The conspiracy theory meme as a tool of cultural hegemony: A critical discourse analysis
by Rankin, James Edwin, Jr., Ph.D.
Abstract (Summary)
Those rejecting the official accounts of significant suspicious and impactful events are often labeled conspiracy theorists and the alternative explanations they propose are often referred to as conspiracy theories. These labels are often used to dismiss the beliefs of those individuals who question potentially hegemonic control of what people believe. The conspiracy theory concept functions as an impediment to legitimate discursive examination of conspiracy suspicions. The effect of the label appears to constrain even the most respected thinkers. This impediment is particularly problematic in academia, where thorough, objective analysis of information is critical to uncovering truth, and where members of the academy are typically considered among the most important of epistemic authorities. This dissertation tracked the development and use of such terms as pejoratives used to shut down critical thinking, analysis, and challenges to authority. This was accomplished using critical discourse analysis as a research methodology. Evidence suggesting government agents were instrumental in creating the pejorative meme conspiracy theorist was found in contemporary media. Tracing the evolution of the conspiracy theory meme and its use as a pejorative silencer may heighten awareness of its use in this manner and diminish its impact.
The term “conspiracy theory” was invented and put into public discourse by the CIA in 1964 in order to discredit the many skeptics who challenged the Warren Commission’s conclusion that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald, who himself was assassinated while in police custody before he could be questioned. The CIA used its friends in the media to launch a campaign to make suspicion of the Warren Commission report a target of ridicule and hostility. This campaign was “one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.”
This writes political science professor Lance deHaven-Smith, in his peer-reviewed book which was published by the University of Texas Press. He reports the story of how the CIA succeeded in creating in the public mind uncritical, reflexive, automatic, (System 1) stigmatization of those who challenge official government explanations (cf. ostracism).
According to Prof. DeHaven (see lecture above) the term “conspiracy theory” was first used in a scholarly book around 1913 by Charles Beard who used the phrase “the conspiracy theory of the 14th amendment”. DeHaven argues that if a wealthy women died because she fell in the shower and her husband inherits all her money we are automatically suspicious because of the low probability (base rate) of the incidence. If a similar situation happens again and the same husband is involved we are obviously even more suspicious. However, the term “conspiracy theory” prevents rational discourse (and rational thinking). DeHaven suggests the term “state crimes against democracy”. He makes the point that if we do not have a word for a crime it is very difficult to discuss it, especially if argumentators are discredited and ostracized as “conspiracy theorists” and categorized next to flat-earth believers (viz. invalid associations are created to facilitate superficial social categorisation).
Peer reviewed references on conspiracy theories – State crimes against democracy (multiple conspiracies are “organized crime”)
Related References
Elman, J. L.. (1999). Origins of language: A conspiracy theory. The Emergence of Language
“The paper presents a very interesting account of ways to be innate. in particular, the author addresses the question of chronotopic innateness, showing that children are not necessarily equiped with a ug or similar device, but are aided in their language acquisition process by the restrictions on the perception and memory capacities.”
“Over one-quarter of all federal criminal prosecutions and a large number of state cases involve prosecutions for conspiracy. yet, the major scholarly articles and the bulk of prominent jurists have roundly condemned the doctrine. this article offers a functional justification for the legal prohibition against conspiracy, centering on psychological and economic accounts. advances in psychology over the past thirty years have demonstrated that groups cultivate a special social identity. this identity often encourages risky behavior, leads individuals to behave against their self-interest, solidifies loyalty, and facilitates harm against non-members. so, too, economists have developed sophisticated explanations for why firms promote efficiency, leading to new theories in corporate law. these insights can be ‘reverse-engineered’ to make conspiracies operate less efficiently. in reverse-engineering corporate-law principles and introducing lessons from psychology, a rich account of how government should approach conspiracy begins to unfold. in particular, law enforcement strives to prevent conspiracies from forming by imposing high up-front penalties for joiners but uses mechanisms to harvest information from those who have joined and decide to cooperate with the government. traditional conspiracy doctrines such as pinkerton liability and the exclusion from merger not only further cooperation agreements, they also make conspiracies more difficult to create and maintain by forcing them to adopt bundles of inefficient practices. the possibility of defection forces the syndicate to use expensive monitoring of its employees for evidence of possible collusion with the government. mechanisms for defection also break down trust within the group and prime members to think that others are acting out of self-interest. the article concludes by offering a variety of refinements to conspiracy law that will help destabilize trust within the conspiracy, cue the defection of conspirators, and permit law enforcement to extract more information from them.”
Miller, J. M., Saunders, K. L., & Farhart, C. E.. (2016). Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust. American Journal of Political Science
“Given the potential political and social significance of conspiracy beliefs, a substantial and growing body of work examines the individual-level correlates of belief in conspiracy theories and general conspiratorial predispositions. however, although we know much about the psychological antecedents of conspiracy endorsement, we know less about the individual-level political causes of these prevalent and consequential beliefs. our work draws from the extant literature to posit that endorsement of conspiracy theories is a motivated process that serves both ideological and psychological needs. in doing so,we develop a theory that identifies a particular type of person—onewho is both highly knowledgeable about politics and lacking in trust—who ismost susceptible to ideologicallymotivated conspiracy endorsement. further, we demonstrate that the moderators of belief in conspiracy theories are strikingly different for conservatives and liberals.”
Swami, V., Coles, R., Stieger, S., Pietschnig, J., Furnham, A., Rehim, S., & Voracek, M.. (2011). Conspiracist ideation in Britain and Austria: Evidence of a monological belief system and associations between individual psychological differences and real-world and fictitious conspiracy theories. British Journal of Psychology
“Despite evidence of widespread belief in conspiracy theories, there remains a dearth of research on the individual difference correlates of conspiracist ideation. in two studies, we sought to overcome this limitation by examining correlations between conspiracist ideation and a range of individual psychological factors. in study 1, 817 britons indicated their agreement with conspiracist ideation concerning the july 7, 2005 (7/7), london bombings, and completed a battery of individual difference scales. results showed that stronger belief in 7/7 conspiracy theories was predicted by stronger belief in other real-world conspiracy theories, greater exposure to conspiracist ideation, higher political cynicism, greater support for democratic principles, more negative attitudes to authority, lower self-esteem, and lower agreeableness. in study 2, 281 austrians indicated their agreement with an entirely fictitious conspiracy theory and completed a battery of individual difference measures not examined in study 1. results showed that belief in the entirely fictitious conspiracy theory was significantly associated with stronger belief in other real-world conspiracy theories, stronger paranormal beliefs, and lower crystallized intelligence. these results are discussed in terms of the potential of identifying individual difference constellations among conspiracy theorists.”
Darwin, H., Neave, N., & Holmes, J.. (2011). Belief in conspiracy theories. The role of paranormal belief, paranoid ideation and schizotypy. Personality and Individual Differences
“Two studies examined correlates of belief in a jewish conspiracy theory among malays in malaysia, a culture in which state-directed conspiracism as a means of dealing with perceived external and internal threats is widespread. in study 1, 368 participants from kuala lumpur, malaysia, completed a novel measure of belief in a jewish conspiracy theory, along with measures of general conspiracist ideation, and anomie. initial analysis showed that the novel scale factorially reduced to a single dimension. further analysis showed that belief in the jewish conspiracy theory was only significantly associated with general conspiracist ideation, but the strength of the association was weak. in study 2, 314 participants completed the measure of belief in the jewish conspiracy theory, along with measures of general conspiracist ideation, and ideological attitudes. results showed that belief in the jewish conspiracy theory was associated with anti-israeli attitudes, modern racism directed at the chinese, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation. general conspiracist ideation did not emerge as a significant predictor once other variables had been accounted for. these results suggest that there may be specific cultural and social psychological forces that drive belief in the jewish conspiracy theory within the malaysian context. specifically, belief in the jewish conspiracy theory among malaysian malays appears to serve ideological needs and as a mask for anti-chinese sentiment, which may in turn reaffirm their perceived ability to shape socio-political processes.”
Wood, M. J., & Douglas, K. M.. (2013). What about building 7?” A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Frontiers in Psychology
“Recent research into the psychology of conspiracy belief has highlighted the importance of belief systems in the acceptance or rejection of conspiracy theories. we examined a large sample of conspiracist (pro-conspiracy-theory) and conventionalist (anti-conspiracy-theory) comments on news websites in order to investigate the relative importance of promoting alternative explanations vs. rejecting conventional explanations for events. in accordance with our hypotheses, we found that conspiracist commenters were more likely to argue against the opposing interpretation and less likely to argue in favor of their own interpretation, while the opposite was true of conventionalist commenters. however, conspiracist comments were more likely to explicitly put forward an account than conventionalist comments were. in addition, conspiracists were more likely to express mistrust and made more positive and fewer negative references to other conspiracy theories. the data also indicate that conspiracists were largely unwilling to apply the ‘conspiracy theory’ label to their own beliefs and objected when others did so, lending support to the long-held suggestion that conspiracy belief carries a social stigma. finally, conventionalist arguments tended to have a more hostile tone. these tendencies in persuasive communication can be understood as a reflection of an underlying conspiracist worldview in which the details of individual conspiracy theories are less important than a generalized rejection of official explanations.”
Newheiser, A. K., Farias, M., & Tausch, N.. (2011). The functional nature of conspiracy beliefs: Examining the underpinnings of belief in the Da Vinci Code conspiracy. Personality and Individual Differences
Dagnall, N., Drinkwater, K., Parker, A., Denovan, A., & Parton, M.. (2015). Conspiracy theory and cognitive style: A worldview. Frontiers in Psychology
“This paper assessed whether belief in conspiracy theories was associated with a particularly cognitive style (worldview). the sample comprised 223 volunteers recruited via convenience sampling and included undergraduates, postgraduates, university employees, and alumni. respondents completed measures assessing a range of cognitive-perceptual factors (schizotypy, delusional ideation, and hallucination proneness) and conspiratorial beliefs (general attitudes toward conspiracist thinking and endorsement of individual conspiracies). positive symptoms of schizotypy, particularly the cognitive-perceptual factor, correlated positively with conspiracist beliefs. the best predictor of belief in conspiracies was delusional ideation. consistent with the notion of a coherent conspiratorial mindset, scores across conspiracy measures correlated strongly. whilst findings supported the view that belief in conspiracies, within the sub-clinical population, was associated with a delusional thinking style, cognitive-perceptual factors in combination accounted for only 32% of the variance.”
Xu, Z., Pothula, S. P., Wilson, J. S., & Apte, M. V.. (2014). Pancreatic cancer and its stroma: A conspiracy theory. World Journal of Gastroenterology
“Pancreatic cancer is characterised by a prominent desmoplastic/stromal reaction that has received little attention until recent times. given that treatments focusing on pancreatic cancer cells alone have failed to significantly improve patient outcome over many decades, research efforts have now moved to understanding the pathophysiology of the stromal reaction and its role in cancer progression. in this regard, our group was the first to identify the cells (pancreatic stellate cells, pscs) that produced the collagenous stroma of pancreatic cancer and to demonstrate that these cells interacted closely with cancer cells to facilitate local tumour growth and distant metastasis. evidence is accumulating to indicate that stromal pscs may also mediate angiogenesis, immune evasion and the well known resistance of pancreatic cancer to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. this review will summarise current knowledge regarding the critical role of pancreatic stellate cells and the stroma in pancreatic cancer biology and the therapeutic approaches being developed to target the stroma in a bid to improve the outcome of this devastating disease.”
Geertz, C.. (1973). Thick Description: Toward an Interpretative Theory of Culture. In The Interpretation of Cultures
“From: anthropology.ua.edu/cultures/cultures.php?culture=symbolic%20and%20interpretive%20anthropologies thick description is a term geertz borrowed from gilbert ryle to describe and define the aim of interpretive anthropology. he argues that social anthropology is based on ethnography, or the study of culture. culture is based on the symbols that guide community behavior. symbols obtain meaning from the role which they play in the patterned behavior of social life. culture and behavior cannot be studied separately because they are intertwined. by analyzing the whole of culture as well as its constituent parts, one develops a ‘thick description’ which details the mental processes and reasoning of the natives thick description, however, is an interpretation of what the natives are thinking made by an outsider who cannot think like a nativebut is made possible by anthropological theory (geertz 1973d; see also tongs 1993). to illustrate thick description, geertz uses ryle’s example which discusses the difference between a ‘blink’ and a ‘wink.’ one, a blink, is an involuntary twitch –the thin description– and the other, a wink, is a conspiratorial signal to a friend–the thick description. while the physical movements involved in each are identical, each has a distinct meaning ‘as anyone unfortunate enough to have had the first taken for the second knows’ (geertz 1973d:6). a wink is a special form of communication which consists of several characteristics: it is deliberate; to someone in particular; to impart a particular message; according to a socially established code; and without the knowledge of the other members of the group of which the winker and winkee are a part. in addition, the wink can be a parody of someone else’s wink or an attempt to lead others to believe that a conspiracy of sorts is occuring. each type of wink can be considered to be a separate cultural category (geertz 1973d:6-7). the combination of the blink and the types of winks discussed above (and those that lie between them) produce ‘a stratified hierarchy of meaningful structures’ (geertz 1973d:7) in which winks and twitches are produced and interpreted. this, geertz argues, is the object of ethnography: to decipher this hierarchy of cultural categories. the thick description, therefore, is a description of the particular form of communication used, like a parody of someone else’s wink or a conspiratorial wink.”
Van der Linden, S.. (2015). The conspiracy-effect: Exposure to conspiracy theories (about global warming) decreases pro-social behavior and science acceptance. Personality and Individual Differences
“Although public endorsement of conspiracy theories is growing, the potentially negative societal consequences of widespread conspiracy ideation remain unclear. while past studies have mainly examined the personality correlates of conspiracy ideation, this study examines the conspiracy-effect; the extent to which exposure to an actual conspiracy theory influences pro-social and environmental decision-making. participants (n=316) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions; (a) a brief conspiracy video about global warming, (b) an inspirational pro-climate video or (c) a control group. results indicate that those participants who were exposed to the conspiracy video were significantly less likely to think that there is widespread scientific agreement on human-caused climate change, less likely to sign a petition to help reduce global warming and less likely to donate or volunteer for a charity in the next six months. these results strongly point to the socio-cognitive potency of conspiracies and highlight that exposure to popular conspiracy theories can have negative and undesirable societal consequences.”
Wood, M. J.. (2016). Some Dare Call It Conspiracy: Labeling Something a Conspiracy Theory Does Not Reduce Belief in It. Political Psychology
“‘Conspiracy theory’ is widely acknowledged to be a loaded term. politicians use it to mock and dismiss allegations against them, while philosophers and political scientists warn that it could be used as a rhetorical weapon to pathologize dissent. in two empirical studies conducted on amazon mechanical turk, i present an initial examination of whether this concern is justified. in experiment 1, 150 participants judged a list of historical and speculative theories to be no less likely when they were labeled ‘conspiracy theories’ than when they were labeled ‘ideas.’ in experiment 2 (n5802), participants who read a news article about fictitious ‘corruption allegations’ endorsed those allegations no more than participants who saw them labeled ‘conspiracy theories.’ the lack of an effect of the conspiracy-theory label in both experiments was unexpected and may be due to a romanticized image of conspiracy theories in popular media or a dilution of the term to include mundane speculation regarding corruption and political intrigue.”
Pratt, R.. (2003). Theorizing conspiracy. Theory and Society
“Anders behring breivik, perpetrator of the norwegian massacre, was motivated by a belief in a muslim conspiracy to take over europe. extreme and aberrant his actions were, but, explains the author, elements of this conspiracy theory are held and circulated in europe today across a broad political spectrum, with internet-focused counter-jihadist activists at one end and neoconservative and cultural conservative columnists, commentators and politicians at the other. the political fallout from the circulation of these ideas ranges from test cases over free speech in the courts to agitation on the ground from defence leagues, anti-minaret campaigners and stop islamisation groups. although the conspiracy draws on older forms of racism, it also incorporates new frameworks: the clash of civilisations, islamofascism, the new anti-semitism and eurabia. this muslim conspiracy bears many of the hallmarks of the ‘jewish conspiracy theory’, yet, ironically, its adherents, some of whom were formerly linked to anti-semitic traditions, have now, because of their fear of islam and arab countries, become staunch defenders of israel and zionism. reprinted by permission of the institute of race relations”
Raab, M. H., Ortlieb, S. A., Auer, N., Guthmann, K., & Carbon, C. C.. (2013). Thirty shades of truth: Conspiracy theories as stories of individuation, not of pathological delusion. Frontiers in Psychology
“Recent studies on conspiracy theories employ standardized questionnaires, thus neglecting their narrative qualities by reducing them to mere statements. recipients are considered as consumers only. two empirical studies-a conventional survey (n = 63) and a study using the method of narrative construction (n = 30)-which were recently conducted by the authors of this paper-suggest that the truth about conspiracy theories is more complex. given a set of statements about a dramatic historic event (in our case 9/11) that includes official testimonies, allegations to a conspiracy and extremely conspiratorial statements, the majority of participants created a narrative of 9/11 they deemed plausible that might be considered a conspiracy theory. the resulting 30 idiosyncratic stories imply that no clear distinction between official story and conspiratorial narrative is possible any more when the common approach of questionnaires is abandoned. based on these findings, we present a new theoretical and methodological approach which acknowledges conspiracy theories as a means of constructing and communicating a set of personal values. while broadening the view upon such theories, we stay compatible with other approaches that have focused on extreme theory types. in our view, accepting conspiracy theories as a common, regulative and possibly benign phenomenon, we will be better able to understand why some people cling to immunized, racist and off-wall stories-and others do not.”
Brotherton, R., French, C. C., & Pickering, A. D.. (2013). Measuring belief in conspiracy theories: The generic conspiracist beliefs scale. Frontiers in Psychology
“The psychology of conspiracy theory beliefs is not yet well understood, although research indicates that there are stable individual differences in conspiracist ideation – individuals’ general tendency to engage with conspiracy theories. researchers have created several short self-report measures of conspiracist ideation. these measures largely consist of items referring to an assortment of prominent conspiracy theories regarding specific real-world events. however, these instruments have not been psychometrically validated, and this assessment approach suffers from practical and theoretical limitations. therefore, we present the generic conspiracist beliefs (gcb) scale: a novel measure of individual differences in generic conspiracist ideation. the scale was developed and validated across four studies. in study 1, exploratory factor analysis of a novel 75-item measure of non-event-based conspiracist beliefs identified five conspiracist facets. the 15-item gcb scale was developed to sample from each of these themes. studies 2, 3, and 4 examined the structure and validity of the gcb, demonstrating internal reliability, content, criterion-related, convergent and discriminant validity, and good test-retest reliability. in sum, this research indicates that the gcb is a psychometrically sound and practically useful measure of conspiracist ideation, and the findings add to our theoretical understanding of conspiracist ideation as a monological belief system unpinned by a relatively small number of generic assumptions about the typicality of conspiratorial activity in the world.”
Butt, L.. (2005). “Lipstick Girls” and “Fallen Women”: AIDS and Conspiratorial Thinking in Papua, Indonesia. Cultural Anthropology
“A widespread theory in the province of papua, eastern indonesia, links the spread of sex workers and hiv/aids to a broader government conspiracy to eliminate indigenous papuans. explicit conspiratorial thinking by indigenous papuans draws from diverse evidence such as provincial partition legislation, patterns of sex-industry usage, economic transformations, rumors of witchcraft, and new automobile technology. this article argues against treating conspiracy theories about aids simply as symbolically powerful rumors expressing indigenous papuans’ perceptions of oppression and unequal access to state resources. rather, conspiracy theories articulate awareness of inconsistencies in the government’s formulation and administration of sexual regulations and aids-prevention policies. aids conspiracy theories can therefore be understood as pragmatic and detailed interpretations of papuan lived experiences in a context of ethnically disenfranchising forms of power in post-suharto indonesia.”
Briones, R., Nan, X., Madden, K., & Waks, L.. (2012). When Vaccines Go Viral: An Analysis of HPV Vaccine Coverage on YouTube. Health Communication
“This article reports a content analysis of youtube videos related to the human papillomavirus (hpv) vaccine. in total, 172 youtube videos were examined with respect to video sources, tones, and viewer responses. additionally, coverage of specific content was analyzed through the lens of the health belief model (rosenstock, 1974) and in terms of two content themes (i.e., conspiracy theory and civil liberties). the relations among these aspects of the videos were assessed as well. we found that most of these videos were news clips or consumer-generated content. the majority of the videos were negative in tone, disapproving of the hpv vaccine. in addition, negative videos were liked more by the viewers than positive or ambiguous ones. accusations of conspiracy theory and infringement of civil liberties were manifested in these videos. the videos also presented mixed information related to the key determinants of health behavior as stipulated in the health belief model. implications for the findings are discussed.”
Phillipson, R.. (2007). Linguistic imperialism: a conspiracy, or a conspiracy of silence?. Language Policy
“This is a response to bernard spolsky’s coverage of ‘how english spread’ in his book on language policy (2004) and his assertion that my book on linguistic imperialism (1992) subscribes to a conspiracy theory.”
Stojanov, A.. (2015). Reducing conspiracy theory beliefs. Psihologija
“This study aimed to look at possible ways to reduce beliefs in conspiracy theories and increase the intention to have a fictitious child vaccinated. one hundred and sixty participants answered an online questionnaire. three groups were used. the control group did not read any text prior to answering whereas the two experimental groups read either only debunking information or information about the motives of the conspiracists and the fallacy in their reasoning in addition to the debunking paragraph. the second experimental manipulation was effective in reducing medical conspiracy theories beliefs, but not belief in conspiracy theories in general. neither intervention was effective in increasing the likelihood to have a fictitious child vaccinated. those not intending to vaccinate a fictitious child endorsed conspiracy theories to a greater degree. a positive correlation between beliefs in conspiracy theories and the experiential/intuitive information processing system was found.”
Stempel, C., Hargrove, T., & Stempel, G. H.. (2007). Media use, social structure, and belief in 9/11 conspiracy theories. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
“A survey of 1,010 randomly selected adults asked about media use and belief in three conspiracy theories about the attacks of september 11, 2001. ‘paranoid style’ and ‘cultural sociology’ theories are outlined, and empirical support is found for both. patterns vary somewhat by conspiracy theory, but members of less powerful groups (racial minorities, lower social class, women, younger ages) are more likely to believe at least one of the conspiracies, as are those with low levels of media involvement and consumers of less legitimate media (blogs and grocery store tabloids). consumers of legitimate media (daily newspapers and network tv news) are less likely to believe at least one of the conspiracies, although these relationships are not significant after controlling for social structural variables. beliefs in all three conspiracies are aligned with mainstream political party divisions, evidence that conspiracy thinking is now a normal part of mainstream political conflict in the united states. publication abstract]”
Craft, S., Ashley, S., & Maksl, A.. (2017). News media literacy and conspiracy theory endorsement. Communication and the Public
“Conspiracy theories flourish in the wide-open media of the digital age, spurring concerns about the role of misinformation in influencing public opinion and election outcomes. this study examines whether news media literacy predicts the likelihood of endorsing conspiracy theories and also considers the impact of literacy on partisanship. a survey of 397 adults found that greater knowledge about the news media predicted a lower likelihood of conspiracy theory endorsement, even for conspiracy theories that aligned with their political ideology.”
Gardener, T., & Moffat, J.. (2008). Changing behaviours in defence acquisition: A game theory approach. Journal of the Operational Research Society
“Why do so many major defence contracts fail to deliver to the contractually agreed performance, time and cost requirements? this paper identifies the conspiracy of optimism as an important factor in the initiation of many projects. using a combination of game theory and participatory workshops, we formulate a theory on the conspiracy of optimism and test it experimentally. this work forms part of a culture and behaviour change initiative within defence acquisition involving the ministry of defence and many defence contractors. [publication abstract]”
Sharp, D.. (2008). Advances in conspiracy theory. The Lancet
“CONTEXT: headache is a common, disabling disorder that is frequently not well managed in general clinical practice. objective: to determine if patients cared for in a coordinated headache management program would achieve reduced headache disability compared with patients in usual care. design: a randomized controlled trial of headache management vs usual care. setting: three distinctly different practice sites: an academic internal medicine practice located in a major east coast city, a staff-model managed care organization located in a major west coast city, and a community practice in a medium-sized city in the southeast. patients.- individuals 21 years of age or older with chronic tension-type, migraine, or mixed etiology headache and a migraine disability assessment (midas) score greater than 5, not receiving treatment from a neurologist or headache clinic currently or within the previous 6 months and with an intention to continue general medical care at their current location and to continue their present health insurance coverage for the next 12 months. interventions: active intervention is a headache management program consisting of: (1) a class specifically designed to inform patients about headache types, triggers, and treatment options; (2) diagnosis and treatment by a professional especially trained in headache care (based on us headache consortium guidelines); and (3) proactive follow-up by a case manager. participation lasted 6 months. control patients received usual care from their primary care providers. main outcome measures: the primary efficacy measure reported in this article is a comparison of midas scores of headache disability between the intervention group and the control group at 6 months. secondary measures were response at 12 months, general health and quality of life, and satisfaction with headache care. results: the intervention improved (ie, decreased) midas scores by 7.0 points (95% confidence interval 2.9 to 11.1) more than the control (p = .008) at 6 months. the difference was not affected by site (p = .59 for clinic by intervention interaction), and a trend toward persistent benefit at 12 months (mean difference in improvement 6.8 points, 95% confidence interval -.3 to 13.9, p = .06) was observed. quality of life and satisfaction with headache treatment were similarly improved. conclusions: coordinated headache management significantly improved outcomes for patients who, despite contact with the healthcare system for hea…”
The existence of the HSOC was revealed as part of the global surveillance disclosures by the former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden.[1]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Science_Operations_Cell
Lazer, D. M. J., Baum, M. A., Benkler, Y., Berinsky, A. J., Greenhill, K. M., Menczer, F., … Zittrain, J. L.. (2018). The science of fake news. Science
“Plasma and ovarian levels of the dimeric forms of inhibin and plasma estradiol-17beta were investigated and compared with changes in plasma gonadotropins from postnatal day (pnd) 5 to pnd 30 in the female rat. the inhibin subunit proteins were localized in follicular granulosa cells of the ovary. plasma immunoreactive inhibin levels were low until pnd 15 and increased thereafter. plasma levels of inhibin b (alpha and beta(b) subunits) remained very low until pnd 15 and then increased by approximately 24-fold. in contrast, plasma levels of inhibin a (alpha and beta(a) subunits) were relatively low and steady until pnd 20, then increased by approximately 3-fold at pnd 25. changes in ovarian inhibin a and b levels closely resembled those in plasma levels. plasma fsh levels were low at pnd 10 but started to peak from pnd 15 and remained high until pnd 20, followed by a remarkable reduction at pnds 25 and 30. this dramatic fall in fsh coincided with the rise of inhibin a. a significant inverse correlation was observed between plasma fsh and plasma inhibin a (r = -0.67, p < 0.0002), ovarian inhibin a (r = -0.48, p < 0.01), plasma inhibin b (r = -0.48, p < 0.05), and ovarian inhibin b (r = -0.54, p < 0.01). plasma estradiol-17beta levels were elevated from pnd 5 through pnd 15, then fell sharply through pnd 30. plasma estradiol-17beta was significantly and positively (r = 0.75, p < 0.0002) correlated with plasma fsh. plasma lh rose to higher levels at pnd 15 and tended to be lower thereafter. the inhibin alpha, beta(a), and beta(b) subunits were localized to primary, secondary, and antral and large antral follicles, but the types of these immunopositive follicles varied with age. it appeared that, at pnd 25 and afterward, all three subunits were mainly confined to large antral follicles in the ovary. we conclude that estradiol-17beta likely is the major candidate in stimulation of fsh secretion in the infantile female rat. we also conclude that inhibin regulation of pituitary fsh secretion through its negative feedback in the infantile female rat begins to operate after pnd 20. we suggest that this negative feedback is achieved by increases in plasma levels of the two dimeric forms, and that inhibin a appears to be the major physiological regulator of fsh secretion at the initiation of this mechanism. we also conclude that large antral follicles in the ovary are the primary source of these bioactive inhibins that are secreted in large amounts into the circulat…”
Conroy, N. J., Rubin, V. L., & Chen, Y.. (2015). Automatic deception detection: Methods for finding fake news. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
“This research surveys the current state-of-the-art technologies that are instrumental in the adoption and development of fake news detection. ” fake news detection ” is defined as the task of categorizing news along a continuum of veracity, with an associated measure of certainty. veracity is compromised by the occurrence of intentional deceptions. the nature of online news publication has changed, such that traditional fact checking and vetting from potential deception is impossible against the flood arising from content generators, as well as various formats and genres. the paper provides a typology of several varieties of veracity assessment methods emerging from two major categories – linguistic cue approaches (with machine learning), and network analysis approaches. we see promise in an innovative hybrid approach that combines linguistic cue and machine learning, with network-based behavioral data. although designing a fake news detector is not a straightforward problem, we propose operational guidelines for a feasible fake news detecting system.”
Balmas, M.. (2014). When Fake News Becomes Real: Combined Exposure to Multiple News Sources and Political Attitudes of Inefficacy, Alienation, and Cynicism. Communication Research
“This research assesses possible associations between viewing fake news (i.e., political satire) and attitudes of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism toward political candidates. using survey data collected during the 2006 israeli election campaign, the study provides evidence for an indirect positive effect of fake news viewing in fostering the feelings of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism, through the mediator variable of perceived realism of fake news. within this process, hard news viewing serves as a moderator of the association between viewing fake news and their perceived realism. it was also demonstrated that perceived realism of fake news is stronger among individuals with high exposure to fake news and low exposure to hard news than among those with high exposure to both fake and hard news. overall, this study contributes to the scientific knowledge regarding the influence of the interaction between various types of media use on political effects.”
Brigida, M., & Pratt, W. R.. (2017). Fake news. North American Journal of Economics and Finance
“This analysis uses twitter stock and options prices sampled at a 30 s frequency around the fake news announcement, of a bid for a controlling stake in twitter stock, to investigate how noise trading and informed trading is disseminated into equity and option markets. we find reaction to the fake news occurred in the equity market, and the option market reacted with a delay. this differs from many analyses of actual news events, which found informed traders prefer the options market, and information from their trades then leaks into the equity market. we conclude uninformed traders, and those aware of the hoax, prefer to trade in equity over option markets. this result has implications for isolating informed trading around actual news events.”
Vargo, C. J., Guo, L., & Amazeen, M. A.. (2018). The agenda-setting power of fake news: A big data analysis of the online media landscape from 2014 to 2016. New Media and Society
“This study examines the agenda-setting power of fake news and fact-checkers who fight them through a computational look at the online mediascape from 2014 to 2016. although our study confirms that content from fake news websites is increasing, these sites do not exert excessive power. instead, fake news has an intricately entwined relationship with online partisan media, both responding and setting its issue agenda. in 2016, partisan media appeared to be especially susceptible to the agendas of fake news, perhaps due to the election. emerging news media are also responsive to the agendas of fake news, but to a lesser degree. fake news coverage itself is diverging and becoming more autonomous topically. while fact-checkers are autonomous in their selection of issues to cover, they were not influential in determining the agenda of news media overall, and their influence appears to be declining, illustrating the difficulties fact-checkers face in disseminating their corrections.”
Marchi, R.. (2012). With Facebook, blogs, and fake news, teens reject journalistic “objectivity”. Journal of Communication Inquiry
“This article examines the news behaviors and attitudes of teenagers, an understudied demographic in the research on youth and news media. based on interviews with 61 racially diverse high school students, it discusses how adolescents become informed about current events and why they prefer certain news formats to others. the results reveal changing ways news information is being accessed, new attitudes about what it means to be informed, and a youth preference for opinionated rather than objective news. this does not indicate that young people disregard the basic ideals of professional journalism but, rather, that they desire more authentic renderings of them.”
Rubin, V. L., Chen, Y., & Conroy, N. J.. (2015). Deception detection for news: Three types of fakes. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology
“A fake news detection system aims to assist users in detecting and filtering out varieties of potentially deceptive news. the prediction of the chances that a particular news item is intentionally deceptive is based on the analysis of previously seen truthful and deceptive news. a scarcity of deceptive news, available as corpora for predictive modeling, is a major stumbling block in this field of natural language processing (nlp) and deception detection. this paper discusses three types of fake news, each in contrast to genuine serious reporting, and weighs their pros and cons as a corpus for text analytics and predictive modeling. filtering, vetting, and verifying online information continues to be essential in library and information science (lis), as the lines between traditional news and online information are blurring.”
Frederiksen, L.. (2017). Fake News. Public Services Quarterly
“As revealed in two unrelated reports from prison inmates, the sexology of all-male incarceration subdivides into masturbation, wet dreams, and partner contacts in association with heterosexual imagery; consenting homosexual pairing with one partner exclusively androphilic and the other bisexual; coercive partnerships with one partner dominating but not injuring the other and neither being permanently and exclusively androphilic; and violent homosexual rape. the lone-term outcomes of prison celibacy and homosexuality are not presently known. these outcomes need to be studied systematically and prospectively. it is suggested that it is illogical to punish sex offenders by incarcerating them in an environment that breeds sex offending. a system of conjugal visitation, and possibly of family living in prison, is a more logical, and probably the only alternative to institutionalized sexual brutality and homosexuality that is situationally evoked. [abstract from author]”
Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G.. (2017). Who falls for fake news? The roles of bullshit receptivity, overclaiming, familiarity, and analytic thinking. SSRN
“Inaccurate beliefs pose a threat to democracy and fake news represents a particularly egregious and direct avenue by which inaccurate beliefs have been propagated via social media. here we present three studies (mturk, n = 1,606) investigating the cognitive psychological profile of individuals who fall prey to fake news. we find consistent evidence that the tendency to ascribe profundity to randomly generated sentences – pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity – correlates positively with perceptions of fake news accuracy, and negatively with the ability to differentiate between fake and real news (media truth discernment). relatedly, individuals who overclaim regarding their level of knowledge (i.e. who produce bullshit) also perceive fake news as more accurate. conversely, the tendency to ascribe profundity to prototypically profound (non-bullshit) quotations is not associated with media truth discernment; and both profundity measures are positively correlated with willingness to share both fake and real news on social media. we also replicate prior results regarding analytic thinking – which correlates negatively with perceived accuracy of fake news and positively with media truth discernment – and shed further light on this relationship by showing that it is not moderated by the presence versus absence of information about the new headline’s source (which has no effect on perceived accuracy), or by prior familiarity with the news headlines (which correlates positively with perceived accuracy of fake and real news). our results suggest that belief in fake news has similar cognitive properties to other forms of bullshit receptivity, and reinforce the important role that analytic thinking plays in the recognition of misinformation. ”
Balmas, M.. (2014). When Fake News Becomes Real. Communication Research
“This research assesses possible associations between viewing fake news (i.e., political satire) and attitudes of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism toward political candidates. using survey data collected during the 2006 israeli election campaign, the study provides evidence for an indirect positive effect of fake news viewing in fostering the feelings of inefficacy, alienation, and cynicism, through the mediator variable of perceived realism of fake news. within this process, hard news viewing serves as a moderator of the association between viewing fake news and their perceived realism. it was also demonstrated that perceived realism of fake news is stronger among individuals with high exposure to fake news and low exposure to hard news than among those with high exposure to both fake and hard news. overall, this study contributes to the scientific knowledge regarding the influence of the interaction between various types of media use on political effects.”
Wardle, C.. (2017). Fake news. It’s complicated. First Draft
“To understand the misinformation ecosystem, here’s a break down of the types of fake content, content creators motivations and how it’s being disseminated”
Bakir, V., & McStay, A.. (2018). Fake News and The Economy of Emotions: Problems, causes, solutions. Digital Journalism
“This paper examines the 2016 us presidential election campaign to identify problems with, causes of and solutions to the contemporary fake news phenomenon. to achieve this, we employ textual analysis and feedback from engagement, meetings and panels with technolo-gists, journalists, editors, non-profits, public relations firms, analytics firms and academics dur-ing the globally leading technology conference, south-by-south west, in march 2017. we further argue that what is most significant about the contemporary fake news furore is what it portends: the use of personally and emotionally targeted news produced by algo-journalism and what we term ” empathic media ” . in assessing solutions to this democratically problematic situation, we recommend that greater attention is paid to the role of digital advertising in causing, and combating, both the contemporary fake news phenomenon, and the near-horizon variant of empathically optimised automated fake news.”
Berghel, H.. (2017). Lies, Damn lies, and fake news. Computer
“The results of the 2016 us presidential election and the uk vote to leave the european union (brexit) have raised questions about the influence of fake online news and social-media ‘echo chambers’ (see also p. williamson nature 540, 171; 2016). the propagation of such information through social networks bears many similarities to the evolution and transmission of infectious diseases. analysis of transmission dynamics could therefore provide insight into how misinformation spreads and competes online. for example, disease strains can evolve and compete in a host population, much like rumours, and infections and opinions are both shaped by social contacts. modelling of competing disease strains indicates that, as contacts become more localized, the diversity of circulating strains can increase (see c. o’ f. buckee et al. proc. natl acad. sci. usa 101, 10839–10844; 2004). network structure can also suppress the invasion of new disease strains (see g. e. leventhal et al. nature commun. 6, 6101; 2015). as more people turn to social networks as a primary news source, transmission models combined with appropriate data could help in exploring the dynamics of this new media landscape.”
Tandoc, E. C., Lim, Z. W., & Ling, R.. (2017). Defining “Fake News”. Digital Journalism
“This paper explores the issue of colonial borders through a case study of the intra-imperial boundary between tunisia and algeria, two territories under french rule between 1881 and the first decade of the twentieth century. the aim here is to understand what was at stake when it came to separating two territories holding different legal status but both administered by the french: algeria which had officially become a french colony in 1830 and tunisia which was given protectorate status in 1880. the paper considers some of the many disputes over the border that took place both in the field and in colonial administrative offices. it also raises the question of the scope of colonial rule by exploring the way the border was never fully determined and was constantly redrawn by the inhabitants of the border regions themselves, who were presented first as tribes, and later, as either algerian or tunisian by the french civil and military administrations, and by the political authorities in algiers, tunis or paris. as they all had their own interests in the matter, disputes were common but were also sometimes resolved in unexpected ways. finally, the paper raises a further issue concerning the question of national identity in the context of the definition of national territories, which reveals the full ambiguity of the concept of identity in the colonial situation.”
APA Works with CIA and RAND to Hold Science of Deception Workshop
On July 17-18, RAND Corp. and the APA hosted a workshop entitled the “Science of Deception: Integration of Practice and Theory” with generous funding from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The workshop provided an opportunity to bring together individuals with a need to understand and use deception in the service of national defense/security with those who investigate the phenomena and mechanisms of deception. Meeting at RAND headquarters in Arlington, VA, the workshop drew together approximately 40 individuals including research psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists who study various aspects of deception and representatives from the CIA, FBI and Department of Defense with interests in intelligence operations. In addition, representatives from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security were present. Following brief introductions and welcoming remarks from Kevin O’Connell, Director of the Intelligence Policy Center within RAND’s National Security Research Division, workshop participants divided into break-out groups to discuss thematic scenarios following a format used in a previous conference on counterterrorism held at the FBI Academy in February 2002.
The United States is “The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World Today” ~Martin Luther King
Frady, M.. (2003). Martin Luther King. Vita Breve
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“Follows the life of the baptist minister and black leader who won the nobel peace prize before finally being assassinated in 1968.”
McGuire, D. M. G., & Hutchings, K. H.. (2007). Portrait of a transformational leader: The legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership and Organization Development Journal
“This article focuses on the contributions of jr martin luther king, in the field of orthopsychiatry. martin luther king represented many things to many people. he was a minister, a leader of his people, a man of great faith and principle, a charismatic person larger than life. he had a dream-a dream that all men he free, that the dignity of each and every man he cherished. the ideal of martin luther king projected a world free of bigotry and prejudice, free of the deprivations and humiliation of poverty and the horrors of war; a society in which the dignity of man is paramount. this is an ideal to which the mental health profession has always been dedicated. there is so much that must be done. we mourn the loss of this great leader. (psycinfo database record (c) 2013 apa, all rights reserved)”
Robinson, J. L., & Topping, D.. (2013). The Rhetoric of Power: A Comparison of Hitler and Martin Luther King Jr. Journal of Management Inquiry
“Charismatic leaders present intriguing examples of the use of power through language. the prevailing neo-charismatic perspective, however, is based predominately on western theories and research examining u.s. presidents. this study moves beyond this sample by examining language differences between a moral and a toxic leader. content analysis was used to explore the rhetoric of martin luther king jr. and adolf hitler, whose distinct motives play out over their careers and during crises. although some differences were predictable (i.e., martin luther king jr. used more optimistic language, whereas hitler was higher in power and aggression), the changes over time suggest keys to their differing motives. among other findings, martin luther king jr. was remarkably consistent in his rhetoric, whereas hitler used increasing power and aggressive language as his career progressed. while not providing definitive answers, these preliminary results suggest that further study is warranted into the complex interactions between rhetoric and leadership.”
“In his final chapter, 115, of his autobiography, nelson mandela reflects upon freedom: that he was born ‘not with a hunger to be free, but born free’ (750). that freedom, though, was an illusion, he learned when he went to study in johannesburg during apartheid. as an attorney, he joined the african national congress, in pursuit of freedom not just for himself, but everyone under racial oppression. even as mandela helped usher in the end of apartheid, he admits that we’re only on the first stage of the journey to true freedom. freedom and equality are now lawful; freedom will only be attained though when people’s hearts have changed such that we all live in a way that enhances the freedom of others.”
Press, O. U.. (2013). Nelson Mandela: A Very Short Introduction. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling
“Predicting the binding mode of flexible polypeptides to proteins is an important task that falls outside the domain of applicability of most small molecule and protein−protein docking tools. here, we test the small molecule flexible ligand docking program glide on a set of 19 non-α-helical peptides and systematically improve pose prediction accuracy by enhancing glide sampling for flexible polypeptides. in addition, scoring of the poses was improved by post-processing with physics-based implicit solvent mm- gbsa calculations. using the best rmsd among the top 10 scoring poses as a metric, the success rate (rmsd ≤ 2.0 å for the interface backbone atoms) increased from 21% with default glide sp settings to 58% with the enhanced peptide sampling and scoring protocol in the case of redocking to the native protein structure. this approaches the accuracy of the recently developed rosetta flexpepdock method (63% success for these 19 peptides) while being over 100 times faster. cross-docking was performed for a subset of cases where an unbound receptor structure was available, and in that case, 40% of peptides were docked successfully. we analyze the results and find that the optimized polypeptide protocol is most accurate for extended peptides of limited size and number of formal charges, defining a domain of applicability for this approach.”
House, R. J., & Howell, J. M.. (1992). Personality and charismatic leadership. The Leadership Quarterly
“Nelson mandela dedicated his life to fighting for the freedom of his south african kin of all colors against the institution of apartheid. he spent twenty-seven years fighting from within prison, only gaining his freedom when his fellow south africans could claim it as well. this article demonstrates how his faith, his spiritual development and his noble purpose can be conceptualized through the lens of ubuntu: the african ethic of community, unity, humanity and harmony.”
Lieberfeld, D.. (2003). Nelson Mandela: Partisan and peacemaker. NEGOTIATION JOURNAL-ON THE PROCESS OF DISPUTE SETTLEMENT
“To analyze nelson mandela’s personal attributes relevant to peacemaking and negotiation, the study considers personality traits derived from biographical data rather than quantitative content analysis. since mandela’s personality eludes ready characterization in terms of high or low levels of a given trait and also comprises traits apparently in tension, the analysis offered here highlights ostensibly opposing characteristics, and the evolution of mandela’s personal characteristics over time, with specific attention to his self-identity, interpersonal orientation, and political outlook. it identifies distinctive aspects of mandela’s peacemaking practice, as well as aspects that may be common among accomplished peacemakers and negotiators. it concludes that mandela’s seemingly contradictory personality traits and high degree of cognitive complexity enabled him to fulfill the different roles of partisan negotiator and of mediator/peacemaker, and equipped him, more so than other revolutionaries, for the transition to post-liberation leader. [publication abstract]”
O’Fallon, S.. (2012). Nelson Mandela and unitive eadership. Integral Leadership Review
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“Nelson mandela has become one of the most revered and recognized leaders in history. he is widely recognized for his forgiveness, compassion and humility and their considerable effects on his leadership and the success of anti-apartheid. yet, surprisingly little deep analysis of mandela’s leadership exists today. analysis of nelson mandela’s language and behavior using ego development theory suggests mandela had reached a stage of unitive development. while mandela was and is an exceptionally rare unitive leader, it is most surprising what is revealed of followers and observers of mandela’s leadership. characteristics assigned to mandela are more aptly described as side effects and projections. those characteristics are projections made by those with other than unitive perspectives rather than characteristics of mandela. what separates the leadership of nelson mandela from most is not the presence of lauded characteristics such as humility and forgiveness. it is the absence of the distinctions that make such characteristics possible in the first place. one cannot be humble if there are no distinctions to make one person better or more valuable than another. one cannot be humble if there are not but illusory distinctions separating people. it is the absence of necessary distinctions and the concomitant relationship to understanding as illusion that allowed mandela to include all south africans in the creations of a new south africa. the key to understanding mandela’s leadership role in the south african transition from apartheid to representative democracy is through the irony of understanding from a unitive perspective. [abstract from author]”
“Perceptual illusions are usually thought to arise from the way sensory signals are encoded by the brain, and indeed are often used to infer the mechanisms of sensory encoding. but perceptual illusions might also result from the way the brain decodes sensory information, reflecting the strategies that optimize performance in particular tasks. in a fine discrimination task, the most accurate information comes from neurons tuned away from the discrimination boundary, and observers seem to use signals from these ‘displaced’ neurons to optimize their performance. we wondered whether using signals from these neurons might also bias perception. in a fine direction discrimination task using moving random-dot stimuli, we found that observers’ perception of the direction of motion is indeed biased away from the boundary. this misperception can be accurately described by a decoding model that preferentially weights signals from neurons whose responses best discriminate those directions. in a coarse discrimination task, to which a different decoding rule applies, the same stimulus is not misperceived, suggesting that the illusion is a direct consequence of the decoding strategy that observers use to make fine perceptual judgments. the subjective experience of motion is therefore not mediated directly by the responses of sensory neurons, but is only developed after the responses of these neurons are decoded.”
Smeets, J. B. J., Brenner, E., De Grave, D. D. J., & Cuijpers, R. H.. (2002). Illusions in action: Consequences of inconsistent processing of spatial attributes. Experimental Brain Research
“Many authors have performed experiments in which subjects grasp objects in illusory surroundings. the vast majority of these studies report that illusions affect the maximum grip aperture less than they affect the perceived size. this observation has frequently been regarded as experimental evidence for separate visual systems for perception and action. in order to make this conclusion, one assumes that the grip aperture is based on a visual estimate of the object’s size. we believe that it is not, and that this is why size illusions fail to influence grip aperture. illusions generally do not affect all aspects of space perception in a consistent way, but mainly affect the perception of specific spatial attributes. this applies not only to object size, but also to other spatial attributes such as position, orientation, displacement, speed, and direction of motion. whether an illusion influences the execution of a task will therefore depend on which spatial attributes are used rather than on whether the task is perceptual or motor. to evaluate whether illusions affect actions when they influence the relevant spatial attributes we review experimental results on various tasks with inconsistent spatial processing in mind. doing so shows that many actions are susceptible to visual illusions. we argue that the frequently reported differential effect of illusions on perceptual judgements and goal-directed action is caused by failures to ensure that the same spatial attributes are used in the two tasks. illusions only affect those aspects of a task that are based on the spatial attributes that are affected by the illusion.”
In the social sciences, framing comprises a set of concepts and theoretical perspectives on how individuals, groups, and societies, organize, perceive, and communicate about reality. Framing involves social construction of a social phenomenon – by mass media sources, political or social movements, political leaders, or other actors and organizations. Recent findings in the domain of embodied cognition and conceptual metaphor theory are important theoretical frameworks in this context.
Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A.. (2000). Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment. Annual Review of Sociology
“The recent proliferation of scholarship on collective action frames and framing processes in relation to social movements indicates that framing processes have come to be regarded, alongside resource mobilization and political opportunity processes, as a central dynamic in understanding the character and course of social movements. this review examines the analytic utility of the framing literature for understanding social movement dynamics. we first review how collective action frames have been conceptualized, including their characteristic and variable features. we then examine the literature related to framing dynamics and processes. next we review the literature regarding various contextual factors that constrain and facilitate framing processes. we conclude with an elaboration of the consequences of framing processes for other movement processes and outcomes. we seek throughout to provide clarification of the linkages between framing concepts/processes and other conceptual and theoretical formulation…”
Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N.. (2007). Framing Theory. Annual Review of Political Science
“■ abstract we review the meaning of the concept of framing, approaches to study-ing framing, and the effects of framing on public opinion. after defining framing and framing effects, we articulate a method for identifying frames in communication and a psychological model for understanding how such frames affect public opinion. we also discuss the relationship between framing and priming, outline future research directions, and describe the normative implications of framing.”
Scheufele, D. A.. (1999). Framing as a theory of media effects. Journal of Communication
“Research on framing is characterized by theoretical and empirical vagueness. this is due, in part, to the lack of a commonly shared theoretical model underlying framing research. conceptual problems translate into operational problems, limit- ing the comparability of instruments and results. in this paper i systematize the fragmented approaches to framing in political communication and integrate them into a comprehensive model. i classify previous approaches to framing research along two dimensions: the type of frame examined (media frames vs. audience frames) and the way frames are operationalized (independent variable or depen- dent variable). i develop a process model of framing, identifying four key processes that should be addressed in future research: frame building, frame setting, individual- level processes of framing, and a feedback loop from audiences to journalists.”
Entman, R. M.. (1993). Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication
“Communication must bring ideas together in one location in order to enhance communication scholarship and make the field a master discipline capable of synthesizing information. the ‘framing’ of communication theory is discussed.”
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D.. (1986). Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions. The Journal of Business
“The modern theory of decision making under risk emerged from a logical analysis of games of chance rather than from a psychological analysis of risk and value. the theory was conceived as a normative model of an idealized decision maker, not as a description of the behavior of real people. in schumpeter’s words, it ‘has a much better claim to being called a logic of choice than a psychology of value’ (1954, p. 1058).”
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D.. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science
“The psychological principles that govern the perception of decision prob- lems and the evaluation of probabilities and outcomes produce predictable shifts of preference when the same problem is framed in different ways. reversals of prefer- ence are demonstrated in choices regarding monetary outcomes, both hypothetical and real, and in questions pertaining to the loss of human lives. the effects of frames on preferences are compared to the effects of perspectives on perceptual appear- ance. the dependence of preferences on the formulation of decision problems is a significant concern for the theory of rational choice”
Levin, I. P., Schneider, S. L., & Gaeth, G. J.. (1998). All Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology and Critical Analysis of Framing Effects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
“This special issue of journal of communication is devoted to theoretical explanations of news framing, agenda setting, and priming effects. it examines if and how the three models are related and what potential relationships between them tell theorists and researchers about the effects of mass media. as an introduction to this effort, this essay provides a very brief review of the three effects and their roots in media-effects research. based on this overview, we highlight a few key dimensions along which one can compare, framing, agenda setting, and priming. we conclude with a description of the contexts within which the three models operate, and the broader implications that these conceptual distinctions have for the growth of our discipline.”
Levin, I. P., Gaeth, G. J., Schreiber, J., & Lauriola, M.. (2002). A new look at framing effects: Distribution of effect sizes, individual differences, and independence of types of effects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
“Framing is used here to conceptualize the political signification that social movements use – assigning meaning to events & conditions in ways intended to mobilize participants & gain support. four sets of factors concerned with the conditions that affect framing efforts are considered here: (1) how diagnostic, prognostic, & motivational framing tasks are interconnected; (2) the internal constraints of the belief system; (3) the relevance of the framing effort to the phenomenological world of the participants; & (4) the cycle of protest in which the movement is embedded. the approach has the advantages of capturing the complexity of movement participation & of addressing those situations when structural conditions seem advantageous but mobilization is not successful. 42 references. a. waters”
Halsnæs, K., Shukla, P., Ahuja, D., Akumu, G., Beale, R., Edmonds, J., … J. Zou. (2007). Framing issues. In Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
“This paper argues for the necessity of universal health care (as well as universal free education) using a different argument than most that have been made heretofore. it is not meant to conflict with but to strengthen the arguments previously made by others. using the second paragraph of the declaration of independence and the preamble to the constitution we argue that universal health care in this day and age has become a necessary condition if the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are to be more than an empty promise and if the discussion of ‘promoting of general welfare’ in the preamble is to have any meaning.”
Nisbet, M., & Mooney, C.. (2007). Framing science. Science
“Framing is the process by which a communication source constructs and defines a social or political issue for its audience. while many observers of political communication and the mass media have discussed framing, few have explicitly described how framing affects public opinion. in this paper we offer a theory of framing effects, with a specific focus on the psychological mechanisms by which framing influences political attitudes. we discuss important conceptual differences between framing and traditional theories of persuasion that focus on belief change. we outline a set of hypotheses about the interaction between framing and audience sophistication, and test these in an experiment. the results support our argument that framing is not merely persuasion, as it is traditionally conceived. we close by reflecting on the various routes by which political communications can influence attitudes.”
Pan, Z., & Kosicki, G. M.. (1993). Framing analysis: An approach to news discourse. Political Communication
“In the american political process, news discourse concerning public policy issues is carefully constructed. this occurs in part because both politicians and interest groups take an increasingly proactive approach to amplify their views of what an issue is about. however, news media also play an active role in framing public policy issues. thus, in this article, news discourse is conceived as a sociocognitive process involving all three play- ers: sources, journalists, and audience members operating in the universe of shared culture and on the basis of socially defined roles. framing analysis is presented as a constructivist approach to examine news discourse with the primary focus on conceptualizing news texts into empirically operationalizable dimensions-syntactical, script, thematic, and rhetorical structures-so that evidence of the news media’s framing of issues in news texts may be gathered. this is considered an initial step toward analyzing the news discourse process as a whole. finally, an extended empirical example is provided to illustrate the applications of this conceptual framework of news texts. abstract from author copyright of political communication is the property of routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. however, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. this abstract may be abridged. no warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (copyright applies to all abstracts) in the american political process, news discourse concerning public policy issues is carefully constructed. this occurs in part because both politicians and interest groups take an increasingly proactive approach to amplify their views of what an issue is about. however, news media also play an active role in framing public policy issues. thus, in this article, news discourse is conceived as a sociocognitive process involving all three play- ers: sources, journalists, and audience members operating in the universe of shared culture and on the basis of socially defined roles. framing analysis is presented as a constructivist approach to examine news discourse with the primary focus on conceptualizing news texts into empirically operationalizable dimensions-syntactical, script, thematic, and rhetorical structures-so that evidence of the news…”
Hallahan, K.. (1999). Seven Models of Framing: Implications for Public Relations. Journal of Public Relations Research
“Framing is a potentially useful paradigm for examining the strategic creation of public relations messages and audience responses. based on a literature review across disciplines, this article identifies 7 distinct types of framing applicable to public relations. these involve the framing of situations, attributes, choices, actions, issues, responsibility, and news. potential applications for public relations practice and research are discussed.”
he Ebbinghaus illusion or Titchener circles is an optical illusion of relative size perception. Named for its discoverer, the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), the illusion was popularized in the English-speaking world by Edward B. Titchener in a 1901 textbook of experimental psychology, hence its alternative name.[1] In the best-known version of the illusion, two circles of identical size are placed near to each other, and one is surrounded by large circles while the other is surrounded by small circles. As a result of the juxtaposition of circles, the central circle surrounded by large circles appears smaller than the central circle surrounded by small circles.
Recent work suggests that two other critical factors involved in the perception of the Ebbinghaus illusion are the distance of the surrounding circles from the central circle and the completeness of the annulus, which makes the illusion comparable in nature to the Delboeuf illusion. Regardless of relative size, if the surrounding circles are closer to the central circle, the central circle appears larger and if the surrounding circles are far away, the central circle appears smaller. While the distance variable appears to be an active factor in the perception of relative size, the size of the surrounding circles limits how close they can be to the central circle, resulting in many studies confounding the two variables.[1]
Further References
Franz, V. H., Bülthoff, H. H., & Fahle, M.. (2003). Grasp effects of the Ebbinghaus illusion: Obstacle avoidance is not the explanation. Experimental Brain Research
“The perception-versus-action hypothesis states that visual information is processed in two different streams, one for visual awareness (or perception) and one for motor performance. previous reports that the ebbinghaus illusion deceives perception but not grasping seemed to indicate that this dichotomy between perception and action was fundamental enough to be reflected in the overt behavior of non-neurological, healthy humans. contrary to this view we show that the ebbinghaus illusion affects grasping to the same extent as perception. we also show that the grasp effects cannot be accounted for by non-perceptual obstacle avoidance mechanisms as has recently been suggested. instead, even subtle variations of the ebbinghaus illusion affect grasping in the same way as they affect perception. our results suggest that the same signals are responsible for the perceptual effects and for the motor effects of the ebbinghaus illusion. this casts doubt on one line of evidence, which used to strongly favor the perception-versus-action hypothesis.”
Haffenden, A. M., Schiff, K. C., & Goodale, M. A.. (2001). The dissociation between perception and action in the Ebbinghaus illusion: Nonillusory effects of pictorial cues on grasp. Current Biology
“According to a recently proposed distinction [1] between vision for perception and vision for action, visually guided movements should be largely immune to the perceptually compelling changes in size produced by pictorial illusions. tests of this prediction that use the ebbinghaus illusion have revealed only small effects of the illusion on grasp scaling as compared to its effect on perception [2-4]. nevertheless, some have argued that the small effect on grasp implies that there is a single representation of size for both perception and action [5]. recent findings, however, suggest that the 2-d pictorial elements, such as those comprising illusory backgrounds, can sometimes be treated as obstacles and thereby influence the programming of grasp [6]. the arrangement of the 2-d elements commonly used in previous studies examining the ebbinghaus illusion could therefore give rise to an effect on grasp scaling that is independent of its effect on perceptual judgements, even though the two effects are in the same direction. we present evidence demonstrating that when the gap between the target and the illusion-making elements in the ebbinghaus illusion is equidistant across different perceptual conditions (figure 1a), the apparent effect of the illusion on grasp scaling is eliminated.”
Franz, V. H., & Gegenfurtner, K. R.. (2008). Grasping visual illusions: Consistent data and no dissociation. In Cognitive Neuropsychology
“The finding that the ebbinghaus/titchener illusion deceives perception but not grasping is usually seen as strong evidence for goodale and milner’s (1992) notion of two parallel visual systems, one being conscious and deceived by the illusion (vision-for-perception) and the other being unconscious and not deceived (vision-for-action). however, this finding is controversial and led to studies with seemingly contradictory results. we argue that these results are not as contradictory as it might seem. instead, studies consistently show similar effects of the illusion on grasping. the perceptual effects are strongly dependent on the specific perceptual measure employed. if, however, some methodological precautions are used, then these diverse perceptual results can be reconciled and point to a single internal size estimate that is used for perception and for grasping. this suggests that the ebbinghaus illusion deceives a common representation of object size that is used by perception and action.”
Franz, V. H., Gegenfurtner, K. R., Bülthoff, H. H., & Fahle, M.. (2000). Grasping visual illusions: No evidence for a dissociation between perception and action. Psychological Science
“Neuropsychological studies prompted the theory that the primate visual system might be organized into two parallel pathways, one for conscious perception and one for guiding action. supporting evidence in healthy subjects seemed to come from a dissociation in visual illusions: in previous studies, the ebbinghaus (or titchener) illusion deceived perceptual judgments of size, but only marginally influenced the size estimates used in grasping. contrary to those results, the findings from the present study show that there is no difference in the sizes of the perceptual and grasp illusions if the perceptual and grasping tasks are appropriately matched. we show that the differences found previously can be accounted for by a hitherto unknown, nonadditive effect in the illusion. we conclude that the illusion does not provide evidence for the existence of two distinct pathways for perception and action in the visual system.”
Song, C., Schwarzkopf, D. S., & Rees, G.. (2011). Interocular induction of illusory size perception. BMC Neuroscience
“BACKGROUND:the perceived size of objects not only depends on their physical size but also on the surroundings in which they appear. for example, an object surrounded by small items looks larger than a physically identical object surrounded by big items (ebbinghaus illusion), and a physically identical but distant object looks larger than an object that appears closer in space (ponzo illusion). activity in human primary visual cortex (v1) reflects the perceived rather than the physical size of objects, indicating an involvement of v1 in illusory size perception. here we investigate the role of eye-specific signals in two common size illusions in order to provide further information about the mechanisms underlying illusory size perception.nnresults:we devised stimuli so that an object and its spatial context associated with illusory size perception could be presented together to one eye or separately to two eyes. we found that the ponzo illusion had an equivalent magnitude whether the objects and contexts were presented to the same or different eyes, indicating that it may be largely mediated by binocular neurons. in contrast, the ebbinghaus illusion became much weaker when objects and their contexts were presented to different eyes, indicating important contributions to the illusion from monocular neurons early in the visual pathway.nnconclusions:our findings show that two well-known size illusions – the ponzo illusion and the ebbinghaus illusion – are mediated by different neuronal populations, and suggest that the underlying neural mechanisms associated with illusory size perception differ and can be dependent on monocular channels in the early visual pathway.”
Doherty, M. J., Campbell, N. M., Tsuji, H., & Phillips, W. A.. (2010). The Ebbinghaus illusion deceives adults but not young children. Developmental Science
“The sensitivity of size perception to context has been used to distinguish between ‘vision for action’ and ‘vision for perception’, and to study cultural, psychopathological, and developmental differences in perception. the status of that evidence is much debated, however. here we use a rigorous double dissociation paradigm based on the ebbinghaus illusion, and find that for children below 7 years of age size discrimination is much less affected by surround size. young children are less accurate than adults when context is helpful, but more accurate when context is misleading. even by the age of 10 years context-sensitivity is still not at adult levels. therefore, size contrast as shown by the ebbinghaus illusion is not a built-in property of the ventral pathway subserving vision for perception but a late development of it, and low sensitivity to the ebbinghaus illusion in autism is not primary to the pathology. our findings also show that, although adults in western cultures have low context-sensitivity relative to east asians, they have high context-sensitivity relative to children. overall, these findings reveal a gradual developmental trend toward ever broader contextual syntheses. such developments are advantageous, but the price paid for them is that, when context is misleading, adults literally see the world less accurately than they did as children.”
Rose, D., & Bressan, P.. (2002). Going round in circles: Shape effects in the Ebbinghaus illusion. Spatial Vision
“The ebbinghaus illusion has traditionally been considered as either a sensory or a cognitive illusion, or some combination of these two. cognitive contrast explanations take support from the way the illusion varies with the degree of shape similarity between the test and inducing elements; we show, however, that contour interaction explanations may account for this result too. we therefore tested these alternative theories by measuring the illusion with different test shapes as well as different inducer shapes, in all combinations. we found that for angular or hexagonal test shapes there is no similarity effect, and for some shape combinations there is no significant illusion, in contradiction to both of the traditional hypotheses. instead, we suggest that an integrated model of visual processing is needed to account for the illusion.”
de Fockert, J., Davidoff, J., Fagot, J., Parron, C., & Goldstein, J.. (2007). More Accurate Size Contrast Judgments in the Ebbinghaus Illusion by a Remote Culture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
“The ebbinghaus (titchener) illusion was examined in a remote culture (himba) with no words for geometric shapes. the illusion was experienced less strongly by himba compared with english participants, leading to more accurate size contrast judgments in the himba. the study included two conditions of inducing stimuli. the illusion was weaker when the inducing stimuli were dissimilar (diamonds) to the target (circle) compared with when they were similar (circles). however, the illusion was weakened to the same extent in both cultures. it is argued that the more accurate size judgments of the himba derive from their tendency to prioritize the analysis of local details in visual processing of multiple objects, and not from their impoverished naming.”
“In the ebbinghaus size illusion, a central circle surrounded by small circles (inducers) appears bigger than an identical one surrounded by large inducers. previous studies have failed to demonstrate sensitivity to this illusion in pigeons and baboons, leading to the conclusion that avian species (possibly also nonhuman primates) might lack the neural substrate necessary to perceive the ebbinghaus illusion in a human-like fashion. such a substrate may have been only recently evolved in the primate lineage. here, we show that this illusion is perceived by 4-day-old domestic chicks. during rearing, chicks learnt, according to an observational-learning paradigm, to find food in proximity either of a big or of a small circle. subjects were then tested with ebbinghaus stimuli: two identical circles, one surrounded by larger and the other by smaller inducers. the percentage of approaches to the perceptually bigger target in animals reinforced on the bigger circle (and vice versa for the other group) was computed. over four experiments, we demonstrated that chicks are reliably affected by the illusory display. subjects reinforced on the small target choose the configuration with big inducers, in which the central target appears perceptually smaller; the opposite is true for subjects reinforced on the big target. this result has important implications for the evolutionary history of the neural substrate involved in the perception of the ebbinghaus illusion.”
Parron, C., & Fagot, J.. (2007). Comparison of Grouping Abilities in Humans (Homo sapiens) and Baboons (Papio papio) With the Ebbinghaus Illusion. Journal of Comparative Psychology
“This research comparatively assessed grouping mechanisms of humans (n = 8) and baboons (n = 8) in an illusory task that employs configurations of target and surrounding circles arranged to induce the ebbinghaus (titchener) illusion. analyses of response behaviors and points of subjective equality demonstrated that only humans misjudged the central target size under the influence of the ebbinghaus illusion, whereas baboons expressed a more veridical perception of target sizes. it is argued that humans adopted a global mode of stimulus processing of the illusory figure in our task that has favored the illusion. by contrast, a strong local mode of stimulus processing with attention restricted to the target must have prevented illusory effects in baboons. these findings suggest that monkeys and humans have evolved modes of object recognition that do not similarly rely on the same gestalt principles.”
Franz, V. H.. (2003). Planning versus online control: Dynamic illusion effects in grasping?. Spatial Vision
“The planning/control model of action assumes that grasping is sensitive to the context of an object only in early stages of the movement (planning), but not in later stages (control). in consequence, the effects of context-induced illusions (such as the ebbinghaus/titchener illusion) should decrease during a grasping movement. here, we tested this claim by reanalysing a large data set (n = 26) on grasping in the ebbinghaus illusion. contrary to the predictions of the planning/control model, we found that the effects of the illusion did not decrease over time. instead, the illusion effects stayed remarkably constant.”
Vishton, P. M., Stephens, N. J., Nelson, L. A., Morra, S. E., Brunick, K. L., & Stevens, J. A.. (2007). Planning to reach for an object changes how the reacher perceives it. Psychological Science
“Three experiments assessed the influence of the ebbinghaus illusion on size judgments that preceded verbal, grasp, or touch responses. prior studies have found reduced effects of the illusion for the grip-scaling component of grasping, and these findings are commonly interpreted as evidence that different visual systems are employed for perceptual judgment and visually guided action. in the current experiments, the magnitude of the illusion was reduced by comparable amounts for grasping and for judgments that preceded grasping (experiment 1). a similar effect was obtained prior to reaching to touch the targets (experiment 2). the effect on verbal responses was apparent even when participants were simply instructed that a target touch task would follow the verbal task. after participants had completed a grasping task, the reduction in the magnitude of the illusion remained for a subsequent verbal-response judgment task (experiment 3). overall, the studies demonstrate strong connections between action planning and perception.”
Plodowski, A., & Jackson, S. R.. (2001). Vision: Getting to grips with the Ebbinghaus illusion. Current Biology
“It is well known that visual illusions can have a dramatic effect upon our visual perception of such properties as an object’s size. it remains the subject of much debate, however, whether visual illusions have a similar influence on visually guided actions. recent studies have thrown new light on this debate.”
Kopiske, K. K., Bruno, N., Hesse, C., Schenk, T., & Franz, V. H.. (2016). The functional subdivision of the visual brain: Is there a real illusion effect on action? A multi-lab replication study. Cortex
“It has often been suggested that visual illusions affect perception but not actions such as grasping, as predicted by the ‘two-visual-systems’ hypothesis of milner and goodale (1995, the visual brain in action, oxford university press). however, at least for the ebbinghaus illusion, relevant studies seem to reveal a consistent illusion effect on grasping (franz & gegenfurtner, 2008. grasping visual illusions: consistent data and no dissociation. cognitive neuropsychology). two interpretations are possible: either grasping is not immune to illusions (arguing against dissociable processing mechanisms for vision-for-perception and vision-for-action), or some other factors modulate grasping in ways that mimic a vision-for perception effect in actions. it has been suggested that one such factor may be obstacle avoidance (haffenden schiff & goodale, 2001. the dissociation between perception and action in the ebbinghaus illusion: nonillusory effects of pictorial cues on grasp. current biology, 11, 177-181). in four different labs (total n = 144), we conducted an exact replication of previous studies suggesting obstacle avoidance mechanisms, implementing conditions that tested grasping as well as multiple perceptual tasks. this replication was supplemented by additional conditions to obtain more conclusive results. our results confirm that grasping is affected by the ebbinghaus illusion and demonstrate that this effect cannot be explained by obstacle avoidance.”
Nakamura, N., Watanabe, S., & Fujita, K.. (2008). Pigeons perceive the Ebbinghaus-Titchener circles as an assimilation illusion.. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes
“A target circle surrounded by larger ‘inducer’ circles looks smaller, and one surrounded by smaller circles looks larger than they really are. this is the ebbinghaus-titchener illusion, which remains one of the strongest and most robust of contrast illusions. although there have been many studies on this illusion in humans, virtually none have addressed how nonhuman animals perceive the same figures. here the authors show that the ebbinghaus-titchener figures also induce a strong illusion in pigeons but, surprisingly, in the other direction; that is, all five successfully trained pigeons judged the target circle surrounded by larger circles to be larger than it really is and vice versa. further analyses proved that neither the gaps between target and inducer circles nor the cumulative weighted surface of these figural elements could account for the birds’ responses. pigeons are known to show similarities to humans on various cognitive and perceptual tasks including concept formation, short-term memory, and some visual illusions. our results, taken together with pigeons’ previously demonstrated failure at visual completion, provide strong evidence that pigeons may actually experience a visual world too different for us to imagine.”
Danckert, J. A., Sharif, N., Haffenden, A. M., Schiff, K. C., & Goodale, M. A.. (2002). A temporal analysis of grasping in the Ebbinghaus illusion: Planning versus online control. Experimental Brain Research
“Recent work has shown that pictorial illusions have a greater effect on perceptual judgements than they do on the visual control of actions, such as object-directed grasping. this dissociation between vision for perception and vision for action is thought to reflect the operation of two separate streams of visual processing in the brain. glover and dixon claim, however, that perceptual illusions can influence the control of grasping but that these effects are evident only at early stages of the movement. by the time the action nears its completion any effect of illusions disappears. glover and dixon suggest that these results are consistent with what they call a ‘planning and control’ model of action, in which actions are planned using a context-dependent visual representation but are monitored and corrected online using a context-independent representation. we reanalysed data from an earlier experiment on grasping in the ebbinghaus illusion in which we showed that maximum grip aperture was unaffected by this size-contrast illusion. when we looked at these data more closely, we found no evidence for an effect of the illusion even at the earliest stages of the movement. these findings support the suggestion that the initial planning of a simple object-directed grasping movement in this illusory context is indeed refractory to the effects of the illusion. this is not to suggest that more deliberate and/or complex movements could not be influenced by contextual information.”
Pickett, C. L.. (2001). The effects of entitativity beliefs on implicit comparisons between group members. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
“The present research indicates that perceivers’ beliefs about a group’s level of entitativity can affect the extent to which group members are implicitly compared with one another. to find evidence for these implicit comparisons, a variation of the ebbinghaus illusion was used. exp 1 (n = 258) demonstrated that an identical set of faces produced a greater illusion (indicating greater implicit comparison) when the faces were said to represent fraternity/sorority members than when the faces were said to represent men or women born in the month of may. exp 2 (n = 118) replicated these results and also demonstrated that participants’ prior beliefs about how entitative these groups are predicted the magnitude of the ebbinghaus illusion produced. these findings indicate that entitativity beliefs can have implicit effects on judgment such that members of highly entitative groups are subject to greater intragroup comparison than are members of nonentitative groups. (psycinfo database record (c) 2002 apa, all rights reserved)”
Haffenden, A. M., & Goodale, M. A.. (1998). The effect of pictorial illusion on prehension and perception. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
“The present study examined the effect of a size-contrast illusion (ebbinghaus or titchener circles illusion) on visual perception and the visual control of grasping movements. seventeen right-handed participants picked up and, on other trials, estimated the size of ‘poker-chip’ disks, which functioned as the target circles in a three-dimensional version of the illusion. in the estimation condition, subjects indicated how big they thought the target was by separating their thumb and forefinger to match the target’s size. after initial viewing, no visual feedback from the hand or the target was available. scaling of grip aperture was found to be strongly correlated with the physical size of the disks, while manual estimations of disk size were biased in the direction of the illusion. evidently, grip aperture is calibrated to the true size of an object, even when perception of object size is distorted by a pictorial illusion, a result that is consistent with recent suggestions that visually guided prehension and visual perception are mediated by separate visual pathways.”
Sovrano, V. A., Albertazzi, L., & Rosa Salva, O.. (2014). The Ebbinghaus illusion in a fish (Xenotoca eiseni). Animal Cognition
“The tendency of fish to perceive the ebbinghaus illusion was investigated. redtail splitfins (xenotoca eiseni, family goodeidae) were trained to discriminate between two disks of different sizes. then, fish were presented with two disks of the same size surrounded by disks of large or small size (inducers) arranged to produce the impression (to a human observer) of two disks of different sizes (in the ebbinghaus illusion, a central disk surrounded by small inducers appears bigger than an identical one surrounded by large inducers). fish chose the stimulus that, on the basis of a perception of the ebbinghaus illusion, appeared deceptively larger or smaller, consistent with the condition of training. these results demonstrate that redtail splitfins tend to perceive this particular illusion. the results are discussed with reference to other related illusions that have been recently observed to be experienced by fish (such as the navon effect), and with regard to their possible evolutionary implications.”
Glover, S., & Dixon, P.. (2002). Dynamic effects of the Ebbinghaus illusion in grasping: Support for a planning/control model of action. Perception and Psychophysics
“A distinction between planning and control can be used to explain the effects of context-induced illusions on actions. the present study tested the effects of the ebbinghaus illusion on the planning and control of the grip aperture in grasping a disk. in two experiments, the illusion had an effect on grip aperture that decreased as the hand approached the target, whether or not visual feedback was available. these results are taken as evidence in favor of a planning/control model, in which planning is susceptible to context-induced illusions, whereas control is not. it is argued that many dissociations between perception and action may better be explained as dissociations between perception and on-line control.”
Káldy, Z., & Kovács, I.. (2003). Visual context integration is not fully developed in 4-year-old children. Perception
“Long-range horizontal interactions supporting contour integration were found to be weaker in children than in adults (kovács et al, 1999 proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the usa 96 12204-12209). in the present study, integration on a larger scale, between a target and its context was investigated. contextual modulation of the percept of a local target can be directly measured in the case of geometric illusions. we compared the magnitude of a size contrast illusion (ebbinghaus illusion or titchener circles) in children and adults. 4-year-old children and adults performed 2afc size comparisons between two target disks in the classical ebbinghaus illusion display and in two other modified versions. we found that the magnitude of the illusion effect was significantly smaller in children than in adults. our interpretation is that context integration is not fully developed in 4-year-old children. closer-to-veridical-size estimations by children demonstrate that the perception of the local target is less affected by stimulus context in their case. we suggest that immature cortical connectivity is behind the reduced contextual sensitivity in children.”
Byosiere, S. E., Feng, L. C., Woodhead, J. K., Rutter, N. J., Chouinard, P. A., Howell, T. J., & Bennett, P. C.. (2017). Visual perception in domestic dogs: susceptibility to the Ebbinghaus–Titchener and Delboeuf illusions. Animal Cognition
“Susceptibility to geometrical visual illusions has been tested in a number of non-human animal species, providing important information about how these species perceive their environment. considering their active role in human lives, visual illusion susceptibility was tested in domestic dogs (canis familiaris). using a two-choice simultaneous discrimination paradigm, eight dogs were trained to indicate which of two presented circles appeared largest. these circles were then embedded in three different illusory displays; a classical display of the ebbinghaus-titchener illusion; an illusory contour version of the ebbinghaus-titchener illusion; and the classical display of the delboeuf illusion. significant results were observed in both the classical and illusory contour versions of the ebbinghaus-titchener illusion, but not the delboeuf illusion. however, this susceptibility was reversed from what is typically seen in humans and most mammals. dogs consistently indicated that the target circle typically appearing larger in humans appeared smaller to them, and that the target circle typically appearing smaller in humans, appeared larger to them. we speculate that these results are best explained by assimilation theory rather than other visual cognitive theories explaining susceptibility to this illusion in humans. in this context, we argue that our findings appear to reflect higher-order conceptual processing in dogs that cannot be explained by accounts restricted to low-level mechanisms of early visual processing.”
Duemmler, T., Franz, V. H., Jovanovic, B., & Schwarzer, G.. (2008). Effects of the Ebbinghaus illusion on children’s perception and grasping. Experimental Brain Research
“We investigated the development of the ebbinghaus illusion in children’s perception and grasping. a previous study (hanisch et al. 2001) had reported negative illusion effects on 5- to 12-year-olds’ grasping as compared to their perception. we attempted to replicate this finding and to test different hypotheses based on a direct influence of the context elements on the trajectories of the fingers which could explain this reversal of the illusion effects. for 5- to 7- and 9- to 11-year-olds we observed the classical illusion effects in perception. illusion effects were perfectly similar for perception and grasping in 9- to 11-year-olds, while there was a non-significant trend toward smaller illusion effects in grasping for the 5- to 7-year-olds. this could be due to a slightly different effect of the illusion on younger children’s grasping. however, it seems clear that there are no qualitative changes, as a reversal of the illusion effects in grasping of younger children. finally, we show that our grasping data conform well to the motor literature for children’s grasping, thereby strengthening our conclusions.”
Massaro, D. W., & Anderson, N. H.. (1971). Judgmental model of the Ebbinghaus illusion. Journal of Experimental Psychology
“Two experiments studied the ebbinghaus illusion as a function of four stimulus variables: the size of the context circles, the number of context circles, the dis- tance between the context circles and the center circle, and the size of the center circle. the results provided a quantitative test of a judgmental model that con- siders the ebbinghaus illusion to be comparative in nature. the context circles, then, serve as standards or yardsticks, and the center circle is judged partly relative to them. the model provided a reasonably good description of the mag- nitude of the illusion as a function of the several stimulus variables. the”
Roberts, B., Harris, M. G., & Yates, T. A.. (2005). The roles of inducer size and distance in the Ebbinghaus illusion (Titchener circles). Perception
“Although the ebbinghaus illusion is commonly used as an example of a simple size-contrast effect, previous studies have emphasised its complexity by identifying many factors that potentially influence the magnitude of the illusion. here, in a series of three experiments, we attempt to simplify this complexity. in each trial, subjects saw a display comprising, on one side, a target stimulus surrounded by inducers and, on the other, an isolated probe stimulus. their task was to indicate whether the probe appeared larger or smaller than the target. probe size was adjusted with a one-up, one-down staircase procedure to find the point of subjective equality between probe and target. from these experiments, we argue that the apparent effects of inducer size are often confounded by the relative completeness of the inducing surround and that factors such as the similarity of the inducers and target are secondary. we suggest a simple model that can explain most of the data in terms of just two primary and independent factors: the relative size of the inducers and target, and the distance between the inducers and the target. the balance between these two factors determines whether the size of the target is underestimated or overestimated.”
The natural ability to understand – to shine light on things – a natural light within.
“Lumen naturale” is a Latin term that translates to “natural light.” In the context of the Enlightenment, philosophers often used this concept to represent reason and knowledge that comes from nature and human intellect rather than relying solely on religious or traditional authorities.
Enlightenment thinkers believed in the power of reason and rationality to discover truths about the world. They saw the human mind as capable of understanding and improving society through the application of logic and scientific inquiry. The term “lumen naturale” reflects the idea that there is an inherent, natural capacity for humans to gain knowledge and insight through reason, independent of divine revelation.
This concept played a significant role in shaping the intellectual landscape of the Enlightenment, emphasizing the importance of human agency and critical thinking in the pursuit of knowledge and progress.
Further References
Jacquette, D.. (1996). Descartes’ Lumen Naturale and the Cartesian Circle. Philosophy and Theology, 9(3), 273–320.
“The author argues that descartes is not trapped inside the cartesian circle. the essay rehearses descartes’ argument against the ‘evil demon’ hypothesis. the so-called cartesian circle is described and some of the most prominent discussions of the problem are evaluated. such arguments tend either to leave descartes in the circle, or themselves depend upon distinctions that in the end lead to descartes claiming something less than metaphysical certainty for his system. the author argues that descartes’ real archimedian point is the light of nature, and that his project is to extend the certainty of the light of nature to those ideas which are clear and distinct. using this interpretation of descartes, the author returns to the accounts of the critics to account for their mischaracterization of descartes’ reasoning as circular.”
Apel, M.. (1950). Lagarde, Paul Anton de– lumen naturale. In Philosophisches Wörterbuch (pp. 151–157). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter
Opahle, O.. (1952). Die Lehre vom „lumen naturale“ in ihrer Bedeutung für die Pädagogik. Vierteljahrsschrift Für Wissenschaftliche Pädagogik, 28(2), 115–124.
ExplicationIn classical Greek mythology (i.e., Homer’s Iliad) myrmidónes were commanded by Achilles during the Trojan War. According to the legend Zeus created them from a colony of ants (myrmex). Cf. Sir Francis Bacon's metaphor on ants, spiders, and bees (Novum Organum Scientiarum, 1620). Per analogiam, ants are scientists who are rule conformist followers who lack the capacity to reflect (i.e., metacognitively/epistemologically) on what they actually do. They work myopically within a given Kuhnian paradigm without asking quintessential overarching questions and, ergo, without any awareness of the bigger picture.Quotation:Even entertainment can be politically of special value, because the moment a person is conscious of propaganda, propaganda becomes ineffective. However, as soon as propaganda as a tendency, as a characteristic, as an attitude, remains in the background and becomes apparent through human beings, the propaganda becomes effective in every respect.
Joseph Goebbels, Facism and the Female Form, 1942, p.170-71
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