Narration, Visualization and Mind : Movies in everyday life as a resource for utopian self-reflection

The paper is analyzing how people in late modern society characterized by de-traditionalization, use moving images as a cultural resource for the construction of meaningful subjective world views. As a theoretical concept with several dimensions, “sacralization of the self” (Woodhead & Heelas 2000: 344), is related to media theory. With a critical focus on ‘the self’, as a core aspect in contemporary media society Eric W. Rothenbuhler labels the individual self as one of “the sacred objects of modern culture” (Rothenbuhler 2006: 31).I want to emphasize the need for case studies in order to undertake a critical investigation about ‘the self’ and how consumption of fiction film is interconnected to spectator´s creation of self images, but also to understand how film engagement elicits self-reflection (Giddens 1991, Axelson 2008, Vaage 2009a). The paper make use of empirical data to illustrate and theoretically develop perspectives on how the audience uses fiction film in every-day life for the construction of the self, as well for the construction of more profound and long-lasting ideas of being part of a moral community (Brereton 2005, Jerslev 2006, Klinger 2008, Mikkola et al. 2007, Vaage 2009b). Some empirical findings support a conclusion that moving images creates a transitional space for the human mind, with the capacity of transporting the spectator from real life to fiction and back to real life again, helping the individual with an ongoing process of transforming the self, dealing with who you actually are, and who you want to become (Axelson 2008, Vaage 2009b).

Spiral drawing during self-rated dyskinesia is more impaired than during self-rated off

Background: A mobile device test battery, consisting of a patient diary collection section with disease-related questions and a fine motor test section (including spiral drawing tasks), was used by 65 patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (PD)(treated with intraduodenal levodopa/carbidopa gel infusion, Duodopa®, or candidates for this treatment) on 10439 test occasions in their home environments. On each occasion, patients traced three pre-drawn Archimedes spirals using an ergonomic stylus and self-assessed their motor function on a global Treatment Response Scale (TRS) ranging from -3 = very 'off' to 0 = 'on' to +3 = very dyskinetic. The spirals were processed by a computer-based method that generates a "spiral score" representing the PD-related drawing impairment. The scale for the score was based on a modified Bain & Findley rating scale in the range from 0 = no impairment to 5 = moderate impairment to 10 = extremely severe impairment. Objective: To analyze the test battery data for the purpose to find differences in spiral drawing performance of PD patients in relation to their self-assessments of motor function. Methods: Three motor states were used in the analysis; OFF state (including moderate and very 'off'), ON state ('on') and a dyskinetic (DYS) state (moderate and very dyskinetic). In order to avoid the problem of multiple test occasions per patient, 200 random samples of single test occasions per patient were drawn. One-way analysis of variance, ANOVA, test followed by Tukey multiple comparisons test was used to test if mean values of spiral test parameters, i.e. the spiral score and drawing completion times (in seconds), were different among the three motor states. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05. To investigate changes in the spiral score over the time-of-day test sessions for the three motor states, plots of statistical summaries were inspected. Results: The mean spiral score differed significantly across the three self-assessed motor states (p<0.001, ANOVA test). Tukey post-hoc comparisons indicate that the mean spiral score (mean ± SD; [95% CI for mean]) in DYS state (5.2 ± 1.8; [5.12, 5.28]) was higher than the mean spiral score in OFF (4.3 ± 1.7; [4.22, 4.37]) and ON (4.2 ± 1.7; [4.17, 4.29]) states. The mean spiral score was also significantly different among individual TRS values of slightly 'off' (4.02 ± 1.63), 'on' (4.07 ± 1.65) and slightly dyskinetic (4.6 ± 1.71), (p<0.001). There were no differences in drawing completion times among the three motor states (p=0.509). In the OFF and ON states, patients drew slightly more impaired spirals in the afternoon whereas in the DYS state the spiral drawing performance was more impaired in the morning. Conclusion: It was found that when patients considered themselves as being dyskinetic spiral drawing was more impaired (nearly one unit change in a 0-10 scale) compared to when they considered themselves as being 'off' and 'on'. The spiral drawing at patients that self-assessed their motor state as dyskinetic was slightly more impaired in the morning hours, between 8 and 12 o'clock, a situation possibly caused by the morning dose effect.