Visual dominance. Our human perception, that with great authority, powerfully influences and controls all of our senses. In turn, our minds try to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in what we are experiencing, may that be in a chaotic world, a cacophony in colour or vibrations in patterns. This project explores disturbances in pattern and colour and how these elements can deceive the eye. Playing with elements such as opacity, layers and transparency the nine outfits presented in this project attempt to explore the principles of Gestalt psychology to create disorder and confusion. Significantly, the project discusses our perception of pattern and colour and how with small measures these components can outsmart our senses, highlighting the importance of psychological methods and techniques in design rather than scientific or mathematical.

Internationalization of firms has been an on-going process for many years, however, over the recent years, there has been radical changes in the business world, which has created a more competitive business environment for firms. This change in the business environment has not been an easy process nor is it anticipated to get any easier. International firms entering new markets are faced with different challenges, which could be embedded in the behaviour specific to the people living in these countries. Cultural distance is defined as complex and intangible and measured only at a single point in time. Cultural distance easy creates an “illusion” of symmetry where measures at the time of market entry might have changed by the time the performance is measured. Measuring only the cultural distance is not enough to fully understand the international behaviour and how business practices have adapted to the foreign market, to do so one need to understand the institutional distance in order to understand the behavioural patterns existing within the foreign market and adapt its business practices accordingly. There is no support for the perception of cultural and institutional distance between two institutional contexts to be symmetric; it is an illusion of symmetry. Therefore the purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how asymmetry in firms’ perception on cultural and institutional distance affect the extent of firms’ adaptation. This is by increase understanding on how firms from different institutional contexts perceive the distance between them and to what extent they adapt their business practices to the foreign market. In order to answer this purpose a qualitative research has been conducted where managers in three firms from Sweden and three firms from China has been interviewed on their perception of distance on the opposite market. The theoretical framework has included a presentation of the cultural distance, the institutional distance and adaptation of business practices.  This has been followed by a theoretical synthesis, which has been conducted based on the theoretical concepts. Furthermore, the empirical chapter presents the findings of each case company. In the analysis chapter, the theoretical framework has been analyzed together with the empirical data. Based on the analysis the authors have been able to conclude that asymmetry in firms’ perception on distance affects the extent of firm’s adaptation of business practices to the institutional context. It can be concluded that Swedish firms adapt business practices to less extent than Chinese firms and the reason behind it is the asymmetry in firms’ perception of distance. Swedish firms investing in the Chinese market is not faced with the same distance as a Chinese firm investing in the Swedish market, and thus they do not adapt to the same degree.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether a typology of narcissism can be identified through various statistical analyses, specifically cluster analysis. Furthermore, this study attempted to further delineate whether claims of a dual nature of narcissism are well founded and to examine the mental health implications of "positive illusions." Subjects were 251 college students at a large Midwest University. The mean age of the participants was 21 years. Self-report measures of narcissism, positive illusions, and mental health were administered in counterbalanced order. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis and cluster analysis to examine the relationship between narcissism, positive illusions and mental health. A moderate amount of narcissism was positively related to mental health and adjustment. Furthermore, participants high and low in narcissism correlated with poorer mental health and adjustment. Positive illusions were related to mental health, except for in groups high in narcissism. Indeed, there appears to be an optimal level of illusions, which are beneficial for mental health. The relationship between narcissism and positive illusions should continue to be explored. / Department of Educational Psychology

This thesis is an examination and critique of naturalistic representational theories of phenomenal character. Phenomenal character refers to the distinctive quality that perceptual and sensational experiences seem to have; it is identified with 'what it is like' to undergo experiences. The central claims of representationalism are that phenomenal character is identical with the content of experience and that all representational states, bearing appropriate relations to the cognitive system, are conscious experiences. These claims are taken to explain both how conscious experiential states arise and their nature. After examining the desiderata for naturalistic explanations, I argue that theories which ascribe nonconceptual content to experiences are the most plausible versions of representationalism. Further, causal covariation and teleological theories yield distinctive and interesting representationalist positions, hence, they become the focus of this study. To assess representationalism, I investigate whether all differences in phenomenal character can be correlated with differences in content. I claim that a useful distinction can be drawn between implicit and explicit content, which allows one to best describe the phenomena of perfect and relative pitch. I then argue that ambiguous figures show that two experiences can have the same content but different phenomenal character. I explicate the Inverted Earth hypothesis and claim that to identify content and phenomenal character, representationalists either have to condone the possibility of philosophical zombies, or hold that people lack authoritative first-person knowledge of their current experiences. Both these positions are unpalatable. Finally, I argue that representationalists cannot ascribe contents to experiences of novel colours to account for their phenomenal character. I also question, in light of dissociation phenomena, whether there is one distinctive relationship that all experiences bear to the cognitive system. I conclude that phenomenal character cannot be identical with the type of content under investigation, and that naturalistic representationalist theories cannot fully explain conscious experience.

Wien, Univ., Dipl.-Arb., 2008. / Zsfassung in engl. Sprache.

In the rubber hand illusion (RHI), a rubber hand is placed in front of the participant with the participant's hand out of sight. If both hands are touched simultaneously, the illusion typically occurs. Between RHI studies, differences can be seen in the setup, and results of the illusion strength are inconsistent. One of these differences can be the moving RHI, where the real and rubber hand make the same movements to induce the illusion. The differences led to uncertainty regarding the influence of spatial configuration (i.e., an arrangement of the setup within three-dimensional space) on the illusion of body ownership. With this meta-analysis, I quantify the illusion strength in the moving RHI to be able to conclude if spatial configuration influences the results. A total of nine studies were included that had a total of 391 participants. The results show that the synchronous condition has a stronger illusory effect than the asynchronous condition. However, due to heterogeneity, the sample size may not represent the general population. Sub-group analysis showed no major difference in the illusion strength between a vertical and horizontal setup. These observations do not correspond with classical RHI studies in which vertical and horizontal setups were compared. However, in this meta-analysis, only moving RHI studies were included. In the moving RHI, the experimenter does not enter the visual receptive field of the participant, which may explain why no differences between the setups were found. The results of this meta-analysis cannot be seen as definitive; more research is necessary.

No description available.

When people predict recognition performance, they wrongly predict that high frequency words will produce better recognition than low frequency words. To examine whether familiarity was the heuristic behind these inaccurate predictions, participants saw some words prior to study to increase their familiarity. We found that familiarity influences predictions, but word frequency has the greater influence. Research has shown that these inaccurate predictions can be corrected with test experience. Subsequent predictions are more accurate, but it is unclear whether participants learn that low frequency words are always better for memory or that participants had learned that low frequency words are only better for recognition and high frequency words are better for recall. We resolved this issue by giving a forced-choice recognition test after the single-item recognition test to determine what participants learned after the first test, and we found that participants learned that low frequency words facilitate recognition but not recall.

In a society where people are always making plans and running in-between places, uncontrollable scenarios, such as rain, can be read as mere obstacles to the much acclaimed ‘routine’. With a strong appreciation for unexpected events, I instead want to propose a solution to make people approach rain in a more curious way, building for it a celebrative setting. A path of analysis, research, and experimental testing led to the design of a possible transformation of a rainwater harvesting system into a lighting installation. Considering the current climate change conditions, and the severe drought situations in some areas, rain has to be interpreted today not just as a poetic phenomenon, but also as a necessary and primary resource.  In TOTEN, daylight and artificial light are combined in a dynamic storyline, with the goal to emphasize the presence or the lack of rain and to make people gain insight about the rainfall trend. While an optical illusion and colors are asked to achieve a communicative and attractive condition, the structure wants to be clean and easily affordable. Reminiscent of a totemic sculpture, TOTEN appears, in the results, as a symbolic place where light and water use their liquid shapes to tell stories.

No description available.