Salience Of Structure Research Articles

How the design and complexity of concept maps influence cognitive learning processes

Concept maps are assumed to enhance learning as their inherent structure makes relations between information more salient. Nevertheless, research on how to design concept maps as conducive to learning as possible is still rare. In particular, the salience of spatial arrangement of thematically related concepts within the map as well as the complexity of the map were found to be central design elements that influence learning. This study aimed to examine how the structure (i.e., the salience of the spatial relationship between individual concepts) and the complexity (i.e., number of nodes per sub concept) influence learning. Accordingly, a 2 (low vs. high salience of map structure) × 2 (few vs. many nodes) between-subject design was used (N = 122) to examine cognitive processes while learning with a concept map. No significant learning performance differences were found. Concepts maps with a low salience of map structure increased perceptions of disorientation. A serial mediation with learning performances as dependent variable revealed that the salience of the map structure is significantly associated with disorientation and extraneous cognitive load perceptions. By this, current attempts to measure extraneous cognitive load are questioned.

A Novel Loop Closure Detection Approach Using Simplified Structure for Low-Cost LiDAR.

Reducing the cumulative error is a crucial task in simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Usually, Loop Closure Detection (LCD) is exploited to accomplish this work for SLAM and robot navigation. With a fast and accurate loop detection, it can significantly improve global localization stability and reduce mapping errors. However, the LCD task based on point cloud still has some problems, such as over-reliance on high-resolution sensors, and poor detection efficiency and accuracy. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a novel and fast global LCD method using a low-cost 16 beam Lidar based on “Simplified Structure”. Firstly, we extract the “Simplified Structure” from the indoor point cloud, classify them into two levels, and manage the “Simplified Structure” hierarchically according to its structure salience. The “Simplified Structure” has simple feature geometry and can be exploited to capture the indoor stable structures. Secondly, we analyze the point cloud registration suitability with a pre-match, and present a hierarchical matching strategy with multiple geometric constraints in Euclidean Space to match two scans. Finally, we construct a multi-state loop evaluation model for a multi-level structure to determine whether the two candidate scans are a loop. In fact, our method also provides a transformation for point cloud registration with “Simplified Structure” when a loop is detected successfully. Experiments are carried out on three types of indoor environment. A 16 beam Lidar is used to collect data. The experimental results demonstrate that our method can detect global loop closures efficiently and accurately. The average global LCD precision, accuracy and negative are approximately 0.90, 0.96, and 0.97, respectively.

Relative salience of syllable structure and syllable order in zebra finch song.

There is a rich history of behavioral and neurobiological research focused on the 'syntax' of birdsong as a model for human language and complex auditory perception. Zebra finches are one of the most widely studied songbird species in this area of investigation. As they produce song syllables in a fixed sequence, it is reasonable to assume that adult zebra finches are also sensitive to the order of syllables within their song; however, results from electrophysiological and behavioral studies provide somewhat mixed evidence on exactly how sensitive zebra finches are to syllable order as compared, say, to syllable structure. Here, we investigate how well adult zebra finches can discriminate changes in syllable order relative to changes in syllable structure in their natural song motifs. In addition, we identify a possible role for experience in enhancing sensitivity to syllable order. We found that both male and female adult zebra finches are surprisingly poor at discriminating changes to the order of syllables within their species-specific song motifs, butare extraordinarily good at discriminating changes to syllable structure (i.e., reversals) in specific syllables. Direct experience or familiarity with a song, either using the bird's own song (BOS) or the song of a flock mate as the test stimulus, improved both male and female zebra finches' sensitivity to syllable order. However, even with experience, birds remained much more sensitive to structural changes in syllables. These results help to clarify some of the ambiguities from the literature on the discriminability of changes in syllable order in zebra finches, provide potential insight on the ethological significance of zebra finch song features, and suggest new avenues of investigation in using zebra finches as animal models for sequential sound processing.

The Interplay between Topic Shift and Focus in the Dynamic Construction of Discourse Representations.

Previous studies have suggested that focusing an element can enhance the activation of the focused element and bring about a number of processing benefits. However, whether and how this local prominence of information interacts with global discourse organization remains unclear. In the present study, we addressed this issue in two experiments. Readers were presented with four-sentence discourses. The first sentence of each discourse contained a critical word that was either focused or unfocused in relation to a wh-question preceding the discourse. The second sentence either maintained or shifted the topic of the first sentence. Participants were told to read for comprehension and for a probe recognition task in which the memory of the critical words was tested. In Experiment 1, when the probe words were tested immediately after the point of topic shift, we found shorter response times for the focused critical words than the unfocused ones regardless of topic manipulation. However, in Experiment 2, when the probe words were tested two sentences away from the point of topic shift, we found the facilitation effect of focus only in the topic-maintained discourses, but not in the topic-shifted discourses. This suggests that the facilitation effect of focus was not immediately suppressed at the point of topic shifting, but when additional information was added to the new topic. Our findings provide evidence for the dynamic interplay between global topic structure and local salience of information and have important implications on how activation of information fluctuates in mental representation.

Mnemonic transmission, social contagion, and emergence of collective memory: Influence of emotional valence, group structure, and information distribution.

Social transmission of memory and its consequence on collective memory have generated enduring interdisciplinary interest because of their widespread significance in interpersonal, sociocultural, and political arenas. We tested the influence of 3 key factors-emotional salience of information, group structure, and information distribution-on mnemonic transmission, social contagion, and collective memory. Participants individually studied emotionally salient (negative or positive) and nonemotional (neutral) picture-word pairs that were completely shared, partially shared, or unshared within participant triads, and then completed 3 consecutive recalls in 1 of 3 conditions: individual-individual-individual (control), collaborative-collaborative (identical group; insular structure)-individual, and collaborative-collaborative (reconfigured group; diverse structure)-individual. Collaboration enhanced negative memories especially in insular group structure and especially for shared information, and promoted collective forgetting of positive memories. Diverse group structure reduced this negativity effect. Unequally distributed information led to social contagion that creates false memories; diverse structure propagated a greater variety of false memories whereas insular structure promoted confidence in false recognition and false collective memory. A simultaneous assessment of network structure, information distribution, and emotional valence breaks new ground to specify how network structure shapes the spread of negative memories and false memories, and the emergence of collective memory. (PsycINFO Database Record

Relative salience of syllable order versus syllable fine structure in Zebra Finch song

Zebra finches have become a popular model for the investigation of the motor and perceptual mechanisms underlying vocal learning. These birds are closed-ended learners that have a brief sensitive period for song learning, after which a new song cannot be learned. This song is a single, highly stereotyped, invariant, sequence of 3-8 harmonic syllables, termed a motif, which is repeated several times throughout the song bout. Here, using an operant conditioning discrimination task, we confirm earlier results that these birds find syllable reversals (i.e., changes in temporal fine structure) highly salient. By contrast, finches find syllable ordering in these natural motifs much less salient. The ability to extract and learn sound patterns is a common feature of animal bioacoustic systems including, of course, human speech and language learning. We know from both single unit recordings in the auditory forebrain as well as operant studies, that these birds encode the syllable ordering in song-like stimuli and can learn to discriminate differences in syllable ordering. The large difference in salience between these two sets of acoustic features in these natural motifs—syllable structure versus syllable ordering—raises significant questions about how these natural sounds are processed in the CNS.

Collinear masking effect in visual search is independent of perceptual salience.

Searching for a target in a salient region should be easier than looking for one in a nonsalient region. However, we previously discovered a contradictory phenomenon in which a local target in a salient structure was more difficult to find than one in the background. The salient structure was constructed of orientation singletons aligned to each other to form a collinear structure. In the present study, we undertake to determine whether such a masking effect was a result of salience competition between a global structure and the local target. In the first 3 experiments, we increased the salience value of the local target with the hope of adding to its competitive advantage and eventually eliminating the masking effect; nevertheless, the masking effect persisted. In an additional 2 experiments, we reduced salience of the global collinear structure by altering the orientation of the background bars and the masking effect still emerged. Our salience manipulations were validated by a controlled condition in which the global structure was grouped noncollinearly. In this case, local target salience increase (e.g., onset) or global distractor salience reduction (e.g., randomized flanking orientations) effectively removed the facilitation effect of the noncollinear structure. Our data suggest that salience competition is unlikely to explain the collinear masking effect, and other mechanisms such as contour integration, border formation, or the crowding effect may be prospective candidates for further investigation.

Salience of Cognitive Structure among Different Social Categories

Salience of Cognitive Structure among Different Social Categories

The Relative Effects of Explicit Correction and Recasts on Two Target Structures via Two Communication Modes

This study investigated the effects of negative feedback type (i.e., explicit correction vs. recasts), communication mode (i.e., face‐to‐face communication vs. synchronous computer‐mediated communication), and target structure salience (i.e., salient vs. nonsalient) on the acquisition of two Turkish morphemes. Forty‐eight native speakers of English with no Turkish background carried out two communicative tasks during which their errors on the target structures were treated according to their feedback group. Oral production, comprehension, and recognition tests were used to measure learners’ resulting performance. A clear advantage was found for explicit correction over recasts in the oral production and comprehension tasks on both immediate and delayed posttests. Results also showed that neither communication mode nor target structure salience moderated the difference between the negative feedback types but both factors made independent contributions to feedback effectiveness.

Structural salience and the nonaccidentality of a gestalt.

We perceive structure through a process of perceptual organization. Here we report a new perceptual organization phenomenon-the facilitation of visual grouping by global curvature. Observers viewed patterns that they perceived as organized into collections of curves. The patterns were perceptually ambiguous such that the perceived orientation of the patterns varied from trial to trial. When patterns were sufficiently dense and proximity was equated for the predominant perceptual alternatives, observers tended to perceive the organization with the greatest curvature. This effect is tantamount to visual grouping by maximal curvature and thus demonstrates an unprecedented effect of global structure on perceptual organization. We account for this result with a model that predicts the perceived organization of a pattern as function of its nonaccidentality, which we define as the probability that it could have occurred by chance. Our findings demonstrate a novel relationship between the geometry of a pattern and the visual salience of global structure.

Effects of communication mode and salience on recasts: A first exposure study

This article reports on a study that investigated whether the extent to which learners benefit from recasts on two Turkish morphemes differ depending on communication mode — i.e. Face-to-Face Communication (F2FC) and text-based Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication (SCMC) — and/or the salience of the target structure (i.e. salient and non-salient). In this first exposure study, 24 native speakers of English with no Turkish background studied 51 Turkish words by completing a series of vocabulary learning tasks. Participants who scored at or above a criterion level of 60% on a screening test met with the researcher and carried out two communicative tasks. In each task, learners received recasts on one of the target structures through one of the communication modes. The order of the tasks was counterbalanced across four subgroups of learners. Two oral production tasks were used as a posttest in order to measure learners’ performance on the two target structures. Results revealed that learners scored statistically significantly higher on receiving recasts through text-based SCMC than recasts through F2FC. However, results showed no difference between the salient and the non-salient morpheme in benefiting from recasts.

Number of perceptually distinct surface colors in natural scenes

We examined what role motion-streak-like form information plays in heading perception. We presented observers with an integrated form and motion display in which random-dot pairs in a 3D cloud were oriented toward one direction on the screen (the form FOE) to form a radial Glass pattern while moving in a different direction in depth (the motion FOE). Observers' heading judgments were strongly biased toward the form FOE direction (weight: 0.78), and this bias decreased with the reduction of the salience of the global form structure in the Glass pattern. At the local level, the orientation of dot pairs in the Glass pattern can affect their perceived motion direction, leading to a shift of the perceived motion FOE direction in optic flow. However, this shift accounted for about half of the total bias. Using the measurements of the shifted motion FOE and the perceived form FOE directions, we found that at the global level, an optimal combination of these two cues could accurately predict the heading bias observed for the integrated display. Our findings support the claim that motion streaks are effective cues for self-motion perception, and humans make optimal use of both form and motion cues for heading perception.

The Effects of Blog-Mediated Public Relations (BMPR) on Relational Trust

Key features of blog-mediated public relations are conducive to initiating and nurturing relationships with publics. As a result, blogs have emerged as a new venue for public relations in recent years. Many public relations practitioners have come to realize that blogging is not just a fad and have recognized a growing trend of blogging adoption in the industry—suggesting a need for common principles of successful public relations blogging practices. This study selected the following critical features of effective blog-mediated public relations: salience of narrative structure, dialogical self, blogger credibility, and interactivity. Using these concepts, the researchers proposed a theoretical model in explaining relational trust as a central outcome of effective blog-mediated public relations. Findings showed that dialogical self in blog posts enhanced interactivity, which, in turn, led to an increase in relational trust. Additionally, this study found that blogger credibility played a positive role in relational trust.

Analogy and the brain: A new perspective on relational primacy

AbstractLeech et al.'s demonstration that analogical reasoning can be an emergent property of low-level incremental learning processes is critical for analogical theory. Along with insights into neural learning based on the salience of dynamic spatio-temporal structure, and the neural priming mechanism of repetition suppression, it establishes relational primacy as a plausible theoretical description of how brains make analogies.

Information technology innovation diffusion: an information requirements paradigm

Abstract. Information technology (IT) innovation research examines the organizational and technological factors that determine IT adoption and diffusion, including firm size and scope, technological competency and expected benefits. We extend the literature by focusing on information requirements as a driver of IT innovation adoption and diffusion. Our framework of IT innovation diffusion incorporates three industry‐level sources of information requirements: process complexity, clock speed and supply chain complexity. We apply the framework to US manufacturing industries using aggregate data of internet‐based innovations and qualitative analysis of two industries: wood products and beverage manufacturing. Results show systematic patterns supporting the basic thesis of the information processing paradigm: higher IT innovation diffusion in industries with higher information processing requirements; the salience of downstream industry structure in the adoption of interorganizational systems; and the role of the location of information intensity in the supply chain in determining IT adoption and diffusion. Our study provides a new explanation for why certain industries were early and deep adopters of internet‐based innovations while others were not: variation in information processing requirements.

Perceptual salience of global structures and the crowding effect in amblyopia.

The crowding effect refers to stronger deficits in linear acuity (e.g., letters in a line) than in single letter acuity in amblyopia. The current work investigated whether the salience of a global structure in which the target for identification is embedded influences the crowding effect in amblyopia. Compound shapes were presented to the amblyopic and fellow eyes respectively of 12 anisometropic amblyopes. The compound stimuli were presented on either a blank or a cross background so that the salience of global structures were manipulated. Reaction times (RTs) and response error rates were recorded when subjects identified global or local shapes, respectively. RTs were shorter to global than local shapes for both the amblyopic and the fellow eyes. The global RT advantage was larger for the amblyopic than the fellow eye. Interestingly, when viewing the stimuli with the amblyopic eye, subjects made more errors to local targets when the compound stimuli were presented against the blank than the cross background. The results suggest that the salience of global structures of visual stimuli contributes to the crowding effect in amblyopia.

On the relative salience of Euclidean, affine, and topological structure for 3-D form discrimination.

A match-to-sample task was performed, in which observers compared configurations of line segments presented stereoscopically in different three-dimensional orientations. Several different structural properties of these configurations were manipulated, including the relative orientations of line segments (a Euclidean property), their coplanarity (an affine property), and their patterns of cointersection (a topological property). Although the differences in these properties to be detected were all metrically equivalent, they varied dramatically in their relative perceptual salience, such that the error rates and reaction times in the three conditions varied by as much as 400%. Performance was highest in the topological condition, intermediate in the affine condition, and lowest in the Euclidean condition. These findings suggest that the relative perceptual salience of object properties may be systematically related to their structural stability under change, in a manner that is similar to the Klein hierarchy of geometries.

Systemic Transformation and the Salience of Class Structure in East Central Europe

Systemic Transformation and the Salience of Class Structure in East Central Europe

Helping between Parents and Young Adult Offspring: The Role of Parental Marital Quality, Divorce, and Remarriage

The transition to adulthood is particularly problematic for today's young adults. Persistent underemployment, low beginning salaries, rising housing costs, high divorce rates, and high levels of nonmarital childbearing have increased the amount and duration of parental support needed by young adults. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that parental support of adult offspring is at its highest while offspring are in their twenties (Cooney & Uhlenberg, 1992). At a time when young adults are particularly in need of assistance, parents' marriages are also going through changes that may put the needed help in jeopardy. The high rate of parental divorce and the conflict that often precedes divorce, the economic deprivation that accompanies single parenthood, and the conflicting loyalties associated with some parental remarriages have the potential for putting ameliorative parental assistance at risk. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which parental marital quality, divorce, and remarriage influence (a) young adults' feelings that they can approach parents for assistance with problems, (b) the amount of assistance parents provide to offspring, and (c) the amount of assistance offspring provide to parents. To investigate these issues, we draw on a 12-year longitudinal study that includes interviews with a national sample of parents and their young adult offspring. PREVIOUS STUDIES Given the potential salience of parental marital quality and family structure for exchanges between parents and their adult offspring, surprisingly little is known about this link. Until recently, the study of adult intergenerational exchange has focused almost exclusively on factors that influence offsprings' care of the elderly (see Mancini & Blieszner, 1989, for a review). Only recently has interest shifted to general patterns of exchange at all ages (e.g., Eggebeen & Hogan, 1990; Hogan, Eggebeen, & Clogg, 1993; Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Even within this broadened focus, the emphasis has been on the marital status of offspring as a predictor of receiving help from parents (Eggebeen & Hogan, 1990; Hogan et al., 1993). Only a few studies have dealt with the marital status of parents as a factor influencing helping between parents and children. Furthermore, these studies are all cross-sectional, and only one obtained information from more than one generation (Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Several studies show that single parents exchange less assistance with offspring than do married parents. In a three-generational study, Rossi and Rossi (1990, Tables 9.6, 9.18, 9.19) found that children reported giving more assistance to, and receiving less assistance from, single parents than from married parents, although this was more true for widowed than for divorced parents. Two studies based on the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) obtained comparable results. Hoyert (1991) found that elderly single mothers reported giving less and receiving more assistance from offspring than did currently married mothers. Similarly, Cooney and Uhlenberg (1992) found that offspring in the NSFH reported receiving more support from married than from single parents. However, these studies did not distinguish between divorced and widowed or never-married parents, or between remarried parents and those in first marriages. A few studies have focused on parental divorce and remarriage--the topic of the present article. In a study based on a national sample, Umberson (1992) found that divorced parents reported less support from adult children than did married parents. Similarly, Cooney and Uhlenberg (1990) found that divorced fathers in the NSFH were less likely to name a child as a source of assistance than were married fathers. Also using NSFH data, White (1992) found that divorced mothers and fathers reported giving less social, instrumental, and financial help to offspring than did continuously married mothers. …

Labouring Men: Love, Sex and Strife

Studies of gender and studies of the labour process are incomplete unless they take each other seriously. This article explores the interrelations between class situation and experience, paid work, the family-household, masculinity and male heterosexuality as they are borne and reproduced by labouring men. Against the psycho logisation of the 'men's liberationists' this article insists on the salience of structure. It suggests that the working class, of which labouring men are a small part, can be understood in its strategic power and weaknesses only through the study of the whole lives of its members, changing and changed by each other as they stand in contradiction to capital, its forces and agencies. The article is based on personal accounts by about forty labouring men. It relies on and attempts to draw together within an historical materialist framework insights from the sociologies of the labour process and the working class, studies of masculinity and Marxist feminism.