The perception of racism in ambiguous scenarios

Recent theorising on the nature of racism suggests that over the last few decades it has come to be expressed in more subtle and ambiguous ways because while many Whites proclaim egalitarian values, their cognitions and behaviour are influenced by prejudices that are buried deep in their psyche. This leads to the possibility that those who perpetrate and those who experience racism may have different interpretations of events that involve racism. Essed (1991) has suggested that because they are exposed to racism systematically, those who experience racism are in a good position to detect it if they have both knowledge of normal behaviour for particular situations, and a general knowledge of racism. Using Essed's model of the assessment of racist events, the descriptions of six videotaped ambiguously racist scenarios given by 40 Caucasian students and 40 Asian students were analysed to determine whether situational or general knowledge of racism was evident. Contrary to expectations, the Asian students, who belong to a group targeted with racism in Australia, were less likely to see racism in the scenarios. Finding the scenarios to be acceptable indicated a lack of situational knowledge and, hence, an inability to use general knowledge of racism if it exists. The role of cultural values in the application of situational knowledge is discussed, and further empirical investigations of Essed's model are proposed.

Psychological correlates of perception of sexual intent in women

In a sample of 183 men and 186 women, the authors assessed (a) the relative contributions of gender and level of nonverbal social cues to the perception of a female actor's sexual intent during a videotaped social interaction with a man and (b) the association between those variables and personality traits implicated in faulty sexual-information processing. The authors assessed those variables while the participants viewed 1 of 3 film segments depicting a female-male interaction. The authors experimentally manipulated eye contact, touch, physical proximity, and female clothing. At all levels of those nonverbal cues, the men perceived more sexual intent in the female actor than did the women. The perception of the female actor's sexual intent increased as the nonverbal cues in the film segments were magnified: Both actors displayed more eye contact, touch, and physical proximity, and the female actor wore more revealing clothing. Relative to the women, the men demonstrated greater sexual preoccupation and reduced sociosexual effectiveness, variables associated with inferring greater sexual intent in the female actor.

Visual perception of action categories and the "bowl-throw" decision in cricket.

Cricket umpires, cricket bowlers, and physical education students (who were knowledgeable about the rules of cricket), were shown 72 videotaped point-light displays of cricket deliveries with varying extents of elbow flexion such that they ranged from highly “bowl-like” to highly “throw-like”. The observers made a bowl-throw decision about each display, and the umpires and bowlers reported their confidence on a 5-point scale. The percentage of displays reported as a “bowl” was 59, 40, and 44 for the umpires, bowlers, and students respectively. Umpires made significantly more bowl decisions than both the bowlers and students, but there was no difference between the latter groups. Umpires were significantly more confident than the bowlers in both their bowl and throw decisions. Thus, in an experimental setting, with no apparent costs or benefits associated with their decision-makin, umpires “called” a bowler significantly less frequently for throwing than other knowledgeable observers. The procedures devised for this experiment demonstrate that psychophysical methods can be applied to the problem of discrete action-category nominations in sport (e.g., bowl or throw, walk or run).

Visual perception of movement kinematics and the acquisition of "action prototypes"

Recognizing a class of movements as belonging to a "nominal" action category, such as walking, running, or throwing, is a fundamental human ability. Three experiments were undertaken to test the hypothesis that common ("prototypical") features of moving displays could be learned by observation. Participants viewed moving stick-figure displays resembling forearm flexion movements in the saggital plane. Four displays (presentation displays) were first presented in which one or more movement dimensions were combined with 2 respective cues: direction (up, down), speed (fast, slow), and extent (long, short). Eight test displays were then shown, and the observer indicated whether each test display was like or unlike those previously seen. The results showed that without corrective feedback, a single cue (e.g., up or down) could be correctly recognized, on average, with the proportion correct between .66 and .87. When two cues were manipulated (e.g., up and slow), recognition accuracy remained high, ranging between .72 and .89. Three-cue displays were also easily identified. These results provide the first empirical demonstration of action-prototype learning for categories of human action and show how apparently complex kinematic patterns can be categorized in terms of common features or cues. It was also shown that probability of correct recognition of kinematic properties was reduced when the set of 4 presentation displays were more variable with respect to their shared kinematic property, such as speed or amplitude. Finally, while not conclusive, the results (from 2 of the 3 experiments) did suggest that similarity (or "likeness") with respect to a common kinematic property (or properties) is more easily recognized than dissimilarity.

The roles of static depth information and object-image relative motion in perception of heading

In a series of 6 experiments, two hypotheses were tested: that nominal heading perception is determined by the relative motion of images of objects positioned at different depths (R. F. Wang & J. E. Cutting 1999) and that static depth information contributes to this determination. By manipulating static depth information while holding retinal-image motion constant during  simulated self-movement, the authors found that static depth information played a role in determining perceived heading. Some support was also found for the involvement of R. F. Wang and J. E. Cutting’s (1999) categories of object-image relative motion in determining perceived heading. However, results suggested an unexpected functional dominance of information about heading relative to apparently near objects.

The role of local grouping and global orientation contrast in perception of orientation-modulated textures

We explored the contribution to perception of orientation-modulated textures of visual processes selective either for orientation contrast or orientation grouping. To distinguish between these two processes we manipulated the axis of local grouping of texture elements independently of the direction of global orientation modulation. The general question posed was whether visibility of texture structure (measured as threshold for discriminating spatial-frequency of texture structure) is dependent on the magnitude of orientation contrast, strength and direction of local grouping, or some combination of the two. We demonstrated that the factor of primary importance is the amplitude of global orientation contrast rather than the presence of local grouping content. Using orientation-interleaved textures (containing two superimposed textures modulated around orthogonal orientations), we further showed that orientation single-opponent processes are a more likely candidate for detecting orientation contrast than double-opponent processes.

Oral zinc sulfate solutions inhibit sweet taste perception

We investigated the ability of zinc sulfate (5, 25, 50 mM) to inhibit the sweetness of 12 chemically diverse sweeteners, which were all intensity matched to 300 mM sucrose [800 mM glucose, 475 mM fructose, 3.25 mM aspartame, 3.5 mM saccharin, 12 mM sodium cyclamate, 14 mM acesulfame-K, 1.04 M sorbitol, 0.629 mM sucralose, 0.375 mM neohesperidin dihydrochalcone (NHDC), 1.5 mM stevioside and 0.0163 mM thaumatin]. Zinc sulfate inhibited the sweetness of most compounds in a concentration dependent manner, peaking with 80% inhibition by 50 mM. Curiously, zinc sulfate never inhibited the sweetness of Na-cyclamate. This suggests that Na-cyclamate may access a sweet taste mechanism that is different from the other sweeteners, which were inhibited uniformly (except thaumatin) at every concentration of zinc sulfate. We hypothesize that this set of compounds either accesses a single receptor or multiple receptors that are inhibited equally by zinc sulfate at each concentration.

The effect of zinc on human taste perception

Zinc salts are added as a nutritional or functional ingredient in food and oral care products. The 1st experiment in this study investigated the taste and somatosensory effect of zinc salts (chloride, iodide, sulfate, bromide, acetate). The zinc salts had very little taste (bitter, salty, savory, sour, sweet), and the taste that was present was easily washed away with water rinses. The major oral quality of zinc was astringency, and the astringency lingered beyond expectoration. The 2nd experiment combined zinc salts with prototypical stimuli eliciting basic tastes. Zinc was a potent inhibitor of sweetness and bitterness (>70% reduction in taste) but did not affect salt, savory, or sour taste.

Investigating factors influencing the perception of creativity in web design

In many disciplines, creativity has been recognised as an important part of problem solving. In business, creativity enables the generation of better solutions and provides an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage. In Information Systems (IS) creativity assists developers in finding solutions to difficult problems by helping to efficiently utilise available resources and allows the more effective planning and running of complex projects. One of the most important aspects of IS development is Requirements Engineering (RE), the development activity aimed at understanding the needs and wants of IS customers. While previous RE researchers suggested that creativity is crucial in building high quality information systems, fostering creative outcomes in RE is difficult as it is affected by the multifaceted socioorganisational context within which IS development commonly takes place. This paper reports findings from an empirical study into creativity in RE. Specifically, it reports various contextual factors which were found to influence the creativity of individuals and their teams.

Students` performance and perception linked to the use of group and audience response systems (GARS) in large classes

This paper reports an investigation into the impact of Group and Audience Response Systems (GARS) on students’ learning outcomes, and perceptions of learning in large classes. Performance is compared between students who used the technology, and students who did not, based on progressive assignment and exam results. Perception is assessed based on an online survey questionnaire. The key findings of this study indicate that students who used the technology achieved, on average, 6.70% higher grades compared to those who did not. Further, use of the technology improved the overall achievement of students, on average, regardless of their perception of whether or not it would provide
an academic advantage. Key findings and future use of the technology are discussed.