The validity of traditional readability tests on accurately predicting people’s comprehension of health information
subject: Vocabulary knowledge, health literacy, reading comprehension skill, reading strategy
description: Tons of evidence indicated that readers benefit from clear and understandable health information in various contexts. Authors have been looking forward to utilizing a wide range of readability formulas so that they can produce comprehensible texts for readers. Both traditional readability formulas and the new Coh-Metrix algorithms have been widely used for decades and the utilities for the new tool were more likely to be supported by theoretical evidence. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of empirical evidence supporting the utilities of the two kinds of readability formulas. In this paper, a secondary data analysis was utilized to give empirical evidence to whether the widely used readability tests can predict participants’ comprehension responses effectively. By using Bayesian generalized linear mixed-effects models, variation in both traditional readability formulas and two of the new Coh-Metrix algorithms were tested having little or no effect on variation in participants’ comprehension accuracy. In this case, it is suggested that researchers in the future should think twice before utilizing the readability tests to analyse text difficulty.
creator: Jiawen Liu
source: Participants Participants recruited in the original study were through the Prolific online platform. Participants recruited were all UK nationals who were aged eighteen or over and spoke English as their first language. Participants who completed the test battery were awarded £12.50 (equalling £6.25 per hour). All participants who volunteered were tested, with exclusion of participants whose reading times for the health-related information texts were recorded being below 30s. The reading time includes reading the text and answering the questions relating to that text, including the self-rated evaluation-of understanding probe. While participant recruitment was administered through the Prolific platform, response data collection was conducted through a Qualtrics survey for each study. Design Two studies were conducted in the original research. In Study One, participants were presented with a sample of written health information texts on a range of topics. The observation was replicated and extended in Study Two by presenting a sample of texts on a range of health topics, together with a sample of guidance texts on COVID-19. In both studies, participants were asked to complete four multiple-choice questions, each with three answer options, in response to each stimulus health text. After the comprehension test questions, participants were asked to rate how well they thought they understood the information in the guidance. The original dataset also included individual differences, including reading skill and knowledge, and collected information on text attributes. Responses by participants in terms of the comprehension of the four multiple-choice questions for each text and the individual differences, such as reading skills and knowledge, would be utilized in the current study analysis with more kinds of text attributes included. In sum, except the heath-text materials picked to test participants’ comprehension responses and participants chosen, all other variables and …
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2015
contributor: Mistry, Daniel Lin, Pei-Ying
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Data/Excel.csv Data/R.r Data/DS_Store
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Age-Related Changes in the Attentional Modulation of Temporal Binding
subject: Ageing, attention, TBW, multisensory integration, stream-bounce illusion
description: In multisensory integration, the time range within which visual and auditory information can be perceived as synchronous and bound together is known as the temporal binding window (TBW). With increasing age, the TBW becomes wider, such that older adults erroneously, and often dangerously, integrate sensory inputs that are asynchronous. Recent research suggests that attentional cues can narrow the width of the TBW in younger adults, sharpening temporal perception and increasing the accuracy of integration. However, due to their age-related declines in attentional control, it is not yet known whether older adults can deploy attentional resources to narrow the TBW in the same way as younger adults. This study investigated the age-related changes to the attentional modulation of the TBW. 30 younger and 30 older adults completed a cued-spatial-attention version of the stream-bounce illusion, assessing the extent to which the visual and auditory stimuli were integrated when presented at three different stimulus onset asynchronies, and when attending to a validly-cued or invalidly-cued location. A 2x2x3 mixed ANOVA revealed that when participants attended to the validly-cued location (i.e. when attention was present), susceptibility to the stream-bounce illusion decreased. However, crucially, this attentional manipulation affected audiovisual integration in younger adults but not in older adults. Whilst no definitive conclusions could be drawn about the width of the TBW, the findings suggest that older adults have multisensory integration-related attentional deficits. Directions for future research and practical applications surrounding treatments to improve the safety of older adults’ perception and navigation through the environment are discussed.
creator: Jessica Pepper
source: Participants This study used a total of 60 participants; 30 younger adults (15 males, 15 females) between 18-35 years old (M = 21.37, SD = 1.30) and 30 older adults (11 males, 19 females) between 60-80 years old (M = 67.91, SD = 4.71). This sample size was determined via an a-priori power analysis using the data of Donohue et al. (2015) and Chen et al. (2021), who conducted similar experiments (see pre-registration on www.aspredicted.com, project ID #65513). All participants were fluent English speakers. Participants were required to have normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Participants were ineligible to proceed with the experiment if they had a history or current diagnosis of neurological conditions (e.g. epilepsy, mild cognitive impairment, dementia, Parkinson’s Disease) or learning impairments (e.g. dyslexia), or had severe hearing loss resulting in the wearing of hearing aids. Participants were recruited via opportunity sampling; the majority of younger participants were students at Lancaster University and were known to the researcher, whilst the majority of older participants were members of the Centre for Ageing Research at Lancaster University. All participants were able to provide informed consent. Pre-screening tools Participants were asked to complete two pre-screening questionnaires using Qualtrics survey software (www.qualtrics.com), to assess their eligibility for the study. Speech, Spatial and Quality of Hearing Questionnaire (SSQ; Appendix A; Gatehouse & Noble, 2004). Participants rated their hearing ability in different acoustic scenarios using a sliding scale from 0-10 (0=“Not at all”, 10=“Perfectly”). Whilst, at present, no defined cut-off score on the SSQ is available as a parameter to inform decision-making, previous studies have indicated that a mean score of 5.5 is indicative of moderate hearing loss (Gatehouse & Noble, 2004). As a result, people whose average score on the SSQ was lower than 5.5 were not eligible to participate in the exper…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 8th September 2021
contributor: Robert Taylor
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Data/SPSS.sav; Data/Excel.xlsx
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

The Effects of Different Sleep Stages on Language Learning Tasks in Young Adults
subject: Language learning, novel generalisation, REM, sleep, sleep spindle density, sleep stages, speech segmentation, SWS
description: In order to learn a language, one must practice multiple tasks, including speech segmentation and generalisation. Segmenting speech allows for the identification of words and learning the meaning as well as syntactic role of those words within phrases and sentences. Novel generalisation requires generalising over the structure of a new language not yet experienced. Frost and Monaghan (2016) showed that participants were able to use the same statistical information at the same time to complete both language tasks. They suggest that segmentation and grammatical generalisation are dependent on similar statistical processing mechanisms. The role of sleep for learning to segment and generalise language is still unclear. Sleep affects memory consolidation, which is necessary for learning a novel language. This refers to the amount of sleep individuals get within their sleep cycle, yet it is unknown whether the duration of separate sleep stages has an effect. The declarative/procedural (DP) model by Ullman (2004) on learning provides distinctions in DP memory that associate with slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep respectively. SWS has a role in declarative memory processes, including memory for words and grammar. Rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep has a role in procedural memory processes, involving motor skills and coordination. Sleep spindle density should also be considered, as spindles are involved in offline information processing and information transfer. It was found that increased SWS and stage 2 spindle density have a positive effect on speech segmentation compared to generalisation.
creator: Carly Power
source: Participants The original experiment was completed by 54 participants, 8 males and 46 females, with an age range of 18-24-years-old (mean age = 18.52). All participants reported being native-English speakers, with no history of auditory, speech or language disorders known. All participants either received university course credit or £20 for completing the experiment. Observations may be excluded for the first linear mixed-effects model. Exclusions may come from participants in the sleep group who did not sleep during the permitted time. This is because the first analysis aims to compare sleep vs. wake. The same participants’ data will be kept for the other linear mixed-effects models which aims to compare duration of sleep stages. This research received ethical approval by Dr Padraic Monaghan and Lancaster University’s Psychology Department on 22/04/2021. Design This study had a between-participants design with two conditions: sleep vs. wake between training and testing, and test type. There were two test types of speech segmentation and novel generalisation. Participants were randomly allocated to the sleep or wake conditions, and split evenly, meaning 27 participants slept and 27 remained awake. This study had access to PSG data for 18 of the participants in the sleep group. All participants received both test types. All participants were provided with an information sheet and gave written consent before the study commenced. Materials Stimuli Using the Festival speech synthesiser (Taylor et al., 1998), speech stimuli were created that were based on similar stimuli used by Peña et al. (2002). This artificial training language contained monosyllabic items, of which there were nine (pu, ki, be, du, ta, ga, li, ra, fo), used to form three different non-adjacent pairings with three possible X items in-between (A1X1–3C1, A2X1–3C2, and A3X1–3C3) (Frost & Monaghan, 2016). Using Peña et al.’s (2002) study, A and C items contained plosive phonemes (pu, ki, be, du, ta, go) a…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2021
contributor: Brad Hudson
rights: Open
relation: Secondary data analysis. Data were originally collected for the paper below, but they were not analysed by the authors. Frost, R. L. A., & Monaghan, P. (2016). Simultaneous segmentation and generalisation of non-adjacent dependencies from continuous speech. Cognition, 147, 70- 74
format: Data/Excel.csv Data/Excel.xlsx Analysis/r_file.R
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Do trustworthiness judgements help people to recognise synthetic faces?
subject: StyleGAN, synthetic face, trustworthiness perception, facial trustworthiness
description: Recent advances in digital image generative models have allowed for artificial creation of fake imagery such as synthesising highly photorealistic human faces. Style-based Generative Adversarial Networks (StyleGAN) is one of the most state-of-the-art generative models in this field, and has been widely used on facial image generation. However, with the increasing ease of using such image generative models, the security in many domains, such as forensic, border control and mass media, is vulnerable in front of the potential threats resulted from the misuse of image generative technologies. To date there has only been limited empirical research into the facial characteristics of StyleGAN-generated faces to support the design of detection methods against such synthetic faces. This study used StyleGAN2 (an improved version of StyleGAN) to generate faces and invited people to complete two facial image evaluation tasks, 1) Discrimination task, 2) Trustworthiness rating task. The study results demonstrated that, in the discrimination task, subjects had trouble recognising synthetic faces by direct/explicit judgement; while in the trustworthiness rating task, subjects perceived the synthetic faces as significantly more trustworthy than real faces. The study further analysed gender bias and ethnicity bias on the perception of facial trustworthiness, with results showing some differences between different levels of gender and ethnicity. In conclusion, people’s ability to recognise synthetic faces is poor, but it is possible that people rely on the perception of facial trustworthiness to discriminate synthetic from real faces. The findings in this study have implications for the development of detection methods against digitally generated faces.
creator: Haisa Shan
source: Subjects and design Three hundred and fifty-seven subjects (114 males, mean age = 25.2, SD = 5.8; 227 females, mean age = 25.0, SD = 6.3; 10 non-binary, mean age = 23.6, SD = 8.93) were recruited to complete an online survey test delivered on www.qualtrics.com. The responses of subjects who started but did not complete the online survey were eliminated to avoid distorting the research results. We used computer-synthesised facial images in this research as fake faces, mixed with real faces to examine people’s ability to detect fake faces and perceptual differences of trustworthiness between real/fake faces. Subjects did not get rewards for their participation, though they could see the test score of their performances at the end of the survey. The Qualtrics survey was based on a within-subjects design in which all subjects viewed the same two sets of adult facial images and completed each of the two tasks. To eliminate the effect of between-sets difference, the use of each image sets was counterbalanced in the individual test for each subject. Before the survey started, all subjects provided informed consent and completed a demographic questionnaire about their age, gender, ethnicity. In terms of the experimental power of 0.8 and significance level of 0.05, with a small effect, the power calculation indicated that the study needed at least 198 subjects. Stimuli A total of thirty-two human facial images (1024×1024 resolution), including 16 real and 16 synthetic faces, were used as stimuli in the survey. All real faces were taken from a publicly available dataset for high-quality human facial images, Flickr-Faces-HQ (FFHQ), which is created as a benchmark for GAN (see https://github.com/NVlabs/ffhq-dataset), and all synthetic faces were gained from the dataset of the generative image modeling, StyleGAN2 (see https://github.com/NVlabs/stylegan2). To ensure a diverse dataset, in each of the two sets of faces, there were 4 Black, 4 East Asian, 4 South Asian, 4 White, and …
publisher: Haisa Shan
date: 8 September 2021
contributor: Haisa Shan
rights: Open
relation: None
format: data/Excel.csv
language: English
type: Data
coverage: None

Optimising the Use of Synaesthetic Metaphors in Advertising: The Roles of Metaphor Construction and Complexity
subject: Metaphors; Synaesthetic Metaphors; Advertising; Persuasiveness
description: Metaphors are commonly employed in advertising to increase its persuasive effects. Research suggests that metaphors are most effective when conveyed visually, however linguists believe that additionally providing a linguistic cue, designed to help metaphor interpretation, can increase their effectiveness. In addition, metaphors of medium complexity are believed to drive higher effectiveness than simpler or more complex metaphors. This research aims to investigate how these issues relate to synaesthetic metaphors, those that reference two sensory modalities. Participants were presented with print adverts, the visual and linguistic elements of which were adapted to contain literal messages or synaesthetic metaphors. Participants provided ratings of appreciation, purchase intentions, and perceived advert complexity. Synaesthetic metaphors were shown to produce significantly stronger persuasive effects, measured via appreciation and purchase intentions, when conveyed visually and when rated highly on complexity. Implications for advertisers, who wish to incorporate and optimise the use of synaesthetic metaphors in print advertising, are discussed.
creator: Emily Davenport
source: Participants This research recruited 122 participants via opportunistic sampling. Participants were native speakers of English aged 18 or over, with no history of disabilities in any of the sensory domains (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch). Twelve participants were excluded due to incomplete survey responses and/or ineligibility according to the inclusion criteria, resulting in a sample of 110 participants (88 female, 20 male, 2 other; age: M = 38.11, SD = 18.60) who were randomly assigned to complete one of four surveys (see Design). The demographics per survey are detailed in Table 1. Table 1 The Sample Size and Demographics Per Survey N Gender Age Male Female Other Mean SD Survey 1 28 4 24 - 43.68 18.94 Survey 2 29 7 21 1 32.90 17.77 Survey 3 28 5 22 1 35.07 17.09 Survey 4 25 4 21 - 41.32 19.48 Materials Advert Stimuli The advert stimuli used in this research were gathered and modified by previous researchers at Francesca Citron’s laboratory (Chen, 2019; Pan, 2019). The researchers obtained real adverts containing synaesthetic metaphors from the dataset of Bolognesi and Strik Lievers (2018). These base adverts were labelled 1-8 (see Appendix A). The researchers produced three modified versions of each base advert. They edited the visual and linguistic elements, of product images and slogans respectively, to contain, or not contain, a synaesthetic metaphor, in accordance with the ‘Metaphor Category’ they represented. One version of each base advert conveyed a synaesthetic metaphor in both the visual and linguistic advert elements (Visual-Linguistic SM; labelled “VL”). One version contained a synaesthetic metaphor in the visual, but not linguistic, advert elements (Visual SM Only; labelled “V). One version contained a synaesthetic metaphor in the linguistic, but not visual, advert elements (Linguistic SM Only; labelled “L”). The final version served as a control as a synaesthetic metaphor did not appear in the visual or linguistic advert elements (No SM; lab…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 06/09/2021
contributor: Cameron Hoppu
rights: Open
relation: Follow up on previous research in Francesca Citron's lab
format: Data/Excel.xlsx
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

The impact of retribution on perception of transgressor by others
description: Emotions play a key role in within society, behaviour and human life with moral emotions such as guilt, regret and shame being able to influence individuals’ judgments and actions. For example, a person who experiences guilt will want to fix their wrongdoing that has caused this. There are times where these efforts to repair ones transgression, can lead an individual to self-punish in order to repair bonds with others and reduce negative consequences of the situation. The present study experimentally investigated the effect of self-punishment intensity on perceptions of a transgressor. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions of self-punishment intensity (low, correct and high). Vignettes were manipulated for each condition and presented for participants to read for them to answer questions on their judgments of the transgressor (perceptions of guilt, shame, regret, moral character, and trustworthiness, their willingness to forgive the transgressor, how likely they thought they would reoffend in the future) and rated this on a Likert scale of 0-5. Participants allocated to low self-punishment had more negative perceptions towards the transgressor overall when compared to correct self-punishment. However, this was not found beyond this as no differences were seen for those within the high self-punishment condition
creator: Olivia Wilson
source: Participants. Participants were recruited through the use of LU Sona system as well as opportunity sampling through use of social media and network platforms accessible. A total of 174 responses were collected via Qualtrics, of those 158 have been successfully completed through to the end whilst 16 have only been started and answered few questions at most. Therefore, the decision has been made to exclude any incomplete attempts. This resulted in a final sample of 158 of which 54 are in the high punishment condition, 52 in low punishment condition and 52 in correct punishment. Design. This is a one-factor study with 3 levels (self-punishment: Low punishment, correct punishment, and high punishment) between-subjects design. Qualtrics randomly allocated participants to one of the three conditions. Materials. A short hypothetical vignette was used to describe an event between two individuals; ‘Simon’ the transgressor and his friend, who he steals money from. With each of the punishment conditions, the vignette introduced the scenario with the same starting sentences to create the scene of someone performing a transgression against their friend with feelings of self-directed negative affect presented by the transgressor: Simon is out with his friends when he noticed that a member of his group has left their wallet unattended. Simon helps himself to the £40 that was in the wallet. His friend eventually realises that the money has been stolen and seems distressed. The next day, Simon feels bad for his actions and confesses to his friend that he took the money. The final sentence of the vignettes was manipulated for each of the three conditions. The sentence stated the amount of money returned to Simon’s friend, which was either less than originally taken (low punishment, £20), same amount (correct punishment, £40) or more than originally taken (high punishment, £60). He gives his friend all the money he has in his wallet, which came to £20 (or £40, or £60). Hypothetical vi…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2021
contributor: Anastasija Jumatova
rights: Open (unless stated otherwise)
relation: None (unless stated otherwise)
format: Data R AStudio .csv
language: English
type: Data and Text

Understanding the psychological, perceptual and emotional impact signage has on residents in a local community.
subject: signage, placemaking, community engagement, qualitative research, community reputation
description: The placement of signage, street furniture and advertisements can have a profound impact on the appearance of a built environment. They play a vital role in shaping the cultural, physical and social identities that impact the perceptions that residents and other stakeholders hold towards local communities, which in turn impacts on behaviours. Adopting a qualitative approach, this study will examine the impact of signage and other visual features that can contribute to the psychological, perceptual and emotional impact that these elements can have on residents in a local community. A number of semi-structured interviews were conducted amongst residents in One Manchester property areas, One Manchester place officers and residents near these areas. Participants were shown a variety of visual images of signage and were prompted to discuss their emotional response and thoughts, and propose suggestions to improve signage. A thematic analysis was conducted using the interview data and indicated the following four themes: signage design, reputation, community engagement and impact of signage. Reflecting upon these themes, the results suggested that existing signage was psychically ill-fitted and visually dull, lacking positive influential stimuli and evocative colours and that it lacked the authenticity and character needed to emotionally resonate with passers-by. This negatively impacted the reputation of the communities, leading them to be categorised as economically poor with high crime rates, resulting in stakeholders feeling alienated and some fearful. The results highlighted that the signage needs to be revitalised as a part of a wider placemaking strategy to rejuvenate local environments, perceived to be run down. This should support the ongoing evolution of these areas and engage community members to instal signage that is both influential and reflects an overall collective vision.
creator: Alexander Wootton
source: Design Due to the need to gain an in-depth understanding of the psychological, perceptual, and emotional impact signage has on residents in a community and factoring in the Covid-19 pandemic, a qualitative approach was adopted consisting of semi-structured interviews. This style of interviews was considered the most suitable method as they provide rich data on the participant’s thoughts which are not constrained by the bounds of tick box exercises or strict discussion guides. They enable researchers to “assess, confirm, validate, refute, or elaborate upon existing knowledge and the discovery of new knowledge” (Mcintosh & Morse, 2015, p. 1). This enables the discussion between the moderator and participant to flow more smoothly and naturally (Roulston et al., 2003) yet, a flexible guide at the moderators disposal keeps the conversation on topic. Interviews in the project were conducted using Microsoft Teams and telephone communication. The data was then assessed using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six step thematic analysis. Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six-steps thematic analysis: Familiarisation: Getting to know the overall data collected through re-reads of transcripts. Coding: Reducing sentences and phrases into small fragments of meaning or “codes”. Generating themes: Identifying patterns among codes. Review themes: Assuring that the meanings identified are relevant to the representation of data collected (research objectives). Define themes: Refine themes developed by establishing their essence and significance. Analysing themes: Highlight the frequency of themes and meanings derived from qualitative data analysis. Generate conclusions agreed-upon by all researchers. Participants A sample of 24 participants was originally agreed, however, only 14 participants were interviewed for the project. Participants were either recruited by One Manchester or the lead researcher from areas across south, east and central Manchester. Participants were made up of the following: Eight …
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 15/09/2021
contributor: Joel Fox
rights: open
relation: Consultancy - Commercial report
format: Word doc
language: English
type: Data

Exporing the Effect of Visual Complexity on Recall
subject: #visualcomplexity #recall #free-recall #cued-recall #advertisements #simple #complex
description: This study was conducted to explore the effect of visual complexity on an individuals` recall of product brands and their attributes in either simple or complex adverts . Within the field of visual complexity, there has been contradiction as to whether complexity helps or hinders recall, this study aims to resolve this question. A survey was conducted to measure their free and cued recall for adverts that varied in their visual complexity. The complex advertisements were defined as having three objects included whilst the simple advertisements had only one object included. This was decided to align with the industry standard for defining visual complexity as set by Attneave (1954), Snodgrass & Vanderwart (1980) and Chikhman et al., (2012). A percentage scoring system was used to compare overall memory performance. The data showed that those in the simple condition performed better compared to those in the complex condition. However, this was not the case for every individual. The results found the effects of complexity to be marginally significant (p < 0.09); however, the study had limited power, and a replication with a larger population could provide a more complete picture of the influence of the independent variable. Whilst this study does not provide a definitive conclusion towards the effect of visual complexity, it does explore and provide an insight into the effects of complexity on recall of product attributes in advertisements.
creator: Hayleigh Proctor
source: PARTICIPANTS The larger the number of participants in a study, the better-protected results will be from extraneous variables. For this reason, the participants were collected through random snowball sampling (Emerson, 2015). Each condition had 22 participants, a minimum age of 16 being the only participation condition. The participants were randomly allocated to each one of the four experimental conditions, providing 88 total participants (N= 88). There were no gender requirements for participation (Females (N = 47), Males (N = 31), Other (N = 4)). The majority of participants were born in the U.K. (N = 46) or Poland (N = 35). The majority are currently residing in England (N = 57) or Poland (N = 21), but responses were still collected from further afield, such as France and the U.S.A. (N = 10). The majority of participants fell into the two youngest age categories, 16 to 18-year-olds (N = 22) and 22 to 27-year-olds (N = 37). General demographic information provided insight into the advertisement exposure in participants' generic routines. The majority of participants were native English speakers (N = 49). The majority of participants use streaming services (N = 76), of which just under half of the respondents said their service had adverts (N = 38). Participants also use ad blockers (N = 49). Just over a quarter of participants use cable T.V. (N = 27). When asked whether they pay for premium applications, the majority said ‘never’ (N = 60), occasionally (N = 16), sometimes (N = 9), usually (N = 2), whilst only one participant always pays for premium applications (N = 1). MATERIALS Firstly, two product categories were chosen, bottled water and soap bars, four brands were then selected per category (see table 1). There were 16 advertisements in total, eight for the simple and complex conditions, respectively. (APPENDIX A) The editing software Gimp was used to design the advertisements to enable the selected products to be presented in the controlled advert setting. …
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 08/09/2021
contributor: Lydia Brooks
rights: Open
relation: Field of visual complexity
format: Data/SPSS.sav
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YW

Optimising the Use of Synaesthetic Metaphors in Advertising: The Roles of Metaphor Construction and Complexity
subject: Metaphors; Synaesthetic Metaphors; Advertising; Persuasiveness
description: Metaphors are commonly employed in advertising to increase its persuasive effects. Research suggests that metaphors are most effective when conveyed visually, however linguists believe that additionally providing a linguistic cue, designed to help metaphor interpretation, can increase their effectiveness. In addition, metaphors of medium complexity are believed to drive higher effectiveness than simpler or more complex metaphors. This research aims to investigate how these issues relate to synaesthetic metaphors, those that reference two sensory modalities. Participants were presented with print adverts, the visual and linguistic elements of which were adapted to contain literal messages or synaesthetic metaphors. Participants provided ratings of appreciation, purchase intentions, and perceived advert complexity. Synaesthetic metaphors were shown to produce significantly stronger persuasive effects, measured via appreciation and purchase intentions, when conveyed visually and when rated highly on complexity. Implications for advertisers, who wish to incorporate and optimise the use of synaesthetic metaphors in print advertising, are discussed.
creator: Emily Davenport
source: Participants This research recruited 122 participants via opportunistic sampling. Participants were native speakers of English aged 18 or over, with no history of disabilities in any of the sensory domains (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch). Twelve participants were excluded due to incomplete survey responses and/or ineligibility according to the inclusion criteria, resulting in a sample of 110 participants (88 female, 20 male, 2 other; age: M = 38.11, SD = 18.60) who were randomly assigned to complete one of four surveys (see Design). The demographics per survey are detailed in Table 1. Table 1 The Sample Size and Demographics Per Survey N Gender Age Male Female Other Mean SD Survey 1 28 4 24 - 43.68 18.94 Survey 2 29 7 21 1 32.90 17.77 Survey 3 28 5 22 1 35.07 17.09 Survey 4 25 4 21 - 41.32 19.48 Materials Advert Stimuli The advert stimuli used in this research were gathered and modified by previous researchers at Francesca Citron’s laboratory (Chen, 2019; Pan, 2019). The researchers obtained real adverts containing synaesthetic metaphors from the dataset of Bolognesi and Strik Lievers (2018). These base adverts were labelled 1-8 (see Appendix A). The researchers produced three modified versions of each base advert. They edited the visual and linguistic elements, of product images and slogans respectively, to contain, or not contain, a synaesthetic metaphor, in accordance with the ‘Metaphor Category’ they represented. One version of each base advert conveyed a synaesthetic metaphor in both the visual and linguistic advert elements (Visual-Linguistic SM; labelled “VL”). One version contained a synaesthetic metaphor in the visual, but not linguistic, advert elements (Visual SM Only; labelled “V). One version contained a synaesthetic metaphor in the linguistic, but not visual, advert elements (Linguistic SM Only; labelled “L”). The final version served as a control as a synaesthetic metaphor did not appear in the visual or linguistic advert elements (No SM; lab…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 06/09/2021
contributor: Malcolm Wong
rights: Open
relation: Follow up on previous research in Francesca Citron's lab
format: Data/Excel.xlsx
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Extending the Cortical Hyperexcitability Index
subject: Perceptual Aberrations, Cortical Hyperexcitability, Migraine, Aura, Tinnitus, Auditory Perception, Visual Perception, Hallucinations
description: Anomalous perceptual experiences are associated with underlying excitation of neural activity in the cerebral cortex, known as cortical hyperexcitability (Wilkins, 1995). This can be measured behaviourally by the pattern glare test, where migraineurs consistently show greater susceptibility to anomalous visual percepts in response to grating patterns than control participants (for review see Evans & Stevenson, 2008). Based on these findings, Fong, Takahashi and Braithwaite (2019) developed a screening measure of visual cortical hyperexcitability, the Cortical Hyperexcitability Index (CHi-II), through exploratory factor analysis. This project aims to create auditory-based items for the CHi-II. We know cortical hyperexcitability in the auditory cortex is also associated with a number of auditory symptoms in migraine such as heightened auditory sensitivity and a range of anomalous auditory percepts, ranging from tinnitus-like tones to multiple conversing voices (Vingen, Pareja & Støren et al., 1998; Miller, Grosberg, Crystal & Robbins, 2015). As such we created seven auditory items through adaptation of related questionnaire items and generating unique items based on phenomenology of patient descriptions; these refer to experiences of hearing voices or unexplained sounds under various circumstances, as well as sensitivity to noise. Exploratory Factor Analysis will be conducted on the CHi-II alongside auditory items to test which factor each item best loads onto, as well as using Cronbach's Alpha to assess internal validity. Results are discussed in terms of the debate on global versus localised effects of patterns of hyperexcitability, as well as implications for our understanding of multisensory anomalous perceptual experiences.
creator: Haydn Farrelly
source: Method Participants Forty-five participants age 18-24 (M = 19.24) took part either for research credits or without incentive. Of these, thirty-seven (82%) were female and thirty-seven (82%) were right-handed. Prior to the main questionnaire, a pre-screening survey asked participants to declare any history of neurosurgeries (8.22%), neurological conditions (2.22%), psychological conditions (17.78%), ocular conditions (15.56%), epilepsy (0%), migraine (24.44%), or tinnitus (15.56%). Auditory Item Creation As with the original CHi-II, items were based on previous questionnaires measuring anomalous perceptual experiences (Sierra & Berrios, 2000; Bell, Halligan & Ellis, 2006) alongside patient reports of auditory experiences in migraine (Miller, Grosberg, Crystal & Robbins, 2015; Vreeburg, Leijten, Sommer & Sommer, 2016). These items were split into two categories: voice-hearing, and noise-hearing. We distinguished between hearing a single voice in item one ‘Do you ever hear a single voice talking aloud in your head without a clear source?’, or multiple voices in item two ‘Do you ever hear 2 or more unexplained voices talking with each other?’, as these are delineated in patient reports (Miller et al., 2015; Vreebrug et al., 2016). We also distinguish between hearing instructing voices in item three ‘Do you ever hear voices telling you what to do?’, and hearing voices which comment on thoughts and actions in item four ‘Do you ever hear voices telling you what to do, or commenting on what you are thinking or doing?’, as suggested by the CAPS and CDS (Sierra & Berrios, 2000; Bell et al., 2006). The first noise item asked participants about the occurrence of anomalous sounds in item five ‘Do you ever notice sounds, such as ringing / buzzing , which other people around you cannot hear?’ as recommended by CAPS and CDS (Sierra & Berrios, 2000; Bell et al., 2006). The final noise items referred to volume of sounds in item six ‘Do you ever become annoyed or agitated by sounds th…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 27/05/2022
contributor: Haydn Farrelly
rights: Open
relation: Braithwaite, Marchant, Takahashi, Dewe & Watson (2015) Fong, Takahashi & Braithwaite (2019)
format: Data/Excel.csv
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF