Olfactory consciousness across disciplines

Our sense of smell pervasively influences our most common behaviors and daily experience, yet little is known about olfactory consciousness. Over the past decade and a half research in both the fields of Consciousness Studies and Olfaction has blossomed, however, olfactory consciousness has received little to no attention. The olfactory systems unique anatomy, functional organization, sensory processes, and perceptual experiences offers a fecund area for exploring all aspects of consciousness, as well as a external perspective for re-examining the assumptions of contemporary theories of consciousness. It has even been suggested that the olfactory system may represent the minimal neuroanatomy that is required for conscious processing. Given the variegated nature of research on consciousness, we include original papers concerning the nature of olfactory consciousness. The scope of the special edition widely incorporates olfaction as it relates to Consciousness, Awareness, Attention, Phenomenal- or Access-Consciousness, and Qualia. Research concerning olfaction and cross-modal integration as it relates to conscious experience is also address. As the initial foray into this uncharted area of research, we include contributions from across all disciplines contributing to cognitive neuroscience, including neurobiology, neurology, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer sciences. It is our hope that this Research Topic will serve as the impetus for future interdisciplinary research on olfaction and consciousness

Human Olfaction at the Intersection of Language, Culture, and Biology

The human sense of smell can accomplish astonishing feats, yet there remains a prevailing belief that olfactory language is deficient. Numerous studies with English speakers support this view: there are few terms for odors, odor talk is infrequent, and naming odors is difficult. However, this is not true across the world. Many languages have sizeable smell lexicons — smell is even grammaticalized. In addition, for some cultures smell talk is more frequent and odor naming easier. This linguistic variation is as yet unexplained but could be the result of ecological, cultural, or genetic factors or a combination thereof. Different ways of talking about smells may shape aspects of olfactory cognition too. Critically, this variation sheds new light on this important sensory modality

FrameNet annotation for multimodal corpora: devising a methodology for the semantic representation of text-image interactions in audiovisual productions

Multimodal analyses have been growing in importance within several approaches to Cognitive Linguistics and applied fields such as Natural Language Understanding. Nonetheless fine-grained semantic representations of multimodal objects are still lacking, especially in terms of integrating areas such as Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision, which are key for the implementation of multimodality in Computational Linguistics. In this dissertation, we propose a methodology for extending FrameNet annotation to the multimodal domain, since FrameNet can provide fine-grained semantic representations, particularly with a database enriched by Qualia and other interframal and intraframal relations, as it is the case of FrameNet Brasil. To make FrameNet Brasil able to conduct multimodal analysis, we outlined the hypothesis that similarly to the way in which words in a sentence evoke frames and organize their elements in the syntactic locality accompanying them, visual elements in video shots may, also, evoke frames and organize their elements on the screen or work complementarily with the frame evocation patterns of the sentences narrated simultaneously to their appearance on screen, providing different profiling and perspective options for meaning construction. The corpus annotated for testing the hypothesis is composed of episodes of a Brazilian TV Travel Series critically acclaimed as an exemplar of good practices in audiovisual composition. The TV genre chosen also configures a novel experimental setting for research on integrated image and text comprehension, since, in this corpus, text is not a direct description of the image sequence but correlates with it indirectly in a myriad of ways. The dissertation also reports on an eye-tracker experiment conducted to validate the approach proposed to a text-oriented annotation. The experiment demonstrated that it is not possible to determine that text impacts gaze directly and was taken as a reinforcement to the approach of valorizing modes combination. Last, we present the Frame2 dataset, the product of the annotation task carried out for the corpus following both the methodology and guidelines proposed. The results achieved demonstrate that, at least for this TV genre but possibly also for others, a fine-grained semantic annotation tackling the diverse correlations that take place in a multimodal setting provides new perspective in multimodal comprehension modeling. Moreover, multimodal annotation also enriches the development of FrameNets, to the extent that correlations found between modalities can attest the modeling choices made by those building frame-based resources.Análises multimodais vêm crescendo em importância em várias abordagens da Linguística Cognitiva e em diversas áreas de aplicação, como o da Compreensão de Linguagem Natural. No entanto, há significativa carência de representações semânticas refinadas de objetos multimodais, especialmente em termos de integração de áreas como Processamento de Linguagem Natural e Visão Computacional, que são fundamentais para a implementação de multimodalidade no campo da Linguística Computacional. Nesta tese, propomos uma metodologia para estender o método de anotação da FrameNet ao domínio multimodal, uma vez que a FrameNet pode fornecer representações semânticas refinadas, particularmente com um banco de dados enriquecido por Qualia e outras relações interframe e intraframe, como é o caso do FrameNet Brasil. Para tornar a FrameNet Brasil capaz de realizar análises multimodais, delineamos a hipótese de que, assim como as palavras em uma frase evocam frames e organizam seus elementos na localidade sintática que os acompanha, os elementos visuais nos planos de vídeo também podem evocar frames e organizar seus elementos na tela ou trabalhar de forma complementar aos padrões de evocação de frames das sentenças narradas simultaneamente ao seu aparecimento na tela, proporcionando diferentes perfis e opções de perspectiva para a construção de sentido. O corpus anotado para testar a hipótese é composto por episódios de um programa televisivo de viagens brasileiro aclamado pela crítica como um exemplo de boas práticas em composição audiovisual. O gênero televisivo escolhido também configura um novo conjunto experimental para a pesquisa em imagem integrada e compreensão textual, uma vez que, neste corpus, o texto não é uma descrição direta da sequência de imagens, mas se correlaciona com ela indiretamente em uma miríade de formas diversa. A Tese também relata um experimento de rastreamento ocular realizado para validar a abordagem proposta para uma anotação orientada por texto. O experimento demonstrou que não é possível determinar que o texto impacta diretamente o direcionamento do olhar e foi tomado como um reforço para a abordagem de valorização da combinação de modos. Por fim, apresentamos o conjunto de dados Frame2, produto da tarefa de anotação realizada para o corpus seguindo a metodologia e as diretrizes propostas. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que, pelo menos para esse gênero de TV, mas possivelmente também para outros, uma anotação semântica refinada que aborde as diversas correlações que ocorrem em um ambiente multimodal oferece uma nova perspectiva na modelagem da compreensão multimodal. Além disso, a anotação multimodal também enriquece o desenvolvimento de FrameNets, na medida em que as correlações encontradas entre as modalidades podem atestar as escolhas de modelagem feitas por aqueles que criam recursos baseados em frames.CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superio

Changing Choices

Changing choices psychological relativity theory unifying theory transformation parameters psychology psygologie koornstra choice dynamics The book contains a unifying theory on how the common object space is metrically transformed by individuals with different transformation parameters, due to their other previous experiences, to individually different psychological spaces for judgment on the one hand and preference on the other hand. Individual experiences also change generally, whereby the psychological spaces also change generally for each individual. The theory, therefore, is a psychological relativity theory of perception, judgment, preference, and choice dynamics. This book is a must read for all behavioural, economic, and social scientists with theoretical interest and some understanding of multidimensional data analyses. It integrates more than twenty theories on perception, judgment, preference, and risk decisions into one mathematical theory. Knowledge of advanced mathematics and modern geometry is not needed, because the mathematical subsections can be skipped without loss of understanding, due to their explanation and illustration by figures in the text

Non-conscious Effects of Marketing Communication and Implicit Attitude Change: State of Research and New Perspectives

International audienceThe article shows that many psychological effects of the marketing communication, sometimes called "non-conscious effects", really produce implicit attitude changes. We show that the theoretical and methodological framework of implicit attitude is well adapted to study these effects and to open new perspectives to study the persuasion in a marketing communication context. On the basis of research conducted within advertising contexts, product placement and TV sponsorship, four types of non-conscious influences are examined: a) non-conscious perception of brands, b) low-attention and forgotten exposures, c) attitude conditioning, d) brand insertion into emotional contexts. While discussing the contributions and limitations of major research methodologies, we highlight new perspectives likely to further the progress of research. We open up new perspectives first to increase the ecological and theoretical validity of methodologies; secondly, to improve the validity of effects measure. At a practical level, we posit that the measures of effects currently used by advertising agencies and advertisers underestimate the effects of marketing communication campaigns. A third research perspective endeavors to better understand the links between implicit and explicit attitudes on the one hand, and behavior on the other hand. The article gives some basis to the field called by some people "neuromarketing".L'article dresse d'abord une synthèse de la littérature concernant les effets non conscients de la communication-marketing (publicité à la télévision ou sur Internet, placement de produit, parrainage télévisuel...). Il explique les processus psychologiques qui sous-tendent les effets en montrant que le contexte théorique et méthodologique de la cognition implicite (attitude et mémoire implicites) est adapté pour mieux comprendre de tels effets. Quatre types d'influence non conscientes sont examinés : la perception non consciente des marques, les expositions en faible attention et aussitôt oubliées, le conditionnement des attitudes, l'insertion des marques dans des contextes émotionnels. Après avoir discuté des principales contributions et limites des méthodologies de recherche dans ce champ, nous ouvrons de nouvelles perspectives de recherche afin d'accroître les validités théoriques et écologiques des méthodologies utilisées. À un niveau pratique,il semblerait que les mesures d'efficacité actuellement utilisées par les agences de publicité et les annonceurs sous-estiment les effets réels des campagnes de communication marketing en partie non conscients. L'article intéresse également les spécialistes du "neuromarketing" (même si ce terme et sa finalité sont critiquables...)