Perceptual Dominance Research Articles

Instructional Note: Living in Good Relations: On Campus and Off

This Instructional Note elaborates on a definition of a decolonized classroom as one that champions Indigenous epistemologies, connects students to community events and organizations beyond the college, and unsettles dominant perceptions of a college education as strictly for capitalistic advancement.

‘I need to switch the job’. Young rural-urban migrants’ perceptions about their job during their education to work transition

ABSTRACT Young people’s choices and decisions during their education to work transition reflect their perceptions about work. Empirical studies of these perceptions of young rural-urban migrants are limited. This article explores the perceptions of young rural-urban migrants working at call centres in Kathmandu and the way these perceptions are associated with socio-cultural values and beliefs. The dominant perceptions found among young rural-urban migrants were that their job in a call centre served for skills development, financial needs, and as a temporary solution. Even though the centre was a fun place to work, there was little indication that young people saw this job as a ‘career’ The perceptions reveal a strong relation with socio-cultural values and beliefs influencing young people’s choices and decision making in their education to work transition in this context.

When meat-eaters expect vegan food to taste bad: Veganism as a symbolic threat

People who eat meat generally expect vegan food to taste bad. We theorize that this expectation stems in part from the perception that veganism is symbolically threatening; devaluing vegan food may enable meat-eaters to defend in-group values and defuse symbolic threat. We conducted four studies (total N = 1,563) on meat-eaters residing in the US. In Studies 1a and 1b, participants who most strongly endorsed carnism—the ideology that humans have a right to eat animals and their byproducts as food—were most likely to expect vegan food to taste bad. In Study 2, perceptions of veganism as symbolically threatening explained the relationship between carnism and taste expectations. In Study 3, experimentally increasing the salience of symbolic threat worsened taste expectations. Attachment to dominant group values and perceptions of intergroup threat may be barriers to the acceptance of veganism.

Combining corporate environmental sustainability and customer experience management to build an integrated model for decision-making

PurposeThe aim of this work is to provide a theoretical model that can help companies to develop a unique approach to achieve both corporate environmental sustainability (CES) and successful customer experience management (CEM).Design/methodology/approachA two-phase study achieved the research aim. The first phase consisted of the analysis of contemporary theoretical contributions with a focus on CES and CEM. In the second phase, taking a qualitative approach, the key dimensions identified in the initial analysis were investigated to explore the dominant perceptions of practitioners and to hone the theoretical categories.FindingsFive innovative pathways emerged from the study to inform decision-making while maintaining the dual objectives of CES and successful CEM. These pathways are combined to offer a strategic tool for managers and for research advances. This original integrated model also offers six novel theoretical propositions that describe how to shape corporate decisions to achieve environmental sustainability in CEM.Research limitations/implicationsFirms can benefit from an approach that integrates CES and CEM to develop a new mindset for an innovative and valuable decision-making process and to design more captivating experiences for customers. Nevertheless, the efficacy and generalizability of the theoretical framework and propositions require empirical testing.Originality/valueThis paper makes an original contribution to the environmental sustainability and marketing literature by bringing together all elements in these fields of research in a conceptual model. Moreover, this paper proposes theoretical propositions that advance knowledge of the subject and offer ideas for future research and managers.

Posing while black: The impact of race and expansive poses on trait attributions, professional evaluations, and interpersonal relations.

A large literature on nonverbal behavior demonstrates that information from body cues can inform our impressions of others. This work, however, has largely focused on perceptions of White targets. The current experiments extend this research by investigating the impact of body poses on trait attributions, professional evaluations, and interpersonal relations for both White and Black targets. In four studies, participants were presented with images of White and Black targets with expansive and constrictive poses. Not surprisingly, Experiment 1 revealed that expansive relative to constrictive poses increased perceptions of dominance for targets of both races. Furthermore, for White and Black targets, perceptions of dominance from expansive poses were mediated by greater attributions of competence. For Black but not White targets, however, perceptions of dominance from expansive poses were mediated by greater attributions of aggression. Three additional experiments examined the influence of poses on evaluations in professional and interpersonal contexts. Experiment 2 indicated that expansive compared to constrictive poses led to greater expectations of professional success for White than Black targets. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that expansive compared to constrictive poses led to a greater willingness to interact in an interpersonal setting with White but not Black targets. Attributions of aggression related to expansive poses by Black targets reduced the likelihood that they were chosen as interaction partners. The implications of these findings for understanding body perception and race relations are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

High Impact, Low Mood: An Analysis of Graduate Student Attitudes and Perceptions Through PHD Memes

Aim/Purpose: Graduate students face immense pressures and challenges as part of the graduate school experience, with few avenues to express their frustrations. While the crisis of graduate student mental health is well-documented quantitatively, and the stresses of graduate school are explored on the institutional level, there are few qualitative studies of these issues. Background: This study aims to explore graduate student attitudes and perceptions about graduate school and academia through the analysis of niche, graduate student-focused memes. Theories of emotional selection, emotional contagion, and collective coping predict that the creation and sharing of niche-interest memes reflect dominant attitudes and perceptions within niche communities under stress. Methodology: This study utilizes content analysis to thematically categorize a sample of 208 meme images created by and posted to the social media account High-Impact PhD Memes. The data is additionally categorized to measure resonance – how well each image was received by the page audience – and visualized using bar codes. Contribution: This study offers a new method for examining the attitudes and perceptions of niche groups online by proposing the measurement of emotional resonance, presents a novel visualization for the presentation of thematic coding and offers a new means to analyze internet memes for both content and emotional resonance. Findings: Findings indicate that the most frequently occurring themes in niche memes are not necessarily the ones that most highly emotionally resonate with the niche community of interest. The population of current and recent graduate students following High-Impact PhD Memes most highly resonated with the issues of literature access, financial/employment stresses, and overwork. Impact on Society: The findings of this study should encourage both researchers and higher education administrators to consider memes as reflections of the emotional states and perceptions of graduate students both collectively and individually, given how they comment on current, pressing issues. Based on the findings here, memes could feasibly be used as elicitation materials in well-being assessments or qualitative research studies to better understand and prompt reflections on the perspectives of graduate students, and ultimately improve programming and supports for the population. Future Research: Future research could apply similar methods to study other niche groups under pressure that use memes as a means of collective coping in order to better understand their attitudes and perceptions. Groups such as LGBTQ+ people, those with niche political affiliations, and neurodivergent people could all be studied with a similar approach.

Urban Poverty and Governance: The Case of Multan City

The issue of poverty is as old as economic development. A significant quantitative research on poverty has been undertaken for many decades all over the world in general and in developing countries in particular. However the issue of urban poverty has not been addressed effectively. Nevertheless urban poverty has until recently, been low on the agenda of development policy not only in the developing world but also in Pakistan because of dominant perception of urban bias and the need to counter this with a focus on rural development policy. The analysis of urban poverty is as necessary as the overall level of poverty in the country. There are many causes and determinants of urban poverty1 but distribution and management of economic and social resources in poverty reduction cannot be ignored. It is internationally recognised that poverty reduction and governance both are interrelated. Bad governance has made poverty reduction efforts ineffective [Blaxall (2000), Eid (2000) and Gupta, et al. (1998)], while poverty reduction projects provide fertile ground for corruption.2 The consensus emerges from this line of thinking is that good governance is necessary and effective for poverty alleviation efforts.

A peek behind the curtain: An integrative review of sexual harassment of nursing students on clinical placement.

This integrative review aimed at systematically searching, analysing and synthesising multiple sources of evidence, to build a temporal understanding of nursing students' experiences of sexual harassment whilst on clinical placement, and to discuss the social context which enables this. Sexual harassment is highly prevalent in workplaces globally. Contemporary social understandings contextualise sexual harassment as a significant form of interpersonal violence. This is the first literature review to go beyond prevalence to synthesise the experience, implications and responses to sexual harassment encountered by student nurses on clinical placement. Whittemore and Knafl's (2005) integrative review methodology is used to structure a rigorous analysis and synthesis of evidence. The PRISMA checklist supported sound reporting of the search strategy. Three databases (CINAHL, Scopus and Medline) were searched using a Boolean strategy. Papers with a significant focus on sexual harassment of nursing students in the clinical setting were included with no limitation on publication date. Papers were excluded if they were not published in English or were only published as abstracts. A synthesis of 26 papers demonstrated that sexual harassment has significant impacts on student nurses and the nursing profession. The intimacy of close body care, dominant social perceptions of nursing as women's work and the sexualisation of nurses increase student vulnerability to sexual harassment. Workplace power imbalances further exacerbate sexual harassment and shape responses to incidents. Sexual harassment of nursing students is widespread and impacts student well-being and learning. Education is a strong protective factor and should target students, clinicians, clinical facilitators and academics. Attention to workplace culture, and processes that support disclosure and reporting, is also required to meaningfully address the sexual harassment of nursing students.

Perceptions of Ethnic-Racial and Religious Diversity in Brazil and Argentina and Their Political-Legal Expressions

Abstract This article focuses on the relationship between religious, racial and ethnic diversity and its scientific, political and juridical configurations. Our aim is to understand how dominant perceptions of ethnic-racial diversity, which can be apprehended through official instruments such as census surveys, are connected to the production of religious diversity and its political and legal governance in Brazil and Argentina. Our hypothesis is that race and ethnic demarcations are crucial in the political and legal process of definition of what can be categorized as a religious practice. We will analyze the constitutional framework historically given to religious freedom and ethnic-racial diversity to demonstrate this connection. How racial and religious diversity is perceived and categorized expresses itself in State responses to control it through State policies. We assume that the differences between these countries in dealing with religious and non-religious diversity strains in various ways the relations between freedom and equality regimes.

ERPs responses to dominance features from human faces

Social dominance is an important feature of social life. Dominance has been proposed to be one of two trait dimensions underpinning social judgments of human faces. Yet, the neural bases of the ability to identify different dominance levels in others based on intrinsically facial cues remains poorly understood. Here, we used event-related potentials to determine the temporal dynamics of facial dominance evaluation based on facial features signaling physical strength/weakness in humans. Twenty-seven participants performed a dominance perception task where they passively viewed faces with different dominance levels. Dominance levels did not modulate an early component of face processing, known as the N170 component, but did modulate the late positive potential (LPP) component. These findings indicate that participants inferred dominance levels at a late stage of face evaluation. Furthermore, the highest level of dominant faces and the lowest level of submissive faces both elicited higher LPP amplitudes than faces with a neutral dominance level. Taken together, the present study provides new insights regarding the dynamics of the neurocognitive processes underlying facial dominance evaluation.

Knowledge of identity reduces variability in trait judgements across face images.

Faces vary from image to image, eliciting different judgements of traits and often different judgements of identity. Knowledge that two face images belong to the same person facilitates the processing of identity information across images, but it is unclear if this also applies to trait judgements. In this preregistered study, participants (N = 100) rated the same 340 face images on perceived trustworthiness, dominance, or attractiveness presented in randomised order and again later presented in sets consisting of the same identity. We also explored the role of implicit person theory beliefs in the variability of social judgements across images. We found that judgements of trustworthiness varied less when images were presented in sets consisting of the same identity than in randomised order and were more consistent for images presented later in a set than those presented earlier. However, knowledge of identity had little effect on perceptions of dominance and attractiveness. Finally, implicit person theory beliefs were not associated with variability in social judgements and did not account for effects of knowledge of identity. Our findings suggest that knowledge of identity and perceptual familiarity stabilises judgements of trustworthiness, but not perceptions of dominance and attractiveness.

Altered functional connectivity: A possible reason for reduced performance during visual cognition involving scene incongruence and negative affect.

Object-context associations and valence are two unavoidable stimulus characteristics when it comes to the processing of natural visual scenes. In line with our previous studies exploring the parallel processing of context-congruity and valence, in the current study, we investigated the valence-specific differences in functional connectivity between congruent-incongruent picture pairs during binocular rivalry using high-density EEG. The functional connectivity measure was calculated using sLORETA during the perceptual dominance of congruent and incongruent stimuli in a time window of 400ms before the response and compared within and between positive, negative, and neutral valence categories (84 Brodmann's areas across 7 frequency bands) using t-tests. A significant difference in functional connectivity between congruent-incongruent picture pairs was seen only when associated with negative valence and a maximum number of area pairs showed differences in lower alpha 1 (7.1-9Hz), upper alpha (11.1-13Hz), and beta (13.1-30Hz) frequency bands. The functional connectivity was significantly lower during incongruent perception between the area pairs which process mainly emotion, attention, memory, and semantic relations compared to their corresponding congruent stimuli. Similarly, negative incongruent percepts were found to have significantly lower connectivity between areas processing attention, emotion, and incongruence in the lower alpha 2 (9.1-11Hz) band when compared to positive incongruent percepts. Together, these results suggest that the perception of negative incongruence is associated with lower functional connectivity and this could be a possible reason for the increased error rates when faced with incongruity and negative affect during visual tasks.

Self-reference modulates the perception of visual apparent motion.

Visual apparent motion is a perceptual illusion where sequentially presented static stimuli containing no physically continuous motion are perceived as moving. In the current study, we examined whether and how self-reference, as a typical high-level information processing, could modulate perceptual categorization of the apparent motion in Ternus display, even when self-reference is task-irrelevant. Two frames were consecutively presented, with the first frame consisting of two identical stimuli (e.g., two rectangles) on the leftmost and the middle positions and the second frame consisting of two stimuli on the middle and the rightmost positions. Depending on the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) between the two frames, the display could be perceived as showing Element Motion (EM), with the peripheral stimulus moving from one side to the other while the middle stimulus remains stationary or flashes briefly at the middle position, or Group Motion (GM), with both stimuli appearing to move as a whole. Participants were tested in this configuration and then learned to associate different labels (Self, Friend, Stranger) with geometric shapes (Circle, Rectangle, Triangle). They were tested again in the new configuration. Results showed that after association (vs. before association), participants were more likely to perceive the Ternus display of self-associated shapes as GM, but this effect did not appear for friend-associated or stranger-associated shapes. Self-referential processing spatially "glues" the two stimuli in a frame with the concept of "Self," leading to a more dominant percept of GM.

Determinants of Farmers’ Willingness to Cultivate Moringa Oleifera: The Case of Dipaculao, Aurora, Philippines

Moringa oleifera, commonly known as “malunggay” or “marunggay” in the Philippines, is a native tree considered a miracle plant due to its multipurpose uses, especially in traditional medicine. However, despite its proven uses and adaptability to different climates, the species is still underutilized. This paper aims to provide evidence regarding the dominant perceptions of and willingness to cultivate moringa, especially among those working in the agriculture sector. This study employed a descriptive research design. Data were gathered from farmers in Dipaculao, Aurora, using a self-made questionnaire and were processed and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 23. The results showed that the majority of the farmers had positive perceptions of moringa and a willingness to cultivate it. Moreover, the farmers’ age, sex, farm size, years engaged in farming, and number of household members did not affect their willingness to cultivate moringa. Furthermore, farmers highlighted factors that might affect their decision to cultivate moringa, including the knowledge and skills for moringa cultivation and management, necessary capital for planting materials, and equipment and facilities for cultivation and processing. Therefore, this study recommends that the concerned agencies provide the farmers with training and seminars, financial loans, machinery/tools, and farm inputs.

Effect of visual imagery in COVID-19 social media posts on users' perception.

People receive a wide variety of news from social media. They especially look for information on social media in times of crisis with the desire to assess the risk they face. This risk assessment, and other aspects of user reactions, may be affected by characteristics of the social media post relaying certain information. Thus, it is critical to understand these characteristics to deliver information with the reactions in mind. This study investigated various types of imagery used as thumbnails in social media posts regarding news about the COVID-19 pandemic. In an experimental design, 300 participants viewed social media posts containing each of the three types of imagery: data visualization (directly about risk information), advisory (not containing direct risk information, but instead help on how to lower risk), or clickbait (containing no risk-related information, just generic visuals). After observing the social media posts, they answered questionnaires measuring their emotions (valence, arousal, and dominance), risk perception, perceived credibility of the post, and engagement. The participants also indicated their emotions towards and interest in COVID-19 news coverage, age, gender, and how often and actively they use social media. These variables acted as controls. The data were analysed using mixed linear models. Results indicated that advisory imagery positively influenced valence, arousal, dominance, credibility, and (lower) risk perception. Alternatively, imagery showing data visualizations yielded low valence, arousal, dominance, credibility, and high risk perception. Clickbait-styled thumbnails which carry no information are usually measured between the other two types. The type of imagery did not affect the motivation to engage with a post. Aside from visual imagery, most variables were affected by COVID sentiment and the usual activity on social media. These study results indicate that one should use advisory imagery for more comfortable news delivery and data visualization when the poster wishes to warn users of existing risks.

Security, Terrorism, and Territorial Withdrawal: Critically Reassessing the Lessons of Israel's “Unilateral Disengagement” from the Gaza Strip

Abstract In contemporary Israel, the apparently negative consequences of the 2005 “unilateral disengagement” from the Gaza Strip have fueled a perception that leaving territory harms national security. Three claims underlie this framing: (1) domestic Israeli political considerations—not national security concerns—caused the disengagement; (2) Israel abandoned territory without receiving any compensation; and (3) leaving Gaza only precipitated further terrorist attacks. This article challenges these claims. It argues that domestic dynamics alone do not explain the withdrawal. Instead, Israel withdrew to mitigate its casualties, yield foreign policy gains, deter and deny terrorist groups, and avert a perceived demographic threat. The disengagement did not seek to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Instead, through a limited territorial exit, it sought to stabilize the conflict and stymie negotiations with the Palestinians. In contrast to dominant perceptions, Israel achieved all of these objectives. Furthermore, it was Israel's post-disengagement policies that precipitated most of the recent security threats, not the withdrawal itself. These findings reassess the disengagement's goals and efficacy. They demonstrate that in contrast to popular perceptions in Israel today, the Gaza disengagement neither was a strategic blunder nor does it exemplify that territorial withdrawal constitutes a flawed policy choice.

A flexible Python-based touchscreen chamber for operant conditioning reveals improved visual perception of cardinal orientations in mice.

Natural scenes are composed of a wide range of edge angles and spatial frequencies, with a strong overrepresentation of vertical and horizontal edges. Correspondingly, many mammalian species are much better at discriminating these cardinal orientations compared to obliques. A potential reason for this increased performance could be an increased number of neurons in the visual cortex that are tuned to cardinal orientations, which is likely to be an adaptation to the natural scene statistics. Such biased angular tuning has recently been shown in the mouse primary visual cortex. However, it is still unknown if mice also show a perceptual dominance of cardinal orientations. Here, we describe the design of a novel custom-built touchscreen chamber that allows testing natural scene perception and orientation discrimination performance by applying different task designs. Using this chamber, we applied an iterative convergence towards orientation discrimination thresholds for cardinal or oblique orientations in different cohorts of mice. Surprisingly, the expert discrimination performance was similar for both groups but showed large inter-individual differences in performance and training time. To study the discrimination of cardinal and oblique stimuli in the same mice, we, therefore, applied, a different training regime where mice learned to discriminate cardinal and oblique gratings in parallel. Parallel training revealed a higher task performance for cardinal orientations in an early phase of the training. The performance for both orientations became similar after prolonged training, suggesting that learning permits equally high perceptual tuning towards oblique stimuli. In summary, our custom-built touchscreen chamber offers a flexible tool to test natural visual perception in rodents and revealed a training-induced increase in the perception of oblique gratings. The touchscreen chamber is entirely open-source, easy to build, and freely available to the scientific community to conduct visual or multimodal behavioral studies. It is also based on the FAIR principles for data management and sharing and could therefore serve as a catalyst for testing the perception of complex and natural visual stimuli across behavioral labs.

Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Nature-Based Solutions for Hurricane Risk Reduction Policies in the Mexican Caribbean

Nature-based solutions (NbSs) have long recognized the value of coastal and marine ecosystem management and associated ecosystem services as useful tools for climate change mitigation (e.g., blue carbon) and adaptation (e.g., coastal protection against flooding and storm surges). However, NbSs remain poorly acknowledged and mostly absent from coastal planning for disaster risk reduction policies in the Caribbean, as well as from ex-post disaster reconstruction funds. With the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes in the region, NbSs are now more needed than ever. Taking Mexico as a representative case study for the wider Caribbean, we here seek to identify and analyze the barriers and opportunities perceived by relevant stakeholders for mainstreaming coastal-marine NbSs into coastal management and disaster risk reduction policies (e.g., mangroves as green infrastructure) to protect coastal societies and national economies against hurricanes. We conduct semi-structured, in-depth interviews with twenty stakeholders covering academic, governmental, tourism, NGO, coastal planning, and financial domains. Among the twenty-three identified barriers, governance, institutional, financial, and human-capacity aspects are the most dominant perceptions behind the current lack of NbS implementation. Future action for the policy integration of NbSs requires widespread political will and better quantification of both the provision of ecosystem services and their economic benefits under conventional markets.

Collaborating eye to eye: Effects of workplace design on the perception of dominance of collaboration robots.

The concept of Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) describes innovative industrial work procedures, in which human staff works in close vicinity with robots on a shared task. Current HRC scenarios often deploy hand-guided robots or remote controls operated by the human collaboration partner. As HRC envisions active collaboration between both parties, ongoing research efforts aim to enhance the capabilities of industrial robots not only in the technical dimension but also in the robot’s socio-interactive features. Apart from enabling the robot to autonomously complete the respective shared task in conjunction with a human partner, one essential aspect lifted from the group collaboration among humans is the communication between both entities. State-of-the-art research has identified communication as a significant contributor to successful collaboration between humans and industrial robots. Non-verbal gestures have been shown to be contributing aspect in conveying the respective state of the robot during the collaboration procedure. Research indicates that, depending on the viewing perspective, the usage of non-verbal gestures in humans can impact the interpersonal attribution of certain characteristics. Applied to collaborative robots such as the Yumi IRB 14000, which is equipped with two arms, specifically to mimic human actions, the perception of the robots’ non-verbal behavior can affect the collaboration. Most important in this context are dominance emitting gestures by the robot that can reinforce negative attitudes towards robots, thus hampering the users’ willingness and effectiveness to collaborate with the robot. By using a 3 × 3 within-subjects design online study, we investigated the effect of dominance gestures (Akimbo, crossing arms, and large arm spread) working in a standing position with an average male height, working in a standing position with an average female height, and working in a seated position on the perception of dominance of the robot. Overall 115 participants (58 female and 57 male) with an average age of 23 years evaluated nine videos of the robot. Results indicated that all presented gestures affect a person’s perception of the robot in regards to its perceived characteristics and willingness to cooperate with the robot. The data also showed participants’ increased attribution of dominance based on the presented viewing perspective.

Teachers’ Perceptions about Feedback and Their Feedback Practices: Are They in Line?

We conducted a qualitative study with 14 Iranian EFL teachers to explore their perceptions about feedback and to investigate the factors that mediated their translation into feedback practices. As our analysis indicated, students’ expectations, teachers’ perceptions, institutional guidelines, and parents' expectations were important constituents of our teachers’ perceptions. Our analysis also suggested that our participants’ perceptions were comprised of a network of variables, and these variables were at times conflicting. For instance, while the teachers valued feedback on content and organization, their students preferred grammar-centered written feedback. These student expectations were also reported to affect English institutions’ guidelines regarding the provision of written feedback. However, our findings showed that students’ expectations were the dominant factors which ultimately determined the translation of our teachers’ perceptions to their feedback practices. Overall, the findings indicate that our teachers’ perceptions are rarely the basis for their practice, primarily because of dominant student perceptions.