Although external representations, such as sketches, are regarded as facilitating insight during creative synthesis and design tasks, previous empirical studies have provided conflicting evidence in support of this role. Here, we argue sketches are static representations that fail to fully externalise mental imagery processes involved during creative synthesis tasks. An experiment is reported in which participants manipulate simple alpha-numeric and geometric shapes into patterns depicting familiar objects or symbols. Trials were performed using either mental imagery alone, drawing manipulations in the (...) air with a finger, sketching manipulations on a piece of paper, or dynamically performing the manipulations on-screen using a graphics package. Results show the number of patterns correctly interpreted as recognisable objects was significantly higher in the dynamic support condition in comparison to all other conditions. Based on this finding, we argue that static forms of external support may be less effec.. (shrink)

To what extent are visual fantasies constrained by our perceptual experience of the real world? Our study exploits the fact that people’s knowledge of the appearance of individuals from the early 20th Century derives predominantly from viewing black-and-white media images. An initial experiment shows that mental imagery for individuals from this period are experienced as significantly less colourful than imagery for individuals from the era of colour media. A second experiment manipulated whether participants were instructed to explicitly imagine using colour (...) or not . Results show that colour manipulation only influences imagery for black-and-white era individuals, with no comparable effect on imagery for colour era individuals. This finding is replicated in a third experiment that includes an additional control condition of imagining generic characters . Again, only imagery for black-and-white era individuals is affected by the colour manipulation. Overall these results provide evidence for long-term perceptual specificity effects in mental imagery. We argue that visual fantasies can be constrained by surface features of underlying representations in memory, even when imagining something we have never directly perceived. (shrink)

Arguing for the merits of an antipodean perspective that embraces the linked historical and current relations between Tasman, British and other worlds, this paper focuses on the majoritarian responses of those of English ancestry in Britain and within the British diaspora to wide ranging changes that potentially challenge their national supremacy in both contexts. After briefly assessing some of the approaches to exploring the identities of the 'English/ British' separately in Australia and New Zealand, some suggestions are made about how (...) majoritarian narratives are best reframed, conceptually and methodologically, both within the antipodes and the broader contexts within which they have always been placed. The adoption of an antipodean perspective is deemed necessary in order to understand how changes in majority status and shifts in national identity are mutually constituted within and across the above worlds. (shrink)

This article, drawing on Peter Beilharz’s account of Bernard Smith’s conception of the Antipodes, argues for the utility of using the connections between Australia and New Zealand as a means of exploring aspects of settler state and national relations within a local, meso-regional and global perspective. The historical development of British imperial and settler state citizenship provides the setting for demonstrating how an Antipodean viewpoint could be pursued. Emphasis is placed on the creation and reproduction of aboriginal and immigrant minorities, (...) the establishment of strategic cross-Tasman regional relations, and shifts in the reconstruction of majority ethnic and national imaginings. (shrink)