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Perception


eISSN: 14684233 | ISSN: 03010066 | Current volume: 53 | Current issue: 3 Frequency: Monthly
Perception covers functional aspects of normal and abnormal perception and its underlying processes, whether from a psychophysical, neuroscience, developmental, comparative or applied perspective. It welcomes articles on all the sensory modalities, on multimodal and cross-modal studies, and empirical studies related to sensory-motor relations, perception in the arts, and conscious vs unconscious aspects of perception. Controversy, speculation and wit have always had a place in its editorial and ‘Short and sweet’ sections, in the spirit of its founding editor, Richard Gregory.

Perception is a traditional print journal covering all areas of the perceptual sciences, but with a strong historical emphasis on perceptual illusions. Perception is a subscription journal, free for authors to publish their research as a Standard Article, Short Report or Short & Sweet. The journal also publishes Editorials and Book Reviews.

Founding Editor
Chief Editors
Pascal Mamassian Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
Tim Meese Aston University, UK
Peter Thompson University of York, UK
Frans Verstraten University of Sydney, Australia
Administrative Manager
Annabelle Redfern University of Bristol, UK
Consulting Editors
Alan Gilchrist Rutgers University, USA
Jan Koenderink Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Michael Morgan City University, UK
Maria Concetta Morrone University of Pisa, Italy
Brian Rogers University of Oxford, UK
Christopher Tyler Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, USA
Nick Wade University of Dundee, UK
Johan Wagemans Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Editorial Board
David Alais University of Sydney, Australia
Tim Andrews University of York, UK
Hiroshi Ashida University of Kyoto, Japan
Marco Bertamini University of Liverpool, UK
Peter Bex Northeastern University, United States, USA
David Burr Instituto di Neurofisiologia del CNR, Italy
Claus-Christian Carbon University of Bamberg, Germany (Short and Sweet Editor)
Lihan Chen Peking University, China
Cristina de la Malla Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
Vebjørn Ekroll University of Bergen, Norway
Fatima M. Felisberti Kingston University, London
Deborah Giaschi University of British Columbia, Canada
Valérie Goffaux UC Louvain, Belgium
Monica Gori Italian Institute of Technology, Italy
Mark Greenlee University of Regensburg, Germany
Lewis Griffin University College London, UK
Laurence Harris York University, Canada
Will Harrison The University of Queensland, Australia
Sheng He Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
Morton Heller Eastern Illinois University, USA
Ignace Hooge Utrecht University, Netherlands
Ichiro Kuriki Saitama University, Japan
Charles Leek University of Liverpool, UK
Tessa van Leeuwen Tilburg University, the Netherlands
Ute Leonards University of Bristol, UK (also Book Reviews Editor)
Isabelle Mareschal Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom
George Mather University of Lincoln, UK
David Melcher University of Trento, Italy
Kyriaki Mikellidou University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Krista Overvliet Utrecht University, Netherlands
Sam Schwarzkopf University of Auckland, New Zealand, (Registered Reports Editor)
Katherine Storrs University of Auckland, New Zealand
László Tálas University of Bristol, UK
Jess Taubert The University of Queensland, Australia
Dejan Todorovic University of Belgrade, Serbia
Nikolaus Troje York University, Canada
Nathan van der Stoep Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Rob van Lier Radboud University, Netherlands (Short and Sweet Editor)
Paul Warren University of Manchester, UK (Short and Sweet Editor)
Social Media Editor
Samantha Strong Aston University, UK
  • Clarivate Analytics: Current Contents - Social & Behavioral Sciences
  • Clarivate Analytics: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE)
  • Clarivate Analytics: Social Science Citation Index
  • EMBASE
  • ProQuest
  • PsycINFO
  • PubMed: MEDLINE
  • SCOPUS

  1. Manuscript types
  2. Editorial Policies
    2.1 Peer review policy
    2.2 Authorship
    2.3 Acknowledgments
    2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
    2.5 Research ethics and patient consent
    2.6 Data
    2.7 Research Data
  3. Publishing Policies
    3.1 Publication Ethics
    3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
    3.3 Open Access and author archiving
    3.4 Permissions
  4. Preparing your manuscript
    4.1 Word processing formats
    4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
    4.3 Graphical Abstract
    4.4 Style
    4.5 Equations and Formulae
    4.6 Nomenclature
    4.7 Supplemental material
    4.8 Journal layout
    4.9 Reference style
    4.10 English language editing services
  5. Submitting your manuscript
    5.1 ORCID
    5.2 How to submit your manuscript
    5.3 Title, keywords and abstracts
    5.4 Corresponding author details
  6. On acceptance and publication
    6.1 Sage Production
    6.2 Access to your published article
    6.3 Online First publication
  7. Further Information

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Perception will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Any submission found to have been submitted elsewhere will be automatically rejected. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that Perception may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper

Note that any submission based on material previously available on-line is expected to be considerably extended, with a different title, and with the previous on-line version fully referenced. 

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1. Manuscript types

Manuscripts may be submitted as Standard articles, Short reports, Registered Reports, Short & Sweet or Legacy Review papers.

Standard articles: These form the bulk of the content in both journals. They are open submissions on any aspect of perception involving any one or more sensory modalities. Sections should usually include (in order): abstract, introduction, methods, results (and discussion), and (general) discussion. The abstract is limited to 200 words.  Authors are particularly encouraged to aim for brevity and, where possible, to submit content that is not essential to understanding the paper as supplementary materials.  Authors should also write in a style that will be accessible to readers without specific expertise in the immediate subject area of the article.  

Short reports: These should be to-the-point and aimed at a broad readership. The word limit is 4000 words, including the abstract (up to 150 words), figure captions, and references, but excluding acknowledgements. There is no limit on the number of tables and figures, but authors are advised to aim for no more than two or three. Short reports should be structured the same as standard articles, clearly labelled, and present one or two experiments or theoretical analyses that either (i) have broad, accessible appeal or (ii) are likely to have high impact and relevance within a subfield of perceptual/sensory science. Reviewers and editors should recognise that papers are likely to have less content than a standard article, and this should also speed up the review process. 

Registered Reports:  These allow you to submit a prospective manuscript for a study that you have not yet run. The review is completed in 2 stages.  At Stage 1 (before results) the manuscript will be assessed on the basis of how strong the hypotheses are and whether the methodology and design are robust and promising. At this point the paper can be accepted in principle or rejected. If accepted in principle then the final article should be accepted unless the final manuscript fails to conduct the study originally described. The Stage 1 manuscript should include: introduction - spelling out why the study is important; methods - including information to interpret whether the study is sufficiently sensitive to find a positive result (or to interpret a null result); analysis - detailing as fully as possible the analysis steps that will be used. We recognise that many submissions to the journal do not conform to a classical approach of making inferences based on group statistics. Therefore, we deliberately have no mandatory requirements for power analyses or evidence levels. However, a Stage 1 submission should lay out how evidence for or against a hypothesis will be assessed, and contain appropriate outcome-neutral conditions (e.g., manipulation checks, quality assurance, minimum curve-fit statistics, etc.) to evaluate whether results are conclusive. The Stage 1 submission may also include pilot data, but this is not required. You may write in the past tense, but must have an explicit statement at the top to make sure readers of the Stage 1 manuscript understand this. Stage 1 acceptance is conditional on the authors also submitting, immediately after Stage 1 acceptance, a formal registration to an appropriate repository such as the Open Science Framework (see https://osf.io/rr/). This preregistration can be kept private but must be accessible to the editorial team. At this point authors should also declare an approximate date by which they expect the study to be completed (this can be amended in consultation with the editors). At Stage 2 (after results), you should add the data and analyses previously described, and a discussion, so the final paper is similar to a Standard Article. Additional data and/or analyses, not included in Stage 1, can also be provided at this stage but these must be clearly distinguished from the a priori analyses. At the point of submitting a Stage 2 manuscript, the preregistered Stage 1 manuscript must be made public. The Stage 2 manuscript will then undergo peer review again. Failure to submit the Stage 2 manuscript by the deadline will result in withdrawal of the Stage 1 manuscript by the journal. Authors can also choose to withdraw an accepted Stage 1 manuscript. The journal will publish a note about withdrawn manuscripts, including a link to the preregistered Stage 1 submission. For queries about this format, please contact the Registered Reports editor Sam Schwarzkopf.

Perception is affiliated with  the Peer Community In Registered Reports as a PCI-interested journal. The journal may offer in-principle acceptance for any Stage 1 manuscript within its disciplinary range but reserves the option for further peer review at Stage 2. Authors taking advantage of the PCI RR track should submit their Stage 2 Registered Report using our usual submission system. The manuscript must include the URL to the reviews and recommendation at PCI RR. The submission must also be accompanied by a cover letter stating that the authors are submitting via the PCI RR track, including a URL to the recommended preprint, and confirming that the manuscript is identical to the recommended preprint. To facilitate this process, authors may suggest Sam Schwarzkopf as recommender in their coverletter submitted to PCI:RR at Stage 1. For queries about this format, please contact the Registered Reports editor Sam Schwarzkopf.

Legacy Reviews: These should relate to a specific important historical text (or sections thereof, or a small cohesive collection thereof), that made a significant impact to the field up to the present day. If the text was not previously available in English, translations are highly recommended. The format could range from a full translation with a brief commentary (one printed page should suffice in many cases), to an in-depth review of the work that has been influenced by the historical text. A more liberal discussion or commentary paper, with only the main parts being translated, is also possible. In the latter case, it must be made explicit which parts of original texts have been condensed and/or omitted. In all cases of translations, it must be clear exactly which sections of the submitted manuscript represent a direct translation and which are the author’s own interpretation, with quotes clearly marked and with page numbers. The manuscript title should refer to the original paper (e.g. “Smith (1850) revisited” or “A commentary on Smith (1850)”), but authorship should be assigned to the translator / commentator at submission. When citing these papers we encourage citation of both the original author and the translator / commentator. Authors should contact the Editorial Office (annabelle.redfern@bristol.ac.uk) with a brief outline proposal in the first instance, including a copy of the original text.

Short & Sweet (SAS): For this section, the conventional rules of publication are relaxed. Papers should report material that will appeal to sensory scientists, but for which detailed experiments, complex analysis, and well-worked computational models should not have been performed. The work should be easy to describe, have theoretical relevance, and appeal to a broad readership. The point(s) should not require much (or any) data or analysis, though the methodological details that are important for interpretation should be clear where appropriate (these details can be placed in figure legends if desired). A light-hearted approach is strongly encouraged and the work might be written to amuse or entertain. The word limit is 1200 words, including the abstract (up to 150 words), figure captions, and references, but excluding acknowledgements. To encourage brevity and informality, there should be no section headings apart from the abstract. Other than length and headings, one of the main differences between SAS and Short reports is the quirky nature of SAS. These papers will usually be sent to just a single reviewer. Occasionally, a second reviewer might be asked at the editor's discretion. The journal aims to publish one SAS paper per issue.

Editorials: continue Richard Gregory's tradition of presenting ideas, sometimes controversial, that might get people to think about and challenge the underlying assumptions of the theories and experimental techniques we use in our field.  Ideas should initially be sent to the Chief Editors, aiming for 1500-2000 words in length. 

Replies: commenting upon an article published in Perception, may be considered for publication but the author should contact the editorial office to gauge suitability before submission. Replies should be shorter than the target article in length.

Obituaries: Perception publishes obituaries for those who have made significant contributions to the field of perception research. Presubmission enquiries for obituaries should be submitted to the editorial office [annabelle.redfern@bristol.ac.uk]. The enquiry should include a Curriculum Vitae, list of publications, and clearly outline the impact the deceased had on the field. This can be the person’s main scientific contributions as well as other roles that have impacted the Perception community in a positive way. The editors-in-chief will decide whether an invitation to submit the actual obituary is opportune and inform the author(s) of that decision. Personal information as well as (non-copyrighted) photos can be part of the obituary. Obituaries are typically reviewed by the editors-in-chief, who have the duty to check the correctness and the quality of the obituary.

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2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

•  The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors

•  The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper

•  The author has recommended the reviewer

•  The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution). 

2.2 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis (see APA guidelines).

If you would like your author biography included in your published paper then please upload this during the submission process on Step 6: File Upload, and designate it as ‘Author Biography’.

Perception is trialing the publication of CRediT author contribution statements. At submission stage, there will be the ability to list the roles that each author was responsible for. Please refer to the CRediT Gateway page for more information. You should not include an author contribution statement in your manuscript as this will be added at Production stage. This does not replace the Acknowledgements section.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.

2.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

  • Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
  • Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
  • Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests

Perception encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

2.5 Research ethics and patient consent

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants.

2.6 Data

Sage acknowledges the importance of research data availability as an integral part of the research and verification process for academic journal articles.  Once accepted for publication, the author is expected to make stimulus material and raw data available, if requested.

Some funders require, and Sage strongly recommends, that you provide a statement on how any underlying research materials related to your paper (for example data, samples or models) can be accessed. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal’s platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations. For further information, please contact the editorial office at: Annabelle.redfern@bristol.ac.uk

2.7 Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

  • share your research data in a relevant public data repository
  • include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
  • cite this data in your research

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3. Publishing policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.  

3.1.1 Plagiarism

Perception and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of articles published in the journal. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked using duplication-checking software. Where an article is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article (removing it from the journal); taking up the matter with the leadership of the author’s institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; banning the author from publication in the journal or all Sage journals, or appropriate legal action.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Your responsibilities as author: inclusion of other copyright material

Sage is sympathetic to the needs of scholars to include other copyright material, and is happy to provide guidance on this.  Responsibility for obtaining permission to use any other copyright material rests with you as the author of the Contribution.

If your Contribution includes material which is not your copyright, you are responsible for submitting with your manuscript the written permission from those who control copyright in that material to include it and reproduce it within your Contribution. In most cases this will be the publisher of the work. As the Journal is available in both print and electronic media and may be translated or archived, this permission needs to be for all media in all languages in perpetuity. You are responsible for the payment of any permission fees.

3.3 Open Access and author archiving

Perception offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

3.4 Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the Sage Journal Author Gateway .

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4. Preparing your manuscript

4.1 Word processing formats

Preferred formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are Word DOC, RTF, XLS. LaTeX files are also accepted. The text should be single-spaced or 1.5-spaced throughout and with a minimum of 3cm for left and right hand margins and 5cm at head and foot. Text should be standard 10 or 12 point. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

We request that the submitted manuscript file includes low resolution figures embedded in the text, for the convenience of the reviewers.  For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.

If your article is accepted, please prepare images as outlines below:

1. If figures are in vector format, an eps/pdf could be accepted, if in image format Lineart=1200DPI, Linetone=600DPI and halftone=350DPI would be preferred.

2. Vector files such as AI and EPS can remain editable to allow us to edit any text or other elements within the graphic.

3. If figures are in the form of flowcharts, drawings, slides, maps, bar/pie/line/column charts which are created in excel, word, power point or in pdf format with editable text format could be accepted as source file.

Please do not provide the figures that contain jelly images, photographs, and halftone and line tone images with text in formats like JPG/PNG/TIFF as we would not be able to edit the text/objects.

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online.

If your article contains videos please upload these as “Supplementary Material” on Sage Track. Upon acceptance, please specify if you would like your videos embedded directly into your article or uploaded as supplementary material alongside your article. If you would like your videos uploaded as supplementary material then please refer to this within your article, e.g. “please see Video 1A in online Supplementary Material”. Please note videos are only embedded in the HTML, in the PDF readers will be directed to view videos in the HTML version of the article. When you receive your article proofs please confirm with the production editor that the information they have regarding videos is correct. After the proof has been signed off for publication no further changes to the article can be made. 

4.3 Graphical Abstract

Authors may choose to submit a Graphical Abstract that will be published in the online version of each manuscript. This is a concise, visual summary of the article’s main findings, and should capture the content of the article for the readers at a single glance.

Please download this template to create a Graphical Abstract. Authors should add text and graphics/icons as applicable for their content. Please do not include the entire abstract text, but rather present a brief summary of the key findings. We are unable to accommodate reprinted or attributional material within the Graphical Abstract. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the submission system by selecting “Graphical abstracts" from the drop-down list at the File Upload stage.

4.4 Style

Authors are urged to write as clearly as possible, in English (either UK or US usage is acceptable but should be consistent throughout the manuscript), with emphasis on what they judge to be of greatest importance and interest with, where possible, clearly stated theoretical implications.  Experimental results should be presented in sufficient detail for replication to be possible.  Statistical tests need not be given in full.  Abbreviations should be used sparingly.  Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary is recommended as the spelling reference.

4.5 Equations and Formulae

Great care should be taken in differentiating between capital and lowercase characters (s and S, c and C, p and P, etc), Latin and Greek characters (k and kappa, p and rho, w and omega, etc), and letters and numerals (l and 1, z and 2, etc).

4.6 Nomenclature

It is recommended that the authors follow the Royal Society's latest publication `Quantities, Units, and Symbols' and use the SI system of units.

4.7 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. These will be subjected to peer-review alongside the article.  For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files, which can be found within our Manuscript Submission Guidelines page.

4.8 Journal layout

Perception conforms to the Sage house style.  Click here to review guidelines on Sage UK House Style.

4.9 Reference style

Perception adheres to the APA reference style. Click here to review the guidelines on APA to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

All references must contain the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), e.g.:

Krix, A. C., Sauerland, M. & Schreuder, M. J. (2017). Masking the Identities of Celebrities and Personally Familiar Individuals: Effects on Visual and Auditory Recognition Performance. Perception, 46, 1133-1150. https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006617710621 

Reference to on-line materials such as blogs should include the URL with a date for when the link was last accessed. 

 4.10 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information, including costs.

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5. Submitting your manuscript

5.1 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. 

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

5.2 How to submit your manuscript

Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you carefully read and adhere to all the guidelines and instructions to authors provided below. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.

Perception is hosted on SageTrack - a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne Manuscripts. Please read the Manuscript Submission guidelines below, and then simply visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/perception to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

All papers must be submitted via the online system. If you would like to discuss your paper prior to submission, please refer to the contact details below.

5.3 Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a short title and keywords (in addition to the main title and abstract) to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the Sage Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

5.4 Corresponding author contact details

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. In the case the first author is likely to move in the near future, as is often the case with PhD students and post-docs, we advise use of a longer-term email address (for example a Gmail address).

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6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. 

6.2 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.3 Online First publication

Online First allows final revision articles (completed articles in queue for assignment to an upcoming issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a final journal issue which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. For more information please visit our Online First Fact Sheet

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7. Further Information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Perception editorial office as follows:  annabelle.redfern@bristol.ac.uk

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