Third Parties and Police Use of Lethal Force: Evidence from the Mapping Police Violence Database
subject: Lethal force, Third Parties, Police Citizen Interactions, Use of Force
description: Over recent years media coverage has highlighted the use of excessive force by some police officers. The use of lethal force towards black and other ethnic minority citizens has been identified as a cause for significant concern. Research in the bystander literature and in non-fatal force policing contexts has identified that third parties can have positive impacts in reducing the severity of these incidences. The role of third parties in fatal force events, however, has not been investigated. This is something which the current study seeks to address. The Mapping Police Violence database was used to identify a year’s worth of lethal force events in the US. Newspaper articles relating to these incidents have been coded in line with a predefined coding framework to examine the presence of third parties in these incidents, and the nature of any social relationships with third parties in relation to the type of lethal force utilised. The results revealed that third parties were present in just under half of incidences and that the presence of a third-party with a pre-existing social relationship to the citizen was associated with a lower likelihood of officers utilising forms of ‘less lethal’ force to the extent that it results in a citizen fatality. These findings highlight the potential importance of third parties in understanding the nature of lethal police citizen interactions, and also the potential protective role the presence of known others may have in reducing the likelihood of officers excessively utilising forms of less lethal force.
creator: Sian Reid
source: A secondary data analysis was utilised to examine the presence of third parties in incidences of police use of lethal force. The Mapping Police Violence database (Mapping Police Violence, 2020) was the primary dataset utilised for the study. This is a freely available and open public database compiled by researchers in the US which aims to provide a record of all police involved deaths in the US. This database has been recording police involved deaths in the US since 2013, primarily gathering information through news articles published by various American news outlets. The type of force engaged in by officers that resulted in death was utilised as the outcome variable. The predictor variables were the presence of third parties, the presence of any known third parties, or unknown third parties, the number of officers present, the presence of other emergency services, the location of the incident, the race of the citizen, the gender of the citizen, the alleged presence of a weapon, the initial reason for the encounter, the presence of any digital technology capturing the event and the level of threat posed to the officer. The Mapping Police Violence database records multiple variables in relation to these incidences, including individual and situational factors. Several of the predictor variables included in the current study have been gathered from this dataset; specifically, the type of lethal force used, the alleged presence of a weapon, the race of the citizen, the gender of the citizen, the level of threat posed to the officer, the initial encounter reason and the presence of a body worn camera. Within the current study, most of these variables have been used as recorded in the dataset, however, the level of threat posed to the officer has been recategorized. The multiple different levels of threat recorded in the dataset have been regrouped into three categories: attack (indicating the greatest level of threat to the officer), other (referring to any other level…
date: 6th September 2023
contributor: Charlotte Thompson
rights: Open
relation: N/A
format: Excel.csv r_file. R
language: English
type: Data
identifier: Reid, 2023

Grasping Ability in Virtual Reality: Effects of Eating Disorders on Perceptions of Action Capabilities
subject: Action Capability, Eating Disorder, Interoceptive Awareness
description: Knowledge of one’s body size is vital to be able to accurately judge an object’s size. For example, knowing the length of your arm is crucial to estimating the maximum distance reachable. Accurate perception of action capabilities is the result of a healthy mental body representation at a conscious and implicit level. This ability to use one’s mental body representation in action perception is assumed to be distorted in individuals with eating disorders (ED). However, unlike prior research, this study will be investigating both the effect of body image and schema distortion on action capabilities. Thus, this study will assess whether the ability to update one’s perception of their action capabilities in response to morphological changes is altered in individuals with EDs. The experiment had participants (N = 20) embody small (50% of hand size), normal, and large (150% of hand size) avatar hands (in virtual reality) and then estimate the maximum size of a box graspable. The size of the box, beginning as either large or small across all three conditions, was manipulated to observe haptic perception in participants. We found that individuals with ED showed similar estimates despite embodying different hand sizes alluding to their inability to successfully update their haptic perceptions. Low interoceptive awareness and body image disturbances were the root cause of this perceptional flaw in eating-disordered individuals. Treatment focused on improving the altered IA and implicit distortions in body schema could improve haptic perception in ED individuals.
creator: Siri Sudhakar
source: A priori power analysis was conducted through the G*Power software (Faul et al., 2007) to determine the sample size required to achieve adequate power (N = 30). The required power (1- β) was set at .80 and the significance level (α) was set to .05. Based on Readman et al. (2021), who used the same methodology as this study, we anticipated a large effect size of 0.9. This was deduced as this study obtained a ηp2 of .49 with a sample of N =30. For the frequentist parameters defined, a sample size of N = 3 is required to achieve a power of .80 at an alpha of .05. EDs are also notoriously variable. Given that previous studies using similar methodologies have typically recruited between 20-30 participants (Readman et al., 2020; Lin et al., 2020), we elected to recruit 30 participants (15 per condition). However, this study was only able to recruit 23 participants in total. 22 participants from Lancaster and Lancaster University (seven males, 15 females) aged between 18-30 (Mage = 21.73, SDage = 1.98) participated in this study. Two participants were removed due to being extreme outliers resulting in the present dataset (N = 20; Mage = 21.65, SDage = 2.06). Amongst participants of this study, seven participants disclosed a diagnosis of ED. In accordance with the revised Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (R-EHI) classification system (Milenkovic & Dragovic, 2013), the majority of the participants (N = 19) were right-handed, with only one participant being left-handed. Borderline to high levels of anxiety, as measured through the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS; Stern, 2014), was observed in 16 participants, while seven participants showed similar levels of depression. Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI): Participants with ED were also asked to complete the EDI. It is a self-report questionnaire that can assess the presence and level (depending on the estimate) of AN, BN, and Binge Eating Disorder (BED) (Augestad and Flanders, 2002). It consists of 64 items, with eight…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 07/09/2022
contributor: Alexia Hockett Romina Ghaleh Joujahri
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Data/excel.csv
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

An investigation into the effect of climatic, ambient temperature on societal-level income inequality
description: Previous research has revealed contradictory findings concerning the relationship between temperature and behaviour. Some studies have found a warmer-is-better effect; warmer temperatures are associated with enhanced interpersonal interactions, including pro-social behaviours. Whereas other studies have found a warmer-is-worse effect; warmer temperatures are associated with negative social behaviours such as conflict, societal instability, crime and aggressive behaviours. The present study investigated the relationship between climatic, ambient temperature and societal income inequality. Climatic temperatures and Gini ratios (a measure of income inequality) were sourced from online databases for 29 countries across a range of time periods that fell between 1961 and 2015. A panel linear model analysis revealed that climatic temperature had no direct effect, nor lagged effect on income inequality. Therefore, the findings are not congruent with the warmer-is-better literature or the warmer-is-worse literature. Despite the null effect, the present study provides a further data point towards the debate concerning the effect of temperature on behaviour.
creator: Sophie Lund
source: Firstly, the study required Gini ratios of disposable, equivilsed income. The Gini ratio is a measure of income inequality whereby a ratio of 1 reflects perfect inequality (i.e. one household receives all of the income) and a ratio of 0 is indicative of perfect equality (i.e. income is equally shared across households). The ratio was calculated from disposable income, which is income after the deduction of taxes and social security charges. Additionally the ratio was equivilised which means that the ratio was adjusted to account for different sizes and compositions of households. Secondly, the study required mean climatic temperatures in degrees celsius. Procedure Gini ratios for 29 countries belonging to the organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) were sourced from several online databases that had calculated the ratios. The countries and years used in the present analysis were somewhat dictated by the availability of Gini ratios online and as a result the OECD countries Australia, Chile, Israel, Japan, Korea and Mexico could not be included in the present analysis and the year ranges included fell between 1961-2015. See table 1 for the sources of Gini ratios, and the countries and years for which Gini ratios were available. It is important to note that the surveys from which the Gini ratios were calculated were slightly different, for example, some had different definitions of a ‘household’. Additionally, not all of the sources provided the exact Gini ratio calculation used. Table 1: Online sources from which Gini ratios were obtained from several countries across several, differing, time periods Country Time period Source of Gini ratios Austria (AUT) 1995-2001, 2003-2015 Eurostat, European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (2017). Belgium (BEL) 1995-2001, 2003-2015 See Austria. Canada (CAN) 1976-2015 Statistics Canada (2017). Czechoslovakia (CZE) 2001, 2005-2015 See Austria. Denmark (DEN) 1987-2015 Statistics Denmark (2017). E…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2017
contributor: John Towse
rights: Open
format: data/excel.xlsx
language: English
type: The Gini ratio
coverage: LA1 4YF

The effects of code switching in the level of persuasiveness of advertising and marketing messages on bilingual consumers.
subject: Bilingualism Code-switching Language Manipulation Advertising Communication Language Comprehension/Cognition
description: Bilingualism and advertising are two concepts which are not commonly related, but based on recent statistics they definitely should be. Recent numbers show that more than 50% of the world’s population is bilingual (Grosjean, 2010). However, there has been minimal research concerning bilingual consumers and how bilinguals may differently encounter advertising messages, based on their ability to speak two languages. The research that has been done, is primarily based on code switching; the practice of switching between languages during speech. It is a very common practice between bilinguals, which they use to better communicate and better express themselves during a conversation in a specific social context. This study will attempt to analyse the effects of language manipulation upon bilingual individuals, by implementing the concept of advertising and more specifically bilingual advertising. participants will firstly encounter a manipulation of attitude towards language, before encountering a set of advertising slogans of certain products, in a code-switched format. They will then have to rate the products, based on the persuasiveness of the advertising slogans.
creator: Stephanos Mosfiliotis
source: Firstly, a manipulation of attitude towards the language took place. Participants were presented with a random mock article, either in Greek or English. Participants were then presented with four audio recordings of advertising messages/slogans of four different products. Slogans were either all in Greek or English and they were presented in the same code-switching direction; from primary to Secondary or from Secondary to primary. A single word was chosen from each slogan and was code-switched to the opposite language appropriately. Participants were then asked to evaluate the featured products based on the advertising message they heard. Evaluations were obtained through a series of six questions, asking the participant to rate the featured product on a Likert type scale, varying from one to six. These included: “poor/high quality”, “level of appeal”, “odds of recommending the product to others”, “odds of buying the product”, “mediocre/exceptional” and “bad/good”.
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 14/08/2022
contributor: Katie Alcock
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Data/.CSV
language: English and Greek
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

The Effects of Schema-typical and Atypical Contexts on Memory for Brand Names of Products
subject: Distinctiveness effects Schema Memory Product recall Product recognition Brand recall Brand recognition Product-brand binding
description: The memory for an advertisement can be affected by the way it is constructed. In general, the more distinctiveness, the better memory performance. Traditionally, it has been assumed that the whole memory episode will be better remembered if it is featured by any odd element(s) because it is more attention-demanding and creates stronger memory traces. However, recent evidence suggests that the distinctiveness effect might not spread to everything; it might only affect those distinctive elements without necessarily affecting their linkages with other elements. Accordingly, regarding the advertisements, the memory for each element can be diverse. We manipulated the distinctiveness effect by composing products with schema-typical contexts (undistinctive condition) and schema-atypical contexts (distinctive condition). Participants observed 20 advertisements; 10 were schema-typical and another 10 were schema-atypical. They then completed recall and recognition tests which allowed us to explore how far the distinctiveness effect could extend. We found that only product recall and recognition in the schema-atypical condition were robustly enhanced, other variables were not significantly affected. These findings went against the traditional view and conform with the recent research. We discussed that, in the schema-atypical condition, the products and their contexts made each other distinctive, hence, they were better remembered. In contrast, the brand names and product-brand bindings were schema-neutral, thus, they did not receive more attention and not better remembered. The results were further interpreted to form some practical implications that improve advertising effectiveness.
creator: Thanita Soonthoonwipat
source: The stimuli were 40 newly constructed print advertisements (in digital format). Print advertisements were employed because they allow the better experimental control (Keller, 1987). A half of these advertisements belonged to toiletries category (i.e. shampoo. sunscreen, and toothpaste), whereas another half belonged to foods category (i.e. pizza, sandwiches, and fried chicken). For each category, there were 10 types of products. For each product, there were two versions of its advertisement; schema-typical and schema-atypical (but only one of which was viewed by each participant). The schema-typical advertisements referred to the ones in which the product was bound with an expected context (i.e. a toothpaste appearing a bathroom scene), while the schema-atypical advertisements referred to the ones in which the product was bound with an unexpected context (i.e. a toothpaste appearing in a bedroom scene). In terms of the stimuli construction, there were three key elements for all advertisements, the first of which was the product, the second was the background or the scene illustration which was considered as the context of that advertisement, and the last element was the brand name. The first two elements were to form advertising pictures, and all together with the third one were to form complete advertisements. The researchers purchased stock images from Shutterstock website (https://www.shutterstock.com). The images purchased (product shots, backgrounds, and decorative elements) were then retouched and composted into the print advertising pictures using Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Photoshop CC 2015). All the advertising pictures were controlled not to include any text so that the only copy presented in each advertisement was its brand name. In respect of brand names, we invented new brand names for all 20 products. Each brand name was controlled to be easily pronounceable. They were names of between one to three syllables i.e. Hans, Raven, and Moana. The brand names, te…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2017
contributor: John Towse
rights: Open
format: data/SPSS.sav
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

The Shock Impact: An investigation of attitudes towards the use of shock tactics in charity advertisements.
subject: Shock Advertising Gender Charity
description: While the use of shock has been praised for increasing attention, it has also been shown to cause distress and negatively affect the perception of the organization or brand. The use of shock advertising is increasingly popular in the non-profit sector, with organizations using shocking visual imagery to encourage viewers to take action against a cause or increase donations. This study aimed to deepen our understanding of attitudes held towards the effectiveness of this, and uncover attributes that contribute to this. Based on previous research into the effects of gender on advertisement preferences, we also analysed the opinions of male and female participants to unearth preferences for shocking or non-shocking advertisements. Three focus groups were conducted to collect attitudes towards charity advertisements. Participants were presented with six advertisements, split into three categories of health, animal, and child-based charities, each with one shocking and one non-shocking campaign. To compare genders, one focus group contained only males, one only female, and one mixed. It was found that the effectiveness of shock was perceived as higher for health related causes, lower for children’s charities, and mixed for animal causes. There was a difference between males and females in attitudes towards the use of shock in animal based charities, with females engaging more with the non-shocking advertisement, and males with the shocking. Results from this research improve our knowledge of when and why shock should be used in charity advertisements, how it can be used to target certain audiences.
creator: Victoria Meadows
source: Participants Sixteen participants were used in this study, consisting of students attending Lancaster University, with an age range from 20 to 28 years old. The sample had a majority of native speakers (13), with two Romanian and one Panamanian native speaker (English as second language). Participants were collected through opportunity sampling and took part in the study voluntarily. This study received departmental approval before data collection commenced. Design The study consisted of three focus groups: one containing only females (FGF), and one of only males (FGM) to examine any differences in attitudes between genders, and one of mixed gender (FG1) in order to assess possible conflicting attitudes within the group. Five students participated in the mixed focus group (three males, two females), five students in the female focus group, and six in the male focus group. Focus groups were conducted in a private room and lasted 40-50 minutes. Materials The stimuli presented to participants were of existing advertising campaigns released by non-profit organizations in the United Kingdom and United Sates of America. Three ‘non-shocking’ advertisements and three ‘shocking’ advertisements were chosen, with one centered around health, animal cruelty, and child abuse in both categories (Appendix A). ‘Shocking’ advertising has been defined by Dahl and colleagues (2003) as something that violates the social norm, including content that is seen as disgusting, obscene, vulgar, morally offensive, or containing sexual references. Using this definition as a guide, the ‘non-shocking’ advertisements were chosen dependent on the lack of these traits and did not include, for example, references to blood or death, obscene gestures, or violence. Adverts released by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), the National Health Service (NHS), and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home were chosen. Again, using this definition, we selected ‘shocking’ advertisements fo…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2018
contributor: Ellie Ball
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Text/nvivo
language: English
type: Text
coverage: LA1 4YF

Prospect theory and intermediate audience: the effects of context on behavioural intention
subject: Prospect theory, gain/loss framing, intermediate audience, communication research, health communication, vaccination
description: Prospect theory predicts how people react to gain or loss-framed outcomes in dilemma situations, where the potential consequence of the choice is framed as a gain (e.g., lives saved) or as a loss (lives lost). This gain-loss framing communication strategy, derived from the theory, has been applied in many contexts, from promoting the use of reusable coffee mugs to vaccination compliance, with loss-framed appeals being found generally to be more persuasive than gain-framed appeals in the context of promoting vaccination. The current study focused on exploring whether these well-established effects persist when an intermediate audience is exposed to gain/loss-framed messaging, using influenza (flu) vaccination intentionality as an outcome. Intermediate audiences refer to those who are evaluating the gains and losses from the message on behalf of someone else (the ultimate audience), while normal audiences are those making decisions on their own behalf. Two hundred participants were recruited for an online, between-subject study, in which participants were split into two audience conditions and within which they were further split to view a gain-framed or a loss-framed message. Their subsequent behavioural intentions were measured as the outcome, with age as a potential moderating factor (and emotional attachment as a potential mediator exclusively for the intermediate audience condition). Results indicate that neither age nor emotional attachment are significant moderators or mediators. Loss-framed appeal enjoyed a persuasive advantage over the gain-framed appeal only in the intermediate audience condition. Possible interpretations of results, along with potential further directions of research, are discussed.
creator: Wai Man Ko
source: To test the outlined hypotheses, our current study took the form of an online Qualtrics questionnaire (see appendix B for questions) where the questionnaire would introduce participants to one of the audience conditions and view the appropriate version of the manipulated message before moving on to answering some items measuring their behavioural intention and emotional attachment. The study has a 2 (intermediate/normal audience condition) X 2 (gain/loss-framed appeal) design with emotional attachment as a potential mediating variable for the intermediate audience condition and behavioural intention as the outcome variable for all audience conditions. Participants We recruited 200 healthy adults based in the UK on Prolific, an online research participant recruitment platform. Participants have provided consent and completed the study remotely with their personal devices. Their unique Prolific ID was used in this study as the only identifier, which cannot be traced back to them personally. Participants were compensated monetarily for their participation. We randomly assigned our participants to one of the four audience conditions with 50 participants each: the normal gain-framed condition, the normal loss-framed condition, the intermediate gain-framed condition, and the intermediate loss-framed condition. Questionnaire design Consent The participant gave consent to participate in the study with the Qualtrics consent element so that participants can check a box for each item. There were seven items that the participants had to check one by one before commencing the study. Responses which failed to provide a full response in the consent item would be removed from the study. Demographics For demographics, we have recorded the participants' age and gender for the records. As mentioned, age was also analysed as a moderator as part of our analysis. We have also recorded their Prolific IDs to ensure completion and arrange payment. Settings of the study After giving demograp…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 01/09/2023
contributor: Eleanor Little, Alicia Turner, Laurie Dixon
rights: Open
relation: None
format: Data/Excel.csv Analysis/r_file.R Text/Word.doc
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Prospect theory and intermediate audience: the effects of context on behavioural intention
subject: Prospect theory, gain/loss framing, intermediate audience, communication research, health communication, vaccination
description: Prospect theory predicts how people react to gain or loss-framed outcomes in dilemma situations, where the potential consequence of the choice is framed as a gain (e.g., lives saved) or as a loss (lives lost). This gain-loss framing communication strategy, derived from the theory, has been applied in many contexts, from promoting the use of reusable coffee mugs to vaccination compliance, with loss-framed appeals being found generally to be more persuasive than gain-framed appeals in the context of promoting vaccination. The current study focused on exploring whether these well-established effects persist when an intermediate audience is exposed to gain/loss-framed messaging, using influenza (flu) vaccination intentionality as an outcome. Intermediate audiences refer to those who are evaluating the gains and losses from the message on behalf of someone else (the ultimate audience), while normal audiences are those making decisions on their own behalf. Two hundred participants were recruited for an online, between-subject study, in which participants were split into two audience conditions and within which they were further split to view a gain-framed or a loss-framed message. Their subsequent behavioural intentions were measured as the outcome, with age as a potential moderating factor (and emotional attachment as a potential mediator exclusively for the intermediate audience condition). Results indicate that neither age nor emotional attachment are significant moderators or mediators. Loss-framed appeal enjoyed a persuasive advantage over the gain-framed appeal only in the intermediate audience condition. Possible interpretations of results, along with potential further directions of research, are discussed.
creator: Wai Man Ko
source: To test the outlined hypotheses, our current study took the form of an online Qualtrics questionnaire (see appendix B for questions) where the questionnaire would introduce participants to one of the audience conditions and view the appropriate version of the manipulated message before moving on to answering some items measuring their behavioural intention and emotional attachment. The study has a 2 (intermediate/normal audience condition) X 2 (gain/loss-framed appeal) design with emotional attachment as a potential mediating variable for the intermediate audience condition and behavioural intention as the outcome variable for all audience conditions. Participants We recruited 200 healthy adults based in the UK on Prolific, an online research participant recruitment platform. Participants have provided consent and completed the study remotely with their personal devices. Their unique Prolific ID was used in this study as the only identifier, which cannot be traced back to them personally. Participants were compensated monetarily for their participation. We randomly assigned our participants to one of the four audience conditions with 50 participants each: the normal gain-framed condition, the normal loss-framed condition, the intermediate gain-framed condition, and the intermediate loss-framed condition. Questionnaire design Consent The participant gave consent to participate in the study with the Qualtrics consent element so that participants can check a box for each item. There were seven items that the participants had to check one by one before commencing the study. Responses which failed to provide a full response in the consent item would be removed from the study. Demographics For demographics, we have recorded the participants' age and gender for the records. As mentioned, age was also analysed as a moderator as part of our analysis. We have also recorded their Prolific IDs to ensure completion and arrange payment. Settings of the study After giving demograp…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2023
contributor: Hannah Clough
rights: Open
format: Data.csv
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

The Decoy Effect on Choosing Branded and Non-Branded Alcohol-related Products
subject: alcohol purchasing decoy effect
description: The decoy effect describes a phenomenon that the introduction of a third choice, usually an asymmetrically dominated one, would change the distribution of people’s preferences for the original two options. Monk et al. (2016) found a basic decoy effect on alcohol purchasing decisions. Extending this, the current study examined the impact of the decoy effect on alcohol-related purchasing decisions and whether the addition of brand names would further impact this. A total of 106 participants were asked to make decisions amongst four types of branded and unbranded drinks by completing an online questionnaire. They also completed the AUDIT, assessing problem drinking patterns, and a measure of trait effortful control. Results showed that the decoy appeared to affect alcoholic relative to non-alcoholic drinks, and affected branded products more than non-branded products. The results suggest that the decoy effect might affect alcohol-related purchasing decisions differently to non-alcoholic purchasing decisions, which might have managerial implications for marketers and health implications for hazardous alcohol consumptions.
creator: Wang Li
source: All the stimuli were pictures of bottles presented with text descriptions including the number of bottles and the total prices. Participants viewed a total of 80 deals, with 40 alcoholic products and 40 non-alcoholic products. Half of the products were branded and half unbranded. With regards to branded stimuli, pictures of bottles similar to those presented in supermarkets were shown (see Figure 2), whilst unbranded ones used similar unbranded bottles in terms of colour and shape. This allowed the products to correspond with both the diversity of goods in real supermarket but also to avoid unnecessary brand association (e.g. red glass bottles always remind consumers of Coca-Cola; Underwood, 2003). In the control condition, participants were shown products with two options, one with less bottles but cheaper, and the other with a greater quantity of bottles but more expensive. As such, option 1 represented the competitor option, which was cost-effective, and option 2 represented the target option, which was moderately cost- effective. The order of cost-effective and moderate-cost effective products was randomised throughout the experiment. In comparison, the experimental conditions also included a decoy option, which presented a product that was the least cost-effective. Although the decoy option itself was unlikely to be selected, it was expected to result in a different distribution of selections from the output of the control group. The sequences of the choice A (cost-effective), B (moderate cost-effective), and the C (decoy) were set randomly. Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). This questionnaire was made up of 10-items concerning personal drinking habits, drinking frequency and amount (Saunders et al., 1993). On a scale of one to over 30, articipants responsed to the questions such as “How many units of alcohol do you drink on a typical day when you are drinking?” and a total AUDIT score was computed. The scores of each question were accumulated …
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 2017
contributor: John Towse
rights: Open
format: data/ xlsx
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA1 4YF

Exploring the impact of rewards on contextual cueing effect
subject: contextual cueing effect, reward, selective attention
description: There is a huge amount of complex information about visual stimuli in the environment and the individual's visual processing system has a limited capacity to process this information, so selective attentional mechanisms prioritise the most valuable information. Fixed contextual cues in the environment help us to allocate attentional resources efficiently. In their study of context, Chun and Jiang proposed a contextual cueing effect (CC effect). This effect is likely to be an implicit learning resulting from selective attention. Specifically, subjects searched for the target faster in the repeated configuration than in the random configuration, as fixed contextual cues would help locate the target. It was found that this effect could be moderated by manipulating external motivation, i.e., reward. However, there is so far considerable debate as to whether high rewards can contribute to the cc effect, and whether rewards act on the cc effect or on the positional probability learning effect. The present experiment used a classical situational cueing task and a mixed between-*within group experimental design to explore the effect of reward on the contextual cueing effect. The experimental results show that high rewards did not contribute more significantly to the cc effect than low rewards, but high rewards did facilitate the target probability learning effect.
creator: Wen Fan
source: Participants Fifty-two Lancaster University students (20 identified as male and 32 as female; age M=23.9, SD=2.55 years, range: 19-33 years) participated in the experiment. Two participants were excluded from the final analysis (see below for details). All participants had normal or corrected normal vision. Participants were informed that the three participants with the highest scores in the experiment would receive a £20 Amazon voucher as a reward. At the end of the experiment, the three participants with the highest scores had received their £20 Amazon vouchers by e-mail. The experiment passed ethical review by the Department of Psychology at Lancaster University. All participants were shown a participant information sheet and signed a consent form to participate in this study prior to the start of the experiment. The Participant Debrief Sheet was presented to participants at the end of the experiment. Materials The materials were created and presented with the Psychophysics Toolbox Version 3 (Brainard, 1997) MATLAB (MathWorks, Sherborn, MA) toolbox. The stimuli were displayed on an MS-Windows machine on a screen with 1920 × 1080 pixels resolution and 60 Hz refreshing rate. Each display consists of 11 L-shaped and one T-shaped black 1.25° x 1.25° items, presented on a white background. The only T-shaped item in each display is the target, which has a 90° rotation clockwise (called left) or counterclockwise (called right). There were an equal number of times that the target was rotated to the left as it was rotated to the right across the experiment. The L-shaped distractors were randomly rotated by 0°, 90°, 180° or 270°. To increase the difficulty of the task (Jiang & Chun, 2001), the L-shaped items had a 4-pixel offset at the junction of the lines to make them similar to the T-shaped targets. In each display, all items were balanced within the quadrant of the display. This randomisation was carried out for each subject individually. Experiment design This experim…
publisher: Lancaster University
date: 07/09/2022
contributor: Jessica Andrew Jack Ho
rights: Open
relation: none
format: Excel.csv r_file.R jasp_file.jasp
language: English
type: Data
coverage: LA14YW