Review of Perception-Based Definitions of Salience

Abstract

Traditionally, the concept of salience has been mainly employed in the field of social psychology, that branch of psychology that concentrates on the aspects of human behavior which involve individuals and their relationships to other individuals, groups, social institutions and to society as a whole. In this literature, the origin of the term (saliency) dates back to Krech and Crutchfield (1948),¹ although similar concepts had been developed since the end of the 19th century under different names (see, e.g., Calkins 1894, 1896; von Restorff 1933). Only recently, however, has this concept found its current form with the studies of Taylor and Fiske in the field of person perception (Taylor and Fiske 1975, 1978; Fiske and Taylor 1984, 1991). While they referred to social stimuli: (persons and their attributes), in past research the stimulus has been variously represented, from concrete objects to abstract entities (such as attitudes, values interests, behaviors).