Effects of Air Route Alternation and Display Design on an Operator’s Situation Awareness, Task Performance and Mental Workload in Simulated Flight Tasks

Air route alternation caused by unexpected events in abnormal or emergency situations often produces adverse consequences on an operator’s cognition and behavior in flight tasks. Under such a circumstance, it is especially necessary to examine the utility of the interaction displays usually designed based on the routine environment. This study was aimed to investigate the effects of air route alternation and display design on operators’ situation awareness (SA), task performance and mental workload during simulated flight tasks. Twenty-four participants attended an experiment where they were instructed to perform simulated flight tasks with three types of display designs in both air-route-as-planned and air-route-altered conditions. Subjective measures, behavioral measures and eye movement measures were adopted to assess the participants’ SA, task performance and mental workload. The results show that unexpected air route alternation increases mental workload as well as deteriorates the SA and task performance due to the gap between attention resource demand and supply. Reducing the demand of the operator’s attention resource should be the focus when coping with unexpected events in abnormal situations. In addition, reasonable information layout, such as a center-layout design of the critical decision-making information, is more important than information salience for improving the SA and task performance in abnormal situations. Nevertheless, indicators with a high-salience design, such as a more open window design and immersive design, are still worth recommending.

"Good Politicians'': Experimental Evidence on Motivations for Political Candidacy and Government Performance

How can we motivate `good' politicians -- those that will carry out policy that is responsive to citizens' preferences -- to enter politics? In a field experiment in Pakistan, we vary how political office is portrayed to ordinary citizens. We find that emphasizing pro-social motives for holding political office instead of personal returns -- such as the ability to help others versus enhancing one's own respect and status -- raises the likelihood that individuals run for office and that voters elect them. It also better aligns subsequent policies with citizens' preferences. The candidacy decisions are explained by social influence, and not information salience -- we find that social versus personal messaging matters only when randomly delivered in a public setting but not in private. Results also show that changes in political supply, not citizen preferences or behavior, explain policy alignment. Taken together, the results demonstrate that non-financial motivations for political entry shape how politicians perform in office.

Shared cognitive mechanisms of hypnotizability with executive functioning and information salience

In recent years, evidence linked hypnotizability to the executive control and information salience networks, brain structures that play a role in cognitive conflict resolution and perseveration (insisting on applying a previously learned logical rule on a new set). Despite the growing body of neuroimaging evidence, the cognitive phenotype of hypnotizability is not well understood. We hypothesized that higher hypnotizability would correspond to lower perseveration and set-shifting. Seventy-two healthy adults were tested for hypnotizability and executive functions (perseveration and set-shifting). Multiple regression analyses were performed to test the relationship between hypnotizability and perseveration and set-shifting. Higher hypnotizability was associated with lower perseveration after accounting for age and education. Hypnotizability significantly predicted perseveration but not set-shifting. Our results indicate an inverse relationship between trait hypnotizability and perseveration, an executive function that utilizes regions of both the executive control and the salience systems. This suggests that hypnotizability may share a common cognitive mechanism with error evaluation and implementation of logical rules.

Framing a promotional offer as free-with-purchase or as a bundle? The perspective of information salience

PurposeBased on the concept of information salience, the research investigates the factors that might drive potential differences in consumers' preferences between offers framed as free with purchase or as a bundle.Design/methodology/approachFour experiments examined how participants' preferences for bundled offers or free-with-purchase offers varied as a function of the perceived benefits to be obtained from the supplementary products (studies 1a and 1b) and identified participants' sensitivity to the price of the supplementary component as a mediator of the framing effect of a promotional offer (study 2) and the provision of information facilitating the drawing of comparisons as the boundary condition constraining the effectiveness of a free-with-purchase offer (study 3).FindingsResults show that a bundled offer is preferable to a free-with-purchase offer when the supplementary product provides a high-level rather than a low-level benefit and identify price sensitivity as an underlying mechanism behind the observed effect. Furthermore, consumers' sensitivity to the value of the focal product in the deal brought to their attention by comparative information makes a fair charge for a relatively unattractive component the preferable offer.Originality/valueWhile much of the existing published research on bundled offers focuses on the assigning of discounts to individual products in the bundle, this study adds to the body of knowledge by showing that variation in perceived benefits is the key driver of different responses to a free-with-purchase offer versus a bundled offer.

Reference and Multimodality: analysis of the construction of reference in advertisements for vehicles

The objective of this article is to analyze the construction of the referent “vehicle” in advertisements, proposing an interface between Referencing and Multimodality. For this, it follows the sociocognitive-discursive approach of Referencing (CAVALCANTE, 2011, 2012, 2015; KOCH, 2004, 2015) and uses, as a foundation on Multimodality, the Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) Grammar of Visual Design (GVD). It analyzes, through the compositional metafunction, formed by the subcategories value of information, salience and framing, the referential construction in four advertisements for vehicles. Considering the analyzes carried out, it concludes that the categories salience and framing occur in a complementary way in the construction of the Referent, becoming, in a way, redundant, because what is arranged in the image as a disconnected element and therefore functioning independently, coincides with what is evidenced, placed in a prominent position, most of the time, centralized in the image. Specifically, regarding the analyzed discursive genre, it concludes that the referent “vehicle” is the nucleus of visual information, confirmed by the deletion effect suffered by the elements in the background. The results obtained indicate that the visual composition maintains a direct relation with the construction of the Referent.

Memory for Media Content in Health Communication

Typical discussion about the success of mediated health communication campaigns focuses on the direct and indirect links between remembered campaign exposure and outcomes; yet, what constitutes information exposure and how it is remembered remain unclearly defined in much health communication research. This problem mainly stems from the complexity of understanding the concept of memory. Prolific discussions about memory have occurred in cognitive psychology in recent decades, particularly owing to advances in neuroimaging technologies. The evolution of memory research—from unitary or dichotomous perspectives to multisystem perspectives—has produced substantial implications for the topics and methods of studying memory. Among the various conceptualizations and types of memory studied, what has been of particular interest to health-communication researchers and practitioners is the notion of “encoded exposure.” Encoded exposure is a form of memory at least retrievable by a potential audience member through a conscious effort to recollect his or her past engagement with any particular unit of campaign content. While other aspects of memory (e.g., non-declarative or implicit memory) are certainly important for communication research, the encoded exposure assessed under a retrieval condition offers a critical point at which to establish the exposure-outcome link for the purpose of campaign design and evaluation. The typical methods to assess encoded exposure include recall and recognition tasks, which can be exercised in various ways depending on retrieval cues provided by a researcher to assess different types and levels of cognitive engagement with exposed information. Given that encoded exposure theoretically relies on minimal memory trace, communication scholars have suggested that recognition-based tasks are more appropriate and efficient indicators of encoded exposure compared to recall-based tasks that require a relatively high degree of current-information salience and accessibility. Understanding the complex nature of memory also has direct implications for the prediction of memory as one of the initial stages of communication effects. Some prominent message-level characteristics (e.g., variability in the structural and content features of a health message) or message recipient-level characteristics (e.g., individual differences in cognitive abilities) might be more or less predictive of different memory systems or information-processing mechanisms. In addition, the environments (e.g., bodily and social contexts) in which people are exposed to and interact with campaign messages affect individual memory. While the effort has already begun, directions for future memory research in health communication call for more attention to sharpening the concept of memory and understanding memory as a unique or combined function of multilevel factors.

From Anger to Attribution: Could Attention Be a Bridge?

We explored whether or not anger increases attribution bias toward salient information by narrowing attention scope. In Experiment 1, participants made attributions about 6 daily events while experiencing anger or in a neutral state. The anger group was more biased toward the salient factor compared to the neutral group. Using eye-tracking methodology, in Experiment 2 we further demonstrated that attention scope that is narrowed due to anger is related to a polarized distribution of attention resources, particularly decreased eye fixation on the phrase containing nonsalient factors. Finally, in Experiment 3 we separated attention process from information salience and further confirmed that narrowing attention scope (polarizing attention resource) could bias the attribution. In sum, our results indicate that attention scope is the bridge by which anger increases attribution bias.