The present study assessed if embedding high probability responding (high-p) into an attentional cue, versus a general attentional cue (GA), would result in students with moderate and severe disabilities displaying differential responding for grade level science vocabulary word identification. Using an adapted alternating treatments design, three students with autism spectrum disorder received an intervention involving a GA cue and one with a high-p to determine which is more efficient. Hypothesized results are that the attentional cue with a high-probability motor sequence would be more effective for teaching vocabulary word identification.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Rolle von Konkordanzmarkierungen innerhalb einer Phrase für die Segmentierung eines fremden Sprachstroms. Das Merkmal der Konkordanz tritt auf, wenn alle Bestandteile einer Phrase gleichermaßen durch eine identische Markierung gekennzeichnet sind (z. B. los muchachos ricosSpanisch = die reichen Männer). Da diese wiederkehrenden Markierungen zumeist aus Affixen bestehen, kann Konkordanz als ein Sonderfall der Flexionsmorphologie betrachtet werden. Es wurde untersucht, ob die formale Korrespondenz zwischen den Bestandteilen konkordanter Phrasen als Hinweis auf die Grenzen der linguistisch relevanten Einheit Phrase im Spracherwerb fungieren kann. Zusätzlich wird auf das Zusammenspiel einzelner Hinweisreize untereinander eingegangen. Mit Kindern im Alter von zehn Monaten wurden vier Experimente mit dem Headturn Preference Paradigma (Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995) durchgeführt. Es wurde zunächst bei deutschen und englischen Kleinkindern untersucht, ob sie sensibel für gleich bleibende Suffixe innerhalb einer Phrase sind und diese für die Segmentierung nutzen können. Außerdem wurde das Zusammenspiel der Hinweise Konkordanz und Prosodie bei der Auffindung von Phrasengrenzen betrachtet. Es zeigte sich, dass deutsche Kinder in besonderer Weise auf konkordante Markierungen reagieren. Neben einer Sensitivität für Konkordanzmarkierungen zeigte das Ergebnis der deutschen Kinder auch, dass sie Flexionssuffixe im Deutschen bereits im Sprachstrom bemerken können. Ein solches Ergebnismuster ließ sich bei den Englisch lernenden Kindern nicht beobachten. Verschiedene Erklärungsmöglichkeiten für diesen Unterschied werden erläutert. Insgesamt weisen die Daten aus den Kindersprachexperimenten darauf hin, dass bereits im Alter von zehn Monaten bei Kindern eine Sensibilität für wiederholt in ähnlicher / gleicher Form auftretende sprachliche Elemente innerhalb der Domäne der Phrase vorhanden ist. Außerdem lassen die Resultate darauf schließen, dass Konkordanzmarkierungen bereits früh zur Segmentierung von kontinuierlicher Sprache verwendet werden. Diese Leistung steht in Zusammenhang mit der Beachtung von statistischen Regularitäten im Sprachstrom. Untersuchungen dazu zeigen, dass m. H. statistischer Lernmechanismen wiederkehrende Elemente im Sprachstrom erkannt werden können (Bonatti, Peña, Nespor, & Mehler, 2005; Newport & Aslin, 2004; Saffran, 2001; Saffran, Aslin & Newport, 1996). Anscheinend ist das Auftreten identischer Segmente innerhalb einer relativ kleinen Domäne im Sprachstrom für Lerner ein hervorstechendes Merkmal, das dazu beiträgt, diese Domäne aus dem Signal hervorzuheben und somit die Segmentierung des Sprachstroms in kleinere Anteile zu unterstützen. Neben den Untersuchungen mit den Kleinkindern wurden zusätzlich drei Reaktionszeitexperimente mit deutschen und englischen Erwachsenen zur Rolle von Konkordanzmarkierungen bei der Verarbeitung der Fremdsprachen Spanisch, Suaheli und (für die englischen Probanden) Deutsch durchgeführt. Das erste Experiment befasste sich mit der Stimulussprache Spanisch, in der es bei Konkordanz zum mehrfachen Auftreten von identischen Suffixen mit Vollvokalen kommt. Dabei war zu beobachten, dass deutsche und englische Muttersprachler die zu erinnernden Phrasen besser in einem kontinuierlichen spanischen Sprachstrom wieder erkannten, wenn die kritischen Phrasen konkordant waren, als wenn sie nicht konkordant waren. Das zweite Experiment verwendete die Stimulussprache Suaheli (konkordante vs. nicht konkordante Präfixe). Dabei zeigte sich ein solches Muster ausschließlich bei den englischen Muttersprachlern. Das dritte Experiment untersuchte englische Muttersprachler mit deutschem Stimulusmaterial, wobei Konkordanz durch Suffixe markiert wird, die aus einer Schwa-Silbe bestehen. Hier ergab sich kein Hinweis für eine Nutzung konkordanter Markierungen bei der Erkennung von Phrasen. Als Grund dafür wird die reduzierte Vokalqualität angenommen, die Schwa-Silben u.U. schwerer wahrnehmbar macht als Vollvokalsilben (z.B. Widera & Portele, 1999; Goméz Lacabex, García Lecumberri, & Cooke, 2005). Es werden weitere Erklärungshypothesen bzgl. der Ergebnisunterschiede bei deutschen und englischen Muttersprachlern beschrieben, die auch auf den Unterschied zwischen der Verarbeitung von konkordanten Suffixen vs. Präfixen eingehen. Zusätzlich erfolgt eine Diskussion der Ergebnisse vor dem Hintergrund von Annahmen über Arten von (nicht-)sprachlichen Ähnlichkeiten und ihren Einfluss auf die Wahrnehmung von ähnlichen Elementen. Die vorliegenden Daten stützen die Annahme von Morgan (1986), dass der Input für einen Sprachlerner bereits zahlreiche Hinweise über die Struktur der jeweiligen Sprache enthält. Sowohl Kleinkinder als auch erwachsene Sprachlerner scheinen für einen beachtlichen Teil dieser Hinweisreize sensibel zu sein. Die bislang kaum beachteten konkordante Markierungen innerhalb von Phrasen scheinen zumindest einen Teil dieser Hinweisreize auszumachen. / This thesis investigates the role of concordant markings in a phrase for the segmentation of a foreign speech stream. The feature concordance appears, when all elements of a syntactic phrase carry the same marker (e.g. los muchachos ricosSpanish = the rich men). These recurring markers are mostly affixes which means that they can be viewed as a special case in inflectional morphology. It was investigated whether the formal correspondance between the elements of concordant phrases might function as a cue to phrase boundaries in language acquisition. Four experiments were done with infants at the age of 10 months using the Headturn Preference Paradigm (Jusczyk & Aslin, 1995). At first it was investigated with German- and English-learning infants whether they are sensitive to recurring suffixes in a phrase and whether they are able to use these elements for phrase segmentation. Furthermore, the interplay between the cues concordance and prosody for the location of phrase boundaries was investigated. It was shown that German-learning infants where sensitive to concordant markings and that they notice inflectional suffixes in the speech stream. Such a result was not observed with the English-learning infants. Various possibilities to explain this difference between German- and English-learning infants are proposed. The results from the experiments with infants show that already 10-months old infants are sensitive to linguistic elements which recur in the domain of the phrase in similar or identical form. Furthermore, the results suggest that concordant markers are used for segmentation of the continuous speech stream from early on. This capacity is closely related with the attention for statistical regularities in the speech stream. Concerning this it was shown that supported by statistical learning mechanisms recurring elements in the speech stream or certain patterns of co-occurrence can be tracked (Bonatti, Peña, Nespor, & Mehler, 2005; Newport & Aslin, 2004; Saffran, 2001; Saffran, Aslin & Newport, 1996). Consequently, it seems that the occurrence of identical segments in a relatively small domain in the speech stream is a salient feature for learners which points out this domain from the signal and therfore supports the segmentation of the speech stream into smaller units. Besides the experiments with infants also three reaction time experiments with German and English adults where carried out. These experiments were concerned with the role of concordant markings for the processing of the foreign languages Spanish, Swahili and (for English participants) German. The first experment used Spanish as the stimulus language. In Spanish concordant phrases each element carries an identical suffix containing a full vowel. For German and English participants it was observed that they recognized a critical phrase form a continuous speech stream significantly better when this phrase was concordant than when it was non-concordant. In the second experiment with adults Swahili stimuli were used where concordant vs. non-concordant prefixes occur. Now, for English but not for German participants an advantage for the recognition of concordant phrases was observed. In the third experiment English participants were tested with German stimuli where concordance is marked by suffixes containing a Schwa-vowel (reduced vowel). The results of this experiments were not significant, suggesting no use of German concordant markings for the recognition of phrases by native English speakers. One reason that might be proposed to explain this result is the reduced vowel appearing in German concordant suffixes which might make them less perceptually salient than syllables containing a full vowel (e.g. Widera & Portele, 1999; Goméz Lacabex, García Lecumberri, & Cooke, 2005). More possiblities to explain the differences in the results between the German and the English participants are given. Furthermore, there is a discussion of the results against the backround of assumptions about kinds of (non-)linguistic similarities and their influence of the perception of similar elements. Altogether the experimental results of this thesis support the assumption of Morgan (1986) that the linguistic input for a learner already contains various cues about the structure of the target language. Infants as well as adults seem to be sensitve for a considerable amount of these cues. Concordant markings in the domain of a phrase seem to be one of these cues.

Ability of human listeners to understand altered speech is argued as evidence of uniquely human processing abilities, but early auditory experience also may contribute to this capability. I tested the ability of Panzee, a language-trained chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), reared and spoken to from infancy by humans, to recognize synthesized words. Training and testing was conducted with different sets of English words in natural, “harmonics-only” (resynthesized using only voiced components), or “noise-vocoded” (based on amplitude-modulated noise bands) forms, with Panzee choosing from “lexigram” symbols that represented words. In Experiment 1 performance was equivalent with words in natural and harmonics-only form. In Experiment 2 performance with noise-vocoded words was significantly higher than chance but lower than with natural words. Results suggest specialized processing mechanisms are not necessary to speech perception in the absence of traditional acoustic cues, with the more important factor for speech-processing abilities being early immersion in a speech-rich environment.

Background: Some brands have reached popularity much because of their origin and the "made-in" label can possibly generate a positive differentiating effect to the brand. Adequate examples are the British Burberry or the Italian Gucci, the French Chanel or the American Apple. All these brands strategically communicate their origin as part of their brand and the inspiration for this thesis arose form the Country-of-Origin phenomenon in international marketing (COO). This refers to that brands use cues related to their origin as a component of their brand message. Even the Swedish origin can be a competitive advantage and more companies could perhaps benefit from turning to a COO strategy, as there is a current trend of being local in a global context. This would promote the using of firms' Swedishness to succeed in establishments on foreign markets. The authors of this thesis believe that if more Swedish companies would clearly distinguish as Swedish this could perhaps also enhance the positive image of Sweden. Therefore, this thesis is exploring to what extent some Swedish fashion apparel brands work with their origin as part of their international marketing. Research Question: How do companies exploit their Country-of-Origin as part of their brand in their international marketing communication? Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore the exploitation of a Country-of-Origin effect in Swedish fashion apparel brands' international marketing. Methodology: The study ha taken a primarily qualitative research design, which has included two research techniques. A pre-study was conducted, that consisted of a focus group interview where the following issues were discussed: the general view of Sweden, Swedish brands and companies, and their examination with the Country-of-Origin label. The pre-study gave important insights that were used in the main study - semi structured interviews with Swedish companies working in the fashion apparel industry. From the whole population of companies in the Swedish fashion industry, a first sample of 57 companies was made. From this sample a second sample of 11 companies was drawn, that represented approximately 20 percent that was argued to be a fair number of respondents to be able to see some patterns. The data from the interviews were analyzed and interpreted in a qualitative analysis procedure that focused on the finding of keywords and patterns. Results: The results showed that a clear majority of the random interviewed companies, 9 of 11 use their COO in their brand and 8 companies said it is a more or less explicit strategy. The exploitation of their COO was made by using country-related cues in their marketing. The reason why these companies have turned to a COO strategy was that it could give them competitive advantages, since there was a positive match between associations of their brand and Sweden. The general conclusion that could be made was that the benefits from using a COO strategy differ with the product and the country. It can also be assumed that more Swedish companies could benefit from realizing  the potential in using a COO strategy.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore to what extent different styling elements can be used within a retail store and how sensorial cues can affect customers buying behaviour by creating a multi-sensory brand-experience. Further, this project aims at contributing to the development of new knowledge regarding a multi-sensory brand-experience through the performance of an experiment. A quantitative research method with a deductive research approach has been used for this study, where theoretical concepts have been described and from which a number of hypotheses have derived as means to test the theoretical framework. In order to test our hypotheses, a research strategy in the form of experiments has been performed in the computer department at Media Markt, Kalmar. General assumptions have then been drawn from the analysis of the results in order to provide sound recommendations for marketers regarding sensory marketing in general and foremost the multi-sensory brand-experience.   The result of our study shows that it is beneficial for marketers to use styling elements and sensorial cues as means to connect with customers and enhance their emotional response. The study also shows that a combination of the sensorial cues of sight and sound together contributes to an experience that is positive and memorable for the customers. Additionally, the results of this study shows that a combination of these sensory cues leads to a change in customers behaviour and create approach behaviour through awareness of products that otherwise could be missed.

This study aims to test the effects of different way finding affordances on the usability of METU virtual campus built in Second Life virtual world in terms of users&rsquo / satisfaction, performance and mental workload. This study was conducted with 36 participants who are students at the Middle East Technical University. Participants were randomly put on of the five groups namely map, signboard, voice and agent groups and a control group. The participants were given navigational tasks in METU virtual campus within Second Life. In the experiment, the eye movements of the participants were examined with eye tracking tool in order to determine the areas which participants paid attention most. Also mental work load in their prefrontal cortex was examined with fNIR device. There was no significant difference among groups in terms of satisfaction, however / there were significant difference among groups in terms of task completion accuracy, time, length, navigation cue gaze duration and mental workload. Agent group has the highest accuracy score, map group has the highest time, length and navigation cue gaze duration score. Moreover, agent group has the highest mental workload but control group has the lowest mental workload. The results of the tests were used to provide guidance for the design of way finding affordances in METU virtual campus.

The ability of prey to detect and respond appropriately to predator risk is important to overall prey fitness. Many aquatic organisms assess risk through the use of chemical cues that can change with predator diet. Two variable characteristics of diet are: 1. prey type and 2. prey mass. To assess the effect of these two characteristics on the assessment of risk by the mud crab Panopeus herbstii, I exposed mud crabs to the urine of the blue crab Callinectes sapidus fed one of 5 diet treatments: 10g of oyster shell free wet mass, 5g of oyster shell free wet mass, 10g crushed mud crabs, 5g crushed mud crabs, and a mix of 5g of oyster shell free wet mass and 5g crushed mud crab. Effects on P. herbstii foraging were tested in a previously developed bioassay by measuring shrimp consumption over a 4 hour period. I hypothesized that P. herbstii would have a larger magnitude response to urine from C. sapidus fed a diet of crushed mud crabs than to urine from C. sapidus fed a diet of oysters. I further hypothesized that P. herbstii would have a larger magnitude response to urine from C. sapidus fed a high mass diet relative to a lower mass diet. Contrary to expectations there was no observed effect of urine on P. herbstii foraging in any of the treatments. Results suggest that bioassay protocol may be unreliable suggesting further replication to determine the difference between this study and previous results. Future studies examining how P. herbstii varies with urine concentration will aid in understanding the ecological scale of this predator cue system. Determining the role of other potential cue sources will improve the predictive abilities of these studies.

Despite predictions of Internet shopping reaching 6.9 trillion dollars by the end of 2004, research is now suggesting many online consumers are still very reluctant to complete the online shopping process. A number of authors have attributed consumers' reluctance to purchase online to apparent barriers, however, such barriers have not been fully examined within a theoretical context. While most studies of consumers' decision to shop on the Internet have focussed on key shopping determinants, this thesis builds a conceptual model grounded in consumer behaviour theory. In particular, this thesis explores the application of the perceived risk theoretical framework, specifically looking at one dimension of perceived risk theory - performance risk and the influence it has on the phenomenon of Internet Abandoned Cart Syndrome (ACS). To explore this phenomenon, a number of extrinsic cues are identified as playing a major role in the performance evaluation process of online purchases. The combination of these elements enabled the researcher to develop a conceptual model from which a series of propositions were drawn. To acquire pertinent data and investigate each proposition, this study used a combination of indirect and direct techniques, namely projective techniques in the form of a third-person vignette, a structured tick-box questionnaire and finally semi-structured interviews. The results suggest that collectively the extrinsic cues of brand, reputation, design and price have an overall impact on the performance evaluation process just prior to an online purchase. Varying these cues either positively or negatively had a strong impact on performance evaluation. The conclusion of this study suggests consumers are often unable to measure the full extent of risk-taking directly. In the majority of cases, consumers are guided by numerous factors, some intrinsic, others extrinsic. E-tailers with an established reputation, a well designed web site with known brands and a balanced pricing strategy reduce the perceived performance risks associated with purchasing online, thus reducing the occurrence of ACS.

La quantité d’informations à laquelle nous sommes chaque jour confrontésconditionne notre survie à la capacité de détecter rapidement ce qui est le pluspertinent dans notre environnement. Nos cerveaux ont ainsi évolué afin dedéclencher, en réponse aux stimuli pertinents, des changements d’état affectif quinous informent alors de l’existence et de la nature de ces stimuli. Or, tandis que lesétats émotionnels, induits par des états corporels, impactent notre perception desstimuli émotionnels, l’influence de ces états corporels sur l’évaluation de lapertinence de stimuli externes est méconnue. Nous avons ici examiné le rôle queces états du corps, transitoires et socialement signifiants, jouent dans l'évaluation dela pertinence des expressions faciales de menace. Lors de nos testscomportementaux, où variaient le degré de pertinence des stimuli et le focusattentionnel, nous avons modulé l'état corporel des participants à l’aide de posturesdominantes ou non dominantes réalisées avant les tâches. Nous avons alorsdémontré que ces postures influencent l'évaluation de la pertinence des expressionsde menace, en accord avec le statut social qu’elles incarnent. De plus, ceci n’a étérévélé que lorsque le traitement de ces stimuli était implicite, soulignant alors lasaillance de ces derniers. Ainsi, nos résultats démontrent que les états corporelsinfluencent non seulement l'évaluation de la pertinence, mais la déterminent, car desstimuli par ailleurs pertinents ne sont plus évalués comme tels selon la postureadoptée. Ces résultats suggèrent que l’état du corps interagit avec nos états affectifspour signaler à l’observateur quels indices sociaux sont pertinents. / Given the quantity of information with which we are constantly confronted, our survival depends on the ability to rapidly detect and attend to what is most relevant. To this end, our brains have evolved to trigger changes in our affective state in response to relevant objects and events, which inform us of their existence and of their nature. While body-induced affective states impact the perception of congruent emotional stimuli, it is still unknown whether body-induced affective states influence the manner in which the relevance of external stimuli is determined and therefore perceived. Here, we examined the role that socially meaningful transient body states play in the evaluation of relevance of facial displays of threat. In a series of behavioral experiments, we modulated participants’ body state, instructing them to hold dominant or non-dominant postures prior to behavioral tests, in which we varied the degree of relevance of the stimuli and the focus of attention. We first demonstrated that these body postures, in accordance with the social status they embody, influenced the evaluation of the relevance of threatening facial displays. Moreover, this impact occurred where facial displays were processed implicitly, highlighting the saliency of these social cues. Overall, our studies demonstrate, that body states, not only influence the evaluation of relevance, but determine it, as otherwise relevant social cues, were no longer evaluated as such. These findings suggest that body states interact with affective states to signal which social cues are relevant to the observer.

abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impacts of visual cues and different types of self-explanation prompts on learning, cognitive load and intrinsic motivation, as well as the potential interaction between the two factors in a multimedia environment that was designed to deliver a computer-based lesson about the human cardiovascular system. A total of 126 college students were randomly assigned in equal numbers (N = 21) to one of the six experimental conditions in a 2 X 3 factorial design with visual cueing (visual cues vs. no cues) and type of self-explanation prompts (prediction prompts vs. reflection prompts vs. no prompts) as the between-subjects factors. They completed a pretest, subjective cognitive load questions, intrinsic motivation questions, and a posttest during the course of the experience. A subsample (49 out of 126) of the participants' eye movements were tracked by an eye tracker. The results revealed that (a) participants presented with visually cued animations had significantly higher learning outcome scores than their peers who viewed uncued animations; and (b) cognitive load and intrinsic motivation had different impacts on learning in multimedia due to the moderation effect of visual cueing. There were no other significant findings in terms of learning outcomes, cognitive load, intrinsic motivation, and eye movements. Limitations, implications and future directions are discussed within the framework of cognitive load theory, cognitive theory of multimedia learning and cognitive-affective theory of learning with media. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Technology 2011