The role of visual attention in the aesthetic appeal of consumer images: A preliminary study

Author(s):  
Judith A. Redi ◽  
Isabel Povoa

Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 577
Author(s):  
Svantje T. Kähler ◽  
Thomas Jacobsen ◽  
Stina Klein ◽  
Mike Wendt

Visual attention can be adjusted to task requirements. We asked participants to switch between judging the symmetry of vertically presented three-letter strings and identifying the central stimulus (i.e., Eriksen task) to investigate anticipatory adjustment of attention. Our experiments provide evidence for anticipatory adjustment of visual attention, depending on the cued task (i.e., focusing and defocusing of attention after the Eriksen task cue and after the symmetry task cue, respectively). Although, symmetry judgments were, overall, considerably slower than the identification of the central letter, the effects of response congruency between tasks were comparable in the two tasks, which suggested strong response priming from concurrent symmetry judgment in Eriksen task trials. Symmetry judgment performance was best for homogeneous letter strings (e.g., HHH), worst for strings that were symmetrical and inhomogeneous (e.g., XHX), and intermediate for asymmetrical strings (e.g., HHX). The difficulty of categorizing symmetrical-inhomogeneous items markedly deviated from the aesthetic ratings of the stimuli, displaying a pronounced preference for symmetrical strings, but only little difference among the symmetrical items, and might be accounted by conflict with response priming based on inhomogeneity detection. Although our study provides little evidence for an effect of aesthetic appreciation in simple symmetry judgments, it demonstrates the strong role of contextual dependencies.



2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Mojtaba Karami ◽  
Mohammad Aidi

Nowadays the brands play such an important role in marketing that some authorities consider them as a complete product and believe that customers buy that brand rather than the products. Therefore recognizing the effective factors in choosing the brands and investigating the functional benefits of brand makes various studies necessary. This study tries to examine the effects of brand names and logos in Ilam Oil products Distribution Company's performance. This study is a survey one with an empirical structure. The sample consists of the constant customers of Ilam Oil products. According to statistic findings 30 variables have been effective in the role of brand and logos in Oil Company’s performance. The first group of the variables include the brand's functional benefits. The second our is logo's benefits. The third involves the aesthetic appeal of brands while the other goes to brand identification and customer brand commitment.



1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Chaparro ◽  
Loren Groff ◽  
Kamala Tabor ◽  
Kathy Sifrit ◽  
Leo J. Gugerty


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 543-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Wirth ◽  
Derek M. Isaacowitz ◽  
Ute Kunzmann


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Farzana Gounder

The burden of preventable diseases is increasing in the South Pacific Island Countries and Territories. In Fiji, significant media attention and national finances are spent on public dissemination of the modifiable risk factors of chronic illnesses. However, little is known about lay societal perceptions of chronic illnesses and of people living with these illnesses. This preliminary study takes an area-situated approach to lay knowledge and examines Suva residents’ moral evaluations associated with socially significant health concerns in Fiji. Using the case studies of HIV, cancer, and diabetes, the research employs content analysis to examine 144 Suva residents’ Letters to the Editor, published between 2000 and 2019 in The Fiji Times. The findings indicate that letter writers on chronic illnesses are power sensitive, interested in governmental responsibility, and aware of the role of stigma in creating inequitable health outcomes. The study’s findings locate chronic illness as not only a medical responsibility but also a social justice and human rights concern that requires a multisectoral approach, with community-tailored responses at the heart of all discussions. The lay-societal recognition of the three illnesses as being socially relevant suggests grassroots support for policies directed towards structural reforms for the prevention and management of these illnesses.



2014 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Bertinetto

Die Hauptfrage, die ich in diesem Aufsatz diskutieren will, ist die folgende: Welche sind die ästhetisch-normativen Voraussetzungen für das richtige Verständnis und die richtige Evaluation von Jazz? Meine These lautet: Die Jazzästhetik ist eine Ästhetik der gelungenen Performanz. Sie ist nicht eine Ästhetik der Unvollkommenheit. Ich werde meine Argumentation in die folgenden Abschnitte gliedern. Nach der Einleitung (I.) wird in Abschnitt II. die ›These der Unvollkommenheit‹ dargestellt und in III. werden anschließend einige Argumente dagegen diskutiert. In den Abschnitten IV. und V. werden die für die Jazzästhetik wichtige Frage nach dem »Fehler« und das entscheidende Thema der Normativität untersucht. Dazu werde ich geltend machen, dass die ›These der Unvollkommenheit‹ insbesondere deswegen unbefriedigend ist, weil sie die spezifische Normativität von Jazz als Improvisationskunst missversteht. In Abschnitt VI. wird schließlich erklärt, in welchem Sinne von einer Normativität der gelungenen Performanz die Rede sein kann und warum dies für unser Verständnis von Jazz bedeutend ist. Abschließend (VII.) wird diese Idee gegen mögliche Einwände verteidigt.<br><br>In this paper I aim at discussing the aesthetic-normative conditions for the right understanding and the right evaluation of jazz. My main point is this: The aesthetics of jazz is an aesthetics of the successful performance, rather than an aesthetics of imperfection. The paper will be structured as follows. SectionI introduces the topic. SectionII presents the ›imperfection thesis‹, while III discusses some arguments against it. Sections IV and V investigate two related questions: the first is about the role of the »mistake« in jazz; the second concerns the crucial topic of normativity. At this regard I will maintain that the ›imperfection thesis‹ does not work, especially because it misunderstands the specific normativity of jazz as improvisational art. Section VI is devoted to clarifying both in which sense the idea of a normativity of the successful performance is sound and why this idea is important for understanding jazz. Finally (VII) I defend this view against possible objections.



2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-202

The article advances a hypothesis about the composition of Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Specialists in the intellectual history of the Renaissance have long considered the relationship among Montaigne’s thematically heterogeneous thoughts, which unfold unpredictably and often seen to contradict each other. The waywardness of those reflections over the years was a way for Montaigne to construct a self-portrait. Spontaneity of thought is the essence of the person depicted and an experimental literary technique that was unprecedented in its time and has still not been surpassed. Montaigne often writes about freedom of reflection and regards it as an extremely important topic. There have been many attempts to interpret the haphazardness of the Essays as the guiding principle in their composition. According to one such interpretation, the spontaneous digressions and readiness to take up very different philosophical notions is a form of of varietas and distinguo, which Montaigne understood in the context of Renaissance philosophy. Another interpretation argues that the Essays employ the rhetorical techniques of Renaissance legal commentary. A third opinion regards the Essays as an example of sprezzatura, a calculated negligence that calls attention to the aesthetic character of Montaigne’s writing. The author of the article argues for a different interpretation that is based on the concept of idleness to which Montaigne assigned great significance. He had a keen appreciation of the role of otium in the culture of ancient Rome and regarded leisure as an inner spiritual quest for self-knowledge. According to Montaigne, idleness permits self-directedness, and it is an ideal form in which to practice the freedom of thought that brings about consistency in writing, living and reality, in all of which Montaigne finds one general property - complete inconstancy. Socratic self-knowledge, a skepticism derived from Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus, and a rejection of the conventions of traditional rhetoric that was similar to Seneca’s critique of it were all brought to bear on the concept of idleness and made Montaigne’s intellectual and literary experimentation in the Essays possible.



Author(s):  
Daniel Brayton

The aesthetic appeal of coasts is due in part to the indeterminacy of the intertidal zone. The imagination finds room to play where land and sea meet. This chapter explores the coastal zone that lies at the heart of a novel considered by many to be the first modern spy thriller, Erskine Childers’s The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service. Childers develops the notion of coastal indeterminacy as a figure for the boundaries, ambitions, and limitations of the modern nation-state. The journey of Childers’s characters through a north Atlantic archipelago that extends from the German coast draws a line of association between Europe and Britain, whose form depends on coastlines, estuaries, and shallows. In following this course, Childers creates a narrative fiction that shifts between charts, borders, and languages.



Author(s):  
Bart Vandenabeele

Schopenhauer explores the paradoxical nature of the aesthetic experience of the sublime in a richer way than his predecessors did by rightfully emphasizing the prominent role of the aesthetic object and the ultimately affirmative character of the pleasurable experience it offers. Unlike Kant, Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the sublime does not appeal to the superiority of human reason over nature but affirms the ultimately “superhuman” unity of the world, of which the human being is merely a puny fragment. The author focuses on Schopenhauer’s treatment of the experience of the sublime in nature and argues that Schopenhauer makes two distinct attempts to resolve the paradox of the sublime and that Schopenhauer’s second attempt, which has been neglected in the literature, establishes the sublime as a viable aesthetic concept with profound significance.



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