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Using color in user interface design is both art and science. Often, designers focus on aesthetic properties of color, but neglect that it also carries meaning and entails profound psychological consequences. Color psychology, filling this gap, is in its infancy, and lacks a theoretical approach that predicts and explains color-meaning associations shared by a large group of people in a large variety of contexts.
To amend this situation, this work develops Conceptual Metaphor Theory of Color (CMToC), which predicts and explains cross-cultural and experience-based semantic color associations. The theory is based on the idea from cognitive linguistics that the study of metaphorical language provides valuable insights into our mental models involving color. A discussion of three types of metaphors that cover associations with physical and abstract concepts in light of existing empirical evidence provides the basis for deriving empirical research questions.
The first research question addresses the use of color for conveying physical information like weight in user interfaces. The results of four online surveys involving a total of 295 German and Japanese participants show the relative impact of hue, saturation and brightness for associations with 16 physical properties. Two thirds of these color associations were correctly predicted by CMToC. Participants frequently matched physical properties to colors based on sensorimotor correspondences and participants of both cultures did not considerably vary in their performance.
The second research question addresses the use of color for conveying abstract information like importance in user interfaces. In one experimental study, a total of 75 German and Japanese participants validated color-to-abstract mappings in form of color population stereotypes like important is dark. The majority of these color associations (86%) were correctly predicted by CMToC. Again, participants of both cultures did not considerably vary in their performance.
The third research question addresses whether predicted color associations with physical and abstract information are processed automatically as a precondition for intuitive use. The results of three studies involving a total of 85 German and Japanese participants show on the example of temperature that color automatically influences the identification speed of related physical properties, but not vice versa. Color and abstract information were not automatically associated.
As a result of these studies it can be concluded that predictions of CMToC are cross-culturally valid for user interface design. Derived implicit associations with physical properties and explicit associations with abstract concepts can inform design decisions in both hard- and software user interface design.
Presence is often considered the most important quale describing the subjective feeling of being in a computer-generated and/or computer-mediated virtual environment. The identification and separation of orthogonal presence components, i.e., the place illusion and the plausibility illusion, has been an accepted theoretical model describing Virtual Reality (VR) experiences for some time. This perspective article challenges this presence-oriented VR theory. First, we argue that a place illusion cannot be the major construct to describe the much wider scope of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR, AR, MR: or XR for short). Second, we argue that there is no plausibility illusion but merely plausibility, and we derive the place illusion caused by the congruent and plausible generation of spatial cues and similarly for all the current model’s so-defined illusions. Finally, we propose congruence and plausibility to become the central essential conditions in a novel theoretical model describing XR experiences and effects.
Costly signaling with mobile devices: An evolutionary psychological perspective on smartphones
(2016)
In the last decade, mobile device ownership has largely increased. In particular, smartphone ownership is constantly rising (A. Smith, 2015; Statista, 2016a), and there is a real hype for luxury brand smartphones (Griffin, 2015). These observations raise the question of which functions smartphones serve in addition to their original purposes of making and receiving calls, searching for information, and organizing. Beyond these obvious functions, studies suggest that smartphones express fashion, lifestyle, and one’s economic status (e.g., Bødker et al., 2009; Statista, 2016b; Vanden Abeele, Antheunis, & Schouten, 2014). Specifically, individuals seem to purchase and use conspicuous luxury brand smartphones to display and enhance status (D. Kim et al., 2014; Müller-Lietzkow et al., 2014; Suki, 2013). But how does owning a conspicuous, high-status smartphone contribute to status, and which benefits may these status boosts provide to their owners? From an evolutionary perspective, status carries a lot of advantages, particularly for males; high status grants them priority access to resources and correlates with their mating success (van Vugt & Tybur, 2016). In this sense, research suggests that men conspicuously display their cell phones to attract mates and to distinguish themselves from rivals (Lycett & Dunbar, 2000). In a similar vein, evolutionarily informed studies on conspicuous consumption indicate that the purchase and display of conspicuous luxuries (including mobile phones and smartphones) relate to a man’s interest in uncommitted sexual relationships and enhance his desirability as a short-term mate (Hennighausen & Schwab, 2014; Saad, 2013; Sundie et al., 2011). Drawing on these findings, this doctoral dissertation investigated how a man is perceived given that he is an owner of a high-status (vs. nonconspicuous, low-status) smartphone as a romantic partner and male rival. This was done in three experiments. In addition, it was examined how male conspicuous consumption of smartphones interacted with further traits that signal a man’s mate quality, namely facial attractiveness (Studies 1 and 2) and social dominance (Study 3). Study 1 revealed that men and women perceived a male owner of a conspicuous smartphone as a less desirable long-term mate and as more inclined toward short-term mating. Study 2 replicated these results and showed that men and women assigned traits that are associated with short-term mating (e.g., low loyalty, interest in flirts, availability of tangible resources) to a male owner of a conspicuous smartphone and perceived him as a stronger male rival and mate poacher, and less as a friend. The results of Study 2 further suggested that specifically more attractive men might benefit from owning a conspicuous smartphone in a short-term mating context and might be hence considered as stronger male rivals. Study 3 partially replicated the findings of Studies 1 and 2 pertaining to the effects of owning a conspicuous smartphone. Study 3 did not show different effects of conspicuous consumption of smartphones on perceptions of a man dependent on the level of his social dominance.
To conclude, the findings of this doctoral dissertation suggest that owning a conspicuous, high-status smartphone might not only serve proximate functions (e.g., making and receiving calls, organization) but also ultimate functions, which relate to mating and reproduction. The results indicate that owning a conspicuous smartphone might yield benefits for men in a short-term rather than in a long-term mating context. Furthermore, more attractive men appear to benefit more from owning a conspicuous smartphone than less attractive men. These findings provide further insights into the motivations that underlie men’s purchases and displays of conspicuous, high-status smartphones from luxury brands that reach beyond the proximate causes frequently described in media and consumer psychological research. By applying an evolutionary perspective, this doctoral dissertation demonstrates the power and utility of this research paradigm for media psychological research and shows how combining a proximate and ultimate perspective adds to a more profound understanding of smartphone phenomena.
The concept of digital literacy has been introduced as a new cultural technique, which is regarded as essential for successful participation in a (future) digitized world. Regarding the increasing importance of AI, literacy concepts need to be extended to account for AI-related specifics. The easy handling of the systems results in increased usage, contrasting limited conceptualizations (e.g., imagination of future importance) and competencies (e.g., knowledge about functional principles). In reference to voice-based conversational agents as a concrete application of AI, the present paper aims for the development of a measurement to assess the conceptualizations and competencies about conversational agents. In a first step, a theoretical framework of “AI literacy” is transferred to the context of conversational agent literacy. Second, the “conversational agent literacy scale” (short CALS) is developed, constituting the first attempt to measure interindividual differences in the “(il) literate” usage of conversational agents. 29 items were derived, of which 170 participants answered. An explanatory factor analysis identified five factors leading to five subscales to assess CAL: storage and transfer of the smart speaker’s data input; smart speaker’s functional principles; smart speaker’s intelligent functions, learning abilities; smart speaker’s reach and potential; smart speaker’s technological (surrounding) infrastructure. Preliminary insights into construct validity and reliability of CALS showed satisfying results. Third, using the newly developed instrument, a student sample’s CAL was assessed, revealing intermediated values. Remarkably, owning a smart speaker did not lead to higher CAL scores, confirming our basic assumption that usage of systems does not guarantee enlightened conceptualizations and competencies. In sum, the paper contributes to the first insights into the operationalization and understanding of CAL as a specific subdomain of AI-related competencies.
According to research examining self‐regulated learning (SRL), we regard individual regulation as a specific sequence of regulatory activities. Ideally, students perform various learning activities, such as analyzing, monitoring, and evaluating cognitive and motivational aspects during learning. Metacognitive prompts can foster SRL by inducing regulatory activities, which, in turn, improve the learning outcome. However, the specific effects of metacognitive support on the dynamic characteristics of SRL are not understood. Therefore, the aim of our study was to analyze the effects of metacognitive prompts on learning processes and outcomes during a computer‐based learning task. Participants of the experimental group (EG, n=35) were supported by metacognitive prompts, whereas participants of the control group (CG, n=35) received no support. Data regarding learning processes were obtained by concurrent think‐aloud protocols. The EG exhibited significantly more metacognitive learning events than did the CG. Furthermore, these regulatory activities correspond positively with learning outcomes. Process mining techniques were used to analyze sequential patterns. Our findings indicate differences in the process models of the EG and CG and demonstrate the added value of taking the order of learning activities into account by discovering regulatory patterns.
Disfluency as a Desirable Difficulty — The Effects of Letter Deletion on Monitoring and Performance
(2018)
Desirable difficulties initiate learning processes that foster performance. Such a desirable difficulty is generation, e.g., filling in deleted letters in a deleted letter text. Likewise, letter deletion is a manipulation of processing fluency: A deleted letter text is more difficult to process than an intact text. Disfluency theory also supposes that disfluency initiates analytic processes and thus, improves performance. However, performance is often not affected but, rather, monitoring is affected. The aim of this study is to propose a specification of the effects of disfluency as a desirable difficulty: We suppose that mentally filling in deleted letters activates analytic monitoring but not necessarily analytic cognitive processing and improved performance. Moreover, once activated, analytic monitoring should remain for succeeding fluent text. To test our assumptions, half of the students (n = 32) first learned with a disfluent (deleted letter) text and then with a fluent (intact) text. Results show no differences in monitoring between the disfluent and the fluent text. This supports our assumption that disfluency activates analytic monitoring that remains for succeeding fluent text. When the other half of the students (n = 33) first learned with a fluent and then with a disfluent text, differences in monitoring between the disfluent and the fluent text were found. Performance was significantly affected by fluency but in favor of the fluent texts, and hence, disfluency did not activate analytic cognitive processing. Thus, difficulties can foster analytic monitoring that remains for succeeding fluent text, but they do not necessarily improve performance. Further research is required to investigate how analytic monitoring can lead to improved cognitive processing and performance.
Virtual reality applications employing avatar embodiment typically use virtual mirrors to allow users to perceive their digital selves not only from a first-person but also from a holistic third-person perspective. However, due to distance-related biases such as the distance compression effect or a reduced relative rendering resolution, the self-observation distance (SOD) between the user and the virtual mirror might influence how users perceive their embodied avatar. Our article systematically investigates the effects of a short (1 m), middle (2.5 m), and far (4 m) SOD between users and mirror on the perception of their personalized and self-embodied avatars. The avatars were photorealistic reconstructed using state-of-the-art photogrammetric methods. Thirty participants repeatedly faced their real-time animated self-embodied avatars in each of the three SOD conditions, where they were repeatedly altered in their body weight, and participants rated the 1) sense of embodiment, 2) body weight perception, and 3) affective appraisal towards their avatar. We found that the different SODs are unlikely to influence any of our measures except for the perceived body weight estimation difficulty. Here, the participants perceived the difficulty significantly higher for the farthest SOD. We further found that the participants’ self-esteem significantly impacted their ability to modify their avatar’s body weight to their current body weight and that it positively correlated with the perceived attractiveness of the avatar. Additionally, the participants’ concerns about their body shape affected how eerie they perceived their avatars. The participants’ self-esteem and concerns about their body shape influenced the perceived body weight estimation difficulty. We conclude that the virtual mirror in embodiment scenarios can be freely placed and varied at a distance of one to four meters from the user without expecting major effects on the perception of the avatar.
Pictures in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream are better remembered when they are simultaneously presented with targets of an unrelated detection task than when they are presented with distractors. However, it is unclear whether this so-called “attentional boost effect” depends on the intentionality of encoding. While there are studies suggesting that the attentional boost effect even occurs when encoding is incidental, there are several methodological issues with these studies, which may have undermined the incidental encoding instructions. The present study (N = 141) investigated the role of the intentionality of encoding with an improved experimental design. Specifically, to prevent a spill-over of intentional resources to the pictures in the RSVP stream, the speed of the stream was increased (to four pictures per second) and each picture was presented only once during the course of the experiment. An attentional boost effect was only found when encoding was intentional but not when encoding was incidental. Interestingly, memory performance for incidentally encoded pictures was nevertheless substantially above chance, independently of whether images were presented with search-relevant targets or distractors. These results suggest that the attentional boost effect is a memory advantage that occurs only under intentional encoding conditions, and that perceptual long-term memory representations are formed as a natural product of perception, independently of the presence of behaviorally relevant events.
Hintergrundmusik wird in verschiedenen audiovisuellen Medienformaten häufig und meist mit einer ganz bestimmten Intention eingesetzt. Ziel dieser Dissertation war es, durch eine umfangreiche Aufarbeitung bisheriger Forschung Faktoren zu ermitteln und empirisch zu testen, die beeinflussen, dass Hintergrundmusik in audiovisuellen Medienformaten prognostizierbar die ihr zugesprochenen Funktionen erfüllt. Als interdisziplinärer Forschungsgegenstand bedarf Hintergrundmusik eines möglichst ausgewogenen Blickwinkels, der Musik- und Medienkontext-Spezifika (und deren potentielle Interaktionen) gleichermaßen berücksichtigt. Um Hintergrundmusik als komplexem audiovisuellen Stimulus in empirischer Forschung gerecht zu werden, spielen zudem auch praktische Implikationen eine große Rolle. Diese Herausforderungen berücksichtigend wurde die Wirksamkeit von Hintergrundmusik in fünf Studien im Kontext von drei verschiedenen Medienformaten untersucht. Da Werbung, Film und informationsvermittelnde Medienformate (wie Dokumentationen und TV-Magazine) die drei Kernfunktionen von Medien – Persuasion, Unterhaltung und Information – repräsentieren, sollte auf Grundlage dieses Dreiklangs die Bandbreite potenzieller Wirkungen von effektiv eingesetzter Musik und von Faktoren, die ihre Wirkung beeinflussen, möglichst umfassend (wenn auch sicher nicht vollständig) abgebildet werden. Über alle Medienformate hinweg kann als wichtiger, die Wirksamkeit von Hintergrundmusik verstärkender Einflussfaktor eine Kongruenz, d.h. eine intuitiv wahrgenommene Passung von Musik und Medienkontext ausgemacht werden, die durch eine sorgfältige Abstimmung der Spezifika von Musik und Medienformat auf emotionaler, auf assoziativer und auf struktureller Ebene erreicht werden kann. Findet diese Anwendung, kann Musik systematisch die Wirksamkeit von Werbespots steigern (Studie 1 und 2), gezielt Bedeutung vermitteln und dadurch die Wahrnehmung und Interpretation von (deutungsoffenen) Filmszenen prägen (Studie 3 und 4) oder unter bestimmten Bedingungen das persuasive Potenzial eines informationsvermittelnden Medienformats steigern und so die Meinungsbildung der Rezipierenden (zumindest kurzfristig) beeinflussen (Studie 5). Die Arbeit verdeutlicht, wie mittels interdisziplinärer Perspektivierung und der Beachtung praktischer Implikationen bereits etabliertes Wissen verstetigt und neue Erkenntnisse zur Verwendung und Wirkung von Hintergrundmusik für Wissenschaft und Medienpraxis abgeleitet werden können – inklusive eines Ausblicks auf daraus resultierende Potenziale für zukünftige Forschung.
Errors in Prospective Memory
(2019)
Prospective memory is the ability to implement intentions at a later point in time in response to a specified cue. Such prospective memory tasks often occur in daily living and workplace situations. However, in contrast to retrospective memory there has been relatively little research on prospective memory. The studies by Harris (1984) and Einstein and MacDaniel (1990) served as a starting point for a now steadily growing area of research. Based on this emerging field of study this dissertation presents and connects and five journal articles, which further explore prospective memory by focusing on its potential errors.
The first article addresses the question if additional cognitive resources are needed after a prospective memory cue occurs to keep the intention active until it is implemented. The theory by Einstein, McDaniel, Williford, Pagan and Dismukes (2003), which suggested this active maintenance, could not be replicated. The second article demonstrated that interruptions between cue and the window of opportunity to implement the intention reduce prospective memory performance, especially if the interruption is tied with a change of context. Article three to five were focused on the erroneous implementation of a no longer active prospective memory task, so called commission errors. The suggested mechanism for their occurrence, the dual-mechanism account (Bugg, Scullin, & Rauvola, 2016), was not suited to explain the present results. A modification for the dual-mechanism account was formulated, which can account for prior work, as well as for the present data.
The results of all five articles also indicate that the moment of cue retrieval is even more relevant for prospective memory and its errors than previously accounted for.