Culture and the assumptions about appearance and reality: a scientometric look at a century of research

People represent the world in terms of two constructs: how something appears on the surface (appearance) and what it is underneath that surface (reality). Both constructs are central to various bodies of literature. What has not been done, however, is a systematic look at this collection of literature for overarching themes. Motivated by this research gap, the present scientometric review aimed to identify the common themes that penetrate through a century of scholarly work on appearance and reality. In doing so, this review also sketched a scientometric outline of the international network, pinpointing where the work was carried out.