The mere exposure effect, positive affect elicited by exposure to a previously unfamiliar stimulus, is considered one of the most well established findings in the psychological literature. Yet its mechanism remains unknown. In Experiments 1 - 5, memory encoding was examined to determine whether the mere exposure effect was a form of conceptual or perceptual implicit priming, and, if not either, whether cardiovascular psychophysiology could reveal its nature. Experiment 1 examined the effects of study phase level of processing on recognition, the mere exposure effect, and word identification implicit priming. Deep relative to shallow processing improved recognition, but did not influence the mere exposure effect or word identification implicit priming. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the effect of study-test changes in font and orientation, respectively, on the mere exposure effect and word identification implicit priming. Different study-test font and orientation reduced word identification implicit priming, but had no influence on the mere exposure effect. The combined results from Experiments 1-3 suggested that conceptual and perceptual processing do not drive the mere exposure effect. Experiments 4 and 5 developed and used, respectively, an innovative cardiovascular psychophysiological implicit priming paradigm to examine whether stimulus-specific cardiovascular reactivity at study predicted the mere exposure effect at test. At encoding, stimulus-specific peripheral vasodilatation had predictive value for the mere exposure effect, but not for word identification implicit priming. Experiments 6 and 7 examined whether sustained or transitory anxiety (i.e., trait or state, respectively) would influence the mere exposure effect. Greater trait and state anxiety reduced the mere exposure effect. Together, the findings from these experiments (N = 362) identify a novel affective mechanism of implicit priming that is influenced by cardiovascular psychophysiology and variations in trait and state anxiety.

No description available.

This thesis looks into the use of historical macrophyte records to assess long term changes in macrophyte communities in lakes and potential reasons for these changes. In particular it uses historical records to assess changes in macrophyte communities in the Norfolk Broads and West Midland Meres, two sets of lowland, eutrophic lakes in England. It provides a critical examination of the use of historical records, highlighting some of the constraints common to such data such as variations in recording effort, and bias in species recording and site selection. Having acknowledged these issues we then go on to develop a robust way to interpret such data, using a “change index” based on species persistence over the last 200 years within individual lakes. Species with high change index values, which represented species which had persisted or increased within the lake districts, were those known to be characteristic of eutrophic lakes. Conversely species with low index scores, which had declined in both the broads and meres over the last 200 years, included species associated with less fertile conditions but also a selection of typically eutrophic species. Averaging of change index scores in present day survey data served to identify the historically least changed lakes and to rank lakes in order of degree of botanical change over the last century. We then analysed the ecological basis of the change index in order to better understand the processes behind the decline of some species and survival of others in the Norfolk Broads and West Midland Meres. Functional groups determined from morphological and regenerative traits displayed significant differences in change index values in both groups of lakes, but declining taxa occurred across a wide range of plant growth forms. Non-hierarchical clustering of species based on their ecological preferences, obtained from published literature, resulted in groups with distinct change index values, indicating that changes in the status of species could be partly explained by these preferences. Of these, trophic preference was consistently the most important, with species of less fertile habitats consistently experiencing the greatest declines. However, some characteristically eutrophic species have also declined significantly, particularly in the broads. In these cases increasing loss of shallow water, low energy habitats in the broads, or loss of fluctuating water levels and less alkaline backwaters in the meres, appear to have been contributory factors. In addition to the change index approach, we also used historical records at a site level to complement palaeolimnological analysis and investigate the change in macrophyte community composition and structure at Barton Broad, Norfolk. Sediment samples were extracted from the bottom of the broad and analysed for sub-fossil remains and pollen of macrophytes. The historical records and palaeolimnological analysis combined showed that early communities did not consist entirely of low growing, oligotrophic and mesotrophic species as previously thought, but in fact comprised a mixture of these and other more characteristically high nutrient species associated with taller, or free-floating growth habit. As eutrophication progressed throughout the last century, the community was increasingly dominated by these latter growth forms. Diversity was maintained, however, since encroaching reedswamp generated a mosaic of low energy habitats which supported a range of species unable to withstand the hydraulic forces associated with more open water habitat. When the reedswamp disappeared in the 1950s, many of the dependent aquatic macrophytes also declined resulting in widespread macrophyte loss. The thesis demonstrates not just the complexities of using historical records, but also ways in which these can be overcome to make useful observations about macrophyte community change and lake ecological integrity to inform conservation and lake management, both on a site and lake district level.

<p>The artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm has been intensively researched since the 60-s. In general, these investigations attempt to study the implicit acquisition of structural regularities. Among other things, it has been suggested that the AGL paradigm can serve as a model for the process of acquiring a natural language. Thus it can serve as a well-controlled laboratory task that might be used to understand certain aspects of the process of language acquisition. For example the AGL paradigm has been used in an attempt to isolate the acquisition of syntactic aspects of language. Several experimental studies show that the participants acquire knowledge of the underlying rule system since they are able to differentiate grammatical strings from non-grammatical ones. It has been argued that the traditionally conducted AGL paradigm with grammaticality instructions might make the task explicit, at least during the test phase. In order to imitate the language learning process as close as possible, to rule out the possibility of an explicit component during the testing phase (i.e., keeping the retrieval process implicit) and to rule out explicit rule conformity or rule following, we modified the classical AGL paradigm. In a behavioural study we combined the AGL paradigm with an altered mere exposure paradigm in an attempt to better model aspects of language acquisition. We were able to show that subjects, classifying under mere exposure instructions, categorize grammatical and non-grammatical strings just as well as those solving the classification task with the grammaticality instructions. This indicates that the mere exposure version might serve as a more appropriate model for language acquisition.</p>

The artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm has been intensively researched since the 60-s. In general, these investigations attempt to study the implicit acquisition of structural regularities. Among other things, it has been suggested that the AGL paradigm can serve as a model for the process of acquiring a natural language. Thus it can serve as a well-controlled laboratory task that might be used to understand certain aspects of the process of language acquisition. For example the AGL paradigm has been used in an attempt to isolate the acquisition of syntactic aspects of language. Several experimental studies show that the participants acquire knowledge of the underlying rule system since they are able to differentiate grammatical strings from non-grammatical ones. It has been argued that the traditionally conducted AGL paradigm with grammaticality instructions might make the task explicit, at least during the test phase. In order to imitate the language learning process as close as possible, to rule out the possibility of an explicit component during the testing phase (i.e., keeping the retrieval process implicit) and to rule out explicit rule conformity or rule following, we modified the classical AGL paradigm. In a behavioural study we combined the AGL paradigm with an altered mere exposure paradigm in an attempt to better model aspects of language acquisition. We were able to show that subjects, classifying under mere exposure instructions, categorize grammatical and non-grammatical strings just as well as those solving the classification task with the grammaticality instructions. This indicates that the mere exposure version might serve as a more appropriate model for language acquisition.

Submitted by Ricardo Boeing da Silveira (ricardoboeing@hotmail.com) on 2012-12-21T02:10:33Z No. of bitstreams: 1 RICARDO Dissertation -Versão Entrega Final.pdf: 3100930 bytes, checksum: 812983d7901c1503074e9f0db58f8095 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2012-12-21T10:31:41Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 RICARDO Dissertation -Versão Entrega Final.pdf: 3100930 bytes, checksum: 812983d7901c1503074e9f0db58f8095 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-12-21T11:23:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RICARDO Dissertation -Versão Entrega Final.pdf: 3100930 bytes, checksum: 812983d7901c1503074e9f0db58f8095 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-02-29 / The broader objective of this study undertaking can briefly be articulated in particulate aims as follows: to measure the attitudes of consumers regarding the brand displayed by this strategy as well as to highlight recall, recognition and purchase intentions generated by product placement on consumers. In addition, check the differences and similarities between the behavior of Brazilian and American consumers caused by the influence of product placements. The study was undertaken targeting consumer audience in Brazil and the U.S. A rang3 modeling set ups were performed in order to realign study instruments and hypothesis towards the research objectives. This study gave focus on the following hypothesized models. H1: Consumers / Participants who viewed the brands / products in the movie have a higher brand / product recall compared to the consumers / participants who did not view the brands / products in the movie. H2: US Consumers / Participants are able to recognize and recall brands / products which appear in the background of the movie than Brazil. H3: Consumers / participants from USA are more accepting of product placements compared to their counterparts in Brazil. H4: There are discernible similarities in consumer / participant brand attitudes and purchase intentions in consumers / participants from USA and Brazil in spite of the fact that their country of origin is different. Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient ensured the reliability of survey instruments. The study involved the use of the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) for the hypothesis testing. This study used the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to assess both the convergent and discriminant validities instead of using the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) or the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). This reinforced for the use of the regression Chi Square and T statistical tests in further. Only hypothesis H3 was rejected, the rest were not. T test provided insight findings on specific subgroup significant differences. In the SEM testing, the error variance for product placement attitudes was negative for both the groups. On this The Heywood Case came in handy to fix negative values. The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative approach where closed ended questionnaires and interviews respectively were used to collect primary data. The results were additionally provided with tabulations. It can be concluded that, product placement varies markedly in the U.S. from Brazil based on the influence a range of factors provided in the study. However, there are elements of convergence probably driven by the convergence in technology. In order, product placement to become more competitive in the promotional marketing, there will be the need for researchers to extend focus from the traditional variables and add knowledge on the conventional marketplace factors that is the sell-ability of the product placement technologies and strategies.

Prenant acte de l’impasse du culturalisme depuis David Schneider, la thèse propose, dans le prolongement des travaux de Viveiros de Castro, de Marilyn Strathern et d'Enric Porqueres i Gené, d’envisager le corps comme le sujet réel du lien de parenté, hypothèse qui permet d’accéder à un sens du biologique non réductible à sa dimension biogénétique et d'éviter l’écueil de sa ‘culturalisation’. La thèse s’appuie sur une étude empirique réalisée in situ auprès de mères biologiques sud-coréennes des années 1970-80. Sa principale particularité par rapport aux études existantes tient à ce que ces mères ont retrouvé leur(s) enfant(s), adopté(s) trans-nationalement plusieurs décennies plus tôt, et aussi à ce que l’étude, les accompagne dans la découverte de leur propre corps comme vrai sujet, acteur, à partir duquel, dans et par la relation s’élabore le lien à l’enfant, au-delà du chagrin.Plusieurs enseignements sont tirés. Premièrement, le corps de la mère doit s’envisager à la fois comme corps perçu et corps percevant, sur le fondement du corps naturant. Le corps perçu, auquel s'identifie ou non la mère biologique lui procure certes une identité, mais fausse car ne participant pas réellement du véritable lien de parenté. Ce corps n’est qu’une représentation animée par la psyché collective via le langage, agissant comme préjugé. Ce corps là n’est pas acteur vivant du lien, mais produit figé de la naturalisation du social, inscrit dans une époque, un espace, une culture donnés, circonstanciés, expression d'une norme répétée tout aussi étroite. Le corps réel, acteur du lien, ces mères le découvrent après les retrouvailles. Il peut être dit « percevant », au sens de Merleau-Ponty (1945, 1964) et Evans (1982). C’est à partir de lui que s’élabore le lien réel à l’enfant. Ce lien d’ailleurs a persisté après la séparation, mais plus ou moins fantasmé, il se manifeste pour compenser l’absence et la honte, en réaction à la norme culpabilisante, par la production de « souvenirs-expériences » symboliques, inévitablement monologiques. Après les retrouvailles, la dimension symbolique du lien évolue, car s’abolit dans l’esprit des enfants, comme des mères, avec la compréhension de leur vécu grâce à l'échange, l’image sociale de « mère abandonneuse ». Face à cet immense corps, enfin revenu, de leur petit enfant, « en chair et en os », la mère découvre que l’hérédité biogénétique ne suffit pas à réenraciner le lien distendu. Le « temps partagé », fondement du corps relationnel, a manqué. Elles entreprennent alors, comme elles peuvent vu la difficulté, linguistique, culturelle, de la communication, de réinventer ce corps relationnel, dans sa dimension participative et émotionnelle, ici et maintenant. Leur identité de mère devient alors plurielle. En conclusion, nous proposons de considérer la notion de « corps relationnel » aux trois différents âges de participation. / Taking note of the dead end of Culturalism, and furthering the works of Viveiros de Castro, Marilyn Strathern and Enric Porqueres i Gené, this thesis aims at considering the body as the real subject of the kinship link, an hypothesis which would allow an access to a meaning of the biologic as unreducible to its biogenetic dimension, and so avoiding a 'culturalization'. The present thesis bases itself on an empirical study made in situ amongst South-Korean biological mothers belonging to the 70-80ies generation. The main characteristic of this study, compared to other existing ones, consists in the fact that these mothers, met again their earlier several decades transnationally adopted child(ren), and that this study accompanies them in the discovery of their own body as being the real subject, actor, on the basis of whom, in and through the relationship, the tie with the child works out, beyond all their grief.Several lessons haven been drawn. First, the mother's body is to be regarded both as perceived body and perceiving body, on the basis of the naturing body. The perceived body, with whom the biological mother identifies herself – or not – affords her, of course, an identity, but a wrong one in that she does not thus participate in a real kinship tie. This perceived body is but a representation animated by the collective psyche through language, and acting as prejudice. That body is not a living actor, enacting the link, but a fossilized product of the naturalization of the social, embedded in a particular given time, place, and culture, very situated, an expression of a repeated norm, as much restricted. The real body, the one who is the actor of this link, will be discovered after the reunion. This one may be called « perceiving », in the merleau-pontian (1945, 1964) sense, and the one given by Evans (1982). It is on its basis that the real link, tie, with the child will work out. This link, besides, persisted after the adoption separation, but in a more or less fantasized way, manifesting itself as a sort of compensation for the absence and the shame, in a reaction against the culpabilization by the norm, via the production of symbolic « experience- memories », unavoidingly monologic. After the reunion, the symbolic dimension of the link will evolve, on the basis that may be abolished that social image of an « abandoning mother », through the comprehension, by mother as well as child, of what they lived through, as they go on sharing through dialogues. Facing this, at last coming back, huge body of their, once, little child, « in the flesh », these mothers will discover that biogenetical heredity does not suffice for rooting again the distended ties: the « shared time », which is the very foundation of the relational body, lacked. They will then undertake, as well as they can, in view of the difficulty, linguistic, cultural, of the communication, to reinvent this relational body in its partitive, emotional dimension, here and now. Their identity as mother becomes then plural. As its conclusion, this thesis proposes to consider the notion of « relational body » at the three different ages of participation.

<p>Predmet istraživanja ovog rada je istraživanje i eksploatacija mogućnosti da parametri Gausovih komponenti korišćenih Gaussian mixture modela&nbsp; (GMM) aproksimativno leže na niže dimenzionalnoj površi umetnutoj u konusu pozitivno definitnih matrica. U tu svrhu uvodimo novu, mnogo efikasniju meru sličnosti između GMM-ova projektovanjem LPP-tipa parametara komponenti iz više dimenzionalnog parametarskog originalno konfiguracijskog prostora u prostor značajno niže dimenzionalnosti. Prema tome, nalaženje distance između dva GMM-a iz originalnog prostora se redukuje na nalaženje distance između dva skupa niže dimenzionalnih euklidskih vektora, ponderisanih odgovarajućim težinama. Predložena mera je pogodna za primene koje zahtevaju visoko dimenzionalni prostor obeležja i/ili veliki ukupan broj Gausovih komponenti. Razrađena metodologija je primenjena kako na sintetičkim tako i na realnim eksperimentalnim podacima.</p> / <p>This thesis studies the possibility that the parameters of Gaussian components of a<br />particular Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) lie approximately on a lower-dimensional<br />surface embedded in the cone of positive definite matrices. For that case, we deliver<br />novel, more efficient similarity measure between GMMs, by LPP-like projecting the<br />components of a particular GMM, from the high dimensional original parameter space,<br />to a much lower dimensional space. Thus, finding the distance between two GMMs in<br />the original space is reduced to finding the distance between sets of lower<br />dimensional euclidian vectors, pondered by corresponding weights. The proposed<br />measure is suitable for applications that utilize high dimensional feature spaces and/or<br />large overall number of Gaussian components. We confirm our results on artificial, as<br />well as real experimental data.</p>

<p>H-mere i H-distribucije su mikrolokalni objekti koji se koriste za ispitivanje jake konvergencije slabo konvergentnog niza u prostorima Lebega i prostorima Soboljeva. H-mere su uveli Tartar i&nbsp; Zerar (koji ih zove mikrolokalne mere defekta), u radovima [34] i [19]. H-mere su Radonove mere koje daju informacije o mogu &acute; cim oblastima jake konvergencije slabo konvergentnog<em> L</em>² niza. Da bismo mogli da posmatramo i slabo konvergentne<em> L</em>^p nizove za 1 &lt; p &lt; &infin;, Antonić&nbsp; i Mitrović u radu [11] uvode H-distribucije.</p><p>U disertaciji dajemo konstrukciju H-distribucija za slabo konvergentne nizove u <em>W</em>^-k,p prostorima, kad je 1 &lt; p &lt; &infin;, k &isin; ℕ&nbsp;i pokazujemo da kada je H-distribucija pridružena slabo konvergetnim nizovima jednaka nuli za sve test funkcije, onda imamo lokalno jaku konverenciju datog niza.</p><p>Takođe je pokazan i lokalizacijski princip, koji nam daje oblast u kojoj imamo lokalno jaku&nbsp; konvergenciju slabo konvergentnog niza. H-mere i H-distribucije deluju na test funkcije &phi;&nbsp;i &psi;&nbsp;(odgovarajuće regularnosti) koje su definisane na ℝ^d i S^d-1 (jedinična sfera u ℝ^d), pri&nbsp; čemu je funkcija &psi;, koju zovemo množilac, ograničena. U disertaciji uvodimo i H-distribucije sa neograničenim simbolom, pri čemu posmatramo slabo&nbsp; konvergentne nizove u Beselovim H^p_-s prostorima, gde je 1 &lt; p &lt; &infin;; s &isin; ℝ. U ovom delu koristimo teoriju pseudo-diferencijalnih operatora i dokazujemo kompaktnost komutatora [<i>A</i>_&psi;, T_&phi;] za razne klase množioca &psi;,&nbsp; &scaron;to je potrebno za dokaz postojanja H-distribucija. Takođe pokazujemo odgovarajuću verziju lokalizacijskog principa.</p> / <p>H-measures and H-distributions are microlocal tools that can be used to investigate strong conver-gence of weakly convergent sequences in the Lebesgue and Sobolev spaces.</p><p>H-measures are introduced by Tartar and G&eacute;rard (as microlocal defect measures) in papers [34] and [19]. H-measures are Radon measures and they provide information about the set of points where given weakly convergent sequence in <em>L</em>² converges strongly. In paper [11], Antonić and Mitrović introduced&nbsp; H-distributions in order to work with weakly convergent <em>L</em>^p sequences.</p><p>In this thesis we give construction of H-distributions for weakly convergent <em>W^-</em>^k,p sequences, where 1 &lt; p &lt; &infin;; k &isin;&nbsp;N. We show that if the H-distribution corresponding to given weakly convergent sequence is equal to zero, then we have locally strong convergence of the sequence. We also prove localization principle.</p><p>H-measures and H-distributions act on test functions &phi; and &psi;&nbsp;(regular enough) which are defined on ℝ^d and ^d-1 (unit sphere in ℝ^d ) and the function &psi;, which is called multiplier, is bounded. We also introduce H-distributions with unboundedmultipliers and in this&nbsp; case we assume that weakly convergent sequences are in Bessel potential spaces H^p_-s , where 1 &lt; p &lt; &infin;, s &isin; ℝ. Theory of pseudo-differential operators is used in construction of H-distributions with unbounded multipliers. We prove compactness of the commutator [<em>A</em>_{<em>&psi;</em>},T_&phi; ] for different classes of multipliers y and appropriate version of localization principle.</p>

A framework was developed called the Extended Hedonomic Hierarchy (EHH) that provides a basis for evaluating pleasurable human-system experience. Results from a number of experiments within this framework that evaluated specific dimensions of the framework are reported. The 'Exposure' component of the EHH framework and hedonics of the system were investigated to see how changes would affect other dimensions, such as the occurrence of flow, the mode of interaction, and the needs of the user. Simulations and video games were used to investigate how repeated exposure affects flow, interaction mode, and the user needs. The Kansei Engineering method was used to measure user needs and investigate the effect of different hedonic properties of the system on user needs and flow. Findings reveal that: (a) pleasurable human-system experience increases linearly with repeated exposure to the technology of interest; (b) an habituation effect of flow mediated by day; (c) motivation to satisfy human need for technology is hierarchically structured and contributes to pleasurable human-system experience; (d) interactivity is hierarchically structured and seamless mode of interaction is a behavioral outcome of pleasurable human-system experience; (e) there are individual differences among users that affect the likelihood of experiencing pleasurable human-system interaction; (f) performance is positively correlated to flow and (g) the method of kansei engineering provides data from which informed decisions about design can be made and empirical research can be conducted. Suggestions for (a) making Hedonomics a reality in industry, the workplace, and in the field of Human Factors, (b) future research directions for Hedonomics, and (c) principles and guidelines for the practice of Hedonomics are discussed.