An Improved Measure of Cognitive Salience in Free Listing Tasks

Robbins, Michael C.; Nolan, Justin M.; Chen, Diana

doi:10.1177/1525822x17726726

Cited by 19 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…Cognitive salience (CS) [ 8 ] and use value (UV) [ 9 ] were applied to determine the greatest cognitive and cultural importance of these medical plants in Jianghua.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interviewers collected traditional knowledge from large samples of free-lists which reveal cognitive salience from individuals’ local knowledge. The measure of cognitive salience includes both list position and list frequency irrespective of list length or number of respondents [ 8 , 12 ]. We interviewed 215 informants and recorded 215 free-lists; here, we calculated the mean cognitive salience (CS) for each listed species, …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ethnobotanical survey of plant species for herbal tea in a Yao autonomous county (Jianghua, China): results of a 2-year study of traditional medicinal markets on the Dragon Boat Festival

Jin

Liu

Xie

et al. 2018

J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine

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BackgroundHerbal tea is widely consumed in Jianghua, a Yao autonomous county in Hunan Province, China, to prevent and treat diseases. The materials in herbal tea at the traditional medicinal markets at the Dragon Boat Festival remain unknown. The aims of the paper were (1) to specifically investigate the materials of herbal tea used by Yao nationalities in Hunan Province, (2) to record the most common and the culturally important medicinal plant species in the markets, and (3) to compare the medical plant tradition both used for herbal tea between the Jianghua and Lingnan regions.MethodsDuring 2016–2017, 215 vendors were interviewed at traditional medicinal markets at the Dragon Boat Festival in Jianghua to record plants used for herbal tea and to document traditional knowledge of their medicinal function, habitat, and conservation status. Bunches of medicinal plants were purchased to identify the species and to prepare voucher specimens. Cognitive salience (CS) based on free-lists and use value (UV) were calculated to analyze the cultural importance of medical plants; other quantitative methods (coefficient of similarity and chi-square analysis) were applied for comparison of herbal tea tradition between the Jianghua and Lingnan regions.ResultsA total of 169 species belonging to 66 families and 142 genera were recorded in herbal tea to treat health conditions in the study area. There were 30 health conditions that were recorded, with heat-clearing and detoxifying being the most common medicinal function, followed by treating rheumatism and promoting blood circulation. Of the 169 species, 97 were herbs. The whole plant was the most commonly used plant part in the preparation of herbal tea. According to the national evaluation criteria, three of these species are listed on “China’s red list” and registered as vulnerable (VU). By comparing the coefficient of similarity of herbal tea plants and the number of mentions for part(s) used in Jianghua and Lingnan, the medicinal plant tradition is different in two areas.ConclusionsHerbal tea in Jianghua reflects the cultural diversity of the Yao people and the plant diversity of the region. Future research on the safety, efficacy, and the adulterants of herbal tea are needed for sustainable utilization.

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“…Cognitive salience (CS) [ 8 ] and use value (UV) [ 9 ] were applied to determine the greatest cognitive and cultural importance of these medical plants in Jianghua.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnobotanical survey of plant species for herbal tea in a Yao autonomous county (Jianghua, China): results of a 2-year study of traditional medicinal markets on the Dragon Boat Festival

Jin

Liu

Xie

et al. 2018

J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine

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“…Salient terms are also more prevalent in everyday language [ 10 – 12 ]. Item salience also may be estimated by combining an item’s frequency across lists with its rank/position on individual lists [ 13 – 16 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open-ended interview questions and saturation

et al. 2018

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Sample size determination for open-ended questions or qualitative interviews relies primarily on custom and finding the point where little new information is obtained (thematic saturation). Here, we propose and test a refined definition of saturation as obtaining the most salient items in a set of qualitative interviews (where items can be material things or concepts, depending on the topic of study) rather than attempting to obtain all the items. Salient items have higher prevalence and are more culturally important. To do this, we explore saturation, salience, sample size, and domain size in 28 sets of interviews in which respondents were asked to list all the things they could think of in one of 18 topical domains. The domains—like kinds of fruits (highly bounded) and things that mothers do (unbounded)—varied greatly in size. The datasets comprise 20–99 interviews each (1,147 total interviews). When saturation was defined as the point where less than one new item per person would be expected, the median sample size for reaching saturation was 75 (range = 15–194). Thematic saturation was, as expected, related to domain size. It was also related to the amount of information contributed by each respondent but, unexpectedly, was reached more quickly when respondents contributed less information. In contrast, a greater amount of information per person increased the retrieval of salient items. Even small samples (n = 10) produced 95% of the most salient ideas with exhaustive listing, but only 53% of those items were captured with limited responses per person (three). For most domains, item salience appeared to be a more useful concept for thinking about sample size adequacy than finding the point of thematic saturation. Thus, we advance the concept of saturation in salience and emphasize probing to increase the amount of information collected per respondent to increase sample efficiency.

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“…However, the analysis we propose is applicable to the interpretation of the salience calculated by any other formula (e.g. Sutrop 2001;Robbins et al 2017) or even for free-recall studies.…”

Section: Final Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, Smith (1993) proposed the joint use of these two variables in the Salience Index. The Salience Index has since been adjusted by Smith & Borgatti (1997) and Smith et al (1995), while other versions were proposed by Sutrop (2001) and Robbins et al (2017), although maintaining the basic idea of combining the average position and frequency of citation of each item in determining the relative importance of items.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What matters in free listing? A probabilistic interpretation of the salience index

2019

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Free listing is a data collection technique used in diff erent subject areas to characterize a given cultural domain. Analysis of a set of lists from a human population allows inferences to be made about the cultural salience of the items in that domain. However, the challenge that the salience index presents is establishing a threshold value for determining whether an item can be considered salient or not. Th e present analysis reveals how to determine which items of a list have non-randomly determined citation frequency and order. Monte Carlo techniques were used to create a hypothetical null scenario. Th e present analysis not only objectively identifi es which items stand out in relation to the others, it also reveals which items can be considered idiosyncratic and how order and frequency independently infl uence the salience index. Th e present analysis represents a useful tool for analyzing data collected through free listing. It also can contribute to understanding processes related to the cultural relevance of items and to the test future hypotheses in diff erent areas of knowledge.

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An Improved Measure of Cognitive Salience in Free Listing Tasks

Cited by 19 publications

References 12 publications

Ethnobotanical survey of plant species for herbal tea in a Yao autonomous county (Jianghua, China): results of a 2-year study of traditional medicinal markets on the Dragon Boat Festival

Ethnobotanical survey of plant species for herbal tea in a Yao autonomous county (Jianghua, China): results of a 2-year study of traditional medicinal markets on the Dragon Boat Festival

Open-ended interview questions and saturation

What matters in free listing? A probabilistic interpretation of the salience index

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