scent marking

the act by a nonhuman animal of depositing odorants on a substrate, often from specialized scent glands that produce them. Scent glands are commonly found in the anogenital region, in the axilla, in the suprapubic region, and around the mouth. Scent marking provides cues about species, sex, reproductive status, and dominance status that can remain on or diffuse slowly from a substrate after the marking individual has left.

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Psychology term of the day

February 22nd 2025

emergent feature

an entity produced by the interaction of small or simple elements (e.g., short line segments) in the visual system, such an entity (e.g., a polygon) being more salient to human perception than are the elements themselves. In ergonomics, object displays are usually designed to make use of emergent features; the display configurations yield an overall image (e.g., a rectangle or pentagon) that can be perceived holistically by the operator of a machine system and therefore rapidly analyzed to assess the state of the system. When a component of the system is not in the appropriate or normal state, the image will be distorted, alerting the operator to potential problems.