Saliency

Saliency refers to the degree to which a topic or event resonates with a prospective respondent or sample member. The more a topic or event resonates with a sample member, the more salient or important that topic or event tends to be in that person's life. Conversely, topics or events that resonate little or hold little importance for the sample member are said to have little saliency.

What are the implications of saliency for survey researchers? Saliency actually operates at two levels: the question level and the survey level.

On the question level, saliency refers to the importance of an event or action in a person's life. More important events or actions are better remembered than actions or events of low saliency. Consequently, saliency can affect the ...