3,849 research outputs found
Talking the line: inclusive strategies for the teaching of drawing
The article reports on a series of drawing workshops held at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, which tested an original pedagogical strategy designed to help dyslexic and/or dyspraxic art and design students who had reported difficulties with their abilities to make accurate representational drawings. A group of non-dyslexic/dyspraxic RCA students volunteered as control group, and both cohorts completed three days of workshops in the Drawing Studio of the RCA. Results of recorded interviews eliciting student observations as they drew, and a questionnaire in the form of a Likert scale, administered before and after the workshop, indicate positive shifts in both cohorts’ attitudes towards specific aspects of the stages involved in the production of accurate representational drawings of still-life set-ups, the human skeleton and the clothed life-model. Assessment of the drawings produced indicates positive shifts in the two cohorts in geometric accuracy and other qualitative criteria embedded in the teaching strategy such as control of scale, proportion and illusions of depth. Both cohorts displayed similar positive attitude shifts and both sets of drawings indicated similar positive shifts in visual qualities. An interim conclusion posits that the pedagogical strategy appears to enhance the abilities of both dyslexic/dyspraxic students and non-dyslexic/dyspraxic students to make accurate representational drawings. This result correlates closely with the findings of an earlier, prototype workshop held at the RCA in July 2012. It is suggested that similar pedagogically inclusive strategies might produce positive results in the context of secondary schools as part of a more inclusive curriculum
Learning to perceive: informing pedagogic practice through the empirical study of drawing
This paper is the result of collaboration between psychologists with an interest in the cognitive processes underpinning drawing activity (Chamberlain, McManus and Brunswick), a dyslexia support tutor (Rankin) and an art school lecturer in drawing (Riley). It reports on a small-scale, ‘pilot’ workshop, designed to test the pedagogical strategies specifically designed for dyslexic students, with a cohort of volunteers from across the Royal College of Art, London
Scratching the surface: practice, personality, approaches to learning and the acquisition of high level representational drawing ability
Accurate representational drawing is a complex skill which underpins performance in many branches of the visual arts. Research suggests that expertise typically is acquired as a result of deliberate practice and a flexible approach to learning strategies. The current study investigated how, in art students, differences in the acquisition of observational drawing skill could be characterised using domain-general expertise accounts. A cohort of undergraduate and postgraduate art students (n=682) completed questionnaires about self-perceived artistic abilities, personality and approaches to learning. A subset completed tasks of actual drawing ability (n=301), the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (ROCF) test and a performance IQ test. Actual drawing ability related to time spent drawing and drawing techniques, with additional independent predictive effects of both the copying and delayed ROCF test. Effects of personality were mainly mediated via learning styles, with surface learners spending more time drawing, learning fewer techniques and acquiring a lower level of actual skill. Deep learners learned more drawing techniques, and strategic (achieving) learners acquired a higher level of drawing skill overall. The resulting model of drawing ability development has the potential to be generalised over a range of creative and non-creative domains
Drawing on the right side of the brain: a voxel-based morphometry analysis of observational drawing
Structural brain differences in relation to expertise have been demonstrated in a number of domains including visual perception, spatial navigation, complex motor skills and musical ability. However no studies have assessed the structural differences associated with representational skills in visual art. As training artists are inclined to be a heterogeneous group in terms of their subject matter and chosen media, it was of interest to investigate whether there would be any consistent changes in neural structure in response to increasing representational drawing skill. In the current study a cohort of 44 graduate and post-graduate art students and non-art students completed drawing tasks. Scores on these tasks were then correlated with the regional grey and white matter volume in cortical and subcortical structures. An increase in grey matter density in the left anterior cerebellum and the right medial frontal gyrus was observed in relation to observational drawing ability, whereas artistic training (art students vs. non-art students) was correlated with increased grey matter density in the right precuneus. This suggests that observational drawing ability relates to changes in structures pertaining to fine motor control and procedural memory, and that artistic training in addition is associated with enhancement of structures pertaining to visual imagery. The findings corroborate the findings of small-scale fMRI studies and provide insights into the properties of the developing artistic brain
Inclusive Practice: researching the relationships between dyslexia, personality, and art students’ drawing ability.
This paper addresses the conference theme of inclusivity
from two standpoints. Firstly, involving collaboration
between researchers from fields including psychology,
educational study support and studio drawing practice,
which has revealed insights into students’ learning
difficulties in drawing, which are not easily accessible
through mono-disciplinary research practice. Secondly it
involves a proposal outlining a strategy for the teaching
of drawing which attempts to include students of varying
abilities in drawing, and to empower their practice
equally. The paper demonstrates the effectiveness of
an inclusive, cross-disciplinary approach to exploring
the relations between personality factors, perceptual
problems, visual memory and drawing skills in art
students who report difficulties producing accurate drawn
representations of their observational experiences. Results
indicate that whilst in general drawing ability seems not
to relate to dyslexia, higher drawing ability does appear
related to the personality measure of conscientiousness,
and also both to sex (in the biological sense, males
drawing better than females) and to gender (those who
perceive themselves as more masculine drawing better,
whether they are male or female). Poor drawers are less
good at accurately copying angles and proportions, and
their visual memory is less good. These findings inform a
proposed inclusive group teaching strategy for drawing
which attempts to address these weaknesses without hindering the progress of the more able student
Control of ULF Wave Accessibility to the Inner Magnetosphere by the Convection of Plasma Density
During periods of storm activity and enhanced convection, the plasma density in the
afternoon sector of the magnetosphere is highly dynamic due to the development of plasmaspheric
drainage plume (PDP) structure. This significantly affects the local Alfvén speed and alters the propagation
of ULF waves launched from the magnetopause. Therefore, it can be expected that the accessibility of ULF
wave power for radiation belt energization is sensitively dependent on the recent history of magnetospheric
convection and the stage of development of the PDP. This is investigated using a 3-D model for ULF waves
within the magnetosphere in which the plasma density distribution is evolved using an advection model for
cold plasma, driven by a (VollandStern) convection electrostatic field (resulting in PDP structure). The wave
model includes magnetic field day/night asymmetry and extends to a paraboloid dayside magnetopause,
from which ULF waves are launched at various stages during the PDP development. We find that the plume
structure significantly alters the field line resonance location, and the turning point for MHD fast waves,
introducing strong asymmetry in the ULF wave distribution across the noon meridian. Moreover, the
density enhancement within the PDP creates a waveguide or local cavity for MHD fast waves, such that
eigenmodes formed allow the penetration of ULF wave power to much lower L within the plume than
outside, providing an avenue for electron energization
Adjustment of the electric current in pulsar magnetospheres and origin of subpulse modulation
The subpulse modulation of pulsar radio emission goes to prove that the
plasma flow in the open field line tube breaks into isolated narrow streams. I
propose a model which attributes formation of streams to the process of the
electric current adjustment in the magnetosphere. A mismatch between the
magnetospheric current distribution and the current injected by the polar cap
accelerator gives rise to reverse plasma flows in the magnetosphere. The
reverse flow shields the electric field in the polar gap and thus shuts up the
plasma production process. I assume that a circulating system of streams is
formed such that the upward streams are produced in narrow gaps separated by
downward streams. The electric drift is small in this model because the
potential drop in narrow gaps is small. The gaps have to drift because by the
time a downward stream reaches the star surface and shields the electric field,
the corresponding gap has to shift. The transverse size of the streams is
determined by the condition that the potential drop in the gaps is sufficient
for the pair production. This yields the radius of the stream roughly 10% of
the polar cap radius, which makes it possible to fit in the observed
morphological features such as the "carousel" with 10-20 subbeams and the
system of the core - two nested cone beams.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur
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Complete Experimental Structure Determination of the p(3x2)pg Phase of Glycine on Cu{110}
We present a quantitative low energy electron diffraction (LEED) surface-crystallograpic
study of the complete adsorption geometry of glycine adsorbed on Cu{110} in the ordered
p(3×2) phase. The glycine molecules form bonds to the surface through the N atoms of the
amino group and the two O atoms of the de-protonated carboxylate group, each with separate
Cu atoms such that every Cu atom in the first layer is involved in a bond. Laterally, N atoms are
nearest to the atop site (displacement 0.41 Ã…). The O atoms are asymmetrically displaced from
the atop site by 0.54 Ã… and 1.18 Ã… with two very different O-Cu bond lengths of 1.93 Ã… and
2.18 Ã…. The atom positions of the upper-most Cu layers show small relaxations within 0.07 Ã…
of the bulk-truncated surface geometry. The unit cell of the adsorbate layer consists of two
glycine molecules, which are related by a glide-line symmetry operation. This study clearly
shows that a significant coverage of adsorbate structures without this glide-line symmetry must
be rejected, both on the grounds of the energy dependence of the spot intensities (LEED-IV
curves) and of systematic absences in the LEED pattern
The effect of differential refraction on wave propagation in rotating pulsar magnetospheres
Refraction of wave propagation in a corotating pulsar magnetospheric plasma
is considered as a possible interpretation for observed asymmetric pulse
profiles with multiple components. The pulsar radio emission produced inside
the magnetosphere propagates outward through the rotating magnetosphere,
subject to refraction by the intervening plasma that is spatially
inhomogeneous. Both effects of a relativistic distribution of the plasma and
rotation on wave propagation are considered. It is shown that refraction
coupled with rotation can produce asymmetric conal structures of the profile.
The differential refraction due to the rotation can cause the conal structures
to skew toward the rotation direction and lead to asymmetry in relative
intensities between the leading and trailing components. Both of these features
are potentially observable.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Effects of Quasi-Orthogonal EMission Modes on the Rotation Measures of Pulsars
We report here the discovery of a significant source of systematic error in
the rotation measure determinations of pulsars. Conventional analysis of high
sensitivity polarimetric observations of PSR B2016+28 display variation of the
rotation measure of 15 rad m (around the mean value of -34.6 rad
m) across the pulse profile. Analysis of single pulse data shows that
this variation is an artifact of the incoherent superposition of
quasi-orthogonal polarisation modes along with the frequency dependence of
relative strength and/or quasi-orthogonality of the modes. Quasi-orthogonal
polarization is common among pulsars, and therefore this effect needs to be
taken into account in the interpretation of pulsar rotation measures.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
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