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Topics in Cognitive Science Jul 2018Will reading different stories about the same event in the world result in a similar image of the world? Will reading the same story by different people result in a...
Will reading different stories about the same event in the world result in a similar image of the world? Will reading the same story by different people result in a similar proxy for experiencing the story? The answer to both questions is no because language is abstract by definition and relies on our episodic experience to turn a story into a more concrete mental movie. Since our episodic knowledge differs, also the mental movie will be different. Language leaves out details, and this becomes specifically clear when building machines that read texts to represent events and to establish event relations across mentions, such as co-reference, causality, subevents, scripts, timelines, and storylines. There is a lot of information and knowledge on the event that is not in the text but is needed to reconstruct these relations and understand the story. Machines lack this knowledge and experience and likewise make explicit what it takes to understand stories from text. In this paper, we report on experiments to automatically model event descriptions and instances across different news articles. We will show that event information is scattered over the text but also varies a lot in the degree it abstracts from details, which makes establishing event identity and relations extremely difficult. The variation in granularity of event descriptions seems to vary with pragmatic communicative strategies and defines the problem at different levels of complexity.
Topics: Concept Formation; Humans; Models, Theoretical; Narration; Natural Language Processing; Psycholinguistics; Reading
PubMed: 30066364
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12366 -
Concepts, control, and context: A connectionist account of normal and disordered semantic cognition.Psychological Review Apr 2018Semantic cognition requires conceptual representations shaped by verbal and nonverbal experience and executive control processes that regulate activation of knowledge to...
Semantic cognition requires conceptual representations shaped by verbal and nonverbal experience and executive control processes that regulate activation of knowledge to meet current situational demands. A complete model must also account for the representation of concrete and abstract words, of taxonomic and associative relationships, and for the role of context in shaping meaning. We present the first major attempt to assimilate all of these elements within a unified, implemented computational framework. Our model combines a hub-and-spoke architecture with a buffer that allows its state to be influenced by prior context. This hybrid structure integrates the view, from cognitive neuroscience, that concepts are grounded in sensory-motor representation with the view, from computational linguistics, that knowledge is shaped by patterns of lexical co-occurrence. The model successfully codes knowledge for abstract and concrete words, associative and taxonomic relationships, and the multiple meanings of homonyms, within a single representational space. Knowledge of abstract words is acquired through (a) their patterns of co-occurrence with other words and (b) acquired embodiment, whereby they become indirectly associated with the perceptual features of co-occurring concrete words. The model accounts for executive influences on semantics by including a controlled retrieval mechanism that provides top-down input to amplify weak semantic relationships. The representational and control elements of the model can be damaged independently, and the consequences of such damage closely replicate effects seen in neuropsychological patients with loss of semantic representation versus control processes. Thus, the model provides a wide-ranging and neurally plausible account of normal and impaired semantic cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record
Topics: Cognitive Neuroscience; Concept Formation; Executive Function; Humans; Neural Networks, Computer; Psycholinguistics; Semantics
PubMed: 29733663
DOI: 10.1037/rev0000094 -
Topics in Cognitive Science Oct 2018Sociolinguistic research shows that listeners' expectations of speakers influence their interpretation of the speech, yet this is often ignored in cognitive models of...
Sociolinguistic research shows that listeners' expectations of speakers influence their interpretation of the speech, yet this is often ignored in cognitive models of language comprehension. Here, we focus on the case of interactions between native and non-native speakers. Previous literature shows that listeners process the language of non-native speakers in less detail, because they expect them to have lower linguistic competence. We show that processing the language of non-native speakers increases lexical competition and access in general, not only of the non-native speaker's speech, and that this leads to poorer memory of one's own speech during the interaction. We further find that the degree to which people adjust their processing to non-native speakers is related to the degree to which they adjust their speech to them. We discuss implications for cognitive models of language processing and sociolinguistic research on attitudes.
Topics: Adult; Cues; Humans; Mental Recall; Multilingualism; Psycholinguistics; Recognition, Psychology; Social Perception; Speech Perception
PubMed: 29411944
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12325 -
PloS One 2016A defining trait of linguistic competence is the ability to combine elements into increasingly complex structures to denote, and to comprehend, a potentially infinite...
A defining trait of linguistic competence is the ability to combine elements into increasingly complex structures to denote, and to comprehend, a potentially infinite number of meanings. Recent magnetoencephalography (MEG) work has investigated these processes by comparing the response to nouns in combinatorial (blue car) and non-combinatorial (rnsh car) contexts. In the current study we extended this paradigm using electroencephalography (EEG) to dissociate the role of semantic content from phonological well-formedness (yerl car). We used event-related potential (ERP) recordings in order to better relate the observed neurophysiological correlates of basic combinatorial operations to prior ERP work on comprehension. We found that nouns in combinatorial contexts (blue car) elicited a greater centro-parietal negativity between 180-400ms, independent of the phonological well-formedness of the context word. We discuss the potential relationship between this 'combinatorial' effect and classic N400 effects. We also report preliminary evidence for an early anterior negative deflection immediately preceding the critical noun in combinatorial contexts, which we tentatively interpret as an electrophysiological reflex of syntactic structure initialization.
Topics: Comprehension; Electroencephalography; Evoked Potentials; Female; Humans; Language; Male; Psycholinguistics; Temporal Lobe; Young Adult
PubMed: 27711111
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0158446 -
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Apr 2021What makes some words more memorable than others? Words can vary in many dimensions, and a variety of lexical, semantic, and affective properties have previously been...
What makes some words more memorable than others? Words can vary in many dimensions, and a variety of lexical, semantic, and affective properties have previously been associated with variability in recall performance. Free recall data were used from 147 participants across 20 experimental sessions from the Penn Electrophysiology of Encoding and Retrieval Study (PEERS) data set, across 1,638 words. Here, I consider how well 20 different word properties-across lexical, semantic, and affective dimensions-relate to free recall. Semantic dimensions, particularly animacy (better memory for living), usefulness (with respect to survival; better memory for useful), and size (better memory for larger) demonstrated the strongest relationships with recall probability. These key results were then examined and replicated in the free recall data from Lau, Goh, and Yap (Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71, 2207-2222, 2018), which had 532 words and 116 participants. This comprehensive investigation of a variety of word memorability demonstrates that semantic and function-related psycholinguistic properties play an important role in verbal memory processes.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Mental Recall; Probability; Psycholinguistics; Recognition, Psychology; Semantics; Verbal Learning
PubMed: 33063179
DOI: 10.3758/s13423-020-01820-w -
Cognitive Science Oct 2022Prediction is one characteristic of the human mind. But what does it mean to say the mind is a "prediction machine" and inherently forward looking as is frequently...
Prediction is one characteristic of the human mind. But what does it mean to say the mind is a "prediction machine" and inherently forward looking as is frequently claimed? In natural languages, many contexts are not easily predictable in a forward fashion. In English, for example, many frequent verbs do not carry unique meaning on their own but instead, rely on another word or words that follow them to become meaningful. Upon reading take a the processor often cannot easily predict walk as the next word. But the system can "look back" and integrate walk more easily when it follows take a (e.g., as opposed to *make|get|have a walk). In the present paper, we provide further evidence for the importance of both forward and backward-looking in language processing. In two self-paced reading tasks and an eye-tracking reading task, we found evidence that adult English native speakers' sensitivity to word forward and backward conditional probability significantly predicted reading times over and above psycholinguistic predictors of reading latencies. We conclude that both forward and backward-looking (prediction and integration) appear to be important characteristics of language processing. Our results thus suggest that it makes just as much sense to call the mind an "integration machine" which is inherently backward 'looking.'
Topics: Adult; Humans; Language; Psycholinguistics
PubMed: 36240464
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13201 -
Topics in Cognitive Science Jan 2018Cognitive architectures have often been applied to data from individual experiments. In this paper, I develop an ACT-R reader that can model a much larger set of data,...
Cognitive architectures have often been applied to data from individual experiments. In this paper, I develop an ACT-R reader that can model a much larger set of data, eye-tracking corpus data. It is shown that the resulting model has a good fit to the data for the considered low-level processes. Unlike previous related works (most prominently, Engelmann, Vasishth, Engbert & Kliegl, ), the model achieves the fit by estimating free parameters of ACT-R using Bayesian estimation and Markov-Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques, rather than by relying on the mix of manual selection + default values. The method used in the paper is generalizable beyond this particular model and data set and could be used on other ACT-R models.
Topics: Cognition; Datasets as Topic; Eye Movement Measurements; Humans; Models, Psychological; Models, Statistical; Psycholinguistics
PubMed: 29251440
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12315 -
Topics in Cognitive Science Apr 2018Most human communication is between people who speak or sign the same languages. Nevertheless, communication is to some extent possible where there is no language in...
Most human communication is between people who speak or sign the same languages. Nevertheless, communication is to some extent possible where there is no language in common, as every tourist knows. How this works is of some theoretical interest (Levinson, ). A nice arena to explore this capacity is when deaf signers of different languages meet for the first time and are able to use the iconic affordances of sign to begin communication. Here we focus on other-initiated repair (OIR), that is, where one signer makes clear he or she does not understand, thus initiating repair of the prior conversational turn. OIR sequences are typically of a three-turn structure (Schegloff ), including the problem source turn (T-1), the initiation of repair (T0), and the turn offering a problem solution (T+1). These sequences seem to have a universal structure (Dingemanse et al. 2013). We find that in most cases where such OIR occur, the signer of the troublesome turn (T-1) foresees potential difficulty and marks the utterance with "try markers" (Moerman, ; Sacks & Schegloff, ) which pause to invite recognition. The signers use repetition, gestural holds, prosodic lengthening, and eyegaze at the addressee as such try-markers. Moreover, when T-1 is try-marked this allows for faster response times of T+1 with respect to T0. This finding suggests that signers in these "first encounter" situations actively anticipate potential trouble and, through try-marking, mobilize and facilitate OIRs. The suggestion is that heightened meta-linguistic awareness can be utilized to deal with these problems at the limits of our communicational ability.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Psycholinguistics; Sign Language; Theory of Mind
PubMed: 29105308
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12303 -
Behavior Research Methods Feb 2024Large-scale word association datasets are both important tools used in psycholinguistics and used as models that capture meaning when considered as semantic networks....
Large-scale word association datasets are both important tools used in psycholinguistics and used as models that capture meaning when considered as semantic networks. Here, we present word association norms for Rioplatense Spanish, a variant spoken in Argentina and Uruguay. The norms were derived through a large-scale crowd-sourced continued word association task in which participants give three associations to a list of cue words. Covering over 13,000 words and +3.6 M responses, it is currently the most extensive dataset available for Spanish. We compare the obtained dataset with previous studies in Dutch and English to investigate the role of grammatical gender and studies that used Iberian Spanish to test generalizability to other Spanish variants. Finally, we evaluated the validity of our data in word processing (lexical decision reaction times) and semantic (similarity judgment) tasks. Our results demonstrate that network measures such as in-degree provide a good prediction of lexical decision response times. Analyzing semantic similarity judgments showed that results replicate and extend previous findings demonstrating that semantic similarity derived using spreading activation or spectral methods outperform word embeddings trained on text corpora.
Topics: Humans; Free Association; Semantics; Psycholinguistics; Reaction Time; Judgment
PubMed: 36922451
DOI: 10.3758/s13428-023-02070-z -
Cognitive Science Apr 2021Iconicity, the resemblance between the form of a word and its meaning, has effects on behavior in both communicative symbol development and language learning...
Iconicity, the resemblance between the form of a word and its meaning, has effects on behavior in both communicative symbol development and language learning experiments. These results have invited speculation about iconicity being a key feature of the origins of language, yet the presence of iconicity in natural languages seems limited. In a diachronic study of language change, we investigated the extent to which iconicity is a stable property of vocabulary, alongside previously investigated psycholinguistic predictors of change. Analyzing 784 English words with data on their historical forms, we found that stable words are higher in iconicity, longer in length, and earlier acquired during development, but that the role of frequency and grammatical category may be less important than previously suggested. Iconicity is revealed as a feature of ultra-conserved words and potentially also as a property of vocabulary early in the history of language origins.
Topics: Humans; Language; Language Development; Psycholinguistics; Vocabulary
PubMed: 33877696
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12968