Where does image collide?

The degree to which use of an innovation is perceived to enhance one's status or standing in one's social system: it is one of the perceived characteristics of innovating that predict whether a person will adopt a new technology, and it names a social payoff, looking modern or important to peers, rather than any practical benefit. Moore and Benbasat's 1991 Development of an instrument to measure the perceptions of adopting an information technology innovation defined and scaled image as a distinct perception, and Venkatesh and Davis's 2000 TAM2 study modelled it as a social-influence determinant that raises perceived usefulness. The referent is a felt gain in prestige tied to using a system, measured on a survey, and it is not a set of brand associations, a grid of pixels, or a picture of one's own body.[1][2]

Unit

Perceived status gain from using an innovation, on a survey scale

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Captured by multi-item agreement scales asking whether using the system confers prestige or high standing among peers

The set of perceptions, beliefs, and associations about a brand or a store held in a consumer's memory: brand image is the meaning a name carries, the network of attributes, benefits, and attitudes that come to mind, and it is the component of brand knowledge that, alongside awareness, gives a brand its equity. Keller's 1993 Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity defined brand image as brand associations held in memory and organised as an associative network. The referent is a structure of consumer beliefs about a market offering, elicited and mapped from buyers, and it is neither the prestige a user gains from a technology, a sampled array of intensities, nor a person's regard for their own body.[3]

Unit

The associations a brand evokes in consumer memory, by favourability, strength, and uniqueness

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Elicited through free association, attribute ratings, and perceptual mapping of what consumers link to the brand

A two-dimensional array of numbers representing the light intensity sampled and quantised from a scene: a digital image is defined on a grid of picture elements, or pixels, each holding a value for brightness or colour, and it is the object that image processing filters, transforms, and analyses. Gonzalez and Woods's Digital Image Processing formalises the image as a function of two spatial coordinates that is discretised by sampling and quantisation into a finite matrix of pixel values. The referent is an engineered data structure standing in for a picture, measured in pixels and bit depth, and it has nothing in common with a perception of status, a network of brand beliefs, or a mental picture of one's body.[4]

Unit

A quantised 2-D array of pixel values, by resolution and bit depth

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Characterised by its dimensions in pixels, its bit depth and dynamic range, and pixel-level statistics such as histograms

A person's mental representation and evaluation of their own attributes, appearance, or body: self-image and body image name the picture one holds of oneself and the feelings attached to it, spanning perceptions of how one looks and attitudes of satisfaction or distress toward one's physical self. Cash's 2004 Body image: past, present, and future framed body image as a multidimensional construct of self-perceptions and self-attitudes about the body, not a fixed likeness. The referent is a person's inner appraisal of their own self and body, assessed by self-report, and it is unrelated to prestige from a technology, associations about a brand, or a matrix of pixel intensities.[5]

Unit

A person's perception and evaluation of their own body and self, by self-report

Recovery means

Shifts with mood, context, and intervention, so body regard can improve as evaluative attitudes toward the self change

Measured by

Assessed by validated self-report inventories of body satisfaction, appearance evaluation, and self-concept