The vision-for-action literature favours the idea that the motor output of an action-whether manual or oculomotor-leads to similar results regarding object handling. Findings on line bisection performance challenge this idea: healthy individuals bisect lines manually to the left of centre and to the right of centre when using eye fixation. In case that these opposite biases for manual and oculomotor action reflect more universal compensatory mechanisms that cancel each other out to enhance overall accuracy, one would like to observe comparable opposite biases for other material. In the present study, we report on three independent experiments in which we tested line bisection (by hand, by eye fixation) not only for solid lines, but also for letter lines; the latter, when bisected manually, is known to result in a rightward bias. Accordingly, we expected a leftward bias for letter lines when bisected via eye fixation. Analysis of bisection biases provided evidence for this idea: manual bisection was more rightward for letter as compared to solid lines, while bisection by eye fixation was more leftward for letter as compared to solid lines. Support for the eye fixation observation was particularly obvious in two of the three studies, for which comparability between eye and hand action was increasingly adjusted (paper-pencil versus touch screen for manual action). These findings question the assumption that ocular motor and manual output are always inter-changeable, but rather suggest that at least for some situations ocular motor and manual output biases are orthogonal to each other, possibly balancing each other out.
In this paper, we argue for two propositions: children are socialised and guided to become competent members of school mealtime community, and children have the capacity to modify and challenge existing practices. We draw on Bakhtin's concepts of the carnivalesque laughter and grotesque realism to illustrate how children use humour to test the boundaries of what is permitted. Children's mealtime interactions foster the development of social skills to subvert and negotiate adult authority and manage unfolding interactions between children and adults. We present findings from a child‐centred perspective in a primary school in the United Kingdom.
School mealtimes in England are highly orchestrated practices that have a specific temporal order of when and how the meal should be eaten. At the same time, the social conditions of the mealtime offer children opportunities for emergent interactions. In this study, we examine children’s non-legitimate voices and the dynamic conflictual nature of children’s interactions that are no longer fully governed by the established school mealtime order. To illustrate these ideas, data are drawn from the 5 years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted by the first author in a primary school in South West England. The analyses address how children use the school mealtime chronotope as a resource to experiment and challenge predefined rules. Our findings illustrate how children transcend the edges of acceptability and probe social order to form their own social critique and uncovering what is not easily explainable or changeable. As an implication we underline the potential for researching children’s socialisation as part of expanding discussions on the significance of school mealtimes.
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