Awe is a sense of enormity that alludes comprehension. Because of awe’s properties as a knowledge emotion, awe elicitors can increase awareness of knowledge gaps, boost scientific interest, and ...promote inquiry. However, the relationship between awe and exploratory behavior, such as information seeking, remains unclear. Using a mixed-methods approach, this dissertation asks how and to what extent awe fosters information seeking. This question was examined through a two-pronged approach. First, in a laboratory setting, participants (n = 32) were exposed to a variety of awe elicitors through a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display. Participants’ quantitative and qualitative responses were gathered immediately after exposure in the laboratory as well as 24 hours later through questionnaires. Second, a stratified sample of participants who voluntarily conducted information seeking (n = 8) completed phenomenologically-informed interviews. Findings indicate that although awe is primarily experiential, information seeking may arise from surprising learners with unknown and unexplained phenomena. Additionally, feelings of perceptual envelopment and accessing the inaccessible characterized participants’ VR-based awe experiences. From a practical perspective, these findings suggest that simulating moments of discovery during travel may increase learners’ intrinsic motivations for formal and informal research. Emergent findings also reveal that creating awe-inspiring VR content may require reduced didactic information to generate feelings of presence. From a theoretical perspective, this study pushes empirical awe literature beyond the confines of laboratory settings, illustrates how understudied awe elicitors pique curiosity, and provides a nuanced, qualitative report on the phenomenon of technology-induced awe.
Much of library design is practical, out of necessity. Librarians contend with myriad changes in how space is utilized due to technologies and expectations of its users. In ‘the age of distraction,’ ...the library might still offer a sole space of respite for many users. This paper describes studies from architecture and interior design that may help to increase library users' concentration and scholarship. A room's color, size and shape, acoustics, scent, and presence of nature all influence how people feel and act within a space. Evidence regarding the experience of space, including design for well-being, color and performance, and sounds and distraction, can be used to improve libraries by incorporating aspects of design that promotes well-being.
ABSTRACT Inspiraling binary neutron stars (BNSs) are expected to be one of the most significant sources of gravitational-wave signals for the new generation of advanced ground-based detectors. We ...investigate how well we could hope to measure properties of these binaries using the Advanced LIGO detectors, which began operation in September 2015. We study an astrophysically motivated population of sources (binary components with masses and spins of less than 0.05) using the full LIGO analysis pipeline. While this simulated population covers the observed range of potential BNS sources, we do not exclude the possibility of sources with parameters outside these ranges; given the existing uncertainty in distributions of mass and spin, it is critical that analyses account for the full range of possible mass and spin configurations. We find that conservative prior assumptions on neutron-star mass and spin lead to average fractional uncertainties in component masses of ∼16%, with little constraint on spins (the median 90% upper limit on the spin of the more massive component is ∼0.7). Stronger prior constraints on neutron-star spins can further constrain mass estimates but only marginally. However, we find that the sky position and luminosity distance for these sources are not influenced by the inclusion of spin; therefore, if LIGO detects a low-spin population of BNS sources, less computationally expensive results calculated neglecting spin will be sufficient for guiding electromagnetic follow-up.
Digital wonders Urban, Alex
Proceedings of the ALISE Annual Conference,
10/2022
Journal Article
How, if at all, does awe foster information seeking? This question was examined through a two-pronged approach. First, in a laboratory setting, participants (n = 34) were exposed to a variety of awe ...elicitors through a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display. Participants’ quantitative and qualitative responses were gathered immediately after exposure in the laboratory as well as 24 hours later through questionnaires. Second, a stratified sample of participants who voluntarily conducted information seeking (n = 8) completed phenomenologically-informed interviews. Findings indicate that although awe is primarily experiential, information seeking may arise from surprising learners with unknown and unexplained phenomena. Additionally, feelings of perceptual envelopment and accessing the inaccessible characterized participants’ VR-based awe experiences. Emergent findings also reveal that creating awe-inspiring VR content may require reduced didactic information to generate feelings of presence. These findings point to ways that VR may increase learners’ intrinsic motivations for informal and formal research.
ABSTRACT
How can we motivate social media users to critically analyze potential misinformation? Video games may be one way. This project presents research on a social‐impact game, Fake It to Make It, ...which positions players as for‐profit misinformation disseminators. Drawing upon the BJ Fogg's Functional Triad for Persuasive Computers and paying particular attention to the usability and perceived credibility of Fake It to Make It, this research analyzed the game from a persuasive design lens using player‐participant data. This was accomplished through screen‐captured gameplay as well as interviews and retrospective think‐alouds. Additionally, to determine if the game affects abilities to assess claims on social media, pre‐ and post‐intervention media literacy assessments were utilized. With this data, the researchers provide design recommendations to increase usability, influence procedural knowledge on social media, and promote continued gameplay and greater emotional/behavioral impact.
To understand the roles of fiction reading in mitigating readers' stress during the COVID‐19 pandemic, this study explores readers' motivations, preferences, and reading behaviors. Through an ...open‐ended online survey posted on social media platforms and an online reading community, the researchers collected 76 responses from adult fiction readers. Through qualitative coding, three prominent themes were identified: escapism, re‐reading behavior, and access and format. Readers actively escape into fictional worlds, often through re‐reading books, to cope with the pandemic. Also, cost and available channels of access shape readers' selection of fiction book format. These themes highlight elements of fiction reading that are pertinent to emotionally‐strained individuals, which can provide insight for reference and recommendation services. By advancing researchers' understanding of pleasure reading behaviors and the important selection criteria for fiction readers during stressful times, this study contributes to the body of knowledge in Readers Advisory (RA) and information behavior.
The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) discovered gravitational waves (GWs) from a binary black hole merger in 2015 September and may soon observe signals from ...neutron star mergers. There is considerable interest in searching for their faint and rapidly fading electromagnetic (EM) counterparts, though GW position uncertainties are as coarse as hundreds of square degrees. Because LIGO's sensitivity to binary neutron stars is limited to the local universe, the area on the sky that must be searched could be reduced by weighting positions by mass, luminosity, or star formation in nearby galaxies. Since GW observations provide information about luminosity distance, combining the reconstructed volume with positions and redshifts of galaxies could reduce the area even more dramatically. A key missing ingredient has been a rapid GW parameter estimation algorithm that reconstructs the full distribution of sky location and distance. We demonstrate the first such algorithm, which takes under a minute, fast enough to enable immediate EM follow-up. By combining the three-dimensional posterior with a galaxy catalog, we can reduce the number of galaxies that could conceivably host the event by a factor of 1.4, the total exposure time for the Swift X-ray Telescope by a factor of 2, the total exposure time for a synoptic optical survey by a factor of 2, and the total exposure time for a narrow-field optical telescope by a factor of 3. This encourages us to suggest a new role for small field of view optical instruments in performing targeted searches of the most massive galaxies within the reconstructed volumes.
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