369 research outputs found
An online study on the impact of socio-economic position and lifestyle factors on auditory function in middle aged adults
No full textHearing loss is frequently accepted as an unavoidable consequence of ageing. However, not everyone will experience age-related hearing loss (ARHL), in fact ~29% of people aged 70+ years are unaffected (Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), 2020). It may be the case that modifiable lifestyle factors and health inequalities lead to an increased likelihood of hearing loss in older age. Hearing loss is not only a challenging sensory deficit; it is related to reduced wellbeing (Rutherford et al., 2018), social isolation (Dawes et al., 2015), and is the largest modifiable risk factor for dementia (Livingston et al., 2020). In addition, a nationally representative study in England identified hearing loss as a causal factor for depression; the socioeconomic position of participants influenced the strength of the relationship between hearing loss and depression, and poorer people had up to double the relative risk for depression compared to their affluent counterparts (Tsimpida et el., 2022). Understanding the factors, notwithstanding ageing, which contribute to hearing difficulty in later life will highlight avenues for intervention and reduce the burden of hearing loss on both the individual, and the health care system. Previous research highlights that lower socioeconomic position (incorporating education, occupation, and income factors), and lifestyle variables (including body mass index, physical inactivity, smoking and alcohol consumption) are associated with poorer hearing acuity, as strongly as age and gender (Tsimpida et al., 2019). The link between SEP, lifestyle factors, and hearing loss is multifaceted (Tsimpida et al., 2021). SEP factors, including education attainment, occupation, and monetary resources, contribute to social and health inequality (Tsimpida et al., 2021). Such factors increase the likelihood of: high-noise exposure occupations (Pierre et al., 2012); financial barriers to audiological treatments (Tsimpida et al., 2019); stress due to financial resources leading to unhealthy eating; and increased smoking and alcohol consumption (Dawes et al., 2014; Tsimpida et al., 2021). Critically, SEP disparities create situations in which prioritising behaviours for hearing health is not an option for a proportion of the population. This research plans to confirm and build upon previous literature to understand how SEP and lifestyle factors impact on speech perception ability in middle age adults. In undertaking this research, we seek to highlight which, if any, factors affect speech in noise perception ability as a precursor to hearing loss in older age. Identifying the factors which can predict this early indicator of potential hearing loss will allow for early implementation of lifestyle interventions to address risk factors, encourage uptake of hearing aids in lower SEP groups, and ultimately reduce hearing health inequalities. Our research question is: to understand the contribution of socioeconomic position (incorporating level of education, occupation, and income) as well as demographic information (including region of residence, ethnicity), and modifiable health-related lifestyle factors (including body mass index, physical activity, smoking status, and alcohol consumption), while controlling for age and gender, on speech perception ability in middle aged adults (45-65 years). To investigate this question, we will recruit participants aged 45-65 years to take part in an online research study wherein they will complete demographic questionnaires on SEP and lifestyle, and a behavioural speech perception in noise task (the digits in noise task (DiN)). We will use multiple linear regression to investigate the impact of our various predictors (SEP, lifestyle factors, age, and gender) on the outcome measure of speech perception. We will use model comparison methods, in which predictor variables are systematically removed from the analysis, to determine which combination of predictors provide the best fit for our data, this indicating which factors contribute to speech perception ability in middle age adults. References Dawes, P., Cruickshanks, K. J., Moore, D. R., Edmondson-Jones, M., McCormack, A., Fortnum, H., & Munro, K. J. (2014). Cigarette smoking, passive smoking, alcohol consumption, and hearing loss. JARO - Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, 15(4). Dawes, P., Emsley, R., Cruickshanks, K. J., Moore, D. R., Fortnum, H., Edmondson-Jones, M., McCormack, A., & Munro, K. J. (2015). Hearing Loss and Cognition: The Role of Hearing Aids, Social Isolation and Depression. PLoS ONE, 10(3). Livingston, G., Huntley, J., Sommerlad, A., Ames, D., Ballard, C., Banerjee, S., Brayne, C., Burns, A., Cohen-Mansfield, J., Cooper, C., Costafreda, S. G., Dias, A., Fox, N., Gitlin, L. N., Howard, R., Kales, H. C., Kivimäki, M., Larson, E. B., Ogunniyi, A., … Mukadam, N. (2020). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2020 report of the Lancet Commission. The Lancet, 396(10248), 413–446. Pierre, P. V., Fridberger, A., Wikman, A., & Alexanderson, K. (2012). Self-reported hearing difficulties, main income sources, and socio-economic status; A cross-sectional population-based study in Sweden. BMC Public Health, 12(1). Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID). (2020). Hearing Matters. https://rnid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Hearing-Matters-Report.pdf Rutherford, B. R., Brewster, K., Golub, J. S., Kim, A. H., & Roose, S. P. (2018). Sensation and Psychiatry: Linking Age-Related Hearing Loss to Late-Life Depression and Cognitive Decline. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 175(3), 215–224. Tsimpida, D., Kontopantelis, E., Ashcroft, D. M., & Panagioti, M. (2021). Conceptual Model of Hearing Health Inequalities (HHI Model): A Critical Interpretive Synthesis. Trends in Hearing (25). Tsimpida, D., Kontopantelis, E., Ashcroft, D., & Panagioti, M. (2019). Socioeconomic and lifestyle factors associated with hearing loss in older adults: A cross-sectional study of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). BMJ Open, 9(9). Tsimpida, D., Kontopantelis, E., Ashcroft, D. M., & Panagioti, M. (2022). The dynamic relationship between hearing loss, quality of life, socioeconomic position and depression and the impact of hearing aids: answers from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 57(2), 353-362.<br/
Review of Dead From the Waist Down. Scholars and Scholarship in Literature and the Popular Imagination
No full textIn this book, which derives its title from Browning\u27s poem \u27A Grammarian\u27s Funeral\u27, Professor Nuttall seeks to explore the profound change that he believes took place in the popular conception of scholars (Knowers\u27) and scholarship between the Renaissance when Faustus was seen as an excitingly powerful figure, definitely \u27sexy\u27 as the current phrase goes, and the Nineteenth Century when the scholar became a representative of \u27sexless deathliness\u27. Nuttall believes that a qualification needs to be made, however, in that from Francis Bacon onwards the Knower figure was split into two, the scientist and the scholar, with the former retaining elements of Faustian glamour and still being \u27sexually charged\u27. Thus in Middlemarch Lydgate is \u27sexy\u27 whereas Mr. Casaubon emphatically is not; as Faust damns himself for Helen of Troy so Lydgate blights his life for Rosamond. Nuttall explores his theme through a series of linked essays. The first, labelled \u27Introduction\u27, is on Browning\u27s poem connecting it with Erasmus\u27s Praise of Folly (as did the great American literary scholar R. D. Altick in an important essay on the poem published in 1965 to which Nuttall makes no reference). The second discusses Eliot\u27s characterization of Mr. Casaubon. The third deals with the Victorian scholar and Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, Mark Pattison, who has often been taken (though emphatically not by Gordon Haight) as Eliot\u27s model for her Casaubon. The fourth is on the celebrated Renaissance humanist Isaac Casaubon, of whom Pattison wrote a life. Finally, the \u27Conclusion\u27 considers A. E. Housman, approached through Tom Stoppard\u27s 1997 play (\u27a work of breathtaking brilliance\u27) The Invention of Love in which in his presentation of Housman Stoppard re-integrates sexual passion, albeit unfulfilled, and high scholarship
Fur, fangs and feathers: colonial and counter-colonial portrayals of American Indians in young adult fantasy literature
No full textAlthough there have been many postcolonial studies of the portrayals of Native American characters in children’s and young adult literature, the majority of these have focused on historical novels, rather than analysing fantasy literature. Additionally, I have found no direct comparisons between texts by Native and non-Native authors, and the impact of authorship on the representations of American Indian characters. I believe that a study of this area of literature is important, as it will serve to examine how the portrayal of Native characters in texts varies depending on the insider or outsider experience of the author.
In my thesis, using critical theory around Gothic, gender and queer studies, I analyse three examples of young adult fantasy literature; the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer, the Tantalize series by Cynthia Leitich Smith, and the novel Wolf Mark by Joseph Bruchac. In the first chapter, I study the texts’ portrayals of Native American spiritual beliefs, comparing Meyer’s use of Quileute legends to bolster her series’ mythology with Bruchac’s reinterpretation of Abenaki beliefs in Wolf Mark. In the next chapter, I focus on the role of Christianity in the novels, considering historical contexts of missionary movements and colonisation. Chapter Three analyses the novels from a gender studies perspective, considering the racialised representations of masculinity and femininity in the texts, while Chapter Four studies the theme of sexuality in the novels. Finally, in the fifth chapter, I look at postcolonial Gothic space in the novels, and its connections to frontiers and borders, both physical and psychic.
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As a result of my research, I discovered that the Quileute characters in Meyer’s novels correspond with images of Native peoples as ‘savage’ and animalistic, with Native men portrayed as violent and sexually threatening, and Native women as pitiable and subordinate. Her focus on the ‘treaty line’ established by the vampires, and the ‘civilising process’ the main Quileute character Jacob undergoes during his time with the Cullen family, perpetuate colonialist narratives. By contrast, Leitich Smith and Bruchac write against these stereotypes. Bruchac focuses directly on Abenaki characters, writing from an insider perspective that allows him to create a nuanced, non-stereotypical portrayal of a Native protagonist. Although Leitich Smith does not write directly about Native characters or cultures, her representations of gender, sexuality and race correspond with a counter-colonialist perspective.
My direct comparison of texts by Native and non-Native authors shows that an author writing from an outsider perspective is far more likely to use stereotypical portrayals of American Indian characters and cultures than an author with an insider perspective of a Native culture. It also indicates that young adult fantasy literature, with its emphasis on the boundaries between childhood and adulthood, can be used as a site for both conservative and radical narratives on colonialism and postcolonialism
The first in the archives: Zelia Nuttall and Mexican manuscripts
No full textDuring the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the amateur scholar and archaeologist Zelia Nuttall was not only digging in Mexican archaeological fields for artifacts but also digging through European and Mexican archives for manuscripts. Nuttall characterized her motivation for seeking out indigenous writings in these archives as altruistic, and she often asserted that this work was carried out purely in the interest of science. Not content to simply uncover these neglected manuscripts, however, she also sought to share the materials through publications. Nuttall was involved in the publication of the Codex Nuttall (previously known as the Zouche Codex), the Codex Magliabechiano III, and several primary sources related to Sir Francis Drake. She also attempted to publish the manuscript now known as the Florentine Codex, but she was never able to achieve this. This essay will explore Nuttall’s archival research, which led her to publish, or attempt to publish, the materials that she found in archives and to thereby make them more widely accessible. Despite a few great successes, such as the publication of the Codex Nuttall, Nuttall was often frustrated by a lack of money for printing, competition from other scholars, and the process of working with the Peabody Museum to print facsimiles. Nuttall’s position as a woman scholar and an amateur left her without institutional support in an era when such associations became increasingly important.
Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2021-05-01The student, Seonaid Valiant, accepted the attached license on 2019-04-18 at 17:49.The student, Seonaid Valiant, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2019-04-18 at 17:56.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2019-04-23 at 09:24.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #13765 on 2019-08-22 at 16:23:19Made available in DSpace on 2019-08-23T20:48:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
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Wolfing down the Twilight series: Metaphors for reading in online reviews
No full textThe development of social media platforms devoted to the discussion of books provides a source of insights into how readers interact with texts in their daily lives and, as such, offers a growing source of data for stylistics. Popular fiction such as Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series (2005-2008) attracts thousands (in some cases millions) of ratings and reviews by readers, which are often highly polarised. Recent work in stylistics has used such data as a source of insights into felt, experiential aspects of reading, applying the same stylistic frameworks to the reviews as those applied to the texts themselves (e.g. Harrison, 2017; Nuttall, 2017). In this chapter, we analyse the range of metaphors used by readers to describe contrasting experiences of Twilight (Book One), and the embodied experiences which contribute to both its popularity and rejection among readers. Drawing on Cognitive Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999), previous research has identified three main conceptual metaphors as reflecting readers’ engagement with texts: READING IS TRANSPORTATION, READING IS CONTROL and READING IS INVESTMENT (Stockwell, 2009). Here, we test and develop these observations by examining a sample of 200 reader reviews collected from the online forum, Goodreads. Comprising 100 of the most positive (5-star) and most negative (1-star) reviews of Twilight, these responses to the text are submitted to qualitative analysis using NVivo software, and metaphors for reading are grouped and analysed using concepts from cognitive linguistics. Applying Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 2008), we explore the creativity with which readers extend, combine and elaborate conventional metaphors for reading in this discourse context, and identify further recurring metaphors such as READING IS EATING for this text. Comparison of our positive and negative reviews reveals differences in the mappings of these metaphors, specifically the framing of the reader, which reflects the varying quality of the embodied experiences being described. We argue that, when contextualised in relation to a particular work of fiction and a particular online discourse context, the language produced by readers can offer insights into polarised reading experiences such as immersion and resistance
Why don’t you Ask Someone who Cares? Teacher Identity, Intersubjectivity, and Curriculum Negotiation in a New Zealand Childcare Centre
No full textThis thesis investigates the construct of 'curriculum' as it was intersubjectively defined and enacted by a group of early childhood teachers in one New Zealand childcare centre, from mid-2000 to early 2001. Participant observations were conducted of the seven teachers and one centre licensee participating in the study, during teaching episodes, staff meetings, professional development meetings, and at a parent evening. Each participant was also interviewed, and a wide range of curriculum-related documentation in the centre was examined. A traditional symbolic interactionist approach was employed in the design of the research, including fieldwork, data analysis, and presentation of findings.
The thesis argues that the teachers had aligned themselves around an 'official definition of the situation with regard to curriculum' that relied upon shared understandings about four constructs: the use of Te Whāriki (New Zealand's early childhood curriculum framework document), the concept of a 'core curriculum', the 'planned programme', and ideas about 'emergent curriculum'. It was found, however, that the teachers' enactment of the day-to-day curriculum did not reflect these constructs but relied, instead, upon close adherence to the centre's daily routines, maintenance of compliant behaviour amongst the children, and compliance with the staff duty rosters.
In considering this theory/practice divide, the thesis turns to an investigation of how the participants in the study were able to negotiate the resulting tensions between their 'official' curriculum and the day-to-day reality of 'doing childcare'. The author argues that the participants had developed a range of shared cognitive strategies that allowed them to maintain social cohesion and deflect challenges to their shared 'official' understandings about the centre's curriculum. Central to these strategies were the conduct of 'identity work' (Blumstein, 1991/2001), as the participants sought to construct professionalised images of themselves, and the strategy of 'myth-making' (cornbleth, 1987) about the childcare centre.
These strategies supported social cohesion in the centre but simultaneously created professional isolation between the teachers. It is argued that this situation is likely to persist until structural changes are made to the nature of work in childcare settings in New Zealand, particularly grater provision of time for staff to meet together to conduct shared, systematic investigations of their thinking and practice. A case is also made for further research into teachers' accounts of their lives and their work, and how these accounts inform their practice. The thesis concludes by arguing that until such developments take place, the promises of Te Whāriki for children, families, and for teachers are unlikely to be realised
Reassessing the Benefits of Audio-Visual Integration to Speech Perception and Intelligibility
No full textPurpose: In difficult listening conditions, the visual system assists with speech perception through lipreading. Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) is used to investigate the interaction between the two modalities in speech perception. Previous estimates of audiovisual benefit and SOA integration period differ widely. A limitation of previous research is a lack of consideration of visemes - categories of phonemes defined by similar lip movements when produced by a speaker - to ensure that selected phonemes are visually distinct. This study aimed to reassess the benefits of audiovisual lipreading to speech perception when different viseme categories are selected as stimuli and presented in noise. The study also aimed to investigate the effects of SOA on these stimuli.
Method: Sixty participants were presented with audio-only and audiovisual stimuli containing the speaker’s lip movements. The speech was presented either with or without noise and had six different SOAs (0, 200, 216.6, 233.3, 250, and 266.6 ms). Participants discriminated between speech syllables with button presses.
Results: The benefit of visual information was weaker than that in previous studies. There was a significant increase in reaction times as SOA was introduced, but no significant effects of SOA on accuracy. Furthermore, exploratory analyses suggest that the effect was not equal across viseme categories: ‘Ba’ was more difficult to recognise than ‘Ka’ in noise.
Conclusion: In summary, the findings suggest that the contributions of audiovisual integration to speech processing are weaker when considering visemes, but are not sufficient to identify a full integration period.This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Training Grant (O’Hanlon, ES/P000665/1), the Manchester Biomedical Research Centre and
the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) (Plack, NIHR203308), and the
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) New Investigator Grant
(Nuttall, BB/S008527/1).notReviewedothe
An online study on the effect of motor resource suppression on speech perception in noise in older and younger adults.
No full textHearing loss affects around 71% of people aged 70+ in the UK (Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), 2020). Individuals with age-related hearing loss struggle to understand speech, particularly in noisy or challenging listening environments (Ward et al., 2017). It is suggested that perceiving speech in noise requires increased ‘listening effort’, and increased allocation of neural or cognitive resources to hear successfully (Pichora-Fuller et al., 2016). Hearing loss may lead to increased withdrawal from social situations (where environmental noise is typically high), feelings of loneliness, and increased risk for dementia (Dawes et al., 2015; Rutherford et al., 2018).
Evidence suggests that the use of cortical top-down resources, from the motor system, might assist speech perception during challenging listening conditions (Nuttall et al., 2016). It is possible that older adults may utilise these top-down articulatory motor resources increasingly to support speech perception. Indeed, fMRI research finds that older (compared to younger) adults show increased activity in frontal speech motor areas during listening, which correlated with improved speech perception (Du et al., 2016). On the contrary, it has also been demonstrated that there may be reduced activity in the motor system during speech perception in older adults. One study found that excitability in the tongue motor cortex (indicated by Motor Evoked Potentials) during listening to speech was reduced in older adults with hearing loss, compared to their peers and younger adults with normal hearing (Panouillères & Möttönen, 2018). These findings support two contrasting ideas regarding the use of motor resources during challenging speech perception. Evidently, the role of the articulatory motor system in speech perception after age-related hearing loss is still unclear.
As such, this online research study aims to investigate the role of articulatory motor resources after age-related hearing loss, investigating two opposing hypotheses: the ‘Motor Compensation Hypothesis’ (Du et al., 2016) poses that motor resources may be up-regulated in order to assist with speech perception after age-related damage to peripheral auditory processing; the ‘Auditory-Motor Decline Hypothesis’ (Panouillères & Möttönen, 2018), contrastingly poses that reduced input to the auditory system, due to the impaired auditory periphery in age-related hearing loss, also reduces the input to the articulatory motor cortex.
To this aim, we will conduct a partial replication and extension of a previous study (Stokes et al., 2019). In this previous study, researchers employed a dual-task behavioural manipulation which served to test whether the speech motor system provides a compensatory role in speech perception during noisy or difficult listening. Younger adults completed a dual-task paradigm which involved phoneme identification task performed alongside an articulatory suppression task, with the aim of disrupting, or suppressing speech motor resources. Phoneme identification was also measured alongside the other conditions: during mandible movement, foot tapping, or during passive listening (i.e. without an additional movement task) (Stokes et al., 2019).
We will utilise an adaptation of this experimental paradigm in an online setting, extending the sample to include younger adults without hearing loss (aged 18-30) as well as older adults (aged 60-85) both with and without hearing loss. We want to understand how speech motor resources may be employed in older listeners when perceiving speech in noise, and whether this is further impacted by hearing loss.
References
- Dawes, P., Emsley, R., Cruickshanks, K. J., Moore, D. R., Fortnum, H., Edmondson-Jones, M., McCormack, A., & Munro, K. J. (2015). Hearing Loss and Cognition: The Role of Hearing Aids, Social Isolation and Depression. PLOS ONE, 10(3), e0119616. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119616
- Du, Y., Buchsbaum, B. R., Grady, C. L., & Alain, C. (2016). Increased activity in frontal motor cortex compensates impaired speech perception in older adults. Nature Communications, 7(1), 12241. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12241
- Nuttall, H. E., Kennedy-Higgins, D., Hogan, J., Devlin, J. T., & Adank, P. (2016). The effect of speech distortion on the excitability of articulatory motor cortex. NeuroImage, 128, 218–226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.12.038
- Panouillères, M. T. N., & Möttönen, R. (2018). Decline of auditory-motor speech processing in older adults with hearing loss. Neurobiology of Aging, 72, 89–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2018.07.013
- Pichora-Fuller, M. K., Kramer, S. E., Eckert, M. A., Edwards, B., Hornsby, B. W. Y., Humes, L. E., Lemke, U., Lunner, T., Matthen, M., Mackersie, C. L., Naylor, G., Phillips, N. A., Richter, M., Rudner, M., Sommers, M. S., Tremblay, K. L., & Wingfield, A. (2016). Hearing impairment and cognitive energy: The framework for understanding effortful listening (FUEL). Ear and Hearing, 37(1), 5–27. https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.0000000000000312
- Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID). (2020). Hearing Matters. https://rnid.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Hearing-Matters-Report.pdf
- Rutherford, B. R., Brewster, K., Golub, J. S., Kim, A. H., & Roose, S. P. (2018). Sensation and psychiatry: Linking age-related hearing loss to late-life depression and cognitive decline. American Journal of Psychiatry, 175(3), 215–224. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2017.17040423
- Stokes, R. C., Venezia, J. H., & Hickok, G. (2019). The motor system’s [modest] contribution to speech perception. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 26(4), 1354–1366. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-019-01580-2
- Ward, K. M., Shen, J., Souza, P. E., & Grieco-Calub, T. M. (2017). Age-Related Differences in Listening Effort during Degraded Speech Recognition. Ear and Hearing, 38(1), 74–84. https://doi.org/10.1097/AUD.000000000000035
"Jeff Nuttall's <i>Bomb Culture </i>Revisited:Art, Politics, and the Underground"
No full textJeff Nuttall (1933-2004) was a British artist, poet, critic, actor, and musician. The author of almost forty books, Nuttall was involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) from the late 1950s, and then played a major role in the British counter-cultural scene. During the 1960s, Nuttall edited My Own Mag: A Superb Absorbent Periodical, a seminal underground little magazine, which published work by British avant-garde writers, among them B.S. Johnson, but also US authors, including William Burroughs. Bomb Culture, Nuttall’s idiosyncratic account of the underground scene was first published in 1968, and it remained out of print until the publication of the 50th anniversary edition in 2018
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