On The Anisotropy Of Perceived Ground Extents And The Interpretation Of Walked Distance As A Measure Of Perception

Two experiments are reported concerning the perception of ground extent to discover whether prior reports of anisotropy between frontal extents and extents in depth were consistent across different measures (visual matching and pantomime walking) and test environments (outdoor environments and virtual environments). In Experiment 1 it was found that depth extents of up to 7 m are indeed perceptually compressed relative to frontal extents in an outdoor environment, and that perceptual matching provided more precise estimates than did pantomime walking. In Experiment 2, similar anisotropies were found using similar tasks in a similar (but virtual) environment. In both experiments pantomime walking measures seemed to additionally compress the range of responses. Experiment 3 supported the hypothesis that range compression in walking measures of perceived distance might be due to proactive interference (memory contamination). It is concluded that walking measures are calibrated for perceived egocentric distance, but that pantomime walking measures may suffer range compression. Depth extents along the ground are perceptually compressed relative to frontal ground extents in a manner consistent with the angular scale expansion hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract

Nothing magical:pantomimed grasping is controlled by the ventral system

In a recent amendment to the two-visual-system model, it has been proposed that actions must result in tactile contact with the goal object for the dorsal system to become engaged (Whitwell et al., Neuropsychologia 55:41-50, 2014). The present study tested this addition by assessing the use of allocentric information in normal and pantomime actions. To this end, magicians, and participants who were inexperienced in performing pantomime actions made normal and pantomime grasps toward objects embedded in the Müller-Lyer illusion. During pantomime grasping, a grasp was made next to an object that was in full view (i.e., a displaced pantomime grasping task). The results showed that pantomime grasps took longer, were slower, and had smaller hand apertures than normal grasping. Most importantly, hand apertures were affected by the illusion during pantomime grasping but not in normal grasping, indicating that displaced pantomime grasping is based on allocentric information. This was true for participants without experience in performing pantomime grasps as well as for magicians with experience in pantomiming. The finding that the illusory bias is limited to pantomime grasping and persists with experience supports the conjecture that the normal engagement of the dorsal system's contribution requires tactile contact with a goal object. If no tactile contact is made, then movement control shifts toward the ventral system

The Art of Theatre in Nineteenth-Century America: George L. Fox, Pantomime and Artaud

This article argues that, through specific stagings orchestrated in the pantomimist’s art, George Lafayette Fox demonstrates a consciousness of staging and of theatricality that presages the blatant theatricalities of twentieth-century theatre and theatre theory. The Theatre and Its Double is essential to assessing theatre’s response to theatricality, specifically in its awareness of non-verbal strategies. My discussion of pantomime founds itself on a critical engagement with the concept of a total theatre, of gestures, physicality, movement and the performance of a theatrical ‘language’ beyond words. I argue that the theatrical language of Fox’s pantomime exhibits dramatic dimensions that appealed to the edgy rebellious urges of their audiences, the performances of the white-face clown articulating an awareness of cultural anxieties, responding to and participating in the formation of the social response to political agenda and debate. Pantomime, with its glory in excess, its incipient display of anti-establishmentarianism, its fluidity and emphasis on show, contributed to the development of American theatre as a dynamic form. Providing a concrete space with its ‘concrete language, intended for the senses and independent of speech,’ (Artaud, p.37), Fox’s gestural theatre can shed additional light on theoretical approaches to mime

Improving Students` Speaking Skill by Using Retelling Story through Pantomime at The Second Semester of English Study Program University of Papua

This research focuses on the improvement of students` Speaking skills at Papua University by retelling stories through pantomime. This article focused on two research questions; is pantomime effective to improve the students` speaking at English Study Program? And are the students interested in learning speaking through pantomime? This researcher applied experimental research with pre-test and post-test design. This research was undertaken at the second semester English Study program. The numbers of population were 120 students and the researcher took 33 students from class A as samples using the purposive sampling technique. The researcher used questionnaires as instruments of the data collection. The result of this research shows that there were significant developments in students` speaking skills at the second semester English study Program at Papua University after conducting the treatments by using Retelling Story through Pantomime. In which the score of the t-test (6,23) is bigger than the score of the t-table (2,03). It means that Retelling Story through pantomime gives significant improvement to the students` speaking skills. In addition, the researcher found almost all of the students gave positive responses toward retelling stories through pantomime in improving speaking skills. Keywords: Retelling Story, Pantomime, and Speaking Skill

Using action understanding to understand the left inferior parietal cortex in the human brain

Published in final edited form as: Brain Res. 2014 September 25; 1582: 64–76. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2014.07.035.Humans have a sophisticated knowledge of the actions that can be performed with objects. In an fMRI study we tried to establish whether this depends on areas that are homologous with the inferior parietal cortex (area PFG) in macaque monkeys. Cells have been described in area PFG that discharge differentially depending upon whether the observer sees an object being brought to the mouth or put in a container. In our study the observers saw videos in which the use of different objects was demonstrated in pantomime; and after viewing the videos, the subject had to pick the object that was appropriate to the pantomime. We found a cluster of activated voxels in parietal areas PFop and PFt and this cluster was greater in the left hemisphere than in the right. We suggest a mechanism that could account for this asymmetry, relate our results to handedness and suggest that they shed light on the human syndrome of apraxia. Finally, we suggest that during the evolution of the hominids, this same pantomime mechanism could have been used to ‘name’ or request objects.We thank Steve Wise for very detailed comments on a draft of this paper. We thank Rogier Mars for help with identifying the areas that were activated in parietal cortex and for comments on a draft of this paper. Finally, we thank Michael Nahhas for help with the imaging figures. This work was supported in part by the NIH grant RO1NS064100 to LMV. (RO1NS064100 - NIH)Accepted manuscrip

Inter- and Intrahemispheric Dissociations in Ideomotor Apraxia: A Large-Scale Lesion-Symptom Mapping Study in Subacute Brain-Damaged Patients

Pantomimes of object use require accurate representations of movements and a selection of the most task-relevant gestures. Prominent models of praxis, corroborated by functional neuroimaging studies, predict a critical role for left parietal cortices in pantomime and advance that these areas store representations of tool use. In contrast, lesion data points to the involvement of left inferior frontal areas, suggesting that defective selection of movement features is the cause of pantomime errors. We conducted a large-scale voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping analyses with configural/spatial (CS) and body-part-as-object (BPO) pantomime errors of 150 left and right brain-damaged patients. Our results confirm the left hemisphere dominance in pantomime. Both types of error were associated with damage to left inferior frontal regions in tumor and stroke patients. While CS pantomime errors were associated with left temporoparietal lesions in both stroke and tumor patients, these errors appeared less associated with parietal areas in stroke than in tumor patients and less associated with temporal in tumor than stroke patients. BPO errors were associated with left inferior frontal lesions in both tumor and stroke patients. Collectively, our results reveal a left intrahemispheric dissociation for various aspects of pantomime, but with an unspecific role for inferior frontal region

Reflexiones sobre las características mecánicas de los bailarines de pantomima

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo investigar la experiencia cinestésica de la danza, y especialmente de la danza de la pantomima, en De Saltatione de Luciano y en la oración 64 de Libanio, Una respuesta a Aristides en nombre de los bailarines, desde la perspectiva de la mecánica. En concreto, la pantomima se discutirá en yuxtaposición con el concepto de automatización mecánica, un aspecto hasta aquí inexplorado, pese a su gran importancia, especialmente si se tiene en cuenta que a partir del período helenístico autómatas y procesiones teatrales con artefactos de ingeniería se consideraron un mecanismo de entretenimiento popular y, como tales, ejercieron gran influencia en la estética del público. En este sentido, primero tengo la intención de examinar el concepto de mímesis pantomímica como una reproducción mecánica del movimiento, es decir, gestos y posturas. A continuación, detectaré el vocabulario de la función de mecanismos / función de los mecanismos que generalmente se halla incrustado en la retórica de la danza al examinar el movimiento forzado tanto en la pantomima como en la mecánica antigua.This paper aims to investigate the kinaesthetic experience of dance, and especially of pantomime dance in Lucian’s De Saltatione and in Libanius’ oration 64, A Reply To Aristides On Behalf Of The Dancers, from the perspective of the mechanical. Specifically, pantomime will be discussed in juxtaposition with the concept of mechanical automation. Until now, this aspect remains unexplored; however, this is of great importance, particularly if we take into consideration that from the Hellenistic period onwards theatrical automata and processions with engineered artefacts were considered to be a popular entertainmentmechanism and, as such, they exerted great influence on the public’s aesthetic. In this respect, I intend first to survey the concept of pantomimic mimesis as a mechanical reproduction of motion, i.e. gestures and postures. Next, I shall detect the vocabulary of mechanisms/mechanisms’ function that is generally embedded in dance rhetoric by examining forced motion both in pantomime and ancient mechanics

'Mod movement in Quality Street clothes' : British popular music and pantomime, 1955-1975

From the late 1950s onwards, young rock ‘n’ roll musicians and popular singers were introduced into commercial Christmas pantomime productions. While this practice, which constituted an extension of their involvement in the broader sphere of variety theatre, has been previously noted, it is seldom accorded much sustained attention. In this article Gillian Mitchell explores the impact which such performers made upon pantomime, while observing the ways in which involvement in pantomime productions affected their careers and aspirations. ‘Pop stars’ brought much-needed revenue to struggling theatres, and, while their presence onstage alongside experienced pantomime performers sometimes attracted criticism, they also contributed in many ways to a reinvigoration of the medium, whether by offering fresh scope for topical gags, or by giving ambitious producers the chance to more more experimental types of production. The article also questions the notion that, by the late 1960s, pantomime had become a ‘last refuge’ for those popular musicians who were apparently unable to maintain a foothold in the increasingly ‘serious’ world of rock music.PostprintPeer reviewe