Perception

The purpose of this research is to illuminate how individuals form perceptions of cooperatives, specifically of Green Top Grocery, a cooperative located in Bloomington Illinois, using the Bourdieu-sian habitus and notions of capital as a frame. Green Top Grocery suffers from fiscal instability since they opened in 2017. They also struggle to gain support of lower income individuals, a key demographic they sought to help since their inception based on their stated values. By conducting qualitative interviews of three sample groups: Green Top Grocery board members and leadership, local food access experts, and West Bloomington residents, and non-participant observations, this research can answer the following research questions: 1) What are the perceptions of food cooperatives in general, and Green Top specifically? 2) How are respondents' social location reflected in their motivations for consumption? and 3) How might Green Top Grocery's practices influence the formation of these perceptions? The results showed that differing social and cultural capital and differing habitus of each group caused a differentiation in the perceptions of Green Top Grocery, including individuals' consumption motivations, definitions of food access, and the future of the cooperative. The results showed that Green Top Grocery faced organizational and fiscal constraints during the planning process and the subsequent years after that could have perpetuated a negative reputation amongst community members, especially regarding a lack of diversity in participation for both race and class within the cooperative. Different perspectives on what food access meant created differing understandings on how to address food access issues. For cooperatives, and especially Green Top Grocery, this meant creating more inclusive participation, with an emphasis on more equitable collaboration with lower-income residents and residents of color and collaborative understanding of food access, to prevent further perpetuation of alternative food institutions, such as cooperatives, as white spaces.

) is published biannual as an international scholarly, peer-reviewed online journal. In this journal, research articles which reflect the survey with the results and translations that can be considered as a high scientific quality, scientific observation and review articles are published. Teachers, students and scientists who conduct research to the field (e.g. articles on pure sciences or social sciences, mathematics and technology) and in relevant sections of field education (e.g. articles on science education, social science education, mathematics education and technology education) in the education faculties are target group. In this journal, the target group can benefit from qualified scientific studies are published. The publication languages are English and Turkish.

) is published biannual as an international scholarly, peer-reviewed online journal. In this journal, research articles which reflect the survey with the results and translations that can be considered as a high scientific quality, scientific observation and review articles are published. Teachers, students and scientists who conduct research to the field (e.g. articles on pure sciences or social sciences, mathematics and technology) and in relevant sections of field education (e.g. articles on science education, social science education, mathematics education and technology education) in the education faculties are target group. In this journal, the target group can benefit from qualified scientific studies are published. The publication languages are English and Turkish.

Background: School garden programs have grown in popularity in the United States. Educators' attitudes, knowledge, and motivation are crucial to implementing comprehensive school garden programs. To expand school garden education, it is necessary to identify effective practices and determine the resources necessary to deliver these programs, as well as describe the benefits and barriers of using school gardens in order to provide the rationale for spending time and money on gardens. Methods: Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to describe principals' and teachers' current practices, and to identify perceived benefits and barriers and report needed resources to operate successful school gardens. A survey was sent to 250 CCSD teachers and administrators using an electronic web site link. One hundred and nineteen educators completed the survey, 105 of which met criteria to be used in this study. Results: Many educators with gardens perceive that students benefit from school garden programs. Significant differences between teachers and administrators in regards to the benefits of school gardens as well as operational factors such as when students used the gardens were noted. This suggests a need for improved communication between these two groups to align expectations of school garden programs.

This research examined the effects of a multi-modal warning sign on compliance behavior. Participants followed a set of printed instructions to perform a chemistry task that involved measuring and mixing disguised (nonhazardous) chemicals. Whether participants wore protective equipment as directed by the warning was measured. The environment around the sign was either visually cluttered or uncluttered. In some conditions, pictorials, a voice warning, and/or a flashing strobe light were added. The results showed that compliance was significantly greater when the warning was presented in an uncluttered environment compared to a cluttered environment. The results also showed that the presence of a voice warning produced a strong and reliable increase in compliance compared to conditions without a voice warning. No statistically reliable effects of pictorials or strobe were found though the results did show a trend of greater compliance when they were present. In addition, compliance wa...

Here, we explored the effect of exposure to threat versus neutral stimuli on time perception in anxious (n029) and non-anxious (n029) individuals using predictions from the attentional gate model (AGM) of time perception. Results indicate that relative to non-anxious individuals, anxious individuals subjectively experience time as moving more slowly when exposed to short (2-second) presentations of threat stimuli, and that group differences disappear with longer exposure durations (4 and 8 seconds). Coupled with classic reports of enhanced attentional bias toward threat and diminished attentional control under stress in anxious individuals this finding provides novel insights into low-level cognitive processes that could shape and maintain the subjective experience of anxiety. Findings are discussed in relation to predictions from the AGM and cognitive accounts of anxiety.

A mental process that is independent of conscious perception should run equally well with or without it. Previous investigations of unconscious processing have seldom included this comparison: They typically demonstrated only processing without conscious perception. In the research reported here, we showed that attentional capture is largely independent of conscious perception and that updating the episodic information stored about an object is entirely contingent on conscious perception. We used a spatial-cuing paradigm, in which the cue was a color-singleton distractor rendered liminal by continuous flash suppression or brief exposure. When the cue matched the participant's attentional set, it strongly captured attention whether it was subliminal or consciously perceived. In contrast, a nonmatching cue did not capture attention but instead produced a same-location cost, which was contingent on consciously perceiving the cue. Our findings demonstrate a dissociation between atte...

Visual search is considerably speeded when the target's characteristics remain constant across successive selections. Here, we investigated whether such inter-trial priming increases the target's attentional priority, by examining whether target repetition reduces search efficiency during serial search. As the study of inter-trial priming requires the target and distractors to exchange roles unpredictably, it has mostly been confined to singleton searches, which typically yield efficient search. We therefore resorted to two singleton searches known to yield relatively inefficient performance, that is, searches in which the target does not pop out. Participants searched for a veridical angry face among neutral ones or vice-versa, either upright or inverted (Experiment 1) or for a Q among Os or vice-versa (Experiment 2). In both experiments, we found substantial intertrial priming that did not improve search efficiency. In addition, intertrial priming was asymmetric and occurr...

Stimuli can be rendered invisible using a variety of methods and the method selected to demonstrate unconscious processing in a given study often appears to be arbitrary. Here, we compared unconscious processing under continuous flash suppression (CFS) and metacontrast masking, using similar stimuli, tasks and measures. Participants were presented with a prime arrow followed by a target arrow. They made a speeded response to the target arrow direction and then reported on the prime's visibility. Perception of the prime was made liminal using either meta-contrast masking (Experiment 1) or CFS (Experiments 2 and 3). Conscious perception of the prime was assessed using a sensitive visibility scale ranging from 0 to 3 and unconscious processing was measured as the priming effect on target discrimination performance of prime-target direction congruency when prime visibility was null. Crucially, in order to ensure that the critical stimuli were equally distant from the limen of consciousness, we sought stimulus and temporal parameters for which the proportion of 0-visibility trials was comparable for the two methods. We found that the method used to prevent conscious perception matters: unconscious processing was substantial with meta-contrast masking but absent with CFS. These findings suggest that CFS allows very little perceptual processing, if at all, and that previous reports of high-level and complex unconscious processing during CFS may result from partial awareness.

Perception and motor control jointly act to meet our current needs. Recent evidence shows that the generation of motor action significantly affects perception. Here, we examined the role of motor response in inter-trial priming, namely, in Priming of Pop-out (PoP): when searching for a singleton target, performance is improved when the target and distractors features repeat on consecutive search trials than when they switch. Although recent studies have shown an interaction between motor response and PoP, the role of motor action on priming has not been fully characterized. Here we investigated whether motor action is necessary during encoding, for PoP to be observed. On go trials, observers searched for a color singleton target and responded to its shape, while on no-go trials they passively watched the display instead of responding to the target. We observed PoP even when the previous trial had been a no-go trial, suggesting that encoding of search-relevant attributes in pop-out displays is not contingent on motor response. Nevertheless, the repetition effect was larger after a go trial than after a no-go trial, supporting the dual-stage model of PoP, according to which this effect involves both a perceptual and a motor component.

Recent research has demonstrated a striking role for intertrial priming in visual search. When searching for a discrepant target, repetition of the target feature speeds search, an effect known as Priming of Pop-out (PoP). In two experiments involving color singletons, we identified two independent components of PoP, target activation and distractor inhibition. Each component was reflected by two measures, a repetition benefit and a switching cost, that were highly correlated. Large individual differences on each component were observed and persisted when test and retest were separated by one week. The results suggest that PoP may be a reliable tool for assessing individual differences on target activation and distractor inhibition in selective attention.

The presence of an irrelevant singleton disrupts search for a singleton target substantially more when the target feature varies unpredictably (mixed-singleton search) than when it is known in advance (fixedsingleton search). This finding suggests that advance knowledge of the target feature guides singleton search. . Target uncertainty does not lead to more distraction by singletons: Intertrial priming does. Perception & Psychophysics, 67, 1354-1361] proposed an alternative account, according to which this difference results from inter-trial priming effects. They based their argument on the finding that distractor interference is reduced when the singleton target feature repeats vs. switches from one trial to the next. However, Lamy et al. . Effects of search mode and inter-trial priming on singleton search. Perception & Psychophysics, 68, 919-932] reported no such modulation of distractor interference by target-feature repetition. Here, we show that differences in design (blocking conditions of distractor presence in the former study vs. randomly mixing them in the latter) account for this discrepancy. We conclude that the different task demands induced by the blocked distractor-present and distractorabsent conditions rather than distractor presence per se interact with intertrial priming effects. These findings argue against the claim that singleton search relies exclusively on stimulus-driven factors and suggest that preknowledge of the target feature, when available, can guide attention. In addition, the present results challenge the ambiguity hypothesis of intertrial priming, according to which increased competition for attentional selection boosts inter-trial priming effects.

The study of inter-trial effects in visual search has generated an increasing amount of research in recent years. However, the mechanisms underlying these effects are still a matter of debate. Two rival accounts have been suggested. One view stipulates that inter-trial effects facilitate early perceptual/attentional processes, whereas the other proposes that it affects post-perceptual response-related processes. Here, we focused on the priming of pop-out effect (PoP, Maljkovic & Nakayama, 1994), which refers to the well-established finding that performance on singleton search is faster when the target and distractors features repeat on two consecutive trials than when they switch. We set out to resolve the current controversy surrounding PoP by suggesting a dual-stage account, according to which PoP speeds both an early perceptual stage and a later, response-related stage of visual search. We were able to dissociate the hypothesized components of PoP by tracking their time course.

This meta-analysis of 172 studies (N ϭ 2,263 anxious, N ϭ 1,768 nonanxious) examined the boundary conditions of threat-related attentional biases in anxiety. Overall, the results show that the bias is reliably demonstrated with different experimental paradigms and under a variety of experimental conditions, but that it is only an effect size of d ϭ 0.45. Although processes requiring conscious perception of threat contribute to the bias, a significant bias is also observed with stimuli outside awareness. The bias is of comparable magnitude across different types of anxious populations (individuals with different clinical disorders, high-anxious nonclinical individuals, anxious children and adults) and is not observed in nonanxious individuals. Empirical and clinical implications as well as future directions for research are discussed.

Whether contextual regularities facilitate perceptual stages of scene processing is widely debated, and empirical evidence is still inconclusive. Specifically, it was recently suggested that contextual violations affect early processing of a scene only when the incongruent object and the scene are presented a-synchronously, creating expectations. We compared event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by scenes that depicted a person performing an action using either a congruent or an incongruent object (e.g., a man shaving with a razor or with a fork) when scene and object were presented simultaneously. We also explored the role of attention in contextual processing by using a pre-cue to direct subjects' attention towards or away from the congruent/incongruent object. Subjects' task was to determine how many hands the person in the picture used in order to perform the action. We replicated our previous findings of frontocentral negativity for incongruent scenes that started $ 210 ms post stimulus presentation, even earlier than previously found. Surprisingly, this incongruency ERP effect was negatively correlated with the reaction times cost on incongruent scenes. The results did not allow us to draw conclusions about the role of attention in detecting the regularity, due to a weak attention manipulation. By replicating the 200-300 ms incongruity effect with a new group of subjects at even earlier latencies than previously reported, the results strengthen the evidence for contextual processing during this time window even when simultaneous presentation of the scene and object prevent the formation of prior expectations. We discuss possible methodological limitations that may account for previous failures to find this an effect, and conclude that contextual information affects object model selection processes prior to full object identification, with semantic knowledge activation stages unfolding only later on.

Contextual regularities help us analyze visual scenes and form judgments on their constituents. The present study investigates the effect of context violation on scene processing using event-related potentials (ERPs). We compared ERPs evoked by congruent vs. incongruent visual scenes (e.g., a man playing a violin vs. a man "playing" a broomstick), when the scene and object are presented simultaneously, so subjects cannot form previous expectations about the object's identity. As expected, an ongoing anterior negativity emerged around 270 ms post-stimulus presentation, lasting for about 330 ms. This negativity, resembling the N300/N400 effect previously associated with semantic integration, was followed by a later and broadly distributed negativity between 650 and 850 ms, possibly related to late processes of semantic evaluation and response preparation. The results confirm that contextual congruity affects scene processing starting from ∼300 ms or earlier, and that this early electrophysiological congruity effect indeed reflects context violation processing, rather than indexing a mismatch between expected vs. actual events, or between prepared vs. correct responses. They also suggest that contextual information may affect object model selection processes, and influence later stages of semantic knowledge activation and/or decision-making.

Implicit short-term memory plays an important role in visual search. For instance, singleton search is faster when the target and distractor features repeat on two consecutive trials than when they switch, an effect called Priming of Popout (PoP). However, whether or not PoP facilitates early perceptual/attentional processes remains controversial. To resolve discrepancies between existing findings, we tested the hypothesis that early effects of PoP occur only if attention is focused/engaged on the target. We measured search accuracy using brief displays for a fine discrimination task, which required focused attention, and for a left/right hemifield localization task, which did not. We found that PoP effects on accuracy occur only in the discrimination task. The theoretical implications are discussed.

Intertrial repetition priming plays a striking role in visual search. For instance, when searching for a target with a unique color, performance is substantially better when the specific color of the target repeats on successive trials . Recent research has relied on objective measures of performance to show that priming improves the perceptual quality of the repeated target. Here, we examined the relation between priming and conscious perception of the target by adding a subjective measure of perception. We used backward masking to create liminal perception, that is, different levels of subjectively conscious perception of the target using exactly the same stimulus conditions. The displays in either probe trials (in which priming benefits are measured, Experiment 1) or in prime trials (in which memory traces are laid down, Experiment 2) were masked. The results showed that intertrial priming improves full access to awareness of the repeated target but only for targets that already achieved partial access to awareness. In addition, they show that full awareness of the target is necessary in both the prime and probe trials for intertrial priming effects to emerge. Implications for the role of implicit short-term memory in visual search are discussed.

Explicit expectations can guide attention toward the time at which an upcoming target is likely to appear. However, in real-life situations, explicit preknowledge of upcoming events' temporal occurrence is rarely provided. We investigated whether implicit memory traces can guide attention in time, as they guide attention to recently attended features and locations (priming of pop-out and priming of location; V.

Deficits in explicit spatial memory, as well as abnormalities of the hippocampus and neighboring medial temporal structures, have been documented in schizophrenia and depression. Recent evidence relying on the contextual cueing paradigm has shown that integrity of these structures is crucial not only for explicit memory but also for implicit spatial memory. Using this paradigm, the authors show that implicit memory for spatial context is severely impaired in clinically depressed patients but reaches a normal level in schizophrenia patients, although in these patients, acquisition is slower than in controls. By contrast, implicit memory for isolated locations and colors is normal in both schizophrenia and depressed patients. These findings suggest an implicit memory impairment specific to spatial context in depression. The implications for research on the differences between schizophrenia and depression in abnormalities of the hippocampal system and for research on the neural correlates of contextual cueing are discussed.

When searching for a discrepant target along a simple dimension such as color or shape, repetition of the target feature substantially speeds search, an effect known as feature priming of pop-out (V. . The authors present the first report of emotional priming of pop-out. Participants had to detect the face displaying a discrepant expression of emotion in an array of four face photographs. On each trial, the target when present was either a neutral face among emotional faces (angry in Experiment 1 or happy in Experiment 2), or an emotional face among neutral faces. Target detection was faster when the target displayed the same emotion on successive trials. This effect occurred for angry and for happy faces, not for neutral faces. It was completely abolished when faces were inverted instead of upright, suggesting that emotional categories rather than physical feature properties drive emotional priming of pop-out. The implications of the present findings for theoretical accounts of intertrial priming and for the face-in-the-crowd phenomenon are discussed.

There is currently no consensus regarding what measures are most valid to demonstrate perceptual processing without awareness. Likewise, whether conscious perception and unconscious processing rely on independent mechanisms or lie on a continuum remains a matter of debate. Here, we addressed these issues by comparing the time courses of subjective reports, objective discrimination performance and response priming during meta-contrast masking, under similar attentional demands. We found these to be strikingly similar, suggesting that conscious perception and unconscious processing cannot be dissociated by their time course. Our results also demonstrate that unconscious processing, indexed by response priming, occurs, and that objective discrimination performance indexes the same conscious processes as subjective visibility reports. Finally, our results underscore the role of attention by showing that how much attention the stimulus receives relative to the mask, rather than whether processing is measured by conscious discrimination or by priming, determines the time course of meta-contrast masking.

Whether information perceived without awareness can affect overt performance, and whether such effects can cross sensory modalities, remains a matter of debate. Whereas influence of unconscious visual information on auditory perception has been documented, the reverse influence has not been reported. In addition, previous reports of unconscious crossmodal priming relied on procedures in which contamination of conscious processes could not be ruled out. We present the first report of unconscious cross-modal priming when the unaware prime is auditory and the test stimulus is visual. We used the process-dissociation procedure [

Anxiety has been associated with enhanced unconscious processing of threat and attentional biases towards threat. Here, we focused on the phenomenology of perception in anxiety and examined whether threat-related material more readily enters anxious than non-anxious individuals' awareness. In six experiments, we compared the stimulus exposures required for each anxiety group to become objectively or subjectively aware of masked facial stimuli varying in emotional expression. Crucially, target emotion was task irrelevant. We found that high trait-anxiety individuals required less sensory evidence (shorter stimulus exposure times) to become aware of the face targets. This anxiety-based difference was observed for fearful faces in all experiments, but with non-threat faces, it emerged only when these were presented among threatening faces. Our findings suggest a prominent role for affective context in high-anxiety individuals' conscious perception of visual stimuli. Possible mechanisms underlying the influence of context in lowering awareness thresholds in anxious individuals are discussed.

We investigated the perception of emotional stimuli in anxious individuals and nonanxious cohorts. Signal detection theory analysis was applied to the discrimination of emotionally charged faces at several points along a continuum of emotional intensity. This design permitted the derivation of multiple measures of sensitivity and response bias for fearful and for happy faces. Anxious individuals lacked a conservative bias in judging fearful stimuli and a liberal bias in judging positive stimuli compared with non-anxious individuals. In addition, anxious participants had lower perceptual sensitivity (d?) than non-anxious participants for mildly threatening stimuli, as well as a trend towards lower perceptual sensitivity for moderately positive stimuli. These results suggest that the processing of threat information in anxiety is affected by sensitivity and bias differently at different levels of affective intensity.

Here, we explored the effect of exposure to threat versus neutral stimuli on time perception in anxious (n029) and non-anxious (n029) individuals using predictions from the attentional gate model (AGM) of time perception. Results indicate that relative to non-anxious individuals, anxious individuals subjectively experience time as moving more slowly when exposed to short (2-second) presentations of threat stimuli, and that group differences disappear with longer exposure durations (4 and 8 seconds). Coupled with classic reports of enhanced attentional bias toward threat and diminished attentional control under stress in anxious individuals this finding provides novel insights into low-level cognitive processes that could shape and maintain the subjective experience of anxiety. Findings are discussed in relation to predictions from the AGM and cognitive accounts of anxiety.

Consumer behavior is a complex phenomenon encompassing internal, external, and situational factors. This study examined perceptions of market consumers about fruits and vegetables in Trinidad and Tobago in terms of produce origin, growing method, and willingness to pay. A stratified purposive sample of consumers at 14 unique market locations was surveyed to measure the three constructs and demographics. Descriptive statistics, correlational analysis, a ttest, and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed consumers have positive perceptions of locally grown produce and produce grown without chemicals. Findings also revealed a slight willingness to pay more for such characteristics. There were small to moderate correlations among the three constructs. Male and female perceptions of locally grown produce were significantly different, but no differences were found based on age. Extension educators working with producers who sell directly to consumers ...

Web-supported instruction is becoming more commonplace in today's colleges and universities . This paper explores student perceptions of the use of WebCT to support instructional objectives in a Web-supported environment. Data for the study were collected with a survey instrument using WebCT on-line testing tools. The results show WebCT contributed to students' ability to accomplish the course objectives. Students, however, continued to rely on print-based course materials and did not create student-centered on-line learning environments.

The objective of this research is the driving performance profiles analysis of drivers with Parkinson’s disease (PD), on the basis of a driving simulator experiment, in which healthy and PD participants drive in different driving scenarios, following a thorough neurological and neuropsychological assessment. The driving scenarios include driving in rural area in low and high traffic volumes and driving in motorway. The driving performance of PD is compared to that of healthy controls by means of a generalized linear model (GLM) which was developed in order to estimate the effect of the examined disease in driving behaviour. In this specific research, a sample of 62 participants is statistically analysed (21 PD and 41 control drivers). Various driving performance measures are examined, including speed, lateral position, steering angle, headway, reaction time at unexpected events, accident probability, some in terms of their mean values and some in both their mean values and their var...

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors determining driving difficulties as seen from the viewpoint of thirty elderly MCI drivers and thirty age-matched controls without cognitive impairment, using data from an extensive questionnaire. The analysis revealed that two factors underlie MCI perceptions of driving difficulties, representing (i) difficulties associated with late detection combined with slowed response to relevant targets in the peripheral field of view, and (ii) difficulties associated with divided attention between tasks requiring switching from automatic to controlled responses, particularly of long duration. The analysis for healthy controls revealed three factors representing (i) difficulties in estimating speed and distance of approaching vehicles in complex (attention-dividing) high-information-load conditions; (ii) difficulties in moving head, neck and feet; and (iii) difficulties in switching from automatic to controlled processing in new or unexpecte...

ABSTRACTBackground:Person-centered care (PCC) is regarded as good quality care for persons with dementia. This study aimed to explore and understand the association between PCC and organizational, staff and unit characteristics in nursing homes (NHs).Methods:Staff from 175 NH units in Norway (n = 1,161) completed a survey, including measures of PCC and questions about staff characteristics and work-related psychosocial factors. In addition, data about organizational and structural factors and assessment of the physical environment in the units were obtained. The distribution of these factors in regular units (RUs) and special care units (SCUs) is described, and the differences between the two types of units are analyzed. Furthermore, multilevel linear regression analyses explored the extent to which variables were associated with PCC.Results:Higher levels of PCC were associated with a greater job satisfaction, three years or more of health-related education, a lower level of quantit...

ObjectivesThe study aims to understand the factors that care home staff felt enabled or hindered them in continuing to use the well‐being and health for people with dementia (WHELD) psychosocial approach in their care home and investigate whether there was sustained activity 9 to 12 months after the study ended.MethodsThis qualitative study is part of a wider clinical trial, which demonstrated effectiveness of a psychosocial intervention on quality of life outcomes and neuropsychiatric symptoms for residents. Forty‐seven care home staff within nine care homes in the United Kingdom participated in focus groups, between 9 and 12 months after the intervention had finished. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify themes and interpret the data.ResultsThe findings highlighted that staff continued to use a range of activities and processes acquired through the research intervention, after the study had ended. Three overarching themes were identified as influential: “recognising th...

The phenomenon of children raising children, or older children caretaking for younger children is underinvestigated and can signi cantly impact child development and family wellbeing outcomes. The perceptions and practices of 150 parents towards sibling caretaking in rural Pakistan were explored through mixed methods surveys and interviews. 73% of parents assign sibling caretaking responsibilities to their daughters primarily, and 89% ask the eldest child to care for younger siblings, while only 2% reported never assigning this responsibility to a child. Caretaking responsibilities include feeding, bathing, disciplining, and putting the younger siblings to sleep. 95% reported assigning these responsibilities to their eldest child as their personal choice; 79% reported sibling caretaking is aligned with traditional practices/beliefs, although 89% agreed it is unrelated to religious obligations. The ndings hold implications for provision of nurturing care services for young children to support their health, education, childcare, social engagement in resource-constrained settings where children are expected to care for their siblings.

The study aims to investigate the relation of transformational leadership style and followers' perception of well-being and job satisfaction with mediating role of perceived work characteristics. Some evidences were found regarding relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction & employee well-being. However there is a little research found on the mediating relation of working conditions among transformational leadership (TL) and work related outcomes. Banking sector has been selected to explore this relationship. Population of study is bank employees of District Gujrat, Pakistan. This cross-sectional study includes sample of 152 employees of private sector banks. SPSS and AMOS were used for data interpretation. Structural equation modeling was used to find out the relationship of proposed variables. Results suggested a significant positive impact of TL on perception of meaningful work and job involvement, however job influence was not found significant. M...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of Transformational Leadership and Psychological Empowerment on employees' Job Satisfaction as well as to confirm the moderating role of Transformational Leadership between the relationship of Psychological Empowerment and Job Satisfaction by selecting the sample of respondents from Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO) Circle Gujrat. The data were collected using well structured questionnaire and the results have shown that Transformational Leadership is more strongly correlated as well as influencing Job Satisfaction than Psychological Empowerment. All the relationships have been found positive and significant. It has also been found that Transformational Leadership plays a moderating role between the relationship of Psychological Empowerment and Job Satisfaction.

This study has been undertaken to find out the impact of work family conflict and family work conflict on job satisfaction and life satisfaction of University employees. To see the impact of work and family conflicts on job satisfaction and life satisfaction, the study was conducted in education sector of Pakistan i.e. Public Sector University of Gujranwala Division of Pakistan. The data was collected from 180 respondents from the public sector university through questionnaire. The data was analyzed using SPSS. The results supported past literature and revealed that relationship exists between work & family conflicts and life & job satisfaction. The results also explored the new dimension that strong positive relationship exists between workfamily conflict and family-work conflict. Further it revealed that job satisfaction and life satisfaction of an employee get affected due to the imbalance between his/her work and non-work responsibilities.

In a changing economy managing an individual employee is more difficult than ever before. Work life imbalance effect both personal and work life. A balanced life is one where we spread our energy and efforts between key areas of importance. Work life balance has become important and necessary for almost all categories of employees, including those employees in teaching position. This paper explored the impact of work life balance on job satisfaction and organizational commitment among teaching employees of university of Gujrat. A sample of 171 employees gathered via stratified random sampling which has been provided the basis for analysis. Data was collected through questionnaire and analyzed through SPSS. The correlation result shows that significant positive relationship exists between work life balance and job satisfaction of university teachers. So our hypothesis H1 is accepted. The Pearson correlation results also indicate that there is positive relationship exists between work...

Today, Islamic banks (IB) are starting to understand the relevance and importance of knowledge sharing. They are also beginning to appreciate knowledge as the most significant and valued asset that leads to organizational performance. Hence, promising motivational factors are expected to be helpful in emphasizing the need for employees to share not only crucial knowledge but also new knowledge to further ensure that the Islamic banking industry possesses the competitive edge they seek. This study aims to compare the use of IT to support KS behavior between staff members in conventional banks that have included Islamic banking in their system (CBs) and IB in Malaysia. The methodology in this study involves connecting two types of data when the researcher realizes the need to collect additional data after analysing the first set of data. The second phase of the research, which is based on the results of the first phase, is marginal, supportive, and intended to explain the initial resu...

Moral judgement tasks and morality-based gameplay are designed into video games with increasing frequency. Historical discourse related to video games and morality has predominantly focused on 'ethically problematic' content and the effects that playing these games will have on those who play them. Gamers' perceptions of their own morality and the morality-based choices that they make in-game have been under-explored to date. An emic perspective of the context of morality-system gameplay proved valuable in providing a thick, rich description of this social phenomenon. The game Dishonored was selected for this research study due to the simplistic morality-system integral to its core mechanics and storytelling engine. Dishonored is a firstperson, stealth action-adventure video game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks in 2012. This study utilised a theoretically pluralistic approach comprising identification, ludology and social constructionism. Research methods included in-depth, personal interviews and an autoethnography. Findings indicated that Dishonored gamers make moralitybased gameplay choices for moral reasons both when these choices align with their personal moral positioning and when they are in conflict. When moral choices align with personal moral positioning, gamers experience empathy for Non-Player Characters (NPCs) and feel morally accountable for salient moral infractions. When moral choices conflict with moral positioning, gamers morally disengage in order to mitigate the negative consequences of the conflicting moral choice. It was found that gamers also make morality-based gameplay choices for reasons entirely unrelated to personal moral positioning. These amoral choices relate to exploration of the core mechanics and the narrative of the game as well as gamers' individual personalities and motivations. It was found through analysis and interpretation of the autoethnographic account that moral salience plays a pivotal role in moral choices predicated upon personal moral positioning. A limitation of the study may have been a small sample size, but it was counterpoised both through the triangulation of methods and the purpose of the study which was to gain an in-depth and rich understanding of the topic. It is recommended that future studies focus on the impact of demographic differentiators, such as gender identity, on morality-based gameplay choices, particularly since the sequel to the game under study, Dishonored 2, facilitates the choice of either a male or a female avatar. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 and with them that produce meaning (Egenfeldt-Neilson, 2013). Egenfeldt-Neilson (2013) further identifies the link between games and the discipline of communication by viewing games as communication media, communicating ideas and values and including aspects such as strategy, education and advertising. The International Communication Association, an academic association focussed on studying, educating, and the application of all aspects of human and mediated communication, has a Game Studies Division, recognising that video games offer opportunities for the study of human communication involving multidisciplinary approaches and merged disciplines (ICA, 2016). Key terms conceptualised for the purposes of this study include games and video games, violent video games, gamers, game design: core mechanics and storytelling engine, gameplay, and morality systems gameplay. Adams (2014) defines a game as a form of play activity within a pretended reality, where participants attempt to achieve goals within a given set of rules. Brathwaite and Schreiber (2009) state that games may or may not have goals, conflict, other players, start and end points, and decision making, but that all games are activities with rules. As a subset of this definition, 'video games' refer to a game in digital form, mediated by a computer, using a digital video screen, played on an electronic device Brathwaite & Schreiber, 2009). Multiple terms for video games are in common usage, such as 'computer games', 'electronic games' or 'digital entertainment'. These terms are not necessarily synonymous: for example, a computer game may refer to games on a personal computer whereas an electronic game may refer to electronic toys, and the term 'video game' may be used to refer exclusively to console gaming . Video games are unique and differ from other media forms due to an inherently interactive nature that requires active participation from the user (

Gamers’ perceptions of their own morality and the morality-based choices that they make in-game have been under-explored to date. An emic perspective of the context of morality-system gameplay proved valuable in providing a thick, rich description of this social phenomenon. The game Dishonored was selected for this research study due to the simplistic morality-system integral to its core mechanics and storytelling engine. Dishonored is a first-person, stealth action-adventure video game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks in 2012.

 student achievement measures, including o state standardized (AYP) test scores in math and ELA o alternative open-ended assessments  teacher working-conditions survey  video capture of classroom instruction sessions It is the data from this last component that will be the main focus of this study. Most teachers in the study were captured on video four times in each of two years teaching their classes, resulting in 8 videos per teacher total. Thousands of hours of classroom video in a core sample were scored by independent raters using as many as three different observation rubrics. All videos in this sample were scored using two content-neutral instruments: CLASS (see for details) and the Framework for Teaching (FfT; see for information). The 2011 version of FfT was developed based on the work done in the MET project, and that version is the one closest to that used in MET. The mathematics classes also were scored using a version of MQI (see for information) referred to as MQI Lite and the English Language Arts (ELA) classes were scored using a version of PLATO (see for details) referred to as PLATO Prime. For selfcontained elementary level teachers who provide instruction in both math and ELA, there are scores from all four of these instruments. The scores assigned to the videos on these instruments as part of the MET study serve as the data source for this study.

Set induction refers to the process of using a thought-provoking statement, interesting fact, or an audio-visual stimulus at the beginning of lecture to gain student's attention and give an overview about the lecture topic. In the present study, students were introduced to three types of set induction namely narratives, food-based analogies and humor-based images or activities at the beginning of anatomy lecture and their response to it is collected and analyzed. The objective of the study is to estimate the difference in a questionnaire-based perception score between the three different types of set induction; estimate sex differences in the questionnaire-based perception score. Students rated the validated, 7-item perception questionnaire using a 5-point Likert scale. Students felt that food-based analogies and humor-based images were more interesting, motivated them to participate in lecture-discussion than the narrative set induction. The familiarity of set induction varied between all the three different types of set induction. There was no significant difference in the perception of different types of set induction between male and female undergraduate students. Based on the student's feedback, it could also serve as a memory aid and ease the students learning experience. Majority of students responded positively to the use of set induction and recommended for its use in future classes.

Summary The phenomenological reason shows how the space and the thing conceived by the scientific and natural thinking are a construction upon the unitary and meaningful world of everyday experience; therefore the aim of this chapter is to analyze, from an Husserlian point of ...

The research that has been carried out in recent years in the historical area of Timisoara constituted the context for conducting a sociological study regarding the perception of permanent residents and visitors of Timisoara, on these studies, both in terms of the legislative framework in which preventive archaeological investigations are carried out, their way of organization, but especially regarding their impact on the cultural heritage of the city. A separate category of subjects, individualized within the target group of the research, are the students. Our analysis follows the perception of 360 students, highlighting both their level of information and knowledge regarding the archaeological research carried out in Timisoara, but also their opinions regarding the impact and usefulness of this type of investigation for the cultural heritage and for the city of Timisoara. After analyzing the results, we could find that most students expressed themselves in favor of this type of archaeological investigation, perceived as necessary and useful, with an impact especially on local history, which should be restored and valued. The conclusions of the study are important in our opinion, as they reflect the perception of a significant category of the population, namely students (mostly young people, aged between 18-28).

gmu.edu. This report contains results from a nationally representative survey of American adults conducted in April and May 2012. The survey examined public beliefs about federal agencies that are engaged in climate change research, and assessed which agencies the public looks to for answers to their questions on the issue. Furthermore, participants visited NASA's climate change website: climate.nasa.gov. See the methods section for a complete description of the study design. Selected key findings .

We conducted a survey of Americans' views on hydraulic fracturing in September 2012. A majority of Americans have heard little or nothing about hydraulic fracturing. Many Americans do not know if they support/oppose it or are undecided. Those who have made a decision are evenly split between support and opposition. Predictors of support include education, media use and top of mind associations.