Deconstructing consumer behaviour: theory and practice

This paper challenges the conventional opposition, or distinction, between consumer behaviour theory and practice. This binary dualism, it is argued, is predicated on a simplistic ‘either/or’ logic that ignores the effects theory and practice have on each other. Furthermore, it obscures a hierarchical relationship between academic researchers and marketing practitioners in which basic research is more dominant and privileged than applied research. In response to these criticisms, an alternative ‘both/and’ logic is proposed for exploring the interrelationships between consumer behaviour theory and practice and new social relations among consumer researchers. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Impaired processing of rapid stimulus sequences in dyslexia

Apart from their reading difficulties, dyslexic subjects often suffer from a variety of subtle sensory and motor deficits. Whether these deficits have a causal relationship to the reading disorder, form additional risk factors, or are totally independent of the reading problem, is under vivid debate. In this article, we review the evidence and suggest that ‘sluggish attentional shifting’ (SAS) can account for the impaired processing of rapid stimulus sequences in dyslexia. Within this novel framework attention-related prolongation of input chunks is decisive for many small deficits found in dyslexic subjects.     

Correlation between inspection time and psychometric abilities: A personal interpretation

More than 25 years of research suggests that the measure inspection time (IT) does capture low-level aspects of cognitive functioning that contribute to human intelligence. However, recent evidence does not support earlier claims that IT estimates the speed of a single mechanism like “sampling input” or “apprehension.” Rather, together with other tasks that employ pattern backward masking to limit the duration for which information is available for processing, IT is probably sensitive both to focused attentional capacities to detect organization and change under severe time constraints and to decision processes, ongoing beyond mask onset, that monitor responding. Among normal young adults, IT is correlated with the broad psychometric factor Gs (“speediness”). This mediates correlation with general intelligence. In this group, IT is not correlated with Gf. However, whether this outcome generalizes to samples of persons with an intellectual disability, to young children, or to elderly persons is not yet known. Psychological processes underpinning IT are currently only speculatively defined, but it should prove possible to unravel these by experimentation. To this end, backward masking procedures are arguably more theoretically tractable than reaction time tasks because they reduce the impact of higher-level cognitive strategies on performance. On this basis, IT may hold promise as a means for developing partial explanations for intelligence in psychological terms. However, whether this is realized depends on identifying the psychological functions that support IT.     

Measuring information demand of a dynamic in-vehicle display while driving – A study evaluating the MARS (Masking Action Relevant Stimuli) method

The MARS (Masking Action Relevant Stimuli) method assesses information demand for dynamic stimuli while driving. An action relevant stimulus is masked and the driver presses a button to unmask the stimulus for a limited period. We interpreted button presses as information demand. Following our previous research (Rittger, Kiesel, Schmidt, & Maag, 2014), the current study further evaluates the method. We applied the MARS method to a dynamic in-vehicle display containing recommendations from a traffic light assistant. In a driving simulator, drivers approached intersections with different traffic light phasing. The display either presented simple or complex information. In half of the drives, the participants used the MARS method. The study had a full within subjects design and fixations were recorded in all conditions. The results showed that the information demand varied according to the information in the display and the traffic light phase. A comparison of button presses with fixations showed that one unmasking interval came along with one fixation on the display. As a conclusion, the MARS method can distinguish between conditions with high and low information demand for the display. Button presses relate to fixations on the display. Hence, the MARS method is a promising tool to assess the information demand in dynamic environments and can be applied as an extension or alternative for eye tracking.     

The Wind Chilled the Spectators, but the Wine Just Chilled: Sense, Structure, and Sentence Comprehension

Anticipation plays a role in language comprehension. In this article, we explore the extent to which verb sense influences expectations about upcoming structure. We focus on change of state verbs like shatter , which have different senses that are expressed in either transitive or intransitive structures, depending on the sense that is used. In two experiments we influence the interpretation of verb sense by manipulating the thematic fit of the grammatical subject as cause or affected entity for the verb, and test whether readers' expectations for a transitive or intransitive structure change as a result. This sense-biasing context influenced reading times in the postverbal regions. Reading times for transitive sentences were faster following good-cause than good-theme subjects, but the opposite pattern was found for intransitive sentences. We conclude that readers use sense-contingent subcategorization preferences during on-line comprehension.     

Hidden presence: race and/in the history,construct, and study of western esotericism

ABSTRACT

Except for a few studies that explore the intersections between esoteric ideas/practices and white supremacy, race has largely been ignored in the field of Western esotericism. This article seeks to partake in remedying this lacuna. To do so, it provides a deconstructive analysis of the way race has operated in the field. I argue that race, although consistently overlooked, has functioned as a ‘hidden presence’ that has shaped both the historical formation of the field and the construct of Western esotericism – so much so, in fact, that we may conceive it as a subtext in and for the dominant ‘grand narrative’ of Western esotericism. In conclusion, I investigate recent attempts to omit ‘Western’ as a definitive adjective in the study of esotericism, thereby proposing that, even as we move ‘beyond the West,’ we must also continue to investigate the entanglements of ‘Western’ and whiteness.