mark his indelible difference as a nonsecular, ethnic subject, is seen sitting on a stool against a chipped plaster wall, monitoring a swaying wooden mallet. Though tasked to discipline the mallet into properly timed strikes against a temple gong for the tourists, his gaze, like the mallet, forgets the trajectory to which he is bound and begins to wander. At times, the figure steals a momentary glance at the surveilling regard of the camera, closing the distance between spectator and subject that sustains the voyeuristic relationship between a body marked by difference and its other. While the viewer is immersed in this mundane snapshot of fleeting distraction, a question interrupts the bottom right corner of the screen, evaporating out of sight as quickly as it came: “getting bored?” Though the address remains ambivalent—­to the figure in frame (bored of your task?), the audience in the theater (bored of this scene?), or the abstract voyeur of Vietnam (bored of these images?)—­the question nonetheless interpellates a genre that links subjects across the time and space of global capital, especially in sites and populations zoned as disposable reservoirs of extractable labor. Characterized by a disinterest and a listlessness that saturate the body, the genre of boredom collates the body’s oscillation in and out of production. Yet this is not a boredom that 36 Codex embraces the exchange of human aura for mechanical reproduction, or a boredom akin to depoliticized passivity, but rather a boredom that screens a nonidentification with the structure of labor accumulation, alluding to the possibility of an otherwise through constant search. Flat, fleeting, restless: the subject onscreen draws the spectator into a desire toward a nowhere but here. Trinh’s film illustrates how to disidentify , as José Esteban Muñoz (1999) has termed, movement from the logics of capital through the aesthetics of boredom, a vitality that charges the body in excess of well-­ laid trajectories of extraction. In his wandering gaze and fidgeting posture, the robed figure is constantly moving, disclosing a laconic unruliness that cannot be entirely incorporated into the state-­ sponsored image of order and development. Opposed to the euphoric and/or cinematic scenes that have dominated the visual economy of Vietnam over the last half-­ century, the camera catches a withdrawal from rather than a magnetic pull into the developmental success stories of market socialism. Attending to what Neferti Tadiar (2013) has called the “life-­ times of disposability,” Forgetting Vietnam interrogates the teleology of capitalist, liberal progress by urging the viewer to “forget” the Figure 2. “Sea dreaming its solitude.” Still from Forgetting Vietnam. Codex 37 sensory modes that have expropriated motion and incorporated postwar Vietnam, and Southeast Asia as a whole, into the global market. Since the shift to market socialism at the Sixth National Congress in 1986, Vietnam has been at the center of directing transpacific flows of capital into Southeast Asia. From the early 1990s onward, the United States, Japan, South Korea, China, and Singapore, whose late capitalist economies increasingly relied on the export of construction contracts and accumulation of real estate abroad, speculated on value that could be accrued from Vietnam’s newly available “abundance of petroleum, coal, and natural gas,” “vast coastal properties,” “abundance of . . . low wages,” and “need to rebuild [Vietnam’s] infrastructure,” which had remained in a “state of ruin from the war and years of neglect” (Stauch 1994, 1026). Transpacific speculation imagined a future premised upon the reproduction of a particular image of order and development, otherwise called liberal modernity, to generate value through land accumulation, debt expansion, and the making of surplus populations. State images of order and development extended also onto...

Wide-eyed glare scares raptors: From laboratory evidence to applied management.

Raptors are one of the most important causes of fatalities due to their collisions with aircrafts as well as being the main victims of collisions with constructions. They are difficult to deter because they are not influenced by other airspace users or ground predators. Because vision is the primary sensory mode of many diurnal raptors, we evaluated the reactions of captive raptors to a “superstimulus” (a “paradoxical effect whereby animals show greater responsiveness to an exaggerated stimulus than to the natural stimulus”) that combined an “eye shape” stimulus (as many species have an aversion for this type of stimulus) and a looming movement (LE). This looming stimulus mimics an impending collision and induces avoidance in a wide range of species. In captivity, raptors showed a clear aversion for this LE stimulus. We then tested it in a real life setting: at an airport where raptors are abundant. This study is the first to show the efficiency of a visual non-invasive repellent system developed on the basis of both captive and field studies. This system deterred birds of prey and corvids through aversion, and did not induce habituation. These findings suggest applications for human security as well as bird conservation, and further research on avian visual perception and sensitivity to signals.

Encouraging Eco-Driving With Visual, Auditory, and Vibrotactile Stimuli

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of an in-vehicle eco-driving support system that provided auditory, visual, and vibrotactile stimuli for the discouragement of harsh accelerations, and to encourage maximization of the duration of the coasting phase of the vehicle. Behavior when driving normally was compared to that exhibited when participants were asked to drive economically, and to that exhibited when provided with feedback in the three sensory modes, individually and in all combinations thereof. Results suggest that participants were already aware that harsh accelerations are to be avoided when eco-driving; however, additional eco-driving support, particularly that which involved the auditory and haptic modalities, further discouraged these behaviors. The eco-driving information also supported significantly greater coasting distances (when approaching slowing events), a behavior not spontaneously produced by participants when asked to drive economically. Few differences were seen between the effects of the different modes and combinations; however, results taken together suggest that visual-only information may be less effective at encouraging compliance across all participants. The auditory stimulus, although it encouraged compliance, was not well received by participants.

When kinesthetic information is neglected in learning a Novel bimanual rhythmic coordination.

Many studies have shown that rhythmic interlimb coordination involves perception of the coupled limb movements, and different sensory modalities can be used. Using visual displays to inform the coupled bimanual movement, novel bimanual coordination patterns can be learned with practice. A recent study showed that similar learning occurred without vision when a coach provided manual guidance during practice. The information provided via the two different modalities may be same (amodal) or different (modality specific). If it is different, then learning with both is a dual task, and one source of information might be used in preference to the other in performing the task when both are available. In the current study, participants learned a novel 90° bimanual coordination pattern without or with visual information in addition to kinesthesis. In posttest, all participants were tested without and with visual information in addition to kinesthesis. When tested with visual information, all participants exhibited performance that was significantly improved by practice. When tested without visual information, participants who practiced using only kinesthetic information showed improvement, but those who practiced with visual information in addition showed remarkably less improvement. The results indicate that (1) the information is not amodal, (2) use of a single type of information was preferred, and (3) the preferred information was visual. We also hypothesized that older participants might be more likely to acquire dual task performance given their greater experience of the two sensory modes in combination, but results were replicated with both 20- and 50-year-olds.

Sound, Space and Bodies: Building Relations in the Work of Invisible Flock and Atelier Bildraum

In this article, I discuss sounds potential to construct fictional spaces and build relations between bodies using two performance installations as case studies. The first is Invisible Flock’s 105+dB, a site-specific sound work which transports crowd recordings of a soccer match to alternative geographical locations. The second is Atelier Bildraum’s Bildraum, an installation performance using live photography, architectural models and ambient sound. By writing through these two works, I question how sound builds relations between bodies and across space as well as questioning the role of site within sound installation works.

Complex signals and comparative mate assessment in wolf spiders: results from multimodal playback studies

Complex signals of animals involve multiple sensory modes and contain multiple structural components, and teasing apart how these modes and components interact in receiver decision making is an experimental challenge. Females of many species have ordered preferences for increased size or expression of male indicator traits. However, studies also suggest other species may exhibit comparative evaluation of mates rather than absolute preference hierarchies. We examined mate assessment by female wolf spiders, Schizocosa ocreata, using digital playback of video and vibratory/seismic signals in preference and choice tests of male trait differences. In playback experiments, female wolf spiders showed ordered preferences for male condition indicating traits (leg tuft size, vibration signal amplitude) in both individual sensory modes and multimodal (combined) signals. Tests with single modes and multimodal signals showed that trait expression in either signal mode affects outcome of mate choice. Females exhibited transitive preferences, consistently choosing males with larger tuft size or higher amplitude vibration in no-choice and two-choice tests. Thus, female S. ocreata do not necessarily need to compare mates to exhibit preferences for particular traits. Choice tests with multimodal playback showed that females made predicted choices when male traits covaried positively, but in ‘cue-conflict’ (negative trait covariance) choice tests, females showed a bias for visual signal trait expression (tuft size), displaying priority for visual signals over vibratory signals when in conflict. These studies demonstrate that under controlled experimental conditions, differences in behavioural responses to manipulation of digital video and vibration playback can provide valuable insights about recognition and interpretation of complex signals and their components.

Memories of a dying industry: sense and identity in a British paper mill

Frogmore Paper Mill is a kind of time machine that allows historians of technology and the senses to study the mechanized paper-making as it was done one hundred years ago. Before the introduction of instrumentation and automatic process control, paper-making depended profoundly on the embodied skills of the workers. This article will focus on the sensory knowledge and skills required for monitoring and controlling old machinery. Investigating skills-in-use will help to unravel the close link between sensing and acting to keep a continuous production process stable and running. Paper-makers would shift intuitively between different senses and sensory modes of monitoring and diagnosing sensory tell-tales to balance the production process. The importance of sensory knowledge and embodied skills also shaped paper-makers’ self-perception and professional ethos. The article will examine the impact of new process control technology on the crucial role of sensory skills for the paper-makers’ individual and collective identities.