Framework for Reaction to Place

Battling Loneliness (07-02-20)

Abeyta, Routledge, and Kaslon’s work indicates how design may be used to counter loneliness, to some extent.  The team found that “Loneliness is difficult to overcome, in part because it is associated with negative social cognitions and social motivations. We argue that nostalgia, a positive emotional experience that involves reflecting on cherished memories, is a psychological resource that regulates these maladaptive intrapsychic tendencies associated with loneliness. . . .

Thinking About Disease and Making Decisions (06-29-20)

Huang and Sengupta studied how thinking about disease influences decisions made.  They investigated “how exposure to disease-related cues influences consumers’ preference for typical (vs. atypical) product options. . . . we predict that disease salience decreases relative preference for typical versus atypical options, because typical products are implicitly associated with many people, misaligning them with the people-avoidance motive triggered by disease cues. . . .

Understanding Choices Made (06-22-20)

Jung, Moon, and Nelson studied how people think about the experiences of other people.  They determined that “people overestimate the valuations and preferences of others. This overestimation arises because, when making predictions about others, people rely on their intuitive core representation of the experience (e.g., is the experience generally positive?) in lieu of a more complex representation that might also include countervailing aspects (e.g., is any of the experience negative?). . . . the overestimation bias is pervasive for a wide range of positive . . . and negative experiences.

Virtual Reality and Options Selected (06-19-20)

Meissner and colleagues studied decision-making in virtual reality environments; their findings can be applied by anyone conducting research in virtual places or developing virtual retail spaces, for example. The research team reports that “With high-immersive virtual reality (VR) systems approaching mass markets, companies are seeking to better understand how consumers behave when shopping in VR.

Viewing Animal Portraits (06-18-20)

Whitley, Kalof, and Flach determined that looking at close-up portraits of animals, as opposed to images that show the same sorts of animals in the contexts of their natural environments, has special effects on our responses to those animals.  The investigators studied, via an online survey, “how individuals respond to traditional wildlife photography and animal portraiture. Those who were exposed to animal portraits reported increased empathy and decreased positive and relaxed emotions.

Repercussions of Unpleasant Odors (06-17-20)

Li, Jia, and Wang wanted to better understand how smelling odors we feel are unpleasant influences what goes on in our minds. They report that their “study combined event-related potentials (ERPs) with a facial emotion recognition task to investigate the effect of food odor context on the recognition of facial expressions. . . . unpleasant food odors triggered faster recognition of facial expressions, especially fearful ones.”

Seeing Color, Quantified (06-16-20)

Robertson, Cohen and Botch evaluated the size of our color field-of-vision and their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The researchers report that they “used head-mounted virtual reality displays installed with eye-trackers to immerse participants in a 360-degree real-world environment. The virtual environments included tours of historic sites, a street dance performance, a symphony rehearsal and more, where observers could explore their surroundings simply by turning their heads. . .

Visual Objectivity (06-15-20)

Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that we do not see the world completely objectively.  A group lead by Firestone and Morales reports “that it's almost impossible for people to separate an object's true identity from their own perspective on it. In this case, people looked at round objects that were tilted away from them; even when people were certain that the objects were round, they couldn't help but ‘see’ them in a distorted way, as ovals or ellipses. . . . subjects were shown pairs of three-dimensional coins.

Effort and Distance (06-10-20)

Molto and team’s work indicates that multiple factors influence how far away something seems to be.  The researchers report that “Previous studies have suggested that action constraints influence visual perception of distance.  For example, the greater the effort to cover a distance, the longer people perceive this distance to be.  The present . . . meta-analysis . . . supported the existence of a small action-constraint effect on distance estimation. . . . This effect varied slightly according to the action-constraint category (effort, weight, tool use). . .

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