This experiment extends the work of Boynton and Olson by providing a replication of their OSA studies, but using the Munsell system. It aims to define the location of the eleven basic surface colours within Munsell space using a monolexemic colour naming technique, and to improve sampling from the red and neutral regions. A comparison of the Munsell and OSA results reveals that while the centroids obtained using the two systems correspond reasonably well, the Munsell focal samples have a much higher saturation than their OSA counterparts. This is undoubtedly due to the more restricted range of the OSA system and calls into question the status of the focal samples previously identified. the existence of Berlin and Kay's eleven basic colour categories is confirmed and their locations identified within Munsell colour space.
Recent research into perceptual categorization has demonstrated that successful classification depends upon the matching of a stimulus input with a prototype representing the appropriate category. The suggestion that aesthetic responses to stimuli are mediated by the categorization process was investigated in two furniture selection tasks. In the first experiment subjects were requested to select items of furniture from a display similar to those in a set, while preference selections were obtained in the second experiment. The sets comprised items in one of three styles — Modern, Georgian or Art Nouveau — with the display made up of examples of all three. The first experiment examined the reliability of classification for the styles selected, with results indicating the existence of two distinguishable categories, represented by the Modern and Georgian sets. Further, the Georgian and Art Nouveau sets appeared to belong to a broader category, in which the Georgian items were more prototypic, that is, were better examples of this category. The results of Expt. 2 showed a marked parallelism with the data from the similarity task and supported the hypothesis that aesthetic choice reflects categorization and prototypicality.
This study investigated clinical physiotherapists' reasons for their use of treatment techniques, with a particular focus on their utilisation of journal review and research literature. A questionnaire was completed by 180 physiotherapists in England and 141 physiotherapists in Australia. Despite the greater prevalence of pre-registration degree respondents in Australia, there were no differences between the two national groups in their reasons given for choice of treatment techniques. The basis of over 90% of each groups choice of techniques reflected what was taught during their initial training. Experience of treatment effects on prior patients, and information gained in practice-related courses, were also primary reasons. Research literature ranked least in importance as a basis for choosing techniques, and review articles fared little better. The results indicated that these physiotherapists relied mainly on information gained from formal pre- and post-registration courses. By implication, the most obvious means of influencing physiotherapists' attitudes to research utilisation lies with those responsible for physiotherapy education.
There is a lack of consistency regarding the scales used to measure aesthetic pleasure within design. They are often chosen ad hoc or adopted from other research fields without being validated for designed artifacts. Moreover, many scales do not measure aesthetic pleasure in isolation, but instead include its determinants (e.g., novelty). Therefore, we developed a new scale to measure aesthetic pleasure and included scales to measure its known determinants for discriminant validity purposes, which automatically led to validating these determinants as well. In the exploratory phase, we identified highly reliable items representative of aesthetic pleasure and its determinants across product categories. In the validation phase, we confirmed these findings across different countries (Australia, the Netherlands, Taiwan). The final scale consists of five items, "beautiful", "attractive, "pleasing to see", "nice to see", and "like to look at", that together reliably capture the construct of aesthetic pleasure. Several recommendations are formulated regarding the application of this scale in design studies and beyond.
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