This study investigated the issue of subjectivity in dance cognition by examining the amount of agreement in continuous "engagement" responses made by 12 observers to a semi-improvised dance work. Continuous judgments of engagement were collected using the portable Audience Response Facility, which sampled ratings from participants twice a second. Sampleby-sample standard deviation (SD) scores were used as a measure of observer agreement. SD varied from 19% to 34% of the total engagement scale range. Seven regions of good agreement were identified and analyzed. Sections where expectations were not interrupted were more likely to produce good agreement. A further analysis examined the effect of window *

This study examined the effect of body armor during repeated, intermittent high-intensity simulated military work. Twelve males performed 11 repetitions of a military style circuit, wearing no armor on one occasion and full armor (approximately 17 kg) on another. Performance was measured by the time to complete individual work tasks plus overall circuit time to completion. Heart rate, intestinal temperature, and rating of perceived exertion were recorded after each circuit. Participants' circuit time to completion was 7.3 +/- 1.0 seconds slower (p <0.01) when wearing armor. Shooting, vaulting, and crawling were also slower (0.8 +/- 0.2, 0.4 +/- 0.2, and 1.0 +/- 0.4 seconds, respectively; all p < or = 0.05). No differences were observed for box lifting. Higher core temperatures were reported for the armor condition for circuit's 7 to 11 (p = 0.01-0.05). Rating of perceived exertion was higher (1 +/- 0; p = 0.03) when wearing armor. No differences were observed for heart rate. Wearing armor impairs repeated high-intensity military task performance. In the relatively short work time utilized, this decrement did not accrue over time. The impairment may, then, be related to the armor load, rather than accumulating fatigue.

Dance is multifaceted and interculturally complex. Empirical approaches to investigating the ways in which observers respond to dance offer a potentially productive means of understanding the cognitive bases upon which these responses to dance are generated. This study demonstrates one such approach, by measuring the responses of two groups of observers to a single dance performance continuously, as the performance unfolded. Specifically, we asked a group of dance students and a group of dance professionals to record their engagement with the same professional solo contemporary dance performance as a means of investigating whether and how the responses of dance students and professionals differ. Our analysis of these measurements demonstrates both similarities and differences between the two groups. On the basis of this analysis, we speculate that both students and professionals respond to choreographic 'disjunctures' in which expectations are overturned, which we term 'gem moments,' and that mature artists' responses to dance differ from those of students through a change in degree-an increased ability to respond to 'gem moments'rather than through a shift in the kinds of choreographic structures that elicit increasing engagement.

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A b S T r A C T This paper describes the work of a group of artists in Australia who used real-time motion capture and 3D stereo projection to create a large-scale performance environment in which dancers seemed to "touch" the volume. This project re-versions Suzanne Langer's 1950s philosophy of dance as "virtual force" to realize the idea of a "virtual haptics" of dance that extends the dancer's physical agency literally across and through the surrounding spatial volume. The project presents a vision of interactive dance performance that "touches" space by visualizing kinematics as intentionality and agency. In doing so, we suggest the possibility of new kinds of human-computer interfaces that emphasize touch as embodied, nuanced agency that is mediated by the subtle qualities of whole-body movement, in addition to more goal-oriented, task-based gestures such as pointing or clicking.