There were 12 30-second test periods interspersed with three 21-second rest periods, where participants were simply asked to look at a fixed image of a cross.

BBC: People with autism do not daydream, a study has found.

If it all sounds too much, Mrs Kramlich points out that living with media art is really no different from living with fixed-image art. (The couple have works by Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys in their mock-Tudor San Francisco home.) The difference, she adds with an eye to California's electricity troubles, is that you have an on-off switch and when the images vanish, the house is an artwork of its own.

ECONOMIST: Showing video art: The glasshouse effect | The

At 57, his public image is fixed as that of a homespun defender of western interests, with an oft-mimicked drawl.

ECONOMIST: Canada