Erroneous suggestions can add to or contradict people’s memories for previously witnessed event details. Researchers have also investigated a different kind of erroneous suggestion in which details from a target event that had actually been witnessed are erroneously suggested to not have transpired in the event. This phenomenon is referred to as the suggested invisibility effect. Previous research examining suggested invisibility has not thoroughly examined the mechanisms underlying the effect. That is, does not reporting previously witnessed event details reflect demand characteristics or genuine memory impairments? The current dissertation research was motivated by such questions. In a newly developed paradigm, 5 experiments examined suggested invisibility and its accompanying subjective memory. Subjects watched a crime video and 2 days later read three hand-written simulated witness testimonies. Each testimony (a) stated that two event details were not visible in the video (though they in fact were clearly displayed) and (b) mentioned two other details in broad generic terms. Subjects then completed a final memory test to assess their memory for the original crime video. Experiment 1 produced the basic effect, showing that subjects were significantly less likely to report witnessed details when they had been erroneously suggested to not have been visible compared to control details. Experiment 2A was conducted to further examine the basis of suggested invisibility, however, many subjects expressed disbelief in the testimonies and this resulted in null effects. Subsequent experiments enhanced the plausibility of the testimonies. Experiment 2B amended the rationale to subjects for reading the lengthy testimonies and replicated the suggested invisibility effect; Experiment 3 embedded suggestions of invisibility in response to cued-recall questions rather than in lengthy narratives; and, Experiment 4 presented subjects with a transcript of an interview between a witness and an experimenter. In both Experiments 3 and 4, robust effects of suggested invisibility were only attained with naïve subjects who claimed to not have been suspicious of the experimental manipulation. When suggested invisibility was observed subjects’ confidence levels were similar to that of control details, suggesting that sometimes subjects were genuinely confident in not having witnessed previously seen details. Collectively, these findings support the idea that memories can be swayed in the direction of erroneous suggestions that render false reports of not having seen previously witnessed details. / Graduate

For many years the focus of research on child well-being and development has been primarily on the dynamics of the mother-child relationship. The mother was seen as the more influential parent as she spends more time with the children. The father’s role in the development process was thus undermined. Fortunately research on the father’s involvement in a child’s life has improved over the past thirty years. Where previously fathers were mostly perceived as the breadwinners and providers they are now also considered as being caregivers who are more closely involved with their children and the accompanying responsibilities. Research indicates the importance of a father’s role in child development and has found that the intellectual, emotional and social development of a child is influenced by the father. The most beneficial circumstances for children to grow up in is where both of the biological parents are part of the household, satisfied with their marital relationship and loving towards their children. Unfortunately there is a significant increase in South African families where the father is absent and where the mother is burdened with additional responsibilities. However, a father can be emotionally absent despite physical proximity and emotionally absent fathers can be included when describing fatherlessness due to the destructive effect it has on children. Some research indicates that a father is the most significant factor in his daughter’s life and the quality of their relationship influences her personality and general well-being in life. Most literature focusing on the paternal parenting role is more focused on the father-son dyad, the least studied parent-adult child dyad is that of adult daughters and fathers. A great number of research studies on the subjects of divorce, single parents, physically absent fathers and the resulting effects on males are available. Much less literature, especially in the South African context, can be found to focus on and explain the experiences of young adult women who grew up with an emotionally absent father. The aim of the study was thus to explore the subjective experiences of young adult women who grew up with an emotionally absent father. A qualitative research method was used with a phenomenological approach as research design. Eleven voluntary, 20-31 year old adult women, participated in the study and were recruited by word of mouth. Data were collected through in-depth interviews that were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. Transcribed data were analysed by means of thematic analysis from which themes and sub-themes were derived. Two main themes with sub-themes were identified. It was found that the participants experienced their fathers as emotionally absent because it was difficult to share their emotions with them, the participants' fathers did not show affection or express their love. They showed no interest, approval or acknowledgement and the participants found it difficult to trust their fathers. According to the participants their relationships with other men were influenced because of this. They further struggled with trusting other people and suffered from a low self-esteem. Due to repressed emotions they did not portray their true self and sought their fathers’ approval by doing things he liked. / MA (Clinical Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / Risk is an inevitable part of agricultural production and all producers face various forms of risk. Output price has been shown to be the major contributor to the risk in cattle feeding, yet few choose to manage this risk. This study used subjective price expectations and price distributions of survey participants to determine how producer's expectations compare with that of the market. In addition, demographic information gathered from survey participants allowed for further examination as to how these factors effect price outlook and variability. Data used for this study were gathered through survey responses from Kansas State University Extension meeting and workshop participants and other meetings targeted to livestock producers. First, data were aggregated and analyzed at a group level. Only two of the twelve price forecast were significantly lower than the futures settlement price. On the other hand, all but one of the aggregated group volatility expectations was different. Typically nearby contract price risk expectation was underestimated and distant contract price risk expectation was overestimated. Individual respondent's discreet stated price and price distribution information was fitted to a continuous distribution and an implied mean and standard deviation were determined. These were compared to market price and price risk data. Respondent's expectation of price was significantly lower than the market for distant months for five of the six groups. Individual volatilities resulting from each fitted distribution were significantly lower from the volatility measure resulting from Black's model. Demographic data were estimated to show the impact of this information on overall error of price forecast and price risk expectations. Those living outside the Northeast and Northern Plains tended to have larger error in their expectation of price volatility. Larger backgrounding operations reported lower price variance error and selling more fed cattle each year increased price risk expectation error. Lastly, prior use of risk management tools for the most part did not have an impact on error in either price expectation or price volatility expectation.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka motivationshöjande frågeställningars eventuella koppling till det subjektiva välbefinnandet. Det var 47 deltagare i interventionsgruppen och 37 i jämförelsegruppen. Dessa fyllde i en självskattningsenkät, Mood adjectiv checklist scale, före och efter en 14 dagar lång interventionsperiod. Studiens motivationshöjande frågeställningar utformades med utgångspunkt i dels den positiva psykologin, som lägger fokus på att ta vara på det positiva hos människan, dels utifrån den kognitiva psykologin som menar att människan formas utifrån hennes tankesätt.  Resultatet visade att studiens motivationshöjande frågeställningar kan ha en viss positiv inverkan på sinnesstämning. Slutsatsen blev därför: att föra en inre dialog utifrån särskilt utformade frågeställningar kan öka det subjektiva välbefinnandet. Studiens resultat bidrar till teorin om att positiva psykologiövningar kan förbättra det subjektiva välbefinnandet.

For many years the focus of research on child well-being and development has been primarily on the dynamics of the mother-child relationship. The mother was seen as the more influential parent as she spends more time with the children. The father’s role in the development process was thus undermined. Fortunately research on the father’s involvement in a child’s life has improved over the past thirty years. Where previously fathers were mostly perceived as the breadwinners and providers they are now also considered as being caregivers who are more closely involved with their children and the accompanying responsibilities. Research indicates the importance of a father’s role in child development and has found that the intellectual, emotional and social development of a child is influenced by the father. The most beneficial circumstances for children to grow up in is where both of the biological parents are part of the household, satisfied with their marital relationship and loving towards their children. Unfortunately there is a significant increase in South African families where the father is absent and where the mother is burdened with additional responsibilities. However, a father can be emotionally absent despite physical proximity and emotionally absent fathers can be included when describing fatherlessness due to the destructive effect it has on children. Some research indicates that a father is the most significant factor in his daughter’s life and the quality of their relationship influences her personality and general well-being in life. Most literature focusing on the paternal parenting role is more focused on the father-son dyad, the least studied parent-adult child dyad is that of adult daughters and fathers. A great number of research studies on the subjects of divorce, single parents, physically absent fathers and the resulting effects on males are available. Much less literature, especially in the South African context, can be found to focus on and explain the experiences of young adult women who grew up with an emotionally absent father. The aim of the study was thus to explore the subjective experiences of young adult women who grew up with an emotionally absent father. A qualitative research method was used with a phenomenological approach as research design. Eleven voluntary, 20-31 year old adult women, participated in the study and were recruited by word of mouth. Data were collected through in-depth interviews that were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. Transcribed data were analysed by means of thematic analysis from which themes and sub-themes were derived. Two main themes with sub-themes were identified. It was found that the participants experienced their fathers as emotionally absent because it was difficult to share their emotions with them, the participants' fathers did not show affection or express their love. They showed no interest, approval or acknowledgement and the participants found it difficult to trust their fathers. According to the participants their relationships with other men were influenced because of this. They further struggled with trusting other people and suffered from a low self-esteem. Due to repressed emotions they did not portray their true self and sought their fathers’ approval by doing things he liked. / MA (Clinical Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The impetus for this study grew from observations in clinical practice that many individuals survived all sorts of hardships with minimal distress, or with the ability to tolerate their distress, and move on with their lives in a positive manner. A review of the literature led to the conclusions that the research investigating resilience was making minimal inroads into understanding what made these people different, and that the richness of who they were was being lost in the scientific process. This dissatisfaction led to the decision to explore the construct from a phenomenological framework, and to try and discover the essential elements of resilience through analysis of the subjective experience of resilience. A qualitative study involving thirteen participants identified by their peers as resilient was undertaken and the underlying themes of their stories were analysed. This led to the development of a model of resilience that attempted to balance the need for parsimony with that of explanatory breadth, and which had the potential to tolerate the complexity and instability of the construct itself. The model developed identified three core elements that embraced the construct of resilience. These included the physiological capacity to be resilient, and from this basis the ability to be adaptive and the ability to maintain well-being emerge. Factors identified with these elements include individual reactivity to and recovery from adverse events, the ability to be effective and efficient in the management of adverse events, and the beliefs about the world and the self that promote well-being when exposed to adverse events. The model has a basis within neurobiology and is framed within the context of Dynamic Systems Theory. The theory itself is a culmination of clinical observations with what is known from within the current literature and the results of this study.

This thesis proposes a test method for evaluating the perceived vibration which occurs at the driver's hand in automotive steering wheel interface. The objective of the research was to develop frequency weightings for quantifying the human perception of steering wheel hand-arm vibration. Family of frequency weightings were developed from equal sensation curves obtained from the psychophysical laboratory experimental tests. The previous literature suggests that the only internationally standardised frequency weighting Wh is not accurate to predict human perception of steering wheel hand-arm vibration (Amman et. al, 2005) because Wh was developed originally for health effects, not for the human perception. In addition, most of the data in hand-arm vibration are based upon responses from male subjects (Neely and Burström, 2006) and previous studies based only on sinusoidal stimuli. Further, it has been continuously suggested by researchers (Gnanasekarna et al., 2006; Morioka and Griffin, 2006; Ajovalasit and Giacomin, 2009) that only one weighting is not optimal to estimate the human perception at all vibrational magnitudes. In order to address these problems, the investigation of the effect of gender, body mass and the signal type on the equal sensation curves has been performed by means of psychophysical laboratory experimental tests. The test participants were seated on a steering wheel simulator which consists of a rigid frame, a rigid steering wheel, an automobile seat, an electrodynamic shaker unit, a power amplifier and a signal generator. The category-ratio Borg CR10 scale procedure was used to quantify the perceived vibration intensity. A same test protocol was used for each test and for each test subject. The first experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of gender using sinusoidal vibration with 40 test participants (20 males and 20 females). The results suggested that the male participants provided generally lower subjective ratings than the female participants. The second experiment was conducted using band-limited random vibration to investigate the effect of signal type between sinusoidal and band-limited random vibration with 30 test participants (15 males and 15 females). The results suggested that the equal sensation curves obtained using random vibration were generally steeper and deeper in the shape of the curves than those obtained using sinusoidal vibration. These differences may be due to the characteristics of random vibration which produce generally higher crest factors than sinusoidal vibration. The third experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of physical body mass with 40 test participants (20 light and 20 heavy participants) using sinusoidal vibration. The results suggested that the light participants produced generally higher subjective ratings than the heavy participants. From the results it can be suggested that the equal sensation curves for steering wheel rotational vibration differ mainly due to differences of body size rather than differences of gender. The final experiments was conducted using real road signals to quantify the human subjective response to representative driving condition and to use the results to define the selection method for choosing the adequate frequency weightings for the road signals by means of correlation analysis. The final experiment was performed with 40 test participants (20 light and 20 heavy participants) using 21 real road signals obtained from the road tests. From the results the hypothesis was established that different amplitude groups may require different frequency weightings. Three amplitude groups were defined and the frequency weightings were selected for each amplitude group. The following findings can be drawn from the research: • the equal sensation curves suggest a nonlinear dependency on both the frequency and the amplitude. • the subjective responses obtained from band-limited random stimuli were steeper and the deeper in the shape of the equal sensation curves than those obtained using sinusoidal vibration stimuli. • females provided higher perceived intensity values than the males for the same physical stimulus at most frequencies. • light test participants provided higher perceived intensity than the heavy test participants for the same physical stimulus at most frequencies. • the equal sensation curves for steering wheel rotational vibration differ mainly due to differences in body size, rather than differences of gender. • at least three frequency weightings may be necessary to estimate the subjective intensity for road surface stimuli.

The current criminal law of England and Wales does not assess mens rea in a consistent manner. The law applies two distinct methods of assessing mens rea – subjectivism and objectivism – which are based on conflicting principles of criminal liability. A subjective test depends upon what the defendant himself foresaw, believed or intended whereas an objective test will label the defendant culpable for what a hypothetical ‘reasonable person’ would have foreseen or how he would have reacted. This thesis will show that, if the law is ever to take a consistent approach to assessing mens rea, both subjectivism and objectivism must be cast aside. As they place undue importance on foresight of the consequences, neither of these doctrines are capable of providing an accurate reflection of an individual’s moral culpability. Subjectivism is too narrow because it ignores any other states of mind that, although inconsistent with subjective foresight, may be considered to display a high degree of moral culpability. Objectivism is too broad because, by labelling all who fall below the reasonable standard as culpable, it takes no account of those individuals who lack the capacity to foresee what the reasonable person would have foreseen. It will be shown that an approach based on the defendant’s attitudes and reasons for acting will allow for a much more accurate inference of an individual’s moral culpability than is achieved by either subjectivism or objectivism. Accordingly, this new approach is one that could be applied across the scope of the criminal law without the need for any special exceptions or illogical deviations from the norm. As a result, the way in which the English and Welsh criminal law assesses mens rea would achieve a consistency that it currently lacks.

Consumer value is an important determinant of consumers’ post-use behaviour, for example satisfaction, repeat purchase and word of mouth. The existing research mainly looks at the factors associated with the product and service providers to improve consumer value. Few studies on the role of the consumer in shaping consumer value have found consumer knowledge to be an important element in shaping consumer value. Adopting critical realism, this PhD expands this area of knowledge by investigating knowledge miscalibration (i.e., the inaccuracy in subjective knowledge) as a significant antecedent of consumer value. Most of the time, consumers’ perceptions of what they think they know (i.e., subjective knowledge) has been shown to be different from what they actually know (i.e., objective knowledge). Thus, subjective knowledge is usually inaccurate. This inaccuracy in subjective knowledge relative to objective knowledge is called knowledge miscalibration. Although the effect of knowledge miscalibration on consumers’ purchasing decisions has been investigated in the consumer behaviour literature, its role in the use stage of consumption has received much less attention. The aim of this research is to examine the effect of knowledge miscalibration on product or service use, and more specifically on the value consumers derive from actually using products or services (i.e., value-in-use). In this research a critical realism paradigm is pursued, implying that reality exists in the three domains of the empirical, the actual and the real. The research starts with observing regularity in the empirical domain (i.e., consumer value) followed by imagining the causal power in the actual and the real domains (i.e., knowledge miscalibration), shaping the research question. A retroductive strategy is followed, firstly by proposing the effect of knowledge miscalibration on consumer value and secondly by conceptually and empirically testing this relationship. This research conceptualises that knowledge miscalibration influences consumer value dimensions, described as efficiency, excellence, play and aesthetics. It is suggested that underconfidence (i.e., knowledge miscalibration where subjective knowledge is deflated) and overconfidence (i.e., knowledge miscalibration where subjective knowledge is inflated) influence consumer value dimensions differently as they generate different consequences in use. Therefore, a conceptual model is developed that describes the effect of knowledge miscalibration (i.e., overconfidence and underconfidence) on the dimensions of consumer value. The empirical part of the research is designed by conducting a covariance-based study and an experimental investigation in order to gain both internal and external validity. The covariance-based investigation is conducted in the context of amazon.com online shopping. Knowledge miscalibration and consumer value dimensions are measured in this study. This study supports the negative effect of underconfidence on efficiency, excellence, play and aesthetics and the negative effect of overconfidence on play. The experimental investigation is designed in the context of prezi.com, an online dynamic presentation creation website that enables its users to move between slides, words and images during their presentations. In this study, overconfidence and underconfidence are manipulated and their effects on the dimensions of consumer value are examined. The findings of this study show that underconfidence negatively influences efficiency, excellence and aesthetics, while overconfidence negatively impacts excellence, play and aesthetics. Overall, this PhD concludes that knowledge miscalibration negatively influences the dimensions of consumer value, with the exception of overconfidence impacting efficiency. The contradictory results of the covariance-based study observed in the experimental study can be explained through its inability to account for reciprocal relationships (i.e., where consumer value dimensions also impact knowledge miscalibration) and the existence of a third variable affecting both independent and dependent variables. Furthermore, the context of the experimental study (employing a new consumption task) is proposed to be the main reason for the lack of support for the effect of underconfidence on play.

There is a demand for video quality measurements in modern video applications specifically in wireless and mobile communication. In real time video streaming it is experienced that the quality of video becomes low due to different factors such as encoder and transmission errors. HEVC/H.265 is considered as one of the promising codecs for compression of ultra-high definition videos. In this research, full reference based video quality assessment is performed. The raw format reference videos have been taken from Texas database to make test videos data set. The videos are encoded using HM9 reference software in HEVC format. Encoding errors has been set during the encoding process by adjusting the QP values. To introduce packet loss in the video, the real-time environment has been created. Videos are sent from one system to another system over UDP protocol in NETCAT software. Packet loss is induced with different packet loss ratios into the video using NETEM software. After the compilation of video data set, to assess the video quality two kind of analysis has been performed on them. Subjective analysis has been carried on different human subjects. Objective analysis has been achieved by applying five quality matrices PSNR, SSIM, UIQI, VFI and VSNR. The comparison is conducted on the objective measurement scores with the subjective and in the end results deduce from classical correlation methods.