The noun "salience" derives from the Latin word
saliens - ‘leaping, or bounding’. In a human embryo, the heart tissue is beating and leaping. A Native American may pay no attention to Columbus Day protests until after instruction in tribal and historical Indian traditions (priming). After gaining new cultural insights, these protests may become "salient." Salience, as a component of Communication and Social Psychology studies, asks the question of why something captures and holds our attention and why it is more readily available as a cognition than other facts, feelings, and emotions? When a person perceives and reacts, they use the information and emotions most readily accessible. This information is understood to be the most salient information. Social Influence is an area of intense study for Social Psychologists and Communication theorists. Social Influence asks how and why, are people influenced to weaken a strongly held position, adopt a new position, change an attitude, or persuade someone? The extent that the communicator can understand and harness the power of Social Influence is the extent that they can succeed in their goal. Salience has been identified as one of the key ideas that guides our understanding of how to make a point of view stand out from among others and draw the receivers attention to the salient points of the encoded message. Salience is then an important concept in several theories relating to Social Influence. Some areas of Communication and Social Psychology research that include the concept of salience as a component of their theory are: Persuasion Theory, Vested Interest, Summation Theory of
Attitude Change, Group Salience, and Social Presence Theory. The use of salience in these theories is summarized below:
Persuasion theory: Salience is the critical concept, along with agenda and spin, for the Persuasion theory of Professor Richard E. Vatz of Towson University as articulated in his book, /The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion/, (Kendall Hunt, 2012, 2013). Salience, in his book and articles, is used as a measure of how reality is created for chosen audiences. He claims (1973) (2013) that the struggle for salience (and agenda and meaning and spin) is the sine qua non of the persuasive process. In order for someone to have a vested interest in something, it must be perceived to affect their lives personally. Things that in which we are highly vested also bear on our behavior (Crano, 1995), and it must be salient or leap out. Vivid cues are more likely to grab our attention (McArthur & Post, 1977). If an attitude object is salient to us, our vested interest will be increased as well as the likelihood that our behavior and attitudes will be consistent (Sears & Citrin, 1985). Crano states, "Apparently, making an attitude object more salient enhances the salience of attitude-relevant outcomes as well. Vividness, priming, and similar operations may all enhance the salience of the self-interest implications of a position." These attitudes sum together to form our overall view of the attitude object and comes to the forefront (made salient) when we engage the attitude object. Fishbein indicates that we can hold six to nine salient beliefs at a time (Cronen, 1973). Those manifested during the attitude object encounter determine the prevailing attitude. Fishbein believed that the strongest held beliefs would be the most salient and come to the fore. Cronen argued that salience is not intrinsically tied to strength, but is an independent attribute of attitude change, as some strongly held beliefs are non-salient (Cronen, 1973). Within a group, communication is the primary way that we determine salience of attitudes. Other things such as physical attributes can be observed, but deeper feelings will have to be communicated within the group to make them salient (Harwood et al., 2006).
Social presence theory (SPT): SPT can be defined as, "The degree to which a person is perceived to be a real person in mediated communication." (Gunwadena, 1995) This is an update on the original definition, developed by Short, Williams and Christie (1976), which stated, "The degree of salience of the other person in an interaction."
What makes something salient? How does the mind select, structure and impart meaning to stimuli? People "develop and stabilize" cognitions about stimuli by an "examination of action, intention, ability and environment." (Taylor & Fiske, 1978, citing Heider, 1934, as their source, p. 250). Individuals have limited cognitive resources and abilities to process and comprehend information and situational complexity. A person cannot grasp every nuance of a stimuli required to assign its full and complete meaning. Salience is the way researchers understand what information will most likely capture one's attention in a given situation and have the greatest influence on one's cognitions about the stimuli. Research has shown that the most salient information is not always the most accurate or important, but a "Top of the Head Phenomenon" (Taylor & Fiske, 1978). Guido developed the Theory of Dichotic Salience after a review of some 1,200 studies, which pointed to a "common origin among salience instances, by emphasizing the nature of prominence which is intrinsic to any salience construct" (Guido, 1998, Abstract, p. 114). Salience is a construct that depends on the ability of the mind to access the feelings or emotions (affect) generated by the salient stimulus. The activation in memory of cognitions that relate to and evaluate the stimulus. And finally, the availability of these mental resources to engage the stimulus (Guido, 1998). One challenge for communicators is to find a way to break through these hardened perceptions in order to persuade. Making an idea salient is one of the keys. Guido's Principle one is
figure-ground, which is the means the perceptual field from which people direct their attention towards something that stands out. Figurality is the brightness,
complexity, and energy (movement) of a stimulus. It is thought that these aspects trigger cognitions and thought processes in the brain that lead to salience. Brightness includes the magnitude and the colors of the object. Studies have shown that bright, vibrant colors more easily capture the attention and are easier to remember (Guido, 1998). Guido's Principle two is Unusuality, which can be broken down into statistical novelty (unique and unfamiliar), unexpectancy, out of role behaviors, negativity and extremity (emotional impact). Novelty is the degree that one has no experience with the stimuli. Unexpectancy is a result of learning. We have developed an expectation that is violated (Guido, 1998). Our beliefs and thoughts vary in salience. Salient beliefs are most easily activated in the cognitive processes and are more easily recalled, and are therefore more accessible (Higgins, 1996). Priming has been shown to increase accessibility of relevant knowledge (Higgins, 1996). Framing including writing decisions about definitions of words and events, causal linkages, moral implications, and solution sets for the problem area (McCombs, 1997). Our minds sort information available using our agenda (framing) and stimulus (priming) for that situation and activate it to accomplish our purpose. When one encounters a stimulus for the first time, the initial reaction is characterized as
unconditioned response. An unconditioned response is one that "elicits a national, reflexive response." (Weseley & McEntarffer, 2014, p. 136). Subsequent encounters will elicit a
conditioned response has been developed through the learning that occurred with the intervening encounters with the stimulus. This learning is bedrock knowledge on which one draws when responding to a given situation. (Weseley & McEntarffer, 2014). If the first time one ate ice cream the experience was pleasant, the second experience will be informed from the firs. The second experience will generate salient pleasant cognitions, salivation, and other biological responses that will reinforce the pleasant salience of the experience. If on the other hand, the first encounter was negative (disgust, pain or nausea), the second encounter will generate the feeling of pain in the stomach awful memories of the first encounter. which will reinforce the negative salience of the first and second experience. Another key aspect of whether a particular memory or knowledge will be activated is whether it is applicable to the situation. If it is not applicable, it will not be salient and is unlikely to be activated for that situation. "According to the synapse model…, the process begins with the stimulus, which increases the excitation level of stored knowledge as a function of the features of the match between the attended features of the stimulus and the features of the stored knowledge." (Higgins, 1996, p. 137). Humans have gatekeeper mental mechanisms that allow certain information in and keeps others out. This discrimination process can be viewed a defensive mechanism the protects and enhances our life experience. Our processes of making cognitions "also involve contingencies of reinforcement." (Skinner, 1974, p. 117). They cite the example of a bird watching the water for the presence of fish. Through learning, the bird associates the ripples with the closeness of the fish, but they must be careful of the uncertainty that ripple is not caused by a crocodile. The ripples are very salient, if they are caused by fish suitable for use as food. The likelihood increases that the ripples will catch the attention of the bird and improve its probability of eating the fish, if the ripple cue is a predictor of fish behavior and presence. The predictiveness of ripples reinforces its salience. The Esber–Haselgrove model argues that (1) "stimuli acquire added salience to the degree that they predict motivationally relevant consequences", and (2) "a predictor of multiple reinforcers should have more salience than a predictor of just one." (Esber & Haselgrove, 2011, 2555-25557). So, for example, if ripples predict both the presence of fish and the increased likelihood that the fish can be caught, they will be much more salient to the bird, than if the ripples only predict the presence of the fish, but tell the bird nothing about the probability of making a catch. Salience is a broad concept in the social sciences, that can cause confusion. Part of the confusion lies in that different researchers use the same term to posit different ideas of what makes a particular stimulus salient. When we encounter an object or idea, we may be draw to it for a variety of reasons. It may be its brightness or intensity, its predictive capacity, or other features such as uniqueness or enormity that catches one's attention. Once the attention is engaged, our brain will begin to process this information and make assessments and judgements about the encounter. Our minds and bodies will activate useful memories, biological responses and feelings that were generated from prior encounters with the object of similar objects. These memory-evaluative-feeling-biology responses will determine if the object is salient. If it is salient, we will devote more cognitive processing resources to the encounter and it will enhance or protect us in that moment.
Axioms of salience Communication scholars have found that a number of different factors have a direct effect on the salience of attitude objects.
Direct experience William Crano posits that one's direct experience with an issue or attitude object increases the salience and consequently the
potency of that
attitude, and the level of consistency between attitude and
behavior. :For example: Consider two people: one with emphysema, one without. Both of whom share a negative attitude toward cigarette smoking. The person with emphysema would have a stronger attitude than his counterpart, and consequently would show greater consistency between his relevant attitude and behavior. It is posited by Crano that the attitude toward smoking of the person with emphysema may be more salient due to his direct experience with the consequence of smoking.
Self-Interest The concept called
vested interest by Crano is called
self-interest by Sears (1997). It seems that "self-interest" is the more widely recognized term. Self-interest involves either perceived or actual personal consequences. That is, Crano (1997) argues that vested interest involves perceived personal consequences (p. 490), while Sears (1997, a critique of Crano) counter-argues that Crano's survey experiments define it objectively. Crano argues that vested interest should have a moderating effect on attitudes. Sears argues that, actually, evidence for this is conflicting: The survey literature has rarely found significant effects of self-interest, while the
experimental literature finds significant effects. The literature is concerned with salience only marginally; it is actually about strength of attitudes (i.e. how well they correlate with behavior). It is about salience inasmuch as anything "strong" is "salient".
Needs and aspirations The salience (prominence) of an
attitude can also be measured by the
relevance of an
idea to that person's
needs or aspirations. As ideals become more salient they become more
accessible, the more
accessible the attitude object is the stronger the attitude toward the object. As
accessibility increases, so does the likelihood of self-interested
voting (Young). :For example: In times of elections, issue relevant events are the focus of attention. Therefore, candidates, due to their aspiration for a certain political position are interest driven toward the salient events since they are favorable to their party.
Policy making Political scientists agree that salience is relatively important in examining political
policy, because policies are not only determined by what issues are important to people but also by how important they are. This involves examining what issues are ignored and which are made "important." One research agenda that political scientists are concerned with understanding is "when and how salience and changes in salience matter for political action." There are three related understandings of salience. • The first ("classical") interpretation considers salience to be independent of the "
status quo" and politicians’ ideal policies and programs. Although it says salience is independent of ideals, it does not say that salience is independent of preferences. This means, where there is a change in salience there is also a change in preferences. Often a player or policymaker's ideals may not be known but their preferences are usually revealed in their party's manifestos. Often policymakers cannot achieve their ideals but rather must choose between the offers on the table. They may prefer one over the other and this is where salience affects a party or a politician's position on an issue. • The second ("
valence") interpretation proposes that for certain issues salience is a very important factor. In other words, when there is a general
consensus of
principles, the relative salience of various issues amongst the public determines the policy position of policy makers. This is due to constraints in policy making, where ideals are often induced, which policy makers view as the tradeoff space. For example, although "ideally" they may like to see low
unemployment and low
inflation, they are usually constrained to pick a position on the "tradeoff" line. Thus, their ideal has been induced due to constraints. In these situations salience and policy position are almost interchangeable, because their "induced ideal" is their "favored allocation." In the classical interpretation, salience would be used to describe the different levels of preference between positions on
policies. • The third ("price") interpretation assumes that salience is not separate from ideals, as the classical view states, but that it is also not the same as ideals, as the valence view claims. This interpretation assumes that although a group of players, sharing benevolent preferences, all dissatisfied with the
status quo, may still value different aspects differently when considering policy change. The price interpretation is favored over the other two for three reasons. First, it is more applicable. Unlike the classical view, the price interpretation can be applied to a more wide-ranging set of situations. Second, the price interpretation uses both the classical point of view and ideals in its evaluation of salience. Not only do you need to know a player's weighted preferences but also their connection to their ideal point and the
status quo. Therefore, a change in salience can reflect a change in ideal point,
status quo, or their weighted preferences. Third, this interpretation can be used to determine the elements stand in importance or worth. For example, players may organize and focus their time and energy into options with the biggest pay off. "That is they may look to see where they get the greatest ‘bang for their buck.’" ==Public opinion==