We propose a new unsupervised sentence salience framework for Multi-Document Summarization (MDS), which can be divided into two components: latent semantic modeling and salience estimation. For latent semantic modeling, a neural generative model called Variational Auto-Encoders (VAEs) is employed to describe the observed sentences and the corresponding latent semantic representations. Neural va...

This paper is concerned with the factors determining the relative salience of entities evoked in Complex NPs. The salience of entities evoked in complex NPs cannot be predicted by current theories of salience which attribute salience to grammatical role (subjects are more salient than non-subjects) or thematic role (agent are more salient than non-agents). A plausible hypothesis might be that, ...

Ability to anticipate aversive events is important for avoiding dangerous or unpleasant situations. The motivation to avoid an event is influenced by the incentive salience of an event-predicting cue. In an avoidance fMRI task we used tone intensities to manipulate salience in order to study the involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex in processing of incentive salience. In the task, cues predi...

The role of salience in localized attentional interference (LAI) was examined. In two experiments, target discrimination performance was measured as a function of the spatial separation between the target and a salient distractor item. In Experiment 1, both the salience of the distractor and that of a target were manipulated. Distractor salience was manipulated via size changes to the distracto...

Different accounts of nucleus accumbens (NAcc) function have emphasized its role in representing either valence or salience during incentive anticipation. In an event-related FMRI experiment, we independently manipulated valence and salience by cuing participants to anticipate certain and uncertain monetary gains and losses. NAcc activation correlated with both valence and salience. On trials w...

We investigate how the salience of an ethnic minority affects majority group’s voting behavior. use increased Muslim communities during Ramadan as a natural experiment. Exploiting exogenous variation in distance election dates to over 1980–2013 period Germany, our findings reveal polarization. Vote shares for both right- and left-wing extremist parties increase municipalities with mosques when ...

A dysregulation of the mesolimbic dopamine system in schizophrenia patients may lead to aberrant attribution of incentive salience and contribute to the emergence of psychopathological symptoms like delusions. The dopaminergic signal has been conceptualized to represent a prediction error that indicates the difference between received and predicted reward. The incentive salience hypothesis stat...

Drawing from the intergroup contact model and self-categorization theory, the authors advanced the novel hypothesis of a valence-salience effect, whereby negative contact causes higher category salience than positive contact. As predicted, in a laboratory experiment of interethnic contact, White Australians (N = 49) made more frequent and earlier reference to ethnicity when describing their eth...