Name Familiarity Research Articles

Which components of famous people recognition are lateralized? A study of face, voice and name recognition disorders in patients with neoplastic or degenerative damage of the right or left anterior temporal lobes

We administered to large groups of patients with neoplastic or degenerative damage affecting the right or left ATL, the ‘Famous People Recognition Battery’ (FPRB), in which subjects are required to recognize the same 40 famous people through their faces, voices and names, to clarify which components of famous people recognition are lateralized. At the familiarity level, we found, as expected, a dissociation between a greater impairment of patients with right ATL lesions on the non-verbal (face and voice) recognition modalities and of those with left ATL lesions on name familiarity. Equally expected were results obtained at the naming level, because the worse naming scores for faces and voices were observed in left-sided patients. Less foregone were, for two reasons, results obtained at the semantic level. First, no difference was found between the two hemispheric groups when scores obtained on the verbal (name) and non-verbal (face and voice) recognition modalities were account for. Second, the face and voice recognition modalities showed a different degree of right lateralization. All groups of patients showed, indeed, both at the familiarity and at the semantic level, a greater difficulty in the recognition of voices regarding faces, but this difference reached significance only in patients with right ATL lesions, suggesting a greater right lateralization of the more complex task of voice recognition. A model aiming to explain the greater right lateralization of the more perceptually demanding voice modality of person recognition is proposed.

“Yes, I know you”: the role of source familiarity in the relationship between service adaptive behavior and customer satisfaction

PurposeThis study investigates the role of source familiarity in moderating the effect of service adaptive behavior (SAB) on customer satisfaction. Applying the accessibility–diagnosticity framework and situated cognition theory as the theoretical basis, this research hypothesizes that when customers are familiar with the source that provides the service (i.e. brand familiarity for Study 1 and personal familiarity for Study 2), customer satisfaction responses to SAB would be more moderate than when customers are not familiar with the source. Two studies were conducted to test the hypotheses.Design/methodology/approachTwo experiments manipulating SAB and the brand name familiarity (Study 1) and personal familiarity with the service staff (Study 2) as the source familiarity were conducted. Customer satisfaction as a function of source familiarity was measured to test the hypothesis that source familiarity moderates the relationship between SAB and customer satisfaction.FindingsCompared to unfamiliar sources, familiar sources generated a more moderate response in customer satisfaction as a function of SAB. High familiarity with the brand and service staff induced top-down, memory-based processing that overrides external stimuli as the basis of satisfaction judgment; bottom-up, stimulus-based processing relying on SAB for judgment kicked in only when the source familiarity is low.Practical implicationsFrom a practical point of view, this study indicates the importance of SAB, especially for brands with low awareness, and alludes to the comparative importance of relationship building in service delivery processes.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by validating the role of contextual factors in influencing the impact of SAB on customer satisfaction.

The adaptation of the Object and Action Naming Battery into Moroccan Arabic: Norms for name agreement, frequency, imageability, visual complexity, and age of acquisition

Introduction The ability to name pictures has been investigated widely in healthy people and clinical populations. The Object and Action Naming Battery (OANB) is widely used for psycholinguistic research, aphasia research, and clinical practice. Normative databases for pictorial stimuli have been conducted in language processing studies to control for various psycholinguistic variables known to affect the availability of picture names. The present study provides Moroccan Arabic norms for name agreement, familiarity, imageability, visual complexity, and age of acquisition for 100 line drawings of actions and 162 line drawings of objects taken from Druks and Masterson. Methods and procedures 160 healthy Moroccan Arabic-speaking individuals participated in this study. Name agreement values for the OANB items were collected from forty subjects, followed by collecting data for the psycholinguistic variables: spoken-word frequency, imageability, visual complexity, and age of acquisition from 120 participants. Results The Moroccan Arabic OANB (MA-OANB) comprises 70 objects and 60 action pictures. 77% of the nouns and 68% of the verbs obtained 100% target responses. A minimum of 93 percent name agreement was reached for the remaining items. Norms were also collected for the following psycholinguistic variables: spoken-word frequency, imageability, age of acquisition, and visual complexity. Conclusion The stimuli can be used for various psycholinguistic investigations and also for assessment and therapeutic purposes in Morocco.

Developing a measure of proper name familiarity for Japanese university students

In this study, an instrument for measuring proper name (PN) familiarity was developed for a psycholinguistic experiment investigating the effect of PNs on Japanese university students’ English reading fluency. Familiarity has previously been operationalized in disparate ways, producing contradictory results. Furthermore, authors of previous studies did not conduct validation analyses on their familiarity instruments. To address this issue, a four-point Likert-type scale instrument was constructed to assess Japanese university students’ familiarity with a set of 100, two-syllable PNs. The responses of 216 participants from 2 Japanese universities were subjected to Rasch analysis with the rating scale model to determine whether the resulting data fit the expectations of the model. The results suggested that a dichotomous response instrument was more appropriate than the scale-based instruments utilized in previous studies.

What’s in a name? Scent brand names, olfactory imagery, and purchase intention

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how olfactory imagery, triggered by scent brand names prior to smelling, influences scented-product purchase intention.Design/methodology/approachFive studies were conducted. Logistic regression analysis was used to predict likelihood of olfactory imagery formation. ANOVA and t-test analyses were used for scent brand name group comparisons, and serial mediation analysis was used to test how scent brand names impact purchase intention through olfactory imagery vividness and the (dis)confirmation between imagined (i.e. expected) and experienced scents.FindingsScent name familiarity stimulates olfactory imagery formation. Scent brand name specificity (e.g. “Lavender Bouquet” vs. “Floral Bouquet”) influences purchase intention, with specific names leading to lower purchase intention, because they generate vivid olfactory imagery and induce a disconfirmation between imagined and experienced scents.Practical implicationsBranding scents on products should be a strategic product design decision. Surprisingly, although specific scent brand names trigger vivid olfactory imagery and precise scent expectations, they mitigate purchase intention and thus are riskier. General scent brand names are safer.Originality/valueThis research contributes by extending the literature on the effect of verbal cues on scent perception by considering the role of scent brand name specificity on purchase intent. It also adds to work on how olfactory imagery influences purchase intention by incorporating olfactory imagery vividness. Finally, it proposes and tests an underlying cognitive mechanism to explain the relationship between scent brand names and purchase intention.

Famous people recognition through personal name: a normative study.

In this normative study, we investigated famous people recognition through personal name, using as stimuli the names of the same 40 Italian famous persons whose faces and voices had been utilized for the normative study of the Famous People Recognition Battery. For each famous people, we assessed name familiarity, person identification (when the name had been considered as familiar), and false alarms. The investigation was carried out on 143 normal subjects who varied in age and education. Name familiarity and semantic scores were affected by educational level, whereas age influenced false alarms. A comparison between results obtained with names in this research and with faces and voices of the same famous people in our previous study showed that familiarity scores were higher for personal names than those for faces and voices, which obtained the worst scores. Person identification scores were not significantly different from names and from faces, but both these scores were significantly higher than the semantic scores obtained by voices. Taken together, these results are inconsistent with the influential interactive activation and competition model of person recognition.

Color Image Norms in Mandarin Chinese.

The present study comprises two parts, an object picture naming task and rating tasks, and reports naming latencies and norms for 435 color images in Mandarin Chinese. These norms include name agreement (%), H-value, concept agreement, familiarity, visual complexity, age of acquisition (AOA) based on adult ratings, object agreement, viewpoint agreement, word frequency, and word length. We examined correlations between the norms and explored the internal structure among these correlative variables by a factor analysis. Four factors were extracted, which accounted for 74.86% of the total variance. These data were analyzed to identify variables with significant contributions to naming latencies using multiple regression analysis, including norms of name agreement (%), familiarity, word frequency, concept agreement, AOA, and object agreement. These variables explained 54.70% of the total variance of naming latencies. This work presents a new set of photo stimuli and a large set of normalized variables. We expect that this study will provide useful materials for further researches.

Do halal certification country of origin and brand name familiarity matter?

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumers perceive the trustworthiness of halal certifications from various Muslim and non-Muslim countries, a topic highly disregarded despite the size of the market and the importance in penetrating the multibillion market.Design/methodology/approach– A customized factorial design was employed to measure main effects of brand familiarity, country trustworthiness and country favourability and interaction effects.Findings– Although Indonesia and Malaysia are Muslim countries, they are not perceived as trustworthy as others such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for the consumer product under study. The perception of trustworthiness of halal certification of origin explains the highest proportion of the variance in the preference for a product, followed by the interaction of country favourability and brand name country of origin (COO).Research limitations/implications– Managers of international companies should be aware that not all halal country certifications are equally perceived as trustworthy therefore, they should seek alliances, with institutions in markets where they seek to penetrate.Practical implications– The procedure for certification considers the whole value chain rather than just simple ritual of slaughtering. Managers have a big responsibility to produce their products according to the expected standards (and this goes beyond the simple slaughtering ritual) and make sure that all employees understands the importance of such adherence.Social implications– Muslim consumers’ preferences vary according to the COO of halal products, even within Muslim countries therefore, halal certification country-of-origin is a sensitive social concern.Originality/value– This research is based on COO and brand familiarity frameworks, and it extends the knowledge in a context (halal products) not frequently explored.

Do Consumers Perceive Money-Back Guarantees as Believable? The Effects of Money-Back Guarantee Generosity, Store Name Familiarity, and Perceived Price

A money-back guarantee (MBG) is a service guarantee offered by a retailer. This research examined how MBG generosity, store name familiarity, and consumer perception of price interacted to influence MBG believability (the extent to which a consumer believes the MBG) and consumer store patronage. The results show that MBG generosity positively affected consumer patronage intentions by increasing MBG believability. When the perceived price was low, MBG generosity positively affected MBG believability for both well-known and lesser-known stores. When the perceived price was high, MBG generosity positively affected MBG believability only for well-known stores.

P8.23 Temporal pole in face and name familiarity feelings: a rTMS study

P8.23 Temporal pole in face and name familiarity feelings: a rTMS study

PROMOTING ARCHITECTURAL FIRMS IN THE NETHERLANDS

Este artigo relata um projeto de pesquisa sobre as práticas de promoção dos arquitetos holandeses. Embora não seja difícil obter orientações de marketing para arquitetos, tem havido muito pouca pesquisa sobre as práticas de comercialização efetivamente empregadas. O que fica claro, e que muitas vezes é dito pela bibliografia, é que geralmente se acredita que os arquitetos não dedicam esforços suficientes para promover as suas atividades profissionais. Os pesquisadores partiram da hipótese de que é necessário estabelecer primeiro quais são as práticas reais dos arquitetos, antes de formular recomendações generalizadas para a profissão. A pesquisa foi baseada em três métodos: uma enquete com os membros do Instituto Real de Arquitetos holandeses (BNA); uma série de estudos de caso com empresas de projeto de arquitetura; e uma série de entrevistas - não só com arquitetos, mas também com clientes, com gestores de empreendimentos e com consultores de marketing. A intenção das entrevistas foi possibilitar uma comparação entre oferta e demanda no mercado. Por meio da pesquisa, apurou-se que a maioria dos arquitetos está trabalhando ativamente para promover uma imagem específica de suas empresas. Isso inclui tanto a promoção interna – informar seu próprio pessoal da imagem das empresas – quanto a promoção externa. 40% das empresas de arquitetura têm uma estratégia de longo prazo, 42% têm um plano de promoção, e 50% possuem algum conhecimento de como eles são percebidos pelo mercado. Esta é uma imagem melhor do que a situação que foi apresentada pelos consultores em suas entrevistas. Nenhum padrão claro de co-relação foi identificado entre prática de promoção e tipo de empresa, com a ressalva de que as grandes empresas foram mais ativas na promoção do que empresas menores, e estranhamente, que as empresas que operam no setor público eram mais ativas, apesar do fato de o setor público na Europa contratar através de concurso. Entrevistas com os contratantes mostraram que os clientes individuais seguem estratégias para seleção de arquitetos diferentes do que fazem clientes empresariais ou gestores de projeto. No entanto, a reputação e familiaridade com o nome desempenham um papel importante em ambas as áreas. Os resultados, no mínimo, derrubam a afirmação muito comum de que os arquitetos holandeses não se promovem ativamente. O que resta a ser determinado é quais seriam as práticas de promoção mais bem sucedidas.

Packaging of healthy and unhealthy food products for children and parents: The relative influence of licensed characters and brand names

Abstract Using a sample of 43 7–8‐year olds and their parents, we examined the extent to which children's judgments about food products are influenced by the same factors as their parents'. The factors manipulated were healthiness of product, brand name familiarity, and use of licensed cartoon characters (children) or celebrity endorsers (parents). Brand name familiarity was a more important factor than familiar cartoon characters or celebrity endorsers on food product evaluations. Parents and girls but not boys rated healthy products higher than unhealthy ones (e.g., breakfast cereal vs. pastries). However, parents placed greater weight on healthiness when choosing products for themselves than when choosing for their children. Discussion focuses on the promotion of healthy eating habits in children. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What's in a Name? Persuasion Perhaps

Four studies demonstrate the potential influence of name similarity on perceptions of similarity to oneself in general, liking, and compliance. Some participants received a scenario in which the protagonist's name was similar to their own. These participants indicated that the character was more similar to themselves, reported greater liking for the person, and expressed more willingness to comply with a request for help than control participants did. In addition, the persuasive influence of name similarity on questionnaire return rates indicated that both undergraduates and college professors completed and returned questionnaires more frequently if the name on the cover letter was similar to their own. The influence of name similarity was independent of name familiarity. The importance of name similarity in eliciting overt behavioral action is discussed.

Remembering and forgetting of semantic knowledge in amnesia: a 16-year follow-up investigation of RFR

We report our long-term follow-up investigations of RFR, a post-encephalitic case of very grave anterograde and retrograde amnesia. We also describe the results of quantitative neuroimaging of his brain injury that showed bilateral and severe reduction in the hippocampal formation and medial temporal structures with sparing of left lateral/posterior and right posterior temporal cortex. We established that RFR had a persistent severe anterograde and retrograde amnesia for personal and public events. His personal semantic knowledge was relatively spared for the retrograde period. There was a modest and global reduction in RFR's vocabulary for words acquired in adulthood before he became amnesic but there was no evidence of any retrograde gradient. His retrograde knowledge of people was also without any gradient. Remarkably, there had been no change in the extent of his semantic knowledge across a prolonged re-test interval indicating that the loss of semantic knowledge was stable and likely to have arisen at the time of his initial lesion. RFR also showed evidence of a limited but significant ability to acquire new word meanings and a more restricted capacity for learning about new celebrities. While he was able to demonstrate face and name familiarity for newly famous people, he was unable to provide much semantic detail. RFR's amnesia can be partially explained by contemporary theories that allow for parallel cortical and hippocampal memory systems but is difficult to reconcile in detail with any extant view.

Rated Familiarity, Visual Complexity, and Image Agreement and Their Relation to Naming Difficulty for Items from the Boston Naming Test

The purpose of this experiment was to obtain data on the name agreement, familiarity, visual complexity, and imageability of the 60 line drawings of objects that comprise the Boston Naming Test (BNT). One group (N = 64) named and then rated each item for visual complexity. Another group (N = 98) rated the familiarity of each depicted concept and a third group (N = 41) rated each drawing for how closely it matched their mental image of the item’s name. Significant correlations between several measures were found and the results were consistent with those obtained by Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) for 21 overlapping concepts depicted in both the BNT and their set of items.

The Meaning of Brand Names to Children: A Developmental Investigation

We explored the way that children use brand names in making consumer judgments. Brand names can serve as a simple perceptual cue that identifies a product as one people are familiar with or one they associate with certain perceptual features. Brands can also be associated with symbolic or conceptual meanings, conveying status, prestige, or trendiness. We proposed that young children relate to brands on a perceptual level, whereas older children relate to brands on a conceptual basis as well. We examined this proposition in an experiment conducted with children 8,12, and 16 years of age. Participants were asked to evaluate an advertised product (e.g., athletic shoes) with a familiar brand name that was either popular (e.g., Nike®) or less popular (e.g., Kmart®). The advertised product was physically identical in both cases, allowing us to explore whether the brand name had meaning for children apart from its name familiarity or perceptual features. The use of conceptual brand meanings was assessed by asking participants to make several types of brand‐related judgments including evaluations of the advertised product, impressions of the owners of the advertised product, and evaluations of possible extensions of the popular brand name advertised. Results indicate that by the time children reach 12 years of age, they use brand names as an important conceptual cue in consumer judgments.

Semantic priming of person recognition: categorial priming may be a weaker form of the associative priming effect.

An interactive activation and competition account (Burton, Bruce, & Johnston, 1990) of the semantic priming effect in person recognition studies relies on the fact that primes and targets (people) have semantic information in common. However, recent investigations into the type of relationship needed to mediate the semantic priming effect have suggested that the prime and target must be close associates (e.g., Barry, Johnston, & Scanlan, 1998; Young, Flude, Hellawell, & Ellis, 1994). A review of these and similar papers suggests the possibility of a small but non-reliable effect based purely on categorial relationships. Experiment 1 provided evidence that when participants were asked to make a name familiarity decision it was possible to boost this small categorial effect when multiple (four) primes were presented prior to the target name. Results from Experiment 2 indicated that the categorial effect was not due to the particular presentation times of the primes. This boosted categorial effect was shown to cross domains (names to faces) in Experiment 3 and persist in Experiment 4 when the task involved naming the target face. The similarity of the pattern of results produced by the associative priming effect and this boosted categorial effect suggests that the two may be due to the same underlying mechanism in semantic memory.

Semantic priming of person recognition: Categorial priming may be a weaker form of the associative priming effect

An interactive activation and competition account (Burton, Bruce, & Johnston, 1990) of the semantic priming effect in person recognition studies relies on the fact that primes and targets (people) have semantic information in common. However, recent investigations into the type of relationship needed to mediate the semantic priming effect have suggested that the prime and target must be close associates (e.g., Barry, Johnston, & Scanlan, 1998; Young, Flude, Hellawell, & Ellis, 1994). A review of these and similar papers suggests the possibility of a small but non-reliable effect based purely on categorial relationships. Experiment 1 provided evidence that when participants were asked to make a name familiarity decision it was possible to boost this small categorial effect when multiple (four) primes were presented prior to the target name. Results from Experiment 2 indicated that the categorial effect was not due to the particular presentation times of the primes. This boosted categorial effect was shown to cross domains (names to faces) in Experiment 3 and persist in Experiment 4 when the task involved naming the target face. The similarity of the pattern of results produced by the associative priming effect and this boosted categorial effect suggests that the two may be due to the same underlying mechanism in semantic memory.

Identification of famous faces: from the detection of familiarity to the access to people's identity. An fMRI study

Introduction. The recognition of a famous face can be followed by an access to the corresponding identity of the individual. Two fMRI experiments, dealing with the recognition of highly famous people, have been aimed at identifying the neural correlates of these two processes. In experiment I, the neural correlates of the processing of face familiarity were compared with those of the processing of proper name familiarity. Experiment II was aimed at identifying the correlates of access to people’s identity.

International Expansion of the American‐Style Service Club

Prior to the era of jet aircraft travel, multinational corporations, or instant telecommunications, and long before icons of cultural synchronization such as McDonalds or Nike, service clubs were spreading Western culture, social norms, and participatory self governance. The concept of a small group dedicated to community service is not uniquely American. Nonaffiliated service organizations have operated for hundreds of years in nearly every populous area of the world. However, only within the past 80 years have a few large service clubs expanded to become globe-spanning organizations. Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions International, referred to in this paper as American-style international service clubs (ISCs), differ from other organizations in fundamental ways. For example, while multinational corporations have hierarchical structures, ISCs operate horizontally without a central core or periphery. Members of local clubs attend meetings, projects, and other activities, making their focus different from mailing list groups and charities that concentrate on contributions. American-style service clubs evolved in the United States from religious, social, and civic-minded organizations initiated during the colonial era (Sieder). Precursors to service clubs included merchant and commercial clubs, established in the 1800s to increase business profits by heading off unhealthy competition (Charles). Merchant clubs were dominated by growth-oriented small business owners whose interests were often allied with the local chamber of commerce. Other forerunners of service clubs included fraternal organizations such as the Masons or Fraternal Order of Eagles that focused on social and religious needs of their members. Although open to a wider range of occupations, membership in these groups was often exclusive. As suggested by Art Gallaher and C. Putney, increasing leisure opportunities that came as a result of the availability of movies and the automobile, together with changes in the workplace and social attitudes, caused a general decline in the membership of fraternal organizations in the 1920s. At this same time interest in community service was gaining popularity as a means for middleclass men to develop business contacts and to reassert influence during a time of labor unrest and rising corporate power (Charles).1 The first American-style service club was established by Chicago attorney Paul Harris in 1905 to bring local businessmen together once a week over lunch for the purpose of socializing and strengthening business contacts. The name came from the idea that the location for meetings would rotate among the offices of members (Rotary International 1995). Each meeting served as a forum for interaction within an environment of camaraderie and informality exemplified through first name familiarity, handshakes, and backslapping. A typical meeting featured presentations or activities ranging from a guest speaker to a discussion of an upcoming philanthropic program or service project.2 Early projects of the Chicago club included the construction of comfort stations near city hall and contributions to relief funds for flooding victims (Rotary International 1998). As the Chicago club grew, a plan was implemented to maintain diversity through a classification system that limited membership to one man from each occupation. This procedure was intended to diversify membership by drawing from a wide variety of occupations including the retailer, lawyer, doctor, insurance salesman, small manufacturer, and educator. The Chicago club's success led to the charter of other Rotary clubs and within four years there were nearly a dozen clubs were operating in cities throughout the United States (Newton 5). As the size of clubs grew, meetings shifted to hotels, restaurants, and other public locations. Hierarchical diffusion brought clubs to other large urban areas such as San Francisco and Philadelphia and later to smaller cities such as Rockford, Joliet, and Springfield. …