This study addresses the question of the mental representation and processing of language by investigating &ldquo / structural priming&rdquo / in Turkish Genitive-Possessive (GEN-POSS) constructions. Structural priming is the facilitating effect of having already experienced a structural form on its subsequent processing. We investigate this phenomenon on a construction pair in Turkish, which shares the same external GEN-POSS morpho-syntactic template despite having distinct grammatical categories. The structures under scrutiny are possessive noun phrases (e.g. &ldquo / Korsan, [prenses-in(GEN) &ouml / yk&uuml / -s&uuml / n(POSS.3SG)]-&uuml / hatirladi.&rdquo / which means: The pirate remembered [the princess&rsquo / s story].) and embedded noun clauses with nominalized verbs as predicates (e.g. &ldquo / Korsan, [prenses-in(GEN) g&uuml / l-d&uuml / g(VN)-&uuml / n(POSS.3SG)]-&uuml / hatirladi.&rdquo / which means: The pirate remembered [that the princess (had) laughed/was laughing].) The results of the study which consists of a series of production and comprehension experiments with various methodologies (written sentence completion, self-paced reading and eye-tracking) indicate that structural priming might access the morphosyntactic level of representation in Turkish. Priming seems sensitive to the distinction between the phrasal vs. clausal nature of structures. During the processing of GEN-POSS constructions, the grammatical information regarding the constituents is accessed. Complex forms are further decomposed if processing resources are available. Overall, language production and comprehension seem to operate on the same structural representations but through different mechanisms. In addition, the study also contributes to the understanding of structural priming as a methodological paradigm and to the establishment of a bridge between the processing and theoretical linguistic analysis of Turkish nominalized verbs. To conclude, this study pioneers in exploring structural priming in Turkish and opens way to future research in this line.

Despite the vast research on the effects of gaming, little is know how the phenomenon of e-sports and it’s followers is portrayed. While media can have significant impact on what and how e-sport is portrayed, no studies have been done in a Swedish context. This thesis aims at filling that gap with investigations of the two major Swedish newspapers. Six articles was analyzed with critical discourse analysis with a theoretical base of journalism.The result of which indicated that between the period of 2005 and 2012 e-sport and players was considered to be professional, committed and more in a sense that reminded much of the view on more traditional sport such as soccer and hockey. However the players was often treated as minor kids or teenagers, for e-sports seems only to be held by these groups according to the journalist’s. The implications of this finding should be viewed as a socially critical perspective on a phenomenon that is more than often the subject of leisure.

<p>This dissertation examines the topic of social perceptions regarding political candidates at the intersection of race and gender. Within this project I analyze 1) the degree to which stereotypes are held at different points of this intersection; 2) the degree to which these stereotypes can be influenced by way of priming via common news reporting messages; and 3) the ways in which these stereotypes and perceptions influence evaluations of Black female political candidates and their electoral prospects. In order to examine these issues, I utilize data from two surveys I have designed: the 2011 Social Cognition and Evaluation Survey and the 2012 Political Candidate Evaluation and Social Beliefs Survey. The former gathers information regarding social and personal perceptions of "average" and "elite" Black women, White women, Black men, and White men, and the ways in which negative intersectional priming messages can influence the evaluation of each of these groups. The latter survey includes an embedded experiment in which respondents participate in two mock elections and candidate evaluations. One mock election includes a Black female with a relatively dark complexion as the fixed candidate and the other includes a Black female with a relatively light complexion as the fixed candidate, with each competing against either a White male, White female, or Black male opponent. Based on the data from the aforementioned surveys, I find that people engage in stereotyping in an intersectional, rather than a one-dimensional, manner. Consequently, Black women at different social status levels and with differing skin tones are subject to distinct intensities of the attribution of racialized, gendered, and intersectional stereotypes. In turn, the ways in which the voting public evaluates them as political candidates are influenced by these stereotypes.</p> / Dissertation

Do the physical settings in which a voter casts their ballot affect their vote choices? Every state uses a variety of polling locations for the administration of election: churches, schools, libraries, fire stations, and etcetera. The literature on priming effects and voting is massive, but very little research examines the impact of the venue in which a ballot is cast has on voters’ decisions. In this study I argue that polling venues situated on church, school, or veteran’s association property influences the proportion of votes cast in favor of ballot measures related to each institution. I test these hypotheses using precinct level election results and population data from California’s 2008 general election and find results supporting, or suggesting, such a relationship.

Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) have been demonstrated to be effective actuator elements in a wide range of applications, such as robotics, medicine, aerospace and automotive. Enabled by the unique thermo-mechanical properties of SMAs, these actuators offer the advantages of light weight, high power-to-weight ratio and a simple actuation mechanism compared to traditional actuator types. At the same time, the widespread adoption of the SMA actuator remains elusive as its low power efficiency and complex hysteretic behaviour often render it an impractical means of actuation. These actuators also exhibit a slow response speed and their response is highly sensitive to changes in the external environment, namely ambient temperature and mechanical stress, thus complicating their control. Position, force or temperature sensors may be used to facilitate feedback control, but at the cost of increasing the overall size and complexity of the system. The difficulties caused by the hysteretic behaviour can be largely avoided when SMA wires are used as on-off actuators, making SMAs well suited for such applications. However, they may still be subject to a wide range of dynamic operating conditions that would impact their actuation time, and achieving a consistent actuation time is often highly desirable. This thesis presents the synthesis of a nitinol SMA actuator control system which uses electrical resistance feedback to enable a fast response speed and robustness to disturbances in the external environment. A study of the resistance behaviour of SMAs is discussed first. The design of an adaptive controller and the experimental evaluation of its performance are described in detail next. The objective of the SMA actuator control system is to achieve a consistent and fast actuation time throughout the range of operating ambient temperature and stress. The control system is implemented experimentally and shown to be quite successful.

Den här uppsatsen är en studie om problematiken som den gamla analoga polisradions tystnad och det nya, digitala radiokommunikationssystemet Rakels införande innebär för massmedierna. Länge har det varit möjligt för gemene man att med enkel utrustning, lagligt, avlyssna bland annat polisens radiokommunikation. Det nya digitala systemet, som har fått namnet Rakel, gör det omöjligt för utomstående att ta del polisens radiokommunikation. Rikspolisstyrelsen har i sina riktlinjer för hur massmedierna skall behandlas i och med införandet av Rakel, betonat att webben är den bästa kanalen för att snabbt och enkelt sprida information om händelser. Uppsatsen belyser de förändringar som sker i massmediernas sätt att arbeta för att nå den information som tidigare gick att få via avlyssning av polisens radiokommunikation. En ny situation uppstår, där massmedierna får lita mer på den information som ges av polisen. Flera teorier, exempelvis kultivationsteorin, förklarar vilken stor påverkan massmedierna har på människors verklighetsuppfattning. Därför kan det anses vara viktigt att massmedierna dels ger en rättvis bild av rättssamhället, men även en granskande journalistik riktad mot samhällets makthavare som i den här studiens fall är polisen. Ett organ med rätt att bruka våld. Undersökningen bygger på kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer med representanter från massmedierna i de län som har använt Rakel längst: Skåne, Blekinge och Kalmar län. I dessa län har en mindre, kvantitativ undersökning genomförts på de nämnda polisdistrikten, där antalet registrerade händelser hos polisens kommunikationscentraler har jämförts med antalet publicerade händelser på de olika polismyndigheternas webbplatser. Resultaten i denna undersökning visar att det finns en oro mot förändringen som Rakel innebär för nyhetsrapporteringen. Framför allt finns ett problem i att det inte längre är massmedierna som får göra urvalet av vilka händelser som blir nyheter. Istället har polisen tagit en roll som i medieteorier kallas för en gatekeeper, som väljer vad som ska komma till massmediernas kännedom.

The aim of this study was to examine differences between happy and unhappy people, with respect to individuals interpretations, their attributonal style and in what way the priming effect is related to their attributional style and well-being. The participants were 74 senior high school and 21 undergraduate college students. Participants were asked to read a short story, some words were in bold type, and thereafter for their subjective perception of the words in bold type loading and memory of them in a recognition list. Attributional style was operationalized with an own constructed instrument. The results show that happy individuals interpreted more words as positive than negative in comparission with unhappy individuals. No correlation between participants well-being and global or attributional style for negative events were found. Both groups showed a tendency to be more optimistic than pessimstic for positive events. No differences were found for either memory or priming of loaded words. In sum the results suggest that happy individuals tend to conceive the world more positive.

Människor tenderar att attribuera framgångar till sig själva och misslyckanden till externa källor, fenomenet kallas för Self-serving bias. Hur individer attribuerar kan enligt forskning påverkas av bland annat graden av självkontroll samt självkänsla. Enligt forskning kan intentioner eller beteendemål aktiveras automatiskt och omedvetet av en utlösande signal, så kallad priming, och därmed aktivt guida en persons självreglering. Denna studie har genom ett experiment, med 56 högskolestudenter, undersökt om priming av självkontroll och självförtroende kan påverka hur en individ attribuerar vid framgång och misslyckande. Resultatet visade ingen signifikant skillnad mellan priminggrupperna. Humör visade sig ha betydelse för hur deltagarna attribuerade. En ojämn gruppfördelning och en för bred variationsvidd på beroendemåttet diskuteras om det hade någon påverkan på resultatet.

The current study examined two means of reducing uncertainty in visual search: 1) visual relatedness of a prime to the target (a data-driven, bottom-up processing) and 2) expectancy (a top-down process based on the proportion of validly primed trials). The two processes were decoupled using a short and a long inter-stimulus interval (ISI) to examine their time course in visual search. Competing hypotheses were contrasted in order to determine whether relatedness is associated with iconic memory (Neely, 1977) or a longer lasting visual-structural implicit memory (Schacter and Cooper, 1995) and what role participant expectancy plays in visual search performance. Twelve participants engaged in a discrimination task and a visual search task. The obtained results suggest that visual relatedness is a bottom-up process, probably mediated by a short-term iconic store that affects search performance early, but whose effects rapidly decay. They also suggest that expectancy is a top-down process that requires time to build up before it can affect visual search performance, but whose effects are more long lasting than visual relatedness.

The aim of this study was to find if manipulating fluency, that is, the ease of processing, could affect confidence ratings about whether an event occurred in the respondents&rsquo / past. To test the familiarity misattribution hypothesis, which states that familiarity caused by fluent processing can be misattributed to past experience if the source of fluency cannot be identified, two methods were used: a revelation task, which was anagram solving and repetition priming. In the revelation task the familiarity misattribution hypothesis and the activation based hypothesis were tested by presenting one of the words in each one of the Life Event Inventory (LEI) items as an anagram or an unrelated anagram before the LEI, respectively. Higher confidence ratings for LEIs with an anagram compared to LEIs without anagrams would indicate that a revelation effect. A revelation effect was not observed for either condition. Therefore, the previous findings of revelation effect for autobiographical memories (Bernstein et al., 2002) could not be replicated when Turkish counterparts of LEI and anagrams were used. In the repetition priming experiments, the participants&rsquo / awareness of the source of fluency was manipulated by presenting either a subliminal or a supraliminal prime before they responded to a LEI item. The prime was either the same as the verb of the LEI sentence, or a different verb. Participants gave higher confidence ratings if subliminal primes were identical to, rather than different from, the verb of the sentence. If the participants were aware of seeing the primes, this difference disappeared. These results were consistent with the familiarity misattribution hypothesis.