What does "psychology of salience" mean?

Question

Han et. al., (2021) documented that

Motivated by the psychology of salience, we also make a second key psychological assumption that receivers attend more to extreme outcomes

I am wondering what does "psychology of salience" mean here. I search for the meaning and see that

Salience in psychology. Distinctiveness, prominence, obviousness. The term is widely used in the study of perception and cognition to refer to any aspect of a stimulus that, for any of many reasons, stands out from the rest

However, I cannot fit this meaning to the sentence of Han,2021 as above. Could you please help me to sort it out?

References

Han, B., Hirshleifer, D., & Walden, J. (2021). Social transmission bias and investor behavior. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, First View, 1-42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022109021000077

Answer 1

The American Psychological Association (APA) points out that the Salience Hypothesis is

a theory of perception according to which motivationally significant stimuli (objects, people, meanings, etc.) are perceived more readily than are stimuli with little motivational importance. It has relevance in social perception, advertising, and linguistics.

In social psychology, discussion on social salience is talking about the extent to which a particular target draws the attention of an observer or group. More on that can be found at Wikipedia

So as Han, et al. (2018) — cited in your question — points out, more extreme outcomes receive more attention.

For some examples, the term salience is discussed at iResearchNet.

The term salient refers to anything (person, behavior, trait, etc.) that is prominent, conspicuous, or otherwise noticeable compared with its surroundings. Salience is usually produced by novelty or unexpectedness, but can also be brought about by shifting one’s attention to that feature. Salience usually depends on context. A child would not be particularly salient at his or her school, but would be at a nursing home. The act of crying would not be salient at a funeral, but would be at a job interview. A salient feature can be thought of as the “figure” that stands out against the “ground” of all other nonsalient features.

Answer 2

There are different approaches to the psychology of salience. One approach is based in social inter-group theory that holds that we assign more meaning to "social categories that are made salient in the environment" (Bigler & Liben 2006, 2007, as cited in Hillard & Liben, 2010). More specifically, this facet of salience is called social-group salience.

In response to your question about the research you cited which follows:

"Investors discuss their strategies and convert others to their strategies with a probability that increases in investment returns."

Perhaps group-polarization is at work here, related to the inter-group approach to salience I explained above. That is, the tendency to adopt more extreme view after being exposed to others opinions.

References

Hilliard, L. J., & Liben, L. S. (2010). Differing levels of gender salience in preschool classrooms: effects on children's gender attitudes and intergroup bias. Child development, 81(6), 1787–1798. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01510.x