Determining Consumer Purchase Intention Toward Counterfeit Luxury Goods Based on the Perceived Risk Theory

This study aims to understand the impact of financial, psychological, and social risk dimensions on attitude and intention to purchase counterfeit luxury goods. Data were collected through a questionnaire conducted with 116 Angolan consumers and were treated with structural equation modeling. The results revealed that only financial risk and social risk were influential in attitude toward counterfeit luxury goods. Attitude had a significant influence on the intention to purchase counterfeit luxury goods. The research contributes to the literature because there has been no previous study in an African country that seeks to understand the purchase intention of counterfeit luxury goods according to risk perception theory. On the other hand, this study is one of the few to report that social risk perception positively impacts attitudes towards counterfeit luxury goods.

An Exploratory Study of Consumers’ Travel-Related Concerns About COVID-19

This study explores consumers’ travel-related concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic via YouTube comments. Drawing on the risk perception theory and adopting a Markov Chain approach, this study demonstrates the topics that consumers discussed and empirically illustrates perceived risk in the tourism and hospitality industry via sentiment analysis across four sectors: recreation and entertainment, accommodation, transportation, and food and beverages. Results indicate discussion regarding travel-related videos is not only limited to travel-related topics but also includes a broad perspective of social, political, and historical topics. For instance, hotels have a new function as quarantine facilities with effective disease control procedures and social responsibility for public health. Additionally, health, performance, financial, social, and psychological risks are identified. Whereas the presence of travelers is typically regarded as positive, travelers during the crisis are regarded as “irresponsible” and “selfish” individuals who spread the virus and endanger public health. This shift of perception calls for both the industry and academia at large to educate people about the importance of disease control and rebuild travelers’ image and reputation. Recommendations to reduce the perceived risk in each sector are also provided.

Acceptance of Medical Treatment Regimens Provided by AI vs. Human

Along with the increasing development of information technology, the interaction between artificial intelligence and humans is becoming even more frequent. In this context, a phenomenon called “medical AI aversion” has emerged, in which the same behaviors of medical AI and humans elicited different responses. Medical AI aversion can be understood in terms of the way that people attribute mind capacities to different targets. It has been demonstrated that when medical professionals dehumanize patients—making fewer mental attributions to patients and, to some extent, not perceiving and treating them as full human—it leads to more painful and effective treatment options. From the patient’s perspective, will painful treatment options be unacceptable when they perceive the doctor as a human but disregard his or her own mental abilities? Is it possible to accept a painful treatment plan because the doctor is artificial intelligence? Based on the above, the current study investigated the above questions and the phenomenon of medical AI aversion in a medical context. Through three experiments it was found that: (1) human doctor was accepted more when patients were faced with the same treatment plan; (2) there was an interactional effect between the treatment subject and the nature of the treatment plan, and, therefore, affected the acceptance of the treatment plan; and (3) experience capacities mediated the relationship between treatment provider (AI vs. human) and treatment plan acceptance. Overall, this study attempted to explain the phenomenon of medical AI aversion from the mind perception theory and the findings are revealing at the applied level for guiding the more rational use of AI and how to persuade patients.

Egological meets ecological: Drawing aspects in perspective(s)

Aspects of Edmund Husserl’s egological phenomenology and James J. Gibson’s ecological visual perception theory are construed dialectically for the purpose of informing the teaching of drawing, with an emphasis on understanding relationships between viewer positions and objects in the environment as represented through geometric projection systems. Such a grounding is conducive to a drawing practice capable of insights leading to new knowledge of our relationships with our environment, both egological and ecological, in an art school curriculum currently distorted by neo-liberal trends from the core study of visual perception and communication.

Domain-specific and domain-general neural network engagement during human-robot interactions

To what extent do domain-general and domain-specific neural networks generalise across interactions with human and artificial agents? In this exploratory study, we analysed a publicly available fMRI dataset (n = 22; Rauchbauer, et al., 2019) to probe the similarities and dissimilarities in neural architecture while participants conversed with another person or a robot. Incorporating trial-by-trial dynamics of the interactions, listening and speaking, we used whole-brain, region-of-interest, and functional connectivity analyses to test response profiles within and across social or non-social, domain-specific and domain-general networks, i.e., the person perception, theory-of-mind, object-specific, language, multiple-demand networks. Listening to a robot compared to a human resulted in higher activation in the language network, especially in areas associated with listening comprehension, and in the person perception network. No differences in activity of the theory-of-mind network were found. Results from the functional connectivity analysis showed no difference between interactions with a human or robot in within- and between-network connectivity. Together, these results suggest that while similar regions are activated during communication regardless of the type of conversational agent, activity profiles during listening point to a dissociation at a lower-level or perceptual level, but not higher-order cognitive level.

Sublime Pixels: Exploring the Audience Experience in Digital Special Effects Cinema

<p>When exploring the audience perception of digital special effects cinema and the staggering success it has enjoyed, the explorer will often be left with a sense of confusion. They may ask: What is it that the audience is looking for or at when confronted with these pixilated illusions? This thesis attempts to answer that question. It starts with the basic assumption that what the audience is hoping to achieve when 'touched' by the phenomenal spectacle of the digital image is the very best feeling achievable, or the truly sublime. To do this, the thesis unravels the philosophical and theoretical quandaries that surround audience perception theory. It then examines digital special effects and digital cinema to understand, not only its attraction, but also its power over the viewer lost in its awesome potential. By exploring the governing theories behind the sublime and audience perception, the thesis is able to contend that the digital special effects image becomes carnally real or 'alive'. Through the examination of a number of seminal digital special effects movies the thesis tries not only to de-mystify the digital image, but to also create an aesthetic, situational 'map' to the feeling of the sublime.</p>

Sublime Pixels: Exploring the Audience Experience in Digital Special Effects Cinema

<p>When exploring the audience perception of digital special effects cinema and the staggering success it has enjoyed, the explorer will often be left with a sense of confusion. They may ask: What is it that the audience is looking for or at when confronted with these pixilated illusions? This thesis attempts to answer that question. It starts with the basic assumption that what the audience is hoping to achieve when 'touched' by the phenomenal spectacle of the digital image is the very best feeling achievable, or the truly sublime. To do this, the thesis unravels the philosophical and theoretical quandaries that surround audience perception theory. It then examines digital special effects and digital cinema to understand, not only its attraction, but also its power over the viewer lost in its awesome potential. By exploring the governing theories behind the sublime and audience perception, the thesis is able to contend that the digital special effects image becomes carnally real or 'alive'. Through the examination of a number of seminal digital special effects movies the thesis tries not only to de-mystify the digital image, but to also create an aesthetic, situational 'map' to the feeling of the sublime.</p>

Analysis on Quantified Self-Behavior of Customers in Food Consumption under the Perspective of Social Networks

China is still facing the double challenges of over nutrition and malnutrition. One of the main reasons is the lack of residents’ understanding of the nutritional value of food. Quantified self, as a measure of consumer self-activity, has been used to analyze food consumption behavior recently. Although the research results are increasing, the conclusions are not consistent. What’s more, previous literatures did not consider food consumption behavior based on the theory of information perception and the risk perception theory. In addition to obtaining information through their own human capital for quantitative activities, consumers will also obtain information through social networks. In view of the above understanding, this study uses experimental design and field survey to obtain data, uses Heckman two-step method and PLS path modeling method to analyze the impact of consumers’ quantified self-behavior on their health food consumption, and discusses the moderating role of social networks based on the perspective of complex network. The results show that (1) consumers’ health awareness can promote their choice of quantified self-behavior, (2) consumers’ quantified self-behavior is helpful to promote their purchase intention and purchase scale of healthy food, and (3) social networks play a positive moderating role in consumers’ quantified self-influence on their healthy food consumption. Both emotional networks and instrumental networks have significant moderating effect, but the formal is stronger. This article not only considers the relationship between food consumption behavior and social network but also the enhances literature based on the theory of information perception and the risk perception theory.

‘Unusual ingredients’: Developing a cross-domain model for multisensory artistic practice linking food and music

This article explores linkages between sensory experiences of food and music in light of recent research from gastrophysics, 4E cognition (i.e. embodied, embedded, extended and enactive) and ecological perception theory. Drawing on these research disciplines, this article outlines a model for multisensory artistic practice, and a taxonomy of cross-domain creative strategies, based on the identification of sensory affordances between the domains of food and music. Food objects are shown to ‘afford’ cross-domain interrelationships with sound stimuli based on our capacity to sense their material characteristics, and to make sense of them through prior experience and contextual association. We propose that multisensory artistic works can themselves afford extended forms of sensory awareness by synthesizing and mediating stimuli across the selected domains, in order to form novel, or unexpected sensory linkages. These ideas are explored with reference to an ongoing artistic research project entitled ‘Unusual ingredients’, creating new music to complement and enhance the characteristics of selected food.