Levels Of Salience Research Articles

The Effects of Type of Instruction of English Prepositions with Varying Degrees of Salience

It is still unknown if different types of input exposure are equally effective at facilitating the learning of forms that vary in their level of perceptual salience. A pretest-posttest design was implemented during four training sessions to find if university students of English as a foreign language could learn three prepositions which are used in the context of forms of transportation: in, on, and by. Eighty-three participants were assigned one of three different conditions: a) control, b) textual enhancement and c) explicit instruction. Automatized-explicit and declarative-explicit knowledge was assessed before and after the treatment. The results revealed that textual enhancement did not lead to learning of the target forms. Only explicit instruction caused a learning effect. Explicit instruction of less salient forms promoted primarily automatized-explicit knowledge and declarative-explicit knowledge of those forms whereas explicit instruction of more salient forms resulted only in declarative-explicit knowledge.

Beyond symbolism: The roles of action planning and case-making in immigrant integration policymaking

Abstract How do city-level policymakers build support for substantive action in policy domains characterized by low levels of national salience and limited local capacity, and which evidentiary resources support as well as reflect these uses? Despite much attention to policymakers’ engagement with evidence, existing work tends to focus on domains where the issues at stake attract high levels of input and influence from central governments. This limits empirical and theoretical understanding of how local efforts to implement potentially contentious policies arise, and through which means. In response, we examine how municipal actors in 12 cities and regions across the UK have devised and communicated policies on immigrant integration—an area that lacks national policy inputs yet is locally consequential—through the mechanism of “action planning.” Drawing on 6 years’ worth of documentary evidence generated through a university-initiated collaboration with these municipalities, we show how action plans gather attention for objectives and propagate examples of practice to other cities—what we call “case-making.” This serves as a micro-foundation for the action planning mechanism, which links symbolic statements about immigrant integration with substantive intended actions.

Mortality salience and helping behavior amidst public crisis: cross-sectional evidence during COVID-19.

As a real mortality salience, a public crisis would have a major impact on individual minds, behaviors, and lifestyles. COVID-19 provides us with a stark real-world example to understand these implications. Previous research has revealed that some individuals become more willing to help the infected at the risk of their own lives, while others become more self-centered and indifferent during COVID-19. To explain this paradoxical phenomenon, our study used two rival mediators in the relationship between mortality salience and helping behavior during COVID-19: death anxiety and death reflection. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among Chinese college students (N = 684) during the pandemic. We used a parallel mediation model to explore the mediating roles of death anxiety and death reflection in the relationship between mortality salience and helping behavior during COVID-19. The results of our study indicate two key findings. First, mortality salience is negatively related to helping behavior during COVID-19 via death anxiety. This suggests that individuals with higher levels of mortality salience experienced increased death anxiety, which in turn led to a decrease in helping behavior. Second, mortality salience is positively related to helping behavior during COVID-19 via death reflection. This indicates that individuals with higher levels of mortality salience engaged in deeper reflection on death, which subsequently resulted in an increase in helping behavior. Our study provides valuable insights into the complex relationship between mortality salience and helping behaviors in the time of public crisis, and can help lead to more positive attitudes toward public crisis events such as COVID-19.

Redundancy can hinder adult L2 grammar learning: evidence from case markers of varying salience levels.

Grammatical redundancy is a widespread feature across languages. Although redundant cues can be seen to increase the complexity and processing burden of structures, it has been suggested that they can assist language acquisition. Here, we explored if this learning benefit can be observed from the very initial stages of second language (L2) acquisition and whether the effect of redundancy is modulated by the perceptual salience of the redundant linguistic cues. Across two experiments, three groups of adult native speakers of English were incidentally exposed to three different artificial languages; one that had a fixed word order, Verb-Object-Subject, and two in which thematic role assignment was additionally determined by a low-salient (Experiment 1) or a high-salient (Experiment 2) redundant case marker. While all groups managed to learn the novel language, our results pointed towards a hindering role of redundancy, with participants in the non-redundant condition achieving greater learning outcomes compared to those in both redundant conditions. Results also revealed that this impeding effect of redundancy on L2 learners can be attenuated by the salience of the redundant cue (Experiment 2). In conjunction with earlier findings, the present results suggest that the effect of redundancy on L2 acquisition can be differentially manifested depending on the stage of L2 development, learners' first language biases and age.

Religion, Psychedelics, Risky Behavior, and Violence

ABSTRACT Research has found that psychedelic use is associated with positive behavioral changes, however research has yet to explore the relationship between socio-cultural conditions on this relationship. This paper intends to fill this gap by testing the effects of religious participation and beliefs on the relationship between psychedelic use and behaviors. This study examines the relationship between Lifetime Classic Psychedelic Use (LCPU), different aspects of religion (such as salience and attendance), and the likelihood of committing a violent assault. The analysis uses pooled data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) from 2015 to 2019, with a sample size of 282,768. Binary logistic regression models conducted in Stata 17 reveal that LCPU and religion (salience and influence) are independently associated with reduced violence. Additionally, two-way interactions indicate that the association between risky behavior and violence is smaller among individuals with high levels of religious salience. Furthermore, a three-way interaction suggests that the association between risky behavior and violence is smaller for those who have used psychedelics, with the largest effect observed among individuals with high religious salience. These results show that religious factors can influence the relationship between psychedelic use and behaviors, with both attendance and salience operating simultaneously.

Beyond ‘economic nationalism’? The (limited) influence of populist parties on public procurement in France and Germany

ABSTRACT This paper explores the populist stance on public procurement policies and how populist parties exert influence on public procurement. The assessment of this influence is grounded in an original analysis of media reporting, and parliamentary questions posed by right- and left-wing populists in France and Germany. Despite the financial significance of procurement and its potential to bolster and protect national economies, the study reveals a relatively low level of salience. There is limited evidence supporting the assumption that populists actively push for more ‘economic nationalism’. Rather they mainly criticise perceived corrupt elites, reflecting a consistent trend of anti-establishment contestation across both semi-presidential and parliamentary systems. Where such advocacy occurs, ‘cultural’ and ‘economic nationalist’ positions prevail across both right- and left-wing populists. Theoretically, these findings contribute novel insights into the link between thin-populist and thick-host ideologies.

Setting our boundaries: The role of gender, values, and role salience in work–home boundary permeability

AbstractAlthough women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, gender role stereotypes persist, and gender roles may relate to how men and women manage work–home boundaries. In this study, we explore gender differences in how employee values (tradition, achievement) translate into role identity salience, and in turn, boundary management preferences and behaviour. With data collected in two waves from 200 employees, we examined how the personal values of tradition and achievement relate differently by gender to role identity salience and in turn, boundary management. We found that men who more strongly value tradition have higher levels of work identity salience and both prefer and create an impermeable boundary around work to prevent intrusion from home. Men who valued tradition more also preferred and crafted a permeable home boundary to allow work intrusion. In contrast, women with higher tradition values reported higher home identity salience, which was associated with preferring segmentation in both work‐to‐home and home‐to‐work directions, and to behaviorally protecting home from work. Contrary to expectations, achievement values did not relate to a boundary management process via role identity salience for either gender. We discuss implications for a more nuanced, values‐driven, and gendered perspective on boundary management.

Simulated Dopamine Modulation of a Neurorobotic Model of the Basal Ganglia.

The vertebrate basal ganglia play an important role in action selection-the resolution of conflicts between alternative motor programs. The effective operation of basal ganglia circuitry is also known to rely on appropriate levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. We investigated reducing or increasing the tonic level of simulated dopamine in a prior model of the basal ganglia integrated into a robot control architecture engaged in a foraging task inspired by animal behaviour. The main findings were that progressive reductions in the levels of simulated dopamine caused slowed behaviour and, at low levels, an inability to initiate movement. These states were partially relieved by increased salience levels (stronger sensory/motivational input). Conversely, increased simulated dopamine caused distortion of the robot's motor acts through partially expressed motor activity relating to losing actions. This could also lead to an increased frequency of behaviour switching. Levels of simulated dopamine that were either significantly lower or higher than baseline could cause a loss of behavioural integration, sometimes leaving the robot in a 'behavioral trap'. That some analogous traits are observed in animals and humans affected by dopamine dysregulation suggests that robotic models could prove useful in understanding the role of dopamine neurotransmission in basal ganglia function and dysfunction.

Recognising interdisciplinary implications of the affective filter

Linguistic education, like practically any other form of education, is strongly determined by affect. Although the entire “story” is far more complex, we might summarise it by saying that if students and teachers find themselves in emotionally convenient circumstances, linguistic progress is easily noticeable, whereas in situations when either of them are experiencing negative feelings or emotions, linguistic efforts are likely to prove simply futile. As implied by the well-known concept of the affective filter, negative emotions – be it fear, anxiety, discomfort and such – act an invisible wall blocking cognition and disable linguistic education. Hence, the teachers’ and – predominantly – the students’ affect either aids or hinders education and it does so in a less or more concealed fashion. On the level of terminology, too, the presence and salience of affect is either explicit or implicit. The former is the case with the said notion of affective filter and others such as speech anxiety, emotional intelligence, willingness to communicate, everyday stressors, etc. The latter is even more extensive, although it tends to be overlooked or disregarded, which can be exemplified by such linguistic concepts as, for example, (a) fossilization, which is mostly defined in cognitive terms and relates to that part of language users’ competence which has become fixed and may fall subject to stagnation – but which results from our natural need of comfort and of social recognition; or even such a traditional term as (b) language performance, which is contrasted against language competence and also viewed through a predominantly cognitive prism – but which, too, is subject to our emotional stance and individual invariably-unstable and internally influential feelings.

Modeling college student intimate partner violence perpetration, eating disorder symptomatology, and alcohol salience

Intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration’s relationship with alcohol salience to college experience and eating disorder (ED) symptomatology is not well understood. Midwestern university students (n = 1580) participated in an online survey. Structural equation models examined the relationship between these variables. All models fit the data well, however, the risk factors of IPV perpetration or alcohol use were not significantly associated with ED symptomatology. However, IPV perpetration was significantly associated with both alcohol use (β = .13, p < .01) and alcohol salience (β = .11, p < .01). College students reported higher levels of perpetration and alcohol salience, which may indicate alcohol-fueled social interactions.

Media Salience Shifts and the Public’s Perceptions About Reality: How Fluctuations in News Media Attention Influence the Strength of Citizens’ Sociotropic Beliefs

ABSTRACT This article examines whether shifts in news media attention to societal issues matter for how strong beliefs citizens have about those issues. Based on an issue signal approach, in which media salience is conceptualized as signal strength, the study analyzes whether sociotropic beliefs become more prevalent, extreme, and certain when news media salience rises, and less prevalent, extreme, and certain when media salience drops. Using a four-wave panel survey dataset collected over a two-year period, the empirical analysis links media content analyses of issue salience to panel survey data, comparing four issues with different levels of baseline salience and political controversy: violent crimes, immigration, climate change, and antibiotic resistance. The analysis shows that issue-specific news media exposure and issue-specific use of alternative media offer two different pathways to the formation of beliefs. The hypothesized relationship with news media salience was supported for the two controversial issues with high baseline salience (immigration and violent crimes), but not for climate change and antibiotic resistance. The results indicate that issue attributes matter and that audiences may respond differently to salience shifts depending on the level of controversy of the issue.

Policy integration in the European Union: mapping patterns of intersectoral policy-making over time and across policy sectors

ABSTRACT Policy integration has become an important principle guiding public policy development. Despite its prominence, we lack comprehensive knowledge of the exact degree of policy integration and its variation across policy sectors and time, mainly due to the lack of systematic measurement approaches. We address this shortcoming by (1) developing a novel measure that evaluates the intersectorality of legal acts and (2) assessing its development in the European Union over four decades (1977–2019) for 16 policy sectors. Our mapping reveals that, on average, intersectoral policy-making has increased since the 1990s with the most substantial rise during the Barroso I and II Commissions and a trend reversal after Juncker took office in 2014. Furthermore, we identify substantial variation in intersectoral policy-making between different policy areas reflecting varying levels of political attention and public salience. We deem our measurement concept and findings to have important implications for the study of policy integration in general and the study of EU policies in particular.

Estimating Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) of the cognitive process in strategic thinking using eye-tracking

Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) are used to study language, sleep, macroeconomic states, and other processes that reflect probabilistic transitions between states that can't be observed directly. This paper applies HMMs to data from location-based game theory experiments. In these location games, players choose a pixel location from an image. These players either have a common goal (choose a matching location), or competing goals, to mismatch (hide) or match (seek) in hider-seeker games. We use eye-tracking to record where players look throughout the experimental decision. Each location's numerical salience is predicted using an accurate, specialized vision science-based neural network [the Saliency Attentive Model (SAM)]. The HMM shows the pattern of transitioning from hidden states corresponding to either high or low-salience locations, combining the eye-tracking and salience data. The transitions vary based on the player's strategic goal. For example, hiders transition more often to low-salience states than seekers do. The estimated HMM is then used to do two useful things. First, a continuous-time HMM (cHMM) predicts the salience level of each player's looking over several seconds. The cHMM can then be used to predict what would happen if the same process was truncated by time pressure: This calculation makes a specific numerical prediction about how often seekers will win, and it predicts an increase in win rate but underestimates the size of the change. Second, a discrete-time HMM (dHMM) can be used to infer levels of strategic thinking from high-to-low salience eye-tracking transitions. The resulting estimates are more plausible than some maximum-likelihood models, which underestimate strategic sophistication in these games. Other applications of HMM in experimental economics are suggested.

Features of the Profile of Russian Identity: Experience of the Multidimensional Approach (case study of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia))

The article presents the initial results of applying a multidimensional methodology to the sociological measurement of the level of Russian identity. The multidimensional approach to measuring the level of Russian identity was constructed based on a five-component model of in-group identification developed by K. Leach and colleagues. This methodology allows for the quantitative measurement of the degree of formation of components such as cohesion (psychological connection with other members of the community), emotional satisfaction with belonging to the community, salience (the significance of belonging to a particular community in the structure of a person's self-concept or &amp;amp;quot;I-concept&amp;amp;quot;), self-stereotyping (conviction of one's similarity to other members of the same community), and homogeneity (perception of the community as a whole). The empirical basis of the study was the data from a survey of residents of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) conducted in 2021-2022, that included a block of multidimensional measurements of the level of Russian identity.&#x0D; Based on the analysis conducted, the author draws several conclusions:&#x0D; 1. The profile of Russian identity, in its republican variation, is characterised by relatively high levels of satisfaction and cohesion, and low levels of salience, self-stereotyping, and homogeneity. In other words, when considering these components together, it reflects the formation of perceptions of the Russian community as a whole, a collective, rather than a simple collection of people with Russian citizenship.&#x0D; 2. The multidimensional approach has significantly expanded existing notions of the prevalence of identity-based foundations of Russian consolidation by providing insights into the contribution of each identifier to the overall level of Russian identity. The hierarchy of identity foundations based on their contribution to the formation of the profile of Russian identity does not align with the hierarchy of the same foundations based on their importance in the self-categorisation process.&#x0D; 3. Comparing data on the profile of Russian identity in 2021 and 2022 allowed for the identification of changes in the level of Russian identity following the start of the Special Military Operation (SVO). There was a slight decrease in cohesion indicators, alongside a significant increase in satisfaction and salience indicators, while self-stereotyping and homogeneity indicators remained unchanged.&#x0D; In conclusion, it is shown that the use of a multidimensional approach to the study of Russian identity allows for a detailed examination of the structure and dynamics of Russian identity, formulated based on &amp;amp;quot;classic&amp;amp;quot; monomeric measurements.

Entrepreneurial framing: How category dynamics shape the effectiveness of linguistic frames

AbstractResearch SummaryHow do new entrepreneurial ventures effectively deploy linguistic frames to attract customer demand? Drawing on framing and categories research, we develop and test theory about how category dynamics shape the effectiveness of two commonly observed frames—social impact framing and innovativeness framing—in the context of prosocial categories. We test our predictions by tracking entrepreneurial ventures in the market category for massive open online courses over the category's first 10 years of existence (2012–2021). Our fixed‐effects models show that higher levels of category salience increase the effectiveness of a social impact framing but decrease the effectiveness of an innovativeness framing; conversely, higher levels of category crowdedness decrease the effectiveness of a social impact framing but increase the effectiveness of an innovativeness framing.Managerial SummaryThis research explores how startups can strategically frame themselves to attract customers. We specifically compare the effectiveness of a “social impact framing” (emphasizing the startup's benefits to society) versus an “innovativeness framing” (emphasizing innovativeness) under different market conditions. Our longitudinal study finds that startups benefit most from a social impact framing when their market attracts a lot of attention or has low competition. While an innovativeness framing can backfire under such conditions, it effectively helps to attract customers in a market that receives little attention or exhibits fierce competition. Entrepreneurs and managers can leverage our insights to more effectively tailor their framing strategies to their market environment and ultimately gain more customer traction.

Improved prediction of behavioral and neural similarity spaces using pruned DNNs

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have become an important tool for modeling brain and behavior. One key area of interest has been to apply these networks to model human similarity judgements. Several previous works have used the embeddings from the penultimate layer of vision DNNs and showed that a reweighting of these features improves the fit between human similarity judgments and DNNs. These studies underline the idea that these embeddings form a good basis set but lack the correct level of salience. Here we re-examined the grounds for this idea and on the contrary, we hypothesized that these embeddings, beyond forming a good basis set, also have the correct level of salience to account for similarity judgments. It is just that the huge dimensional embedding needs to be pruned to select those features relevant for the considered domain for which a similarity space is modeled. In Study 1 we supervised DNN pruning based on a subset of human similarity judgments. We found that pruning: i) improved out-of-sample prediction of human similarity judgments from DNN embeddings, ii) produced better alignment with WordNet hierarchy, and iii) retained much higher classification accuracy than reweighting. Study 2 showed that pruning by neurobiological data is highly effective in improving out-of-sample prediction of brain-derived representational dissimilarity matrices from DNN embeddings, at times fleshing out isomorphisms not otherwise observable. Using pruned DNNs, image-level heatmaps can be produced to identify image sections whose features load on dimensions coded by a brain area. Pruning supervised by human brain/behavior therefore effectively identifies alignable dimensions of knowledge between DNNs and humans and constitutes an effective method for understanding the organization of knowledge in neural networks.

Politicisation, business lobbying, and the design of preferential trade agreements

Our paper addresses the question of how governments respond to the politicisation of preferential trade agreements (PTA). How have governments responded to business interest mobilisation while negotiating PTAs? Moreover, if there has been an increase in the salience of a trade agreement, has this changed the government response? First, we assess politicisation in terms of the mobilisation patterns of private sector interests during PTA negotiations. Our central argument is that governments liberalise more when a broad range of business interests involving a large number of sectors mobilise in response to trade negotiations, as this would provide legitimacy to their policy positions. Second, we study governments’ reactions to the level of salience of the trade agreement at hand. We argue that governments liberalise less when the agreement in question is highly salient and provokes increased public debate. We take an actor-centred and comparative approach to our research questions and use a novel dataset of 157 PTAs covering the period from 2005 to 2018. Both of our hypotheses are supported by our analysis. Our results also reveal an important difference between PTA ‘depth’ and ‘rigidity’, which are often perceived as closely correlated in assessing trade openness.

Does Task-Irrelevant Brightness Modulation Affect Auditory Contrast Processing? Exploring the Interplay Between Temporal Synchrony and Stimulus Salience

Abstract Stimulus factors such as timing, spatial location, and stimulus effectiveness affect whether and how information across the senses is integrated. Extending recent work highlighting interactions between stimulus factors, here we investigated the influence of visual information on auditory processing, complementing previous studies on the influence of auditory information on visual processing. We hypothesized that task-irrelevant and spatially non-informative visual information would enhance auditory contrast processing, when visual information was at an optimal salience level and changed synchronously with the sound. We asked human observers to indicate the location of an amplitude-modulated white-noise sound, while its loudness against a constant white-noise background varied across trials. To test for the influence of task-irrelevant visual information, we modulated screen brightness smoothly (Experiment 1) or transiently (Experiment 2) in phase or out of phase with the amplitude modulation of the target sound. In addition, to test for the interaction between temporal synchrony and stimulus salience, maximum brightness varied systematically across trials. Auditory contrast thresholds were compared across conditions. Results showed that task-irrelevant visual information did not alter auditory contrast thresholds regardless of the nature of modulation of brightness, contrary to our expectations. Nonetheless, task-irrelevant visual information modulated in phase with the target sound reduced auditory contrast thresholds if we accounted for individual differences in the optimal salience required for the largest multisensory effects. Our results are discussed in light of several stimulus factors that might be critical in modulating multisensory enhancement.

All joking aside? Comparing the effects of a humorous vs. a non-humorous message strategy in building organization–public relationships and community resilience

ABSTRACT Communication scholars have studied the persuasive power of humor messages, but research provides mixed results. Also, the literature has been slow in demonstrating the practical effects of humorous messages on desired outcomes (e.g., organization–public relationships). Through an online experiment in the context of weather messages with samples of U.S. adults residing in the Southeastern U.S. (N = 209), we compared a humorous social media message designed to build relationships with the public to a non-humorous message in predicting OPRs and perceived community resilience when there is no high-impact weather on the horizon. Compared to a humorous message, a non-humorous message appeared to be more effective in increasing perceived community resilience and three dimensions of positive OPRs – trust, control mutuality, and commitment. The effects were more robust for community members with low to moderate levels of weather salience (i.e., the psychological value and importance that people have for the weather).

Event-Related Potentials Reveal the Impact of Conflict Strength in a Numerical Stroop Paradigm.

Numerical cognition provides an opportunity to study the underlying processes of selective attention to numerical information in the face of conflicting, non-numerical, information of different magnitudes. For instance, in the numerical Stroop paradigm, participants are asked to judge pairs of Arabic digits whose physical size can either be congruent (e.g., 3 vs. 5) or incongruent (e.g., 3 vs. 5) with numerical value. Congruency effects when deciding which of the two digits is numerically larger are thought to reflect the inhibition of the irrelevant physical size. However, few studies have investigated the impact of the salience of the irrelevant non-numerical information on these congruency effects and their neural substrates. EEG was recorded in 32 adults during a numerical Stroop task with two levels of salience (low, high) of the irrelevant size dimension. At the behavioral level, we observed larger congruency effects in the high salience condition (i.e., when the difference in size between the two digits is larger). At the neural level, at centro-parietal electrodes, we replicated previous studies showing a main effect of congruency on event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes between 280 and 370 ms post-stimulus, as well as a main effect of salience around 200 ms post-stimulus. Crucially, congruency and salience interacted both between 230 and 250 ms (P2), and between 290 and 340 ms (P3). These results provide support for separate processes underlying the increase in congruency effect, which can be attributed to higher demands in both the inhibition of the irrelevant dimension, and the attention to the relevant numerical information.