Salience

Salience and Salient are words I through around a lot. I assume people have use context to figure out what they mean, but if not, here's the deal. Salience is making a thought or idea present in one's mind, consciously or unconsciously, in such a way that it effects behavior.

For example. There is a famous study on salience in which a group of Asian women were split into three. One group was shown video that didn't relate to anything. The second was shown video that made being female salient to them, it showed images that evoked femininity. The third group was shown video that made being Asian salient to them.

All three groups were then asked to take a math test. The results? The group "primed" (priming = to make salient) with Asian did better than the group with incidental images. The group primed with female... they did worse. This study shows that what people are thinking of, via how it effects their self-image and their culturally-derived sense of how they should perform on a given task, effects their ability on said task.

So just when you thought I wasn't getting to a point. Yesterday after strike for Dance Light, my last commitment before heading off to San Francisco I held my tool bag in my hand and took two steps to head toward my locker. I then stopped and realized I was cleaning out my locker tomorrow and I should just take my bag with me in the car. It was at that moment that the fact that I actually won't be here for the semester really hit me. And it was compounded by a friend congratulating me on being done a few minutes earlier. So it was that strange event that has made the immediacy of my departure incredibly salient.

I am actually getting out of here for an amazing internship. It's pretty cool.

Have I mentioned I love the word salient?