Items In Display Research Articles

Learning to ignore salient color distractors during serial search: evidence for experience-dependent attention allocation strategies

Previous research has investigated whether visual salience (i.e., how much an item stands out) or perceptual load (i.e., display complexity) is the dominant factor in visual selective attention. The evidence has been mixed, with some findings supporting a dominant role for visual salience and some findings supporting a dominant role for perceptual load. However, the complex displays used to impose high perceptual load also introduce a third factor that has gone understudied until recently: the interplay between identity dilution and exposure duration. Adding display items to increase perceptual load dilutes a distractor's identity, which could decrease interference, but the task generally takes longer, which could increase distractor interference. To clarify how these factors interact, the present study used converging measures of distractor interference—both compatibility and singleton presence—to disambiguate effects due to salience, perceptual load, and identity dilution/exposure duration. Compatibility effects support perceptual load as the dominant factor, whereas singleton presence effects do not (Experiment 1). Consistent with salience-based mechanisms, significant distractor processing (both compatibility and presence effects) occurred under high perceptual load when singleton present trials preceded singleton absent trials (Experiment 2A). However, consistent with load-based mechanisms, non-significant compatibility effects occurred under high perceptual load when singleton absent trials preceded singleton present trials (Experiment 2B). Thus, the competition between salience-based and load-based mechanisms depended on the amount of prior experience with singleton present vs. absent displays, which in turn depended on the use of broad vs. narrow attentional allocation strategies. These experience-dependent effects provide further evidence that attention allocation strategies are contingent on factors such as task context and experience.

Impaired integration of object knowledge and visual input in a case of ventral simultanagnosia with bilateral damage to area V4

This study examines how brain damage can affect the cognitive processes that support the integration of sensory input and prior knowledge during shape perception. It is based on the first detailed study of acquired ventral simultanagnosia, which was found in a patient (M.T.) with posterior occipitotemporal lesions encompassing V4 bilaterally. Despite showing normal object recognition for single items in both accuracy and response times (RTs), and intact low-level vision assessed across an extensive battery of tests, M.T. was impaired in object identification with overlapping figures displays. Task performance was modulated by familiarity: Unlike controls, M.T. was faster with overlapping displays of abstract shapes than with overlapping displays of common objects. His performance with overlapping common object displays was also influenced by both the semantic relatedness and visual similarity of the display items. These findings challenge claims that visual perception is driven solely by feedforward mechanisms and show how brain damage can selectively impair high-level perceptual processes supporting the integration of stored knowledge and visual sensory input.

Wrong Directions and New Maps of Voice, Representation, and Engagement: Theorizing Cultural Tourism, Indigenous Commodities, and the Intelligence of Participation

Wrong Directions and New Maps of Voice, Representation, and EngagementTheorizing Cultural Tourism, Indigenous Commodities, and the Intelligence of Participation Doreen E. Martinez (bio) Each year tourists flock to communities that promise a connection . . . a mythologized place. . . . [T]he draw . . . isn’t just history, it’s an industry.1 But maybe it’s better to be vilified and romanticized than completely ignored.2 Cultural tourism that is located in reflection and that is about Indigenous peoples and cultures has been occurring in the United States and across the globe for decades. World’s fairs, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Edward Curtis’s photographs, postcards, roadside shops, and various entertainment venues have consistently been replicated and have generated tourist travel. Although cultural tourism is a more publicly known concept/label, the projected fascination and implied privilege of viewing the other has long been part of travel and globalization. As quoted above, each year tourists flock to places of historical and mythologized locations. Beyond pouring thousands and thousands of dollars into the industry, tourists construct and facilitate an engagement of a “tourist gaze” that Indigenous peoples and communities are actively and intelligently negotiating.3 This engagement at times is in the romantic or mythical, at times in the modern and contemporary, and at times in the spaces (the third space) in between. These engagements are dominantly in resistance to mere objectification or commodification; my work will demonstrate instead how they are voices of Indigeneity. My work, by exploring definitions and acts of authenticity, identity locations, and the meaning and value of Indigenous commodities, disrupts modernity’s reliance on Indians as others. This disruption forces the development and [End Page 545] recognition of new maps, that is, new ways of understanding locations of culture, identity representations, interpretations of cultural commodities, and the intelligence of participation in the third space. My research delves into the impact of established intellectual imperialistic representations and codes of culture imposed on Indigenous populations. I offer new ways of viewing the critiques of Indigenous peoples and discussions of those representation acts by situating them within Indigenous identity and the manifestations of Indigenous representations in the burgeoning field of transnational Indigenous work. Specifically, my work investigates the selling of culture through the interpretation of cultural value attached to commodities (which include cultural items for sale as well as display items found in museums and tourist locations) and the negotiation of cultural participation (as informed and knowledgeable performers and sellers of culture) by Indigenous peoples and communities. Data from various locations and events marked as Indigenous in New Zealand, the United States, and representing American Indians abroad are utilized to illustrate the relationships between cultural tourism in transnational Indigenous commodities and participants’ allegiances. In investigating and analyzing the data, I contextualize authenticity, indigeneity, and tradition in the global diasporas of transnational boundary breaking and contemporary sustainable economic, political, social, environmental, and cultural movements. As Shari Huhndorf explains and my work builds off of, nationalist literature and criticism are primarily concerned with the cultural distinctiveness and political autonomy of individual tribes and with the redrawing of community boundaries after colonization. Although Native art and literature since the 1980’s similarly engage issues of land ownership and political control, they do so in a context that has been increasingly shaped by global—that is, transnational—movements of capital and empire which have refashioned indigenous cultural expressions along with social and political structures.4 My research explores the historical nationalistic disposition and boundary making in tourists’ representations of Indigenous cultures and remaps it in terms of transnational contexts, implications, and outcomes that I show Indigeneity redrawing more actively. In addition, I suggest that literature (books) and art (from postcards, to posters, to pottery and [End Page 546] rugs and jewelry crafts), which are implicit tools of commodity production and often part of material culture tourist purchase, connect with the transnational movements of capital and empire Huhndorf discusses. Gerald Vizenor, in his essay “Edward Curtis: Pictorialist and Ethnographic Adventurist,” asks, “Why would natives pose to create a portrait?” and “Why, several generations later would natives embrace these romantic pictures?” He replies to both queries and states that possibly it was “money and tricky camera...

Visual Search Facilitation in Repeated Displays Depends on Visuospatial Working Memory

When distractor configurations are repeated over time, visual search becomes more efficient, even if participants are unaware of the repetition. This contextual cueing is a form of incidental, implicit learning. One might therefore expect that contextual cueing does not (or only minimally) rely on working memory resources. This, however, is debated in the literature. We investigated contextual cueing under either a visuospatial or a nonspatial (color) visual working memory load. We found that contextual cueing was disrupted by the concurrent visuospatial, but not by the color working memory load. A control experiment ruled out that unspecific attentional factors of the dual-task situation disrupted contextual cueing. Visuospatial working memory may be needed to match current display items with long-term memory traces of previously learned displays.

H5N1 infects the biosecurity debate

The generation of mutant H5N1 flu virus raised fundamental questions about the assessment and management of the risks of dual‐use biological research. Governments might well increase oversight and regulation to rectify the current shortcomings.

Anatomical constraints on attention: Hemifield independence is a signature of multifocal spatial selection

Previous studies have shown independent attentional selection of targets in the left and right visual hemifields during attentional tracking (Alvarez & Cavanagh, 2005) but not during a visual search (Luck, Hillyard, Mangun, & Gazzaniga, 1989). Here we tested whether multifocal spatial attention is the critical process that operates independently in the two hemifields. It is explicitly required in tracking (attend to a subset of object locations, suppress the others) but not in the standard visual search task (where all items are potential targets). We used a modified visual search task in which observers searched for a target within a subset of display items, where the subset was selected based on location (Experiments 1 and 3A) or based on a salient feature difference (Experiments 2 and 3B). The results show hemifield independence in this subset visual search task with location-based selection but not with feature-based selection; this effect cannot be explained by general difficulty (Experiment 4). Combined, these findings suggest that hemifield independence is a signature of multifocal spatial attention and highlight the need for cognitive and neural theories of attention to account for anatomical constraints on selection mechanisms.

Setting sights higher: category-level attentional set modulates sustained inattentional blindness

Previous research has shown that inattentional blindness is modulated by how people tune their "attentional set": the more featurally similar the unexpected object is to what people are trying to attend, the more likely it is that they will notice it. The experiments in this paper show that people can also establish attentional sets based on semantic categories, and that these high-level attentional sets modulate sustained inattentional blindness. In "Experiment 1", participants tracked four moving numbers and ignored four moving letters or vice versa, and the unexpected object was either a capital letter 'E' or its reverse, a block-like number '3'. Despite their featural similarity, participants were more likely to notice the unexpected object belonging to the same category as the tracked objects. "Experiment 2" replicated this effect in conditions where the unexpected object possessed a unique luminance and was less likely simply to be confused with other display items.

Temporal dynamics of encoding, storage, and reallocation of visual working memory

The process of encoding a visual scene into working memory has previously been studied using binary measures of recall. Here, we examine the temporal evolution of memory resolution, based on observers' ability to reproduce the orientations of objects presented in brief, masked displays. Recall precision was accurately described by the interaction of two independent constraints: an encoding limit that determines the maximum rate at which information can be transferred into memory and a separate storage limit that determines the maximum fidelity with which information can be maintained. Recall variability decreased incrementally with time, consistent with a parallel encoding process in which visual information from multiple objects accumulates simultaneously in working memory. No evidence was observed for a limit on the number of items stored. Cuing one display item with a brief flash led to rapid development of a recall advantage for that item. This advantage was short-lived if the cue was simply a salient visual event but was maintained if it indicated an object of particular relevance to the task. These cuing effects were observed even for items that had already been encoded into memory, indicating that limited memory resources can be rapidly reallocated to prioritize salient or goal-relevant information.

Effects of menu structure and touch screen scrolling style on the variability of glance durations during in-vehicle visual search tasks

The effects of alternative navigation device display features on drivers' visual sampling efficiency while searching forpoints of interest were studied in two driving simulation experiments with 40 participants. Given that the number of display items was sufficient, display features that facilitate resumption of visual search following interruptions were expected to lead to more consistent in-vehicle glance durations. As predicted, compared with a grid-style menu, searching information in a list-style menu while driving led to smaller variance in durations of in-vehicle glances, in particular with nine item displays. Kinetic touch screen scrolling induced a greater number of very short in-vehicle glances than scrolling with arrow buttons. The touch screen functionality did not significantly diminish the negative effects of the grid-menu compared with physical controls with list-style menus. The findings suggest that resumability of self-paced, in-vehicle visual search tasks could be assessed with the measures of variance of in-vehicle glance duration distributions. Statement of Relevance: The reported research reveals display design factors affecting safety-relevant variability of in-vehicle glance durations and provides a theoretical framework for explaining the effects. The research can have a significant methodical value for driver distraction research and practical value for the design and testing of in-vehicle user interfaces.

Shocking Waves at the Museum: The Bini–Cerletti Electro-shock Apparatus

The historian of science, Lorraine Daston, has written about things that talk. But how much can an artefact in a museum communicate its history to the public? Artefacts in museums speak, but it is not necessarily, or even at all, in the language of their original time and place. Cultural baggage, memories, and imagination all come into play, including those held by museum curators, and not least those contained within the operational and historical frameworks of such institutions. At the Museo di Storia della Medicina della Sapienza at the University of Rome we are organising an exhibition around an artefact that more than any other elicits emotive reactions – the Bini–Cerletti apparatus for the administration of electro-shock. This prototype of the first ECT machine, along with various historical documents, manuals, and textbooks relating to it, is a valued part of the Museo's collection. We are proud of it, yet as a display item, it is also something of golden chalice. Leaving aside the ethical question of whether we can (or should) convey to visitors the anxiety and pain of the patients who once submitted to the device, and leaving aside the different loads of historical and contemporary baggage that visitors will bring to it, how can such an object be represented in an historically honest way? This is the problem, for while we might be true to the context of its emergence, within that context (of Fascist Italy) the Bini–Cerletti apparatus was at one and the same time a blessing, a hope, a lie, and a profitable commercial product.

Object substitution masking and the object updating hypothesis

The object updating hypothesis of object substitution masking proposes that the phenomenon arises when the visual system fails to individuate target and mask at the level of object token representations. This hypothesis is tested in two experiments using modifications of the dot mask paradigm developed by Lleras and Moore (2003). Target-mask individuation is manipulated by the presentation of additional display items that influence the linking apparent motion seen between a target and a spatially separated mask (Experiment 1), and by the use of placeholders that maintain the target object's presence during mask presentation (Experiment 2). Results in both cases are consistent with the updating hypothesis in showing significantly reduced masking when the conditions promoted target-mask individuation. However, in both experiments, some masking was still present under conditions of individuation, an effect we attribute to attentional capture by the mask.

The Role of Iconic Memory in Visual Search under Dynamic Condition

The role of memory in visual search has become a controversial issue. Most theories of serial visual search support the view that visual search requires memory and a serial scanning mechanism, such as the processes of inhibition of return in serial search (Klein, 1988). However, Horowitz and Wolfe (1998) claimed that serial visual search worked without memory. They compared the search rates in both static and randomly dynamic conditions that prevented parallel accumulation of information of a particular letter and found no significant difference between the two conditions. In the present study, iconic memory was examined in dynamic conditions. Besides, the new object advantage was tested to explain the outcome of Wolfe’s study. In experiment 1 a comparison was made between two conditions: In the restrained dynamic condition, the items moved to positions previously occupied by other items every 110ms. In the static condition, the display items remained in the same location from one frame to the next. In experiment 2 a comparison was made between a restrained dynamic condition and a random condition, in which the items moved to positions not occupied by any item in the last frame. In experiment 3, half of the items moved to new locations and half randomly moved to ones previously occupied. This experiment compared two conditions: the target moving to new locations and the target moving to old locations where items appeared in the last frame. Different groups of students participated in the experiment 1,2 and 3, 10, 14, and 12 students, respectively. In all experiments, the number of letters in the display (set-size) varied between 8, 12, and 16. The slope of the target-present reaction time × set-size function was used to measure the efficiency of display search. Repeated measures ANOVA and linear regression were used to analyze the data. The main results of this study were as follows: first, the efficiency of search under static conditions was significantly higher than that under restrained dynamic conditions; secondly, the efficiency of search under random conditions was also significantly higher than that under restrained dynamic conditions; thirdly, the two conditions in experiment 3 showed no difference. Our results showed that under both random and static conditions visual search required memory, which did not support the visual search model proposed by Horowitz and Wolfe (1998). According to our results, under static conditions, observers might use a static search process and check the items one by one. In addition, under random conditions observers first compare the locations of items in the present frame with the previous locations in the last frame, which were kept in their iconic memory, and then guide attention to focus on new locations and suppress old ones. The findings of our study would help to explain why Wolfe did not observe a difference between static and random conditions and to reveal the role of iconic memory in visual search under random conditions. Finally, our study also indicated that the new object advantage was not significant under random conditions. Generally speaking, iconic memory contributes to the performance of visual search under random conditions by effective guidance of attention.

Attentional capture by unique temporal change

The time course of attentional capture was measured in the preview search paradigm (Yantis & Joinides, 1984). Participants were first presented a circular preview display of figure eights. After one second two to four line segments of each figure eight were deleted to reveal a search display of letters, with two letters arbitrarily designated as targets. The participant's task was to press one of two keys as rapidly as possible to report target identity. Attentional capture was indexed by the relative ratio of RT slopes, taken over the display size, for targets that appear in unchanged versus unique display item locations. This is based on the assumption that when a unique item draws attention to itself, it will slow search if it happens to be one of the distractor letters. The current study points to a temporal factor, over and above the importance of new objects and relative signal speed, which is critical for attentional capture. Attention is captured by temporally unique events. The results of three experiments show that feature changes capture attention as effectively as new objects provided they occur during a period in which the display is static. Conversely, these same feature changes do not capture attention when they occur simultaneously with other display changes, such as the sudden onset of all items or the deletion of some line segments in all items. Importantly, the results show that this unique event hypothesis applies to changes in color (Experiment 1), in motion (Experiment 2) and even to the sudden appearance of new objects (Experiment 3). These findings highlight the importance of considering both space and time in studies of attentional capture.

Disruption of spatial memory in visual search in the left visual field in patients with hemispatial neglect

Spatial working memory during an ongoing visual search trial was tested in both visual fields for right-brain damaged patients with contralesional spatial neglect, as well as age-matched control patients with right-hemisphere lesions but no neglect. We examined within-trial spatial memory by using a relocation search paradigm introduced by Kristjansson (2000) (modified from Horowitz & Wolfe, 1998), in which the display items traded places every 110 ms so that the target was never to be found in the same location from one moment to the next (the relocation condition), as compared with a static condition where the display items remained in place for the whole trial duration. To equate appearance between the two conditions, all items changed orientation every 110 ms in both conditions, and were masked after each of the briefly presented visual arrays. The results showed that search was disrupted by item relocation for both patients and controls, but importantly this disruption was only seen in the right visual field for the patients, not the left, indicating that their spatial working memory in left visual space is already severely disrupted, and to a greater degree than for their right visual space, in contrast to what has been previously argued.

Let’s keep this brief

The regular articles and technical advances published in this issue are an average of 9,050 words, with 8.4 display items (figures and tables). Do we always need so many words to convey a message? We think not. With this editorial, we issue a call for brief reports.

Editorial and retrospective 2010

Editorial and retrospective 2010

Variation of airborne bacteria and fungi at Emperor Qin's Terra-Cotta Museum, Xi'an, China, during the “Oct. 1” Gold Week Period of 2006

To stimulate the national economy, a so-called "gold week" comprising May Day and National Day has been put in force by the government, and the first golden-week holiday began on October 1, 1999. Statistical data show that about 15,000 visitors were received each day by Emperor Qin's Terra-Cotta Museum during just such a gold week period. To evaluate the effects of tourism on indoor air, airborne samples were collected by the sedimentation plate method for 5 min during the "Oct. 1" gold week period of 2006, and both composition and changes of airborne bacteria and fungi in indoor/outdoor air in the museums were investigated. Airborne microbes were simultaneously collected by means of gravitational sedimentation on open Petri dishes. Three parallel samples were collected at the same time each day, and samples were subsequently incubated in the lab. Microbiology media were prepared before each experiment by a professional laboratory. Concentrations were calculated and presented as average data of colony-forming units per cubic meter of air (CFU/m(3)). The results show that (1) 13 bacterial genera and eight genera of fungi were identified from indoor and outdoor air at Emperor Qin's Terra-Cotta Museum during "Oct. 1" gold week in 2006. The bacterial groups occupied 61%, the fungi groups occupied 36%, and others occupied 3% of the total number of isolated microorganism genera. (2) As for the comparison of indoor and outdoor samples, the average concentrations of fungi were higher during the afternoon (13:00) than for the morning (09:00). The average concentrations of bacteria in indoor air were higher during the afternoon (13:00) than for the morning (9:00), and in outdoor air, they were lower during the afternoon (13:00) than for the morning (9:00). (3) The average concentrations of five dominant groups of bacteria and three dominant groups of fungi were higher during the afternoon (13:00) than for the morning (9:00) in the indoor air, but the average concentrations of fungi were higher and those of bacteria were lower during the afternoon than for the morning, for outdoor air. (4) As for the comparison of indoor samples, the bacterial daily concentrations and fungal daily concentrations were higher during the afternoon (13:00) than those for the mornings (9:00) over the 10 days. For the comparison of outdoor samples, the bacterial concentration was lower, and the fungal concentrations were higher during the afternoon (13:00) than those for the morning (9:00) over the 10 days. The results also show that the numbers of airborne bacteria and fungi had a daily character in indoor air and were higher in the afternoon. The airborne microbe concentrations were found to be similar to residential indoor values from other reports; the indoor museum maximum of microbial concentrations was 90 CFU/m(3) and did not exceed the Chinese indoor bioaerosol guideline. However, microorganisms may fall on the surface of display items as a result of particle sedimentation and would, as such, be capable of degrading objects by way of their secretions, e.g., enzymes and organic acids. Therefore, the right steps should be taken to prevent any deterioration in the quality of displayed artifacts. The results show that museum air was affected by human activity; therefore, it is imperative that the number of visitors be strictly limited and that windows be opened regularly to avoid air pollution. The data provide a significant scientific basis for indoor air quality control and museum scientific management. It is recommended that the number of visitors be strictly limited.

Attention, competition, and the parietal lobes: insights from Balint’s syndrome

Simultanagnosia (resulting from occipito-parietal damage) is a profound visual deficit, which impairs the ability to perceive multiple items in a visual display, while preserving the ability to recognise single objects. Here we demonstrate in a patient presenting with Balint's syndrome that this deficit may result from an extreme form of competition between objects which makes it difficult for attention to be disengaged from an object once it has been selected.

Object-based effects in visual change detection

Event Abstract Back to Event Object-based effects in visual change detection Dagmar Mueller1*, I Winkler2, 3 and E. Schröger1 1 Institut für Psychologie I, Universität Leipzig , Germany 2 Institute for Psychology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary 3 Institute of Psychology, University of Szeged, Hungary There is an ongoing debate whether or not visual object representations can be formed outside the focus of voluntary attention. Implicit behavioral measures seem to support theories of pre-attentive object formation. However, with these implicit measures the supposedly task-irrelevant elements forming the objects were still usually related to the task-relevant stimuli in some way. We developed a paradigm based on the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) ERP component that allows to test visual grouping when neither the objects nor their constituents are related to the participant’s task. Our stimuli consisted of four pairs of colored discs which were evenly distributed around the fixation point. Pairs were formed by use of the gestalt principle of common region and thus, served as objects. Each display contained 6 blue-colored discs and 2 red-colored discs with the latter ones always presented at neighboring positions. In separate conditions, the two red-colored discs either usually (p=0.9) belonged to the same object (standard: red-in-same-object) or to two different objects (standard: red-in-different-objects). Occasionally (p=0.1), the assignment of the two red-colored discs to objects was exchanged. That is, deviances were exclusively defined on the basis of object-irregularities, since the features and their distribution were identical between standard and deviant displays. Each test-display was shown for 120 ms and was followed by an inter stimulus interval of 300 ms. Participants were instructed to detect slight changes of the continuously presented fixation cross. Thus, the display items included in the object stimuli were fully task irrelevant. We found no differences between the ERPs elicited by the physically identical deviant and standard red-in-different objects displays. However, comparison of the ERPs elicited by deviant and standard red-in-same object displays yielded an occipitally maximal negative deflection peaking in the 200-260 ms latency range, which was identified as vMMN. The elicitation of vMMN shows that visual object formation can precede pre-attentive deviance-detection. Therefore, the results support theories of pre attentive visual object formation. The asymmetry between the change from red in-different objects to red in same object (eliciting vMMN) and the reversed configuration (resulting in no vMMN elicitation) parallels similar MMN findings in the auditory modality: When the deviant was a part of the standard no or only a small MMN was elicited. In our design, red-in-different-objects deviants may be seen as being part of the red-in-same-object standards and thus, elicit no vMMN. Conference: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications, Budapest, Hungary, 4 Apr - 7 Apr, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Presentations Citation: Mueller D, Winkler I and Schröger E (2009). Object-based effects in visual change detection. Conference Abstract: MMN 09 Fifth Conference on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) and its Clinical and Scientific Applications. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.05.147 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 26 Mar 2009; Published Online: 26 Mar 2009. * Correspondence: Dagmar Mueller, Institut für Psychologie I, Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany, dagmar_mueller@uni-leipzig.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Dagmar Mueller I Winkler E. Schröger Google Dagmar Mueller I Winkler E. Schröger Google Scholar Dagmar Mueller I Winkler E. Schröger PubMed Dagmar Mueller I Winkler E. Schröger Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Gender (in)difference in private offices: A holistic approach for assessing satisfaction and personalization

This research is a combination of gender studies, which highlights differences between men and women, and workplace research, which focuses on the performances that are assumed to affect employee satisfaction. The study proposes a multi-dimensional assessment model that enables consideration of several workplace issues in tandem. Focusing on user satisfaction, the first part of the study is a holistic approach concerned with technical, functional and behavioral variables that provides a broad understanding about gender (in)differences. Personalization, the core issue of the second part of the study, is measured through personal display items, autonomous behavior and office layout preferences of men and women employees. The findings indicate the presence of significant gender differences in terms of satisfaction felt with regard to the behavioral variables. The results also support previous findings indicating that men and women use different personal display items in order to personalize their offices. More women were diagnosed to be changing their room layout on a temporary basis whereas men and women were evidenced for having similar attitudes in making permanent changes and in preferring an office layout for themselves. The findings suggest that gender difference is still a valid subject in workplace research although the differences may not be as sharp as the conventional gender difference myth claims, implying a better understanding of the issues that differently satisfy men and women.