In semiotics, salience refers to the relative importance or prominence of a piece of a sign. The relative salience of a particular sign when considered in the context of others helps an individual to quickly rank large amounts of information by importance and thus give attention to that which is the most important. This process stops an individual from becoming mentally overloaded with data. Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ... Semiotics (also spelled Semeiotics) is the study of signs and sign systems. ... Biosemiotics (bios=life & semion=sign) is a growing field that studies the production, action and interpretation of signs in the physical and biologic realm, in an attempt to integrate the findings of scientific biology and semiotics to form a new view of life and meaning as immanent features of the... In semiotics, the concept of a code is of fundamental importance. ... Computational semiotics is an interdisciplinary field that applies, conducts, and draws on research in logic, mathematics, the theory and practice of computation, formal and natural language studies, the cognitive sciences generally, and semiotics proper. ... This word has distinct meanings in logic, philosophy, and common usage. ... In semiotics, the process of interpreting a message sent by the addresser to the addressee is called decoding. ... In semiotics, denotation is the surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary. ... In semiotics, the process of creating a message for transmission by the addresser to the addressee is called encoding. ... In the lexicon of a language, lexical words or nouns refer to things. ... In semiotics, modality refers to the particular way in which the information is to be encoded for presentation to humans, i. ... In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as, ...something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity. ... A sign relation is the basic construct in the theory of signs, or semiotic theory, as developed by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). ... In semiotics, a sign relational complex is a generalization of a sign relation that allows for empty components in the elementary sign relations, or sign relational triples of the form (object, sign, interpretant). ... Semiosis is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. ... Semiosphere is the sphere of semiosis in which the sign processes operate in the set of all interconnected Umwelts. ... Semiotic literary criticism, also called literary semiotics, is the approach to literary criticism informed by the theory of signs or semiotics. ... In logic, mathematics, and semiotics, a triadic relation or a ternary relation is an important special case of a polyadic or finitary relation, one in which the number of places in the relation is three. ... Umwelt (from the German umwelt, environment) according to Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok is the biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human [and non-human] animal. ... In semiotics, the value of a sign depends on its position and relations in the system of signification and upon the particular codes being used. ... In semiotics, the commutation test is used to identify the value or signficance of any of the signifiers used in the material to be analysed. ... In semiotics paradigmatic analysis is analysis of paradigms rather than surface structure (syntax) as in syntagmatic analysis, often made through commutation tests, comparisons of words chosen with absent words, words of the same type or class but not chosen. ... In semiotics syntagmatic analysis is analysis of syntax or surface structure (Syntagmatic structure), rather than paradigms as in paradigmatic analysis. ... Roland Barthes Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) (pronounced ) was a French literary critic, literary and social theorist, philosopher, and semiotician. ... Marcel Danesi is known for his work in language, communications, and semiotics, being Professor of Semiotics and Communication Theory at the University of Toronto, Canada. ... Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (pronounced ) (November 26, 1857 – February 22, 1913) was a Geneva-born Swiss linguist whose ideas laid the foundation for many of the significant developments in linguistics in the 20th century. ... Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) and his many essays. ... Louis Hjelmslev (October 3, 1899 - May 30, 1965) was a Danish linguist whose ideas formed the basis of the Danish School in linguistics. ... Roman Osipovich Jakobson (October 11, 1896 - July 18, 1982) was a Russian thinker who became one of the most influential linguists of the 20th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art. ... Roberta Kevelson was the #1 authority on the pragmatism theories of Charles Sanders Peirce, and an authority on Semiotics in general. ... Charles Sanders Peirce (IPA: /pɝs/), (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American polymath, physicist, and philosopher, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Thomas Albert Sebeok (born in Budapest, Hungary, on November 9, 1920, died December 21, 2001 in Bloomington, Indiana) was one of the most prolific and wide-ranging of US semioticians. ... Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of beauty and the moral value of art, so aestheticization as propaganda is the process of presenting any form of behaviour considered dangerous or threatening as an acceptable means of promoting a political aim, for example violence that may involve... The aestheticization of violence in high culture art or mass media is the depiction of violence in a manner that is “stylistically excessive in a significant and sustained way” so that the audience is able to connect references from the play of images and signs” to artworks, genre conventions, cultural... The Semiotics of Ideal Beauty examines whether there can ever be an objective measurement of beauty or whether the concept and appreciation of beauty will always remain in flux as cultures evolve and establish new standards of physical attractiveness. ... Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ... In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as, ...something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity. ...

Discussion

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The human senses are enabled to provide a vast quantity of data to the mind at each and every given moment. The internal mental organisation of humans has come to be configured in such a way, through the process of neuro-cognitive evolution, to make possible a reaction despite this bombardment. In the course of the development of the science of semiotics, the process of converting signs into meaning has come to be called semiosis. Salience is an integral aspect of the sign or signs involved in semiosis that allows the mind to interpret the so-called data stream and to filter out the irrelevant, leaving only the salient signs. This is a metacognitive process working through schema that constitute a model of the world. Such schema are created through, and monitored by, a range of skills including pattern matching, analysis, and synthesis. Image File history File links Information_icon. ... Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... Semiosis is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. ... In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as, ...something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity. ... It has been suggested that Schemata theory be merged into this article or section. ... A mental model is an explanation in someones thought process for how something works in the real world. ...

Meaning can be described as the “…system of mental representations of an object or phenomenon, its properties and associations with other objects and/or phenomena. In the consciousness of an individual, meaning is reflected in the form of sensory information, images and concepts.” (Bedny & Karwowsky, 2004). It is either denotative or connotative but the sign system for transmitting meanings can be uncertain in its operation or conditions may disrupt the communication and prevent accurate meanings from being decoded. In philosophy, an object is a thing, an entity, or a being. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ... In common usage, an image (from Latin imago) or picture is an artifact that reproduces the likeness of some subject—usually a physical object or a person. ... A concept is an abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in language or symbology, that denotes all of the objects in a given category or class of entities, interactions, phenomena, or relationships between them. ... In semiotics, denotation is the surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary. ... This word has distinct meanings in logic, philosophy, and common usage. ...

Further, meaning is socially constructed and dynamic as the culture evolves. This is problematic because an individual’s frame of reference and experience may produce some divergence from some of the prevailing social norms. So the salience of data will be determined by both situational and emotional elements in a combination relatively unique to each individual. For example, a person with an interest in botany may allocate greater salience to visual data involving plants, whereas a person trained as an architect may scan buildings to identify features of interest. A person's world view or Weltanschauung may predispose salience to data matching those views. Because people live for many years, responses become conventional. At a group or community level, the conventional levels of significance or salience are slowly embedded in the sign systems and culture, and they cannot arbitrarily be changed. Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning to cultivate), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... The word norm coming from the latin word norma which means angle measure or (lawlike) rule, has a number of meanings: A social or sociological norm; see norm (sociology). ... Pinguicula grandiflora Botany is the scientific study of plantlife. ... An architect at his drawing board, 1893 An architect is a person who is involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a buildings construction. ... A world view (or worldview) is a term calqued from the German word Weltanschauung (pronounced ) meaning a look onto the world. ... In the sense used in philosophy and the social sciences, a convention is commonly seen as a set of widely agreed or accepted rules or customs. ...

References

Bedny, G. & Karwowski, W. (2004) Meaning and sense in activity theory and their role in the study of human performance. International Journal of Ergonomics and Human Factors. (26:2, 121-140.)