The Image of Your Imagination : Rediscovering Drag, Reconstructing Gender

In this thesis, I examine prevalent definitions of drag. I analyze the notion of drag as gender performance and consider key questions regarding drag as an artistic practice and medium: drag as a form of cross-dressing; drag’s subject matter; the similarities and differences between drag and fe/male impersonation; and drag’s relation to gender, particularly nonbinary genders and cis-heteronormative gender ontology. I examine how the purported reality of binary gender and sexual dimorphism is apparent in and shapes understandings of drag. My key sources include Esther Newton’s anthropological study of American drag queens in the late 1960s, Jack Halberstam’s writing on drag king culture, and Judith Butler’s theorization of gender and drag. Following these arguments, I examine two instances of contemporary art and fashion—Finnish artist Artor Jesus Inkerö’s (b. 1989) holistic bodily project and Palomo Spain’s gender nonnormative fashion—and how interpretations of them pertain to similar questions of gender and sex as definitions of drag. I propose the term ‘areal’ to reflect how the existence of nonbinary genders is subordinate to the reality of the supposedly original and authentic binary genders. Finally, I argue that contemporary drag, Palomo Spain, and the work of Artor Jesus Inkerö challenge and erase cis-heteronormative notions of gender and, in doing so, attest post-postmodern aesthetics. I conclude that definitions of drag reflect perceptions of gender and the human and, ultimately, conceptions of reality. As an invitation for future research, I suggest that outdated notions of drag need critical revision and redefinition

Eye-movements in real curve driving: pursuit-like optokinesis in vehicle frame of reference, stability in an allocentric reference coordinate system

Looking at the future path and/or the tangent point (TP) have been identified as car drivers’ gaze targets in many studies on curve driving. Yet little is known in detail about these "fixations to the road". We quantitatively analyse gaze behavior at the level of individual fixations in real on-road data. We find that while gaze tracks the TP area, this pattern consists of fast optokinetic movements (smooth pursuit and fast resetting saccadic movements). Gaze is not “fixed” to the TP. We also relate eye-movements to a reference direction fixed to a point on the trajectory of the vehicle (curve exit), showing that fixations lose their pursuit-like character in this rotating system. The findings are discussed in terms of steering models and neural levels of oculomotor control

Anticipatory eye movements when approaching a curve on a rural road depend on working memory load

Peer reviewe

Effects of an active visuomotor steering task on covert attention

In complex dynamic tasks such as driving it is essential to be aware of potentially important targets in peripheral vision. While eye tracking methods in various driving tasks have provided much information about drivers’ gaze strategies, these methods only inform about overt attention and provide limited grounds to assess hypotheses concerning covert attention. We adapted the Posner cue paradigm to a dynamic steering task in a driving simulator. The participants were instructed to report the presence of peripheral targets while their gaze was fixed to the road. We aimed to see whether and how the active steering task and complex visual stimulus might affect directing covert attention to the visual periphery. In a control condition, the detection task was performed without a visual scene and active steering. Detection performance in bends was better in the control task compared to corresponding performance in the steering task, indicating that active steering and the complex visual scene affected the ability to distribute covert attention. Lower targets were discriminated slower than targets at the level of the fixation circle in both conditions. We did not observe higher discriminability for on-road targets. The results may be accounted for by either bottom-up optic flow biasing of attention, or top-down saccade planning.Peer reviewe

The Relationship of Anxiety and Stress With Working Memory Performance in a Large Non-depressed Sample

Clinical anxiety and acute stress caused by major life events have well-documented detrimental effects on cognitive processes, such as working memory (WM). However, less is known about the relationships of state anxiety or everyday stress with WM performance in non-clinical populations. We investigated the associations between these two factors and three WM composites (verbal WM, visuospatial WM, and n-back updating performance) in a large online sample of non-depressed US American adults. We found a trend for a negative association between WM performance and anxiety, but not with stress. Thus, WM performance appears rather robust against normal variation in anxiety and everyday stress.Peer reviewe

Congestive heart failure : more common as well as an important cardiovascular outcome: reply

Non peer reviewe

The Relationship of Anxiety and Stress With Working Memory Performance in a Large Non-depressed Sample

Clinical anxiety and acute stress caused by major life events have well-documented detrimental effects on cognitive processes, such as working memory (WM). However, less is known about the relationships of state anxiety or everyday stress with WM performance in non-clinical populations. We investigated the associations between these two factors and three WM composites (verbal WM, visuospatial WM, and n-back updating performance) in a large online sample of non-depressed US American adults. We found a trend for a negative association between WM performance and anxiety, but not with stress. Thus, WM performance appears rather robust against normal variation in anxiety and everyday stress

Effect of driving experience on anticipatory look-ahead fixations in real curve driving

Peer reviewe

Look-ahead fixations in curve driving

Peer reviewe