731 research outputs found
Translation and response between Maurice Blanchot and Lydia Davis
No full textWhen an author translates a text by another writer, this translation is one form of a response to that text. Other responses may appear in their own writings that are more inflected with their authorial persona. Lydia Davis translated six books by Maurice Blanchot, including fiction and theoretical writings. Blanchot’s concept of the récit privileges non-conventional forms of narrative and it can be considered to have influenced Davis, a view shared in critical writing about Davis. However, responses to his fiction can also be found in Davis’s work. This article reads Lydia Davis’s story “Story” as a response to Maurice Blanchot’s récit, La Folie du jour, translated by Davis as “The Madness of the Day”. Both texts develop a narrative that questions the possibility of arriving at a single story: Blanchot’s narrator cannot tell the story of how he came to have glass ground into his eyes, while Davis’s narrator must try to understand a contradictory story told to her by her lover. However, Davis responds to Blanchot by reversing the perspective in the story: where Blanchot’s narrator must and cannot create a story that explains his situation in a judicial/medical context, Davis’s narrator is struggling to understand her lover’s story which does not explain the situation that they find themselves in. Davis’s narrator is therefore motivated by an emotional need to find an acceptable story that is absent from Blanchot’s narrator. This difference in motivation is central to the difference between Davis’s and Blanchot’s approach, and complicates any reading of his influence on her because she responds to his text in her own
I never forget a face!
No full textMemory: Josh P. Davis, Ashok Jansari and Karen Lander investigate super-recognisers in the police and the general public
CCTV and the super-recognisers
No full textIn the past ten years, UK and international police, security and other businesses have increasingly drawn on the skills of super-recognisers, who possess exceptionally good face recognition ability. New jobs have been created and workplace practices changed. These innovations were initially driven by London’s Metropolitan Police Service, backed by the research evidence of Dr Josh P Davis at the University of Greenwich. This resulted in thousands of identifications of criminal suspects mainly from CCTV images. The establishment of the world’s first full-time Super-Recogniser Unit at New Scotland Yard led to international police, media, and museum interest, and has even inspired authors of fiction. More than 6,000,000 participants worldwide have since taken one of Davis’ face recognition tests, with a substantial proportion contributing to a growing body of research. This work will be assessed by the Research Excellence Framework (2021), which appraises the contributions of UK universities. Research impact is one of its key performance indicators, and the economic benefits from job creation and crime detection, as well as the public engagement, and cultural impact of this body of psychological research, enterprise and consultancy are likely to be recognised as having substantial international impact
The development of holistic face processing in children: a variation of the composite face effect
No full textObjectives: Holistic face processing is considered a developmental face recognition marker, and is often assessed using the Composite Face Effect. This research, comparing adults and young children, employed chimeric (vertically-split) hemi-faces as a paradigm variation. Horizontally separated (gap) and vertically separated (misaligned) conditions measured release from holistic binding. A simultaneous matching condition, examined whole face processing. Images were constructed from photographs of a single target (Target present - TP), or of two different targets (Target absent – TA). Overall, children’s performance was expected to be inferior to adults. However, with less developed holistic binding processes, their performance at TA hemi-face discrimination might be comparatively superior.
Design: A 2 (age: adult, children) x 4 (image condition: matching, chimeric, gap, misaligned) x 5 (image identity: TP-Same, TP-Mirrored, TP-Different, TA-Similar (physical appearance), TA-Dissimilar) mixed design was employed. Accuracy and response time data were collected.
Methods: Participants (21 adults; 27 children) provided speeded ‘same’ or ‘different’ identity responses to randomly presented images across conditions.
Results: No response time effects across age groups were significant. Adults were more accurate in the gap, matching and the chimeric conditions, but not misaligned trials. TA-Similar accuracy, particularly in children was worse than TA-Dissimilar.
Conclusions: In matching and chimeric trials children displayed equivalent but inferior patterns of performance to adults, suggesting that expertise develops with age. There were no age group differences in the misaligned trials. Children’s gap condition accuracy was considerably worse suggesting that they release less readily from holistic binding with horizontally, but not vertically separated hemi-face images
Computer assisted photo-anthropometric analyses of full-face and profile facial images
No full textExpert witnesses using facial comparison techniques are regularly required to disambiguate cases of disputed identification in CCTV images and other photographic evidence in court. This paper describes a novel software-assisted photo-anthropometric facial landmark identification system, DigitalFace tested against a database of 70 full-face and profile images of young males meeting a similar description. The system produces 37 linear and 25 angular measurements across the two viewpoints. A series of 64 analyses were conducted to examine whether separate novel probe facial images of target individuals whose face dimensions were already stored within the database would be correctly identified as the same person. Identification verification was found to be unreliable unless multiple distance and angular measurements from both profile and full-face images were included in an analysis
Advancing Natural History Research Using the Collections of the OWU Brant Museum of Zoology
No full textNatural history collections are important repositories of biological and geological material. Biological collections provide raw data to interpret the ecology, anatomy, and evolution of living and fossil organisms. OWU’s zoological collections play an important role in undergraduate research and educating future preparators. Two projects are currently in progress: Kyle Davis’ work on size variation in house sparrows and Josh Pletcher’s work digitizing OWU’s collection of Ward’s fossil casts. We travelled to museums in New York and Connecticut to further pursue our research. Kyle Davis’ research focuses on Bergmann’s Rule, which states that as temperature decreases, body size increases, decreasing surface area and minimizing heat loss. House sparrows (Passer domesticus) are an ideal study species as they are prevalent across North America and in museum collections. Birds in colder latitudes were expected to be larger than those in warmer latitudes. Tarsometatarsus, wing chord, and beak dimensions were measured on specimens from OWU and eight other institutions. Although sparrows were slightly larger in colder latitudes, these results were not significant (ANOVA, P \u3e 0.05). This suggests that evolutionary pressure to increase size was not strong enough to produce noticeable effects. Josh Pletcher’s research involves OWU’s collection of fossil casts from Ward’s Natural Science, originally established as a museum supply house. After their 1869 purchase, the casts were gradually overlooked and forgotten. Initial work focused on locating and identifying casts. We visited Wesleyan University to discuss cast restoration techniques, followed by the University of Rochester, which holds Ward’s papers. In 2018, the Brant Museum of Zoology was awarded a grant by the Mellon Foundation to digitize and photograph the Ward’s casts; current efforts are directed at photography and migrating data to Arctos. Future steps include investigating casts OWU donated to The Ohio State University, and restoring our casts to their original state
Comparing individual and morphed facial composites constructed using feature-based and holistic systems
No full textFacial composites produced by eyewitnesses with the assistance of the police are often a poor likeness to the offender. However, recently developed computerized systems that are designed to closely utilize the holistic processes implicated in face perception may provide a solution. Experiments are reported in which composites produced using E-FIT, a feature-based system, were compared to EFIT-V, a contemporary holistic system. No system differences in similarity to the target were found. However, morphing up to 16 composites from both systems was found to be advantageous, resulting in increased likeness ratings to the target and also increased correct naming rates
University Jazz Orchestra, October 8, 1998
No full textRecorded during a live performance at Dalton Center Recital Hall, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, October 8, 1998, 8:00 p.m., the 49th concert of the School of Music's 1998-1999 season.University Jazz Orchestra, Trent Kynaston, director ; various instrumental soloists ; and featuring the WMU Jazz Quintet (Shawn Wallace, James Danderfer, saxophones ; Chris Sargent, piano ; Lyman Medeiros, bass ; Quincy Davis, drums.Information from performance program.Hurdy gurdy / Randy Brecker ; arranged by Tom Matta (soloists: Marc Landes, Carl Cafagna, Quincy Davis) -- Blues for Stephany / John Clayton, Jr. (soloists: Chris Sargent, Raphael Crawford, Ryan Bullard, James Danderfer, Carl Cafagna) -- Erin's eyes / Fred Hamilton (Dave Lambert, trombone) -- 305 / Jim McNeely (soloists: Shawn Wallace, Dave Lambert) -- Eileen / Shawn Wallace -- Chump change / Quincy Davis -- Dizzyland / Don Menza (soloists: Tim Priddy, Ryan Bullard, Marc Landes, Josh Kaser) -- March of the tadpoles / Toshiko Akiyoshi (soloists: Shawn Wallace, Ryan Bullard, Raphael Crawford, Dave Lambert, James Danderfer) -- Tango sweet. II. The more I seek solitude, the less of it I find (soloist: Shawn Wallace) ; III. Sabine's dance (soloists: Carl Cafagna, Chris Sargent, Quincy Davis) / Trent Kynaston
A comparison of individual and morphed facial composites created using different systems
No full textAn evaluation of individual and morphed composites created using the E-FIT and EFIT-V production systems was conducted. With the assistance of trained police staff, composites of unfamiliar targets were constructed from memory following a Cognitive Interview. EFIT-V composite production followed either a two-day delay, or on the same day as viewing a video of the target. E-FIT composites were created on the same day as viewing the target video. Morphs were produced from merging either two, or three composites created by the same witness, but with the assistance of a different operator. Participants familiar with the targets supplied similarity-to-target photograph ratings. No differences were found in the rated quality of composites created using E-FIT or EFIT-V, although a two-day delay in production resulted in inferior images. Morphs were rated as better likenesses than individual composites, although the benefits were greater with EFIT-Vs. Encouraging witnesses to create more than one composite image for subsequent morphing might enhance the likelihood of recognition of facial composites of criminals
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