DYSLEXIA_LITERATURE_ IMAGINATION

ART

ANDREW DAVID GREEN

SYNOPSIS dyslexia a general term for disorders that involve difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols, but that do not affect general intelligence. literature • written works, esp. those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit : a great work of literature.

• books and writings published on a particular subject : the literature on environmental epidemiology.

• the writings of a country or period : early French literature.

• leaflets and other printed matter used to advertise products or give advice.

• the production or profession of writing. imagination the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses : she’d never been blessed with a vivid imagination.

• the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful : technology gives workers the chance to use their imagination.

• the part of the mind that imagines things : a girl who existed only in my imagination.

• (visualize, envisage, envision, picture, see in the mind’s eye; dream up, think up/ of, conjure up, conceive, conceptualize; formal ideate)

SYNOPSIS / ABSTRACT / INTRODUCTION Dyslexia, Literature and the Imagination My project began with a conversation about my dyslexia. The graduate design thesis was established following a conversation about my personal experience growing up with dyslexia. The (idea/notion/conception) that my dyslexia has restricted me from reading my entire life. In particular, never reading a novel, which has (objectively/fundamentally) restricted my imagination…

Frustration at my inability to read and ingest text at an early age lead to a loathing avoidance. I used to look at people reading and wonder what possessed them, what pleasure was gained from it, when ever I attempted to read it would always lead to irritation, anger and disappointment.

From a very young age, emphasis was always on the visual. I have always been highly creative, imaginative and dexterous, spending much of my time drawing, painting, modeling, building, playing computer games and making music.

Throughout my education I have only developed visually. I had weaknesses in literacy and numeracy and strengths in art, design and graphics. I almost felt as if something was preventing me from grasping the fundamentals of literacy or numeracy, and perhaps to compensate for these deficiencies, I developed my skills in the subjects I had strengths in.

Subsequently, I have been using audiobooks, and through the medium of the spoken word, a collection of novels has opened up my eyes to an unknown pleasure; the delight and satisfaction of understanding a novels plot, theme and context. Contrasted against my previously visual methodologies, I am experiencing something completely new; ingesting information and imagining without any previous visual criteria; complex sensory environments, figurative constructs, captured movements, elements of nostalgia, ambiguity, light, colour, smell, anger, fear, ephemerality and atmosphere.

There is tremendous potential in the theory as it gives licence to imagine and dream all without any external visual precedent, opening up an endless field of opportunities.

“Imagination is everything, It is the preview of life’s coming attractions” Albert Einstein.

ART

A A series artworks,

R

T

of abstract allegorical collages and vignettes,

Attempt t o translate (ambiguities/) A physical representation/manifestation of the (imagination/experience/research and analysis) Each artwork responds directly to (individual/collective) themes and scenarios within the novels; exploring space, atmosphere, ephemerality, dreams, form, colour, surrealism. Intent on the provocation of emotions, feelings, imagination and ideas Intuitivly respond in a compositional, symbolic and figurative (manner/process/format/mode) Figurative; “representing forms that are recognizably derived from life�. (metaphorical, nonliteral, symbolic, allegorical, representative, emblematic.)

COMMONALITIES Addiction Acid House ATMOSPHERE Ambiguity Amnesia Anatomy Anesthesia ANGER Art / Sculpture Aspiration Battery farm Big Brother Birds Singing Book-films Brainwashing Bullying Caffeine Cavernous Space Chaos CHEMICAL GENERATION Chocolate Christianity Cocaine COLOUR Coma Composing Music Contrast Control Conversation room CORRUPTION Crime Crowds Cynical Darkness Delusion Dehumanization Depression Deranged/Disturbing Deterioration Deviance Dichotomy/Duality Dominance Dreams Drive-in!

DRUGS DYSTOPIA ECCENTRICITY Electronica Emotions / Feelings Enclosure Ephemerality Evil Fame Fantasy FAT Fire and FLUORESCENCE Football Forest Of Umbrellas France Freedom

Fried Potatoes Friendship Fury Future Gambling Globalisation Government Grotesque Surrealism Haçienda HALLUCINATION Hate Hedonism HISTORY HIERARCHY Hyperreality Hunting Hurt Ignorance Ikea Illegible Illiterate Illusion Imaginary director Imaginary geography Imagination Imagination / Ideas Indulgence Information Age Innovation Insomnia Insanity Instability Irrationality Isolation Karova Milkbar LABRYNTH Laughter Leadership LIGHT Loathing Loneliness Lunacy Machinery Madness Marijuana Masculine Misogynistic Morbid MURDER Names are registered at birth NARCISSISM NARCOTICS Nightmares NOSTALGIA ‘Novels’ Office cubicle Oppression Orgy

Paralasis PARANOIA Parasitic Pictures Peace Pneumonia Police POLITICS PORNOGRAPHY Power Prostitution PSYCHEDELIA PSYCHOANALYSIS Psychosis Pyramid Racism Rape Rehabilitation Religion / Christianity Restricted reproduction Rhyming slang Robots Russian constructivism SCHIZOPHRENIA Scriptorium Seaside Sensations Sensory SEX Sexual deviancy Shouting/Screaming Sinister Slavery Sleaze Sleeping Smells Socialism SOCIETY Socio-political Speed/Traffic Stalinism Stone architecture Subliminal messages Supernatural SURREALISM Symphonic Music Truth Umbrella Unique names UTOPIA Vile Vision Void WAR Wasps (Cadavours) Water Whores Wild Wind

CONTENTS #01/ #02/ #03/ #04/ #05/ #06/ #07/ #08/ #09/ #10/ #11/ #12/ #13/ #14/ #15/ #16/ #17/ #18/ #19/ #20/ #21/ #22/ #23/ #24/ #25/ #26/ #27/ #28/ #29/ #30/ #31/ #32/ #33/ #34/ #35/ #36/ #37/ #38/

FEAR COKE COMA GAME FOXTEL BLOODHEAD GRAPHITE FAME VOID CORPUS SHEP KAROVA BLACK DIAMOND FLY CONTROL FILTH WASP TAPEWORM PORNO CAVERN CYMK FAT CADAVOUR PIER 1986 KZ6090 SITE MEDULA UMBRELLA ATOM CONSTELLATE RHINO NEONHEART VIOLA SPUME NARC DECAY JOLT

#39/ #40/ #41/ #42/ #43/ #44/ #45/ #46/ #47/ #48/ #49/ #50/ #51/ #52/ #53/ #54/ #55/

FAME-DOT PYLON OFFAL OPTIC SONAR DOIT CLAY MOW READ NETWORK ROBOT STENIN NOVA SYSTEM SITUATION TERYAN VEAL

‘Butterfly

“Swimming

hearing’

up

from

the

mists

of

coma”

The

Butterflys

that

flutter

inside

my

head

“the

few

cubic

centimeters

inside

your

head�

“Lashings

Dreary

of

the

socialist

old

Ultraviolet”

England

Karova

Hoodlooms

Dreary

Milkbar

take

over

Socialist

after

dark

England

Symphonic

music;

Motzart

/

baque

“Lashings

of

the

old

Ultraviolet”

Nightmare

vision

of

a

totalitarian

society

F

A

T

“ravels;

balero”

“smell

of

fried

potatoes”

“apart

from

my

left

eye,

there

are

two

thing

that

are

not

paralysed;

my

imagination

and

my

memory�

“The

waitress

is

fucking

a

polar

bear”

Nobody

reads

anymore

“a

forest

of

umbrellas”

“dissolve

into

the

landscape�

“Riding

a

gigantic

pony”

“Spinning

towards

the

naked

sun�

“a

‘Brother

decent

book

film”

Librarian’

Gold

and

silver

wings

A

small

bullet

of

metal

moving

through

emptiness

Introduction: when viewing our visual environment we have to make a serious of saccades in order to direct our fixation to regions of interest. Regions of interest will often be looked at first, viewed for longer and attract more fixations. These eye scanning patterns reveal ongoing cognitive processing as it happens such as participant’s motivation, preference and attention.

Background Research: Bradley et al (2000), Benson et al (2007) and Boraston & Blakemore (2007) argue that the distribution of fixations when looking at a scene can reveal differences in individual’s mental activities. For example Klin et al (2002) found that autistic children direct more fixations at the mouth of a face rather than the eyes, compared to control participants who would always view the eyes first then the nose and mouth. Also Prado, Dubois & Valdois (2007) found that dyslexia participants made a higher number of rightward fixations in reading plus that normal reader’s process far more letters, these findings seem to reflect difficulties in dyslexic participants to increase their visual attention span. Moreover Hawelka & Wimmer (2004) found dyslexia participants have a multi element processing deficit. This may provide information to allow the possibility of early detection and assessment of mental deficits such as depression, schizophrenic, dyslexia and autism.

Up to 17% of school ages children are affected by dyslexia or autism. In the University of Lincoln alone there is … with dyslexia and ….with autism. Despite extensive research in to the area there is of yet no reliable and objective assessment method in identifying the disorders especially in children. Furthermore there is also no certainty in how visual processing adding to certain learning difficulties or mental disorders. There could be a number of deficits including shorter saccade distance, longer viewing time in fixations, and focus on local rather the global analysis.

Aims: We aim to investigate how efficiently visual information can be processed in dyslexic students compared to normal student controls seeing how they view natural images and comparing fixational, saccadic and smooth pursuit eye movements.

In addition we aim to find to what degree eye scanning patterns and related to dyslexia. The study also intends to gain a better insight in to the cognitive processes underlying learning deficits to aid faster detection.

Method: Participants: Participants as yet are 30 students from the University of Lincoln (mean age= , SD= ,) 15 participants were dyslexic and 15 were normal controls. Of the participants 12 were female and 12 were male. All had normal or corrected to normal vision.

Procedure: 1. Participant information was collected including testing for dominant eye.

2. Handness and mood test was completed.

3. A practice using the high-speed infra-red eye tracker where participants were showed results.

4. Participants did tasks measuring their ability to fixate, pursuit, saccade and anti saccade (The fixation task involved participants focusing on a central dot and ignoring all others until the dot disappeared.

The pursuit task required participants to follow a dot as laterally moved across the screen increasing in speed. The saccade task involved participants focusing on the central dot until disappearing and then moving their fixation to a dot that appear either side of the original dot. Anti saccade also involves focusing on the central dot until it disappeared however when a dot a appear to the side if it participants were told to ignore the dot and focus in the black space on the other side equal distance to the central dot.)

Participants were asked at this stage if they would like a short break.

5.Participants performed routine neuropsychological tests (WAIS-III) including the block design and vocabulary test.

6.Participants were shown 3 sets of photos were presented on the computer screen and were asked to view them as they normally would.

7.The finial set of photos were of visual illusions and participants were testing as to whether they could see them Ethics: The experiment should cause no physical, mental or psychological harm. Informed consent was obtained before we tested each participant; also other ethical concerns such as keeping all data confidential and they are free to withdraw from the study at any time were explained fully. The experiment complied with “Ethical Principles for Conducting Research with Human Participants” (British Psychology Society) and the Ethical Approval Form (EA2) were submitted to the Departmental Ethical Committee.

Results: The study is still on going and data analysis has not yet been performed. In total we aim to test at least 15 normal controls and 15 dyslexic participants. We did replicate previous findings showing normal controls when viewing a face do first look at the eyes then nose creating a triangle pattern this can be seen on the photo.

Further research: Future research may include testing autistic people as well as people with other learning disabilities and metal health problems to investigate how visual processing contributes to specific deficits in order to establish an assessment method that could be used for early detection.

References: Klin, A., Jones, W., Schultz, R., Volkmar, F., & Cohen, D. (2002). Defining and quantifying the social phenotype in autism. American Psychiatric association. 159, 895-908.

Hawelka, S. & Wimmer, H. (2005). Impaired visual processing of multi-element arrays is associated with increased number of eye movements in dyslexic reading. Vision research. 45, pg 855-863.

Prado, C., Dubois, M., & Valdois, S. (2007). The eye movement of dyslexic children during reading and visual search: Impact of the visual attention span. Vision research. 47, 2521- 2530.

Boraston, Z., & Blackmore, S,J. (2007). The application of eye tracking technology in the study of autism. Journal of physiology, 581, 893-898

ARTWORKS ANDREW DAVID GREEN / 0141463952 BARCH ARCHITECTURE RIBA PT II / LINCOLN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE