title: Aspects of hens’ visual behaviour

authors: Weavers, Richard

abstract: Five experiments were conducted to examine different aspects of hens’ visual behaviour, and to assess whether hens respond to slide images in the same way as they respond to real conspecifics that those slides depict. Experiment 1 was a replication of a study by Candland (1969). Six domestic hens were trained to make simultaneous discriminations between slide images of conspecifics that differed only in combs, beaks and wattles. In further test trials these facial appendices were rearranged in all the possible combinations to determine which was the most salient. The comb appeared to be the most salient feature in both Candlan’s study and Experiment 1. In Experiment 2 the hens were retrained to discriminate between images of two different conspecifics, and then presented with the real object hens that the slides depicted. The subject hens did not discriminate between the real conspecifics. During Experiment 3 the same subject hens were presented with a series of different images, under the same conditions as Experiment 1. Test trials revealed that most hens discriminated between pairs of images on the basis of the uppermost feature, irrespective of whether that feature depicted part of a conspecific or a geometric shape. Backprojected sinusoidal grating patterns of varying contrast and spatial frequency were used to assess the visual resolution of four hens in Experiment 4. Contrast sensitivity functions were measured under two different viewing conditions. These two functions both spanned a range of low spatial frequencies, that is, showed that the hens had low visual acuity, and also differed in the ranges of spatial frequencies, indicating different levels of visual acuity for frontal and lateral viewing. Experiment 5 was designed to assess and demonstrate high-frequency image loss in hens. Four hens were trained to make simultaneous discriminations between two copies of one of the images used in Experiment 1. One of the copies had been blurred by removing high-frequency contrasts. During a subsequent test phase, the hens were presented with pairs of this image, with one of each pair blurred by removal of high-frequency contrasts across a range of cutoff frequencies. A mean threshold for discrimination of high-frequency image loss was measured at 2.237 cyc/° (cycles per degree of visual angle). Demonstrations of this image loss are shown in Experiment 5. 

Low visual resolution was measured for the hens - at around the same levels as pigeons and six-month old humans. It was concluded that hens do not respond to slide images in the same way as they respond to real conspecifics that those slides depict, but that they might learn to do so after extensive discrimination training with both types of stimuli. Possible influences of the hens’ low visual resolution on their inability to generalize responding across slide images and real conspecifics are discussed.

text: Aspects of hens’ visual behaviour Five experiments were conducted to examine different aspects of hens’ visual behaviour, and to assess whether hens respond to slide images in the same way as they respond to real conspecifics that those slides depict. Experiment 1 was a replication of a study by Candland (1969). Six domestic hens were trained to make simultaneous discriminations between slide images of conspecifics that differed only in combs, beaks and wattles. In further test trials these facial appendices were rearranged in all the possible combinations to determine which was the most salient. The comb appeared to be the most salient feature in both Candlan’s study and Experiment 1. In Experiment 2 the hens were retrained to discriminate between images of two different conspecifics, and then presented with the real object hens that the slides depicted. The subject hens did not discriminate between the real conspecifics. During Experiment 3 the same subject hens were presented with a series of different images, under the same conditions as Experiment 1. Test trials revealed that most hens discriminated between pairs of images on the basis of the uppermost feature, irrespective of whether that feature depicted part of a conspecific or a geometric shape. Backprojected sinusoidal grating patterns of varying contrast and spatial frequency were used to assess the visual resolution of four hens in Experiment 4. Contrast sensitivity functions were measured under two different viewing conditions. These two functions both spanned a range of low spatial frequencies, that is, showed that the hens had low visual acuity, and also differed in the ranges of spatial frequencies, indicating different levels of visual acuity for frontal and lateral viewing. Experiment 5 was designed to assess and demonstrate high-frequency image loss in hens. Four hens were trained to make simultaneous discriminations between two copies of one of the images used in Experiment 1. One of the copies had been blurred by removing high-frequency contrasts. During a subsequent test phase, the hens were presented with pairs of this image, with one of each pair blurred by removal of high-frequency contrasts across a range of cutoff frequencies. A mean threshold for discrimination of high-frequency image loss was measured at 2.237 cyc/° (cycles per degree of visual angle). Demonstrations of this image loss are shown in Experiment 5. 

Low visual resolution was measured for the hens - at around the same levels as pigeons and six-month old humans. It was concluded that hens do not respond to slide images in the same way as they respond to real conspecifics that those slides depict, but that they might learn to do so after extensive discrimination training with both types of stimuli. Possible influences of the hens’ low visual resolution on their inability to generalize responding across slide images and real conspecifics are discussed.

year: 2000

title: Revitalising the representation of Iranian women: A critical and creative exploration of gendered identity in the contemporary art of Iran.

authors: Nourmohammadi, Neda

abstract: Iranian women have been at the centre of many socio-political changes and challenges during the long history of their country. During those changes, the actualisation of their roles has nevertheless been constrained by religiously-based traditions: both ancient and recently-developed. The representation of women’s lives, whether carried out by artists within or outside Iran, has also been a factor that mis-represents what the lives and aspirations of Iranian women, particularly contemporary Iranian women, are like. They have frequently been depicted in stereotypical ways, covered with ‘the veil’, evoking connotations of oppression, segregation, and victimisation. The global media’s circulation of a small range of images of Iranian society, coupled with Iranian artistic and cultural producers choosing to represent Iranian women by using the same motifs as Islamic propagandists, arguably produces the impression of a lack of subjectivity and dynamicity in female identities in particular. These burdensome representational practices frustrate many Iranians but can only be discussed explicitly once an individual, such as myself, is outside the context of Iran. 
This qualitative research project includes a creative practice component and is set out within the theoretical and methodological framework of an autoethnographic approach. This approach draws on my personal experiences and points of view on different subjects raised from the research data. The practical component of this research involves an exhibition of my art-making practice engaging with the themes that emerged from my research data. Theoretically and practically, my research project is inspired by real events in the everyday life of Iranian society and my own life experience. I hoped to revitalise the representations of Iranian women with dynamic and subjective aspects of identities. 
The data in this research were collected in four stages. Firstly, I interviewed a number of Iranian women artists based inside and outside Iran to understand the main influences on my participant artists’ productions, and the ways in which these artists engage with social, political, ethnic, and gendered themes. Secondly, I asked the artists to provide me with one of their works they thought best exemplified their practice. I analysed these works using a Social Semiotic approach to understand how the participant artists represented identities in Iranian society, particularly those of women. Thirdly, I showed my participant artists’ works to different focus-groups to understand how they developed narratives about them that were sometimes similar to mine and sometimes different. And finally, I created a series of artworks to explore ways to associate expressions of a diasporic Iranian female identity with a more of subjective sense of ‘self’. 
The interview data revealed that the artists in my research sample and I share similar viewpoints about Iranian women’s identities in relation to social and political subjects; however, our strategies in approaching these subjects through art differ in some cases. Using Social Semiotics, my analysis of the visual data showed the complexity of the ways in which artists in my sample approached female subjects through their works; subsequently, the focus-group data also revealed complex interpretations of the artworks of my research sample among the members of different groups. Nevertheless, the combined findings from these stages showed significant parallels between the veil as an Islamic religious sign and discourses around ‘Muslim Women’ as being oppressed and obedient in patriarchal societies.  
By critically reviewing the analysis of my research data and relating them to my theoretical framework, I build the conceptual structure of my autoethnographic practice. Inspired by the works of artists in my sample, in my practice, I explored progressive ways to construct female subjects as having agency in relation to political themes and alternative positions. Ultimately, this research project suggests that the logical framework of an academic context offers a ground for conceptualising progressive strategies for representing gendered Iranian identity.

text: Revitalising the representation of Iranian women: A critical and creative exploration of gendered identity in the contemporary art of Iran. Iranian women have been at the centre of many socio-political changes and challenges during the long history of their country. During those changes, the actualisation of their roles has nevertheless been constrained by religiously-based traditions: both ancient and recently-developed. The representation of women’s lives, whether carried out by artists within or outside Iran, has also been a factor that mis-represents what the lives and aspirations of Iranian women, particularly contemporary Iranian women, are like. They have frequently been depicted in stereotypical ways, covered with ‘the veil’, evoking connotations of oppression, segregation, and victimisation. The global media’s circulation of a small range of images of Iranian society, coupled with Iranian artistic and cultural producers choosing to represent Iranian women by using the same motifs as Islamic propagandists, arguably produces the impression of a lack of subjectivity and dynamicity in female identities in particular. These burdensome representational practices frustrate many Iranians but can only be discussed explicitly once an individual, such as myself, is outside the context of Iran. 
This qualitative research project includes a creative practice component and is set out within the theoretical and methodological framework of an autoethnographic approach. This approach draws on my personal experiences and points of view on different subjects raised from the research data. The practical component of this research involves an exhibition of my art-making practice engaging with the themes that emerged from my research data. Theoretically and practically, my research project is inspired by real events in the everyday life of Iranian society and my own life experience. I hoped to revitalise the representations of Iranian women with dynamic and subjective aspects of identities. 
The data in this research were collected in four stages. Firstly, I interviewed a number of Iranian women artists based inside and outside Iran to understand the main influences on my participant artists’ productions, and the ways in which these artists engage with social, political, ethnic, and gendered themes. Secondly, I asked the artists to provide me with one of their works they thought best exemplified their practice. I analysed these works using a Social Semiotic approach to understand how the participant artists represented identities in Iranian society, particularly those of women. Thirdly, I showed my participant artists’ works to different focus-groups to understand how they developed narratives about them that were sometimes similar to mine and sometimes different. And finally, I created a series of artworks to explore ways to associate expressions of a diasporic Iranian female identity with a more of subjective sense of ‘self’. 
The interview data revealed that the artists in my research sample and I share similar viewpoints about Iranian women’s identities in relation to social and political subjects; however, our strategies in approaching these subjects through art differ in some cases. Using Social Semiotics, my analysis of the visual data showed the complexity of the ways in which artists in my sample approached female subjects through their works; subsequently, the focus-group data also revealed complex interpretations of the artworks of my research sample among the members of different groups. Nevertheless, the combined findings from these stages showed significant parallels between the veil as an Islamic religious sign and discourses around ‘Muslim Women’ as being oppressed and obedient in patriarchal societies.  
By critically reviewing the analysis of my research data and relating them to my theoretical framework, I build the conceptual structure of my autoethnographic practice. Inspired by the works of artists in my sample, in my practice, I explored progressive ways to construct female subjects as having agency in relation to political themes and alternative positions. Ultimately, this research project suggests that the logical framework of an academic context offers a ground for conceptualising progressive strategies for representing gendered Iranian identity.

year: 2019

title: Māori and community news constructions of Meningococcal B: the promotion of a moral obligation to vaccinate

authors: Groot, Shiloh Ann Maree

subjects: psychology

abstract: News media communicate various risks of disease, showcase medical breakthroughs and disseminate texts that both reflect and renegotiate shared cultural understandings of health and illness. Little is known about the role of Māori and community news media in the social negotiation of health and illness in Aotearoa. To address this gap in the literature, this paper reports findings from a study of news reporting on Meningococcal B by the Māori Television Service and two community newspapers serving Māori communities. Findings document how news works to position vaccination as a ‘common sense’ practice that whānau have a moral obligation to undergo. Neglected are wider socio-structural considerations that impact the prevalence of illness among Māori.

text: Māori and community news constructions of Meningococcal B: the promotion of a moral obligation to vaccinate News media communicate various risks of disease, showcase medical breakthroughs and disseminate texts that both reflect and renegotiate shared cultural understandings of health and illness. Little is known about the role of Māori and community news media in the social negotiation of health and illness in Aotearoa. To address this gap in the literature, this paper reports findings from a study of news reporting on Meningococcal B by the Māori Television Service and two community newspapers serving Māori communities. Findings document how news works to position vaccination as a ‘common sense’ practice that whānau have a moral obligation to undergo. Neglected are wider socio-structural considerations that impact the prevalence of illness among Māori.

year: 2007