Salience

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In psychology, salience (abnormality) means that a stimulus (e.g. an object or a person) is highlighted from its context and is therefore more easily accessible to the conscious mind than a non-salient stimulus. Causes can be that the figure-ground contrast is high or that the stimulus contradicts expectations or that the stimulus offers information about current goals.

The salience of a stimulus or an object or a person determines what human attention is directed to. This is determined by two mechanisms of perception:

  • Stimulus-induced absorption of attention. That is, objects that are salient with regard to certain characteristics attract attention regardless of the goals of the perceiving person. Example: A red light in the midst of green lights “catches the eye”.
  • Targeted choice (selective attention). This means that the perceiving person pays attention to certain objects based on their goals or their current motivation . Example: A hungry person is more likely to notice food than a full person.

Both processes play together. In cases in which the two processes compete with each other - this is what the previous psychological research results suggest - stimulus-induced appropriation prevails over target-driven choice.

The salience of a stimulus depends, among other things, on its

  • Intensity (an intense stimulus is more salient than a less intense one)
  • News (a new stimulus is more salient than a familiar one, and a surprising stimulus is more salient than an expected one)
  • Need- relevance ( biological need ; a stimulus that satisfies a biological need is more salient than a stimulus that is biologically irrelevant)
  • Ecological validity (. English ecological validity , a stimulus that provides relevant information about an object is more salient than a stimulus that does not do this)

It is known from social psychology that salience is an important factor in attributing causes . If z. For example, if members of minorities show certain behaviors, other people are more likely to attribute this behavior to belonging to this minority than the same behavior of a member of the majority to belonging to this same majority.

literature

  • Wolfgang Stroebe, Klaus Jonas, Miles RC Hewstone (Eds.): Social Psychology. An introduction (original title: Introduction to social psychology translated by Matthias Reis and Klaus Jonas). 6th edition, Springer, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-642-41090-1 .