Representing hierarchies of visual regard in eye-tracking analysis

In the following study, the author developed a method for representing data from eye-tracking recordings. The study proposed a form of graphical analysis that illustrates hierarchical densities of visual regard without obscuring the original pictorial stimulus. Across three different case studies, subjects’ fixation patterns were used to propagate Voronoi generating points. Integrating both fixation locations and their respective dwell times, randomized Gaussian distribution provided a technique to augment Voronoi generating seeds and enhance graphical resolution. Color pixel values were then used to fill in resultant Voronoi cells, in relation to color values provided by the original stimulus. The study revealed a form of analysis that allowed for effective differentiation of viewing behaviors between different subjects, in which emphasis was placed on a subject's attentional distribution rather than on graphic icons.

Phonological Development: Acquisition of Hausa Secondary Consonants Pronunciation by the Hausa Children

Phonological development refers to the stages that children pass before they can correctly use and understand the sound system of their language. Inspired by Stampe’s (1969) Natural Phonology Theory, this paper examines the acquisition of Hausa secondary consonants pronunciation by the Hausa children. The paper seeks to achieve the following objectives (a) to identify the phonological processes that are operating in the production of the Hausa secondary consonants by the Hausa 2-5 years children (b) to discover the units that are more affected if certain changes occur in the production of the Hausa secondary consonants (c) to explain whether a parental behavior influence the children’s production of the Hausa secondary consonants. Four children aged between 2-5 years were purposely selected. The data were collected using a Pictorial Stimulus-Driven Elicitation. The study found that reduction, simplification, and substitution phonological processes operate in some of the children’s speech production. It also revealed that regardless of the glottal stop, the second unit of the secondary consonants is more affected and that parental behavior affects children’s speech production. The implication of this result is that it can be used by speech pathology to draw a conclusion about the Hausa children’s phonological development.

The use of metonymy and metaphor in descriptive essays by intermediate and advanced EFL students

This article involves an empirical linguistic study aimed at elucidating the use of metonymy and metaphor in descriptive essays written by a group of intermediate EFL students (further referred to as ‘participants’). 20 participants were recruited at Stockholm University, Sweden and matched with a control group comprised of 20 advanced EFL students at the same university. The participants and their respective controls were given five pictorial stimuli containing famous architectural landmarks in Sweden. The participants and the control group were instructed to write a one paragraph descriptive essay about each pictorial stimulus using either i) an imaginary and creative approach or ii) a non-imaginary and purely descriptive approach. The corpus of the participants’ and controls’ essays was subsequently analysed in the computer program WordSmith (Scott, 1996). Quantitative analysis in WordSmith yielded descriptive statistics involving word frequencies. Then, the corpus was analysed manually for the presence of metonymy and metaphor. Qualitative findings seem to support previous research (MacArthur, 2010; Haghshenas & Hashemian, 2016), which suggests that the use of metonymy tends to be associated with the intermediate level of EFL writing, whilst both metonymy and metaphor are predominantly found in the writing by advanced EFL learners.

Product development based on design attributes

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate an approach to include the influence of design attributes (DA) into an early product development step. In general, the development of new products with market success is of high relevance for companies. Because of a relatively high-quality level in general, not the product quality itself but rather new issues as attributes with aesthetical values are becoming more and more important. However, the right consideration of these attributes is still one of the challenges. Design/methodology/approach The underlying investigation is based on an empirical data set resulting from a survey with motorcycles as research object. Motorcycles are a good example for a good with a certain relevance of DA for the buying decision of customers. The data collection and analysis will focus on a recommended presentation alternative of measuring perceptions and influences through customer evaluations, separating customer segments and identifying differences. Therefore, data analysis methods such as cluster analysis will be applied. Findings The findings are new for researchers from a theoretical and from a practical point of view. The results verify the use of pictorial stimulus presentation and emphasize the necessary integration of DA within the product development process. Originality/value Within the paper the usefulness of the consideration of design elements in case of gathering customer meanings is highlighted. Therefore, existing approaches of measuring design attribute influences and using pictorial instead of verbal descriptions of stimuli are adopted and enhanced through the use of additional information of the respondents.

Aural, Visual, and Pictorial Stimulus Formats in False Recall

The present investigation is an initial simultaneous examination of the influence of three stimulus formats on false memories. Several pilot tests were conducted to develop new category associate stimulus lists. 73 women and 26 men ( M age = 21.1 yr.) were in one of three conditions: they either heard words, were shown words, or were shown pictures highly related to critical nonpresented items. As expected, recall of critical nonpresented stimuli was significantly greater for aural lists than for visually presented words and pictorial images. These findings demonstrate that the accuracy of memory is influenced by the format of the information encoded.