Finally we note that it is not even clear that executions per se are the source of salience. Is it obvious that actual executions are the main source of salience of the death penalty rather than, say, highly publicized death sentences? How do changes in the law or Supreme Court decisions affect salience? In the committee's search of relevant studies, we did not find any in which the source of salience were explored. Hence, although it is a perfectly logically coherent idea that executions make capital punishment salient and provides a deterrence effect for this reason, there is no empirical work to justify the claim.