Contemporary theories on frequency processing have been developed in different sub-disciplines of psychology and have shown remarkable discrepancies. Thus, in judgment and decision making, frequency estimates on serially encoded events are mostly traced back to the availability heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). Evidence for the use of this heuristic comes from several popular demonstrations of biased frequency estimates. In the area of decision making, these demonstrations led to the conclusion that frequency judgments were generally error-prone. On the other hand, in memory literature detailed computational memory models are used to explain frequency estimates. Although these models to some degree differ evidently in their specific representational assumptions, they all arrive at the basic prediction that frequency estimates should usually be quite accurate but regressed. This prediction was confirmed in numerous studies. However, up to now there have been no systematic efforts in memory literature to identify factors that cause biases in frequency judgments and to explain the demonstrations of erroneous estimates in the area of decision making. The two studies presented in this thesis pursue the questions whether memory models are able to explain errors in frequency judgments and to generate new predictions about biasing factors. In the focus of the first series of experiments is the "famous-names effect": If participants are presented with a list of names of female and male persons, then the frequency of that sex is overestimated that was represented with more famous names on the list. As more famous names are additionally recalled better, this effect was usually explained with the availability heuristic. An alternative account was suggested within the framework of the associationist-model PASS (Sedlmeier, 1999) and the multiple-trace model MINERVA-DM (Dougherty et al., 1999). According to this, the effect is primarily caused by the different pre-experimental frequencies of famous and non-famous names. If this is correct, the famous-names effect should generalize to any stimulus material. This hypothesis was tested in four experiments. The predictions of the memory models were compared with the predictions of a recall-estimate version of the availability heuristic (e.g. Watkins & LeCompte, 1991). Contrary to the predictions of all tested approaches, the participants were mostly able to judge the frequencies of the presented categories approximately correctly. The results indicate furthermore that systematic biases only occurred if the participants based their judgments at least partially on the recall-estimate strategy. However, as the participants only did this in exceptional cases the entire result pattern is explained best within a multiple strategy perspective (Brown, 2002). A re-analysis of the data from all four experiments suggests that the size of the sample of retrieved exemplars is the crucial factor for the (additional) use of the recall-estimate strategy. In the second study new predictions about the influence of associations on frequency estimates are derived from the PASS-model and tested. In two experiments words that were either strongly or weakly associated with each other were presented to the participants. Predictions of the PASS model for the frequency estimates about this stimulus material were gained by means of simulations. In a first step PASS acquired associations between the stimulus words from a large text corpus. Subsequently, the model encoded the experimental study lists. PASS expects higher frequency judgments for associated than for non-associated words. The size of this effect should be independent of the actual presentation frequencies of the words. Finally, the model expects that the frequencies of associated words are discriminated slightly worse than the frequencies of non-associated words. These predictions were largely confirmed in both experiments. The decision times required by the participants to generate their estimates indicate here that they did not base their judgments on the recall-estimate strategy. The results thus strengthen the assumption that the encoding and representation of frequency information are based on associative learning. / Aktuelle Theorien zur Häufigkeitsverarbeitung wurden in unterschiedlichen Teilgebieten der Psychologie entwickelt und weisen erstaunliche Diskrepanzen auf. So werden Häufigkeitsschätzungen über seriell enkodierte Ereignisse in der Urteils- und Entscheidungsforschung zumeist auf die Verfügbarkeitsheuristik (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) zurückgeführt. Evidenz für die Verwendung dieser Heuristik stammt aus einigen populären Demonstrationen fehlerhafter Häufigkeitsschätzungen. Diese Demonstrationen führten in der Entscheidungsforschung zu der Schlussfolgerung, dass Häufigkeitsurteile generell fehleranfällig seien. Demgegenüber wurden in der Gedächtnispsychologie detaillierte, computerimplementierte Gedächtnismodelle benutzt, um Häufigkeitsschätzungen zu erklären. Obwohl sich diese Modelle in ihren spezifischen Repräsentationsannahmen zum Teil deutlich unterscheiden, kommen sie alle zu der grundlegenden Vorhersage, dass Häufigkeitsschätzungen in der Regel recht genau, aber regrediert sein sollten. Diese Vorhersage wurde in zahlreichen Untersuchungen bestätigt. In der gedächtnispsychologischen Forschung hat es jedoch bisher kein systematisches Bemühen gegeben, Faktoren, die zu Verzerrungen in Häufigkeitsschätzungen führen, zu identifizieren und die Demonstrationen fehlerhafter Schätzungen aus der Entscheidungsforschung zu erklären. Die zwei in der vorliegenden Arbeit präsentierten Studien verfolgen die Fragestellung, inwieweit Gedächtnismodelle in der Lage sind, Fehler in Häufigkeitsurteilen zu erklären und neue Vorhersagen über verzerrende Faktoren zu generieren. Im Mittelpunkt der ersten Serie von Experimenten steht dabei der "Famous-Names Effekt": Nach der Präsentation einer Liste mit Namen weiblicher und männlicher Personen wird die Häufigkeit desjenigen Geschlechts überschätzt, das mit berühmteren Namen auf der Liste vertreten war. Da berühmtere Namen zudem besser erinnert werden, wurde dieser Effekt gewöhnlich auf die Verfügbarkeitsheuristik zurückgeführt. Eine Alternativerklärung wurde sowohl im Rahmen des assoziationistischen PASS-Modells (Sedlmeier, 1999) als auch innerhalb des Exemplarmodells MINERVA-DM (Dougherty et al., 1999) vorgeschlagen. Demnach wird der Effekt primär durch die unterschiedliche prä-experimentelle Häufigkeit berühmter und nicht-berühmter Namen verursacht. Ist diese Annahme korrekt, so sollte der Famous-Names Effekt auch auf anderes Stimulusmaterial generalisieren. Diese Hypothese wurde in vier Experimenten überprüft. Dabei wurden die Vorhersagen der Gedächtnismodelle mit den Vorhersagen einer "Recall-Estimate" Version der Verfügbarkeitsheuristik (z. B. Watkins & LeCompte, 1991) verglichen. Entgegen den Vorhersagen aller getesteten Ansätze waren die Teilnehmer in der Regel in der Lage, die Häufigkeit der verwendeten Kategorien recht gut einzuschätzen. Die Ergebnisse sprechen zudem dafür, dass systematische Fehler in den Häufigkeitsurteilen nur dann auftraten, wenn sich die Teilnehmer bei der Generierung ihrer Schätzungen zumindest teilweise auf die Recall-Estimate Strategie stützten. Da die Teilnehmer dies jedoch nur in Ausnahmefällen taten, kann das gesamte Ergebnismuster am besten innerhalb einer "Multiple Strategy Perspective" (Brown, 2002) erklärt werden. Eine Reanalyse der Daten aus allen vier Experimenten legt dabei die Schlussfolgerung nahe, dass die Stichprobengröße erinnerter Exemplare ausschlaggebend für die (zusätzliche) Verwendung der Recall-Estimate Strategie ist. In der zweiten Studie werden neuartige Vorhersagen über den Einfluss von Assoziationen auf Häufigkeitsschätzungen aus dem PASS-Modell abgeleitet und getestet. In zwei Experimenten wurden den Teilnehmern Wörter präsentiert, die untereinander entweder stark oder schwach assoziiert waren. Die Vorhersagen des PASS-Modells über die Häufigkeitsschätzungen zu diesem Stimulusmaterial wurden mit Hilfe von Simulationen gewonnen. In einem ersten Simulationsschritt erwarb PASS aus großen Textkorpora Assoziationen zwischen den Stimuluswörtern. Anschließend enkodierte das Modell die experimentellen Stimuluslisten. PASS erwartet, dass assoziierte Wörter höhere Schätzungen erhalten als nicht-assoziierte Wörter. Die Größe dieses Effekts sollte von der Präsentationshäufigkeit der Wörter unabhängig sein. Schließlich erwartet das Modell, dass die Häufigkeit assoziierter Wörter geringfügig schlechter diskriminiert wird als die Häufigkeit nicht-assoziierter Wörter. Diese Vorhersagen wurden in beiden Experimenten weitgehend bestätigt. Die Verwendung einer Recall-Estimate Strategie konnte dabei mit Hilfe von Reaktionszeitmessungen ausgeschlossen werden. Die Ergebnisse stützen damit die Annahme, dass die Enkodierung und Repräsentation von Häufigkeitsinformation auf assoziativem Lernen basiert.

Syfte & Forskningsfråga: Syftet med denna studie är att förstå hur regionala flygbolag arbetar med elektronisk word-of-mouth (eWOM) genom att undersöka och analysera på vilket sätt företag kan arbeta med eWOM, vilken betydelse eWOM har för tjänster inom turismsektorns privata marknad samt vilket inflytande konsumenter har genom eWOM. Med syftet i baktanke formulerades forskningsfrågan: Vilken betydelse har eWOM för företag inom turismsektorn och hur kan de använda eWOM i sin marknadsföring?   Metod: I denna studie har vi använt oss utav en kvalitativ metod för att ha möjlighet att få en djupare förståelse för det valda forskningsämnet. Redan från början av studien har vi haft ett växelspel mellan teori och empiri, varför det abduktiva synsättet har använts. Vidare har empiriska data samlats in genom sex stycken semi-strukturerade intervjuer tillsammans med användandet av en intervjuguide för att till viss del kunna styra samtalet men samtidigt få mer flexibilitet där respondenterna haft möjlighet att svara fritt. Under intervjuerna har vi använt oss utav en intervjuguide för att till viss del kunna styra samtalet. De valda respondenterna har alla kunskap från arbete med marknadsföring men arbetar i olika positioner och företag.   Slutsatser: I studiens analys har vi kunnat se både instämningar och motsägelser mellan teori och empiri. Det har framkommit att eWOM har en stor betydelse för konsumenter och att de till stor del litar mer på andra kunders åsikter än företagets egen marknadsföring. Det poängteras även att tjänster inom turismsektorn är immateriella och ofta inte möjliga att pröva innan köp, vilket bidrar med osäkerhet för kunden. Utifrån detta har det kunnat konstateras att eWOM är betydelsefullt för att kunden ska kunna skapa sig en uppfattning och kunna utvärdera tjänsten. eWOM har således en stor betydelse för företagets kunder och det är därför direkt centralt för företagen att arbeta med detta i sin marknadsföring. / The purpose of this study has been to develop an understanding of how regional airlines are working with electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) through examining and analyzing in which way companies can work with eWOM, what significance eWOM has to services within the tourism sectors private market and what influence consumers has through eWOM. With the purpose in mind the following research questions has been formulated: What significance has eWOM for companies within the tourism sector and how can they use eWOM in their marketing?   In this study we have used a qualitative method to have the possibility to develop a greater understanding of the chosen research topic. From the start of the study we have had an interplay between the theoretical and empirical material and therefore the abductive approach has been used. Furthermore the empirical material has been gathered through six semi-structured interviews with the use of an interview guide. In this way we could to some extent control and steer the conversation but at the same time bring flexibility where the informants had the possibility to speak freely. All the chosen informants have knowledge in marketing but they all work in different positions and companies.   Through the analysis of this study we have been able to both see agreements and disagreements between the theoretical and empirical material. It has been revealed that eWOM has a great significance to consumers and that they to a large extent trust other customers opinions more than they trust the companies own marketing. It has been pointed out that services within the tourism sector are immaterial and often not possible to try before being bought, which contributes with an uncertainty for the customer. Based on this we have found that eWOM has a great meaning for the customers creation of their perception and evaluation of services. eWOM therefore have a great importance for the company's customers and is thereby essential for the company’s marketing strategy.

This dissertation explores a family of temporal meanings pertaining to when, as it appears in When the results were negligible, Galdwin asked why; when she was 50, she left him; and Lowe took a 3-1 lead into the 5th when he finally surrendered his first home run of the season. A widely-accepted view is that when used this way functions as a generalpurpose temporal connective, with underspecified semantics reminiscent to after, during or before, which vary depending on the surrounding context. I propose a heavy revision of this particular claim; surrounding contexts do not by themselves determine the temporal interpretation of when, but they function to strengthen the basic meaning already imposed by grammatical features and lexical constraints. The present system provides accounts for several empirical problems related to corpus-based examples which are inconsistent with previous approaches to the semantics of when. A further characteristic of the present study is its cross-linguistic nature. I extend the analysis of when to toki(-ni), the Japanese counterpart to when. Comparing English and Japanese, I argue that the two languages share the fundamental semantic system but employ different sets of triggering factors for the strengthening process. Supporting evidence for my arguments comes from two manuallyculled newstext corpora prepared for this study. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to the phenomena and issues of interest. I address three distinct temporal relations holding between the when- and main clause events. Forward-sequence entails that the when- clause event occurs earlier than the main, as in when the results were negligible, Galdwin asked why. Overlap consists of two clauses that denote overlapping events, as in when she was 50, she left him. Backward-sequence entails that the when- clause event takes place after the main clause event, as in Lowe took a 3-1 lead into the fifth when he finally surrendered his first home run of the season. Discussions in later chapters assume some familiarity to temporal and discourse semantics literature. Chapter 2 has been devoted to providing such background information, including an introduction to Discourse Representation Theory (Kamp and Reyle (1993)) and Two-Component Aspect Theory (Smith (1993, 1997)). For visual presentation of my ideas, I adopt Blackburn & Bos’ (2000) DRS-building scheme. In Chapter 3 I sketch previous analyses on when- sentences and address their empirical problems. I discuss two streams of approaches. Under one view, when commits to placing two eventualities temporally close to each other, without fixing their relative order (Heinëmäki (1978), Ritchie (1979) and Hinrichs (1986)). An implication of this type of proposal is that whenever a when appears, there is little restriction as to which one of the temporal meanings is chosen. Thus, for these authors when is a general-purpose temporal adverbial used without a specific temporal meaning built into it. Alternatively, scholars such as Moens and Steedman (1989) and Sändström (1993) argue that when does not order events temporally; it only adds an implication concerning event consequentiality, namely that the main clause event is a consequence of the when clause event. A major problem common to both approaches is empirical. The former entails that when is vague as to its temporal implications, when in actuality a given when sentence is usually associated with only one of the temporal meanings. The latter approach, on the other hand, is misleading in giving the impression that all when sentences bear a consequential relation: corpus examples in the present study reveal that it is not true. Chapter 4 presents English corpus data collected for this study and an analysis of when- sentences that avoids the problems surrounding the previous approaches, with emphasis on the claim that pragmatic information is fully responsible for rendering the temporal meanings associated with when. I examine this proposal critically and arrive at a hybrid system where grammatical and pragmatic or extra-linguistic informational contents work in tandem. I also discuss DRT construction rules for when and demonstrate my system for some key examples drawn from the corpus. Chapter 5 turns to a cross-linguistic consideration, focusing on Japanese. After reviewing the literature on Japanese toki-ni (“when” lit. time-at) sentences, such as that authored by Yoshimoto and Mori (2003), I discuss Japanese corpus data and argue for one salient difference between the systems in the two languages: the strengthening processes in English tend to allude to pragmatic and extra-linguistic information while those in Japanese are more directly affected by grammatical factors such as tense marking variations and particle-drop. Chapter 6 concludes the study. I mention some remaining issues, for the purpose of suggesting some future avenues of research which the achievement of this study opens up. Two appendices are included at the end of this dissertation. One explains technical details regarding the corpora used in this study. The other is a summary of miscellaneous numerical results I have obtained while I worked on the project. / text

This thesis deals with Swedish full text retrieval and the problem of morphological variation of query terms in thedocument database. The study is an information retrieval experiment with a test collection. While no Swedish testcollection was available, such a collection was constructed. It consists of a document database containing 161,336news articles, and 52 topics with four-graded (0, 1, 2, 3) relevance assessments. The effects of indexing strategy-query term combination on retrieval effectiveness were studied. Three of five testedmethods involved indexing strategies that used conflation, in the form of normalization. Further, two of these threecombinations used indexing strategies that employed compound splitting. Normalization and compound splittingwere performed by SWETWOL, a morphological analyzer for the Swedish language. A fourth combinationattempted to group related terms by right hand truncation of query terms. A search expert performed the truncation.The four combinations were compared to each other and to a baseline combination, where no attempt was made tocounteract the problem of morphological variation of query terms in the document database. Two situations were examined in the evaluation: the binary relevance situation and the multiple degree relevancesituation. With regard to the binary relevance situation, where the three (positive) relevance degrees (1, 2, 3) weremerged into one, and where precision was used as evaluation measure, the four alternative combinationsoutperformed the baseline. The best performing combination was the combination that used truncation. Thiscombination performed better than or equal to a median precision value for 41 of the 52 topics. One reason for therelatively good performance of the truncation combination was the capacity of its queries to retrieve different partsof speech. In the multiple degree relevance situation, where the three (positive) relevance degrees were retained, retrievaleffectiveness was taken to be the accumulated gain the user receives by examining the retrieval result up to givenpositions. The evaluation measure used was nDCG (normalized cumulated gain with discount). This measurecredits retrieval methods that (1) rank highly relevant documents higher than less relevant ones, and (2) rankrelevant (of any degree) documents high. With respect to (2), nDCG involves a discount component: a discount withregard to the relevance score of a relevant (of any degree) document is performed, and this discount is greater andgreater, the higher position the document has in the ranked list of retrieved documents. In the multiple degree relevance situation, the five combinations were evaluated under four different user scenarios,where each scenario simulated a certain user type. Again, the four alternative combinations outperformed thebaseline, for each user scenario. The truncation combination had the best performance under each user scenario.This outcome agreed with the performance result in the binary relevance situation. However, there were alsodifferences between the two relevance situations. For 25 percent of the topics and with regard to one of the four userscenarios, the set of best performing combinations in the binary relevance situation was disjunct from the set of bestperforming combinations in the multiple degree relevance situation. The user scenario in question was such thatalmost all importance was placed on highly relevant documents, and the discount was sharp. The main conclusion of the thesis is that normalization and right hand truncation (performed by a search expert)enhanced retrieval effectiveness in comparison to the baseline, irrespective of which of the two relevance situationswe consider. Further, the three indexing strategy-query term combinations based on normalization were almost asgood as the combination that involves truncation. This holds for both relevance situations. / <p>QC 20150813</p>

In recent years, more and more people have started to live double lives. Blogs, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have created conditions so that we increasingly live virtual lives on the Internet. The gathering of people in this way entails both risks and opportunities for businesses. This study aims to explain how the phenomenon of social media has affected trade and service companies in a marketing and communication perspective. The idea for the essay came to us after we had observed how different behaviors in companies’ concerning social media could vary a lot, and how we felt that this affected our personal view of the brands. Through a qualitative approach, where we interviewed six people with different backgrounds, we have examined the subject in order to explain how companies can use the characteristics of social media; conversation and interaction. Our results are based on that the social media entails both opportunities and challenges for companies, which are presented in detail in Chapter five.

Šiame magistro darbe analizuojamos konceptualiosios metaforos, atrinktos iš Europos Sąjungos dokumentų tekstyno anglų ir lietuvių kalbomis, ir jų vertimas. Oficialiuose tekstuose paprastai nesitikima rasti daug kalbos gražinimo priemonių, tokių kaip metaforos. Tačiau jos yra sudėtinė visų kalbų dalis, o konceptualioji yra ypatinga tuo, kad gali būti prigijusi pačiose netikėčiausiose srityse, ir, jei neatliekami tam tikri tyrimai, gali likti nepastebėta. Darbe apibrėžta metaforos samprata, nurodomos jos rūšys. Išskiriama konceptualioji metafora ir kelios jos klasifikacijos – pagal konvencionalumą, atliekamą funkciją (skirstomos į struktūrines, ontologines ir erdvines) ir apibrėžtumo laipsnį. Aprašius atrankos būdus ir kriterijus, dažniniuose dvižodžių ir trižodžių junginių sąrašuose atrinktos konceptualiosios metaforos. Kiekviena pagal atliekamą funkciją priskirta struktūrinėms, ontologinėms arba erdvinėms. Lygiagrečiajame anglų-lietuvių kalbų ES dokumentų tekstyne buvo ieškoma kiekvienos konceptualiosios metaforos vertimo, siekiant nustatyti, ar junginiai išlaikė savo konceptualumą; ar jį įgijo tik vertime; ar vertime jis pranyko. Nustatyta, kad iš dažniausiai pasikartojančių ES dokumentų tekstyne konceptualiųjų metaforų anglų ir lietuvių kalbomis vertime išlieka didžioji dalis, tai yra atitinkamai 61% ir 69%. Tipiškiausios, dažniausiai vartojamos konceptualiosios metaforos lygiagrečiajame tekstyne verčiamos labai vienodai. / This research is based on conceptual metaphors that were manually extracted from the English-Lithuanian corpus of European Union documents, the translation was analyzed. Normally it is uncommon to find many figures of speech in official texts, but metaphor is a component of all languages. The conceptual metaphor is naturalized in most uncommon areas without being noticed unless specifically investigated. Conception of metaphor and its types are defined in this work. Conceptual metaphor is presented, as well as possible classifications – by conventionality, by cognitive function they perform (classified into structural, ontological and orientational metaphors) as well as generality of metaphor. After presenting the identification criteria and methods, conceptual metaphors were extracted from the frequency lists of two-word and three-word combinations. Each conceptual metaphor was analyzed and classified as structural, ontological or orientational in accordance with the functions they perform. Translation of each metaphor was located in the English-Lithuanian parallel corpus of EU documents, in order to determine if the combinations retained their conceptuality; if it was obtained only in translation; if it vanished in translation. It was discovered that the majority of the most frequently used English and Lithuanian conceptual metaphors remained in translation, 61% and 69% respectively. The most typical, most frequently used conceptual metaphors are translated in the parallel... [to full text]

Šiame magistro darbe tyrinėjamos augalų pavadinimų žodinės asociacijos lietuvių ir baltarusių kalbomis, kurios kyla perskaičius tam tikrų augalų pavadinimus. Asociaciniame eksperimente dalyvavo 102 informantai: 52 lietuvių ir 50 baltarusių tautybės. Jiems buvo pateiktas 20 augalų pavadinimų sąrašas: ąžuolas, eglė, liepa, rožė, tulpė, kaštonas, klevas, beržas, šermukšnis, žibutė, erškėtrožė, tuopa, obelis, kriaušė, pušis, nendrė, gvazdikas, lelija, gluosnis, ramunė. Magistro darbo tikslas – aprašyti, kokias asociacijas sukelia apibrėžtos teminės grupės žodžiai-stimulai, t.y. augalų pavadinimai, ir nagrinėti žodines asociacijas psicholingvistiniu ir etnolingvistiniu aspektais. Žodinės asociacijos nagrinėjamos pagal tokius parametrus: asociacijų turinį, asociacijų santykį su žodžiu-stimulu, asociacijų dažnumo charakteristiką, asociacijų loginį ir gramatinį kriterijų. Tyrimui pasirinkti tokie metodai: anketavimas, lyginamasis ir aprašomasis. Atlikus analizę, paaiškėjo, kad abiejų tautybių informantų atsakymuose vyrauja daiktavardinės asociacijos, žodžiai-stimulai ir asociatai daugiausia susiję paradigminiais santykiais. Pastebėta, kad augalų pavadinimai dažniausiai sukelia vienažodes asociacijas. Ne visos asociacijos buvo logiškai motyvuotos ir pagrįstos, tačiau tokias asociacijas dažniausiai vartojo abiejų tautų mokyklinio amžiaus vaikai. Nustatyta, kad vyrų mąstysena ir kalba yra konkretesnė, moterų – abstraktesnė, susijusi su jausmine sritimi, asmenine gyvenimiška patirtimi... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This study for an AM deals with verbal association of names of plants, which are evoked when tie names of certain are read. One hundred two people took part in this associative experiment: 52 Lithuanian and 50 Belarusian nationality. They were given a list of 20 plants: ąžuolas, eglė, liepa, rožė, tulpė, kaštonas, klevas, beržas, šermukšnis, žibutė, erškėtrožė, tuopa, obelis, kriaušė, pušis, nendrė, gvazdikas, lelija, gluosnis, ramunė. The objective of the study is to compare the differences in the use of language, which arise from social and psychic factors. The verbal association are studied by the following parameters: the contents of the association, the relationship of association with the word-stimulant, the character of the frequency of associations, and the logic and grammatical criterion of the associations. The following methods were chosen for the study: questioning, comparison and description. The study demonstrated that in the answers off two nationality of informants nouns prevail, and the words-stimulants and the association are mostly connected with paradigmatic relations. It was noticed that the plant names most often trigger one-word associations. Not all associations have been substantiated in a logical and reasonable, but such associations in both nations used mostly school-age children. It was found that the male way of thinking and language is more specific for women - more abstract, concerned with the sensual sphere of personal life experience... [to full text]

Sociala mediers uppkomst har inneburit nya möjligheter för marknadskommunikation men de har också vänt upp och ner på traditionella marknadsföringsmetoder. Det finns därför en osäkerhet kring hur mediernas fulla potential för dialog, interaktivitet, relationsbyggande och viral spridning ska utnyttjas. Syftet med denna studie är därför att skapa ökad kunskap och förståelse för hur ideella organisationer använder sociala medier för att kommunicera samt skapa och underhålla relationer till sina supportrar. En flerfallstudie genomfördes av tre väletablerade ideella organisationer i Sverige, Djurens Rätt, Greenpeace Sverige och Amnesty Sverige. Empirin samlades in med hjälp av intervjuer med ansvariga för kommunikationen i sociala medier inom respektive organisation. Även en kvantitativ innehållsanalys av organisationernas Facebook-sidor utfördes. Empirin analyserades sedan utifrån valda teorier och genom jämförelser fallen emellan. Därmed kunde slutsatsen dras att alla tre organisationer använde sociala medier som ett verktyg för att engagera supportrar i deras verksamhet och sakfrågor, främst genom att uppmana dem till lobbying och påverkan. De kommunicerade alla på ett sätt som genererade eWord-of-Mouth för att uppnå viral spridning av sina budskap. Den typ av kommunikation som användes i störst utsträckning på Facebook var av dialogisk och relationsskapande karaktär, trots att ingen av organisationerna satte relationsbyggande i fokus. / The arrival of social media has brought new opportunities for marketing communication. This change, however, brings major changes to the perceptions of traditional marketing methods. Uncertainty exists in how to best utilise media’s potential in regards to creating dialogue, interaction, relationship building and viral reach with and amongst supporters. The purpose of this study is thus to contribute to a greater understanding of how non-profit organisations are using social media to communicate as well as creating and sustaining relationships with their supporters. A multiple case study design has been employed, focusing on three well-known nonprofit organisations in Sweden; Djurens Rätt, Greenpeace Sweden and Amnesty Sweden. Qualitative research data was gathered through interviews with persons responsible for social media communications within the three organisations. A quantitative content analysis of the organisations’ Facebook pages was also conducted. The empirical findings were then analysed through relevant theories and comparison between the cases. The results indicate that all three organisations used social media as a tool to encourage their supporters to engage with the organisation’s activities and beliefs, primarily lobbying- or advocacy-related activities. The organisations communicated in a way that generated eWord-of-mouth, in order to spread their messages virally. On Facebook, communication was mainly characterised by two-way dialogue and relationship building, despite none of the organisations focused on building relationships with their supporters.

Problem: För att skapa ett starkt employer brand ska arbetsgivaren inneha positiva associationer hos potentiella medarbetare, vilket bidrar till att mindre resurser krävs för att finna den efterfrågade kompetensen. Då en rekommendation handlar om att yttra sig förmånligt blir betydelsen av medarbetares rekommendationer viktig för företagets employer brand. Resultaten av att använda sig av medarbetares rekommendationer i rekryteringsprocessen är känt inom forskningen. Däremot har underliggande faktorer och motiv som ligger till grund för att medarbetare rekommenderar personer i deras sociala nätverk inte adresserats i samma utsträckning. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka vilka underliggande faktorer och motiv som finns hos anställda vid rekommendationer av personer i deras sociala nätverk. Studien ska analysera hur företag med rekryteringsbehov kan utveckla deras employer brand som i sin tur gynnar rekryteringsprocessen. Studien kan fungera som vägledning i utvecklingen av företags employee referral program, då en allmän förståelse kring rekommendationer saknas. Utifrån resultatet kommer förslag att ges om vad som bör tas hänsyn till vid en utveckling av ett employee referral program. Metod: Den insamlade data är av kvantitativ karaktär och samlades in genom en enkät som skickades ut till anställda på ABB. Resultat: Studien visar att respondenterna i undersökningen motiverades av en prosocial motivation då de rekommenderar någon till att söka anställning hos arbetsgivaren främst för att hjälpa en bekant följt av att hjälpa organisationen. Respondenterna motiverades minst av yttre motivation i form av belöningar samt att rekommendationen ska bistå med ett stärkande av deras position. Hinder och osäkerhet upplevdes till viss del hos respondenterna vid en rekommendation, men i de flesta fall var detta inte en orsak till att inte rekommendera. Det främsta hindret som upplevdes var att respondenterna inte har kunskap om hur de rekommenderar via digitala hjälpmedel och den främsta osäkerheten grundades i att personen som rekommenderas inte ska passa ihop med ABB. De flesta respondenter svarade däremot att inget hinder eller osäkerhet fanns vid en rekommendation. / Problem: In order to create a strong employer brand it requires that the potential employees hold positive associations towards the employer. When this exists, fewer resources are required in order to find the right expertise. A recommendation could be defined as: to speak favourably about something or someone. The importance of employee referrals is vital for the company's employer brand. The results of the use of these types of referral programs in the recruitment process are already known in research. However, the underlying factors and motives for employee referrals and why the employees recommend people in their social networks is not addressed to the same extent in research. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the underlying factors and motivations held by employees when they recommend people in their social network. The study will analyze how companies employer brand and employee referral program can be developed. Based on the results, suggestions will be given on what should be reviewed in a development of an employee referral program. Method: The collected data is of quantitative characteristic and was extracted from a survey, which was sent to ABB employees. Results: The study shows that most of the respondents were motivated by a prosocial motivation, as they mainly recommended someone to help an acquaintance, followed by helping the organization. The external motivation was the motivation the respondents were least motivated by, in regards to rewards and that a referral would assist with a strengthening of their position. Barriers and uncertainties among respondents were perceived to some extent when making a referral. For some respondents this was perceived as a factor for not making a referral, however not for most of them. The main barrier experienced was a lack of knowledge about how to make a referral by using digital tools. The main uncertainty was found in the perception that the person who is recommended make a suitable organisation fit. Most respondents experienced that barriers or uncertainties would not prevent them from making a referral.

Reading is a complex cognitive task based on the analyses of visual stimuli. Due to the physiology of the eye, only a small number of letters around the fixation position can be extracted with high visual acuity, while the visibility of words and letters outside this so-called foveal region quickly drops with increasing eccentricity. As a consequence, saccadic eye movements are needed to repeatedly shift the fovea to new words for visual word identification during reading. Moreover, even within a foveated word fixation positions near the word center are superior to other fixation positions for efficient word recognition (O’Regan, 1981; Brysbaert, Vitu, and Schroyens, 1996). Thus, most reading theories assume that readers aim specifically at word centers during reading (for a review see Reichle, Rayner, & Pollatsek, 2003). However, saccades’ landing positions within words during reading are in fact systematically modulated by the distance of the launch site from the word center (McConkie, Kerr, Reddix, & Zola, 1988). In general, it is largely unknown how readers identify the center of upcoming target words and there is no computational model of the sensorimotor translation of the decision for a target word into spatial word center coordinates. Here we present a series of three studies which aim at advancing the current knowledge about the computation of saccade target coordinates during saccade planning in reading. Based on a large corpus analyses, we firstly identified word skipping as a further factor beyond the launch-site distance with a likewise systematic and surprisingly large effect on within-word landing positions. Most importantly, we found that the end points of saccades after skipped word are shifted two and more letters to the left as compared to one-step saccades (i.e., from word N to word N+1) with equal launch-site distances. Then we present evidence from a single saccade experiment suggesting that the word-skipping effect results from highly automatic low-level perceptual processes, which are essentially based on the localization of blank spaces between words. Finally, in the third part, we present a Bayesian model of the computation of the word center from primary sensory measurements of inter-word spaces. We demonstrate that the model simultaneously accounts for launch-site and saccade-type contingent modulations of within-word landing positions in reading. Our results show that the spatial saccade target during reading is the result of complex estimations of the word center based on incomplete sensory information, which also leads to specific systematic deviations of saccades’ landing positions from the word center. Our results have important implications for current reading models and experimental reading research. / Lesen ist eine komplexe kognitive Aufgabe, die auf der Analyse visueller Reize beruht. Aufgrund der Physiologie des Auges kann jedoch nur eine kleine Anzahl von Buchstaben um den Fixationsort mit hoher visueller Genauigkeit wahrgenommen werden, während die Sichtbarkeit der Buchstaben und Wörter außerhalb der sogenannten fovealen Zone mit zunehmender Entfernung stark abnimmt. Während des Lesens sind deshalb sakkadische Augenbewegungen erforderlich, um die Fovea zur visuellen Identifikation neuer Wörter wiederholt innerhalb des Textes zu verschieben. Auch innerhalb eines direkt betrachteten Wortes erlauben mittige Fixationsorte eine effizientere Wortverarbeitung als randnahe Blickpositionen (O’Regan, 1981; Brysbaert, Vitu, and Schroyens, 1996). Die meisten Lesemodelle nehmen deshalb an, dass Leser auf die Mitte von Worten zielen (für eine Übersicht siehe Reichle, Rayner, & Pollatsek, 2003). Es zeigt sich aber, dass Landepositionen innerhalb von Wörtern im Lesen von der Distanz der Startposition einer Sakkade zur Mitte des Zielwortes moduliert werden (McConkie, Kerr, Reddix, & Zola, 1988). Noch ist weitgehend unklar, wie Leser die Mitte eines Zielwortes identifizieren. Es fehlt an computationalen Modellen die die sensumotorische Umwandlung der Auswahl eines Zielwortes in eine räumliche Koordinate der Wortmitte beschreiben. Wir präsentieren hier eine Reihe von drei Studien, die darauf abzielen, das Wissen über die Berechnung von Sakkadenzielkoordinaten im Lesen zu erweitern. In einer umfangreichen Korpusanalyse identifizerten wir zunächst das Überspringen von Wörtern als weiteren wichtigen Faktor bei der Sakkadenprogrammierung, der einen ähnlich systematischen und großen Effekt auf die Landepositionen hat wie die Startpositionen der Sakkaden. Anschließend zeigen wir Ergebnisse eines einfachen Sakkadenexperiments, welche nahelegen, dass der Effekt übersprungener Wörter das Ergebnis hoch automatisierter perzeptueller Prozesse ist, die wesentlich auf der Bestimmung von Leerzeichen zwischen Wörtern basieren. Schließlich präsentieren wir ein Bayesianisches Modell der Berechnung von Wortmitten auf der Grundlage der primären sensorischen Erfassungen von Leerzeichen zwischen Wörtern. Wir zeigen, dass das Modell gleichzeitig Effekte der Startposition und des Sakkadentyps erklärt. Unsere Arbeiten zeigen, dass die Berechnung räumlicher Koordinaten für die Sakkadenprogrammierung im Lesen auf einer komplexen Schätzung der Wortmitte anhand unvollständiger sensorischer Informationen beruht, die zu systematischen Abweichungen von der tatsächlichen Wortmitte führt. Unsere Ergebnisse haben wichtige Folgen für gegenwärtige Lesemodelle und für die experimentelle Leseforschung.