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The purpose of this paper is to propose a local orientation and navigation framework based on visual features that provide location recognition, context augmentation, and viewer localization information to a blind or low‐vision user.

The authors consider three types of “visual noun” features: signage, visual‐text, and visual‐icons that are proposed as a low‐cost method for augmenting environments. These are used in combination with an RGB‐D sensor and a simplified SLAM algorithm to develop a framework for navigation assistance suitable for the blind and low‐vision users.

It was found that signage detection cannot only help a blind user to find a location, but can also be used to give accurate orientation and location information to guide the user navigating a complex environment. The combination of visual nouns for orientation and RGB‐D sensing for traversable path finding can be one of the cost‐effective solutions for navigation assistance for blind and low‐vision users.

This is the first step for a new approach in self‐localization and local navigation of a blind user using both signs and 3D data. The approach is meant to be cost‐effective but it only works in man‐made scenes where a lot of signs exist or can be placed and are relatively permanent in their appearances and locations.

Based on 2012 World Health Organization, 285 million people are visually impaired, of which 39 million are blind. This project will have a direct impact on this community.

Signage detection has been widely studied for assisting visually impaired people in finding locations, but this paper provides the first attempt to use visual nouns as visual features to accurately locate and orient a blind user. The combination of visual nouns with 3D data from an RGB‐D sensor is also new.

Considers psychological, linguistic and marketing aspects of brand name characteristics. Presents the inherent brand name characteristics which lead to memorable names that support the desired product image. Concludes that brand names should be simple, distinctive, meaningful, emotional, make use of morphemes, phonemes, alliteration, consonance, and should make a sound associate of product class, as well as being legally protectable; a well‐planned brand name will require less marketing money to achieve recall and image targets.

Various sociological theories about the nature of money are reviewed here and a claim that money could be fruitfully examined from the standpoint of Peircian semiotics and Meadian interactionism is presented. The work of Marx and Simmel are interpreted in semiotic terms leading to the claim that the selves of human agents are constituted within a political and social economy resulting in the emergence of semiotic subjectivation and objectivation of money as features of the self.

This paper aims to examine the impact of using visual grammar on learning participle adjectives by EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners.

The study follows an experimental design in which two groups participated in the study. The experimental group used visual grammar tools in learning participle adjectives. The control group was taught the participle adjectives in a traditional way. A pre–post test was designed and presented to the participants in the two groups.

The results showed that the experimental group made statistically significant improvements in their performance in using participle adjectives due to the use of visual grammar tools.

The current study is only limited to the effect of visual images on a particular grammatical issue, that is participle adjectives. Besides, the study does not include the gender variable; there may be variation in the results depending on the variable of gender.

The present study can provide language instructors with some guidelines on how to incorporate visual grammar applications in teaching grammar aspects. Learners can also be encouraged to have a better understanding of English grammar, using the different connotations of visual images.

Using visual images in teaching grammar will increase the learners' ability to think beyond their classroom environment. They can use this experience whenever they face visual images in different societal activities.

This paper is one of the initial attempts to investigate the effect of using visual grammar on learning participle adjectives.

This paper aims to explore professional product designers’ views on creative design and to compare their viewpoints with the related academic literature on product marketing.

To find the designers’ views on creative design, face-to-face in-depth interviews based on repertory grid analysis and semi-structured questions were conducted with 32 professional and award-wining product designers who mostly design for international producers.

Although marketing scholars often approach design as a noun – something that can be viewed and analysed as a bundle of attributes, dimensions or characteristics – professional designers view design differently. To them, design is a verb, a problem-solving process through which they meet the challenges consumers have with products. Comparing professional product designers’ views on design creativity with the main topics in the product marketing literature places scholars’ dispositionalism against designers’ situationalism; it also enables marketing scholars to improve their viewpoints on product design and to bring practical problem-solving and design thinking into their research. This also increases mutual understanding between marketers and designers.

This research enhances the knowledge of marketing scholars, marketers and designers about each other’s perspectives on product design creativity, which will improve their mutual understanding and the business-to-business relationship between marketers and designers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first study that has attempted to discover product designers’ opinions on the main topics in the related academic literature.

Working memory (WM) is a key component of effective and efficient communication in typical communicators, with, potentially, even greater significance for those who benefit from augmentative communication. This study aims to explore the emergence of WM strategies in children with complex communication needs who may be reliant on aided communication strategies.

A quasi‐experimental repeated measures, multi‐factorial research design, comparing 30 children with complex communication needs (CCN) aged three to six years and 30 age‐matched typically developing peers. Picture stimuli representing verbs and adjectives in three categories: control words, long words and phonologically similar words are presented visually or silently in sequences of increasing length to establish each participant's memory span.

Articulatory rehearsal does not appear to be used as a memory strategy with verb material. With adjective material, there is limited evidence of emerging articulatory rehearsal at age six. Input modality does not influence rehearsal of either verbs or adjectives.

The study is small scale and exploratory, but there are suggestions that both groups of participants handle verb and adjective material differently to noun material.

Emerging WM skill in children with CCN needs to be considered in relation to the use of speech generating technology.

This paper contributes to understanding of the development and potential influence of WM in efficient aided communication.

This chapter details how engaging students in digital comics creation might support adolescents in strengthening their narrative writing capabilities. This chapter first provides a more detailed explanation of the micro and macrostructural elements involved in narrative production. Second, the chapter provides an introduction to comics and important design features. The authors also illuminate the complexity of multimodal texts (texts that combine images and words) and link visual narrative pedagogy and curriculum to classroom equity and accessibility. Across these opening sections, academic standards are referenced to show how the comics medium aligns with national visions of what robust English Language Arts education entails. The chapter concludes with descriptions of specific pedagogical strategies and digital comic-making tools that teachers and interventionists might explore with students within various classroom contexts. Examples of digital comics designed using various web tools are also shared.

This study illuminates how organizational actors use images in their struggle to define a contested industry. By leveraging social semiotics and visual rhetoric, we examine how multimodal texts (combining words and images) are used to label and reframe an industry using technical, environmental, human-rights, and preservation-of-life criteria. Building on theories of legitimation, we find that for this industry, contesting attempts at legitimacy work are escalated along a moral hierarchy. We offer an approach for examining how actors draw from broader meaning systems, use visual rhetoric in multimodal texts, and employ dual processes of legitimation and de-legitimation.

Counterfeiting is a menace in the emerging markets and many successful brands are falling prey to it. Counterfeit brands not only deceive consumers but also fuel a demand for lower priced replicas, both of which can devalue the bona-fide brand. But can consumers accurately identify a counterfeit logo? This paper aims to explore this question and examines the accuracy and speed with which a consumer can identify a counterfeit (vs original) logo.

Seven popular brand logos were altered by transposing and substituting the first and last letters of the logotypes. Consumers then classified the logos as counterfeit (vs original) across two experiments.

Participants were faster and more accurate in identifying a counterfeit logo when the first letter (vs last letter) of a logotype was manipulated, thus revealing last letter manipulations of a brand’s logotype to be more deceptive.

This paper comments only on the manipulation of logotypes but not of logo symbols. Similarly, findings may not be generalizable across languages which are read from right to left.

Counterfeit trade is already a multibillion dollar industry. Understanding the key perceptual differentiators between a counterfeit (vs original) logo can be insightful for both consumers and firms alike.

Research available on objective measures of similarities (vs dissimilarities) between counterfeit (vs original) brand logos is limited. This paper contributes by examining the ability of consumers to discriminate between counterfeit (vs original) logos at different levels of visual similarity.