Browsing by Subject "Semiotics"
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Item Are icons pictures or logographical words? Statistical, behavioral, and neuroimaging measures of semantic interpretations of four types of visual information(2012-05) Huang, Sheng-Cheng; Bias, Randolph G.; Dillon, Andrew; Francisco-Revilla, Luis; Schnyer, David; Sussman, HarveyThis dissertation is composed of three studies that use statistical, behavioral, and neuroimaging methods to investigate Chinese and English speakers’ semantic interpretations of four types of visual information including icons, single Chinese characters, single English words, and pictures. The goal is to examine whether people cognitively process icons as logographical words. By collecting survey data from 211 participants, the first study investigated how differently these four types of visual information can express specific meanings without ambiguity on a quantitative scale. In the second study, 78 subjects participated in a behavioral experiment that measured how fast people could correctly interpret the meaning of these four types of visual information in order to estimate the differences in reaction times needed to process these stimuli. The third study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with 20 participants selected from the second study to identify brain regions that were needed to process these four types of visual information in order to determine if the same or different neural networks were required to process these stimuli. Findings suggest that 1) similar to pictures, icons are statistically more ambiguous than English words and Chinese characters to convey the immediate semantics of objects and concepts; 2) English words and Chinese characters are more effective and efficient than icons and pictures to convey the immediate semantics of objects and concepts in terms of people’s behavioral responses, and 3) according to the neuroimaging data, icons and pictures require more resources of the brain than texts, and the pattern of neural correlates under the condition of reading icons is different from the condition of reading Chinese characters. In conclusion, icons are not cognitively processed as logographical words like Chinese characters although they both stimulate the semantic system in the brain that is needed for language processing. Chinese characters and English words are more evolved and advanced symbols that are less ambiguous, more efficient and easier for a literate brain to understand, whereas graphical representations of objects and concepts such as icons and pictures do not always provide immediate and unambiguous access to meanings and are prone to various interpretations.Item C.S. Peirce's system of science and an application to the visual arts(Texas Tech University, 1985-05) Scott, Frances WilliamNot availableItem General interest magazine language preference among Hispanics(Texas Tech University, 2004-08) Galvez, Robert AnthonyAn experiment was conducted to determine if there was a relationship between the way language is presented in a magazine article and Hispanics' perceptions of the article. Two hundred and seventeen respondents in west Texas read articles in Spanish, English and a mix of English with Spanish. Subjects were given a questionnaire to identify their affinity toward the articles, their ability to understand the articles, and their perceptions of the news value of the articles. The ARSMA-II scale was used to evaluate respondent's level of acculturation. Data analysis revealed Hispanics preferred the articles written in English and the mix of English and Spanish to the articles written in Spanish alone. No relationship was found between level of acculturation and preference for language presentation style.Item Item Perpetual displacement as a creative and critical strategy of inquiry into sites of meaning(Texas Tech University, 2002-05) Bauer, GeorgeDisplacement is a major mode of thematic and formal stmcturing in much of contemporary art, usually present at the intersections of creation and critique. The concept of displacement was introduced by Freud and used in Derrida's deconstmction. This dissertation theorizes the contemporary expanded register of displacement beyond its use in deconstmction. It suggests how displacement can overcome its roots in binary logic, and become perpetual, by flmctioning as a deferral, which creates nonbinary alterities. The study shows how perpetual displacement enables rhizomatic nonhierarchical coimections, and supports a way to nonbinary, nonhierarchical postplacements. Based on the analysis of the art works of seven artists the study proposes a dynamic model of perpetual displacement as a critical and creative strategy. Perpetual displacement is defined as a strategy that works against the notions of an essential, static, timeless, and naturalized stmcturing of an independent reality as something, which can be discovered. It rests on a presupposition that there is no place outside of discourse and for that reason all the products of discourse are suspicious and should be subjected to perpetual displacement critique. Postmodern thought is no longer binary, and what we must leam to conceive is difference without opposition. Perpetual displacement enables us to enter "between space" created by the basic premise of art criticism that there is always more to the intentional object than what is present. In order to understand presence, we have to displace perpetually experience from defining presence, to keep open the borders of what can be imagined. In art, perpetual displacement strategy by keeping the presence in perpetual crisis, and by forcing its failure, enables an artist to make inroads for the transcendence of the real. Perpetual displacement can be thought of as context itself thus displacing futile pursuit of metaphysics of origin. Perpetual displacement is a nonhierarchical betweenness, which builds working connections between hermeneutics and deconstmction, between discursive and physical realms, between transcendental philosophy and lived experiences of phenomenology. It is a strategy empowering artist and critic to challenge the limits of our understanding, and to expand the limits of what can be imagined.Item Semiotics of music, semiotics of sound, and film : toward a theory of acousticons(2015-08) Newton, Alex Michael; Buhler, James, 1964-; Neumeyer, David; Hatten, Robert; Drott, Eric; Staiger, JanetTopic theory, the study of conventional musical figures, has emerged as a significant method of analysis for music scholars in the last thirty years. Much current research critically interprets and contextualizes topics from a variety of musical eras and styles, including film music. However, studying film presents music scholars with a new set of issues since the filmic medium not only includes visual signs in the form of the image track, but also another category of sonic signs in the form of sound design. In film sound tracks, musical signs and sonic signs frequently butt up against one another and even pass into one another’s domain. My dissertation seeks to bridge the current gap between music figures and sound figures by arguing that musical figures are best considered as a special case of general sound figures that I call acousticons. Acousticons are conventionalized figures of music or sound (e.g. reverb, fidelity) and they exist on a continuum defined by the poles of purely musical codes on the one hand and purely sonic codes on the other. Chapter 1 presents a general model of the acousticon using Peirce’s modes of the sign. It interrogates iconic models presented in media studies and iconography as possible corollaries to the sound track. Chapter 2 and 3 present case studies of acousticons. Chapter 2 gives a case study of acousticons of the subjective interior in the form of the lowered submediant and subjective, point-of-audition sound. Chapter 3 considers how films deploy reverberation and low fidelity recordings acousticonically to bring about different types of nostalgia. Chapter 4 considers the potential for acousticons outside of the sound track medium. It looks at how acousticons might work in audio branding. Specifically, it looks at the construction of sonic logos, product sound, and the use of popular music in advertising and product design.Item The mise in scene of The belle of Amherst: The process of the actress(Texas Tech University, 1983-12) Buckner, DebiNot availableItem Utilizing A.R.I.E.L., Agricultural Resources Intelligent Educational Lecturer, in the Formational Study of Understanding Before and After Perceptions of Agricultural Industry Leaders and Representational Consumers in an Applied Convenience Sampling(2014-05-30) Atkins, Colton AllenThis thesis aimed to determine where agricultural information was acquired by individuals in an agriculturally-related occupation in Texas and individuals 18 years of age or older involved with or within Texas agricultural higher education or extension environments. It also aimed to determine adoption attitude towards utilizing a new media form to acquire agricultural information. Research sought to identify the most common information sources used to obtain agricultural data. Evaluation of sources used to obtain agricultural data allows identification of foundations, links, and gaps from an individual's perspective on inquiring about production agriculture. Also, this study sought to survey individual?s reaction and any possible perception change to using an online information source to obtain agricultural data. Observing reaction and perception change allowed for assessment of retention and engagement. A descriptive, convergent parallel mixed-methods design was employed to identify self-reported, commonly used information sources used to gather information about production agriculture. Quantitative research questions sought answers to identify knowledge levels compared to non-agriculturally minded consumers, commonly used information sources for knowledge acquisition, engagement with agricultural events and technology adoption characteristics. Research questions addressed through qualitative methods focused on individual?s use of an online information source and any possible perception change towards information provided. This study found that there were no strong reportable differences between the two groups in use of information sources or reaction towards an online information source. Even though group averages were not extremely different, the results did not show any real direction to one source of commonality. Any differences discovered turned out to be small. The same applied to research findings and added to the problem of trying to find a common information source. Overall, results presented were not representational of the entire study population due to low response rates. As such, no conclusions could be made from this study. This thesis recommends that further study of information sources, new technology, perception changes, and tools used to acquire agricultural information be further studied.Item The virtual observing agent in music: a theory of agential perspective as implied by indexical gesture(2015-08) Gerg, Ian Wyatt; Hatten, Robert S.; Almén, Byron; Drott, Eric; Pearsall, Edward; Erk, KatrinThe human body is inseparable from our understanding of music. Through embodied cognition, listeners conceptualize music as performed action. We find evidence of this in our most fundamental musical language. “High” pitches resonate high in a singer’s head, while “fast” rhythms resemble fast bodily movement. Scholars have followed the entailments of these metaphors in recent decades, developing theories of bodily gesture (Hatten 2004, Lidov 2005) and physical mimesis (Cox 2011). These hold that the bodily movement that we hear in music can imitate the physical gestures that we use in everyday communication (e.g., waving, nodding, bowing, or sighing). This has its own entailments; most fundamentally, it implies the presence of a virtual, human-like agent within music that is similar to the “virtual persona” theorized by Edward T. Cone (1974). In other words, in perceiving musical sounds as imitative of physical movement and gesture, we infer the presence of a virtual agent who enacts them. This dissertation extends these theories, demonstrating that musical gestures can be mimetic of indexical somatic movements—that is, bodily movements of pointing, looking, striving, and reaching. These indexical gestures suggest the presence of a virtual observing agent. The virtual observing agent acts a lens through which we, the listener, can experience the interior world (diegesis) of a work. This leads us to embody a single and more individualized perspective on the musical representation. I explore the implications of indexical gesture and perspective with an examination of music from the common practice period. Moreover, I bring the theory of virtual observing agency together with theories of musical narrative and emotion.Item Whose fly is this? and the beginning of Moscow linguistic conceptualism : text and image in the early works of Ilya Kabakov (1962-1966)(2011-05) Toteva, Maia; Shiff, Richard; Clarke, John; Henderson, Linda; Charlesworth, Michael; Reynolds, Ann; Wettlaufer, AlexandraThis dissertation examines the early works of the Russian artist Ilya Kabakov and traces the beginning of a linguistic trend in the development of Moscow Conceptualism. Analyzing the drawings and paintings that the artist created between 1962 and 1966, I place Kabakov’s artistic style and ideas in the context of the cultural, theoretical and scientific phenomena that affected Soviet art and society in the early 1960s. Kabakov’s works are shown as evolving in a process that renders the artist’s techniques increasingly polysemantic, dialogic and conceptual. The dissertation then demonstrates that Kabakov’s visual images and linguistic titles participated, indirectly yet actively, in the cultural debates of Moscow’s artistic underground and the Soviet society. The dynamic correspondence between a fervent cultural context, growing interest in linguistic and scientific ideas, increasing conceptualization of visual means of expression and intellectualization of the artistic approach to the image led to the appropriation of language in the works of Moscow underground artists. The dissertation establishes such a development in the early works of Ilya Kabakov, proposing that his earliest “conversational” work Whose Fly is This? was the first conceptual painting to display text in the form of a written dialogue. The colloquial style and conversational character of the depicted discourse are examined as an ironic gesture that takes its genesis from the polyphonic theory of Mikhail Bakhtin and reverses the official non-dialogical imperatives of Soviet newspeak and ideology. The main figural image of the painting—the fly—is seen as articulating the utopias and anti-utopias of avant-garde figures such as Kharms or Malevich and interpreted as alluding to a key contemporaneous scientific discovery—the chromosomes of the drosophila. In the end, the words and the image of Whose Fly is This? form the two mutually exclusive and mutually complementary aspects of a compound conceptual signifier. That is the signifier of the free artistic spirit, evanescent human existence and mundane, yet resilient human nature that ironically survives—against all odds and despite all absurdities—beyond the boundary of the social utopia and the limits of epistemological systems.