Value Relativism and Perspective Taking are Two Distinct Facets of Wisdom-Related Knowledge.

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Kunzmann, Ute; Nowak, Jana; Thomas, Stefanie; Nestler, Steffen

2017-12-18

There has been mixed evidence for age differences in wisdom-related knowledge across the adult life span. This study investigated two potential moderators of the link between age and wisdom-related knowledge: the wisdom criteria and the wisdom tasks. To test these moderators, 40 younger and 40 older participants completed four wisdom tasks differing in context-richness. Independent trained raters coded the resulting think-aloud protocols in terms of value relativism, as defined in the Berlin wisdom paradigm, and perspective taking, as defined by Grossmann. The type of task did not show any main or interaction effects on the present two wisdom criteria. However, age differences in the two wisdom criteria were multidirectional: whereas perspective taking did not differ by age group, value relativism was lower in older than younger adults. In addition, value relativism, but not perspective taking, was related to measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence, whereas perspective taking, but not value relativism, was related to a measure of life investment. This study provides evidence for the idea that value relativism and perspective taking are two distinct facets of wisdom-related knowledge. Implications for future age-comparative research interested in wisdom are discussed. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Trust and social reciprocity in adolescence--a matter of perspective-taking.

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Fett, Anne-Kathrin J; Shergill, Sukhi S; Gromann, Paula M; Dumontheil, Iroise; Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne; Yakub, Farah; Krabbendam, Lydia

2014-02-01

Changes in social behaviour from childhood to adulthood have been suggested to be driven by an increased sensitivity to others' perspectives. Yet, the link between perspective-taking and social processes, such as trust and reciprocity, has rarely been investigated during adolescence. Using two trust games with a cooperative and an unfair counterpart and an online perspective-taking task with 50 adolescents, we show that those with a higher perspective-taking tendency demonstrate greater trust towards others and higher levels of trust during cooperative interactions. Both low and high perspective-takers adapted their levels of trust in response to unfair behaviour. However, high perspective-takers reduced their trust more drastically and showed more malevolent and less benevolent tit-for-tat when they were treated unfairly by their counterpart. The findings suggest that a higher perspective-taking tendency in adolescence is associated with specific mechanisms of trust and reciprocity, as opposed to undifferentiated increases in positive social behaviour towards others. Copyright © 2013 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transcranial direct current stimulation of the right temporoparietal junction impairs third-person perspective taking

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van Elk, M.; Duizer, M.; Sligte, I.; van Schie, H.

Given the current debates about the precise functional role of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in egocentric and exocentric perspective taking, in the present study we manipulated activity in the rTPJ to investigate the effects on a spatial perspective-taking task. Participants engaged in

The Role of Potential Agents in Making Spatial Perspective Taking Social

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Amy M Clements-Stephens

2013-09-01

Full Text Available A striking relationship between visual spatial perspective taking (VSPT and social skills has been demonstrated for perspective-taking tasks in which the target of the imagined or inferred perspective is a potential agent, suggesting that the presence of a potential agent may create a social context for the seemingly spatial task of imagining a novel visual perspective. In a series of studies, we set out to investigate how and when a target might be viewed as sufficiently agent-like to incur a social influence on VSPT performance. By varying the perceptual and conceptual features that defined the targets as potential agents, we find that even something as simple as suggesting animacy for a simple wooden block may be sufficient. More critically, we found that experience with one potential agent influenced the performance with subsequent targets, either by inducing or eliminating the influence of social skills on VSPT performance. These carryover effects suggest that the relationship between social skills and VSPT performance is mediated by a complex relationship that includes the task, the target, and the context in which that target is perceived. These findings highlight potential problems that arise when identifying a task as belonging exclusively to a single cognitive domain and stress instead the highly interactive nature of cognitive domains and their susceptibility to cross-domain individual differences.

A Tale of Two Types of Perspective Taking: Sex Differences in Spatial Ability.

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Tarampi, Margaret R; Heydari, Nahal; Hegarty, Mary

2016-11-01

Sex differences in favor of males have been documented in measures of spatial perspective taking. In this research, we examined whether social factors (i.e., stereotype threat and the inclusion of human figures in tasks) account for these differences. In Experiment 1, we evaluated performance when perspective-taking tests were framed as measuring either spatial or social (empathetic) perspective-taking abilities. In the spatial condition, tasks were framed as measures of spatial ability on which males have an advantage. In the social condition, modified tasks contained human figures and were framed as measures of empathy on which females have an advantage. Results showed a sex difference in favor of males in the spatial condition but not the social condition. Experiments 2 and 3 indicated that both stereotype threat and including human figures contributed to these effects. Results suggest that females may underperform on spatial tests in part because of negative performance expectations and the character of the spatial tests rather than because of actual lack of abilities. © The Author(s) 2016.

The Cultural Boundaries of Perspective-Taking: When and Why Perspective-Taking Reduces Stereotyping.

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Wang, Cynthia S; Lee, Margaret; Ku, Gillian; Leung, Angela K-Y

2018-06-01

Research conducted in Western cultures indicates that perspective-taking is an effective social strategy for reducing stereotyping. The current article explores whether and why the effects of perspective-taking on stereotyping differ across cultures. Studies 1 and 2 established that perspective-taking reduces stereotyping in Western but not in East Asian cultures. Using a socioecological framework, Studies 2 and 3 found that relational mobility, that is, the extent to which individuals' social environments provide them opportunities to choose new relationships and terminate old ones, explained our effect: Perspective-taking was negatively associated with stereotyping in relationally mobile (Western) but not in relationally stable (East Asian) environments. Finally, Study 4 examined the proximal psychological mechanism underlying the socioecological effect: Individuals in relationally mobile environments are more motivated to develop new relationships than those in relationally stable environments. Subsequently, when this motivation is high, perspective-taking increases self-target group overlap, which then decreases stereotyping.

Executive Function Is Necessary for Perspective Selection, Not Level-1 Visual Perspective Calculation: Evidence from a Dual-Task Study of Adults

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Qureshi, Adam W.; Apperly, Ian A.; Samson, Dana

2010-01-01

Previous research suggests that perspective-taking and other "theory of mind" processes may be cognitively demanding for adult participants, and may be disrupted by concurrent performance of a secondary task. In the current study, a Level-1 visual perspective task was administered to 32 adults using a dual-task paradigm in which the secondary task…

Pragmatics as a Component vs. Pragmatics as a Perspective of Linguistics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Haberland, Hartmut

2010-01-01

The discussion of pragmatics as a component or a perspective of linguistics was started in the 1970’es in Haberland and Mey (1977). I am not going to claim that “Continental Pragmatics” (as Stephen Levinson called the perspective school in 1982) has the correct approach and that some other (should...

Mild cognitive impairment: loss of linguistic task-induced changes in motor cortex excitability.

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Bracco, L; Giovannelli, F; Bessi, V; Borgheresi, A; Di Tullio, A; Sorbi, S; Zaccara, G; Cincotta, M

2009-03-10

In amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), functional neuronal connectivity may be altered, as suggested by quantitative EEG and neuroimaging data. In young healthy humans, the execution of linguistic tasks modifies the excitability of the hand area of the dominant primary motor cortex (M1(hand)), as tested by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We used TMS to investigate functional connectivity between language-related cortical areas and M1(hand) in aMCI. Ten elderly women with aMCI and 10 age-matched women were recruited. All participants were right handed and underwent a neuropsychological evaluation. In the first TMS experiment, participants performed three different tasks: reading aloud, viewing of non-letter strings (baseline), and nonverbal oral movements. The second experiment included the baseline condition and three visual searching/matching tasks using letters, geometric shapes, or digits as target stimuli. In controls, motor evoked potentials (MEP) elicited by suprathreshold TMS of the left M1(hand) were significantly larger during reading aloud (170% baseline) than during nonverbal oral movements, whereas no difference was seen for right M1(hand) stimulation. Similarly, MEP elicited by left M1(hand) stimulation during letter and shape searching/matching tasks were significantly larger compared to digit task. In contrast, linguistic task performance did not produce any significant MEP modulation in patients with aMCI, although neuropsychological evaluation showed normal language abilities. Findings suggest that functional connectivity between the language-related brain regions and the dominant M1(hand) may be altered in amnestic mild cognitive impairment. Follow-up studies will reveal whether transcranial magnetic stimulation application during linguistic tasks may contribute to characterize the risk of conversion to Alzheimer disease.

Comparisons of an open-ended vs. forced-choice 'mind reading' task: implications for measuring perspective-taking and emotion recognition.

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Tracy G Cassels

Full Text Available Perspective-taking and emotion recognition are essential for successful social development and have been the focus of developmental research for many years. Although the two abilities often overlap, they are distinct and our understanding of these abilities critically rests upon the efficacy of existing measures. Lessons from the literature differentiating recall versus recognition memory tasks led us to hypothesize that an open-ended emotion recognition measure would be less reliant on compensatory strategies and hence a more specific measure of emotion recognition abilities than a forced-choice task. To this end, we compared an open-ended version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task with the original forced-choice version in two studies: 118 typically-developing 4- to 8-year-olds (Study 1 and 139 5- to 12-year-olds; 85 typically-developing and 54 with learning disorders (Study 2. We found that the open-ended version of the task was a better predictor of empathy and more reliably discriminated typically-developing children from those with learning disorders. As a whole, the results suggest that the open-ended version is a more sensitive measure of emotion recognition specifically.

Functional lateralization of temporoparietal junction - imitation inhibition, visual perspective-taking and theory of mind.

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Santiesteban, Idalmis; Banissy, Michael J; Catmur, Caroline; Bird, Geoffrey

2015-10-01

Although neuroimaging studies have consistently identified the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) as a key brain region involved in social cognition, the literature is far from consistent with respect to lateralization of function. For example, during theory-of-mind tasks bilateral TPJ activation is found in some studies but only right hemisphere activation in others. Visual perspective-taking and imitation inhibition, which have been argued to recruit the same socio-cognitive processes as theory of mind, are associated with unilateral activation of either left TPJ (perspective taking) or right TPJ (imitation inhibition). The present study investigated the functional lateralization of TPJ involvement in the above three socio-cognitive abilities using transcranial direct current stimulation. Three groups of healthy adults received anodal stimulation over right TPJ, left TPJ or the occipital cortex prior to performing three tasks (imitation inhibition, visual perspective-taking and theory of mind). In contrast to the extant neuroimaging literature, our results suggest bilateral TPJ involvement in imitation inhibition and visual perspective-taking, while no effect of anodal stimulation was observed on theory of mind. The discrepancy between these findings and those obtained using neuroimaging highlight the efficacy of neurostimulation as a complementary methodological tool in cognitive neuroscience. © 2015 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Perspective taking in Korsakoff's syndrome : the role of executive functioning and task complexity

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Oosterman, J.M.; Goede, M. de; Wester, A.J.; Zandvoort, M.J.E. van; Kessels, R.P.C.

2011-01-01

Objective: The ability to make inferences about knowledge, thoughts and feelings of others, i.e. perspective taking, is a key element of social cognition. Clinical observations indicate that Korsakoff patients may have impairments in social cognition, but studies are scarce. Also, executive

Perspective taking in Korsakoff's syndrome: the role of executive functioning and task complexity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oosterman, J.M.; Goede, M. de; Wester, A.J.; Zandvoort, M.J.E. van; Kessels, R.P.C.

2011-01-01

Objective: The ability to make inferences about knowledge, thoughts and feelings of others, i.e. perspective taking, is a key element of social cognition. Clinical observations indicate that Korsakoff patients may have impairments in social cognition, but studies are scarce. Also, executive

Decoding the Charitable Brain: Empathy, Perspective Taking, and Attention Shifts Differentially Predict Altruistic Giving.

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Tusche, Anita; Böckler, Anne; Kanske, Philipp; Trautwein, Fynn-Mathis; Singer, Tania

2016-04-27

Altruistic behavior varies considerably across people and decision contexts. The relevant computational and motivational mechanisms that underlie its heterogeneity, however, are poorly understood. Using a charitable giving task together with multivariate decoding techniques, we identified three distinct psychological mechanisms underlying altruistic decision-making (empathy, perspective taking, and attentional reorienting) and linked them to dissociable neural computations. Neural responses in the anterior insula (AI) (but not temporoparietal junction [TPJ]) encoded trial-wise empathy for beneficiaries, whereas the TPJ (but not AI) predicted the degree of perspective taking. Importantly, the relative influence of both socio-cognitive processes differed across individuals: participants whose donation behavior was heavily influenced by affective empathy exhibited higher predictive accuracies for generosity in AI, whereas those who strongly relied on cognitive perspective taking showed improved predictions of generous donations in TPJ. Furthermore, subject-specific contributions of both processes for donations were reflected in participants' empathy and perspective taking responses in a separate fMRI task (EmpaToM), suggesting that process-specific inputs into altruistic choices may reflect participants' general propensity to either empathize or mentalize. Finally, using independent attention task data, we identified shared neural codes for attentional reorienting and generous donations in the posterior superior temporal sulcus, suggesting that domain-general attention shifts also contribute to generous behavior (but not in TPJ or AI). Overall, our findings demonstrate highly specific roles of AI for affective empathy and TPJ for cognitive perspective taking as precursors of prosocial behavior and suggest that these discrete routes of social cognition differentially drive intraindividual and interindividual differences in altruistic behavior. Human societies depend on

Seeing their side versus feeling their pain: Differential consequences of perspective-taking and empathy at work.

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Longmire, Natalie H; Harrison, David A

2018-04-16

Perspective taking and empathic concern (empathy) have each been proposed as constructive approaches to social relationships. However, their potential distinctions, limitations, and consequences in task contexts are not well understood. We meta-analytically examined 304 independent samples to uncover unique effects of perspective taking and empathic concern on important work-related outcomes. We develop and test a contingency model of those effects, based on three facets of psychological interdependence: outcome, hierarchical (or power asymmetry), and social category (or in-group/out-group distinctions). Results revealed perspective taking and empathic concern to have positive impacts on being supportive of others, but the effects of empathic concern were stronger. In contrast, perspective taking was an asset and empathy was a liability for capturing value in strategic interactions (e.g., negotiations). Effects of perspective taking and empathic concern were differentially contingent on psychological interdependence. The impact of perspective taking, but not of empathic concern, was attenuated or reversed under negative outcome interdependence; perspective-taking leads to advantage taking in competitive contexts. Perspective taking was particularly beneficial when the actor had high power, but empathic concern's benefits were independent of hierarchy. Finally, social dissimilarity had no detectable impact on the effects of perspective taking or empathic concern, contrary to our theorizing. Overall results suggest two key conclusions. First, perspective taking and empathic concern have powerful effects on work-related outcomes. Second, each construct has its own distinctive and predictable impacts. We conclude by offering practical suggestions for improving workplace interactions through perspective taking and empathic concern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Recipient design in human communication: simple heuristics or perspective taking?

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Blokpoel, Mark; van Kesteren, Marlieke; Stolk, Arjen; Haselager, Pim; Toni, Ivan; van Rooij, Iris

2012-01-01

Humans have a remarkable capacity for tuning their communicative behaviors to different addressees, a phenomenon also known as recipient design. It remains unclear how this tuning of communicative behavior is implemented during live human interactions. Classical theories of communication postulate that recipient design involves perspective taking, i.e., the communicator selects her behavior based on her hypotheses about beliefs and knowledge of the recipient. More recently, researchers have argued that perspective taking is computationally too costly to be a plausible mechanism in everyday human communication. These researchers propose that computationally simple mechanisms, or heuristics, are exploited to perform recipient design. Such heuristics may be able to adapt communicative behavior to an addressee with no consideration for the addressee's beliefs and knowledge. To test whether the simpler of the two mechanisms is sufficient for explaining the "how" of recipient design we studied communicators' behaviors in the context of a non-verbal communicative task (the Tacit Communication Game, TCG). We found that the specificity of the observed trial-by-trial adjustments made by communicators is parsimoniously explained by perspective taking, but not by simple heuristics. This finding is important as it suggests that humans do have a computationally efficient way of taking beliefs and knowledge of a recipient into account.

Recipient design in human communication: Simple heuristics or perspective taking?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark eBlokpoel

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Humans have a remarkable capacity for tuning their communicative behaviors to different addressees, a phenomenon also known as recipient design. It remains unclear how this tuning of communicative behavior is implemented during live human interactions. Classical theories of communication postulate that recipient design involves perspective taking, i.e., the communicator selects her behavior based on her hypotheses about beliefs and knowledge of the recipient. More recently, researchers have argued that perspective taking is computationally too costly to be a plausible mechanism in everyday human communication. These researchers propose that computationally simple mechanisms, or heuristics, are exploited to perform recipient design. Such heuristics may be able to adapt communicative behavior to an addressee with no consideration for the addressee's beliefs and knowledge. To test whether the simpler of the two mechanisms is sufficient for explaining the `how' of recipient design we studied communicators' behaviors in the context of a non-verbal communicative task (the Tacit Communication Game, TCG. We found that the specificity of the observed trial-by-trial adjustments made by communicators is parsimoniously explained by perspective taking, but not by simple heuristics. This finding is important as it suggests that humans do have a computationally efficient way of taking beliefs and knowledge of a recipient into account.

THE CATEGORY OF GENERATION IN POLISH LINGUISTIC STUDIES (CURRENT STATUS AND PERSPECTIVES

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Marek Ruszkowski

2015-04-01

Full Text Available In linguistic studies, a generation is understood as “a group of people who are more or less the same age (Dubisz red. 2003, t. 3: 298 ”. It is assumed that the linguistic memory, the knowledge of linguistic conventions, the ability to take notice of nuances in one's language is the only and unique cultural heritage that is difficult to learn and is passed from generation to generation, albeit with smaller or bigger modifications. Such modifications are the reason why the language is differentiated in generational terms, and it is the age that plays the principal role in that differentiation. Apart from the biological criterion, the geographic one, that is the area of a specific region, determinates the distinct features in the speech of generations. The analysis of differences in speech of generations allows determining the direction, nature, pace, mechanism of and reasons for linguistic changes. Generally, scientists focus on phonetic, lexical, and morphological differences shown in the language spoken by people from different generations. In Poland, the studies of differences in the speech of generations are at an introductory stage. The reconnaissance of the research area has been carried out, and basic determinations have been made, but the scope of analysis seems to be too narrow. A research perspective would be to use the quantitative indicators that are showing now and will show in the future that the common sense assumptions about specific frequency ratios between parts of speech, an increase in complexity of utterances and their lexical wealth concurrent with age does not need to be corroborated by empirical research. It is also advisable to analyse the differences in speech of one generation, especially the medium-age or old-age generation, in terms of sex, education, living, and other possible parameters. It will give the answer to the question to what extent the speech of people from a specific generation is a linguistic

Text Linguistics in the Context of the Communication Sciences

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Silviu Serban

2011-05-01

Full Text Available This paper tries to analyse the conditions of emerging of text linguistics, taking into consideration the rootsof the preoccupations in its domain, originated in the framework of the communication studies. Thus, the change ofthe perspective on communication, from the mechanistic transmission to interactivity and the exchange of themeanings, led to the pragmatic orientation of the linguistic researches, not just to the message itself, but also to theelements of the communicative act and to the context where the exchange of the meanings takes place. As a result,text linguistics defines the text as communicational occurrence, involving both the members of the communicationand the conditions of the production and the reception of the message, unlike conventional linguistics which studiesthe text in abstracto, just the message itself, ignoring the world that the text refers to, or the users of the message, thetransmitter and the receiver.

The role of cognitive and emotional perspective taking in economic decision making in the ultimatum game.

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Takagishi, Haruto; Koizumi, Michiko; Fujii, Takayuki; Schug, Joanna; Kameshima, Shinya; Yamagishi, Toshio

2014-01-01

We conducted a simple resource allocation game known as the ultimatum game (UG) with preschoolers to examine the role of cognitive and emotional perspective-taking ability on allocation and rejection behavior. A total of 146 preschoolers played the UG and completed a false belief task and an emotional perspective-taking test. Results showed that cognitive perspective taking ability had a significant positive effect on the proposer's offer and a negative effect on the responder's rejection behavior, whereas emotional perspective taking ability did not impact either the proposer's or responder's behavior. These results imply that the ability to anticipate the responder's beliefs, but not their emotional state, plays an important role in the proposer's choice of a fair allocation in an UG, and that children who have not acquired theory of mind still reject unfair offers.

Perspective taking abilities in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Marková, H.; Laczó, J.; Andel, R.; Hort, J.; Vlček, Kamil

2015-01-01

Roč. 281, Mar 15 (2015), s. 229-238 ISSN 0166-4328 R&D Projects: GA MZd(CZ) NT13386 Institutional support: RVO:67985823 Keywords : Alzheimer's disease * mild cognitive impairment * spatial transformation * standardized road-map test of direction sense * perspective taking task * sexual differences Subject RIV: FH - Neurology Impact factor: 3.002, year: 2015

Theory of mind and wisdom: The development of different forms of perspective-taking in late adulthood.

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Rakoczy, Hannes; Wandt, Raphaela; Thomas, Stefanie; Nowak, Jana; Kunzmann, Ute

2018-02-01

How does perspective-taking develop over the lifespan? This question has been investigated in two separate research traditions, dealing with theory of mind (ToM) and wisdom, respectively. Operating in almost complete isolation from each other, and using rather different conceptual approaches, these two traditions have produced seemingly contradictory results: While perspective-taking has been consistently found to decline in old age in ToM research, studies on wisdom have mostly found that perspective-taking remains constant or sometimes even increases in later adulthood. This study sought to integrate these two lines of research and clarify the seemingly contradictory patterns of findings by systematically testing for both forms of perspective-taking and their potential cognitive foundations. The results revealed (1) the dissociation in developmental patterns between ToM perspective-taking (declining with age) and wisdom-related perspective-taking (no decline with age) also held - documented here for the first time - in one and the same sample of younger versus older adults; (2) this dissociation was of limited generality: It did not (or only partly) hold once the material of the two types of tasks was more closely matched; and (3) the divergent developmental patterns of ToM perspective-taking versus wisdom-related perspective-taking could be accounted for to some degree by the fact that only TOM perspective-taking was related to developmental changes in fluid intelligence. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

Perspective-taking deficits in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a prospective investigation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schiffman, Jason; Lam, Cecilia W; Jiwatram, Tina

2004-01-01

BACKGROUND: This study examined data from a Danish prospective longitudinal project in attempt to address the state/trait controversy regarding theory of mind deficits in schizophrenia. Deficits in perspective-taking--a component of theory of mind--were investigated prospectively among children who......-psychotic disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Deficits in perspective-taking among children who later developed schizophrenia spectrum disorders suggest that a facet of theory of mind is impaired prior to development of schizophrenia. Our findings lend support to the hypothesis that theory of mind deficits in schizophrenia...... developed schizophrenia spectrum disorders as adults in comparison to children who did not develop schizophrenia spectrum disorders. METHOD: A total of 265 high risk and control subjects were studied in 1972. At the time of initial assessment, the Role-Taking Task (RTT) was administered. Two hundred...

The role of cognitive and emotional perspective taking in economic decision making in the ultimatum game.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Haruto Takagishi

Full Text Available We conducted a simple resource allocation game known as the ultimatum game (UG with preschoolers to examine the role of cognitive and emotional perspective-taking ability on allocation and rejection behavior. A total of 146 preschoolers played the UG and completed a false belief task and an emotional perspective-taking test. Results showed that cognitive perspective taking ability had a significant positive effect on the proposer's offer and a negative effect on the responder's rejection behavior, whereas emotional perspective taking ability did not impact either the proposer's or responder's behavior. These results imply that the ability to anticipate the responder's beliefs, but not their emotional state, plays an important role in the proposer's choice of a fair allocation in an UG, and that children who have not acquired theory of mind still reject unfair offers.

Genre-Based Tasks in Foreign Language Writing: Developing Writers' Genre Awareness, Linguistic Knowledge, and Writing Competence

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Yasuda, Sachiko

2011-01-01

This study examines how novice foreign language (FL) writers develop their genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence in a genre-based writing course that incorporates email-writing tasks. To define genre, the study draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) that sees language as a resource for making meaning in a particular…

Perspectives on Perspective Taking: How Children Think About the Minds of Others.

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Birch, S A J; Li, V; Haddock, T; Ghrear, S E; Brosseau-Liard, P; Baimel, A; Whyte, M

2017-01-01

Perspective taking, or "theory of mind," involves reasoning about the mental states of others (e.g., their intentions, desires, knowledge, beliefs) and is called upon in virtually every aspect of human interaction. Our goals in writing this chapter were to provide an overview of (a) the research questions developmental psychologists ask to shed light on how children think about the inner workings of the mind, and (b) why such research is invaluable in understanding human nature and our ability to interact with, and learn from, one another. We begin with a brief review of early research in this field that culminated in the so-called litmus test for a theory of mind (i.e., false-belief tasks). Next, we describe research with infants and young children that created a puzzle for many researchers, and briefly mention an intriguing approach researchers have used to attempt to "solve" this puzzle. We then turn to research examining children's understanding of a much broader range of mental states (beyond false beliefs). We briefly discuss the value of studying individual differences by highlighting their important implications for social well-being and ways to improve perspective taking. Next, we review work illustrating the value of capitalizing on children's proclivity for selective social learning to reveal their understanding of others' mental states. We close by highlighting one line of research that we believe will be an especially fruitful avenue for future research and serves to emphasize the complex interplay between our perspective-taking abilities and other cognitive processes. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Way of Teaching English Based on Various Fields of English Linguistics

OpenAIRE

小倉, 美津夫

2018-01-01

　The aim of this paper is to analyze the present situation of English teaching in senior high schools in Aichi prefecture, clarify the problems English teachers have had since the 2010 reform of the Course of Study, and suggest that they should take in and use in their classrooms the perspectives of English linguistics. They had learned the introduction of English linguistics at their university before they became teachers, but they haven't noticed how the knowledge of English linguistics is ...

Working Memory for Linguistic and Non-linguistic Manual Gestures: Evidence, Theory, and Application.

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Rudner, Mary

2018-01-01

Linguistic manual gestures are the basis of sign languages used by deaf individuals. Working memory and language processing are intimately connected and thus when language is gesture-based, it is important to understand related working memory mechanisms. This article reviews work on working memory for linguistic and non-linguistic manual gestures and discusses theoretical and applied implications. Empirical evidence shows that there are effects of load and stimulus degradation on working memory for manual gestures. These effects are similar to those found for working memory for speech-based language. Further, there are effects of pre-existing linguistic representation that are partially similar across language modalities. But above all, deaf signers score higher than hearing non-signers on an n-back task with sign-based stimuli, irrespective of their semantic and phonological content, but not with non-linguistic manual actions. This pattern may be partially explained by recent findings relating to cross-modal plasticity in deaf individuals. It suggests that in linguistic gesture-based working memory, semantic aspects may outweigh phonological aspects when processing takes place under challenging conditions. The close association between working memory and language development should be taken into account in understanding and alleviating the challenges faced by deaf children growing up with cochlear implants as well as other clinical populations.

LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL STUDIES: THE QUEST FOR NEW IDEAS

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Vitalii Kononenko

2015-05-01

Full Text Available The article highlights the principles of researching into text from the interdisciplinary linguistic and cultural perspective. Cognitological analysis of linguistic and extralinguistic cultural meanings reveals that there exist of specific linguistic and aesthetic formations best presented through the ‘language – culture – identity’ triad. One of the components of literary discourse is monocultural layer, which secures the continuity of national cultural tradition; researching into it, one should take into account mental and historical, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and other factors. Linguistic and aesthetic analysis helps to establish the system of linguistic and cultural means (metaphorization, imagery, verbal symbols, linguistic conceptualization, connotative meanings, which reveals its potential in literary texts. The lingual identity as a general notional category shows its nationally-oriented characteristics through the dichotomies of ‘addresser-addressee’ , ‘author-reader’, ‘narrator-narratee’ and is presented in the author’s idiolect.

Aspects of conversational style-linguistic versus behavioral analysis.

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Hall, G A

1992-01-01

Skinner's functional analysis of verbal behavior has been contrasted with formal linguistic analysis which studies the grammatical structure and "meaning" of verbal response-products, regardless of the circumstances under which they are produced. Nevertheless, it appears that certain areas of linguistic analysis are not entirely structural. In her recent books That's Not What I Meant (1986) and You Just Don't Understand (1990), the linguist Deborah Tannen purports to explain how people exhibit different "conversation styles"-that is, how they speak and achieve effects on listeners in different ways. There are indications, however, that the linguistic model may not be the most functional and precise one that could be used in analyzing conversational style. This paper takes concepts presented in Deborah Tannen's book That's Not What I Meant (1986), analyzes them from a linguistic and a behavioral perspective, and compares the relative utility of the two approaches.

Perspective taking in children's narratives about jealousy.

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Aldrich, Naomi J; Tenenbaum, Harriet R; Brooks, Patricia J; Harrison, Karine; Sines, Jennie

2011-03-01

This study explored relationships between perspective-taking, emotion understanding, and children's narrative abilities. Younger (23 5-/6-year-olds) and older (24 7-/8-year-olds) children generated fictional narratives, using a wordless picture book, about a frog experiencing jealousy. Children's emotion understanding was assessed through a standardized test of emotion comprehension and their ability to convey the jealousy theme of the story. Perspective-taking ability was assessed with respect to children's use of narrative evaluation (i.e., narrative coherence, mental state language, supplementary evaluative speech, use of subjective language, and placement of emotion expression). Older children scored higher than younger children on emotion comprehension and on understanding the story's complex emotional theme, including the ability to identify a rival. They were more advanced in perspective-taking abilities, and selectively used emotion expressions to highlight story episodes. Subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence were predictive of children's elaboration of the jealousy theme. Use of supplementary evaluative speech, in turn, was predictive of both subjective perspective taking and narrative coherence. ©2010 The British Psychological Society.

Understanding Online Health Groups for Depression: Social Network and Linguistic Perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Ronghua; Zhang, Qingpeng

2016-03-10

Mental health problems have become increasingly prevalent in the past decade. With the advance of Web 2.0 technologies, social media present a novel platform for Web users to form online health groups. Members of online health groups discuss health-related issues and mutually help one another by anonymously revealing their mental conditions, sharing personal experiences, exchanging health information, and providing suggestions and support. The conversations in online health groups contain valuable information to facilitate the understanding of their mutual help behaviors and their mental health problems. We aimed to characterize the conversations in a major online health group for major depressive disorder (MDD) patients in a popular Chinese social media platform. In particular, we intended to explain how Web users discuss depression-related issues from the perspective of the social networks and linguistic patterns revealed by the members' conversations. Social network analysis and linguistic analysis were employed to characterize the social structure and linguistic patterns, respectively. Furthermore, we integrated both perspectives to exploit the hidden relations between them. We found an intensive use of self-focus words and negative affect words. In general, group members used a higher proportion of negative affect words than positive affect words. The social network of the MDD group for depression possessed small-world and scale-free properties, with a much higher reciprocity ratio and clustering coefficient value as compared to the networks of other social media platforms and classic network models. We observed a number of interesting relationships, either strong correlations or convergent trends, between the topological properties and linguistic properties of the MDD group members. (1) The MDD group members have the characteristics of self-preoccupation and negative thought content, according to Beck's cognitive theory of depression; (2) the social structure

Motor and verbal perspective taking in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Changes in social interaction with people and tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Studenka, Breanna E; Gillam, Sandra L; Hartzheim, Daphne; Gillam, Ronald B

2017-07-01

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have difficulty communicating with others nonverbally, via mechanisms such as hand gestures, eye contact and facial expression. Individuals with ASD also have marked deficits in planning future actions (Hughes, 1996), which might contribute to impairments in non-verbal communication. Perspective taking is typically assessed using verbal scenarios whereby the participant imagines how an actor would interact in a social situation (e.g., Sally Anne task; Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985). The current project evaluated motor perspective taking in five children with ASD (8-11 years old) as they participated in a narrative intervention program over the course of about 16 weeks. The goal of the motor perspective-taking task was to facilitate the action of an experimenter either hammering with a tool or putting it away. Initially, children with ASD facilitated the experimenter's action less than neurotypical control children. As the narrative intervention progressed, children with ASD exhibited increased motor facilitation that paralleled their increased use of mental state and causal language, indicating a link between verbal and motor perspective taking. Motoric perspective taking provides an additional way to assess understanding and communication in children with ASD and may be a valuable tool for both early assessment and diagnosis of children with ASD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effect of culture on perspective taking.

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Wu, Shali; Keysar, Boaz

2007-07-01

People consider the mental states of other people to understand their actions. We evaluated whether such perspective taking is culture dependent. People in collectivistic cultures (e.g., China) are said to have interdependent selves, whereas people in individualistic cultures (e.g., the United States) are said to have independent selves. To evaluate the effect of culture, we asked Chinese and American pairs to play a communication game that required perspective taking. Eye-gaze measures demonstrated that the Chinese participants were more tuned into their partner's perspective than were the American participants. Moreover, Americans often completely failed to take the perspective of their partner, whereas Chinese almost never did. We conclude that cultural patterns of interdependence focus attention on the other, causing Chinese to be better perspective takers than Americans. Although members of both cultures are able to distinguish between their perspective and another person's perspective, cultural patterns afford Chinese the effective use of this ability to interpret other people's actions.

Perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in intergroup contact.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Cynthia S; Kenneth, Tai; Ku, Gillian; Galinsky, Adam D

2014-01-01

The current research explored whether perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with stereotyped outgroup members. Across three studies, we find that perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with negatively-stereotyped targets. In Study 1, perspective-takers sat closer to, whereas stereotype suppressors sat further from, a hooligan compared to control participants. In Study 2, individual differences in perspective-taking tendencies predicted individuals' willingness to engage in contact with a hooligan, having effects above and beyond those of empathic concern. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that perspective-taking's effects on intergroup contact extend to the target's group (i.e., another homeless man), but not to other outgroups (i.e., a man of African descent). Consistent with other perspective-taking research, our findings show that perspective-taking facilitates the creation of social bonds by increasing contact with stereotyped outgroup members.

Perspective-Taking Increases Willingness to Engage in Intergroup Contact

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Cynthia S.; Kenneth, Tai; Ku, Gillian; Galinsky, Adam D.

2014-01-01

The current research explored whether perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with stereotyped outgroup members. Across three studies, we find that perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with negatively-stereotyped targets. In Study 1, perspective-takers sat closer to, whereas stereotype suppressors sat further from, a hooligan compared to control participants. In Study 2, individual differences in perspective-taking tendencies predicted individuals' willingness to engage in contact with a hooligan, having effects above and beyond those of empathic concern. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that perspective-taking's effects on intergroup contact extend to the target's group (i.e., another homeless man), but not to other outgroups (i.e., a man of African descent). Consistent with other perspective-taking research, our findings show that perspective-taking facilitates the creation of social bonds by increasing contact with stereotyped outgroup members. PMID:24465648

Aspects of conversational style—linguistic versus behavioral analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Genae A.

1992-01-01

Skinner's functional analysis of verbal behavior has been contrasted with formal linguistic analysis which studies the grammatical structure and “meaning” of verbal response-products, regardless of the circumstances under which they are produced. Nevertheless, it appears that certain areas of linguistic analysis are not entirely structural. In her recent books That's Not What I Meant (1986) and You Just Don't Understand (1990), the linguist Deborah Tannen purports to explain how people exhibit different “conversation styles”—that is, how they speak and achieve effects on listeners in different ways. There are indications, however, that the linguistic model may not be the most functional and precise one that could be used in analyzing conversational style. This paper takes concepts presented in Deborah Tannen's book That's Not What I Meant (1986), analyzes them from a linguistic and a behavioral perspective, and compares the relative utility of the two approaches. PMID:22477048

Perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in intergroup contact.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cynthia S Wang

Full Text Available The current research explored whether perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with stereotyped outgroup members. Across three studies, we find that perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with negatively-stereotyped targets. In Study 1, perspective-takers sat closer to, whereas stereotype suppressors sat further from, a hooligan compared to control participants. In Study 2, individual differences in perspective-taking tendencies predicted individuals' willingness to engage in contact with a hooligan, having effects above and beyond those of empathic concern. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that perspective-taking's effects on intergroup contact extend to the target's group (i.e., another homeless man, but not to other outgroups (i.e., a man of African descent. Consistent with other perspective-taking research, our findings show that perspective-taking facilitates the creation of social bonds by increasing contact with stereotyped outgroup members.

Working Memory for Linguistic and Non-linguistic Manual Gestures: Evidence, Theory, and Application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mary Rudner

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Linguistic manual gestures are the basis of sign languages used by deaf individuals. Working memory and language processing are intimately connected and thus when language is gesture-based, it is important to understand related working memory mechanisms. This article reviews work on working memory for linguistic and non-linguistic manual gestures and discusses theoretical and applied implications. Empirical evidence shows that there are effects of load and stimulus degradation on working memory for manual gestures. These effects are similar to those found for working memory for speech-based language. Further, there are effects of pre-existing linguistic representation that are partially similar across language modalities. But above all, deaf signers score higher than hearing non-signers on an n-back task with sign-based stimuli, irrespective of their semantic and phonological content, but not with non-linguistic manual actions. This pattern may be partially explained by recent findings relating to cross-modal plasticity in deaf individuals. It suggests that in linguistic gesture-based working memory, semantic aspects may outweigh phonological aspects when processing takes place under challenging conditions. The close association between working memory and language development should be taken into account in understanding and alleviating the challenges faced by deaf children growing up with cochlear implants as well as other clinical populations.

Putting Raters in Ratees' Shoes: Perspective Taking and Assessment of Creative Products

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Jiantao; Long, Haiying; Pang, Weiguo

2017-01-01

This study reported 2 experiments that studied the effect of perspective taking on assessment of creative products by using human raters. Forty responses of 2 alternative uses tasks (AUTs) and 15 alien stories generated by 6th-grade students were used as assessment materials. Undergraduate students as the novice raters assessed the products under…

Australia and New Zealand Applied Linguistics (ANZAL): Taking Stock

Science.gov (United States)

Kleinsasser, Robert C.

2004-01-01

This paper reviews some emerging trends in applied linguistics in both Australia and New Zealand. It sketches the current scene of (selected) postgraduate applied linguistics programs in higher education and considers how various university programs define applied linguistics through the classes (titles) they have postgraduate students complete to…

Contact in the prehistory of the Sakha (Yakuts) : Linguistic and genetic perspectives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pakendorf, Brigitte

2007-01-01

This study analyses the prehistory of a northeastern Siberian population, the Sakha (Yakuts), from both a linguistic and a molecular-genetic perspective. The Sakha, who are a Turkic-speaking group of cattle- and horse-breeders, migrated to the Lena river from an area further to the south several

When perspective taking increases taking: reactive egoism in social interaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Epley, Nicholas; Caruso, Eugene; Bazerman, Max H

2006-11-01

Group members often reason egocentrically, believing that they deserve more than their fair share of group resources. Leading people to consider other members' thoughts and perspectives can reduce these egocentric (self-centered) judgments such that people claim that it is fair for them to take less; however, the consideration of others' thoughts and perspectives actually increases egoistic (selfish) behavior such that people actually take more of available resources. A series of experiments demonstrates this pattern in competitive contexts in which considering others' perspectives activates egoistic theories of their likely behavior, leading people to counter by behaving more egoistically themselves. This reactive egoism is attenuated in cooperative contexts. Discussion focuses on the implications of reactive egoism in social interaction and on strategies for alleviating its potentially deleterious effects.

Perspective-Taking Increases Willingness to Engage in Intergroup Contact

OpenAIRE

Wang, Cynthia S.; Kenneth, Tai; Ku, Gillian; Galinsky, Adam D.

2014-01-01

The current research explored whether perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with stereotyped outgroup members. Across three studies, we find that perspective-taking increases willingness to engage in contact with negatively-stereotyped targets. In Study 1, perspective-takers sat closer to, whereas stereotype suppressors sat further from, a hooligan compared to control participants. In Study 2, individual differences in perspective-taking tendencies predicted individual...

The Effect of Signal-to-Noise Ratio on Linguistic Processing in a Semantic Judgment Task: An Aging Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Stanley, Nicholas; Davis, Tara; Estis, Julie

2017-03-01

Aging effects on speech understanding in noise have primarily been assessed through speech recognition tasks. Recognition tasks, which focus on bottom-up, perceptual aspects of speech understanding, intentionally limit linguistic and cognitive factors by asking participants to only repeat what they have heard. On the other hand, linguistic processing tasks require bottom-up and top-down (linguistic, cognitive) processing skills and are, therefore, more reflective of speech understanding abilities used in everyday communication. The effect of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) on linguistic processing ability is relatively unknown for either young (YAs) or older adults (OAs). To determine if reduced SNRs would be more deleterious to the linguistic processing of OAs than YAs, as measured by accuracy and reaction time in a semantic judgment task in competing speech. In the semantic judgment task, participants indicated via button press whether word pairs were a semantic Match or No Match. This task was performed in quiet, as well as, +3, 0, -3, and -6 dB SNR with two-talker speech competition. Seventeen YAs (20-30 yr) with normal hearing sensitivity and 17 OAs (60-68 yr) with normal hearing sensitivity or mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss within age-appropriate norms. Accuracy, reaction time, and false alarm rate were measured and analyzed using a mixed design analysis of variance. A decrease in SNR level significantly reduced accuracy and increased reaction time in both YAs and OAs. However, poor SNRs affected accuracy and reaction time of Match and No Match word pairs differently. Accuracy for Match pairs declined at a steeper rate than No Match pairs in both groups as SNR decreased. In addition, reaction time for No Match pairs increased at a greater rate than Match pairs in more difficult SNRs, particularly at -3 and -6 dB SNR. False-alarm rates indicated that participants had a response bias to No Match pairs as the SNR decreased. Age-related differences were

Embracing Connectedness and Change: A Complex Dynamic Systems Perspective for Applied Linguistic Research

Science.gov (United States)

Cameron, Lynne

2015-01-01

Complex dynamic systems (CDS) theory offers a powerful metaphorical model of applied linguistic processes, allowing holistic descriptions of situated phenomena, and addressing the connectedness and change that often characterise issues in our field. A recent study of Kenyan conflict transformation illustrates application of a CDS perspective. Key…

Linguistic dimensions of l2 accentedness and comprehensibility vary across speaking tasks

OpenAIRE

Crowther, D.; Trofimovich, P.; Isaacs, T.; Saito, Kazuya

2017-01-01

This study critically examined the previously reported partial independence between second language (L2) accentedness (degree to which L2 speech differs from the target variety) and comprehensibility (ease of understanding). In prior work, comprehensibility was linked to multiple linguistic dimensions of L2 speech (phonology, fluency, lexis, grammar) whereas accentedness was narrowly associated with L2 phonology. However, these findings stemmed from a single task (picture narrative), suggesti...

Transformations and representations supporting spatial perspective taking

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Yu, Alfred B.; Zacks, Jeffrey M.

2018-01-01

Spatial perspective taking is the ability to reason about spatial relations relative to another’s viewpoint. Here, we propose a mechanistic hypothesis that relates mental representations of one’s viewpoint to the transformations used for spatial perspective taking. We test this hypothesis using a novel behavioral paradigm that assays patterns of response time and variation in those patterns across people. The results support the hypothesis that people maintain a schematic representation of the space around their body, update that representation to take another’s perspective, and thereby to reason about the space around their body. This is a powerful computational mechanism that can support imitation, coordination of behavior, and observational learning. PMID:29545731

Social Perspective Taking

Science.gov (United States)

2009-09-01

groups” and engage in less stereotype-driven fear and hostility resulting in reduced impulsive and aggressive behavior (Richardson, Green , & Lago...and the physical world. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Batson, C. D. (1991). The altruism question: Towards a social-psychological answer...others. New York: The Guilford Press. Richardson, D. R., Green , L. R., & Lago, T. (1998). The relationship between perspective- taking and

Understanding Higher Education-Based Teacher Educators' Identities in Hong Kong: A Sociocultural Linguistic Perspective

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Yuan, Rui

2016-01-01

While teacher educator identities have received increasing attention over the past decade, there is a lack of research on teacher educators' professional identities in the complex and shifting higher education contexts. Informed by the sociocultural linguistic perspective, this study investigates two language teacher educators' professional…

A Study Into the Effects of Inhibition and Emotion on Perspective-Taking in Younger and Older Adults

OpenAIRE

Druce, Megan

2013-01-01

A decline in Theory of Mind (ToM) perspective-taking abilities in old age is thought to result from an inability to inhibit the self-perspective. Such reduced inhibitory capacities in old age could also impact upon an attentional reorienting and selection processes thought to be required to successfully move from the self to the other perspective in a ToM task. We sought to investigate both of these hypotheses by administering modified versions of Samson et al.’s (2005) high and low inhibitio...

Conceptualizing Multicultural Perspective Taking Skills

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Rentsch, Joan R; Gunderson, Allison; Goodwin, Gerald F; Abbe, Allison

2007-01-01

.... The ability to take the perspective of individuals within the context of their culture enables Army leaders to understand other cultures at a level finer than that afforded by simply using global...

An Exploration of Linguistic Neo-Colonialism through Educational Language Policy--An Irish Perspective

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Dillon, Anna

2016-01-01

In this paper, educational language policy is explored through the lens of linguistic neo-colonialism in Ireland in the case of learners of English as an Additional Language. The perspective of Ireland as a decolonized nation may have an impact on current language policy. Arguments for an additive approach to language and identity, language…

Linguistic and Psychological Perspectives on Prolonged Periods of Silence in Dual-Language Learners

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Le Pichon, Emmanuelle; de Jonge, Maretha

2016-01-01

In this paper, we present an examination of the literature on prolonged periods of silence in children from the perspective of two different scientific fields. The aim is to call attention to the inherent complexity of the factors that may be involved in the etiology of mutistic behavior during child development. Medical and linguistic literature…

Speech-Language Pathologists' Preparation, Practices, and Perspectives on Serving Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Children

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Guiberson, Mark; Atkins, Jenny

2012-01-01

This study describes the backgrounds, diversity training, and professional perspectives reported by 154 Colorado speech-language pathologists in serving children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds. The authors compare the results of the current survey to those of a similar survey collected in 1996. Respondents reported…

Probabilistic linguistics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bod, R.; Heine, B.; Narrog, H.

2010-01-01

Probabilistic linguistics takes all linguistic evidence as positive evidence and lets statistics decide. It allows for accurate modelling of gradient phenomena in production and perception, and suggests that rule-like behaviour is no more than a side effect of maximizing probability. This chapter

Perspective taking in language: Integrating the spatial and action domains.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Madeleine Edith Louisa Beveridge

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Language is an inherently social behaviour. In this paper, we bring together two research areas that typically occupy distinct sections of the literature: perspective taking in spatial language (whether people represent a scene from their own or a different spatial perspective, and perspective taking in action language (the extent to which they simulate an action as though they were performing that action. First, we note that vocabulary is used inconsistently across the spatial and action domains, and propose a more transparent vocabulary that will allow researchers to integrate action- and spatial-perspective taking. Second, we note that embodied theories of language comprehension often make the narrow assumption that understanding action descriptions involves adopting the perspective of an agent carrying out that action. We argue that comprehenders can adopt embodied action-perspectives other than that of the agent, including those of the patient or an observer. Third, we review evidence showing that perspective taking in spatial language is a flexible process. We argue that the flexibility of spatial-perspective taking provides a means for conversation partners engaged in dialogue to maximise similarity between their situation models. These situation models can then be used as the basis for action language simulations, in which language users adopt a particular action-perspective.

Perspectives in Linguistics.

Science.gov (United States)

Waterman, John T.

Intended for the student of linguistics or the structural grammarian, who must develop an awareness of their intellectual heritage, the present work surveys the study of language in ancient times, the medieval and early modern periods, the nineteenth century, and the twentieth century to 1950. (This second edition includes additional material on…

Teaching Standard Italian to Dialect Speakers: A Pedagogical Perspective of Linguistic Systems in Contact

Science.gov (United States)

Danesi, Marcel

1974-01-01

The teaching of standard Italian to speakers of Italian dialects both in Italy and in North America is discussed, specifically through a specialized pedagogical program within the framework of a sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic perspective, and based on a structural analysis of linguistic systems in contact. Italian programs in Toronto are…

Perception Of Space, Empathy And Cognitive Processes: Design Of A Video Game For The Measurement Of Perspective Taking Skills

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pio Alfredo Di Tore

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The perspective-taking skills require the ability to manipulate spatial reference systems and are the basis of the empathetic process. Empathy, in its relations with space representation and manipulation of spatial reference systems, is the investigation subject of this work, whose aim is the design of a videogame aimed at the measurement of the player's perspective taking skills. The idea of creating a video game on perspective taking is based on a classic Piagetian task, the three mountains problem, object of recent attention by the Italian scientific community that is involved in research in education. The current stage of the project has produced a video game, now in alpha testing release. The article discusses the software theoretical framework (spatial theory of empathy, describes the choices made in the design stage and comment on first results obtained during the alpha testing.

Common brain areas engaged in false belief reasoning and visual perspective taking: A meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies.

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Matthias eSchurz

2013-11-01

Full Text Available We performed a quantitative meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies to identify brain areas which are commonly engaged in social and visuo-spatial perspective taking. Specifically, we compared brain activation found for visual-perspective taking to activation for false belief reasoning, a task which requires awareness of perspective to understand someone’s mistaken belief about the world which contrasts with reality. In support of a previous account by Perner & Leekam (2008, a meta-analytic conjunction analysis found activation for false belief reasoning and visual perspective taking in the left but not the right dorsal temporo-parietal junction. This fits with the idea that the left dorsal TPJ is responsible for representing different perspectives in a domain-general fashion. Moreover, the conjunction found activation in the precuneus and the left middle occipital gyrus close to the putative Extrastriate Body Area. The precuneus is linked to mental-imagery processes, which may aid in the construction of a different perspective. The Extrastriate Body Area may be engaged due to imagined body-transformations when another’s viewpoint is adopted.

Corpus linguistics and statistics with R introduction to quantitative methods in linguistics

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Desagulier, Guillaume

2017-01-01

This textbook examines empirical linguistics from a theoretical linguist’s perspective. It provides both a theoretical discussion of what quantitative corpus linguistics entails and detailed, hands-on, step-by-step instructions to implement the techniques in the field. The statistical methodology and R-based coding from this book teach readers the basic and then more advanced skills to work with large data sets in their linguistics research and studies. Massive data sets are now more than ever the basis for work that ranges from usage-based linguistics to the far reaches of applied linguistics. This book presents much of the methodology in a corpus-based approach. However, the corpus-based methods in this book are also essential components of recent developments in sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, computational linguistics, and psycholinguistics. Material from the book will also be appealing to researchers in digital humanities and the many non-linguistic fields that use textual data analysis and t...

Noun and verb knowledge in monolingual preschool children across 17 languages: Data from Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT).

Science.gov (United States)

Haman, Ewa; Łuniewska, Magdalena; Hansen, Pernille; Simonsen, Hanne Gram; Chiat, Shula; Bjekić, Jovana; Blažienė, Agnė; Chyl, Katarzyna; Dabašinskienė, Ineta; Engel de Abreu, Pascale; Gagarina, Natalia; Gavarró, Anna; Håkansson, Gisela; Harel, Efrat; Holm, Elisabeth; Kapalková, Svetlana; Kunnari, Sari; Levorato, Chiara; Lindgren, Josefin; Mieszkowska, Karolina; Montes Salarich, Laia; Potgieter, Anneke; Ribu, Ingeborg; Ringblom, Natalia; Rinker, Tanja; Roch, Maja; Slančová, Daniela; Southwood, Frenette; Tedeschi, Roberta; Tuncer, Aylin Müge; Ünal-Logacev, Özlem; Vuksanović, Jasmina; Armon-Lotem, Sharon

2017-01-01

This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0-6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production. Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.

A Conceptual Analysis of Perspective Taking in Support of Socioscientific Reasoning

Science.gov (United States)

Kahn, Sami

Scientific literacy is concerned with the informed citizens' ability to negotiate scientifically-related societal issues. The suite of skills necessary to negotiate these complex issues is referred to as Socioscientific Reasoning (SSR). SSR requires, among other things, perspective-taking abilities in order to consider the multi-faceted nature of these open-ended, debatable socioscientific issues (SSI). Developing interventions and instruments to foster and measure perspective taking in support of SSR is therefore critical to the promotion of functional scientific literacy through both research and practice. Although widely studied in many disciplines, perspective taking is a particularly tangled construct that has been used to describe a range of activities representing different psychological domains and applied interchangeably with related constructs such as role taking, empathy, and theory of mind. This ambiguity makes it difficult to ensure construct validity and prevents science education researchers from honing in on the precise skills they wish to study and promote. To clarify the construct of perspective taking, this study undertook a conceptual analysis to operationalize perspective taking, drawing comparisons and distinctions between it and related constructs. Further, by applying a method known as conception development, perspective taking was positioned in the context of SSR, particularly as it relates to moral development, in order to devise a more precise construct relating perspective taking to SSR called socioscientific perspective taking (SSPT). It is asserted that SSPT requires engagement with others or their circumstances, an etic/emic shift, and a moral context comprised of reflective and reflexive judgment. Finally, in order to identify promising interventions for promoting SSPT in the science classroom, the newly-developed SSPT construct was applied to a series of extensively researched curricular frameworks that promote perspective taking in

Literacy and linguistic diversity in the multilingual classroom

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laursen, Helle Pia

and educational failure. Our study takes place in classrooms where teachers are engaged in developing a literacy pe dagogy which allows space for multilingualism and multimodality. Through intervention studies in these linguistically diverse classrooms, we are also investigating how teachers and students navigate....... The longitudinal study ‘Signs of language’ involves five multilingual classrooms. We are exploring how multilingual children interpret and create signs in order to communicate and perform their social identity in different multilingual and multimodal classroom settings. We are aiming at getting a better...... understanding of the children’s complex uses of the linguistic and semiotic resources available to them by paying close attention to the perspective of the children - as users and nterpreters of literacy (Blackledge & Creeese 2010). In classrooms some identity options are more available to the students than...

Perspective Taking in Workplaces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zappalà Salvatore

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Workplaces are often described as places in which individuals are motivated by their self-interests and in which negative events like time pressure, anxiety, conflict with co-workers, miscomprehensions, difficulties in solving problems, not-transmitted or not-exchanged information that lead to mistakes, and in some cases to injuries, stress or control, are part of everyday life (Dormann & Zapf, 2002; Schabracq, Winnubst and Cooper, 2003. Such situations are often the result of the limited comprehension of needs, skills, or information available to colleagues, supervisors, subordinates, clients or providers. However, workplaces are also places in which employees take care of clients, support colleagues and subordinates (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002, are enthusiastic about their job (Bakker et al., 2008, are motivated by leaders that encourage employees to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the group or the organization and provide them with the confidence to perform beyond expectations (Bass, 1997. Thus positive relationships at work are becoming a new interdisciplinary domain of inquiry (Dutton & Ragins, 2006. Within this positive relationships framework, in this paper we focus on a positive component of workplaces, and particularly on an individual cognitive and emotional process that has an important role in the workplace because it facilitates interpersonal relations and communications: it is the perspective taking process. In order to describe perspective taking, we will refer to some empirical studies and particularly to the review published by Parker, Atkins and Axtell in 2008 on the International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

The development of second-order social cognition and its relation with complex language understanding and working memory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Arslan, Burcu; Hohenberger, Annette; Verbrugge, Rineke

2012-01-01

In this study, the development of second-order social cognition and its possible relationship with language and memory were investigated. For this reason two second-order false belief tasks (FBT_2), a short term memory task (WST), a complex working memory task (LST), a linguistic perspective-taking

New Conceptualizations of Linguistic Giftedness

Science.gov (United States)

Biedron, Adriana; Pawlak, Miroslaw

2016-01-01

This state-of-the art paper focuses on the issue of linguistic giftedness, somewhat neglected in the second language acquisition (SLA) literature, attempting to reconceptualize, expand and update this concept in response to latest developments in the fields of psychology, linguistics and neurology. It first discusses contemporary perspectives on…

The Routledge Applied Linguistics Reader

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Li, Ed.

2011-01-01

"The Routledge Applied Linguistics Reader" is an essential collection of readings for students of Applied Linguistics. Divided into five sections: Language Teaching and Learning, Second Language Acquisition, Applied Linguistics, Identity and Power and Language Use in Professional Contexts, the "Reader" takes a broad…

How discrimination and perspective-taking influence adolescents' attitudes about justice.

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Rasmussen, Hannah F; Ramos, Michelle C; Han, Sohyun C; Pettit, Corey; Margolin, Gayla

2018-01-01

Little is known about factors influencing adolescents' justice attitudes. This online study investigates perspective-taking and experiences with discrimination for their associations with adolescents' beliefs about how justice is best served. Participants included 179 ethnically/racially diverse high school students (M age  = 16.67 years; SD = 1.02). Higher perspective-taking was associated with less punitive and more restorative attitudes. Youth reporting more personal and ethnic/racial discrimination experiences endorsed more restorative justice attitudes. Perspective-taking also moderated the associations between reports of family, personal, and religious discrimination and punitive justice attitudes: adolescents reporting higher discrimination showed a stronger inverse relationship between perspective-taking and punitive attitudes. Findings have implications for school and community programs aiming to implement restorative policies, and for adolescents' civic participation. Copyright © 2017 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A phylogenetic and cognitive perspective on linguistic complexity ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In recent years a growing interest in the nature of linguistic complexity has emerged in linguistic circles. A striking feature of this interest is that linguistic complexity is taken to be a phenomenon in its own right. In fact, an extreme construal of the inherent complexity of language is represented in the notion of universal ...

Perspective-taking deficits in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a prospective investigation.

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Schiffman, Jason; Lam, Cecilia W; Jiwatram, Tina; Ekstrom, Morten; Sorensen, Holger; Mednick, Sarnoff

2004-11-01

This study examined data from a Danish prospective longitudinal project in attempt to address the state/trait controversy regarding theory of mind deficits in schizophrenia. Deficits in perspective-taking--a component of theory of mind--were investigated prospectively among children who developed schizophrenia spectrum disorders as adults in comparison to children who did not develop schizophrenia spectrum disorders. A total of 265 high risk and control subjects were studied in 1972. At the time of initial assessment, the Role-Taking Task (RTT) was administered. Two hundred and forty-two of these children were evaluated in 1992 during follow-up examinations. Sixteen developed schizophrenia, 10 developed a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, 70 had outcomes of other psychopathology, and 146 did not develop a mental illness. Children who later developed schizophrenia or a schizophrenia spectrum disorder had lower RTT scores, controlling for verbal IQ and age, compared to those who did not develop any mental illness. Although in the expected direction, RTT scores for those with schizophrenia spectrum disorders were not significantly different from those who developed a non-psychotic disorder. Deficits in perspective-taking among children who later developed schizophrenia spectrum disorders suggest that a facet of theory of mind is impaired prior to development of schizophrenia. Our findings lend support to the hypothesis that theory of mind deficits in schizophrenia are trait markers of the disorder.

Level 2 Perspective Taking Entails Two Processes: Evidence from PRP Experiments

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Janczyk, Markus

2013-01-01

In many situations people need to mentally adopt the (spatial) perspective of other persons, an ability that is referred to as "Level 2 perspective taking." Its underlying processes have been ascribed to mental self-rotation that can be dissociated from mental object-rotation. Recent findings suggest that perspective taking/self-rotation…

LANGUE AND PAROLE IN AMERICAN LINGUISTICS.

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LEVIN, SAMUEL R.

THE PROBLEM OF THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE STRUCTURE IS CONSIDERED AND THE FORM WHICH ANY LINGUISTIC DESCRIPTION SHOULD TAKE. THE AUTHOR EXAMINES THE INFLUENCE OF THE SWISS LINGUIST, FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE, ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS. THE QUESTION OF "MENTALISM" IN LINGUISTICS IS REDUCED TO THE PROBLEM OF WHETHER LINGUISTIC…

Managing Linguistic Diversity in a Global Company

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lønsmann, Dorte

? To shed light on the employee perspective, the analysis of the focus group data focuses on the factors influencing employees’ reception of a new language policy. Using sociolinguistic stancetaking theory (Jaffe 2009), the analysis reveals that employees take a range of stances from embracing to resisting......Sociolinguistic studies of language in the workplace have found that linguistic diversity may be a challenge in terms of communication barriers and social exclusion. In some organisations, introduction of an ‘English only’ language policy has been seen as the solution to overcome language barriers...... the employees receive them. As such, the study assumes the dual perspective of management and employees. The data comes from a case study of Danish engineering company and includes language policy documents, interviews with communication employees, and focus groups with employees from three different...

Can't get over me : Ego depletion attenuates prosocial effects of perspective taking

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Fennis, Bob M.

Many studies attest to the beneficial and prosocial effects of perspective taking. The present research tests the notion that such perspective taking is a process involving active self-regulation and, hence, that effects of perspective taking on prosocial behaviour are more pronounced when

Reflective mirrors: perspective-taking in autoscopic phenomena.

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Brugger, Peter

2002-08-01

''Autoscopic phenomena refer to different illusory reduplications of one's own body and self. This article proposes a phenomenological differentiation of autoscopic reduplication into three distinct classes, i.e., autoscopic hallucinations, heautoscopy, and out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Published cases are analysed with special emphasis on the subject's point of view from which the reduplication is observed. In an autoscopic hallucination the observer's perspective is clearly body-centred, and the visual image of one's own body appears as a mirror reversal. Heautoscopy (i.e., the encounter with an alter ego or doppelgänger), is defined as a reduplication not only of bodily appearance, but also of aspects of one's psychological self. The observer's perspective may alternate between egocentric and ''alter-ego-centred''. As a consequence of the projection of bodily feelings into the doppelgänger (implying a mental rotation of one's own body along the vertical axis), original and reduplicated bodies are not mirror images of one another. This also holds for OBEs, where one's self is not reduplicated but appears to be completely dissociated from the body and observing it from a location in extracorporeal space. It is argued that perspective-taking in a spatial sense may be meaningfully related to perspective-taking in a psychological sense. The mirror in the autoscopic hallucination is a ''cognitively nonreflective mirror'' (Jean Cocteau), both spatially and psychologically. The reflective abilities of the heautoscopic mirror are better developed, yet frequent shifts in the observer's spatial perspective render the nature of psychological interactions between self and alter ego highly unpredictable. The doppelgänger may serve a transitivistic (i.e., own suffering is transferred to the alter ego) or aggressive function when this behaviour is directed against a patient. The mirror in an OBE is always reflective: It allows the self to view both space and one

Non-linguistic learning and aphasia: Evidence from a paired associate and feedback-based task

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Vallila-Rohter, Sofia; Kiran, Swathi

2013-01-01

Though aphasia is primarily characterized by impairments in the comprehension and/or expression of language, research has shown that patients with aphasia also show deficits in cognitive-linguistic domains such as attention, executive function, concept knowledge and memory (Helm-Estabrooks, 2002 for review). Research in aphasia suggests that cognitive impairments can impact the online construction of language, new verbal learning, and transactional success (Freedman & Martin, 2001; Hula & McNeil, 2008; Ramsberger, 2005). In our research, we extend this hypothesis to suggest that general cognitive deficits influence progress with therapy. The aim of our study is to explore learning, a cognitive process that is integral to relearning language, yet underexplored in the field of aphasia rehabilitation. We examine non-linguistic category learning in patients with aphasia (n=19) and in healthy controls (n=12), comparing feedback and non-feedback based instruction. Participants complete two computer-based learning tasks that require them to categorize novel animals based on the percentage of features shared with one of two prototypes. As hypothesized, healthy controls showed successful category learning following both methods of instruction. In contrast, only 60% of our patient population demonstrated successful non-linguistic category learning. Patient performance was not predictable by standardized measures of cognitive ability. Results suggest that general learning is affected in aphasia and is a unique, important factor to consider in the field of aphasia rehabilitation. PMID:23127795

Deaf Students as a Linguistic and Cultural Minority: Shifting Perspectives and Implications for Teaching and Learning

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Higgins, Michael; Lieberman, Amy M.

2016-01-01

Deaf children have traditionally been perceived and educated as a special needs population. Over the past several decades, many factors have converged to enable a shift in perspective to one in which deaf children are viewed as a cultural and linguistic minority, and the education of deaf children is approached from a bilingual framework. This…

Effect of Parkinson's Disease on the Production of Structured and Unstructured Speaking Tasks: Respiratory Physiologic and Linguistic Considerations

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Huber, Jessica E.; Darling, Meghan

2011-01-01

Purpose: To examine the effects of cognitive-linguistic deficits and respiratory physiologic changes on respiratory support for speech in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) using two speech tasks: reading and extemporaneous speech. Method: Five women with PD, 9 men with PD, and 14 age- and sex-matched control participants read a passage and…

Ninth international conference on computational linguistics Coling 82

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1983-01-01

This paper presents the summary reports presented at the concluding session and evaluating the state of the art, trends and perspectives as reflected in the papers presented at Coling 82 in six domains: machine translation, grammatico-semantic analysis, linguistics in its relations to computational linguistics, question answering, artificial intelligence and knowledge representation, and information retrieval and linguistic data bases.

Conversation Analysis and Applied Linguistics.

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Schegloff, Emanuel A.; Koshik, Irene; Jacoby, Sally; Olsher, David

2002-01-01

Offers biographical guidance on several major areas of conversation-analytic work--turn-taking, repair, and word selection--and indicates past or potential points of contact with applied linguistics. Also discusses areas of applied linguistic work. (Author/VWL)

A Review of Visual Perspective taking in Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Amy ePearson

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Impairments in social cognition are a key symptom of Autism Spectrum Disorder. People with autism have great difficulty with understanding the beliefs and desires of other people. In recent years literature has begun to examine the link between impairments in social cognition and abilities which demand the use of spatial and social skills, such as visual perspective taking (VPT. Flavell (1977 defined two levels of perspective taking: VPT level 1 is the ability to understand that other people have a different line of sight to ourselves, whereas VPT level 2 is the understanding that two people viewing the same item from different points in space may see different things. So far, literature on whether either level of VPT is impaired or intact in autism is inconsistent. Here we review studies which have examined VPT levels 1 and 2 in people with autism with a focus on the methods that have been used to measure perspective taking. We conclude the review with an evaluation of the findings into VPT in autism and give recommendations for future research which may give a clearer insight into whether perspective taking is truly impaired in autism.

Linguistic spatial classifications of event domains in narratives of crime

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Blake Stephen Howald

2010-07-01

Full Text Available Structurally, formal definitions of the linguistic narrative minimally require two temporally linked past-time events. The role of space in this definition, based on spatial language indicating where events occur, is considered optional and non-structural. However, based on narratives with a high frequency of spatial language, recent research has questioned this perspective, suggesting that space is more critical than may be readily apparent. Through an analysis of spatially rich serial criminal narratives, it will be demonstrated that spatial information qualitatively varies relative to narrative events. In particular, statistical classifiers in a supervised machine learning task achieve a 90% accuracy in predicting Pre-Crime, Crime, and Post-Crime events based on spatial (and temporal information. Overall, these results suggest a deeper spatial organization of discourse, which not only provides practical event resolution possibilities, but also challenges traditional formal linguistic definitions of narrative.

The Potential of Automatic Word Comparison for Historical Linguistics.

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List, Johann-Mattis; Greenhill, Simon J; Gray, Russell D

2017-01-01

The amount of data from languages spoken all over the world is rapidly increasing. Traditional manual methods in historical linguistics need to face the challenges brought by this influx of data. Automatic approaches to word comparison could provide invaluable help to pre-analyze data which can be later enhanced by experts. In this way, computational approaches can take care of the repetitive and schematic tasks leaving experts to concentrate on answering interesting questions. Here we test the potential of automatic methods to detect etymologically related words (cognates) in cross-linguistic data. Using a newly compiled database of expert cognate judgments across five different language families, we compare how well different automatic approaches distinguish related from unrelated words. Our results show that automatic methods can identify cognates with a very high degree of accuracy, reaching 89% for the best-performing method Infomap. We identify the specific strengths and weaknesses of these different methods and point to major challenges for future approaches. Current automatic approaches for cognate detection-although not perfect-could become an important component of future research in historical linguistics.

Flexible and fast: linguistic shortcut affects both shallow and deep conceptual processing.

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Connell, Louise; Lynott, Dermot

2013-06-01

Previous research has shown that people use linguistic distributional information during conceptual processing, and that it is especially useful for shallow tasks and rapid responding. Using two conceptual combination tasks, we showed that this linguistic shortcut extends to the processing of novel stimuli, is used in both successful and unsuccessful conceptual processing, and is evident in both shallow and deep conceptual tasks. Specifically, as predicted by the ECCo theory of conceptual combination, people use the linguistic shortcut as a "quick-and-dirty" guide to whether the concepts are likely to combine into a coherent conceptual representation, in both shallow sensibility judgment and deep interpretation generation tasks. Linguistic distributional frequency predicts both the likelihood and the time course of rejecting a novel word compound as nonsensical or uninterpretable. However, it predicts the time course of successful processing only in shallow sensibility judgment, because the deeper conceptual process of interpretation generation does not allow the linguistic shortcut to suffice. Furthermore, the effects of linguistic distributional frequency are independent of any effects of conventional word frequency. We discuss the utility of the linguistic shortcut as a cognitive triage mechanism that can optimize processing in a limited-resource conceptual system.

Metacognition and Perspective-Taking in Alzheimer's Disease: A Mini-Review.

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Bertrand, Elodie; Landeira-Fernandez, Jesus; Mograbi, Daniel C

2016-01-01

Metacognition refers to the monitoring and regulation of cognitive processes and its impairment can lead to a lack of self-awareness of deficits, or anosognosia. In the context of different neurological and psychiatric disorders (e.g., traumatic brain injury, dementia, and schizophrenia), studies have shown that patients who present impairments in metacognitive abilities may be able to recognize such difficulties in others and in themselves when exposed to material in a third-person perspective. Considering that metacognitive impairments are an important characteristic of dementia, especially in Alzheimer's Disease (AD), studies of the relationship between metacognition and perspective-taking may be relevant to improve the quality of life of people with dementia. The current paper first briefly addresses the theme of metacognition and the impact of metacognitive deficits in people with AD. The focus then turns to the relationship between metacognition and perspective-taking in different neurological and psychiatric disorders, particularly AD. This relationship is also discussed based on theoretical models, particularly the Cognitive Awareness Model (CAM). Specifically, the CAM suggests the existence of distinct memory systems for self- and other-information, an idea which is supported by neuroimaging findings. We suggest that the Default Mode Network, as it has been shown to be implicated in self vs. other processing and is affected early in AD, could explain the impact of perspective-taking on awareness of deficits in AD. Finally, we present possible clinical implications of the relationship between metacognition and perspective-taking in AD. Indeed, we considered the possibility of improving patient's awareness through the use of a third-person perspective, which, consequently, may decrease the negative impacts of anosognosia in AD.

Does narrative perspective influence readers’ perspective-taking? An empirical study on free indirect discourse, psycho-narration and first-person narration

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Susanna Salem

2017-06-01

Full Text Available It is often assumed that narrating a story from the protagonist’s perspective increases the readers’ inclination to take over this perspective. In a questionnaire study, we examined to which degree different textual modes of narration (a increase the degree to which the reader can generally relate to the protagonist (what we will call 'relatedness', (b make the reader prone to imagine the scene from the 'spatial point-of-view 'of the protagonist, and (c enhance the psychological perspective-taking of the reader, measured as 'identification 'with the protagonist. We employed two different types of texts—one literary and one non-literary—and tested them in four different modes of narration: free indirect discourse, psycho-narration, first-person narration and external focalization. In terms of the 'relatedness 'between the reader and protagonist and 'spatial perspective-taking 'the largest differences (descriptively occurred between external focalization and psycho-narration ('p'& .05 for 'relatedness', 'p'& .05 for 'spatial perspective-taking' and between external focalization and first-person narration ('p'& .05 for 'relatedness', for 'spatial perspective-taking p'& .1. 'Identification', measured with items from a questionnaire on reading experience (Appel et al. 2002, was highest for first-person narration. Here, the difference between first-person narration and external focalization turned out significant only after including dispositional empathy, thematic interest for the text and attention during reading as covariates. Results for the other two perspective-taking measures were unaffected by the inclusion of the same covariates. In conclusion, our data show that first-person and psycho-narration increased the tendency to take over the perspective of the protagonist, but FID did not.   This article is part of the special collection: Perspective Taking

Perception through a Perspective-Taking Lens: Differential Effects on Judgment and Behavior

OpenAIRE

Ku , Gillian; Wang , Cynthia S.; Galinsky , Adam D.

2010-01-01

International audience; In contrast to the view that social perception has symmetric effects on judgments and behavior, the current research explored whether perspective-taking leads stereotypes to differentially affect judgments and behavior. Across three studies, perspective-takers consistently used stereotypes more in their own behavior while simultaneously using them less in their judgments of others. After writing about an African American, perspective-taking tendencies were positively c...

Applied linguistics - a science of culture?

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Benke, Gertraud

2003-01-01

Full Text Available In this article, the status of applied linguistics as discipline is questioned and problems of establishing it - and other newly formed scientific enterprises like cultural science - as disciplines are discussed. This discussion is contextualized using the author's own experience as applied linguist working in (the institutional structure of Austria. Secondly, applied linguistics is presented as complementing cultural science, with both exploring at times the same phenomena albeit under different perspectives and focussing on different levels of experience. Two examples of research involving such a joint interest with different foci are discussed.

The relationship between theory of mind and relational frame theory : convergence of perspective-taking measures

OpenAIRE

Hendriks, A.; Barnes-Holmes, Yvonne; McEnteggart, Ciara; de Mey, H.; Witteman, C.; Janssen, G.; Egger, J.

2016-01-01

Objective: Perspective-taking difficulties have been demonstrated in autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, among other clinical presentations, and are traditionally examined from a Theory of Mind (ToM) point of view. Relational Frame Theory (RFT) offers a behavioural and contextual interpretation of perspective-taking, proposing that this ability can be studied in more detail by examining specific perspective-taking relations. To implement relational perspective-taking measures in clin...

Observing Engineering Student Teams from the Organization Behavior Perspective Using Linguistic Analysis of Student Reflections and Focus Group Interviews

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Kearney, Kerri S.; Damron, Rebecca; Sohoni, Sohum

2015-01-01

This paper investigates group/team development in computer engineering courses at a University in the Central USA from the perspective of organization behavior theory, specifically Tuckman's model of the stages of group development. The investigation, conducted through linguistic analysis of student reflection essays, and through focus group…

Synthetic perspective optical flow: Influence on pilot control tasks

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Bennett, C. Thomas; Johnson, Walter W.; Perrone, John A.; Phatak, Anil V.

1989-01-01

One approach used to better understand the impact of visual flow on control tasks has been to use synthetic perspective flow patterns. Such patterns are the result of apparent motion across a grid or random dot display. Unfortunately, the optical flow so generated is based on a subset of the flow information that exists in the real world. The danger is that the resulting optical motions may not generate the visual flow patterns useful for actual flight control. Researchers conducted a series of studies directed at understanding the characteristics of synthetic perspective flow that support various pilot tasks. In the first of these, they examined the control of altitude over various perspective grid textures (Johnson et al., 1987). Another set of studies was directed at studying the head tracking of targets moving in a 3-D coordinate system. These studies, parametric in nature, utilized both impoverished and complex virtual worlds represented by simple perspective grids at one extreme, and computer-generated terrain at the other. These studies are part of an applied visual research program directed at understanding the design principles required for the development of instruments displaying spatial orientation information. The experiments also highlight the need for modeling the impact of spatial displays on pilot control tasks.

Evaluation of Spatial Perspective Taking Skills using a Digital Game with Different Levels of Immersion

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Laura Freina

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The present paper presents the results of an experiment aimed at assessing the impact of different levels of immersion on performance in a Spatial Perspective Taking (SPT task. Since SPT is an embodied skill, the hypothesis was that the more immersive a tool is, the better the performance should be. Ninety-eight students from a local primary school have played with three different versions of a game: (i completely immersive with a Head Mounted Display, (ii semi immersive on a computer screen and (iii non-immersive where no movements were possible for the player. Results showed that in the immersive versions of the game, players obtained higher scores than in the non-immersive version, suggesting that an immersive tool can better support performance in a SPT task.

Mimicry Is Presidential: Linguistic Style Matching in Presidential Debates and Improved Polling Numbers.

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Romero, Daniel M; Swaab, Roderick I; Uzzi, Brian; Galinsky, Adam D

2015-10-01

The current research used the contexts of U.S. presidential debates and negotiations to examine whether matching the linguistic style of an opponent in a two-party exchange affects the reactions of third-party observers. Building off communication accommodation theory (CAT), interaction alignment theory (IAT), and processing fluency, we propose that language style matching (LSM) will improve subsequent third-party evaluations because matching an opponent's linguistic style reflects greater perspective taking and will make one's arguments easier to process. In contrast, research on status inferences predicts that LSM will negatively impact third-party evaluations because LSM implies followership. We conduct two studies to test these competing hypotheses. Study 1 analyzed transcripts of U.S. presidential debates between 1976 and 2012 and found that candidates who matched their opponent's linguistic style increased their standing in the polls. Study 2 demonstrated a causal relationship between LSM and third-party observer evaluations using negotiation transcripts. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Can perspective-taking reduce crime? Examining a pathway through empathic-concern and guilt-proneness.

Science.gov (United States)

Martinez, Andres G; Stuewig, Jeffrey; Tangney, June P

2014-12-01

We describe and appraise a theoretical model in which individual differences in perspective-taking eventuate in crime reduction. Specifically, it is hypothesized that perspective-taking propensities influence the tendency to feel empathic-concern, thereby heightening proneness for guilt, which ultimately inhibits criminal behavior (perspective-taking → empathic-concern → guilt-proneness → crime desistance). Data from two sources were analyzed: (a) a cross-sectional college sample and (b) a longitudinal sample of jail inmates. Overall, results lend credence to this theoretical model: Perspective-taking propensities ultimately "put the brakes" on criminal behavior-via an emotional pathway of empathic-concern and then guilt-proneness. Discussion focuses on the nature of perspective-taking, its generative role for moral emotion and behavior, as well as potential applications for crime reduction. © 2014 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Contractualism and the Significance of Perspective-Taking

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Timmerman, Peter

2015-01-01

Many of us think that perspective-taking is relevant to moral judgment. In this paper I claim that Scanlon’s contractualism provides an appealing and distinctive account of why this is so. Contractualism interprets our moral judgments as making claims about the reasons of individuals in various

Contractualism and the Significance of Perspective-Taking

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Timmerman, Peter

Many of us think that perspective-taking is relevant to moral judgment. In this paper I claim that Scanlon’s contractualism provides an appealing and distinctive account of why this is so. Contractualism interprets our moral judgments as making claims about the reasons of individuals in various

The ethnic category from a linguistic perspective

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Răzvan Săftoiu

2017-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper, I put forward an analysis from a linguistic perspective of an ethnic category in Romania that is defined by at least two terms: gypsy and Romany. The concept of category refers to the members of a particular group that sets apart from other groups by a set of specific elements acknowledged at the level of a larger community. In interaction, individuals frequently use categories and the set of features that a certain category is characterized by, since it is easier to deal with sets of knowledge than with references for each individual separately. The analysis is based on a series of expressions and phrases, proverbs and jokes which were (or still are getting about in the Romanian space and which delineated, at the level of the collective mentality, the image of an ethnic category whose name (still oscillates between two terms. The texts were grouped depending on the different stereotypes associated with the ethnic category under discussion, by highlighting the pejorative connotations of the uses of the term gypsy in relation to the ethnic category Romany, a significance-free category that can be ‘filled up’ by elements that can sketch a positive image.

The effects of perspective-taking on prejudice: the moderating role of self-evaluation.

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Galinsky, Adam D; Ku, Gillian

2004-05-01

Perspective-taking, by means of creating an overlap between self and other cognitive representations, has been found to effectively decrease stereotyping and ingroup favoritism. In the present investigation, the authors examined the potential moderating role of self-esteem on the effects of perspective-taking on prejudice. In two experiments, it was found that perspective-takers, but not control participants, with temporarily or chronically high self-esteem evaluated an outgroup more positively than perspective-takers with low self-esteem. This finding suggests an irony of perspective-taking: it builds off egocentric biases to improve outgroup evaluations. The discussion focuses on how debiasing intergroup thought is often best accomplished by working through the very processes that produced the bias in the first place.

Towards Resolution of the Confusion among the Concepts "Empathy,""Role-Taking,""Perspective Taking," and "Decentering."

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Redmond, Mark V.

The variety of terms used to describe the process of self-other differentiation in communication--empathy, role taking, decentering, and perspective taking are but a few--tend to undermine efforts to establish a consistent framework for research in this area. A review of these terms suggests that decentering is the broadest of the concepts,…

Speech Errors as a Window on Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science Perspective

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Giulia M.L. Bencini

2017-04-01

Full Text Available We are so used to speaking in our native language that we take this ability for granted. We think that speaking is easy and thinking is hard. From the perspective of cognitive science, this view is wrong. Utterances are complex things, and generating them is an act of linguistic creativity, in the face of the computational complexity of the task. On occasion, utterance generation goes awry and the speaker’s output is different from the planned utterance, such as a speaker who says “Fancy getting your model renosed!” when “fancy getting your nose remodeled” was intended. With some notable exceptions (e.g. Fromkin 1971 linguists have not taken speech error data to be informative about speakers’ linguistic knowledge or mental grammars. The paper strives to put language production errors back onto the linguistic data map. If errors involve units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes and phrases, which may be exchanged, moved around or stranded during spoken production, this shows that they are both representational and processing units. If similar units are converged upon via multiple methods (e.g. native speaker judgments, language corpora, speech error corpora, psycholinguistic experiments those units have stronger empirical support. All other things being equal, theories of language that can account for both representation and processing are to be preferred.

Considering others in Need: On altruism, empathy and perspective taking

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Niezink, Lidewij Welmoed

2008-01-01

In the social psychological literature, empathy is seen as an emotional response which evokes the altruistic motivation to help others. One cognitive tool to increase the experience of empathy is perspective taking. The current dissertation investigates how different perspectives on the suffering of

Cognitive and affective perspective-taking in conduct-disordered children high and low on callous-unemotional traits

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Anastassiou-Hadjicharalambous Xenia

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Deficits in cognitive and/or affective perspective-taking have been implicated in Conduct-Disorder (CD, but empirical investigations produced equivocal results. Two factors may be implicated: (a distinct deficits underlying the antisocial conduct of CD subgroups, (b plausible disjunction between cognitive and affective perspective-taking with subgroups presenting either cognitive or affective-specific deficits. Method This study employed a second-order false-belief paradigm in which the cognitive perspective-taking questions tapped the character's thoughts and the affective perspective-taking questions tapped the emotions generated by these thoughts. Affective and cognitive perspective-taking was compared across three groups of children: (a CD elevated on Callous-Unemotional traits (CD-high-CU, n = 30, (b CD low on CU traits (CD-low-CU, n = 42, and (c a 'typically-developing' comparison group (n = 50, matched in age (7.5 – 10.8, gender and socioeconomic background. Results The results revealed deficits in CD-low-CU children for both affective and cognitive perspective-taking. In contrast CD-high-CU children showed relative competency in cognitive, but deficits in affective-perspective taking, a finding that suggests an affective-specific defect and a plausible dissociation of affective and cognitive perspective-taking in CD-high-CU children. Conclusion Present findings indicate that deficits in cognitive perspective-taking that have long been implicated in CD appear to be characteristic of a subset of CD children. In contrast affective perspective-taking deficits characterise both CD subgroups, but these defects seem to be following diverse developmental paths that warrant further investigation.

Transformative Pedagogy: Emergent Bilinguals and "Perspective Taking"

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Huerta, Mary Esther Soto

2017-01-01

This study contributes to the limited research on emergent bilinguals, perspective taking, and second language reading of informative text. The explicit integration of Freire's (1993) notion of conscientizacao, or consciousness-raising, with the constructs of empathy and embodiment (Gee, 2001; Hurtado, 1996) and with translanguaging (García, 2009)…

Observing efl classrooms in primary or secondary schools: a research task in applied linguistics Observing efl classrooms in primary or secondary schools: a research task in applied linguistics

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Viviane Heberle

2008-04-01

Full Text Available Neste trabalho, com base em princípios da gramática funcional de Halliday e de análise crítica do discurso, bem como minha experiência em Lingüística Aplicada, discuto questões relacionadas à observação de aulas de inglês como língua estrangeira. A análise (de cunho etnográfico surge de discussões nas minhas aulas de Lingüística Aplicada e de relatos de alunos sobre as aulas observadas. O estudo visa contribuir para uma conscientização da relevância de uma prática educacional que vai além de, por exemplo, mera listagem de pronomes pessoais com as formas do verbo to be, para uma discussão de tópicos que possam, de alguma forma, integrar perspectivas socioculturais na educação de professores de inglês como língua estrangeira. In this paper, based on principles of systemic-functional grammar and critical discourse analysis, as well as on my experience as a teacher of Applied Linguistics, I discuss issues related to the observation of EFL classes. The analysis (qualitative, ethnographically-based arises from discussions in my Applied Linguistics course and students’ reports on the classes they observed. The study aims at contributing to an awareness of the relevance of an educational practice that goes beyond the mere listing of personal pronouns with the corresponding forms of the verb to be, for instance, and suggests a discussion of topics which could somehow integrate sociocultural perspectives into EFL teacher education.

Metacognition and perspective-taking in Alzheimer’s disease: a mini-review.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elodie Bertrand

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Metacognition refers to the monitoring and regulation of cognitive processes and its impairment can lead to a lack of self-awareness of deficits, or anosognosia. In the context of different neurological and psychiatric disorders (e.g., traumatic brain injury, dementia, and schizophrenia, studies have shown that patients who present impairments in metacognitive abilities may be able to recognize such difficulties in others and in themselves when exposed to material in a third-person perspective. Considering that metacognitive impairments are an important characteristic of dementia, especially in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD, studies of the relationship between metacognition and perspective-taking may be relevant to improve the quality of life of people with dementia. The current paper first briefly addresses the theme of metacognition and the impact of metacognitive deficits in people with AD. The focus then turns to the relationship between metacognition and perspective-taking in different neurological and psychiatric disorders, particularly AD. This relationship is also discussed based on theoretical models, particularly the Cognitive Awareness Model (CAM. Specifically, the CAM suggests the existence of distinct memory systems for self- and other-information, an idea which is supported by neuroimaging findings. We suggest that the Default Mode Network, as it has been shown to be implicated in self vs. other processing and is affected early in AD, could explain the impact of perspective-taking on awareness of deficits in AD. Finally, we present possible clinical implications of the relationship between metacognition and perspective-taking in AD. Indeed, we considered the possibility of improving patient’s awareness through the use of a third-person perspective, which, consequently, may decrease the negative impacts of anosognosia in AD.

Young Learner Perspectives on Four Focus-on-Form Tasks

Science.gov (United States)

Shak, Juliana; Gardner, Sheena

2008-01-01

Recent studies suggest that focus-on-form (FonF) instruction has a positive effect on the second language proficiency of young learners. However, few have looked at learner perspectives on different FonF tasks, particularly in those young learners. This study investigates children's attitudes towards four FonF task-types in three Primary 5 English…

Using Goal Setting and Task Analysis to Enhance Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching

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Rubin, Joan

2015-01-01

Task-Based Language Learning and Teaching has received sustained attention from teachers and researchers for over thirty years. It is a well-established pedagogy that includes the following characteristics: major focus on authentic and real-world tasks, choice of linguistic resources by learners, and a clearly defined non-linguistic outcome. This…

Actualization of Categories Linguonationalism and Linguopatriotism in Modern Linguistics

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Kosmeda Tetiana

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Background: In modern linguistics E. Sepir’s-B. Warf’s theory of a language relativity attracts attention of many scientists, the essence of which some linguists negate as well as they don’t agree to a traditional system of the methodological bases of linguoculturology because this theory «approves» linguonationalism. Purpose: The purpose of the analysis is to illustrate the fact of implementation of the linguonationalism ideology concerning the Ukrainian language by the Russian Empire; the very fact is observed nowadays and the linguopatriotism of the Ukrainians is negated and disrespected by the Russian linguists. Results: Linguonationalism is the ideologization of the very language and a language as a means of a collective self-identification, as a realization of a certain language policy of totalitarian states and modelling of myths in different language forms (discourses. The status of the Ukrainian language, its functions, ontology in Ukraine is considered by modern Russian linguists untruthfully, certain facts are falsified. The system of O. Potebnya’s views represents the objective points of view on the actualized in this research notions of «linguonationalism» and «linguopatriotism». O. Potebnya singled out the task to keep to a reasonable linguopatriotism, which is mentioned in his quotation: «a gradual nationalism – is internationalism». O. Potebnya emphasizes that a nation can be understood only through its language. It is the language that gives the opportunity to see and to feel a nation’s seeing of the world. The scientist actualizes the problem of a modern culturology and the language must be considered as «a certain means of creation and thought refining». Discussion: Modern Ukrainian linguists must elaborate a certain perspective programme aimed at the explanation of the problem of linguonationalism and linguopatriotism.

Implicit learning of non-linguistic and linguistic regularities in children with dyslexia.

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Nigro, Luciana; Jiménez-Fernández, Gracia; Simpson, Ian C; Defior, Sylvia

2016-07-01

One of the hallmarks of dyslexia is the failure to automatise written patterns despite repeated exposure to print. Although many explanations have been proposed to explain this problem, researchers have recently begun to explore the possibility that an underlying implicit learning deficit may play a role in dyslexia. This hypothesis has been investigated through non-linguistic tasks exploring implicit learning in a general domain. In this study, we examined the abilities of children with dyslexia to implicitly acquire positional regularities embedded in both non-linguistic and linguistic stimuli. In experiment 1, 42 children (21 with dyslexia and 21 typically developing) were exposed to rule-governed shape sequences; whereas in experiment 2, a new group of 42 children were exposed to rule-governed letter strings. Implicit learning was assessed in both experiments via a forced-choice task. Experiments 1 and 2 showed a similar pattern of results. ANOVA analyses revealed no significant differences between the dyslexic and the typically developing group, indicating that children with dyslexia are not impaired in the acquisition of simple positional regularities, regardless of the nature of the stimuli. However, within group t-tests suggested that children from the dyslexic group could not transfer the underlying positional rules to novel instances as efficiently as typically developing children.

Revelation effects in remembering, forecasting, and perspective taking.

Science.gov (United States)

Westerman, Deanne L; Miller, Jeremy K; Lloyd, Marianne E

2017-08-01

The revelation effect is a robust phenomenon in episodic memory whereby stimuli that immediately follow a simple cognitive task are more likely to garner positive responses on a variety of memory tests, including autobiographical memory judgments. Six experiments investigated the revelation effect for judgments of past and future events as well as judgments made from others' perspectives. The purpose of this work was to determine whether these subjectively distinct judgments are subject to the same decision-making biases, as might be expected if they are governed by similar processes (e.g., Schacter, Addis, & Buckner 2007). College-aged participants were asked to rate a variety of life events according to whether the events had occurred during their childhoods or would occur during the next 10 years. Events that followed an anagram task were judged as more likely to have happened in the past and more likely to occur in the future. We also showed a revelation effect when participants were asked to adopt the perspective of others when making judgments about past and future events. When the task was reworded to be non-episodic (participants judged how common the events were during childhood and adulthood), no revelation effect was found for either past or future time frames, which suggests common boundary conditions for both types of judgments. The results are consistent with studies showing strong parallels between remembering and other forms of self-projection but not with semantic memory judgments.

Hemispheric lateralization of linguistic prosody recognition in comparison to speech and speaker recognition.

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Kreitewolf, Jens; Friederici, Angela D; von Kriegstein, Katharina

2014-11-15

Hemispheric specialization for linguistic prosody is a controversial issue. While it is commonly assumed that linguistic prosody and emotional prosody are preferentially processed in the right hemisphere, neuropsychological work directly comparing processes of linguistic prosody and emotional prosody suggests a predominant role of the left hemisphere for linguistic prosody processing. Here, we used two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments to clarify the role of left and right hemispheres in the neural processing of linguistic prosody. In the first experiment, we sought to confirm previous findings showing that linguistic prosody processing compared to other speech-related processes predominantly involves the right hemisphere. Unlike previous studies, we controlled for stimulus influences by employing a prosody and speech task using the same speech material. The second experiment was designed to investigate whether a left-hemispheric involvement in linguistic prosody processing is specific to contrasts between linguistic prosody and emotional prosody or whether it also occurs when linguistic prosody is contrasted against other non-linguistic processes (i.e., speaker recognition). Prosody and speaker tasks were performed on the same stimulus material. In both experiments, linguistic prosody processing was associated with activity in temporal, frontal, parietal and cerebellar regions. Activation in temporo-frontal regions showed differential lateralization depending on whether the control task required recognition of speech or speaker: recognition of linguistic prosody predominantly involved right temporo-frontal areas when it was contrasted against speech recognition; when contrasted against speaker recognition, recognition of linguistic prosody predominantly involved left temporo-frontal areas. The results show that linguistic prosody processing involves functions of both hemispheres and suggest that recognition of linguistic prosody is based on

A new paper and pencil task reveals adult false belief reasoning bias.

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Coburn, Patricia I; Bernstein, Daniel M; Begeer, Sander

2015-09-01

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to take other people's perspective by inferring their mental state. Most 6-year olds pass the change-of-location false belief task that is commonly used to assess ToM. However, the change-of-location task is not suitable for individuals over 5 years of age, due to its discrete response options. In two experiments, we used a paper and pencil version of a modified change-of-location task (the Real Object Sandbox task) to assess false belief reasoning continuously rather than discretely in adults. Participants heard nine change-of-location scenarios and answered a critical question after each. The memory control questions only required the participant to remember the object's original location, whereas the false belief questions required participants to take the perspective of the protagonist. Participants were more accurate on memory trials than trials requiring perspective taking, and performance on paper and pencil trials correlated with corresponding trials on the Real Object Sandbox task. The Paper and Pencil Sandbox task is a convenient continuous measure of ToM that could be administered to a wide range of age groups.

Qualitative differences between bilingual language control and executive control: evidence from task switching

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Marco eCalabria

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Previous research has shown that highly-proficient bilinguals have comparable switch costs in both directions when they switch between languages (L1 and L2, the so called ‘symmetrical switch cost’ effect. Interestingly, the same symmetry is also present when they switch between L1 and a much weaker L3. These findings suggest that highly proficient bilinguals develop a language control system that seems to be insensitive to language proficiency. In the present study, we explore whether the pattern of symmetrical switch costs in language switching tasks generalizes to a non-linguistic switching task in the same group of highly-proficient bilinguals. The end goal of this is to assess whether bilingual language control (bLC can be considered as subsidiary to domain-general executive control (EC. We tested highly-proficient Catalan-Spanish bilinguals both in a linguistic switching task and in a non-linguistic switching task. In the linguistic task, participants named pictures in L1 and L2 (Experiment 1 or L3 (Experiment 2 depending on a cue presented with the picture (a flag. In the non-linguistic task, the same participants had to switch between two card sorting rule-sets (colour and shape. Overall, participants showed symmetrical switch costs in the linguistic switching task, but not in the non-linguistic switching task. In a further analysis, we observed that in the linguistic switching task the asymmetry of the switch costs changed across blocks, while in the non-linguistic switching task an asymmetrical switch cost was observed throughout the task. The observation of different patterns of switch costs in the linguistic and the non-linguistic switching tasks suggest that the bLC system is not completely subsidiary to the domain-general EC system.

Linguistic Characteristics of Advertising English

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

易高燕

2010-01-01

Advertising language takes form under the influence of linguistics,psychology and sociology,etc,and its way of choosing words and building sentences are quite different from normal English.And as a practical language,advertising English has its specific functions,and it has been distinguished from normal English as an independent language,and it has plentiful values.This paper aims to discuss some linguistic characteristics of advertising English.

Differences in Neural Activation as a Function of Risk-taking Task Parameters

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Eliza eCongdon

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Despite evidence supporting a relationship between impulsivity and naturalistic risk-taking, the relationship of impulsivity with laboratory-based measures of risky decision-making remains unclear. One factor contributing to this gap in our understanding is the degree to which different risky decision-making tasks vary in their details. We conducted an fMRI investigation of the Angling Risk Task (ART, which is an improved behavioral measure of risky decision-making. In order to examine whether the observed pattern of neural activation was specific to the ART or generalizable, we also examined correlates of the Balloon Analogue Risk Taking (BART task in the same sample of 23 healthy adults. Exploratory analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between neural activation, performance, impulsivity and self-reported risk-taking. While activation in a valuation network was associated with reward tracking during the ART but not the BART, increased fronto-cingulate activation was seen during risky choice trials in the BART as compared to the ART. Thus, neural activation during risky decision-making trials differed between the two tasks, and this observation was likely driven by differences in task parameters, namely the absence vs. presence of ambiguity and/or stationary vs. increasing probability of loss on the ART and BART, respectively. Exploratory association analyses suggest that sensitivity of neural response to the magnitude of potential reward during the ART was associated with a suboptimal performance strategy, higher scores on a scale of dysfunctional impulsivity and a greater likelihood of engaging in risky behaviors, while this pattern was not seen for the BART. Our results suggest that the ART is decomposable and associated with distinct patterns of neural activation; this represents a preliminary step towards characterizing a behavioral measure of risky decision-making that may support a better understanding of naturalistic risk-taking.

Perspective taking and empathic concern in adolescence: gender differences in developmental changes.

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Van der Graaff, Jolien; Branje, Susan; De Wied, Minet; Hawk, Skyler; Van Lier, Pol; Meeus, Wim

2014-03-01

Empathy is an important social skill and is believed to play an essential role in moral development (Hoffman, 2000). In the present longitudinal study, the authors investigated adolescents' development of perspective taking and empathic concern from age 13 to 18 years (mean age at Wave 1 = 13 years, SD = 0.46) and examined its association with pubertal status. Adolescents (283 boys, 214 girls) reported for 6 consecutive years on their dispositional perspective taking and empathic concern and for 4 consecutive years on pubertal status. Latent growth curve modeling revealed gender differences in levels and developmental trends. Gender differences in perspective taking emerged during adolescence, with girls' increases being steeper than those of the boys. Girls also showed higher levels of empathic concern than did boys. Whereas girls' empathic concern remained stable across adolescence, boys showed a decrease from early to middle adolescence with a rebound to the initial level thereafter. Boys who were physically more mature also reported lower empathic concern than did their less physically developed peers. The current study supports theoretical notions that perspective taking develops during adolescence as a result of cognitive development. Moreover, the results suggest that pubertal maturation plays a role in boys' development of empathic concern. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Early Detection of Cognitive-Linguistic Change Associated with Mild Cognitive Impairment

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Fleming, Valarie B.

2014-01-01

Individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) may present with subtle declines in linguistic ability that go undetected by tasks not challenging enough to tax a relatively intact cognitive-linguistic system. This study was designed to replicate and extend a previous study of cognitive-linguistic ability in MCI using a complex discourse…

The effect of task complexity and task conditions on foreign language development and performance: three empirical studies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sercu, L.; de Wachter, L.; Peters, E.; Kuiken, F.; Vedder, I.

2006-01-01

It has been argued that tasks constitute a valid alternative unit to sequence the language learning process, as opposed to linguistically defined syllabuses. Implementing this claim presupposes that it is possible to access the cognitive and linguistic demands of tasks, so that they can be sequenced

Cognitive linguistics.

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Evans, Vyvyan

2012-03-01

Cognitive linguistics is one of the fastest growing and influential perspectives on the nature of language, the mind, and their relationship with sociophysical (embodied) experience. It is a broad theoretical and methodological enterprise, rather than a single, closely articulated theory. Its primary commitments are outlined. These are the Cognitive Commitment-a commitment to providing a characterization of language that accords with what is known about the mind and brain from other disciplines-and the Generalization Commitment-which represents a dedication to characterizing general principles that apply to all aspects of human language. The article also outlines the assumptions and worldview which arises from these commitments, as represented in the work of leading cognitive linguists. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:129-141. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1163 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Enabling Effective Human-Robot Interaction Using Perspective-Taking in Robots

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Trafton, J. G; Cassimatis, Nicholas L; Bugajska, Magdalena D; Brock, Derek P; Mintz, Farilee E; Schultz, Alan C

2005-01-01

...) and present a cognitive architecture for performing perspective-taking called Polyscheme. Finally, we show a fully integrated system that instantiates our theoretical framework within a working robot system...

Glossematik und Linguistik (Glossematics and Linguistics)

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Hoger, Alfons

1974-01-01

Provides a short summary on the background, current development and future perspectives of the glossematic theory of language and linguistics, as developed by Hjelmslev and those associated with him (Loosely called "the Danish school"). (Text is in German.) (DS)

Brazilian adolescents' prosocial moral judgment and behavior: relations to sympathy, perspective taking, gender-role orientation, and demographic characteristics.

Science.gov (United States)

Eisenberg, N; Zhou, Q; Koller, S

2001-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine demographic and individual difference variables that predict level of prosocial moral judgment and self-reported prosocial behavior and to test mediating or moderating relations among predictors. The relations of prosocial moral reasoning and self-reported prosocial behavior to perspective taking, sympathy, age, sociometric status, and gender-role orientation were examined with a sample of 149 Brazilian adolescents who completed a series of questionnaire measures. Prosocial moral judgment was expected to be predicted by both sympathy and perspective taking, whereas sympathy or prosocial moral judgment was expected to mediate the relations of femininity and perspective taking to prosocial behavior. Self-reported perspective taking and sympathy interacted when predicting prosocial moral judgment; adolescents who were high in either sympathy or perspective taking (or both) scored high in prosocial moral reasoning. A feminine orientation predicted sympathy and perspective taking, perspective taking predicted prosocial moral reasoning and sympathy, and sympathy had both direct and indirect paths (through moral judgment) to prosocial behavior. The findings generally were consistent with the contention that both the tendency to take others' perspectives and to sympathize are related to level of prosocial moral reasoning, which in turn motivates prosocial behavior. Moreover, patterns of correlations among variables were similar to those found in the United States.

Using Perspective to Resolve Reference: The Impact of Cognitive Load and Motivation

Science.gov (United States)

Cane, James E.; Ferguson, Heather J.; Apperly, Ian A.

2017-01-01

Research has demonstrated a link between perspective taking and working memory. Here we used eye tracking to examine the time course with which working memory load (WML) influences perspective-taking ability in a referential communication task and how motivation to take another's perspective modulates these effects. In Experiment 1, where there…

Psycholinguistics in Applied Linguistics: Trends and Perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

de Bot, Kees

2000-01-01

Discusses the relationship between the terms psycholinguistics and applied linguistics, and in the process explores key issues in multilingual processing, such as the structure of the bilingual lexicon, language choice in production and perception, and the language mode. (Author/VWL)

Social perspective taking is associated with self-reported prosocial behavior and regional cortical thickness across adolescence

OpenAIRE

Dumontheil, Iroise; Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne; Ferschmann, Lia; Walhovd, Kristine; Tamnes, Christian; Fjell, Anders; Overbye, Knut

2018-01-01

Basic perspective taking and mentalising abilities develop in childhood, but recent studies indicate that the use of social perspective taking to guide decisions and actions has a prolonged development that continues throughout adolescence. Here, we aimed to replicate this research and investigate the hypotheses that individual differences in social perspective taking in adolescence are associated with real-life prosocial and antisocial behavior and differences in brain structure. We employed...

Contact, Perspective Taking, and Anxiety as Predictors of Stereotype Endorsement, Explicit Attitudes, and Implicit Attitudes

OpenAIRE

2007-01-01

Abstract We proposed a model of intergroup contact wherein contact promotes understanding of outgroup perspectives, perspective taking relates to reduced intergroup anxiety that in turn is associated with lessened stereotyping and more positive intergroup attitudes. Additionally, we examined if implicit attitudes followed this model or were directly impacted by contact. White undergraduates (n = 153) completed measures of contact, perspective taking, intergroup anxiety, stereotype ...

Perspective-takers behave more stereotypically.

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Galinsky, Adam D; Wang, Cynthia S; Ku, Gillian

2008-08-01

Nine studies demonstrated that perspective-takers are particularly likely to adopt a target's positive and negative stereotypical traits and behaviors. Perspective-takers rated both positive and negative stereotypic traits of targets as more self-descriptive. As a result, taking the perspective of a professor led to improved performance on an analytic task, whereas taking the perspective of a cheerleader led to decreased performance, in line with the respective stereotypes of professors and cheerleaders. Similarly, perspective-takers of an elderly target competed less compared to perspective-takers of an African American target. Including the stereotype in the self (but not liking of the target) mediated the effects of perspective-taking on behavior, suggesting that cognitive and not affective processes drove the behavioral effects. These effects occurred using a measure and multiple manipulations of perspective-taking, as well as a panoply of stereotypes, establishing the robustness of the link between perspective-taking and stereotypical behavior. The findings support theorizing (A. D. Galinsky, G. Ku, & C. S. Wang, 2005) that perspective-takers utilize information, including stereotypes, to coordinate their behavior with others and provide key theoretical insights into the processes of both perspective-taking and behavioral priming. (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved

Analysis of Idiom Variation in the Framework of Linguistic Subjectivity

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Liu, Zhengyuan

2012-01-01

Idiom variation is a ubiquitous linguistic phenomenon which has raised a lot of research questions. The past approach was either formal or functional. Both of them did not pay much attention to cognitive factors of language users. By putting idiom variation in the framework of linguistic subjectivity, we have offered a new perspective in the…

A cross-culture, cross-gender comparison of perspective taking mechanisms

OpenAIRE

Kessler, Klaus; Cao, Liyu; O'Shea, Kieran J.; Wang, Hong Fang

2014-01-01

Being able to judge another person's visuo-spatial perspective is an essential social skill, hence we investigated the generalizability of the involved mechanisms across cultures and genders. Developmental, cross-species, and our own previous research suggest that two different forms of perspective taking can be distinguished, which are subserved by two distinct mechanisms. The simpler form relies on inferring another's line-of-sight, whereas the more complex form depends on embodied transfor...

Trust and social reciprocity in adolescence – A matter of perspective-taking

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fett, A.J.; Shergill, S.; Gromann, P.; Dumontheil, I.; Blakremore, S.J.; Yakub, F.; Krabbendam, L.

2014-01-01

Changes in social behaviour from childhood to adulthood have been suggested to be driven by an increased sensitivity to others' perspectives. Yet, the link between perspective-taking and social processes, such as trust and reciprocity, has rarely been investigated during adolescence. Using two trust

Exploring the Relationship between Undergraduate Service-Learning Experiences and Global Perspective-Taking

Science.gov (United States)

Engberg, Mark E.; Fox, Katherine

2011-01-01

This study examines the relationship between service-learning participation and global perspective-taking. A global perspective is broadly defined to include both the acquisition of knowledge, attitudes, and skills important to intercultural communication and the development of more complex epistemological processes, identities, and interpersonal…

Short-term Music Training Enhances Complex, Distributed Neural Communication during Music and Linguistic Tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Carpentier, Sarah M; Moreno, Sylvain; McIntosh, Anthony R

2016-10-01

Musical training is frequently associated with benefits to linguistic abilities, and recent focus has been placed on possible benefits of bilingualism to lifelong executive functions; however, the neural mechanisms for such effects are unclear. The aim of this study was to gain better understanding of the whole-brain functional effects of music and second-language training that could support such previously observed cognitive transfer effects. We conducted a 28-day longitudinal study of monolingual English-speaking 4- to 6-year-old children randomly selected to receive daily music or French language training, excluding weekends. Children completed passive EEG music note and French vowel auditory oddball detection tasks before and after training. Brain signal complexity was measured on source waveforms at multiple temporal scales as an index of neural information processing and network communication load. Comparing pretraining with posttraining, musical training was associated with increased EEG complexity at coarse temporal scales during the music and French vowel tasks in widely distributed cortical regions. Conversely, very minimal decreases in complexity at fine scales and trends toward coarse-scale increases were displayed after French training during the tasks. Spectral analysis failed to distinguish between training types and found overall theta (3.5-7.5 Hz) power increases after all training forms, with spatially fewer decreases in power at higher frequencies (>10 Hz). These findings demonstrate that musical training increased diversity of brain network states to support domain-specific music skill acquisition and music-to-language transfer effects.

The Development of Social Perspective Taking and Leadership Decision-Making in City Government Managers

Science.gov (United States)

Van Rossum, Zachary Johannes

2013-01-01

I examined the role of social perspective taking in leadership decision-making by investigating how a group of 70 leaders made sense of a hypothetical workplace dilemma in order to understand how they used their capacity for social perspective taking as part of their decision-making process. The majority of these leaders work in North America, are…

Neurological evidence linguistic processes precede perceptual simulation in conceptual processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Louwerse, Max; Hutchinson, Sterling

2012-01-01

There is increasing evidence from response time experiments that language statistics and perceptual simulations both play a role in conceptual processing. In an EEG experiment we compared neural activity in cortical regions commonly associated with linguistic processing and visual perceptual processing to determine to what extent symbolic and embodied accounts of cognition applied. Participants were asked to determine the semantic relationship of word pairs (e.g., sky - ground) or to determine their iconic relationship (i.e., if the presentation of the pair matched their expected physical relationship). A linguistic bias was found toward the semantic judgment task and a perceptual bias was found toward the iconicity judgment task. More importantly, conceptual processing involved activation in brain regions associated with both linguistic and perceptual processes. When comparing the relative activation of linguistic cortical regions with perceptual cortical regions, the effect sizes for linguistic cortical regions were larger than those for the perceptual cortical regions early in a trial with the reverse being true later in a trial. These results map upon findings from other experimental literature and provide further evidence that processing of concept words relies both on language statistics and on perceptual simulations, whereby linguistic processes precede perceptual simulation processes.

Representation of linguistic form and function in recurrent neural networks

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kadar, Akos; Chrupala, Grzegorz; Alishahi, Afra

2017-01-01

We present novel methods for analyzing the activation patterns of recurrent neural networks from a linguistic point of view and explore the types of linguistic structure they learn. As a case study, we use a standard standalone language model, and a multi-task gated recurrent network architecture

41 Pragmatics: The Cornerstone of Linguistic Exploration in the 21st ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

User

2010-10-17

Oct 17, 2010 ... This study investigates into the relevance of context in the interpretation of linguistic entities. ... processes can be attributed to the works of Morris (1938; 1946) and Carnap. (1942). .... overall framework of the pragmatic perspective. This is ... new kind of theory of linguistic communication, has to rely on.

Introduction to the Special Issue: New and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Linguistic Relativity

Science.gov (United States)

Athanasopoulos, Panos; Bylund, Emanuel; Casasanto, Daniel

2016-01-01

This Special Issue of "Language Learning" presents an interdisciplinary state-of-the-art overview of current approaches to linguistic relativity. It contains empirical and theoretical studies and reflections on linguistic relativity from a variety of perspectives, such as associative learning, conceptual transfer, multilingual awareness,…

Linguistic Prescription: Familiar Practices and New Perspectives.

Science.gov (United States)

Finegan, Edward

2003-01-01

Reports on a question by a law student of whether a correction of "sneaked" to "snuck" suggests misinformation and misguided rigidity in the context of better information about current legal usage and a perennial tendency to linguistic prescription. Explores attitudes to current borrowings from English into Japanese and French…

Psychometrics of the Iowa and Berlin Gambling Tasks: Unresolved Issues With Reliability and Validity for Risk Taking.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmitz, Florian; Kunina-Habenicht, Olga; Hildebrandt, Andrea; Oberauer, Klaus; Wilhelm, Oliver

2018-01-01

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is one of the most prominent paradigms employed for the assessment of risk taking in the laboratory, and it was shown to distinguish between various patient groups and controls. The present study was conducted to test the psychometric characteristics of the original IGT and of a new gambling task variant for assessing individual differences. Two studies were conducted with adults of the general population ( n = 220) and with adolescents ( n = 389). Participants were also tested on multiple measures of working memory capacity, fluid intelligence, personality traits associated with risk-taking behavior, and self-reported risk taking in various domains. Both gambling tasks had only moderate retest reliability within the same session. Moderate relations were obtained with cognitive ability. However, card selections in the gambling tasks were not correlated with personality or risk taking. These findings point to limitations of IGT type gambling tasks for the assessment of individual differences in risky decision making.

Getting angry matters: Going beyond perspective taking and empathic concern to understand bystanders' behavior in bullying.

Science.gov (United States)

Pozzoli, Tiziana; Gini, Gianluca; Thornberg, Robert

2017-12-01

The present study examined the relations between different empathic dimensions and bystanders' behavior in bullying. Specifically, the indirect effects of empathic concern and perspective taking via empathic anger on defending and passive bystanding were tested in a sample of Italian young adolescents (N = 398; M age  = 12 years, 3 months, 47.2% girls). Path analysis confirmed the direct and indirect effects, via empathic anger, of empathic concern and perspective taking on bystanders' behavior, with the exception of the direct association between perspective taking and passive bystanding that was not significant. Our findings suggest that considering empathic anger together with empathic concern and perspective taking could help researchers to better understand the links between empathic dispositions and bystanders' behavior in bullying. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Heuristics of Reasoning and Analogy in Children's Visual Perspective Taking.

Science.gov (United States)

Yaniv, Ilan; Shatz, Marilyn

1990-01-01

In three experiments, children of three through six years of age were generally better able to reproduce a perceiver's perspective if a visual cue in the perceiver's line of sight was salient. Children had greater difficulty when the task hinged on attending to configural cues. Availability of distinctive cues affixed to objects facilitated…

Marine radio communication from a linguistic and pragmatic ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Marine radio communication from a linguistic and pragmatic perspective: A view from Venezuela. ... Regional Maritime University Journal ... language for achieving an effective communication on board and between ships and shore is English.

Acquisition of linguistic procedures for printed words: neuropsychological implications for learning.

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Berninger, V W

1988-10-01

A microcomputerized experiment, administered to 45 children in the 2nd, 5th, and 8th month of first grade, manipulated three variables: (a) stimulus unit (whole word or letter-by-letter presentation), (b) nature of stimulus information (phonically regular words, phonically irregular words, nonsense words, and letter strings, which differ in whether phonemic, orthographic, semantic, and/or name codes are available), and (c) linguistic task (lexical decision, naming, and written reproduction). Letter-by-letter presentation resulted in more accurate lexical decision and naming but not more accurate written reproduction. Interactions between nature of stimulus information and linguistic task occurred. Throughout the year, accuracy was greater for lexical decision than for naming or written reproduction. The superiority of lexical decision cannot be attributed to the higher probability of correct responses on a binary choice task because only consistently correct responses on repeated trials were analyzed. The earlier development of lexical decision, a receptive task, than of naming or written reproduction, production tasks, suggests that hidden units (Hinton & Sejnowski, 1986) in tertiary cortical areas may abstract visual-linguistic associations in printed words before production units in primary cortical areas can produce printed words orally or graphically.

Children's Understanding of Ambiguous Idioms and Conversational Perspective-Taking

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Le Sourn-Bissaoui, Sandrine; Caillies, Stephanie; Bernard, Stephane; Deleau, Michel; Brule, Lauriane

2012-01-01

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that conversational perspective-taking is a determinant of unfamiliar ambiguous idiom comprehension. We investigated two types of ambiguous idiom, decomposable and nondecomposable expressions, which differ in the degree to which the literal meanings of the individual words contribute to the overall…

Muscle synergies in neuroscience and robotics: from input-space to task-space perspectives

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Cristiano eAlessandro

2013-04-01

Full Text Available In this paper we review the works related to muscle synergies that have been carried-out in neuroscience and control engineering. In particular, we refer to the hypothesis that the central nervous system (CNS generates desired muscle contractions by combining a small number of predefined modules, called muscle synergies. We provide an overview of the methods that have been employed to test the validity of this scheme, and we show how the concept of muscle synergy has been generalized for the control of artificial agents. The comparison between these two lines of research, in particular their different goals and approaches, is instrumental to explain the computational implications of the hypothesized modular organization. Moreover, it clarifies the importance of assessing the functional role of muscle synergies: although these basic modules are defined at the level of muscle activations (input-space, they should result in the effective accomplishment of the desired task. This requirement is not always explicitly considered in experimental neuroscience, as muscle synergies are often estimated solely by analyzing recorded muscle activities. We suggest that synergy extraction methods should explicitly take into account task execution variables, thus moving from a perspective purely based on input-space to one grounded on task-space as well.

Exploring the Potential of Dynamic Perspective Taking on Business Processes

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Florian Krenn

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Although many organizations have started to work with business process models in their operational practice, they have not explored the entire potential of intertwining business process modeling with organizational development. Process specifications contain workflows that require execution, in order to achieve business objectives and support business operation effectively. With the advent of Subject-oriented and Social Business Process Management, communication and stakeholder interaction have become novel perspectives on how to design and implement processes. They go beyond formal responsibilities encoded in functional roles, and are not very common across organizational hierarchies. However, stakeholders, including organizational developers and IT specialists, can be supported looking at processes and their execution from either perspective, namely, from a traditional one, focusing on functions and task accomplishment, and from an interactional perspective, focusing on communication among stakeholders and system interactions. The introduced dual-mode workflow execution engine UeberFlow allows considering both perspectives during process runtime, thus, checking operational completeness from either perspective. Stakeholders can start modeling with a perspective they are familiar with and subsequently proceed with the another one by switching dynamically to an alternate mode of execution. The presented meta-model and architecture of such a dual mode support tool enables coupling business process management directly with organizational development.

Cultural Effect on Perspective Taking in Chinese-English Bilinguals

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Luk, Kevin K. S.; Xiao, Wen S.; Cheung, Him

2012-01-01

Some recent evidence has suggested that perspective taking skills in everyday life situations may differ across cultural groups. In the present study, we investigated this effect via culture priming in a group of Chinese-English bilingual adults in the context of a communication game. Results showed that the participants made more perspective…

Is a "Complex" Task Really Complex? Validating the Assumption of Cognitive Task Complexity

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Sasayama, Shoko

2016-01-01

In research on task-based learning and teaching, it has traditionally been assumed that differing degrees of cognitive task complexity can be inferred through task design and/or observations of differing qualities in linguistic production elicited by second language (L2) communication tasks. Without validating this assumption, however, it is…

Linguistic approaches to the study of Persian Literature

OpenAIRE

محمد امین ناصح

2010-01-01

Since the start of the last century, along with those literary men who took a literary approach to the study of literary texts, there has been another group who has taken a linguistic approach. The ancient and ever flourishing tradition of literary studies of translation can no doubt take benefit from linguistic methods and tools in the investigations of literary texts. As a result of this we come across linguistic terms in three high school textbooks of Persian language and literature. In f...

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 1983.

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Kaplan, Robert B., Ed.; And Others

A collection of reports on literacy and literacy issues includes a variety of perspectives and descriptions of diverse programs and is divided into three sections. The first examines broad questions of literacy: "On the Study of Literacy" (David Bendor-Samuel); "Linguistics and Literacy" (Gloria Kindell); and "Literacy in…

When Perspective Taking Creates a Motivational Threat: The Case of Conservatism, Same-Sex Sexual Behavior, and Anti-Gay Attitudes.

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Mooijman, Marlon; Stern, Chadly

2016-06-01

Taking another person's perspective has generally been found to foster positive attitudes. We propose that perspective taking can lead to more negative attitudes when people imagine an experience that threatens their current motivations and goals. We test this idea by examining how taking the perspective of a male same-sex couple influences political conservatives' attitudes. Across four studies, we demonstrate that (a) the extent to which conservatives (but not liberals) imagine same-sex sexual behavior predicts more anti-gay attitudes, (b) this effect is in part attributable to conservatives experiencing greater disgust, and (c) having conservatives reappraise disgust as not necessarily signaling the threat of disease eliminates this effect. These findings indicate that perspective taking can foster negative attitudes when the content of perspective taking threatens current motivations. The proposed ideas provide unique insights toward developing a more comprehensive framework of how perspective taking shapes attitudes. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Unravelling the influence of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) on cognitive-linguistic processing: a comparative group analysis.

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Barwood, Caroline H S; Murdoch, Bruce E

2013-06-01

Cognitive-linguistic deficits often accompany traumatic brain injury (TBI) and can negatively impact communicative competency. The linguistic sequelae underpinning mild TBI (MTBI) remain largely unexplored in contemporary literature. The present research methods aim to provide group evidence pertaining to the influence of MTBI on linguistic and higher-level language processing. Extrapolating on the findings of recent case reports, it is hypothesized that performance of the MTBI patients will be significantly reduced compared to normal controls performance on the employed high-level linguistic tasks. Sixteen patients with MTBI and 16 age- and education-matched normal control participants were assessed using a comprehensive battery of cognitive-linguistic assessments. The results demonstrated statistically significant differences between MTBI and normal control group performance across a number of higher-level linguistic, general cognitive and general language tasks. MTBI group performance was significantly lower than the normal control group on tasks requiring complex lexical semantic operations and memory demands, including: Recall, organization, making inferences, naming and perception/discrimination. These outcomes confer that post-MTBI, cognitive, high-level language and isolated general language performance (e.g. naming) is significantly reduced in MTBI patients, compared to normal controls. Furthermore, the detailed cognitive-linguistic profile offered provides a necessary direction for the identification of areas of linguistic decline in MTBI and targets for therapeutic intervention of impaired cognitive-linguistic processes to ultimately improve communicative outcomes in MTBI.

DEVELOPING LINGUISTIC SKILLS AND ABILITIES IN EMP STUDENTS

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Nataša Milosavljević

2012-03-01

Full Text Available English for medical purposes falls within the category of discipline-specific language learning. It is characterized by specific linguistic features and requires specific study that is possible to carry out using specially designed programmes. Reading skill is one way of learning strategy of English for medical purposes. Most often, students use this skill in order to obtain information for some particular topic from the area of medical science, or because they need some sort of instruction in order to carry out certain task. Vocabulary acquisition plays a very important role in EMP teaching. It is achieved best through learning vocabulary in context, rather than in isolation. One of the most important questions in EMP teaching is related to what grammatical constructions should be analysed and emphasised. Some types of these activities would include, for example, asking students to find examples of one particular structure in the text or fill in the blanks with the missing forms such as tenses, passive forms, prepositions, etc. Speaking skill represents productive skill the aim of which is communication. In order for foreign language communication to be suucessful, a student should know linguistic and cultural features of native speakers and follow certain rules and conventions that are not easy to define. It is of crucial importance that during teaching process students develop strategies and techniques that will help them use linguistic structures fluently, apply language in different situations, take part in discussions, and use acquired vocabulary in accurate and precise way.

Test-Taking Strategies and Task-based Assessment: The Case of Iranian EFL Learners

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Hossein Barati

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The present study examined the effect of task-based assessment on the type and frequency of test-taking strategies that three proficiency groups of Iranian adult EFL learners used when completing the First Certificate in English FCE reading paper. A total of 70 EFL university undergraduates (53 females and 17 males took part in the main phase of this study. They were divided into three proficiency groups: high, intermediate, and low. A set of Chi-square analyses was used to explore the type and frequency of test-taking strategies used by participants. The results suggested that the intermediate group test takers used the strategies significantly different after completing each task (sub-test in the FCE reading paper. However, the high and low proficient test takers› use of strategies was only significant after completing the third task of the FCE reading paper. The findings also revealed that a pattern could be drawn of the type of strategies used by the three proficiency groups who participated in this study. Nonetheless, such a pattern shifted at times depending on the ability of the test takers and/or the task under study.

Linguistically-Relevant Diachronic Study of Cultural Values in Early British Advertising Discourse

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Kochetova, Larisa A.

2016-01-01

Drawing on linguistic data retrieved from early advertisements published in British newspapers between 1788 and 1900, the study seeks to map out a set of values and account for linguistic means used to codify them in the diachronic perspective. For the purposes of the study, the corpus of advertisements from random issues of British newspapers…

Why metaphor and other tropes? Linguistic approaches to analysing policies and the political

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Yanow, D.; Cienki, A.

2013-01-01

The articles in this special issue on linguistic approaches to analysing policies and the political share the goal of taking language seriously, achieved through detailed attention to linguistic usage in its respective contexts. They reflect a stance common to both cognitive linguistic and

Text genres and registers the computation of linguistic features

CERN Document Server

Fang, Chengyu Alex

2015-01-01

This book is a description of some of the most recent advances in text classification as part of a concerted effort to achieve computer understanding of human language. In particular, it addresses state-of-the-art developments in the computation of higher-level linguistic features, ranging from etymology to grammar and syntax for the practical task of text classification according to genres, registers and subject domains. Serving as a bridge between computational methods and sophisticated linguistic analysis, this book will be of particular interest to academics and students of computational linguistics as well as professionals in natural language engineering.

Differences in kinematics of the support limb depends on specific movement tasks of take-off

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Vladimír Hojka

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Background: Many sport activities are a sequence of jumps (running, jumping, hurdling etc.. Each jump flight phase is the result of the execution of the previous support phase. Objective: The goal of the research was to identify differences in adjustment of the support lower limb and differences in take-off kinematics in specific take-off movement task. Methods: 14 male athletes (22.6 ± 4.4 years; 182.4 ± 5.3 cm; 74.7 ± 6.2 kg took part in a laboratory experiment. Each athlete performed five different take-off movements (running, acceleration running - second step, long jump take-off, high jump take-off and take-off to the hurdle. System Qualisys was used to analyze the kinematics of the support limb. Dynamics of the support phase was monitored via force plate. ANOVA and Bonferroni post-hoc test were used to measure the significance of the differences between different take off tasks. Results: Dynamic characteristic showed significant differences in take-off (p < .001. This variability is caused by differences in kinematic parameters at the instant of touch-down, minimum joint angles and take-off. The most important finding was different variability in range of motion in eccentric or concentric phases of each jump. Vertically orientated jumps are terminated in a higher degree of extension. Horizontal take-off types are characterized by the highest ranges of motion especially in the ankle joint. Conclusions: The support lower limb compliance is adjusted to the required task, which is related to lower limb kinematics during the support phase. High range of motion in each joint refers to more compliant adjustment of the joint.

Anxious and egocentric: how specific emotions influence perspective taking.

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Todd, Andrew R; Forstmann, Matthias; Burgmer, Pascal; Brooks, Alison Wood; Galinsky, Adam D

2015-04-01

People frequently feel anxious. Although prior research has extensively studied how feeling anxious shapes intrapsychic aspects of cognition, much less is known about how anxiety affects interpersonal aspects of cognition. Here, we examine the influence of incidental experiences of anxiety on perceptual and conceptual forms of perspective taking. Compared with participants experiencing other negative, high-arousal emotions (i.e., anger or disgust) or neutral feelings, anxious participants displayed greater egocentrism in their mental-state reasoning: They were more likely to describe an object using their own spatial perspective, had more difficulty resisting egocentric interference when identifying an object from others' spatial perspectives, and relied more heavily on privileged knowledge when inferring others' beliefs. Using both experimental-causal-chain and measurement-of-mediation approaches, we found that these effects were explained, in part, by uncertainty appraisal tendencies. Further supporting the role of uncertainty, a positive emotion associated with uncertainty (i.e., surprise) produced increases in egocentrism that were similar to anxiety. Collectively, the results suggest that incidentally experiencing emotions associated with uncertainty increase reliance on one's own egocentric perspective when reasoning about the mental states of others. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Effect of a perspective-taking intervention on the consideration of pain assessment and treatment decisions.

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Wandner, Laura D; Torres, Calia A; Bartley, Emily J; George, Steven Z; Robinson, Michael E

2015-01-01

Pain is often poorly managed, highlighting the need to better understand and treat patients' pain. Research suggests that pain is assessed and treated differently depending on patient sex, race, and/or age. Perspective-taking, whereby one envisions the perspective of another, has been found to reduce racial disparities in pain management. This study used virtual human (VH) technology to examine whether a perspective-taking intervention impacts pain management decisions. Ninety-six participants were randomized to an online treatment or control group and viewed 16 video clips of VHs with standardized levels of pain. Participants provided ratings on the VHs' pain intensity and their willingness to administer opioids to them. The intervention group received a brief perspective-taking intervention that consisted of having participants imagine how the patient's suffering could affect his/her life, whereas the control group was asked to wait for the next VH videos to load. A LENS model analysis was used to investigate both group level (nomothetic) and individual level (idiographic) decision policies. A LENS model of analysis is typically used as an analog method for capturing how groups of people and individuals use information in their environment to form judgments. Nomothetic results found that participants rated pain higher and were more likely to prescribe opioids to VHs postintervention, irrespective of group. Idiographic results, however, found that the use of cues to make pain management decisions was mitigated by the perspective-taking group. The participants in the perspective-taking group were more likely to think about pain and the patients' perspective during the intervention, while control participants were more likely to reflect on the VHs' sex, race, or age. A brief intervention may alter participants' pain management decisions. These results indicate that a brief intervention might be an initial step toward aligning observers' pain management ratings with

Effect of a perspective-taking intervention on the consideration of pain assessment and treatment decisions

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Wandner LD

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Laura D Wandner,1 Calia A Torres,2 Emily J Bartley,1 Steven Z George,3 Michael E Robinson1 1Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 2Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 3Department of Physical Therapy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA Objectives: Pain is often poorly managed, highlighting the need to better understand and treat patients' pain. Research suggests that pain is assessed and treated differently depending on patient sex, race, and/or age. Perspective-taking, whereby one envisions the perspective of another, has been found to reduce racial disparities in pain management. This study used virtual human (VH technology to examine whether a perspective-taking intervention impacts pain management decisions. Methods: Ninety-six participants were randomized to an online treatment or control group and viewed 16 video clips of VHs with standardized levels of pain. Participants provided ratings on the VHs' pain intensity and their willingness to administer opioids to them. The intervention group received a brief perspective-taking intervention that consisted of having participants imagine how the patient's suffering could affect his/her life, whereas the control group was asked to wait for the next VH videos to load. A LENS model analysis was used to investigate both group level (nomothetic and individual level (idiographic decision policies. A LENS model of analysis is typically used as an analog method for capturing how groups of people and individuals use information in their environment to form judgments. Results: Nomothetic results found that participants rated pain higher and were more likely to prescribe opioids to VHs postintervention, irrespective of group. Idiographic results, however, found that the use of cues to make pain management decisions was mitigated by the perspective-taking group. The participants in the perspective-taking group

A model for ethical practices in clinical phonetics and linguistics.

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Powell, Thomas W

2007-01-01

The emergence of clinical phonetics and linguistics as an area of scientific inquiry gives rise to the need for guidelines that define ethical and responsible conduct. The diverse membership of the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association (ICPLA) and the readership of this journal are uniquely suited to consider ethical issues from diverse perspectives. Accordingly, this paper introduces a multi-tiered six-factor model for ethical practices to stimulate discussion of ethical issues.

The Influence of Bloomfield's Linguistics on Skinner

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Passos, Maria de Lourdes R. da F.; Matos, Maria Amelia

2007-01-01

Bloomfield's "Linguistics as a Science" (1930/1970), "Language" (1933/1961), and "Language or Ideas?" (1936a/1970), and Skinner's "Verbal Behavior" (1957) and "Science and Human Behavior" (1953) were analyzed in regard to their respective perspectives on science and scientific method, the verbal episode, meaning, and subject matter. Similarities…

Imagine-Self Perspective-Taking and Rational Self-Interested Behavior in a Simple Experimental Normal-Form Game

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Adam Karbowski

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to explore the link between imagine-self perspective-taking and rational self-interested behavior in experimental normal-form games. Drawing on the concept of sympathy developed by Adam Smith and further literature on perspective-taking in games, we hypothesize that introduction of imagine-self perspective-taking by decision-makers promotes rational self-interested behavior in a simple experimental normal-form game. In our study, we examined behavior of 404 undergraduate students in the two-person game, in which the participant can suffer a monetary loss only if she plays her Nash equilibrium strategy and the opponent plays her dominated strategy. Results suggest that the threat of suffering monetary losses effectively discourages the participants from choosing Nash equilibrium strategy. In general, players may take into account that opponents choose dominated strategies due to specific not self-interested motivations or errors. However, adopting imagine-self perspective by the participants leads to more Nash equilibrium choices, perhaps by alleviating participants’ attributions of susceptibility to errors or non-self-interested motivation to the opponents.

Imagine-Self Perspective-Taking and Rational Self-Interested Behavior in a Simple Experimental Normal-Form Game.

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Karbowski, Adam; Ramsza, Michał

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to explore the link between imagine-self perspective-taking and rational self-interested behavior in experimental normal-form games. Drawing on the concept of sympathy developed by Adam Smith and further literature on perspective-taking in games, we hypothesize that introduction of imagine-self perspective-taking by decision-makers promotes rational self-interested behavior in a simple experimental normal-form game. In our study, we examined behavior of 404 undergraduate students in the two-person game, in which the participant can suffer a monetary loss only if she plays her Nash equilibrium strategy and the opponent plays her dominated strategy. Results suggest that the threat of suffering monetary losses effectively discourages the participants from choosing Nash equilibrium strategy. In general, players may take into account that opponents choose dominated strategies due to specific not self-interested motivations or errors. However, adopting imagine-self perspective by the participants leads to more Nash equilibrium choices, perhaps by alleviating participants' attributions of susceptibility to errors or non-self-interested motivation to the opponents.

Voicing Solidarity: Linguistic Hospitality and Poststructuralism in the Real World

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Phipps, Alison

2012-01-01

Structuralism has dominated the field of applied linguistics, which has consequences for the positioning of applied linguistics "vis-a-vis" policy makers, educational practice, and also theoretical and methodological innovations. These consequences pertain to how the field advocates, takes sides, balances its descriptive modes with its discursive…

Combination Across Domains: An MEG Investigation into the Relationship between Mathematical, Pictorial, and Linguistic Processing

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Bemis, Douglas K.; Pylkkänen, Liina

2013-01-01

Debates surrounding the evolution of language often hinge upon its relationship to cognition more generally and many investigations have attempted to demark the boundary between the two. Though results from these studies suggest that language may recruit domain-general mechanisms during certain types of complex processing, the domain-generality of basic combinatorial mechanisms that lie at the core of linguistic processing is still unknown. Our previous work (Bemis and Pylkkänen, 2011, 2012) used magnetoencephalography to isolate neural activity associated with the simple composition of an adjective and a noun (“red boat”) and found increased activity during this processing localized to the left anterior temporal lobe (lATL), ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and left angular gyrus (lAG). The present study explores the domain-generality of these effects and their associated combinatorial mechanisms through two parallel non-linguistic combinatorial tasks designed to be as minimal and natural as the linguistic paradigm. In the first task, we used pictures of colored shapes to elicit combinatorial conceptual processing similar to that evoked by the linguistic expressions and find increased activity again localized to the vmPFC during combinatorial processing. This result suggests that a domain-general semantic combinatorial mechanism operates during basic linguistic composition, and that activity generated by its processing localizes to the vmPFC. In the second task, we recorded neural activity as subjects performed simple addition between two small numerals. Consistent with a wide array of recent results, we find no effects related to basic addition that coincide with our linguistic effects and instead find increased activity localized to the intraparietal sulcus. This result suggests that the scope of the previously identified linguistic effects is restricted to compositional operations and does not extend generally to all tasks that are merely similar

Role of linguistic skills in fifth-grade mathematics.

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Kleemans, Tijs; Segers, Eliane; Verhoeven, Ludo

2018-03-01

The current study investigated the direct and indirect relations between basic linguistic skills (i.e., phonological skills and grammatical ability) and advanced linguistic skills (i.e., academic vocabulary and verbal reasoning), on the one hand, and fifth-grade mathematics (i.e., arithmetic, geometry, and fractions), on the other, taking working memory and general intelligence into account and controlling for socioeconomic status, age, and gender. The results showed the basic linguistic representations of 167 fifth graders to be indirectly related to their geometric and fraction skills via arithmetic. Furthermore, advanced linguistic skills were found to be directly related to geometry and fractions after controlling for arithmetic. It can be concluded that linguistic skills directly and indirectly relate to mathematical ability in the upper grades of primary education, which highlights the importance of paying attention to such skills in the school curriculum. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Ideology in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching

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Waters, Alan

2009-01-01

It is contended that much of present-day applied linguistics for language teaching (ALLT) fails to mediate effectively, primarily because an ideological construction, emanating from a critical theory perspective, is too often imposed on everyday pedagogical practices. This has resulted in an exaggerated level of concern about the power imbalances…

Linguistic Engineering and Linguistic of Engineering: Adaptation of Linguistic Paradigm for Circumstance of Engineering Epoch

OpenAIRE

Natalya Halina

2014-01-01

The article is devoted to the problems of linguistic knowledge in the Engineering Epoch. Engineering Epoch is the time of adaptation to the information flows by knowledge management, The system of adaptation mechanisms is connected with linguistic and linguistic technologies, forming in new linguistic patterns Linguistic Engineering and Linguistic of Engineering.

Linguistic and Socio-Cognitive Predictors of School-Age Children's Narrative Evaluations about Jealousy

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Aldrich, Naomi J.; Brooks, Patricia J.

2017-01-01

This study investigated children's narrative evaluations about jealousy in relation to performance on a higher-order perspective-taking task and assessments of receptive vocabulary and nonverbal intelligence. Eighty children (5;0-11;11) narrated a wordless picture book about a jealous frog, answered probe questions about the plot, and generated a…

Potential negative effects of perspective-taking efforts in the context of close relationships: increased bias and reduced satisfaction.

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Vorauer, Jacquie D; Sucharyna, Tamara A

2013-01-01

Three experiments demonstrated that trying to appreciate a close other's unique point of view (imagine-other perspective taking) increases the extent to which individuals overestimate their own transparency to the close other, that is, how many of their values, preferences, traits, and feelings are readily apparent to him or her. Trying to be objective and pay careful attention to cues from a close other, which inhibits perspective taking, instead had the opposite effect. Mediation analyses suggested that increased focus on the self as an object of evaluation contributed to the positive effect of imagine-other perspective taking on perceived transparency, and decreased focus on the self as an object of evaluation contributed to the negative effect of trying to be objective on these judgments. These effects on perceived transparency had important implications for relationship well-being: Enhanced perceived transparency of negative feelings prompted by imagine-other perspective taking during a back-and-forth exchange with a romantic partner led to systematic discrepancies between individuals' own and their partner's experience of the exchange and reduced relationship satisfaction; trying to be objective instead reduced perceived transparency and thereby increased satisfaction. Notably, initial closeness with another person enhanced rather than tempered the egocentric effects of perspective taking. Taken together, these results suggest that positive motivations to nurture a close relationship and be sensitive to a loved one might sometimes be better channeled toward paying closer attention to his or her behavior than toward perspective taking.

A cross-culture, cross-gender comparison of perspective taking mechanisms.

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Kessler, Klaus; Cao, Liyu; O'Shea, Kieran J; Wang, Hongfang

2014-06-22

Being able to judge another person's visuo-spatial perspective is an essential social skill, hence we investigated the generalizability of the involved mechanisms across cultures and genders. Developmental, cross-species, and our own previous research suggest that two different forms of perspective taking can be distinguished, which are subserved by two distinct mechanisms. The simpler form relies on inferring another's line-of-sight, whereas the more complex form depends on embodied transformation into the other's orientation in form of a simulated body rotation. Our current results suggest that, in principle, the same basic mechanisms are employed by males and females in both, East-Asian (EA; Chinese) and Western culture. However, we also confirmed the hypothesis that Westerners show an egocentric bias, whereas EAs reveal an other-oriented bias. Furthermore, Westerners were slower overall than EAs and showed stronger gender differences in speed and depth of embodied processing. Our findings substantiate differences and communalities in social cognition mechanisms across genders and two cultures and suggest that cultural evolution or transmission should take gender as a modulating variable into account.

Cross-linguistic Influence in Bilingualism : In honor of Aafke Hulk

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Blom, E.; Cornips, L.; Schaeffer, J.

2017-01-01

This book presents a current state-of-affairs regarding the study of cross-linguistic influence in bilingualism. Taking Hulk and Müller’s (2000) and Müller and Hulk’s (2001) hypotheses on cross-linguistic influence as a starting point, the book exemplifies the shift from the original focus on syntax

Teachers' Perspectives on Second Language Task Difficulty: Insights From Think-Alouds and Eye Tracking

OpenAIRE

Révész, A.; Gurzynski-Weiss, L.

2016-01-01

The majority of empirical studies that have so far investigated task features in order to inform task grading and sequencing decisions have been grounded in hypothesis-testing research. Few studies have attempted to adopt a bottom-up approach in order to explore what task factors might contribute to task difficulty. The aim of this study was to help fill this gap by eliciting teachers’ perspectives on sources of task difficulty. We asked 16 English as a second language (ESL) teachers to judge...

Help Others and Yourself Eventually: Exploring the Relationship between Help-Giving and Employee Creativity under the Model of Perspective Taking

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Li, Si; Liao, Shudi

2017-01-01

Although a plethora of studies have examined the antecedents of creativity, empirical studies exploring the role of individual behaviors in relation to creativity are relatively scarce. Drawing on the model of perspective taking, this study examines the relationship between help-giving during creative problem solving process and employee creativity. Specifically, we test perspective taking as an explanatory mechanism and propose organization-based self-esteem as the moderator. In a sample collected from a field survey of 247 supervisor-subordinate dyads from 2 large organizations in China at 3 time points, we find that help-giving during creative problem solving process positively related with perspective taking; perspective taking positively related with employees’ creativity; employees’ organization-based self-esteem strengthened the link between perspective taking and creativity; besides, there existed a moderated mediation effect. We conclude this paper with discussions on the implications for theory, research, and practice. PMID:28690566

Help Others and Yourself Eventually: Exploring the Relationship between Help-Giving and Employee Creativity under the Model of Perspective Taking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Si Li

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Although a plethora of studies have examined the antecedents of creativity, empirical studies exploring the role of individual behaviors in relation to creativity are relatively scarce. Drawing on the model of perspective taking, this study examines the relationship between help-giving during creative problem solving process and employee creativity. Specifically, we test perspective taking as an explanatory mechanism and propose organization-based self-esteem as the moderator. In a sample collected from a field survey of 247 supervisor-subordinate dyads from 2 large organizations in China at 3 time points, we find that help-giving during creative problem solving process positively related with perspective taking; perspective taking positively related with employees’ creativity; employees’ organization-based self-esteem strengthened the link between perspective taking and creativity; besides, there existed a moderated mediation effect. We conclude this paper with discussions on the implications for theory, research, and practice.

Help Others and Yourself Eventually: Exploring the Relationship between Help-Giving and Employee Creativity under the Model of Perspective Taking.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Si; Liao, Shudi

2017-01-01

Although a plethora of studies have examined the antecedents of creativity, empirical studies exploring the role of individual behaviors in relation to creativity are relatively scarce. Drawing on the model of perspective taking, this study examines the relationship between help-giving during creative problem solving process and employee creativity. Specifically, we test perspective taking as an explanatory mechanism and propose organization-based self-esteem as the moderator. In a sample collected from a field survey of 247 supervisor-subordinate dyads from 2 large organizations in China at 3 time points, we find that help-giving during creative problem solving process positively related with perspective taking; perspective taking positively related with employees' creativity; employees' organization-based self-esteem strengthened the link between perspective taking and creativity; besides, there existed a moderated mediation effect. We conclude this paper with discussions on the implications for theory, research, and practice.

Second Language Acquisition in Applied Linguistics: 1925-2015 and Beyond

Science.gov (United States)

Tarone, Elaine

2015-01-01

Taking 1925, the founding year of "Language", the journal of the Linguistics Society of America, as a benchmark for "the past", and 2015 as benchmark for "the present", the author considers what was known then and what is known now about second language acquisition in applied linguistics. The field has grown more…

Do (un)certainty appraisal tendencies reverse the influence of emotions on risk taking in sequential tasks?

Science.gov (United States)

Bagneux, Virginie; Bollon, Thierry; Dantzer, Cécile

2012-01-01

According to the Appraisal-Tendency Framework (Han, Lerner, & Keltner, 2007), certainty-associated emotions increase risk taking compared with uncertainty-associated emotions. To date, this general effect has only been shown in static judgement and decision-making paradigms; therefore, the present study tested the effect of certainty on risk taking in a sequential decision-making task. We hypothesised that the effect would be reversed due to the kind of processing involved, as certainty is considered to encourage heuristic processing that takes into account the emotional cues arising from previous decisions, whereas uncertainty leads to more systematic processing. One hundred and one female participants were induced to feel one of three emotions (film clips) before performing a decision-making task involving risk (Game of Dice Task; Brand et al., 2005). As expected, the angry and happy participants (certainty-associated emotions) were more likely than the fearful participants (uncertainty-associated emotion) to make safe decisions (vs. risky decisions).

OCCASIONAL ADNOMINAL IDIOM MODIFICATION - A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC APPROACH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas Langlotz

2006-06-01

Full Text Available occasional Adnominal Idiom Modification - A Cognitive Linguistic Approach From a cognitive-linguistic perspective, this paper explores alternative types of adnoniinal modification in occasional variants of English verbal idioms. Being discussed against data extracted from the British National Corpiis (BNC, the model claims that in idioni-production idiomatic constructions are activated as complex linguistic schemas to code a context-specific target-conceptualisation. Adnominal pre- and postmodifications are one specific form of creative alteration to adapt the idiom for this purpose. Semantically, idiom-interna1 NPextension is not a uniforni process. It is necessary to distinguish two systematic types of adnominal modification: external and internal modification (Ernst 1981. While external NPmodification has adverbial function, ¡.e. it modifies the idiom as a unit, internal modification directly applies to the head-noun and thus depends on the degree of motivation and analysability of a given idiom. Following the cognitive-linguistic framework, these dimensions of idiom-transparency result from the language user's ability to remotivate the bipartite semantic structure by conceptual metaphors and metonymies.

Linguistic and Cultural Strategies in ELT Dictionaries

Science.gov (United States)

Corrius, Montse; Pujol, Didac

2010-01-01

There are three main types of ELT dictionaries: monolingual, bilingual, and bilingualized. Each type of dictionary, while having its own advantages, also hinders the learning of English as a foreign language and culture in so far as it is written from a homogenizing (linguistic- and culture-centric) perspective. This paper presents a new type of…

Linguistic Ethnography, Literacy Teaching and Teacher Training

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dolmer, Grete; Nielsen, Henrik Balle

in current attempts to research-base teacher education. Lefstein, A. & J. Snell. 2014. Better than best practice. Developing teaching and learning through dialogue. London: Routledge. Keywords: literacy teaching classroom dialogue teacher feedback linguistic ethnography research-based teacher education...... material consists of field notes and video observations from the literacy classroom combined with reflective interviews with the literacy teacher and analyses of pupils’ oral and written texts. Taking a linguistic ethnographic approach, the case study investigates the interplay between teacher, pupil...... eclecticism, openness and systematicity characteristic of a linguistic ethnographic analysis (Lefstein & Snell 2014, 185-86). In the poster, we will focus on emergent data analysis. Our main points of interest are 1) the classroom dialogue between teacher and pupils and 2) the literacy teacher’s assessment...

Neural organization of linguistic short-term memory is sensory modality-dependent: evidence from signed and spoken language.

Science.gov (United States)

Pa, Judy; Wilson, Stephen M; Pickell, Herbert; Bellugi, Ursula; Hickok, Gregory

2008-12-01

Despite decades of research, there is still disagreement regarding the nature of the information that is maintained in linguistic short-term memory (STM). Some authors argue for abstract phonological codes, whereas others argue for more general sensory traces. We assess these possibilities by investigating linguistic STM in two distinct sensory-motor modalities, spoken and signed language. Hearing bilingual participants (native in English and American Sign Language) performed equivalent STM tasks in both languages during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Distinct, sensory-specific activations were seen during the maintenance phase of the task for spoken versus signed language. These regions have been previously shown to respond to nonlinguistic sensory stimulation, suggesting that linguistic STM tasks recruit sensory-specific networks. However, maintenance-phase activations common to the two languages were also observed, implying some form of common process. We conclude that linguistic STM involves sensory-dependent neural networks, but suggest that sensory-independent neural networks may also exist.

"New linguistic issues", by Pier Pasolini, is causing scandal among linguists, philologists, writers, critics and intellectuals

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Teodoro Negri

1993-12-01

Full Text Available Pasolini departs from the diagnosis of a problem: the critical quest stage in contemporary literature, centered on the 1950s; he points out the author´s inability to create the design for a national language. He goes on to analyze the deep mutation in Italian Society, which determineted a new socio-linguistic outlook; to wit, a language clearly marked by strong technicality and instrumentation. Drawing examples from newspapers, TV features, official political speeches and commercials, Pasolini demonstrates that factual communication takes precedence over formal expression. This is ascribed to one principle which sets both rules and approvals for all forms of national language. This fact, according to Pasolini, is the result of an industrial and technological transformation process, which would  permite advent of a new linguistic bourgeoisie. The linguistic unification caused by such approving  principle would, therefore, imply the social manifestation of the bourgeoisie.

Prefrontal cortex glutamate correlates with mental perspective-taking.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christiane Montag

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Dysfunctions in theory of mind and empathic abilities have been suggested as core symptoms in major psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and autism. Since self monitoring, perspective taking and empathy have been linked to prefrontal (PFC and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC function, neurotransmitter variations in these areas may account for normal and pathological variations of these functions. Converging evidence indicates an essential role of glutamatergic neurotransmission in psychiatric diseases with pronounced deficits in empathy. However, the role of the glutamate system for different dimensions of empathy has not been investigated so far. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Absolute concentrations of cerebral glutamate in the ACC, left dorsolateral PFC and left hippocampus were determined by 3-tesla proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS in 17 healthy individuals. Three dimensions of empathy were estimated by a self-rating questionnaire, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI. Linear regression analysis showed that dorsolateral PFC glutamate concentration was predicted by IRI factor "perspective taking" (T = -2.710, p = 0.018; adjusted alpha-level of 0.017, Bonferroni but not by "empathic concern" or "personal distress". No significant relationship between IRI subscores and the glutamate levels in the ACC or left hippocampus was detected. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This is the first study to investigate the role of the glutamate system for dimensions of theory of mind and empathy. Results are in line with recent concepts that executive top-down control of behavior is mediated by prefrontal glutamatergic projections. This is a preliminary finding that needs a replication in an independent sample.

Sex differences in components of imagined perspective transformation.

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Gardner, Mark R; Sorhus, Ingrid; Edmonds, Caroline J; Potts, Rosalind

2012-05-01

Little research to date has examined whether sex differences in spatial ability extend to the mental self rotation involved in taking on a third party perspective. This question was addressed in the present study by assessing components of imagined perspective transformations in twenty men and twenty women. Participants made speeded left-right judgements about the hand in which an object was held by front- and back- facing schematic human figures in an "own body transformation task." Response times were longer when the figure did not share the same spatial orientation as the participant, and were substantially longer than those made for a control task requiring left-right judgements about the same stimuli from the participant's own point of view. A sex difference in imagined perspective transformation favouring males was found to be restricted to the speed of imagined self rotation, and was not observed for components indexing readiness to take a third party point of view, nor in left-right confusion. These findings indicate that the range of spatial abilities for which a sex difference has been established should be extended to include imagined perspective transformations. They also suggest that imagined perspective transformations may not draw upon those empathic social-emotional perspective taking processes for which females show an advantage. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Quantifying linguistic coordination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fusaroli, Riccardo; Tylén, Kristian

task (Bahrami et al 2010, Fusaroli et al. 2012) we extend to linguistic coordination dynamical measures of recurrence employed in the analysis of sensorimotor coordination (such as heart-rate (Konvalinka et al 2011), postural sway (Shockley 2005) and eye-movements (Dale, Richardson and Kirkham 2012......). We employ nominal recurrence analysis (Orsucci et al 2005, Dale et al 2011) on the decision-making conversations between the participants. We report strong correlations between various indexes of recurrence and collective performance. We argue this method allows us to quantify the qualities...

Fuzzy-valued linguistic soft set theory and multi-attribute decision-making application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aiwu, Zhao; Hongjun, Guan

2016-01-01

In this work, we propose the theory of fuzzy linguistic soft set (FLSS) to represent the uncertainty and multi-angle of view when decision makers evaluate an object during decision-making. FLSS integrates fuzzy set theory, linguistic variable and soft set theory. It allows decision makers to utilize linguistic variables to evaluate an object and utilize fuzzy values to describe the corresponding grade of their support of their decisions. Meanwhile, because of the flexibility of soft set, decision makers can use more than one pair of fuzzy-linguistic evaluations to express their opinions from multiple perspectives directly, if necessary. Therefore, it is more flexible and practical than traditional fuzzy set or 2-dimension uncertainty linguistic variable. We also develop a generalized weighted aggregation operator for FLSSs to solve corresponding decision-making issues. Finally, we give a numerical example to verify the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Crossover of work engagement among Japanese couples : perspective taking by both partners

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bakker, A.B.; Shimazu, A.; Demerouti, E.; Shimada, K.; Kawakami, N.

2011-01-01

This study among 426 Japanese couples working in different occupational sectors tested the hypothesis that perspective taking moderates the crossover of work engagement. More specifically, we predicted that husbands' work engagement would cross over to their wives, particularly when wives scored

Task constraints distinguish perspective inferences from perspective use during discourse interpretation in a false belief task.

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Ferguson, Heather J; Apperly, Ian; Ahmad, Jumana; Bindemann, Markus; Cane, James

2015-06-01

Interpreting other peoples' actions relies on an understanding of their current mental states (e.g. beliefs, desires and intentions). In this paper, we distinguish between listeners' ability to infer others' perspectives and their explicit use of this knowledge to predict subsequent actions. In a visual-world study, two groups of participants (passive observers vs. active participants) watched short videos, depicting transfer events, where one character ('Jane') either held a true or false belief about an object's location. We tracked participants' eye-movements around the final visual scene, time-locked to related auditory descriptions (e.g. "Jane will look for the chocolates in the container on the left".). Results showed that active participants had already inferred the character's belief in the 1s preview period prior to auditory onset, before it was possible to use this information to predict an outcome. Moreover, they used this inference to correctly anticipate reference to the object's initial location on false belief trials at the earliest possible point (i.e. from "Jane" onwards). In contrast, passive observers only showed evidence of a belief inference from the onset of "Jane", and did not show reliable use of this inference to predict Jane's behaviour on false belief trials until much later, when the location ("left/right") was auditorily available. These results show that active engagement in a task activates earlier inferences about others' perspectives, and drives immediate use of this information to anticipate others' actions, compared to passive observers, who are susceptible to influences from egocentric or reality biases. Finally, we review evidence that using other peoples' perspectives to predict their behaviour is more cognitively effortful than simply using one's own. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Empathy, Perspective Taking and Personal Values as Predictors of Moral Schemas

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Myyrya, Liisa; Juujarvi, Soile; Pesso, Kaija

2010-01-01

The aim of this study was to clarify the relationships between empathy variables, personal values and moral reasoning. The impact of empathic concern, perspective taking and personal values measured by the Portrait Value Questionnaire on moral schemas measured by the Defining Issues Test was investigated among 599 students from a university of…

It takes longer than you think: librarian time spent on systematic review tasks*

Science.gov (United States)

Bullers, Krystal; Howard, Allison M.; Hanson, Ardis; Kearns, William D.; Orriola, John J.; Polo, Randall L.; Sakmar, Kristen A.

2018-01-01

Introduction The authors examined the time that medical librarians spent on specific tasks for systematic reviews (SRs): interview process, search strategy development, search strategy translation, documentation, deliverables, search methodology writing, and instruction. We also investigated relationships among the time spent on SR tasks, years of experience, and number of completed SRs to gain a better understanding of the time spent on SR tasks from time, staffing, and project management perspectives. Methods A confidential survey and study description were sent to medical library directors who were members of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries as well as librarians serving members of the Association of American Medical Colleges or American Osteopathic Association. Results Of the 185 participants, 143 (77%) had worked on an SR within the last 5 years. The number of SRs conducted by participants during their careers ranged from 1 to 500, with a median of 5. The major component of time spent was on search strategy development and translation. Average aggregated time for standard tasks was 26.9 hours, with a median of 18.5 hours. Task time was unrelated to the number of SRs but was positively correlated with years of SR experience. Conclusion The time required to conduct the librarian’s discrete tasks in an SR varies substantially, and there are no standard time frames. Librarians with more SR experience spent more time on instruction and interviews; time spent on all other tasks varied widely. Librarians also can expect to spend a significant amount of their time on search strategy development, translation, and writing. PMID:29632442

Auditory Perspective Taking

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Martinson, Eric; Brock, Derek

2006-01-01

.... From this knowledge of another's auditory perspective, a conversational partner can then adapt his or her auditory output to overcome a variety of environmental challenges and insure that what is said is intelligible...

A Third Revolution in Linguistics: The Interplay between the Verbal and Non-Verbal

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Liu, Jun

2009-01-01

This article regards Saussure's social, static and structural perspective and Chomsky's individual, generative and formal perspective as two revolutions in linguistics in the 20th century. A third revolution is already on the way. This is characterised by considering the individual's mental mechanisms in relation to the interplay between verbal…

Coming To Terms: Quantifying the Benefits of Linguistic Coordination

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fusaroli, Riccardo; Bahrami, Bahador; Olsen, Karsten

2012-01-01

Sharing a public language facilitates particularly efficient forms of joint perception and action by giving interlocutors refined tools for directing attention and aligning conceptual models and action. We hypothesized that interlocutors who flexibly align their linguistic practices and converge ...... fit for the task, the better they performed. Our work thus uncovers the interplay between social dynamics and sensitivity to task affordances in successful cooperation....

From glue to gasoline: how competition turns perspective takers unethical.

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Pierce, Jason R; Kilduff, Gavin J; Galinsky, Adam D; Sivanathan, Niro

2013-10-01

Perspective taking is often the glue that binds people together. However, we propose that in competitive contexts, perspective taking is akin to adding gasoline to a fire: It inflames already-aroused competitive impulses and leads people to protect themselves from the potentially insidious actions of their competitors. Overall, we suggest that perspective taking functions as a relational amplifier. In cooperative contexts, it creates the foundation for prosocial impulses, but in competitive contexts, it triggers hypercompetition, leading people to prophylactically engage in unethical behavior to prevent themselves from being exploited. The experiments reported here establish that perspective taking interacts with the relational context--cooperative or competitive--to predict unethical behavior, from using insidious negotiation tactics to materially deceiving one's partner to cheating on an anagram task. In the context of competition, perspective taking can pervert the age-old axiom "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" into "do unto others as you think they will try to do unto you."

Perspective-Taking Judgments Among Young Adults, Middle-Aged, and Elderly People

Science.gov (United States)

Ligneau-Herve, Catherine; Mullet, Etienne

2005-01-01

Perspective-taking judgments among young adults, middle-aged, and elderly people were examined. In 1 condition, participants were instructed to judge the likelihood of acceptance of a painkiller as a function of 3 cues: severity of the condition, potential side effects, and level of trust in the health care provider. In the other condition,…

Perspectives on Linguistic Documentation from Sociolinguistic Research on Dialects

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Tagliamonte, Sali A.

2017-01-01

The goal of the paper is to demonstrate how sociolinguistic research can be applied to endangered language documentation field linguistics. It first provides an overview of the techniques and practices of sociolinguistic fieldwork and the ensuring corpus compilation methods. The discussion is framed with examples from research projects focused on…

Study of Applying Cognitive Linguistic Theory into Japanese Grammar Teaching——Taking Causative Sentence as an Example

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Zhang Yu[1

2016-01-01

The traditional Japanese grammar teaching often only pays attention to the interpretation of syntax and the integrity of grammar structure. This violates the cultivation of communicative competence, and is not in conformity with the society’s requirements of applied foreign language talents. Cognitive linguistics theory, which links language form with semantic concept, reveals the internal relation of man’s thinking and language. If we can subtly apply cognitive linguistic theory into Japanese grammar teaching to explore the cognitive process in the speakers’ brain while expressing, we can get a good understanding of diffi cult points and “special case”. This paper explores the introductory methods and efficacy of the cognitive linguistics theory applied in Japanese grammar teaching method, by lecturing causative sentences an example.

Can delusions be understood linguistically?

Science.gov (United States)

Hinzen, Wolfram; Rosselló, Joana; McKenna, Peter

2016-07-01

Delusions are widely believed to reflect disturbed cognitive function, but the nature of this remains elusive. The "un-Cartesian" cognitive-linguistic hypothesis maintains (a) that there is no thought separate from language, that is, there is no distinct mental space removed from language where "thinking" takes place; and (b) that a somewhat broadened concept of grammar is responsible for bestowing meaning on propositions, and this among other things gives them their quality of being true or false. It is argued that a loss of propositional meaning explains why delusions are false, impossible and sometimes fantastic. A closely related abnormality, failure of linguistic embedding, can additionally account for why delusions are held with fixed conviction and are not adequately justified by the patient. The un-Cartesian linguistic approach to delusions has points of contact with Frith's theory that inability to form meta-representations underlies a range of schizophrenic symptoms. It may also be relevant to the nature of the "second factor" in monothematic delusions in neurological disease. Finally, it can inform the current debate about whether or not delusions really are beliefs.

The role of perspective taking and emotions in punishing identified and unidentified wrongdoers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kogut, Tehila

2011-12-01

We present two studies examining the effect of identifiability on willingness to punish, emphasising that identifiability of the wrongdoer may increase or decrease willingness to punish depending on the punisher's perspective. When taking the wrongdoer's perspective, identifiability increases pity and decreases anger towards the wrongdoer, leading to a lighter punishment. On the other hand, when adopting the injured perspective, identifiability decreases pity and increases anger, resulting in a severe punishment. We show that while deliberation and rational factors affect the decision regardless of identification, the role of emotions in the decision is greater in the identified condition. Possible implications for public and educational policy are discussed.

The Role of Social Perspective-Taking in Developing Students' Leadership Capacities

Science.gov (United States)

Dugan, John P.; Bohle, Christopher W.; Woelker, Lindsey R.; Cooney, Matthew A.

2014-01-01

This study examined relationships between social perspective-taking (SPT) and the individual, group, and societal domains of socially responsible leadership. SPT is a higher-order cognitive skill linked to moral development and social coordination, but never empirically connected to leadership development. Analyses determined SPT has a strong…

Preprocessing Greek Papyri for Linguistic Annotation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vierros, Marja

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Greek documentary papyri form an important direct source for Ancient Greek. It has been exploited surprisingly little in Greek linguistics due to a lack of good tools for searching linguistic structures. This article presents a new tool and digital platform, “Sematia”, which enables transforming the digital texts available in TEI EpiDoc XML format to a format which can be morphologically and syntactically annotated (treebanked, and where the user can add new metadata concerning the text type, writer and handwriting of each act of writing. An important aspect in this process is to take into account the original surviving writing vs. the standardization of language and supplements made by the editors. This is performed by creating two different layers of the same text. The platform is in its early development phase. Ongoing and future developments, such as tagging linguistic variation phenomena as well as queries performed within Sematia, are discussed at the end of the article.

The effects of private self-consciousness and perspective taking on satisfaction in close relationships.

Science.gov (United States)

Franzoi, S L; Davis, M H; Young, R D

1985-06-01

We extended the scope of recent studies in which self-awareness and perspective taking have been used as predictors of social competence or adjustment: We analyzed their influence on the satisfaction experienced in monogamous, heterosexual relationships. Members of 131 couples answered questions concerning themselves and their relationships. We predicted that individual differences in private self-consciousness would be positively related to relationship satisfaction because of the greater self-disclosure resulting from that heightened self-attention. Second, we predicted that individual differences in perspective taking would foster relationship satisfaction, independent of any influence of self-disclosure. Both expectations were confirmed. Scores on the private self-consciousness scale were predictive of reported self-disclosure, and self-disclosure was predictive of satisfaction in the relationship. Furthermore, once the influence of self-disclosure was removed, no effect of self-consciousness on satisfaction remained. In contrast, after disclosure was controlled, perspective-taking scores were significantly related to satisfaction and were in fact unrelated to disclosure at all. These findings indicate that two personality characteristics having to do with habitual attention to behavioral tendencies, to emotions, and to motivations significantly enhance the quality of close heterosexual relationships in different ways. Results are discussed in terms of current theory in the related fields.

Forensic linguistics: Applications of forensic linguistics methods to anonymous letters

OpenAIRE

NOVÁKOVÁ, Veronika

2011-01-01

The title of my bachelor work is ?Forensic linguistics: Applications of forensic linguistics methods to anonymous letters?. Forensic linguistics is young and not very known branch of applied linguistics. This bachelor work wants to introduce forensic linguistics and its method. The bachelor work has two parts ? theory and practice. The theoretical part informs about forensic linguistics in general. Its two basic aspects utilized in forensic science and respective methods. The practical part t...

"Muddying the Clear Waters": Teachers' Take-up of the Linguistic Idea of Revoicing

Science.gov (United States)

Herbel-Eisenmann, Beth; Drake, Corey; Cirillo, Michelle

2009-01-01

This article examines a collaborative study group's discussions about "revoicing," an idea from linguistics that has been identified as an important discourse strategy in the teaching of mathematics as well as other content areas. This group, made up of eight middle grades (grades 6-10) mathematics teacher-researchers (TRs), one university…

Applied Linguistics and the "Annual Review of Applied Linguistics."

Science.gov (United States)

Kaplan, Robert B.; Grabe, William

2000-01-01

Examines the complexities and differences involved in granting disciplinary status to the role of applied linguistics, discusses the role of the "Annual Review of Applied Linguistics" as a contributor to the development of applied linguistics, and highlights a set of publications for the future of applied linguistics. (Author/VWL)

Learnability and linguistic performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Drozd, Kenneth

2004-01-01

of the human biological endowment for language in the form of a UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (UG) (Chomsky, 1965). With respect to experimental design, C&T have strongly maintained that even young children know UG constraints but perform poorly in some experiments-due to the extralinguistic demands associated...... with experimental tasks, particularly those involved in presupposition accommodation and complex response planning. C&T specifically design their experiments to reduce the impact of extralinguistic demands on children's linguistic performance while at the same time providing felicitous environments for adultlike...... performance....

Perspective taking and empathic concern in adolescence : Gender differences in developmental changes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Graaff, J.; Branje, S.T.J.; de Wied, M.; Hawk, S.T.; van Lier, P.A.C.; Meeus, W.H.J.

2014-01-01

Empathy is an important social skill and is believed to play an essential role in moral development (Hoffman, 2000). In the present longitudinal study, the authors investigated adolescents' development of perspective taking and empathic concern from age 13 to 18 years (mean age at Wave 1 = 13 years,

Automated Linguistic Personality Description and Recognition Methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danylyuk Illya

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Background: The relevance of our research, above all, is theoretically motivated by the development of extraordinary scientific and practical interest in the possibilities of language processing of huge amount of data generated by people in everyday professional and personal life in the electronic forms of communication (e-mail, sms, voice, audio and video blogs, social networks, etc.. Purpose: The purpose of the article is to describe the theoretical and practical framework of the project "Communicative-pragmatic and discourse-grammatical lingvopersonology: structuring linguistic identity and computer modeling". The description of key techniques is given, such as machine learning for language modeling, speech synthesis, handwriting simulation. Results: Lingvopersonology developed some great theoretical foundations, its methods, tools, and significant achievements let us predict that the newest promising trend is a linguistic identity modeling by means of information technology, including language. We see three aspects of the modeling: 1 modeling the semantic level of linguistic identity – by means of the use of corpus linguistics; 2 sound level formal modeling of linguistic identity – with the help of speech synthesis; 3 formal graphic level modeling of linguistic identity – with the help of image synthesis (handwriting. For the first case, we suppose to use machine learning technics and vector-space (word2vec algorithm for textual speech modeling. Hybrid CUTE method for personality speech modeling will be applied to the second case. Finally, trained with the person handwriting images neural network can be an instrument for the last case. Discussion: The project "Communicative-pragmatic, discourse, and grammatical lingvopersonology: structuring linguistic identity and computer modeling", which is implementing by the Department of General and Applied Linguistics and Slavonic philology, selected a task to model Yuriy Shevelyov (Sherekh�

Early Intervention: A Multicultural Perspective on d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing Multilingual Learners.

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Sandy, K Bowen

2016-01-01

Today's pluralistic society is characterized by families from many linguistic and cultural backgrounds, including families with infants and toddlers who are deaf or hard of hearing (d/Dhh). Taking a multicultural perspective, the author examines family-centered early intervention (FCEI) and the transition to school services for children who are d/Dhh. Working with d/Dhh Multilingual Learners (DMLs) and their families presents a unique challenge to early intervention professionals: ensuring that families have adequate information and resources to make informed choices, particularly regarding communication. The author presents information and research related to (a) family and professional partnerships, (b) cultural contexts for early intervention, (c) family communication decisions and linguistic diversity, (d) emerging research on DMLs, (e) considerations for early intervention providers and interpreters who work with culturally and linguistically diverse d/Dhh infants and toddlers, and (f) cultural reflections on ensuring smooth transitions from early intervention into preschool programs.

Visual displays and Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brown-VanHoozer, S.A. [Argonne National Lab., Idaho Falls, ID (United States); VanHoozer, W.R. [Tranceformations Unlimited, Rigby, ID (United States)

1994-10-01

Advancement of computer technology is forthcoming at such a rapid pace that the research concerning the interplay of humans and computer technology is lagging far behind. One area of particular concern is the design of visual displays that are pragmatic, ``user friendly,`` and ``user assisting.`` When engineers design visual displays, they generally do so methodically and logically, but only from within their own individual perspective or ``model of the world.`` They select the human aspects which make sense to them and not necessarily to non-engineers, operators, and others. The model design is what the engineer chooses to relate, based on his or her perspective of reality. These choices limit the model design thereby excluding the users` perspective. A set of techniques which can be used to assist the designers in expanding their choices and include the users` model is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

On the Nature of Applied Linguistics: Theory and Practice Relationships from a Critical Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Sánchez, William

2007-01-01

This article explores the relationships between Applied Linguistics and other related disciplines concerning language use and language teaching issues. It seeks to trace the changes in the view of the relationship between theory and practice in Applied Linguistics, to explain the reason for those changes, and to discuss the implications for…

Future versus present: time perspective and pupillary response in a relatedness judgment task investigating temporal event knowledge.

Science.gov (United States)

Nowack, Kati; Milfont, Taciano L; van der Meer, Elke

2013-02-01

Mental representations of events contain many components such as typical agents, instruments, objects as well as a temporal dimension that is directed towards the future. While the role of temporal orientation (chronological, reverse) in event knowledge has been demonstrated by numerous studies, little is known about the influence of time perspective (present or future) as source of individual differences affecting event knowledge. The present study combined behavioral data with task-evoked pupil dilation to examine the impact of time perspective on cognitive resource allocation. In a relatedness judgment task, everyday events like raining were paired with an object feature like wet. Chronological items were processed more easily than reverse items regardless of time perspective. When more automatic processes were applied, greater scores on future time perspective were associated with lower error rates for chronological items. This suggests that a match between a strong focus on future consequences and items with a temporal orientation directed toward the future serves to enhance responding accuracy. Indexed by pupillary data, future-oriented participants invested more cognitive resources while outperforming present-oriented participants in reaction times across all conditions. This result was supported by a principal component analysis on the pupil data, which demonstrated the same impact of time perspective on the factor associated with more general aspects of cognitive effort. These findings suggest that future time perspective may be linked to a more general cognitive performance characteristic that improves overall task performance. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

University of New Mexico Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 1.

Science.gov (United States)

Meehan, Teresa M., Ed.; Schwenter, Scott A., Ed.

This volume contains working papers on a variety of topics in linguistics. They include: "A View of Phonology from a Cognitive and Functional Perspective" (Joan Bybee); "The Geography of Language Shift: Distance from the Mexican Border and Spanish Language Claiming in the Southwestern United States" (Garland D. Bills, Eduardo…

Taking Teacher Education to Task: Exploring the Role of Faculty Education in Promoting Values and Moral Education of Task-Based Language Teaching

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Dr. Gabriel C. Delariarte

2014-02-01

Full Text Available - This study aimed to determine the taking teacher education to task: exploring the role of teacher education in promoting values and moral education of task-based language teaching in the college of education of West Visayas State University Calinog-Campus for the school year 2012-2013. Descriptive research method was utilized in the study. The findings revealed that the respondents perceived highly observable Teachers’ role in promoting values and moral education of task-based language teaching; the entire group of respondents has perceived highly observable Teachers’ role in promoting values and moral education of task-based language teaching; both male and female respondent have perceived a highly observable Teachers’ role in promoting values and moral education of task-based language teaching; all age brackets have perceived a highly observable Teachers’ role in promoting values and moral education of task-based language teaching except 19 to 20 brackets that perceived very highly observable Teachers’ role in promoting values and moral education of taskbased language teaching. Finally, there is no significant difference in the perceived teacher’s role in promoting values and moral education of task-based language teaching when classified as to sex and age.

Can delusions be understood linguistically?

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Hinzen, Wolfram; Rosselló, Joana; McKenna, Peter

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT Delusions are widely believed to reflect disturbed cognitive function, but the nature of this remains elusive. The “un-Cartesian” cognitive-linguistic hypothesis maintains (a) that there is no thought separate from language, that is, there is no distinct mental space removed from language where “thinking” takes place; and (b) that a somewhat broadened concept of grammar is responsible for bestowing meaning on propositions, and this among other things gives them their quality of being true or false. It is argued that a loss of propositional meaning explains why delusions are false, impossible and sometimes fantastic. A closely related abnormality, failure of linguistic embedding, can additionally account for why delusions are held with fixed conviction and are not adequately justified by the patient. The un-Cartesian linguistic approach to delusions has points of contact with Frith’s theory that inability to form meta-representations underlies a range of schizophrenic symptoms. It may also be relevant to the nature of the “second factor” in monothematic delusions in neurological disease. Finally, it can inform the current debate about whether or not delusions really are beliefs. PMID:27322493

Let's all speak together! Exploring the masking effects of various languages on spoken word identification in multi-linguistic babble.

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Gautreau, Aurore; Hoen, Michel; Meunier, Fanny

2013-01-01

This study aimed to characterize the linguistic interference that occurs during speech-in-speech comprehension by combining offline and online measures, which included an intelligibility task (at a -5 dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio) and 2 lexical decision tasks (at a -5 dB and 0 dB SNR) that were performed with French spoken target words. In these 3 experiments we always compared the masking effects of speech backgrounds (i.e., 4-talker babble) that were produced in the same language as the target language (i.e., French) or in unknown foreign languages (i.e., Irish and Italian) to the masking effects of corresponding non-speech backgrounds (i.e., speech-derived fluctuating noise). The fluctuating noise contained similar spectro-temporal information as babble but lacked linguistic information. At -5 dB SNR, both tasks revealed significantly divergent results between the unknown languages (i.e., Irish and Italian) with Italian and French hindering French target word identification to a similar extent, whereas Irish led to significantly better performances on these tasks. By comparing the performances obtained with speech and fluctuating noise backgrounds, we were able to evaluate the effect of each language. The intelligibility task showed a significant difference between babble and fluctuating noise for French, Irish and Italian, suggesting acoustic and linguistic effects for each language. However, the lexical decision task, which reduces the effect of post-lexical interference, appeared to be more accurate, as it only revealed a linguistic effect for French. Thus, although French and Italian had equivalent masking effects on French word identification, the nature of their interference was different. This finding suggests that the differences observed between the masking effects of Italian and Irish can be explained at an acoustic level but not at a linguistic level.

On Linguistic Abilities, Multilingualism, and Linguistic Justice

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Iannàccaro Gabriele

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The notion of linguistic justice should be related to the concept of linguistic ease, by which we mean the full social and communicative freedom of concern of the speaker in a given social interaction involving the use of language(s present in the society, according to the social norms of use. To acquire an acceptable degree of linguistic ease, the knowledge of at least one L2 is considered important. But the acquisition of a L2 is interfered by the previous linguistic skills of the learner/speaker who, in many cases, does not have a suitable competence even of the languages of the society in which he/she lives.

OLD SCHOOL LINGUISTICS MADE NEW— REVIEW OF Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. 5th ed. By William O’Grady, John Archibald, Mark Arnoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005. Pp. xxvi + 684.

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Chris Wen-chao Li

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Amidst the recent explosion of interest in linguistic science and the subsequent publication of large numbers of introductory works on the subject, O'Grady et al.'s Contemporary Linguistics (5th ed. stands out as a solid general purpose primer directed at an academic audience. Written by some eighteen contributors specializing in each of the seventeen branches of linguistics covered, topics are judiciously chosen while drawing on current scholarship and integrating different theoretical persuasions, without losing sight of the book's target readership. The result is an up-to-date text balanced in its treatment of subject matter and perspectives--a work that lives up to its moniker of "Contemporary" Linguistics.

Using Our Heads and HARTSS*: Developing Perspective-Taking Skills for Socioscientific Reasoning (*Humanities, ARTS, and Social Sciences)

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Kahn, Sami; Zeidler, Dana L.

2016-01-01

Functional scientific literacy demands an informed citizenry capable of negotiating controversial socioscientific issues (SSI). Perspective taking is critical to SSI implementation as it enables understanding of the diverse cognitive and emotional perspectives of others. Science teacher educators must therefore facilitate teachers' promotion of…

Decision-making on an explicit risk-taking task in preadolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

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Drechsler, R; Rizzo, P; Steinhausen, H-C

2008-01-01

Inappropriate risk-taking and disadvantageous decision-making have been described as major behavioural characteristics of patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However these behaviours are difficult to measure in laboratory contexts and recent studies have yielded inconsistent results which might be related to task characteristics. The present study adopted the Game of Dice Task, a test procedure in which risks are made explicit and the load on working memory is minimal. As a result, preadolescents with ADHD (N = 23) made significantly more risky choices and suffered major losses of money compared to normal controls (N = 24) but only when they played the game a second time. Differences in risk-taking correlated significantly with hyperactivity as rated by parents and with inhibitory control, but not with working memory performance. The results are discussed in the context of current theories of ADHD.

The linguistically aware teacher and the teacher-aware linguist.

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McCartney, Elspeth; Ellis, Sue

2013-07-01

This review evaluates issues of teacher linguistic knowledge relating to their work with children with speech, language and communication difficulties (SLCD). Information is from Ellis and McCartney [(2011a). Applied linguistics and primary school teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press], a state-of-the-art text deriving from a British Association of Applied Linguistics/Cambridge University Press expert seminar series that details: linguistic research underpinning primary school curricula and pedagogy; the form of linguistic knowledge useful for teachers supporting children with SLCD in partnership with speech and language therapists; and how and when teachers acquire and learn to apply such knowledge. Critical analysis of the options presented for teacher learning indicate that policy enjoinders now include linguistic application as an expected part of teachers' professional knowledge, for all children including those with SLCD, but there is a large unmet learning need. It is concluded that there is a role for clinical linguists to disseminate useable knowledge to teachers in an accessible format. Ways of achieving this are considered.

Language and Language-in-Education Planning in Multilingual India: A Minoritized Language Perspective

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Groff, Cynthia

2017-01-01

This article explores India's linguistic diversity from a language policy perspective, emphasizing policies relevant to linguistic minorities. The Kumaun region of Utterakhand provides a local, minority-language perspective on national-level language planning. A look at the complexity of counting India's languages reveals language planning…

Perspective Taking and Empathic Concern in Adolescence: Gender Differences in Developmental Changes

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Van der Graaff, Jolien; Branje, Susan; De Wied, Minet; Hawk, Skyler; Van Lier, Pol; Meeus, Wim

2014-01-01

Empathy is an important social skill and is believed to play an essential role in moral development (Hoffman, 2000). In the present longitudinal study, the authors investigated adolescents' development of perspective taking and empathic concern from age 13 to 18 years (mean age at Wave 1 = 13 years, SD = 0.46) and examined its association with…

Classification of visual and linguistic tasks using eye-movement features.

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Coco, Moreno I; Keller, Frank

2014-03-07

The role of the task has received special attention in visual-cognition research because it can provide causal explanations of goal-directed eye-movement responses. The dependency between visual attention and task suggests that eye movements can be used to classify the task being performed. A recent study by Greene, Liu, and Wolfe (2012), however, fails to achieve accurate classification of visual tasks based on eye-movement features. In the present study, we hypothesize that tasks can be successfully classified when they differ with respect to the involvement of other cognitive domains, such as language processing. We extract the eye-movement features used by Greene et al. as well as additional features from the data of three different tasks: visual search, object naming, and scene description. First, we demonstrated that eye-movement responses make it possible to characterize the goals of these tasks. Then, we trained three different types of classifiers and predicted the task participants performed with an accuracy well above chance (a maximum of 88% for visual search). An analysis of the relative importance of features for classification accuracy reveals that just one feature, i.e., initiation time, is sufficient for above-chance performance (a maximum of 79% accuracy in object naming). Crucially, this feature is independent of task duration, which differs systematically across the three tasks we investigated. Overall, the best task classification performance was obtained with a set of seven features that included both spatial information (e.g., entropy of attention allocation) and temporal components (e.g., total fixation on objects) of the eye-movement record. This result confirms the task-dependent allocation of visual attention and extends previous work by showing that task classification is possible when tasks differ in the cognitive processes involved (purely visual tasks such as search vs. communicative tasks such as scene description).

Perspective-Taking and Empathy Mitigate Family-of-Origin Risk for Electronic Aggression Perpetration Toward Dating Partners: A Brief Report.

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Ramos, Michelle C; Miller, Kelly F; Moss, Ilana K; Margolin, Gayla

2017-12-01

Electronic dating aggression among emerging adults is prevalent and has adverse consequences, yet factors that increase or decrease the risk for perpetrating electronic aggression against a romantic partner are understudied. This investigation advances the literature in two novel ways. First, based on intergenerational transmission of violence theories, we tested the link between family-of-origin aggression (FOA) history and electronic aggression toward romantic partners, using a diverse sample of emerging adults. Second, we examined whether perspective-taking and empathy each moderated the association between FOA and electronic dating aggression and explored the moderating role of gender. Participants included 359 undergraduate students (50% female; 42% White) from an urban university. Results indicated that greater FOA during childhood was associated with perpetrating greater electronic aggression against romantic partners. Furthermore, significant interactions indicated that perspective-taking and empathy separately buffered these associations. Youth from aggressive families did not exhibit increased electronic dating perpetration when they had higher perspective-taking or empathy. Males were especially sensitive to the protective effects of perspective-taking. Findings highlight potential points of intervention (i.e., cognitive and affective empathy training) to decrease electronic aggression in romantic relationships and break intergenerational cycles of aggression.

Persian Linguistic and Rhetorical Pathology in The Telegram Communication Network

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M. Hedayat Mofidi

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Today, the mobile phone, with its wide range of features, is an inexpensive, easy to use, and most modern communication tool. One of the special applications of smart phones is providing spaces and facilities such as SMS services, virtual networks, and interactive groups that link people and groups from different linguistic and cultural background. In this paper, we tried to study the messages of the Farsi-speaking users of the Telegram communication network from the linguistics perspective. In this regard, the linguistics and rhetorical correspondence of short messages in Persian language was studied by the content-analysis method. The statistical population consisted of 150 messages which contained 327 sentences. These messages were randomly selected from 5 different groups. Persian language used in cyberspace differs from standard Persian language. The first step in correcting communication language errors in cyberspace is to inform the users about the type of errors.

Using Amazon Mechanical Turk for linguistic research

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Schnoebelen Tyler

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service makes linguistic experimentation quick, easy, and inexpensive. However, researchers have not been certain about its reliability. In a series of experiments, this paper compares data collected via Mechanical Turk to those obtained using more traditional methods One set of experiments measured the predictability of words in sentences using the Cloze sentence completion task (Taylor, 1953. The correlation between traditional and Turk Cloze scores is high (rho=0.823 and both data sets perform similarly against alternative measures of contextual predictability. Five other experiments on the semantic relatedness of verbs and phrasal verbs (how much is “lift” part of “lift up” manipulate the presence of the sentence context and the composition of the experimental list. The results indicate that Turk data correlate well between experiments and with data from traditional methods (rho up to 0.9, and they show high inter-rater consistency and agreement. We conclude that Mechanical Turk is a reliable source of data for complex linguistic tasks in heavy use by psycholinguists. The paper provides suggestions for best practices in data collection and scrubbing.

Linguistic Polyphony

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nølke, Henning

on the Scandinavian variant of polyphony, ScaPoLine. ScaPoLine is a formal linguistic theory whose main purpose is to specify the instructions conveyed through linguistic form for the creation of polyphonic meaning. The theoretical introduction is followed by polyphonic analyses of linguistic phenomena...

Linguistic Skills and Speaking Fluency in a Second Language

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De Jong, Nivja H.; Steinel, Margarita P.; Florijn, Arjen; Schoonen, Rob; Hulstijn, Jan H.

2013-01-01

This study investigated how individual differences in linguistic knowledge and processing skills relate to individual differences in speaking fluency. Speakers of Dutch as a second language ("N" = 179) performed eight speaking tasks, from which several measures of fluency were derived such as measures for pausing, repairing, and speed…

BEASTling: A software tool for linguistic phylogenetics using BEAST 2

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Forkel, Robert; Kaiping, Gereon A.; Atkinson, Quentin D.

2017-01-01

We present a new open source software tool called BEASTling, designed to simplify the preparation of Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of linguistic data using the BEAST 2 platform. BEASTling transforms comparatively short and human-readable configuration files into the XML files used by BEAST to specify analyses. By taking advantage of Creative Commons-licensed data from the Glottolog language catalog, BEASTling allows the user to conveniently filter datasets using names for recognised language families, to impose monophyly constraints so that inferred language trees are backward compatible with Glottolog classifications, or to assign geographic location data to languages for phylogeographic analyses. Support for the emerging cross-linguistic linked data format (CLDF) permits easy incorporation of data published in cross-linguistic linked databases into analyses. BEASTling is intended to make the power of Bayesian analysis more accessible to historical linguists without strong programming backgrounds, in the hopes of encouraging communication and collaboration between those developing computational models of language evolution (who are typically not linguists) and relevant domain experts. PMID:28796784

BEASTling: A software tool for linguistic phylogenetics using BEAST 2.

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Luke Maurits

Full Text Available We present a new open source software tool called BEASTling, designed to simplify the preparation of Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of linguistic data using the BEAST 2 platform. BEASTling transforms comparatively short and human-readable configuration files into the XML files used by BEAST to specify analyses. By taking advantage of Creative Commons-licensed data from the Glottolog language catalog, BEASTling allows the user to conveniently filter datasets using names for recognised language families, to impose monophyly constraints so that inferred language trees are backward compatible with Glottolog classifications, or to assign geographic location data to languages for phylogeographic analyses. Support for the emerging cross-linguistic linked data format (CLDF permits easy incorporation of data published in cross-linguistic linked databases into analyses. BEASTling is intended to make the power of Bayesian analysis more accessible to historical linguists without strong programming backgrounds, in the hopes of encouraging communication and collaboration between those developing computational models of language evolution (who are typically not linguists and relevant domain experts.

What’s Easier: Doing What You Want, or Being Told What to Do? Cued versus Voluntary Language and Task Switching

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Gollan, Tamar H.; Kleinman, Daniel; Wierenga, Christina E.

2014-01-01

The current study contrasted cued versus voluntary switching to investigate switching efficiency and possible sharing of control mechanisms across linguistic and non-linguistic domains. Bilinguals switched between naming pictures in Spanish versus English or between reading numbers aloud versus adding their digits, either without or with repetition of stimuli, and with fewer requirements as to when and how much they had to switch relative to previous instantiations of voluntary switching. Without repetition (Experiment 1), voluntary responses were faster than cued responses on both stay and switch trials (especially in the non-linguistic switching task), whereas in previous studies the voluntary advantage was restricted to switch-cost reduction. Similarly, when targets were presented repeatedly (Experiment 2), voluntary responses were faster overall for both linguistic and non-linguistic switching, though here the advantage tended to be larger on switch trials. Experiment 3 confirmed the overall voluntary speed advantage for the read-add task in monolinguals, and revealed a reduction in switch costs only for a different non-linguistic task (size-parity judgments). These results reveal greater overall advantages for voluntary over cued switching than previously reported, but also that the precise manifestation of the voluntary advantage can vary with different tasks. In the linguistic domain, lexical inaccessibility introduces some unique control mechanisms, and repetition may magnify cross-domain overlap in control mechanisms. Finally, under some limited conditions, cost-free switches were found in both linguistic and non-linguistic domains; however, suspension of top-down control may be restricted to language or highly automatic tasks. PMID:25313951

Visuospatial transformations and personality: evidence of a relationship between visuospatial perspective taking and self-reported emotional empathy.

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Sulpizio, Valentina; Committeri, Giorgia; Metta, Emilia; Lambrey, Simon; Berthoz, Alain; Galati, Gaspare

2015-07-01

In the visuospatial domain, perspective taking is the ability to imagine how a visual scene appears from an external observer's viewpoint, and can be studied by asking subjects to encode object locations in a visual scene where another individual is present and then detecting their displacement when seeing the scene from the other's viewpoint. In the current study, we explored the relationship between visuospatial perspective taking and self-report measures of the cognitive and emotional components of empathy in young adults. To this aim, we employed a priming paradigm, in which the presence of an avatar allowed to anticipate the next perceived perspective on the visual scene. We found that the emotional dimension of empathy was positively correlated with the behavioral advantage provided by the presence of the avatar, relative to unprimed perspective changes. These data suggest a link between the tendency to vicariously experience the others' emotions and the ability to perform self-other spatial transformations.

Enactment of one-to-many communication may induce self-focused attention that leads to diminished perspective taking: The case of Facebook

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Wen-Bin Chiou

2013-05-01

Full Text Available Social networking sites (SNSs provide users with an efficient interface for distributing information, such as photos or wall posts, to many others simultaneously. We demonstrated experimentally that this type of indiscriminate one-to-many (i.e., monologue communication may induce self-focused attention and thereby impair perspective taking. The present study used multiple paradigms to explore the link between engaging in online one-to-many communication and a decrease in perspective taking. Experiment 1 revealed that Facebookers who published a personal photo to the public or their friends were less likely to adopt another person's visual perspective than were those in the control group. Experiment 2 showed that Facebookers who engaged in indiscriminate one-to-many wall posting were more likely than those in the control group to rely heavily on their own perspectives. A state of self-focus, as measured by greater Stroop interference in naming the color of self-relevant versus neutral words, mediated the detrimental effect of indiscriminate one-to-many communication on cognitive perspective taking. These findings suggest that indiscriminate one-to-many communication on SNSs may promote public self-focus, leading to self-referential processing when making social judgments. Online monologue communication may be more harmful to perspective taking than previously understood.

Taking and Coordinating Perspectives: From Prereflective Interactivity, through Reflective Intersubjectivity, to Metareflective Sociality

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Martin, Jack; Sokol, Bryan W.; Elfers, Theo

2008-01-01

Despite being eclipsed in recent years by simulation theory, theory of mind and accounts of executive functioning, social-relational approaches to perspective taking and coordination based on the ideas of Jean Piaget and George Herbert Mead have never completely disappeared from the literature of developmental psychology. According to the…

Perspective Taking and Decision-Making in Educational Game Play: A Mixed-Methods Study

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Hilliard, Lacey J.; Buckingham, Mary H.; Geldhof, G. John; Gansert, Patricia; Stack, Caroline; Gelgoot, Erin S.; Bers, Marina U.; Lerner, Richard M.

2018-01-01

Video games have the potential to be contexts for moral learning. We investigated whether "Quandary," a video game designed to promote ethical thinking and moral considerations for decision-making, would help promote positive skills such as perspective taking and empathy in adolescents. We examined the effect of playing…

Conceptualizing Multicultural Perspective Taking Skills

Science.gov (United States)

2007-11-01

34 ( Fetterman , 1989, p. 27). This perspective highlights the cognitive aspects of culture at the exclusion of behavior. Kroeber and Parsons (1958... Fetterman , 1989; Kluckhohn, 1951; Ong, 1987). Sociologists have a similar perspective on culture and highlight that it is transmitted, is created, is...knowledge ( Fetterman , 1989). Cognition provides the cultural lens with acuity. In this regard, culture is conceptualized, in part, as a schema (organized

Self-Presentation and the Role of Perspective Taking and Social Motivation in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

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Scheeren, Anke M; Banerjee, Robin; Koot, Hans M; Begeer, Sander

2016-02-01

We compared self-presentation abilities of 132 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to those of 41 typically developing (TD) peers, and examined the potential link with their social motivation and perspective taking. Participants introduced themselves to an interviewer in a baseline condition (without incentive) and a self-promotion condition (with incentive). Children with ASD (6-12 years) were just as likely as or even more likely than TD children to highlight personal characteristics that would increase their chances of obtaining the incentive. Thus, they were strategic in their self-presentation. However, adolescents with ASD (12-19 years) were less strategic than TD adolescents as well as children with ASD. We discuss the role of social motivation and perspective taking in children's self-presentation.

Combining shallow and deep processing for a robust, fast, deep-linguistic dependency parser

OpenAIRE

Schneider, G

2004-01-01

This paper describes Pro3Gres, a fast, robust, broad-coverage parser that delivers deep-linguistic grammatical relation structures as output, which are closer to predicate-argument structures and more informative than pure constituency structures. The parser stays as shallow as is possible for each task, combining shallow and deep-linguistic methods by integrating chunking and by expressing the majority of long-distance dependencies in a context-free way. It combines statistical and rule-base...

Linguistic diversity and English language use in multicultural organizations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lauring, Jakob; Selmer, Jan

2013-01-01

Two great human resource management challenges face organizations in many parts of the world. The workforce is aging leaving fewer young people to take over. At the same time, globalization leads to a pressure for internationalization with great consequences for internal collaboration in many...... organizations. Accordingly, the link between employee age and language use is of increasing importance. In this study, we report on the findings of a survey using responses from 489 members of Danish multicultural organizations. We studied the effect of linguistic diversity on English language communication...... as well as the moderating effect of respondents’ age.Wefound linguistic diversity to have positive associations with the two English language communication variables. We also found age to moderate the relationship between linguistic diversity and perceived use of English language by management. Since...

Social Anxiety and Aggression in Early Adolescents: Examining the Moderating Roles of Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking

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Batanova, Milena D.; Loukas, Alexandra

2011-01-01

Guided by a social information processing perspective, this study examined the unique and interactive contributions of social anxiety and two distinct components of empathy, empathic concern and perspective taking, to subsequent relational and overt aggression in early adolescents. Participants were 485 10- to 14-year old middle school students…

A Fuzzy Linguistic Methodology to Deal With Unbalanced Linguistic Term Sets

OpenAIRE

Herrera, F.; Herrera-Viedma, Enrique; Martinez, L.

2008-01-01

Many real problems dealing with qualitative aspects use linguistic approaches to assess such aspects. In most of these problems, a uniform and symmetrical distribution of the linguistic term sets for linguistic modeling is assumed. However, there exist problems whose assessments need to be represented by means of unbalanced linguistic term sets, i.e., using term sets that are not uniformly and symmetrically distributed. The use of linguistic variables implies processes of computing with words...

"One Task Fits All"? The Roles of Task Complexity, Modality, and Working Memory Capacity in L2 Performance

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Zalbidea, Janire

2017-01-01

The present study explores the independent and interactive effects of task complexity and task modality on linguistic dimensions of second language (L2) performance and investigates how these effects are modulated by individual differences in working memory capacity. Thirty-two intermediate learners of L2 Spanish completed less and more complex…

Taking a Value-Oriented Perspective of Biliterate Families

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Kabuto, Bobbie; Velasco, Patricia

2016-01-01

The focus of this article is on how translanguaging, which is defined as a language practice that transcends formal language boundaries, was used as a linguistic tool and resource for expressing thoughts, emotions, and understandings of and around English and Spanish texts. Focusing on translanguaging as a medium for learning, the authors begin…

Right Lateral Cerebellum Represents Linguistic Predictability.

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Lesage, Elise; Hansen, Peter C; Miall, R Chris

2017-06-28

Mounting evidence indicates that posterolateral portions of the cerebellum (right Crus I/II) contribute to language processing, but the nature of this role remains unclear. Based on a well-supported theory of cerebellar motor function, which ascribes to the cerebellum a role in short-term prediction through internal modeling, we hypothesize that right cerebellar Crus I/II supports prediction of upcoming sentence content. We tested this hypothesis using event-related fMRI in male and female human subjects by manipulating the predictability of written sentences. Our design controlled for motor planning and execution, as well as for linguistic features and working memory load; it also allowed separation of the prediction interval from the presentation of the final sentence item. In addition, three further fMRI tasks captured semantic, phonological, and orthographic processing to shed light on the nature of the information processed. As hypothesized, activity in right posterolateral cerebellum correlated with the predictability of the upcoming target word. This cerebellar region also responded to prediction error during the outcome of the trial. Further, this region was engaged in phonological, but not semantic or orthographic, processing. This is the first imaging study to demonstrate a right cerebellar contribution in language comprehension independently from motor, cognitive, and linguistic confounds. These results complement our work using other methodologies showing cerebellar engagement in linguistic prediction and suggest that internal modeling of phonological representations aids language production and comprehension. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The cerebellum is traditionally seen as a motor structure that allows for smooth movement by predicting upcoming signals. However, the cerebellum is also consistently implicated in nonmotor functions such as language and working memory. Using fMRI, we identify a cerebellar area that is active when words are predicted and

Analyzing Perspective Taking Skills of 5- to 6-Year-Old Preschool Children in Relation to Their Self-Perception and Gender

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Gülay Ogelman, Hülya; Seçer, Zarife; Önder, Alev

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study is to analyze the ability of preschool children to take on a perspective, based on their self-perception and gender. A relational survey method was used, with 124 children between ages 5 and 6 participating--74 girls (59.7%) and 50 boys (40.3%). The Self-Perception Scale for Children and Perspective-Taking Test was…

When predictions take control: The effect of task predictions on task switching performance

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Wout eDuthoo

2012-08-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we aimed to investigate the role of self-generated predictions in the flexible control of behaviour. Therefore, we ran a task switching experiment in which participants were asked to try to predict the upcoming task in three conditions varying in switch rate (30%, 50% and 70%. Irrespective of their predictions, the colour of the target indicated which task participants had to perform. In line with previous studies (Mayr, 2006; Monsell & Mizon, 2006, the switch cost was attenuated as the switch rate increased. Importantly, a clear task repetition bias was found in all conditions, yet the task repetition prediction rate dropped from 78% over 66% to 49% with increasing switch probability in the three conditions. Irrespective of condition, the switch cost was strongly reduced in expectation of a task alternation compared to the cost of an unexpected task alternation following repetition predictions. Hence, our data suggest that the reduction in the switch cost with increasing switch probability is caused by a diminished expectancy for the task to repeat. Taken together, this paper highlights the importance of predictions in the flexible control of behaviour, and suggests a crucial role for task repetition expectancy in the context-sensitive adjusting of task switching performance.

On the importance of a rich embodiment in the grounding of concepts: perspectives from embodied cognitive science and computational linguistics.

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Thill, Serge; Padó, Sebastian; Ziemke, Tom

2014-07-01

The recent trend in cognitive robotics experiments on language learning, symbol grounding, and related issues necessarily entails a reduction of sensorimotor aspects from those provided by a human body to those that can be realized in machines, limiting robotic models of symbol grounding in this respect. Here, we argue that there is a need for modeling work in this domain to explicitly take into account the richer human embodiment even for concrete concepts that prima facie relate merely to simple actions, and illustrate this using distributional methods from computational linguistics which allow us to investigate grounding of concepts based on their actual usage. We also argue that these techniques have applications in theories and models of grounding, particularly in machine implementations thereof. Similarly, considering the grounding of concepts in human terms may be of benefit to future work in computational linguistics, in particular in going beyond "grounding" concepts in the textual modality alone. Overall, we highlight the overall potential for a mutually beneficial relationship between the two fields. Copyright © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals with psychopathy: imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy

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Jean eDecety

2013-09-01

Full Text Available While it is well established that individuals with psychopathy have a marked deficit in affective arousal, emotional empathy, and caring for the well-being of others, the extent to which perspective taking can elicit an emotional response has not yet been studied despite its potential application in rehabilitation. In healthy individuals, affective perspective taking has proven to be an effective means to elicit empathy and concern for others. To examine neural responses in individuals who vary in psychopathy during affective perspective taking, 121 incarcerated males, classified as high (n = 37; Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, PCL-R ≥ 30, intermediate (n = 44; PCL-R between 21-29, and low (n = 40; PCL-R ≤ 20 psychopaths, were scanned while viewing stimuli depicting bodily injuries and adopting an imagine-self and an imagine-other perspective. During the imagine-self perspective, participants with high psychopathy showed a typical response within the network involved in empathy for pain, including the anterior insula, anterior midcingulate cortex, supplementary motor area, inferior frontal gyrus, somatosensory cortex, and right amygdala. Conversely, during the imagine-other perspective, psychopaths exhibited an atypical pattern of brain activation and effective connectivity seeded in the anterior insula and amygdala with the orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The response in the amygdala and insula was inversely correlated with PCL-R factor 1 (interpersonal/affective during the imagine-other perspective. In high psychopaths, scores on PCL-R Factor 1 predicted the neural response in ventral striatum when imagining others in pain. These patterns of brain activation and effective connectivity associated with differential perspective-taking provide a better understanding of empathy dysfunction in psychopathy, and have the potential to inform intervention programs for this complex clinical problem.

Grammatical Gender Trouble and Hungarian Gender[lessness]. Part I: Comparative Linguistic Gender

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Louise O. Vasvári

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to define linguistic gender[lessness], with particular reference in the latter part of the article to Hungarian, and to show why it is a feminist issue. I will discuss the [socio]linguistics of linguistic gender in three types of languages, those, like German and the Romance languages, among others, which possess grammatical gender, languages such as English, with only pronominal gender (sometimes misnamed ‘natural gender’, and languages such as Hungarian and other Finno-Ugric languages, as well as many other languages in the world, such as Turkish and Chinese, which have no linguistic or pronomial gender, but, like all languages, can make lexical gender distinctions. While in a narrow linguistic sense linguistic gender can be said to be afunctional, this does not take into account the ideological ramifications in gendered languages of the “leakage” between gender and sex[ism], while at the same time so-called genderless languages can express societal sexist assumptions linguistically through, for example, lexical gender, semantic derogation of women, and naming conventions. Thus, both languages with overt grammatical gender and those with gender-related asymmetries of a more covert nature show language to represent traditional cultural expectations, illustrating that linguistic gender is a feminist issue.

Describing linguistic information in a behavioural framework: Possible or not?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

De Cooman, G. [Universiteit Gent, Zwijnaarde (Belgium)

1996-12-31

The paper discusses important aspects of the representation of linguistic information, using imprecise probabilities with a behavioural interpretation. We define linguistic information as the information conveyed by statements in natural language, but restrict ourselves to simple affirmative statements of the type {open_quote}subject-is-predicate{close_quote}. Taking the behavioural stance, as it is described in detail, we investigate whether it is possible to give a mathematical model for this kind of information. In particular, we evaluate Zadeli`s suggestion that we should use possibility measures to this end. We come to tile conclusion that, generally speaking, possibility measures are possibility models for linguistic information, but that more work should be done in order to evaluate the suggestion that they may be the only ones.

Associations between speech understanding and auditory and visual tests of verbal working memory: effects of linguistic complexity, task, age, and hearing loss.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Sherri L; Pichora-Fuller, M Kathleen

2015-01-01

Listeners with hearing loss commonly report having difficulty understanding speech, particularly in noisy environments. Their difficulties could be due to auditory and cognitive processing problems. Performance on speech-in-noise tests has been correlated with reading working memory span (RWMS), a measure often chosen to avoid the effects of hearing loss. If the goal is to assess the cognitive consequences of listeners' auditory processing abilities, however, then listening working memory span (LWMS) could be a more informative measure. Some studies have examined the effects of different degrees and types of masking on working memory, but less is known about the demands placed on working memory depending on the linguistic complexity of the target speech or the task used to measure speech understanding in listeners with hearing loss. Compared to RWMS, LWMS measures using different speech targets and maskers may provide a more ecologically valid approach. To examine the contributions of RWMS and LWMS to speech understanding, we administered two working memory measures (a traditional RWMS measure and a new LWMS measure), and a battery of tests varying in the linguistic complexity of the speech materials, the presence of babble masking, and the task. Participants were a group of younger listeners with normal hearing and two groups of older listeners with hearing loss (n = 24 per group). There was a significant group difference and a wider range in performance on LWMS than on RWMS. There was a significant correlation between both working memory measures only for the oldest listeners with hearing loss. Notably, there were only few significant correlations among the working memory and speech understanding measures. These findings suggest that working memory measures reflect individual differences that are distinct from those tapped by these measures of speech understanding.

Associations between speech understanding and auditory and visual tests of verbal working memory: effects of linguistic complexity, task, age, and hearing loss

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Sherri L.; Pichora-Fuller, M. Kathleen

2015-01-01

Listeners with hearing loss commonly report having difficulty understanding speech, particularly in noisy environments. Their difficulties could be due to auditory and cognitive processing problems. Performance on speech-in-noise tests has been correlated with reading working memory span (RWMS), a measure often chosen to avoid the effects of hearing loss. If the goal is to assess the cognitive consequences of listeners’ auditory processing abilities, however, then listening working memory span (LWMS) could be a more informative measure. Some studies have examined the effects of different degrees and types of masking on working memory, but less is known about the demands placed on working memory depending on the linguistic complexity of the target speech or the task used to measure speech understanding in listeners with hearing loss. Compared to RWMS, LWMS measures using different speech targets and maskers may provide a more ecologically valid approach. To examine the contributions of RWMS and LWMS to speech understanding, we administered two working memory measures (a traditional RWMS measure and a new LWMS measure), and a battery of tests varying in the linguistic complexity of the speech materials, the presence of babble masking, and the task. Participants were a group of younger listeners with normal hearing and two groups of older listeners with hearing loss (n = 24 per group). There was a significant group difference and a wider range in performance on LWMS than on RWMS. There was a significant correlation between both working memory measures only for the oldest listeners with hearing loss. Notably, there were only few significant correlations among the working memory and speech understanding measures. These findings suggest that working memory measures reflect individual differences that are distinct from those tapped by these measures of speech understanding. PMID:26441769

Preserving Musicality through Pictures: A Linguistic Pathway to Conventional Notation

Science.gov (United States)

Nordquist, Alice L.

2016-01-01

The natural musicality so often present in children's singing can begin to fade as the focus of a lesson shifts to the process of reading and writing conventional notation symbols. Approaching the study of music from a linguistic perspective preserves the pace and flow that is inherent in spoken language and song. SongWorks teaching practices…

A Cross-linguistic Perspective on Questions in German and French Adult Second Language Acquisition

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Matthias Bonnesen

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Several studies have been conducted to try and understand and explain the morphological and syntactic aspects of adult second language acquisition (SLA. Two prominent hypotheses that have been put forward concerning late L2 speakers' knowledge of inflectional morphology and of related functional categories and their feature values are the Impaired Representation Hypothesis (IRH and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH.The cross-linguistic comparison of the acquisition of questions in German and French provided in this study offers a new perspective to differences and similarities between first language acquisition (FLA and adult SLA. Comparing a Germanic and a Romance L2, differing not only in their overall linguistic properties (such as i. e. OV/VO, V2, clitics, but explicitly in the formation and regularities of questions, we present striking similarities in adult SLA, and irrespective of the first and the second languages and of instructed versus non-instructed learning. The investigation of the adult SLA of morphological and structural aspects of questions in French and German strengthens the assumption that the acquisition of morphology and syntax is connected in French and German FLA but is disentangled in adult SLA. Our data reveal variability of question syntax, and with the syntactic position of the verb in particular. Instead of discovering the correct position of the verb at a certain stage of acquisition which can be accounted for by parameter setting in FLA, the adult learners gradually approach the target word order but still exhibit a great deal of variation after several years of exposure to the L2.The findings provided here contradict the predictions of the MSIH (Prévost/White 2000; Ionin/Wexler 2002; among others, for not only morphological features, but syntactic finiteness of finiteness are problematic in adult SLA, and that the Impairment Representation Hypothesis (IRH (Beck 1998; Eubank 1993/1994; among others

Organizational Adaptative Behavior: The Complex Perspective of Individuals-Tasks Interaction

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Wu, Jiang; Sun, Duoyong; Hu, Bin; Zhang, Yu

Organizations with different organizational structures have different organizational behaviors when responding environmental changes. In this paper, we use a computational model to examine organizational adaptation on four dimensions: Agility, Robustness, Resilience, and Survivability. We analyze the dynamics of organizational adaptation by a simulation study from a complex perspective of the interaction between tasks and individuals in a sales enterprise. The simulation studies in different scenarios show that more flexible communication between employees and less hierarchy level with the suitable centralization can improve organizational adaptation.

Can taking the perspective of an expert debias human decisions? The case for risky and delayed gains.

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Michal eBialek

2014-09-01

Full Text Available In several reported previously studies, participants increased their normative correctness after being instructed to think hypothetically, specifically taking the perspective of an expert or researcher (Beatty & Thompson 2012, Morsanyi & Handley 2012. The goal of this paper was to investigate how this manipulation affects risky or delayed payoffs. In two studies, participants (n=193 were tested online (in exchange for money using the adjusting procedure. Individuals produced certain/immediate equivalents for risky/delayed gains. Participants in the control group were solving the problem from their own perspective, while participants in the experimental group were asked to imagine what would a reliable and honest advisor advise them to do.Study 1 showed that when taking the perspective of an expert, participants in experimental group became more risk aversive compared to participants in the control group. Additionally, their certain equivalents diverged from the Expected Value (EV to a greater extent. The results obtained from the experimental group in Study 2 suggest that participants became less impulsive, which means they tried to inhibit their preferences. This favors the explanation, which suggests that the perspective shift forced individuals to override their intuitions with the social norms. Individuals expect to be blamed for impatience or risk taking thus expected an expert to advise them to be more patient and risk aversive.

Can taking the perspective of an expert debias human decisions? The case of risky and delayed gains.

Science.gov (United States)

Białek, Michał; Sawicki, Przemysław

2014-01-01

In several previously reported studies, participants increased their normative correctness after being instructed to think hypothetically, specifically taking the perspective of an expert or researcher (Beatty and Thompson, 2012; Morsanyi and Handley, 2012). The goal of this paper was to investigate how this manipulation affects risky or delayed payoffs. In two studies, participants (n = 193) were tested online (in exchange for money) using the adjusting procedure. Individuals produced certain/immediate equivalents for risky/delayed gains. Participants in the control group were solving the problem from their own perspective, while participants in the experimental group were asked to imagine "what would a reliable and honest advisor advise them to do." Study 1 showed that when taking the perspective of an expert, participants in experimental group became more risk aversive compared to participants in the control group. Additionally, their certain equivalents diverged from the expected value to a greater extent. The results obtained from the experimental group in Study 2 suggest that participants became less impulsive, which means they tried to inhibit their preferences. This favors the explanation, which suggests that the perspective shift forced individuals to override their intuitions with the social norms. Individuals expect to be blamed for impatience or risk taking thus expected an expert to advise them to be more patient and risk aversive.

Relationships between Spontaneous Note-Taking, Self-Reported Strategies and Comprehension When Reading Multiple Texts in Different Task Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Hagen, Åste M.; Braasch, Jason L. G.; Bråten, Ivar

2014-01-01

This study investigated note-taking during multiple-text reading across two different task conditions in relation to comprehension performance and self-reports of strategy use. Forty-four undergraduates read multiple texts about climate change to write an argument or a summary. Analysis of students' spontaneous note-taking during reading…

Students’ Information Literacy: A Perspective from Mathematical Literacy

OpenAIRE

Ariyadi Wijaya

2016-01-01

Information literacy is mostly seen from the perspective of library science or information and communication technology. Taking another point of view, this study was aimed to explore students’ information literacy from the perspective of mathematical literacy. For this purpose, a test addressing Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) mathematics tasks were administered to 381 eighth and ninth graders from nine junior high schools in the Province of Yogyakarta. PISA mathematics ...

Interface of Linguistic and Visual Information During Audience Design.

Science.gov (United States)

Fukumura, Kumiko

2015-08-01

Evidence suggests that speakers can take account of the addressee's needs when referring. However, what representations drive the speaker's audience design has been less clear. This study aims to go beyond previous studies by investigating the interplay between the visual and linguistic context during audience design. Speakers repeated subordinate descriptions (e.g., firefighter) given in the prior linguistic context less and used basic-level descriptions (e.g., man) more when the addressee did not hear the linguistic context than when s/he did. But crucially, this effect happened only when the referent lacked the visual attributes associated with the expressions (e.g., the referent was in plain clothes rather than in a firefighter uniform), so there was no other contextual cue available for the identification of the referent. This suggests that speakers flexibly use different contextual cues to help their addressee map the referring expression onto the intended referent. In addition, speakers used fewer pronouns when the addressee did not hear the linguistic antecedent than when s/he did. This suggests that although speakers may be egocentric during anaphoric reference (Fukumura & Van Gompel, 2012), they can cooperatively avoid pronouns when the linguistic antecedents were not shared with their addressee during initial reference. © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Evoking and Measuring Identification with Narrative Characters - A Linguistic Cues Framework.

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van Krieken, Kobie; Hoeken, Hans; Sanders, José

2017-01-01

Current research on identification with narrative characters poses two problems. First, although identification is seen as a dynamic process of which the intensity varies during reading, it is usually measured by means of post-reading questionnaires containing self-report items. Second, it is not clear which linguistic characteristics evoke identification. The present paper proposes that an interdisciplinary framework allows for more precise manipulations and measurements of identification, which will ultimately advance our understanding of the antecedents and nature of this process. The central hypothesis of our Linguistic Cues Framework is that identification with a narrative character is a multidimensional experience for which different dimensions are evoked by different linguistic cues. The first part of the paper presents a literature review on identification, resulting in a renewed conceptualization of identification which distinguishes six dimensions: a spatiotemporal, a perceptual, a cognitive, a moral, an emotional, and an embodied dimension. The second part argues that each of these dimensions is influenced by specific linguistic cues which represent various aspects of the narrative character's perspective. The proposed relations between linguistic cues and identification dimensions are specified in six propositions. The third part discusses what psychological and neurocognitive methods enable the measurement of the various identification dimensions in order to test the propositions. By establishing explicit connections between the linguistic characteristics of narratives and readers' physical, psychological, and neurocognitive responses to narratives, this paper develops a research agenda for future empirical research on identification with narrative characters.

Speaking under pressure: low linguistic complexity is linked to high physiological and emotional stress reactivity.

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Saslow, Laura R; McCoy, Shannon; van der Löwe, Ilmo; Cosley, Brandon; Vartan, Arbi; Oveis, Christopher; Keltner, Dacher; Moskowitz, Judith T; Epel, Elissa S

2014-03-01

What can a speech reveal about someone's state? We tested the idea that greater stress reactivity would relate to lower linguistic cognitive complexity while speaking. In Study 1, we tested whether heart rate and emotional stress reactivity to a stressful discussion would relate to lower linguistic complexity. In Studies 2 and 3, we tested whether a greater cortisol response to a standardized stressful task including a speech (Trier Social Stress Test) would be linked to speaking with less linguistic complexity during the task. We found evidence that measures of stress responsivity (emotional and physiological) and chronic stress are tied to variability in the cognitive complexity of speech. Taken together, these results provide evidence that our individual experiences of stress or "stress signatures"-how our body and mind react to stress both in the moment and over the longer term-are linked to how complex our speech under stress. Copyright © 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Complexity Perspectives on Language, Communication and Society

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Bastardas-Boada, Albert

2013-01-01

The “language-communication-society” triangle defies traditional scientific approaches. Rather, it is a phenomenon that calls for an integration of complex, transdisciplinary perspectives, if we are to make any progress in understanding how it works. The highly diverse agents in play are not merely cognitive and/or cultural, but also emotional and behavioural in their specificity. Indeed, the effort may require building a theoretical and methodological body of knowledge that can effectively convey the characteristic properties of phenomena in human terms. New complexity approaches allow us to rethink our limited and mechanistic images of human societies and create more appropriate emo-cognitive dynamic and holistic models. We have to enter into dialogue with the complexity views coming out of other more ‘material’ sciences, but we also need to take steps in the linguistic and psycho-sociological fields towards creating perspectives and concepts better fitted to human characteristics. Our understanding...

Linguistic transfer in bilingual children with specific language impairment.

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Verhoeven, Ludo; Steenge, Judit; van Balkom, Hans

2012-01-01

In the literature so far the limited research on specific language impairment (SLI) in bilingual children has concentrated on linguistic skills in the first language (L1) and/or the second language (L2) without paying attention to the relations between the two types of skills and to the issue of linguistic transfer. To examine the first and second language proficiency of 75 Turkish-Dutch bilingual children with SLI in the age range between 7 and 11 years living in the Netherlands. A multidimensional perspective on language proficiency was taken in order to assess children's Turkish and Dutch proficiency levels, whereas equivalent tests were used in order to determine language dominance. A second aim was to find out to what extent the children's proficiency in L2 can be predicted from their L1 proficiency, while taking into account their general cognitive abilities. The children's performance on a battery of equivalent language ability tests in Turkish and Dutch was compared at three age levels. By means of analyses of variance, it was explored to what extent the factors of language and grade level as well as their interactions were significant. Bivariate correlations and partial correlations with age level partialled out were computed to examine the relationships between L1 and L2 proficiency levels. Moreover, regression analysis was conducted to find out to what extent the variance in general L2 proficiency levels could be explained by children's L1 proficiency, short-term memory and non-verbal intelligence. Repeated measures analyses showed that the children had generally higher scores on L1 as compared with L2 and that with progression of age the children's scores in L1 and L2 improved. Medium to high correlations were found between phonological memory, phonological awareness, grammatical skills and story comprehension in the two languages. Regression analysis revealed that children's L2 proficiency levels could be explained by their proficiency levels in L1

Links Among Cognitive Empathy, Theory of Mind, and Affective Perspective Taking by Young Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Bensalah, Leïla; Caillies, Stéphanie; Anduze, Marion

2016-01-01

The authors investigated the development of the affective, cognitive, and behavioral components of empathy in preschoolers, specifically examining how cognitive empathy is linked to theory of mind and affective perspective taking. Participants were 158 children aged 4-6 years. They listened to narratives and then answered questions about the protagonists' emotions. The affective component was probed with the question, "How do you feel seeing the little girl/boy?"; the cognitive component with the question, "Why do you feel [emotion shared with the character]?"; and the behavioral one with the question, "What would you do if you were next to the little boy/girl [experiencing an emotional scenario]?" Results revealed a developmental sequence in the self-focused attribution of cognitive empathy, and a trend toward a developmental sequence for behavioral empathy, which underwent a slight linear increase between 4 and 6 years old. Affective empathy remained stable. More interestingly, they showed that cognitive empathy is linked to both theory of mind and affective perspective taking.

When do humans spontaneously adopt another's visuospatial perspective?

Science.gov (United States)

Freundlieb, Martin; Kovács, Ágnes M; Sebanz, Natalie

2016-03-01

Perspective-taking is a key component of social interactions. However, there is an ongoing controversy about whether, when and how instances of spontaneous visuospatial perspective-taking occur. The aim of this study was to investigate the underlying factors as well as boundary conditions that characterize the spontaneous adoption of another person's visuospatial perspective (VSP) during social interactions. We used a novel paradigm, in which a participant and a confederate performed a simple stimulus-response (SR) compatibility task sitting at a 90° angle to each other. In this set-up, participants would show a spatial compatibility effect only if they adopted the confederate's VSP. In a series of 5 experiments we found that participants reliably adopted the VSP of the confederate, as long as he was perceived as an intentionally acting agent. Our results therefore show that humans are able to spontaneously adopt the differing VSP of another agent and that there is a tight link between perspective-taking and performing actions together. The results suggest that spontaneous VSP-taking can effectively facilitate and speed up spatial alignment processes accruing from dynamic interactions in multiagent environments. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Endogenous Oxytocin Release Eliminates In-Group Bias in Monetary Transfers With Perspective-Taking

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Elizabeth T. Terris

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Oxytocin (OT has been shown to facilitate trust, empathy and other prosocial behaviors. At the same time, there is evidence that exogenous OT infusion may not result in prosocial behaviors in all contexts, increasing in-group biases in a number of studies. The current investigation seeks to resolve this inconsistency by examining if endogenous OT release is associated with in-group bias. We studied a large group of participants (N = 399 in existing groups and randomly formed groups. Participants provided two blood samples to measure the change in OT after a group salience task and then made computer-mediated monetary transfer decisions to in-group and out-group members. Our results show that participants with an increase in endogenous OT showed no bias in monetary offers in the ultimatum game (UG to out-group members compared to in-groups. There was also no bias in accepting UG offers, though in-group bias persisted for a unilateral monetary transfer. Our analysis shows that the strength of identification with one’s group diminished the effects that an increase in OT had on reducing bias, but bias only recurred when group identification reached 87% of its maximum value. Our results indicate that the endogenous OT system appears to reduce in-group bias in some contexts, particularly those that require perspective-taking.

Endogenous Oxytocin Release Eliminates In-Group Bias in Monetary Transfers With Perspective-Taking.

Science.gov (United States)

Terris, Elizabeth T; Beavin, Laura E; Barraza, Jorge A; Schloss, Jeff; Zak, Paul J

2018-01-01

Oxytocin (OT) has been shown to facilitate trust, empathy and other prosocial behaviors. At the same time, there is evidence that exogenous OT infusion may not result in prosocial behaviors in all contexts, increasing in-group biases in a number of studies. The current investigation seeks to resolve this inconsistency by examining if endogenous OT release is associated with in-group bias. We studied a large group of participants ( N = 399) in existing groups and randomly formed groups. Participants provided two blood samples to measure the change in OT after a group salience task and then made computer-mediated monetary transfer decisions to in-group and out-group members. Our results show that participants with an increase in endogenous OT showed no bias in monetary offers in the ultimatum game (UG) to out-group members compared to in-groups. There was also no bias in accepting UG offers, though in-group bias persisted for a unilateral monetary transfer. Our analysis shows that the strength of identification with one's group diminished the effects that an increase in OT had on reducing bias, but bias only recurred when group identification reached 87% of its maximum value. Our results indicate that the endogenous OT system appears to reduce in-group bias in some contexts, particularly those that require perspective-taking.

Linguistic and Cognitive Effects of Bilingualism with Regional Minority Languages: A Study of Sardinian–Italian Adult Speakers

Science.gov (United States)

Garraffa, Maria; Obregon, Mateo; Sorace, Antonella

2017-01-01

This study explores the effects of bilingualism in Sardinian as a regional minority language on the linguistic competence in Italian as the dominant language and on non-linguistic cognitive abilities. Sardinian/Italian adult speakers and monolingual Italian speakers living in the same geographical area of Sardinia were compared in two kinds of tasks: (a) verbal and non-verbal cognitive tasks targeting working memory and attentional control and (b) tasks of linguistic abilities in Italian focused on the comprehension of sentences differing in grammatical complexity. Although no difference was found between bilinguals and monolinguals in the cognitive control of attention, bilinguals performed better on working memory tasks. Bilinguals with lower formal education were found to be faster at comprehension of one type of complex sentence (center embedded object relative clauses). In contrast, bilinguals and monolinguals with higher education showed comparable slower processing of complex sentences. These results show that the effects of bilingualism are modulated by type of language experience and education background: positive effects of active bilingualism on the dominant language are visible in bilinguals with lower education, whereas the effects of higher literacy in Italian obliterate those of active bilingualism in bilinguals and monolinguals with higher education. PMID:29163288

The Linguistic Affiliation Constraint and Phoneme Recognition in Diglossic Arabic

Science.gov (United States)

Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor; Levin, Iris; Hende, Nareman; Ziv, Margalit

2011-01-01

This study tested the effect of the phoneme's linguistic affiliation (Standard Arabic versus Spoken Arabic) on phoneme recognition among five-year-old Arabic native speaking kindergarteners (N=60). Using a picture selection task of words beginning with the same phoneme, and through careful manipulation of the phonological properties of target…

Deep learning evaluation using deep linguistic processing

OpenAIRE

Kuhnle, Alexander; Copestake, Ann

2017-01-01

We discuss problems with the standard approaches to evaluation for tasks like visual question answering, and argue that artificial data can be used to address these as a complement to current practice. We demonstrate that with the help of existing 'deep' linguistic processing technology we are able to create challenging abstract datasets, which enable us to investigate the language understanding abilities of multimodal deep learning models in detail, as compared to a single performance value ...

On the Diversity of Linguistic Data and the Integration of the Language Sciences

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Roberta D’Alessandro

2017-11-01

Full Text Available An integrated science of language is usually advocated as a step forward for linguistic research. In this paper, we maintain that integration of this sort is premature, and cannot take place before we identify a common object of study. We advocate instead a science of language that is inherently multi-faceted, and takes into account the different viewpoints as well as the different definitions of the object of study. We also advocate the use of different data sources, which, if non-contradictory, can provide more solid evidence for linguistic analysis. Last, we argue that generative grammar is an important tile in the puzzle.

Enhancing international medical graduates' communication: the contribution of applied linguistics.

Science.gov (United States)

Dahm, Maria R; Yates, Lynda; Ogden, Kathryn; Rooney, Kim; Sheldon, Brooke

2015-08-01

International medical graduates (IMGs) make up one-third of the Australian medical workforce. Those from non-English-language backgrounds can face cultural and communication barriers, yet linguistic support is variable and medical educators are often required to provide feedback on both medical and communication issues. However, some communication difficulties may be very specific to the experiences of IMGs as second language users. This interdisciplinary study combines perspectives from applied linguistics experts and clinical educators to address IMGs' difficulties from multiple dimensions and to enhance feedback quality. Five video-recorded patient encounters with five IMGs were collected at Launceston General Hospital. Three clinical educators gave quantitative and qualitative feedback using the Rating Instrument for Clinical Consulting Skills, and two applied linguistics experts analysed the data for language, pragmatic and communication difficulties. The comparison of the educators' language-related feedback with linguistic analyses of the same interactions facilitated the exploration of differences in the difficulties identified by the two expert groups. Although the clinical educators were able to use their tacit intuitive understanding of communication issues to identify IMG difficulties, they less frequently addressed the underlying issues or suggested specific remedies in their feedback. This pilot study illustrates the effectiveness of interdisciplinary collaboration in highlighting the specific discourse features contributing to IMG communication difficulties and thus assists educators in deconstructing their intuitive knowledge. The authors suggest that linguistic insights can therefore improve communications training by assisting educators to provide more targeted feedback. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Politics in Schooling: Linguistic Challenge to African Philosophy

African Journals Online (AJOL)

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The Original project of the politics in schooling is becoming a critical challenge to African ... Such a linguistic challenge ends in .... xviii to take this principle in the logic course. I think this by itself is restriction and .... empires that dominated the world scene in recent centuries. ... a psychological penetration of colonialism.

The relationship between Theory of Mind and Relational Frame Theory: Convergence of perspective-taking measures

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hendriks, A.L.; Barnes-Holmes, Y.; McEnteggart, C.; Mey, H.R.A. De; Witteman, C.L.M.; Janssen, G.T.L.; Egger, J.I.M.

2016-01-01

Objective: Perspective-taking difficulties have been demonstrated in autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, among other clinical presentations, and are traditionally examined from a Theory of Mind (ToM) point of view. Relational Frame Theory (RFT) offers a behavioural and contextual

How Perspective-Taking Helps and Hinders Group-Based Guilt as a Function of Group Identification

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zebel, Sven; Doosje, Bertjan; Spears, Russell

In two studies we hypothesized that outgroup perspective-taking promotes group-based guilt among weakly identified perpetrator group members, but hinders it among higher identifiers. In Study 1, native Dutch participants (N = 153) confronted their group's past mistreatment of outgroups, while

Pragmatic expressions in cross-linguistic perspective

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Maryann Overstreet

2012-09-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on some pragmatic expressions that are characteristic of informal spoken English, their possible equivalents in some other languages, and their use by EFL learners from different backgrounds. These expressions, called general extenders (e.g. and stuff, or something, are shown to be different from discourse markers and to exhibit variation in form, function and distribution across varieties of English, as well as in other languages. In EFL contexts, students are reported to use fewer pragmatic expressions and a smaller range of possible forms. They also tend to favor expressions more often associated with writing and formal speaking (e.g. and so on, include literal translation equivalents from their first language that are not used in English (e.g. and, and, and, or used only in restricted contexts (e.g. or so, and often seem not to realize that some forms may carry negative connotations (e.g. and blah, blah, blah. The possibility of fostering better pragmatic awareness among EFL students is discussed in terms of an explicit cross-linguistic focus on the forms and functions of pragmatic expressions.

Omission in Possible: the Forensic Linguistics Autopsy of the Court Interpreting Praxis

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Taufiq Jati Murtaya

2018-01-01

Full Text Available To have a proportional rendition, an interpreter has to deal with the dilemmatic decision of technique employment. In fact, in a case of court interpreting there are a bunch of oppressive moments, since its impact is exclusively stroke on the hearings’ route; and generally in the law enforcement constitution. For that fundamental circumstance, this article links the perspectives to achieve the goal how the court interpreting should be held from the notion of one of the interpreting strategies, namely the omission and the conceptual perspective of forensic linguistics. Here, this article reviews some points of view from both sides; and scrutinizes what lies beneath so the findings are beneficial for the court interpreting practices and studies. This article articulates that the omissions are taken for the sake of the prosecution flawless systemic process. Thus, the interpreter should be aware of the nuance of the two main conditions of the witness examination session i.e. the examination-in-chief and the cross-examination. More importantly, the forensic linguistics considers this as the effort in a working condition of the court interpreter to keep the most proportional judicial atmosphere in balance in terms of symmetrical and asymmetrical relation. This article then proposes the significance of having more knowledge on forensic linguistics for a court interpreter in doing and learning court interpreting.

Compact vertical take-off and landing aerial vehicle for monitoring tasks in dense urban areas

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Sergii FIRSOV

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Using of aerial vehicles with onboard sensory and broadcasting apparatus for monitoring a variety of objects and processes in inaccessible places of the city. A hardware and software package for the task solving is proposed in the article. Presented vehicle is a vertical take-off and landing airplane of tail-sitter type.

Models and Methods of Aggregating Linguistic Information in Multi-criteria Hierarchical Quality Assessment Systems

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Azarnova, T. V.; Titova, I. A.; Barkalov, S. A.

2018-03-01

The article presents an algorithm for obtaining an integral assessment of the quality of an organization from the perspective of customers, based on the method of aggregating linguistic information on a multilevel hierarchical system of quality assessment. The algorithm is of a constructive nature, it provides not only the possibility of obtaining an integral evaluation, but also the development of a quality improvement strategy based on the method of linguistic decomposition, which forms the minimum set of areas of work with clients whose quality change will allow obtaining the required level of integrated quality assessment.

Speech perception at the interface of neurobiology and linguistics.

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Poeppel, David; Idsardi, William J; van Wassenhove, Virginie

2008-03-12

Speech perception consists of a set of computations that take continuously varying acoustic waveforms as input and generate discrete representations that make contact with the lexical representations stored in long-term memory as output. Because the perceptual objects that are recognized by the speech perception enter into subsequent linguistic computation, the format that is used for lexical representation and processing fundamentally constrains the speech perceptual processes. Consequently, theories of speech perception must, at some level, be tightly linked to theories of lexical representation. Minimally, speech perception must yield representations that smoothly and rapidly interface with stored lexical items. Adopting the perspective of Marr, we argue and provide neurobiological and psychophysical evidence for the following research programme. First, at the implementational level, speech perception is a multi-time resolution process, with perceptual analyses occurring concurrently on at least two time scales (approx. 20-80 ms, approx. 150-300 ms), commensurate with (sub)segmental and syllabic analyses, respectively. Second, at the algorithmic level, we suggest that perception proceeds on the basis of internal forward models, or uses an 'analysis-by-synthesis' approach. Third, at the computational level (in the sense of Marr), the theory of lexical representation that we adopt is principally informed by phonological research and assumes that words are represented in the mental lexicon in terms of sequences of discrete segments composed of distinctive features. One important goal of the research programme is to develop linking hypotheses between putative neurobiological primitives (e.g. temporal primitives) and those primitives derived from linguistic inquiry, to arrive ultimately at a biologically sensible and theoretically satisfying model of representation and computation in speech.

It’s all a matter of perspective : Viewing first-person video modeling examples promotes learning of an assembly task

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fiorella, Logan; van Gog, T.; Hoogerheide, V.; Mayer, Richard

2017-01-01

The present study tests whether presenting video modeling examples from the learner’s (first-person) perspective promotes learning of an assembly task, compared to presenting video examples from a third-person perspective. Across 2 experiments conducted in different labs, university students viewed

It's All a Matter of Perspective: Viewing First-Person Video Modeling Examples Promotes Learning of an Assembly Task

Science.gov (United States)

Fiorella, Logan; van Gog, Tamara; Hoogerheide, Vincent; Mayer, Richard E.

2017-01-01

The present study tests whether presenting video modeling examples from the learner's (first-person) perspective promotes learning of an assembly task, compared to presenting video examples from a third-person perspective. Across 2 experiments conducted in different labs, university students viewed a video showing how to assemble an 8-component…

Hesitant fuzzy linguistic multicriteria decision-making method based on generalized prioritized aggregation operator.

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Wu, Jia-ting; Wang, Jian-qiang; Wang, Jing; Zhang, Hong-yu; Chen, Xiao-hong

2014-01-01

Based on linguistic term sets and hesitant fuzzy sets, the concept of hesitant fuzzy linguistic sets was introduced. The focus of this paper is the multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) problems in which the criteria are in different priority levels and the criteria values take the form of hesitant fuzzy linguistic numbers (HFLNs). A new approach to solving these problems is proposed, which is based on the generalized prioritized aggregation operator of HFLNs. Firstly, the new operations and comparison method for HFLNs are provided and some linguistic scale functions are applied. Subsequently, two prioritized aggregation operators and a generalized prioritized aggregation operator of HFLNs are developed and applied to MCDM problems. Finally, an illustrative example is given to illustrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method, which are then compared to the existing approach.

Gender Concepts and Gender Stereotypes in a Linguistic Picture of the World

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Yuliia Petrivna Maslova

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The article comprehends the notion of a concept and a stereotypes in the linguistic picture of the world through the prism of a gender perspective. The linguistic and philosophical interpretations of the above concepts by well-known scholars are described, special attention is paid to their scientific research. The observation of the city of the world is based on the understanding of the following: the name of the city of culture, the historical city of culture, the special culture of the world, the city of culture, the information picture of the world. The gender stereotypes, concepts and the conceptosphere in interaction with the language are analyzed in detail.

Self-Presentation and the Role of Perspective Taking and Social Motivation in Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Scheeren, Anke M; Banerjee, Robin; Koot, Hans M; Begeer, Sander

We compared self-presentation abilities of 132 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to those of 41 typically developing (TD) peers, and examined the potential link with their social motivation and perspective taking. Participants introduced themselves to an interviewer in a

Self-presentation and the role of perspective taking and social motivation in autism spectrum disorder

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Scheeren, A.M.; Banerjee, Robin; Koot, Hans M.; Begeer, Sander

2016-01-01

We compared self-presentation abilities of 132 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to those of 41 typically developing (TD) peers, and examined the potential link with their social motivation and perspective taking. Participants introduced themselves to an interviewer in a

A New Look at Risk-Taking: Using a Translational Approach to Examine Risk-Taking Behavior on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

OpenAIRE

DeMartini, Kelly S.; Leeman, Robert F.; Corbin, William R.; Toll, Benjamin A.; Fucito, Lisa M.; Lejuez, Carl W.; O’Malley, Stephanie S.

2014-01-01

Models of risk-taking typically assume that the variability of outcomes is important in the likelihood of making a risky choice. In an animal model of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), within-session variability, or the coefficient of variability (CV), was found to be a novel predictor of behavior (Jentsch et al., 2010). Human studies have not investigated how BART performance differs when using the CV versus a traditional BART measure (e.g. number of pumps). This study sought to determi...

Sentence processing and grammaticality in functional linguistics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Mads

finding from research on sentence processing that sentences are processed incrementally. Empirical methods for establishing grammaticality status are discussed and applied in relation to non-WH extraction phenomena in Danish. In Chapter 2, I discuss the use of the notions of grammaticality......The dissertation presents a functional linguistic model of grammaticality and investigates methods for applying this notion in empirical work. The use of the notion of grammaticality in generative grammar has been criticized by functionalists (Harder, 1996; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999), but attempts...... grammaticality. It is concluded that the intuitions of linguists should in principle be considered hypotheses of grammaticality, and that such hypotheses need to be tested with independent data. Such data can for example take the form of corpus data or acceptability judgment experiments. It is furthermore argued...

Evoking and Measuring Identification with Narrative Characters – A Linguistic Cues Framework

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van Krieken, Kobie; Hoeken, Hans; Sanders, José

2017-01-01

Current research on identification with narrative characters poses two problems. First, although identification is seen as a dynamic process of which the intensity varies during reading, it is usually measured by means of post-reading questionnaires containing self-report items. Second, it is not clear which linguistic characteristics evoke identification. The present paper proposes that an interdisciplinary framework allows for more precise manipulations and measurements of identification, which will ultimately advance our understanding of the antecedents and nature of this process. The central hypothesis of our Linguistic Cues Framework is that identification with a narrative character is a multidimensional experience for which different dimensions are evoked by different linguistic cues. The first part of the paper presents a literature review on identification, resulting in a renewed conceptualization of identification which distinguishes six dimensions: a spatiotemporal, a perceptual, a cognitive, a moral, an emotional, and an embodied dimension. The second part argues that each of these dimensions is influenced by specific linguistic cues which represent various aspects of the narrative character’s perspective. The proposed relations between linguistic cues and identification dimensions are specified in six propositions. The third part discusses what psychological and neurocognitive methods enable the measurement of the various identification dimensions in order to test the propositions. By establishing explicit connections between the linguistic characteristics of narratives and readers’ physical, psychological, and neurocognitive responses to narratives, this paper develops a research agenda for future empirical research on identification with narrative characters. PMID:28751875

Unraveling the link between managerial risk-taking and innovation: The mediating role of a risk-taking climate

OpenAIRE

García-Granero , Ana; Llopis , Óscar; Fernández-Mesa , Anabel; Alegre , Joaquín

2015-01-01

International audience; Scholars have proposed that taking risks in organizations is important for explaining innovation performance. Scholars traditionally have analyzed this link from two unconnected perspectives. From a managerial perspective, entrepreneurial orientation and leadership theories have been used to explain the positive relation between risk taking and innovation. From an employee perspective, creativity theory suggests that a risk-taking climate helps to explain innovative be...

Linguistic Characteristics of Individuals with High Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome

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Seung, Hye Kyeung

2007-01-01

This study examined the linguistic characteristics of high functioning individuals with autism and Asperger syndrome. Each group consisted of 10 participants who were matched on sex, chronological age, and intelligence scores. Participants generated a narrative after watching a brief video segment of the Social Attribution Task video. Each…

Linguistic Structure Prediction

CERN Document Server

Smith, Noah A

2011-01-01

A major part of natural language processing now depends on the use of text data to build linguistic analyzers. We consider statistical, computational approaches to modeling linguistic structure. We seek to unify across many approaches and many kinds of linguistic structures. Assuming a basic understanding of natural language processing and/or machine learning, we seek to bridge the gap between the two fields. Approaches to decoding (i.e., carrying out linguistic structure prediction) and supervised and unsupervised learning of models that predict discrete structures as outputs are the focus. W

Deception Detection: The Relationship of Levels of Trust and Perspective Taking in Real-Time Online and Offline Communication Environments.

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Friend, Catherine; Fox Hamilton, Nicola

2016-09-01

Where humans have been found to detect lies or deception only at the rate of chance in offline face-to-face communication (F2F), computer-mediated communication (CMC) online can elicit higher rates of trust and sharing of personal information than F2F. How do levels of trust and empathetic personality traits like perspective taking (PT) relate to deception detection in real-time CMC compared to F2F? A between groups correlational design (N = 40) demonstrated that, through a paired deceptive conversation task with confederates, levels of participant trust could predict accurate detection online but not offline. Second, participant PT abilities could not predict accurate detection in either conversation medium. Finally, this study found that conversation medium also had no effect on deception detection. This study finds support for the effects of the Truth Bias and online disinhibition in deception, and further implications in law enforcement are discussed.

Empathy and perspective-taking: Examination and comparison of strategies to reduce weight stigma

OpenAIRE

Gloor Jamie Lee; Puhl Rebecca M.

2016-01-01

Considerable evidence indicates that individuals with obesity are vulnerable to stigma and discrimination. However comparably less research has examined strategies to reduce weight bias and the existing evidence is mixed. To help clarify these findings and incorporate prejudice reduction interventions that have been successfully applied to other stigmatized groups (i.e. empathy induction and perspective taking) we experimentally tested and compared 4 different brief stigma reduction intervent...

Influence of schooling on language abilities of adults without linguistic disorders

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Ellen Cristina Siqueira Soares

Full Text Available CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: In order to properly assess language, sociodemographic variables that can influence the linguistic performance of individuals with or without linguistic disorders need to be taken into account. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of schooling and age on the results from the Montreal Toulouse (Modified MT Beta-86 language assessment test among individuals without linguistic disorders. DESIGN AND SETTING: Cross-sectional study carried out between March 2006 and August 2007 in the Speech, Language and Hearing Pathology Department of Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp, São Paulo, Brazil. METHODS: Eighty volunteers were selected. Schooling was stratified into three bands: A (1-4 years, B (5-8 years and C (nine years and over. The age range was from 17 to 80 years. All the subjects underwent the Montreal Toulouse (Modified MT Beta-86 language assessment protocol. RESULTS: Statistically significant differences were found in relation to schooling levels, in the tasks of oral comprehension, reading, graphical comprehension, naming, lexical availability, dictation, graphical naming of actions and number reading. Statistically significant age-related differences in dictation and lexical availability tasks were observed. CONCLUSIONS: The Montreal Toulouse (Modified MT Beta-86 test seems to be sensitive to variations in schooling and age. These variables should be taken into account when this test is used for assessing patients with brain damage.

Influence of schooling on language abilities of adults without linguistic disorders.

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Soares, Ellen Cristina Siqueira; Ortiz, Karin Zazo

2009-01-01

In order to properly assess language, sociodemographic variables that can influence the linguistic performance of individuals with or without linguistic disorders need to be taken into account. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of schooling and age on the results from the Montreal Toulouse (Modified MT Beta-86) language assessment test among individuals without linguistic disorders. Cross-sectional study carried out between March 2006 and August 2007 in the Speech, Language and Hearing Pathology Department of Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp), São Paulo, Brazil. Eighty volunteers were selected. Schooling was stratified into three bands: A (1-4 years), B (5-8 years) and C (nine years and over). The age range was from 17 to 80 years. All the subjects underwent the Montreal Toulouse (Modified MT Beta-86) language assessment protocol. Statistically significant differences were found in relation to schooling levels, in the tasks of oral comprehension, reading, graphical comprehension, naming, lexical availability, dictation, graphical naming of actions and number reading. Statistically significant age-related differences in dictation and lexical availability tasks were observed. The Montreal Toulouse (Modified MT Beta-86) test seems to be sensitive to variations in schooling and age. These variables should be taken into account when this test is used for assessing patients with brain damage.

Language Problems in Applied Linguistics: Limiting the Scope

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Kadarisman, A. Effendi

2014-01-01

This article critically discusses the paradigmatic shift in applied linguistics, resulting in a claim that countless real-world language problems fall within its scope, but in reality they weaken the discipline and make it lack a focus. Then it takes a closer look at the nature of these language problems, and picks out, for analysis, real examples…

Psychological Subject in News Headlines of University Websites in Indonesia: An Applied Linguistics Perspective

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Kasno Pamungkas

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Many researches on linguistics either traditional or functional linguistics have been conducted in both pure linguistics and applied one. Included into the applied one, this research aims to describe Psychological Subject (PS in the news headlines of university websites in Indonesia beside the meta description that influences the reader to click the website. The method used in this research is descriptive analysis by using data from the news headlines of 5 (five university websites in Indonesia. The results of this research show that the elements of PS in the news headlines are the name or identity of universities, the elements of university, the activities conducted in the universities, and the other parties which conduct activities in or together with the universities. These PSs become significant since they are important factors of headlines of the news which increase the accesability of the university websites. In order to improve the accessability of the university websites, the appropriate PS should be selected to fill the headlines of the news.

Multi-word Lexical Units in English and Slovak Linguistics Terminology

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Магдалена Била

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The research issue discussed in the paper falls within pragmatics, lexicographic and translation studies. It is part of the research grant project entitled “Virtual interactive English-Slovak bilingual encyclopedic linguistics dictionary”. One of the key tasks is to deal with the linguistics term as a concept. This presupposes understanding not only the surface structure but also the deep structure of the term. In preparing the inventory of the prospective dictionary, conceptualization has to take place and defining and translating of the term has to be done accordingly. The ongoing research has shown that one of the most problematic terms is “multi-word lexical unit” (in Slovak “viacslovné pomenovanie”. The problem lies in the different conceptualization of the terms in the two languages. Straightforwardly, in Slovak, the term implies examples that in English would be mostly considered compounds (Ološtiak, Ivanová 2015; in other words word-formation is the case here. In English, the term is more heterogeneous and encompasses categories like collocation, phrasal verb, idioms, speech formulas (on the term, see Sonomura 1996, situation bound utterances (on the term, see Kecskes 2010, and paremiological expressions (Moon 2015. In these categories, pragmatics rather than word-formation and syntax is the case (Erman and Warren 2000; Gibbs Jr. 2002, Kecskes 2014. The paper offers the analysis of the deep structure of the term in question, explores the role of figurativeness, exemplifies the differences, proposes the translation equivalents, and justifies the different nature of the seemingly corresponding terms, often making an impression of being a calque.

Perspective taking as a means to overcome motivational barriers in negotiations: when putting oneself into the opponent's shoes helps to walk toward agreements.

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Trötschel, Roman; Hüffmeier, Joachim; Loschelder, David D; Schwartz, Katja; Gollwitzer, Peter M

2011-10-01

Previous negotiation research predominantly focused on psychological factors that lead to suboptimal compromises as opposed to integrative agreements. Few studies systematically analyzed factors that impact the emergence of hurtful partial impasses (i.e., nonagreements on part of the issues). The present research investigates negotiators' egoistic motivation as a determinant for the emergence of partial impasses. In addition, the authors seek to demonstrate that perspective taking serves as a powerful tool to avoid impasses and to overcome egoistic impediments. Specifically, it was predicted that within an integrative context perspective-takers succeed to exchange concessions on low- versus high-preference issues (i.e., logroll), thereby increasing their individual profits without inflicting hurtful losses upon their counterparts. Three studies were conducted to test these predictions. Study 1 reveals that whereas negotiators' egoistic motivation increases the risk of partial impasses, perspective taking alleviates this risk. Study 2 demonstrates that this beneficial effect of a perspective-taking mindset is limited to integrative negotiations and does not emerge in a distributive context, in which negotiators are constrained to achieve selfish goals by inflicting hurtful losses on their counterparts. Study 3 confirms the assumption that in an integrative context egoistic perspective-takers overcome the risk of impasses by means of logrolling. The findings of the present studies are discussed with respect to their contribution to research on negotiations, social motivation, and perspective taking. 2011 APA, all rights reserved

The effect of linguistic devices in information presentation messages on comprehension and recall

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tietze, M.I.; Winterboer, A.; Moore, J.D.

2009-01-01

In this paper we examine the effect of linguistic devices on recall and comprehension in information presentation using both recall and eye-tracking data. In addition, the results were validated via an experiment using Amazon's Mechanical Turk micro-task environment.

UNITS OF MEASUREMENT: ORAL TRADITION, TRANSLATION STUDIES AND CORPUS LINGUISTICS

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John ZEMKE

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The study of the world’s verbal arts offers an opportunity to consider ways that computational analysis and modeling of narratives may lead to new understandings of how they are constructed, their dynamics and relationships. Similarly, as corpus linguistics operations must define metrics, it offers an occasion to review basic interpretive concepts such as “units of analysis, context, and genre." My essay begins with an admittedly cursory overview from a novice perspective of what capabilities corpus linguistics currently possesses for the analysis and modeling of narratives. Consideration is given to the epistemological issue in the social sciences with the positivistic prescription or empiricist description of units of analysis and the potential pitfalls or advantages corpus linguistics encounters in searching for adequate equivalent terms. This review leads naturally to reflection on the crucial determinative action of context on meaning and the extent to which current computational interfaces are able to account for and integrate into global analysis of linguistic and performance dimensions such as performer, intonation, gesture, diction, idioms and figurative language, setting, audience, time, and occasion. As a tentative conclusion from this review, it can be stated that artificial intelligence for modeling narratives or devising narrative algorithms must develop capacities to account for performance dimensions in order to fulfill their analytical potential.

Taking the Scientist's Perspective - The Nonfiction Narrative Engages Episodic Memory to Enhance Students' Understanding of Scientists and Their Practices

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Larison, Karen D.

2018-03-01

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013) mandates that schools provide students an understanding of the skills and knowledge that scientists use to engage in scientific practices. In this article, I argue that one of the best ways to accomplish this goal is to have students take the perspective of the scientist by reading nonfiction narratives written by scientists and science writers. I explore the anthropological and neurological evidence that suggests that perspective-taking is an essential component in the learning process. It has been shown that by around age 4, the human child begins to be able to take the perspective of others—a process that neuroscientists have shown engages episodic memory, a memory type that some neurocognitive scientists believe is central in organizing human cognition. Neuroscientists have shown that the brain regions in which episodic memory resides undergo pronounced anatomical changes during adolescence, suggesting that perspective-taking assumes an even greater role in cognition during adolescence and young adulthood. Moreover, I argue that the practice of science itself is narrative in nature. With each new observation and experiment, the scientist is acting to reveal an emerging story. It is the story-like nature of science that motivates the scientist to push onward with new experiments and new observations. It is also the story-like nature of the practice of science that can potentially engage the student. The classroom studies that I review here confirm the power of the narrative in increasing students' understanding of science.

Taking the Scientist's Perspective. The Nonfiction Narrative Engages Episodic Memory to Enhance Students' Understanding of Scientists and Their Practices

Science.gov (United States)

Larison, Karen D.

2018-03-01

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013) mandates that schools provide students an understanding of the skills and knowledge that scientists use to engage in scientific practices. In this article, I argue that one of the best ways to accomplish this goal is to have students take the perspective of the scientist by reading nonfiction narratives written by scientists and science writers. I explore the anthropological and neurological evidence that suggests that perspective-taking is an essential component in the learning process. It has been shown that by around age 4, the human child begins to be able to take the perspective of others—a process that neuroscientists have shown engages episodic memory, a memory type that some neurocognitive scientists believe is central in organizing human cognition. Neuroscientists have shown that the brain regions in which episodic memory resides undergo pronounced anatomical changes during adolescence, suggesting that perspective-taking assumes an even greater role in cognition during adolescence and young adulthood. Moreover, I argue that the practice of science itself is narrative in nature. With each new observation and experiment, the scientist is acting to reveal an emerging story. It is the story-like nature of science that motivates the scientist to push onward with new experiments and new observations. It is also the story-like nature of the practice of science that can potentially engage the student. The classroom studies that I review here confirm the power of the narrative in increasing students' understanding of science.

Relationships between reward sensitivity, risk-taking and family history of alcoholism during an interactive competitive fMRI task.

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Haley L Yarosh

Full Text Available Individuals with a positive family history for alcoholism (FHP have shown differences from family-history-negative (FHN individuals in the neural correlates of reward processing. FHP, compared to FHN individuals, demonstrate relatively diminished ventral striatal activation during anticipation of monetary rewards, and the degree of ventral striatal activation shows an inverse correlation with specific impulsivity measures in alcohol-dependent individuals. Rewards in socially interactive contexts relate importantly to addictive propensities, yet have not been examined with respect to how their neural underpinnings relate to impulsivity-related measures. Here we describe impulsivity measures in FHN and FHP individuals as they relate to a socially interactive functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI task.Forty FHP and 29 FHN subjects without histories of Axis-I disorders completed a socially interactive Domino task during functional magnetic resonance imaging and completed self-report and behavioral impulsivity-related assessments.FHP compared to FHN individuals showed higher scores (p = .004 on one impulsivity-related factor relating to both compulsivity (Padua Inventory and reward/punishment sensitivity (Sensitivity to Punishment/Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis within a reward-related network revealed a correlation between risk-taking (involving another impulsivity-related factor, the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART and right ventral striatum activation under reward >punishment contrast (p<0.05 FWE corrected in the social task.Behavioral risk-taking scores may be more closely associated with neural correlates of reward responsiveness in socially interactive contexts than are FH status or impulsivity-related self-report measures. These findings suggest that risk-taking assessments be examined further in socially interactive settings relevant to addictive behaviors.

[On some indices of the tendency toward exogamy and linguistic transfer].

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Castonguay, C

1980-01-01

The author presents a method for adjusting rates of exogamy and linguistic transfer to take into account differences in the size of cultural groups. The method is applied to 1971 data for Quebec and for the rest of Canada

Self-Presentation and the Role of Perspective Taking and Social Motivation in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Scheeren, Anke M.; Banerjee, Robin; Koot, Hans M.; Begeer, Sander

2016-01-01

We compared self-presentation abilities of 132 children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to those of 41 typically developing (TD) peers, and examined the potential link with their social motivation and perspective taking. Participants introduced themselves to an interviewer in a baseline condition (without incentive) and a…

Collective Memories of WWII Collaboration in Belgium and Attitudes About Amnesty in the Two Main Linguistic Communities

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Laura De Guissmé

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Collaboration with the Nazi occupier during WWII has always been a topic of dissent between French-speakers (FS and Dutch-speakers (DS in Belgium. According to a popular myth coined after the war and often narrated in the media and literature, collaboration was widespread in Flanders, whereas Walloons bravely resisted, although historical reality is much more nuanced. These representations regularly resurface in political debates surrounding the Belgian linguistic conflict. Demands for amnesty addressed by nationalist Flemish parties are a case in point. A questionnaire survey (N = 521; 315 FS and 206 DS showed that collaboration was represented negatively and was morally condemned in both groups. However, DS expressed more Support for Amnesty (SA than FS. This effect of Linguistic Group (LG on SA was mediated by judgment of morality of collaboration, and this mediation was moderated by identification with the LG. Interestingly, SA was predicted by judgments of morality of DS, but not of FS, collaborators, in both groups, as if francophone collaboration was deemed irrelevant. Results suggest that differences between DS and FS in political position taking regarding the granting of amnesty are partly due to differences in representations of collaboration, and to different perspectives towards the same historical representation. The myth is both shared and disputed.

Language-Specific Effects on Story and Procedural Narrative tasks between Korean-speaking and English-speaking Individuals with Aphasia

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Jee Eun Sung

2015-04-01

Results suggested that Korean-speaking individuals with aphasia produced more numbers of different verbs, number of verbs per utterance and higher VNRs than English speakers. Both groups generated more words in story. The significant two-way interactions between the language group and task type suggested that there are task-specific effects on linguistic measures across the groups. The study implied that the linguistic characteristics differentially affected language symptoms of aphasia across the different languages and task types.

Non-linguistic learning in aphasia: Effects of training method and stimulus characteristics

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Vallila-Rohter, Sofia; Kiran, Swathi

2013-01-01

Purpose The purpose of the current study was to explore non-linguistic learning ability in patients with aphasia, examining the impact of stimulus typicality and feedback on success with learning. Method Eighteen patients with aphasia and eight healthy controls participated in this study. All participants completed four computerized, non-linguistic category-learning tasks. We probed learning ability under two methods of instruction: feedback-based (FB) and paired-associate (PA). We also examined the impact of task complexity on learning ability, comparing two stimulus conditions: typical (Typ) and atypical (Atyp). Performance was compared between groups and across conditions. Results Results demonstrated that healthy controls were able to successfully learn categories under all conditions. For our patients with aphasia, two patterns of performance arose. One subgroup of patients was able to maintain learning across task manipulations and conditions. The other subgroup of patients demonstrated a sensitivity to task complexity, learning successfully only in the typical training conditions. Conclusions Results support the hypothesis that impairments of general learning are present in aphasia. Some patients demonstrated the ability to extract category information under complex training conditions, while others learned only under conditions that were simplified and emphasized salient category features. Overall, the typical training condition facilitated learning for all participants. Findings have implications for therapy, which are discussed. PMID:23695914

Linguistics deviation, a tool for teaching English grammar: evidence ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

We have always advocated that those teaching the Use of English must seek out novel ways of teaching the grammar of English to take out the drudgery of the present approach. Here, we proposed using Linguistic deviation as a tool for teaching English grammar. This approach will produce students who are both strong in ...

La perspective fonctionnelle de la phrase dans une perspective historico-philologique du foyer pragois de structuralisme fonctionnel

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Tomáš Hoskovec

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The “functional sentence perspective” and the “topic-focus articulation” (of a sentence designate now two different schools within the Prague linguistic tradition. Yet to Vilém Ma­the­sius, the founder and promoter of the Prague structuralist programme, and the pioneer of functional re­search into sentence meaning, they rather represented two terminological variants. To him, a perspective was a way of bringing together sen­tences differing in their formal grammatical shape, but similar in their textual (utterance function, so that their respective meaning differences could be described by detailed mutual oppositions. The “functional”, i.e. communicative perspective, articulating about what (topic something is conveyed (focus when the sentence is uttered, is only one perspective among others Mathesius took into account. The article explains why, in the classical period of the Prague Linguistic Circle, sentence phonology was consciously kept apart from the study of communicative sentence perspective, and outlines how, in the post-classical periods, that branch of studies ramified into different schools.

A New Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic TOPSIS Method for Group Multi-Criteria Linguistic Decision Making

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Fangling Ren

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Hesitant fuzzy linguistic decision making is a focus point in linguistic decision making, in which the main method is based on preference ordering. This paper develops a new hesitant fuzzy linguistic TOPSIS method for group multi-criteria linguistic decision making; the method is inspired by the TOPSIS method and the preference degree between two hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets (HFLTSs. To this end, we first use the preference degree to define a pseudo-distance between two HFLTSs and analyze its properties. Then we present the positive (optimistic and negative (pessimistic information of each criterion provided by each decision maker and aggregate these by using weights of decision makers to obtain the hesitant fuzzy linguistic positive and negative ideal solutions. On the basis of the proposed pseudo-distance, we finally obtain the positive (negative ideal separation matrix and a new relative closeness degree to rank alternatives. We also design an algorithm based on the provided method to carry out hesitant fuzzy linguistic decision making. An illustrative example shows the elaboration of the proposed method and comparison with the symbolic aggregation-based method, the hesitant fuzzy linguistic TOPSIS method and the hesitant fuzzy linguistic VIKOR method; it seems that the proposed method is a useful and alternative decision-making method.

Linguistic Imperialism

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Phillipson, Robert

2013-01-01

The study of linguistic imperialism focuses on how and why certain languages dominate internationally, and attempts to account for such dominance in a theoretically informed way.......The study of linguistic imperialism focuses on how and why certain languages dominate internationally, and attempts to account for such dominance in a theoretically informed way....

Examining the Role of Psychological Inflexibility, Perspective Taking and Empathic Concern in Generalized Prejudice

OpenAIRE

Levin, Michael E.; Luoma, Jason B.; Vilardaga, Roger; Lillis, Jason; Nobles, Richard; Hayes, Steven C.

2016-01-01

Research to-date on generalized prejudice has focused primarily on personality factors. Further work is needed identifying manipulable variables that directly inform anti-prejudice interventions. The current study examined three such variables: empathic concern, perspective taking, and psychological inflexibility/flexibility with prejudiced thoughts, as a test of the flexible connectedness model. A sample of 604 undergraduate students completed online surveys. A model indicated prejudice meas...

What Is Applied Linguistics?

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James, Carl

1993-01-01

Ostensive and expository definitions of applied linguistics are assessed. It is suggested that the key to a meaningful definition lies in the dual articulation of applied linguistics: it is an interface between linguistics and practicality. Its role as an "expert system" is suggested. (45 references) (Author/LB)

On Functional Potential of Interrogative Structures in Academic Linguistic Discourse

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Sergey Trofimovich Nefedov

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The paper deals with the language of scientific communication in the field of linguistics, namely, with the functional potential of the interrogative structures in the form of direct and embedded questions. From a pragmatic perspective the interrogative structures does not seem to be compatible with the contexts of scientific interaction: scientists do not ask for information, but they offer their own solutions for the problem situations. This is reflected in the extremely low frequency of questions in academic research articles and monographs. Their text frequency works out a little over 2 % of the total number of the text predications and that of direct questions is about 1 %. Therefore, their place in verbalization of scientific knowledge in linguistics is metaphorically characterized in this article as «interrogative prohibition» by analogy with the «prohibitions» of Harald Weinrich who introduced several notions point to rarely used linguistic units: «prohibition of authorization» – das «Ich-Verbot», «narrative prohibition» – das «Erzähl-Verbot»; «prohibition of metaphors»– das «MetaphernVerbot». In its turn, low frequency makes the analyzed structures an effective tool to formulate the discussed problems, enables further argumentation, integrate the current text into overall linguistic discourse, control the development of the argumentation in scientific text and finally to draw the recipient's attention to a crucial or unexpected argument.

Indiana Teachers' Perspectives on Testing Accommodations for Limited English Proficient Students Taking the Graduation Qualifying Exam

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Hetler, Angela Dawn

2010-01-01

This qualitative case study examines teachers' perspectives on testing accommodations for Limited English Proficient (LEP) students taking Indiana's Graduation Qualifying Exam (GQE). The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) states that the purpose of testing accommodations is to "level the playing field" between LEP students and their…

The Study of Critical Eco-Linguistic in Green Discourse: Prospective Eco-Linguistic Analysis

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Tommi Yuniawan

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Eco-linguistic studies are influenced by one of the other interdisciplinary sciences, namely critical discourse analysis. The combination of these two sciences is called critical eco-linguistic studies. Critical eco-linguistic examines the discourse about the environment and various forms of discourse and their ideology which concerns people and the environment. The environmental discourse with all its manifestations (oral text, written text is called green discourse. To that end, critical eco-linguistic dictates the linguistic aspects contained in the green discourse. Utilization of lingual units in green discourse will affect the sense and logic of people involved in the discourse, ie the writers and readers or the speakers and the speakers. What is recorded in their cognition, will affect their attitudes and actions to the environment. If green discourse is constructive, then their attitude and actions to the environment are constructive. Conversely, if green discourse is more destructive and exploitative, then their attitudes and actions towards the environment will also be affected towards destruction and exploitation. For this reason, critical eco-linguistic studies in green discourse deserve to be given space as a form of prospective eco-linguistic analysis.

Second Language Experience Facilitates Statistical Learning of Novel Linguistic Materials.

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Potter, Christine E; Wang, Tianlin; Saffran, Jenny R

2017-04-01

Recent research has begun to explore individual differences in statistical learning, and how those differences may be related to other cognitive abilities, particularly their effects on language learning. In this research, we explored a different type of relationship between language learning and statistical learning: the possibility that learning a new language may also influence statistical learning by changing the regularities to which learners are sensitive. We tested two groups of participants, Mandarin Learners and Naïve Controls, at two time points, 6 months apart. At each time point, participants performed two different statistical learning tasks: an artificial tonal language statistical learning task and a visual statistical learning task. Only the Mandarin-learning group showed significant improvement on the linguistic task, whereas both groups improved equally on the visual task. These results support the view that there are multiple influences on statistical learning. Domain-relevant experiences may affect the regularities that learners can discover when presented with novel stimuli. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Functional MRI examination of empathy for pain in people with schizophrenia reveals abnormal activation related to cognitive perspective-taking but typical activation linked to affective sharing

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Vistoli, Damien; Lavoie, Marie-Audrey; Sutliff, Stephanie; Jackson, Philip L.; Achim, Amélie M.

2017-01-01

Background Schizophrenia is associated with important disturbances in empathy that are related to everyday functioning. Empathy is classically defined as including affective (sharing others’ emotions) and cognitive (taking others’ cognitive perspectives) processes. In healthy individuals, studies on empathy for pain revealed specific brain systems associated with these sets of processes, notably the anterior middle cingulate (aMCC) and anterior insula (AI) for affective sharing and the bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ) for the cognitive processes, but the integrity of these systems in patients with schizophrenia remains uncertain. Methods Patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls performed a pain empathy task while undergoing fMRI scanning. Participants observed pictures of hands in either painful or nonpainful situations and rated the level of pain while imagining either themselves (self) or an unknown person (other) in these situations. Results We included 27 patients with schizophrenia and 21 healthy controls in our analyses. For the pain versus no pain contrast, patients showed overall typical activation patterns in the aMCC and AI, with only a small part of the aMCC showing reduced activation compared with controls. For the other versus self contrast, patients showed an abnormal modulation of activation in the TPJ bilaterally (extending to the posterior superior temporal sulcus, referred to as the TPJ/pSTS). Limitations The design included an unnecessary manipulation of the visual perspective that reduced the number of trials for analysis. The sample size may not account for the heterogeneity of schizophrenia. Conclusion People with schizophrenia showed relatively intact brain activation when observing others’ pain, but showed abnormalities when asked to take the cognitive perspectives of others. PMID:28556774

Linguistic and Psycho-Linguistic Principles of Linguadidactics (theoretical interpretation

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Liudmila Mauzienė

2011-04-01

Full Text Available This article considers linguadidactics being closely related to linguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics and didactics and applies their theoretical statements and regularities in its scientific studies. Methodology refers to linguistics which investigates the language as a teaching subject. Methodology is linked to psychology in two ways. First of all, it is based on psychology as the teaching process is an intellectual psychical act and its regularities are necessary to know. On the other hand, methodology applies rules of pedagogy that predicts ways of learning and development of language skills. The article emphasizes that sustainable work experience and analysis of scientific research show that teaching process is more effective if consistent patterns of linguistics and psychology are appropriately applied.

The Language of Children with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus: Meeting Task Demands and Mastering Syntax.

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Byrne, Karen; And Others

1990-01-01

Linguistic performance of 7 children (mean age=68 months) with spina bifida, hydrocephalus, and average intelligence was evaluated. Subjects dealt with the semantic-pragmatic requirements of linguistically posed problems in an age-appropriate manner. Performance declined as task demands increased but no more than performance of nondisabled…

THE INFLUENCE OF LANDSCAPE AND CLIMATIC CONDITIONS IN THE CARPATHIANS ON THE FORMATION OF LINGUISTIC PERSONALITY

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Alisa Pavliuk

2015-04-01

Full Text Available In the current stage of development of our country globalization and integration processes are becoming more powerful. In these circumstances, the problem of preserving Ukrainian national identity becomes urgent. The article deals with conditions of the linguistic identity as the bearer of the Ukrainian national cultural space. Based on the analysis of current researches of individual language learning the author concludes that linguistic identity is a social phenomenon. The development and establishment of the linguistic personality arises in the process of education, training, communication, i.e. in different activities depending on the nature of the social environment in general and speech environment in particular. However, some scientific research allow to affirm the need to incorporate formative influence of the nature on the linguistic identity. The focus of the article is Carpathian region as an environment in which ethnic culture and language were almost no external influences. An important conclusion from this research is that learning the problem of linguistic identity should take into account forming impact of the environment - both natural and linguistic.

Linguistic, reading, and transcription influences on kindergarten writing in children with English as a second language

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Gina L. Harrison, Keira C. Ogle & Megan Keilty

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The contribution of linguistic, reading, and transcription processes to writing in kindergarten English as a second language (ESL children and their native-English speaking peers (EL1 were examined. ESL and EL1 performed similarly on one of the two measures of phonological awareness (PA and on measures of early reading, spelling, and writing. EL1 outperformed ESL on a pseudoword repetition task and on the English vocabulary and syntactic knowledge tasks. ESL outperformed EL1 on a writing fluency measure. Correlation and hierarchical regression results varied as a function of the writing tasks (procedural or generative and language status. Across language groups, writing tasks that captured children's developing graphophonemic knowledge were associated with a breadth of cognitive, linguistic, and early literacy skills. PA, reading, and transcription skills, but not oral vocabulary and syntactic knowledge contributed the most variance to writing irrespective of language status. The results suggest that parallel component skills and processes underlie ESL and EL1 children's early writing when formal literacy instruction begins in kindergarten even though ESL children are developing English oral and literacy proficiency simultaneously.

World Englishes, English as an International Language and Applied Linguistics

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Kilickaya, Ferit

2009-01-01

The paper discusses World Englishes (WEs) in relation to English as an International Language (EIL) and Applied Linguistics. Taking into account Kachru's interesting but at the same time controversial debate about the status of English in its varieties, which are commonly called WEs and the opposing ideas presented by Quirk, it is aimed to present…

Empirical research on risk taking of listed financial institutions based on the perspective of corporate governance

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Chen Hao

2017-03-01

Full Text Available After the financial crisis in 2008, the risk control of financial institutions has once again become the focus of attention. This paper selects the unbalanced panel data of 44 listed financial institutions in China from 2009 to 2013 for empirical analysis to study the risk taking of China’s listed financial institutions based on the perspective of corporate governance. Then the paper analyzes the effect of corporate governance on the risk taking of listed financial institutions based on the empirical analysis from four aspects. The results indicate that there is a significant negative correlation between the proportion of the largest shareholder’s shareholding and risk taking; a significant positive correlation between the size of the board of supervisors and risk taking; a significant positive correlation between the executive pay and risk taking, and a significant negative correlation between the equity incentive and risk taking. By comparison, the factors related to governance of board of directors have no significant effect on the risk taking of listed financial institutions.

Ascribing beliefs to ingroup and outgroup political candidates: neural correlates of perspective-taking, issue importance and days until the election.

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Falk, Emily B; Spunt, Robert P; Lieberman, Matthew D

2012-03-05

We used the five weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election as a backdrop to examine the ways that the brain processes attitudes and beliefs under different circumstances. We examined individual differences in personal issue importance and trait perspective-taking, as well as the temporal context in which attitude representation took place (i.e. number of days until the election). Finally, we examined the extent to which similar or dissimilar processes were recruited when considering the attitudes of political ingroup and outgroup candidates. Brain regions involved in social cognition and theory of mind, and to a lesser extent the limbic system, were modulated by these factors. Higher issue importance led to greater recruitment of neural regions involved in social cognition, across target perspectives. Higher trait perspective-taking was also associated with greater recruitment of several regions involved in social cognition, but differed depending on target perspective; greater activity was observed in prefrontal regions associated with social cognition when considering the perspective of one's own candidate compared with the opponent, and this effect was amplified closer to the election. Taken together, these results highlight ways in which ability and motivational relevance modulate socio-affective processing of the attitudes of others.

Calculation and word problem-solving skills in primary grades - Impact of cognitive abilities and longitudinal interrelations with task-persistent behaviour.

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Jõgi, Anna-Liisa; Kikas, Eve

2016-06-01

Primary school math skills form a basis for academic success down the road. Different math skills have different antecedents and there is a reason to believe that more complex math tasks require better self-regulation. The study aimed to investigate longitudinal interrelations of calculation and problem-solving skills, and task-persistent behaviour in Grade 1 and Grade 3, and the effect of non-verbal intelligence, linguistic abilities, and executive functioning on math skills and task persistence. Participants were 864 students (52.3% boys) from 33 different schools in Estonia. Students were tested twice - at the end of Grade1 and at the end of Grade 3. Calculation and problem-solving skills, and teacher-rated task-persistent behaviour were measured at both time points. Non-verbal intelligence, linguistic abilities, and executive functioning were measured in Grade 1. Cross-lagged structural equation modelling indicated that calculation skills depend on previous math skills and linguistic abilities, while problem-solving skills require also non-verbal intelligence, executive functioning, and task persistence. Task-persistent behaviour in Grade 3 was predicted by previous problem-solving skills, linguistic abilities, and executive functioning. Gender and mother's educational level were added as covariates. The findings indicate that math skills and self-regulation are strongly related in primary grades and that solving complex tasks requires executive functioning and task persistence from children. Findings support the idea that instructional practices might benefit from supporting self-regulation in order to gain domain-specific, complex skill achievement. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

Level-2 perspectives computed quickly and spontaneously: Evidence from eight- to 9.5-year-old children.

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Elekes, Fruzsina; Varga, Máté; Király, Ildikó

2017-11-01

It has been widely assumed that computing how a scene looks from another perspective (level-2 perspective taking, PT) is an effortful process, as opposed to the automatic capacity of tracking visual access to objects (level-1 PT). Recently, adults have been found to compute both forms of visual perspectives in a quick but context-sensitive way, indicating that the two functions share more features than previously assumed. However, the developmental literature still shows the dissociation between automatic level-1 and effortful level-2 PT. In the current paper, we report an experiment showing that in a minimally social situation, participating in a number verification task with an adult confederate, eight- to 9.5-year-old children demonstrate similar online level-2 PT capacities as adults. Future studies need to address whether online PT shows selectivity in children as well and develop paradigms that are adequate to test preschoolers' online level-2 PT abilities. Statement of Contribution What is already known on this subject? Adults can access how objects appear to others (level-2 perspective) spontaneously and online Online level-1, but not level-2 perspective taking (PT) has been documented in school-aged children What the present study adds? Eight- to 9.5-year-olds performed a number verification task with a confederate who had the same task Children showed similar perspective interference as adults, indicating spontaneous level-2 PT Not only agent-object relations but also object appearances are computed online by eight- to 9.5-year-olds. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

Forensic Linguistics: The Linguistic Analyst and Expert Witness of Language Evidence in Criminal Trials.

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Jordan, Sherilynn Nidever

Forensic linguistics (FL) provides consultation to lawyers through the analysis of language evidence during the pre-trial investigation. Evidence commonly analyzed by linguists in criminal cases includes transcripts of police interviews and language crimes (such as bribery) and anonymous or questioned texts. Forensic linguistic testimony is rarely…

Sample Undergraduate Linguistics Courses. Linguistics in the Undergraduate Curriculum, Appendix 5.

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Linguistic Society of America, Washington, DC.

Thirty-six nontraditional undergraduate courses in linguistics are described. Course topics include: animal communication, bilingualism, sociolinguistics, introductory linguistics, language and formal reasoning, language and human conflict, language and power, language and sex, language and the brain, language planning, language typology and…

AN ANALYSIS OF THE LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY OF CYBERSPACE

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Professor dr. habil., eng. Cezar VASILESCU

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The article proposes an analysis regarding the relationship between Internet usage and language. Moreover, it highlights the impact the latter have on the human interactions depicted by future knowledge societies within the framework of the Information Age. This endeavor explores from a linguistic perspective how cyber users’ native language affects their Internet usage patterns. Hence, its final goal is to determine whether the Internet is expected to remain overbalanced in English usage. In this respect, the relationship between web users’ native language and the language content of the Internet websites they access is also examined based on statistic data.

Linguistics and the digital humanities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Kim Ebensgaard

2014-01-01

Corpus linguistics has been closely intertwined with digital technology since the introduction of university computer mainframes in the 1960s. Making use of both digitized data in the form of the language corpus and computational methods of analysis involving concordancers and statistics software......, corpus linguistics arguably has a place in the digital humanities. Still, it remains obscure and figures only sporadically in the literature on the digital humanities. This article provides an overview of the main principles of corpus linguistics and the role of computer technology in relation to data...... and method and also offers a bird's-eye view of the history of corpus linguistics with a focus on its intimate relationship with digital technology and how digital technology has impacted the very core of corpus linguistics and shaped the identity of the corpus linguist. Ultimately, the article is oriented...

Speeded Verbal Responding in Adults Who Stutter: Are There Deficits in Linguistic Encoding?

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Hennessey, Neville W.; Nang, Charn Y.; Beilby, Janet M.

2008-01-01

Linguistic encoding deficits in people who stutter (PWS, n = 18) were investigated using auditory priming during picture naming and word vs. non-word comparisons during choice and simple verbal reaction time (RT) tasks. During picture naming, PWS did not differ significantly from normally fluent speakers (n = 18) in the magnitude of inhibition of…

Distance : between deixis and perspectivity

OpenAIRE

Meermann, Anastasia; Sonnenhauser, Barbara

2015-01-01

Discussing exemplary applications of the notion of distance in linguistic analysis, this paper shows that very different phenomena are described in terms of this concept. It is argued that in order to overcome the problems arising from this mixup, deixis, distance and perspectivity have to be distinguished and their interrelations need to be described. Thereby, distance emerges as part of a recursive process mediating between situation-bound deixis and discourse-level perspectivity. This is i...

Curriculum-Based Language Assessment With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in the Context of Mathematics.

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Newkirk-Turner, Brandi L; Johnson, Valerie E

2018-04-05

The purpose of this tutorial is to discuss the use of curriculum-based language assessment (CBLA) with students who are English language learners and students who speak nonmainstream varieties of English, such as African American English. The article begins with a discussion of the discourse of mathematics and the role of the speech-language pathologist (SLP), followed by a review of studies that includes those that examined the performance of English language learner and nonmainstream dialect-speaking students on word-based math items. The literature review highlights the linguistic and content biases associated with word-based math problems. Useful strategies that SLPs and educators can incorporate in culturally and linguistically appropriate assessments are discussed. The tutorial ends with a discussion of CBLA as a viable assessment approach to use with culturally and linguistically diverse students. Tests used at national, state, and school levels to assess students' math abilities have associated linguistic bias and content bias often leading to an inaccurate depiction of culturally and linguistically diverse students' math skills. CBLA as an assessment method can be used by school-based SLPs to gather valid and useful information about culturally and linguistically diverse students' language for learning math. By using CBLA, SLPs can help modify curricular tasks in broader contexts in an effort to make math, including high-level math, "accessible and achievable for all" students (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2017).

The evolution of the Faculty of Language from a Chomskyan perspective: bridging linguistics and biology.

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Longa, Victor Manuel

2013-01-01

While language was traditionally considered a purely cultural trait, the advent of Noam Chomsky's Generative Grammar in the second half of the twentieth century dramatically challenged that view. According to that theory, language is an innate feature, part of the human biological endowment. If language is indeed innate, it had to biologically evolve. This review has two main objectives: firstly, it characterizes from a Chomskyan perspective the evolutionary processes by which language could have come into being. Secondly, it proposes a new method for interpreting the archaeological record that radically differs from the usual types of evidence Paleoanthropology has concentrated on when dealing with language evolution: while archaeological remains have usually been regarded from the view of the behavior they could be associated with, the paper will consider archaeological remains from the view of the computational processes and capabilities at work for their production. This computational approach, illustrated with a computational analysis of prehistoric geometric engravings, will be used to challenge the usual generative thinking on language evolution, based on the high specificity of language. The paper argues that the biological machinery of language is neither specifically linguistic nor specifically human, although language itself can still be considered a species-specific innate trait. From such a view, language would be one of the consequences of a slight modification operated on an ancestral architecture shared with vertebrates.

The Role of Task and Listener Characteristics in Second Language Listening

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Brunfaut, Tineke; Révész, Andrea

2015-01-01

This study investigated the relationship between second language (L2) listening and a range of task and listener characteristics. More specifically, for a group of 93 nonnative English speakers, the researchers examined the extent to which linguistic complexity of the listening task input and response, and speed and explicitness of the input, were…

"Voices of the people": linguistic research among Germany's prisoners of war during World War I.

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Kaplan, Judith

2013-01-01

This paper investigates the history of the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission, a body that collected and archived linguistic, ethnographic, and anthropological data from prisoners-of-war (POWs) in Germany during World War I. Recent literature has analyzed the significance of this research for the rise of conservative physical anthropology. Taking a complementary approach, the essay charts new territory in seeking to understand how the prison-camp studies informed philology and linguistics specifically. I argue that recognizing philological commitments of the Phonographic Commission is essential to comprehending the project contextually. My approach reveals that linguists accommodated material and contemporary evidence to older text-based research models, sustaining dynamic theories of language. Through a case study based on the Iranian philologist F. C. Andreas (1846-1930), the paper ultimately argues that linguistics merits greater recognition in the historiography of the behavioral sciences. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Cognitive structure, flexibility, and plasticity in human multitasking-An integrative review of dual-task and task-switching research.

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Koch, Iring; Poljac, Edita; Müller, Hermann; Kiesel, Andrea

2018-06-01

Numerous studies showed decreased performance in situations that require multiple tasks or actions relative to appropriate control conditions. Because humans often engage in such multitasking activities, it is important to understand how multitasking affects performance. In the present article, we argue that research on dual-task interference and sequential task switching has proceeded largely separately using different experimental paradigms and methodology. In our article we aim at organizing this complex set of research in terms of three complementary research perspectives on human multitasking. One perspective refers to structural accounts in terms of cognitive bottlenecks (i.e., critical processing stages). A second perspective refers to cognitive flexibility in terms of the underlying cognitive control processes. A third perspective emphasizes cognitive plasticity in terms of the influence of practice on human multitasking abilities. With our review article we aimed at highlighting the value of an integrative position that goes beyond isolated consideration of a single theoretical research perspective and that broadens the focus from single experimental paradigms (dual task and task switching) to favor instead a view that emphasizes the fundamental similarity of the underlying cognitive mechanisms across multitasking paradigms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Demography-based adaptive network model reproduces the spatial organization of human linguistic groups

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Capitán, José A.; Manrubia, Susanna

2015-12-01

The distribution of human linguistic groups presents a number of interesting and nontrivial patterns. The distributions of the number of speakers per language and the area each group covers follow log-normal distributions, while population and area fulfill an allometric relationship. The topology of networks of spatial contacts between different linguistic groups has been recently characterized, showing atypical properties of the degree distribution and clustering, among others. Human demography, spatial conflicts, and the construction of networks of contacts between linguistic groups are mutually dependent processes. Here we introduce an adaptive network model that takes all of them into account and successfully reproduces, using only four model parameters, not only those features of linguistic groups already described in the literature, but also correlations between demographic and topological properties uncovered in this work. Besides their relevance when modeling and understanding processes related to human biogeography, our adaptive network model admits a number of generalizations that broaden its scope and make it suitable to represent interactions between agents based on population dynamics and competition for space.

Migrant Hispanic Students Speak Up: Linguistic and Cultural Perspectives on Low Academic Attainment

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Schwieter, John W.

2011-01-01

The Hispanic population and their high school dropout rates in the United States have greatly increased over the last several decades. This study investigates linguistic and cultural issues that may have an association with high school abandonment among migrant Hispanic students. Open-ended interview questions were posed to a bilingual education…

Perspectives regarding disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in high-incidence special education programs in the United States

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Jolanta Jonak

2014-02-01

Full Text Available Background The number of culturally and linguistically diverse students in the U.S. is growing, and research shows they are often underassessed, misdiagnosed, and placed into special education unnecessarily. This problem mainly concerns high-incidence, or judgmental, disabilities such as learning disability, emotional disturbance, or mental retardation. Participants and procedure In this study, the author examines how some educators perceive and address culturally and linguistically diverse students in the U.S. A survey developed by the author was used to examine how educators perceive culturally and linguistically diverse student populations and how one Midwestern school system in the United States dealt with culturally and linguistically diverse students’ needs versus expected ideal practices. Results Results indicated that most participants recognized that the issue of disproportionate representation is nationwide, but did not believe that their district shared that problem. Conclusions Participants indicated that best practices were not being followed maximally to reduce and avoid the problem of disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education programs. Difficulties in meeting students’ needs may be related to cultural differences that school personnel are unable to assess or address. Recommendations include suggestions for further studies and for applying the survey in other school systems to increase the understanding and improve their practice in working with culturally and linguistically diverse students.

The Frequency of Rapid Pupil Dilations as a Measure of Linguistic Processing Difficulty.

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Vera Demberg

Full Text Available While it has long been known that the pupil reacts to cognitive load, pupil size has received little attention in cognitive research because of its long latency and the difficulty of separating effects of cognitive load from the light reflex or effects due to eye movements. A novel measure, the Index of Cognitive Activity (ICA, relates cognitive effort to the frequency of small rapid dilations of the pupil. We report here on a total of seven experiments which test whether the ICA reliably indexes linguistically induced cognitive load: three experiments in reading (a manipulation of grammatical gender match/mismatch, an experiment of semantic fit, and an experiment comparing locally ambiguous subject versus object relative clauses, all in German, three dual-task experiments with simultaneous driving and spoken language comprehension (using the same manipulations as in the single-task reading experiments, and a visual world experiment comparing the processing of causal versus concessive discourse markers. These experiments are the first to investigate the effect and time course of the ICA in language processing. All of our experiments support the idea that the ICA indexes linguistic processing difficulty. The effects of our linguistic manipulations on the ICA are consistent for reading and auditory presentation. Furthermore, our experiments show that the ICA allows for usage within a multi-task paradigm. Its robustness with respect to eye movements means that it is a valid measure of processing difficulty for usage within the visual world paradigm, which will allow researchers to assess both visual attention and processing difficulty at the same time, using an eye-tracker. We argue that the ICA is indicative of activity in the locus caeruleus area of the brain stem, which has recently also been linked to P600 effects observed in psycholinguistic EEG experiments.

Inclined to see it your way: Do altercentric intrusion effects in visual perspective taking reflect an intrinsically social process?

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Kragh Nielsen, Maria; Slade, Lance; Levy, Joseph P; Holmes, Amanda

2015-01-01

It has been suggested that some aspects of mental state understanding recruit a rudimentary, but fast and efficient, processing system, demonstrated by the obligatory slowing down of judgements about what the self can see when this is incongruent with what another can see. We tested the social nature of this system by investigating to what extent these altercentric intrusions are elicited under conditions that differed in their social relevance and, further, how these related to self-reported social perspective taking and empathy. In Experiment 1, adult participants were asked to make "self" or "other" perspective-taking judgements during congruent ("self" and "other" can see the same items) or incongruent conditions ("self" and "other" cannot see the same items) in conditions that were social (i.e., involving a social agent), semisocial (an arrow), or nonsocial (a dual-coloured block). Reaction time indices of altercentric intrusion effects were present across all conditions, but were significantly stronger for the social than for the less social conditions. Self-reported perspective taking and empathy correlated with altercentric intrusion effects in the social condition only. In Experiment 2, the significant correlations for the social condition were replicated, but this time with gaze duration indices of altercentric intrusion effects. Findings are discussed with regard to the degree to which this rudimentary system is socially specialized and how it is linked to more conceptual understanding.

Computational principles of syntax in the regions specialized for language: integrating theoretical linguistics and functional neuroimaging.

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Ohta, Shinri; Fukui, Naoki; Sakai, Kuniyoshi L

2013-01-01

The nature of computational principles of syntax remains to be elucidated. One promising approach to this problem would be to construct formal and abstract linguistic models that parametrically predict the activation modulations in the regions specialized for linguistic processes. In this article, we review recent advances in theoretical linguistics and functional neuroimaging in the following respects. First, we introduce the two fundamental linguistic operations: Merge (which combines two words or phrases to form a larger structure) and Search (which searches and establishes a syntactic relation of two words or phrases). We also illustrate certain universal properties of human language, and present hypotheses regarding how sentence structures are processed in the brain. Hypothesis I is that the Degree of Merger (DoM), i.e., the maximum depth of merged subtrees within a given domain, is a key computational concept to properly measure the complexity of tree structures. Hypothesis II is that the basic frame of the syntactic structure of a given linguistic expression is determined essentially by functional elements, which trigger Merge and Search. We then present our recent functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, demonstrating that the DoM is indeed a key syntactic factor that accounts for syntax-selective activations in the left inferior frontal gyrus and supramarginal gyrus. Hypothesis III is that the DoM domain changes dynamically in accordance with iterative Merge applications, the Search distances, and/or task requirements. We confirm that the DoM accounts for activations in various sentence types. Hypothesis III successfully explains activation differences between object- and subject-relative clauses, as well as activations during explicit syntactic judgment tasks. A future research on the computational principles of syntax will further deepen our understanding of uniquely human mental faculties.

IEA Task 31. Daylighting Buildings in the 21{sup st} Century

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Scartezzini, J.-L.; Morel, N.; Andersen, M.; Lindelhoef, D.

2006-02-15

This report for the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) takes a look at work being carried out within the framework of the International Energy Agency's Solar Heating and Cooling Programme, Task 31 concerning the daylighting of buildings. Research activities in the task's four subtasks, user perspectives and requirements, integration and optimisation of daylighting systems, daylighting design tools and performance tracking network and design support groups are reported on. Objectives, projects and outcomes of each subtask are presented. Swiss contributions to the work done in these subtasks are reviewed and main achievements due to Swiss contributions are listed. Practical examples are quoted.

Polymorphous Narrative of Gothic Tradition in Linguistic Perspective: Comparing Fiction and Opera Libretto

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Ihina, Zoia

2015-01-01

This article is dedicated to revealing linguistic means that realise "the event" in the gothic narrative--H. James's novella "The Turn of the Screw" and the opera libretto of the same name. The event is treated as a situational change of states and presupposes that "the real" and "the unknown" should meet.…

Measuring Linguistic Empathy: An Experimental Approach to Connecting Linguistic and Social Psychological Notions of Empathy

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Kann, Trevor

2017-01-01

This dissertation investigated the relationship between Linguistic Empathy and Psychological Empathy by implementing a psycholinguistic experiment that measured a person's acceptability ratings of sentences with violations of Linguistic Empathy and correlating them with a measure of the person's Psychological Empathy. Linguistic Empathy…

Linguistic Communications 1.

Science.gov (United States)

Monash Univ., Clayton, Victoria (Australia).

The present compilation of papers on linguistics is the result of joint efforts by the Classical Studies, French, Japanese, Linguistics, and Russian Departments of Monash University. Selections in the Pre-Prints and Articles section include: "For/Arabic Bilingualism in the Zalingei Area," by B. Jernudd; "Prosodic Problems in a Generative Phonology…

LINGUISTICS AND SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING: AN ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The relationship between linguistics and second language teaching has always been a controversial one. Many linguists have argued that linguistics has nothing to say to the teacher. Sampson (1980, p.10), for example, says: ·"1 do not believe that linguistics has any contribution to make to the teaching of English or the.

On the concept of a linguistic variable

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kerre, E.

1996-01-01

The concept of a linguistic variable plays a crucial role in the representation of imprecise knowledge in information sciences. A variable is called linguistic as soon as its values are linguistic terms rather than numerical ones. The power of daily communication and common sense reasoning lies in the use of such linguistic values. Even when exact numerical values are available, experts tend to transform these values into linguistic ones. A physician will usually translate a numerical measurement of a blood pressure into linguistic specifications such as normal, very high, too low... Zadeh has argued that the set of values for a linguistic variable assumes a more-or-less fixed structure. Starting from an atomic value and its antonym all remaining values are constructed using logical connectives on the one hand and linguistic hedges on the other hand. In this paper we will describe how to represent the value set of a linguistic variable in general and of linguistic hedges in particular

Clinical Linguistics--Retrospect and Prospect.

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Grunwell, Pamela

In the past 20 years, linguistics has gained a prominent position in speech and language pathology in Britain, evolving into a new field, clinical linguistics. It includes three related areas of activity: training of speech pathologists/therapists; professional practice; and research. Linguistics and speech/language pathology have developed as…

Linguistic fundamentals for natural language processing 100 essentials from morphology and syntax

CERN Document Server

Bender, Emily M

2013-01-01

Many NLP tasks have at their core a subtask of extracting the dependencies-who did what to whom-from natural language sentences. This task can be understood as the inverse of the problem solved in different ways by diverse human languages, namely, how to indicate the relationship between different parts of a sentence. Understanding how languages solve the problem can be extremely useful in both feature design and error analysis in the application of machine learning to NLP. Likewise, understanding cross-linguistic variation can be important for the design of MT systems and other multilingual a

Etymology and Modern Linguistics

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Malkiel, Yakov

1975-01-01

Discusses the estrangement between etymology and modern linguistics, and concludes that a reconciliation between spatio-temporal linguistics and etymology must occur, because without it, both disciplines are doomed to inanition. (Author/AM)

Phillipson’s Linguistic Imperialism Revisited at the light of Latin American Decoloniality Approach

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Luis Guillermo Barrantes-Montero

2017-09-01

Full Text Available A summary of the book Linguistic Imperialism, by Phillipson (19922 is presented here. The purpose is to highlight its current scope and permanent values in consonance with intuitions, criticism and alternatives proposed by Latin America Modernity/coloniality Group. Criteria of analysis are based on a re-reading of the work in the light of the decolonial perspective, with the aim of proposing pedagogical insights which guide language and literature teachers in approaching their study contents with a critical vision. The idea is to remark the role of English Language Teaching for the maintenance of power structures and for its potential for creating new epistemological approaches to language teaching and learning. An epistemological turnaround in the linguistic formation of future educational personnel is a must for that end.

Verbal Working Memory Is Related to the Acquisition of Cross-Linguistic Phonological Regularities.

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Bosma, Evelyn; Heeringa, Wilbert; Hoekstra, Eric; Versloot, Arjen; Blom, Elma

2017-01-01

Closely related languages share cross-linguistic phonological regularities, such as Frisian -âld [ͻ:t] and Dutch -oud [ʱut], as in the cognate pairs kâld [kͻ:t] - koud [kʱut] 'cold' and wâld [wͻ:t] - woud [wʱut] 'forest'. Within Bybee's (1995, 2001, 2008, 2010) network model, these regularities are, just like grammatical rules within a language, generalizations that emerge from schemas of phonologically and semantically related words. Previous research has shown that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of grammar, but not vocabulary. This suggests that verbal working memory supports the acquisition of linguistic regularities. In order to test this hypothesis we investigated whether verbal working memory is also related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. For three consecutive years, 5- to 8-year-old Frisian-Dutch bilingual children ( n = 120) were tested annually on verbal working memory and a Frisian receptive vocabulary task that comprised four cognate categories: (1) identical cognates, (2) non-identical cognates that either do or (3) do not exhibit a phonological regularity between Frisian and Dutch, and (4) non-cognates. The results showed that verbal working memory had a significantly stronger effect on cognate category (2) than on the other three cognate categories. This suggests that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. More generally, it confirms the hypothesis that verbal working memory plays a role in the acquisition of linguistic regularities.

Science knowledge and cognitive strategy use among culturally and linguistically diverse students

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Lee, Okhee; Fradd, Sandra H.; Sutman, Frank X.

Science performance is determined, to a large extent, by what students already know about science (i.e., science knowledge) and what techniques or methods students use in performing science tasks (i.e., cognitive strategies). This study describes and compares science knowledge, science vocabulary, and cognitive strategy use among four diverse groups of elementary students: (a) monolingual English Caucasian, (b) African-American, (c) bilingual Spanish, and (d) bilingual Haitian Creole. To facilitate science performance in culturally and linguistically congruent settings, the study included student dyads and teachers of the same language, culture, and gender. Science performance was observed using three science tasks: weather phenomena, simple machines, and buoyancy. Data analysis involved a range of qualitative methods focusing on major themes and patterns, and quantitative methods using coding systems to summarize frequencies and total scores. The findings reveal distinct patterns of science knowledge, science vocabulary, and cognitive strategy use among the four language and culture groups. The findings also indicate relationships among science knowledge, science vocabulary, and cognitive strategy use. These findings raise important issues about science instruction for culturally and linguistically diverse groups of students.Received: 3 January 1995;

Discourses of Linguistic dominance: A Historical Consideration of French Language Ideology

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Kasuya, Keisuke

2001-07-01

The paper offers a historical perspective on the linguistic and cultural imperialism embedded in the struggle to maintain French as a leading international language. France was the nation-state where the ideology of national language was first clearly formulated and directly extended to overseas colonies. This shows the close relationship between linguistic nationalism and imperialism. It was believed that French was the language of universal human reason and had the power to civilize people who spoke it. This myth of the "clarté française" and the "mission civilisatrice" had a strong influence on various kinds of metalinguistic discourses that created the taken-for-granted representation of French as dominant language. It is the essential strategy of language dominance to establish the hierarchy of languages as if it were natural order of things. When French was obliged to yield the status of international language to English, there emerged the ideology of "Francophonie" which tried to defend its privilege against the monopoly of English, but the same ideology is also directed against minorities' claims for their own linguistic human right. It could be said that these discourses form a recursive prototype of language dominance whose variations are to be found in other shapes almost all over the world.

The task-to-task communication between computers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lin Shuzi; Zhang Bingyun; Zhao Weiren

1992-01-01

The task-to-task communication is used in the Institute of High Energy Physics. The BES (Beijing Spectrometer) uses the communication mode to take some of the BEPC (Beijing Electron Positron Collider) running parameters needed by BES experiments in a periodic time. The authors describe the principle of transparent task-to-task communication and how to use it in BES on-line data acquisition system

Linguistic Corpora and Language Teaching.

Science.gov (United States)

Murison-Bowie, Simon

1996-01-01

Examines issues raised by corpus linguistics concerning the description of language. The article argues that it is necessary to start from correct descriptions of linguistic units and the contexts in which they occur. Corpus linguistics has joined with language teaching by sharing a recognition of the importance of a larger, schematic view of…

The Dorna toponym. Etymology and linguistic interference issues

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Dinu Moscal

2016-08-01

Full Text Available In order to establish a toponymic etymology one is supposed to identify the manner in which facts of language relating to names connect to the signified reality and its socio-geographic context. The study of the Dorna toponym represents such a case proving that there are situations in which a good knowledge of the extra-linguistic reality from a diachronic perspective becomes an argument in favour of the validity of a certain linguistic interpretation. The analysis of homonym toponyms, of the derivatives and phrases containing a specific toponym in relation to the designated reality and its history indicate toponymic series with a similar history. Our particular case deals with series of descriptive origins and personal origins. The analysis of the toponymic field of the hydronym Dorna (the name of the main right tributary of Bistrița river emphasizes the changes affecting the Romanian proper names following the contact with the German language motivated by the country being governed by Austrian authorities in the period 1774–1918, changes that mainly influenced the entire socio-geographic context corresponding to this toponymic field.

Relationships among Linguistic Processing Speed, Phonological Working Memory, and Attention in Children Who Stutter

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Anderson, Julie D.; Wagovich, Stacy A.

2010-01-01

Relatively recently, experimental studies of linguistic processing speed in children who stutter (CWS) have emerged, some of which suggest differences in performance among CWS compared to children who do not stutter (CWNS). What is not yet well understood is the extent to which underlying cognitive skills may impact performance on timed tasks of…

Linguistic dating of biblical texts

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Young, Ian; Rezetko, Robert; Ehrensvärd, Martin Gustaf

Since the beginning of critical scholarship biblical texts have been dated using linguistic evidence. In recent years this has become a controversial topic, especially with the publication of Ian Young (ed.), Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (2003). However, until now there has...... been no introduction and comprehensive study of the field. Volume 1 introduces the field of linguistic dating of biblical texts, particularly to intermediate and advanced students of biblical Hebrew who have a reasonable background in the language, having completed at least an introductory course...... in this volume are: What is it that makes Archaic Biblical Hebrew archaic , Early Biblical Hebrew early , and Late Biblical Hebrew late ? Does linguistic typology, i.e. different linguistic characteristics, convert easily and neatly into linguistic chronology, i.e. different historical origins? A large amount...

Contact and perspective taking improve humanness standards and perceptions of humanness of older adults and people with dementia: a cross-sectional survey study.

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Miron, Anca M; McFadden, Susan H; Hermus, Nathan J; Buelow, Jennifer; Nazario, Amanda S; Seelman, Katarena

2017-10-01

No empirical work has systematically explored perceptions of humanness of people with dementia and of older adults and the variables that could improve these perceptions. We thus investigated the role of contact and perspective taking in improving perceptions of humanness of these social groups. To do so, we developed a new concept, humanness standards, defined as the amount of evidence of ability impairment needed to conclude that elderly people and those with dementia have lost personhood. We used a cross-sectional survey design (n = 619) to assess participants' humanness standards and perceptions of uniquely human characteristics and human nature characteristics of two social groups (people with dementia and older adults). Half the participants (n = 311) completed a survey about people with dementia and half (n = 308) assessed older adults. People with dementia were perceived as possessing humanness characteristics to a lesser extent than were older adults. For both groups, contact predicted enhanced perceptions of humanness characteristics. Participants' degree of contact with individuals with dementia also predicted humanness standards, but only under low perspective-taking conditions. As predicted, for older adults, participants set the highest humanness impairment thresholds in the high contact/high perspective-taking condition. We conclude that while social programs that bring persons with dementia and other individuals in contact could change humanness standards and perceptions of humanness characteristics of people with dementia, in the case of elderly adults, the contact must be supplemented by variables that facilitate taking the perspective of the person.

Applied genre analysis: a multi-perspective model

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Vijay K Bhatia

2002-04-01

Full Text Available Genre analysis can be viewed from two different perspectives: it may be seen as a reflection of the complex realities of the world of institutionalised communication, or it may be seen as a pedagogically effective and convenient tool for the design of language teaching programmes, often situated within simulated contexts of classroom activities. This paper makes an attempt to understand and resolve the tension between these two seemingly contentious perspectives to answer the question: "Is generic description a reflection of reality, or a convenient fiction invented by applied linguists?". The paper also discusses issues related to the nature and use of linguistic description in a genre-based educational enterprise, claiming that instead of using generic descriptions as models for linguistic reproduction of conventional forms to respond to recurring social contexts, as is often the case in many communication based curriculum contexts, they can be used as analytical resource to understand and manipulate complex inter-generic and multicultural realisations of professional discourse, which will enable learners to use generic knowledge to respond to novel social contexts and also to create new forms of discourse to achieve pragmatic success as well as other powerful human agendas.

Effects of Task Repetition on Learners' Attention Orientation in L2 Oral Production

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Fukuta, Junya

2016-01-01

Task repetition facilitates learners' performance, at least temporarily: Since learners are already familiar with the content of the task at the initial enactment, they are capable of focusing their attention on linguistic form during the following enactment. However, the analysis in previous studies treated various aspects of "form" as…

[Gender perspective in health care teaching: a pending task].

Science.gov (United States)

Arcos, Estela; Poblete, Johanna; Molina Vega, Irma; Miranda, Christian; Zúñiga, Yanira; Fecci, Ester; Rodríguez, Laura; Márquez, Myriam; Ramírez, Miguel

2007-06-01

Gender must be considered in the design and implementation of health policies to safeguard equity and accomplish sanitary objectives. To identify gender perspective in the curricula of five health care careers in the Universidad Austral de Chile. To identify the situation of women in the teaching profile of such curricula. An exploratory and descriptive study with a critical reading of the structure of the programs of 217 courses. Revision of official academic registries. Gender is usually not included in the curricula of health care careers. The generic language conceals female academics and students. There was a scarce inclusion of cross sectional issues such as collaborative work, interpersonal and democratic relationship, equity and critical analysis. There were no differences in academic achievements between female and male students. The contractual profile of female academics reproduces the gender inequity of the work market. The inclusion of gender is a pending task in the training of health care professionals.

Acknowledging Spanish and English resources during mathematical reasoning

Science.gov (United States)

LópezLeiva, Carlos A.; Torres, Zayoni; Khisty, Lena L.

2013-12-01

As English-only efforts continue in the US schooling system, dual-language programs have served as attempts to preserve students' home language. An after-school, dual-language, Spanish-English, mathematics program, Los Rayos was developed in a predominantly Mexican/Mexican-American neighborhood in Chicago. As participant observers with a sociocultural perspective, we explored the linguistic and personal resources used by participating 4th grade bilingual Latina/o students. We found that students used imaginative, playful, and hybrid linguistic resources to make sense of and solve probability tasks when engaged within a zone of mathematical practice. Results challenge narrow perspectives on bilingual students' linguistic resources. Language implications are discussed.

Early print-tuned ERP response with minimal involvement of linguistic processing in Japanese Hiragana strings.

Science.gov (United States)

Okumura, Yasuko; Kasai, Tetsuko; Murohashi, Harumitsu

2014-04-16

The act of reading leads to the development of specific neural responses for print, the most frequently reported of which is the left occipitotemporal N170 component of event-related potentials. However, it remains unclear whether this electrophysiological response solely involves print-tuned neural activities. The present study examined an early print-tuned event-related potential response with minimal involvement of linguistic processing in a nonalphabetic language. Japanese Hiragana words, nonwords, and alphanumeric symbol strings were presented rapidly and the task was to detect the change in color of a fixation cross to restrict linguistic processing. As a result, Hiragana words and nonwords elicited a larger posterior N1 than alphanumeric symbol strings bilaterally, irrespective of intercharacter spacing. The fact that this N1 was enhanced specifically for rapidly presented Hiragana strings suggests the existence of print-tuned neural processes that are relatively independent of the influence of linguistic processing.

Do we need statistics when we have linguistics?

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Cantos Gómez Pascual

2002-01-01

Full Text Available Statistics is known to be a quantitative approach to research. However, most of the research done in the fields of language and linguistics is of a different kind, namely qualitative. Succinctly, qualitative analysis differs from quantitative analysis is that in the former no attempt is made to assign frequencies, percentages and the like, to the linguistic features found or identified in the data. In quantitative research, linguistic features are classified and counted, and even more complex statistical models are constructed in order to explain these observed facts. In qualitative research, however, we use the data only for identifying and describing features of language usage and for providing real occurrences/examples of particular phenomena. In this paper, we shall try to show how quantitative methods and statistical techniques can supplement qualitative analyses of language. We shall attempt to present some mathematical and statistical properties of natural languages, and introduce some of the quantitative methods which are of the most value in working empirically with texts and corpora, illustrating the various issues with numerous examples and moving from the most basic descriptive techniques (frequency counts and percentages to decision-taking techniques (chi-square and z-score and to more sophisticated statistical language models (Type-Token/Lemma-Token/Lemma-Type formulae, cluster analysis and discriminant function analysis.

Ideological changes identified in and through Linguistic expressions: what should stand for Korea in Chinese, chaoxian1 or Hanguo ? Ideological changes identified in and through Linguistic expressions: what should stand for Korea in Chinese, chaoxian1 or Hanguo ?

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Stanley Zhongwei Song

2008-04-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an attempt to explain changes of China’s dominant ideology, the socialist ideology identified in and through linguistic expressions. By analysing from a historical perspective the meanings potential of the word Korea with its correlated expressions in Chinese, it highlights how deeply the way of referring to two Koreas has been influenced under the traditional ideology of the Chinese society, manipulated by the communist ideology in socialist China and challenged by less powerful yet emerging ideologies in market-oriented China. With the major linguistic references in Chinese to two political entities in the Korean peninsula, North and South Korea, the paper studies the relationship between ideological changes in modern Chinese society and linguistic expressions that, as part of the system of language, reflect ideological investments in and political implications of the changes. Added with a translation-related case study with a focus of emphasis on the word Korea, it concludes that with a flourishing of cultural pluralism in China, usually a forerunner of political pluralism, less dominant ideologies do compete with the official ideology in various ways and forms, and the competition can be traced and identified in and through linguistic expressions. In other words, given the political and economic dynamics of China in the past half century, change of linguistic expressions may indicate, in one way or another, the wax and wane of the Chinese dominant socialist ideology in a dialectical sense. This paper presents an attempt to explain changes of China’s dominant ideology, the socialist ideology identified in and through linguistic expressions. By analysing from a historical perspective the meanings potential of the word Korea with its correlated expressions in Chinese, it highlights how deeply the way of referring to two Koreas has been influenced under the traditional ideology of the Chinese society, manipulated by

Risk-Taking Behavior in a Computerized Driving Task: Brain Activation Correlates of Decision-Making, Outcome, and Peer Influence in Male Adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Vorobyev, Victor; Kwon, Myoung Soo; Moe, Dagfinn; Parkkola, Riitta; Hämäläinen, Heikki

2015-01-01

Increased propensity for risky behavior in adolescents, particularly in peer groups, is thought to reflect maturational imbalance between reward processing and cognitive control systems that affect decision-making. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain functional correlates of risk-taking behavior and effects of peer influence in 18-19-year-old male adolescents. The subjects were divided into low and high risk-taking groups using either personality tests or risk-taking rates in a simulated driving task. The fMRI data were analyzed for decision-making (whether to take a risk at intersections) and outcome (pass or crash) phases, and for the influence of peer competition. Personality test-based groups showed no difference in the amount of risk-taking (similarly increased during peer competition) and brain activation. When groups were defined by actual task performance, risk-taking activated two areas in the left medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) significantly more in low than in high risk-takers. In the entire sample, risky decision-specific activation was found in the anterior and dorsal cingulate, superior parietal cortex, basal ganglia (including the nucleus accumbens), midbrain, thalamus, and hypothalamus. Peer competition increased outcome-related activation in the right caudate head and cerebellar vermis in the entire sample. Our results suggest that the activation of the medial (rather than lateral) PFC and striatum is most specific to risk-taking behavior of male adolescents in a simulated driving situation, and reflect a stronger conflict and thus increased cognitive effort to take risks in low risk-takers, and reward anticipation for risky decisions, respectively. The activation of the caudate nucleus, particularly for the positive outcome (pass) during peer competition, further suggests enhanced reward processing of risk-taking under peer influence.

Risk-Taking Behavior in a Computerized Driving Task: Brain Activation Correlates of Decision-Making, Outcome, and Peer Influence in Male Adolescents.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victor Vorobyev

Full Text Available Increased propensity for risky behavior in adolescents, particularly in peer groups, is thought to reflect maturational imbalance between reward processing and cognitive control systems that affect decision-making. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI to investigate brain functional correlates of risk-taking behavior and effects of peer influence in 18-19-year-old male adolescents. The subjects were divided into low and high risk-taking groups using either personality tests or risk-taking rates in a simulated driving task. The fMRI data were analyzed for decision-making (whether to take a risk at intersections and outcome (pass or crash phases, and for the influence of peer competition. Personality test-based groups showed no difference in the amount of risk-taking (similarly increased during peer competition and brain activation. When groups were defined by actual task performance, risk-taking activated two areas in the left medial prefrontal cortex (PFC significantly more in low than in high risk-takers. In the entire sample, risky decision-specific activation was found in the anterior and dorsal cingulate, superior parietal cortex, basal ganglia (including the nucleus accumbens, midbrain, thalamus, and hypothalamus. Peer competition increased outcome-related activation in the right caudate head and cerebellar vermis in the entire sample. Our results suggest that the activation of the medial (rather than lateral PFC and striatum is most specific to risk-taking behavior of male adolescents in a simulated driving situation, and reflect a stronger conflict and thus increased cognitive effort to take risks in low risk-takers, and reward anticipation for risky decisions, respectively. The activation of the caudate nucleus, particularly for the positive outcome (pass during peer competition, further suggests enhanced reward processing of risk-taking under peer influence.

The linguistic repudiation of Wundt.

Science.gov (United States)

Nerlich, B; Clarke, D D

1998-08-01

Wilhelm Wundt's influence on the development of linguistics and psychology was pervasive. The foundations for this web of influence on the sciences of mind and language were laid down in Wundt's own research program, which was quite different from other attempts at founding a new psychology, as it was deeply rooted in German philosophy. This resulted in certain gaps in Wundt's conception of mind and language. These gaps provoked a double repudiation of Wundt's theories, by linguists and psychologists. The psychological repudiation has been studied by historians of psychology, and the linguistic repudiation has been studied by historians of linguistics. The intent of this article is to bring the linguistic repudiation to the attention of historians of psychology, especially the one outlined by two important figures in the history of psychology: Karl Buhler and George Mead.

Measuring treatment effects on dual-task performance: a framework for research and clinical practice

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Prudence ePlummer

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The relevance of dual-task walking to everyday ambulation is widely acknowledged, and numerous studies have demonstrated that dual-task interference can significantly impact recovery of functional walking in people with neurological disorders. The magnitude and direction of dual-task interference is influenced by the interaction between the two tasks, including how individuals spontaneously prioritize their attention. Therefore, to accurately interpret and characterize dual-task interference and identify changes over time, it is imperative to evaluate single and dual-task performance in both tasks, as well as the tasks relative to each other. Yet, reciprocal dual-task effects are frequently ignored. The purpose of this perspective paper is to present a framework for measuring treatment effects on dual-task interference, specifically taking into account the interactions between the two tasks and how this can provide information on whether overall dual-task capacity has improved or a different attentional strategy has been adopted. In discussing the clinical implications of using this framework, we provide specific examples of using this method and provide some explicit recommendations for research and clinical practice.

Empathetic perspective-taking is impaired in schizophrenia: evidence from a study of emotion attribution and theory of mind.

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Langdon, Robyn; Coltheart, Max; Ward, Philip B

2006-03-01

Schizophrenia and autism are clinically distinct yet both disorders are characterised by theory of mind (ToM) deficits. Autistic individuals fail to appreciate false beliefs, yet understand the causal connections between behavioural events and simple emotions. Findings of this type have promoted the view that ToM deficits in autism reflect a domain-specific difficulty with appreciating the representational nature of epistemic mental states (i.e., beliefs and intentions and not emotions). This study examines whether the same holds true for schizophrenia. A picture-sequencing task assessed capacity to infer false beliefs in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. To assess emotion attribution, participants were shown cartoon strips of events likely to elicit strong emotional reactions in story characters. Characters' faces were blanked out. Participants were instructed to think about how the characters would be feeling in order to match up the cards depicting facial affect appropriately. Participants later named emotions depicted in facial affect cards. Patients were as capable as controls of identifying cartoon facial expressions, yet had greater difficulties with: (a) attributing emotions based on circumstances; and (b) inferring false beliefs. Schizophrenia patients, unlike autistic individuals, suffer a domain-general difficulty with empathetic perspective-taking that affects equally their appreciation of other people's beliefs, percepts, and emotions.

The Locus Preservation Hypothesis: Shared Linguistic Profiles across Developmental Disorders and the Resilient Part of the Human Language Faculty

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Evelina Leivada

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Grammatical markers are not uniformly impaired across speakers of different languages, even when speakers share a diagnosis and the marker in question is grammaticalized in a similar way in these languages. The aim of this work is to demarcate, from a cross-linguistic perspective, the linguistic phenotype of three genetically heterogeneous developmental disorders: specific language impairment, Down syndrome, and autism spectrum disorder. After a systematic review of linguistic profiles targeting mainly English-, Greek-, Catalan-, and Spanish-speaking populations with developmental disorders (n = 880, shared loci of impairment are identified and certain domains of grammar are shown to be more vulnerable than others. The distribution of impaired loci is captured by the Locus Preservation Hypothesis which suggests that specific parts of the language faculty are immune to impairment across developmental disorders. Through the Locus Preservation Hypothesis, a classical chicken and egg question can be addressed: Do poor conceptual resources and memory limitations result in an atypical grammar or does a grammatical breakdown lead to conceptual and memory limitations? Overall, certain morphological markers reveal themselves as highly susceptible to impairment, while syntactic operations are preserved, granting support to the first scenario. The origin of resilient syntax is explained from a phylogenetic perspective in connection to the “syntax-before-phonology” hypothesis.

Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus: Journal Sponsorship

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Publisher. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics (SPiL) is published by the Department of General Linguistics of Stellenbosch University. Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University. Sources of Support. The Department of General Linguistics acknowledges the financial support provided by the Fonds ...

Peace linguistics for language teachers

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Francisco GOMES DE MATOS

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This text aims at presenting the concept of Peace Linguistics - origins and recent developments -- as being implemented in the author's ongoing work in that emerging branch of Applied Linguistics. Examples of applicational possibilities are given, with a focus on language teaching-learning and a Checklist is provided, of topics for suggested linguistic-educational research, centered on communicative peace.

Legal Linguistics as a Mutual Arena for Cooperation: Recent Developments in the Field of Applied Linguistics and Law

Science.gov (United States)

Engberg, Jan

2013-01-01

This article reports on some of the recent projects and individual works in the field of Legal Linguistics as examples of cooperation between Applied Linguistics and law. The article starts by discussing relevant prototypical concepts of Legal Linguistics. Legal Linguistics scrutinizes interactions between human beings in the framework of legal…

Asynchronous CMC, Collaboration and the Development of Critical Thinking in a Graduate Seminar in Applied Linguistics

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Abrams, Zsuzsanna I.

2005-01-01

A primary objective of graduate education, and often promoted by peer collaboration tasks, is the development of critical thinking skills. The present study compares how graduate students enrolled in a qualitative research design course in applied linguistics utilized asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) and face-to-face…

The Impact of Students' Temporal Perspectives on Time-on-Task and Learning Performance in Game Based Learning

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Romero, Margarida; Usart, Mireia

2013-01-01

The use of games for educational purposes has been considered as a learning methodology that attracts the students' attention and may allow focusing individuals on the learning activity through the [serious games] SG game dynamic. Based on the hypothesis that students' Temporal Perspective has an impact on learning performance and time-on-task,…

Measuring the diffusion of linguistic change.

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Nerbonne, John

2010-12-12

We examine situations in which linguistic changes have probably been propagated via normal contact as opposed to via conquest, recent settlement and large-scale migration. We proceed then from two simplifying assumptions: first, that all linguistic variation is the result of either diffusion or independent innovation, and, second, that we may operationalize social contact as geographical distance. It is clear that both of these assumptions are imperfect, but they allow us to examine diffusion via the distribution of linguistic variation as a function of geographical distance. Several studies in quantitative linguistics have examined this relation, starting with Séguy (Séguy 1971 Rev. Linguist. Romane 35, 335-357), and virtually all report a sublinear growth in aggregate linguistic variation as a function of geographical distance. The literature from dialectology and historical linguistics has mostly traced the diffusion of individual features, however, so that it is sensible to ask what sort of dynamic in the diffusion of individual features is compatible with Séguy's curve. We examine some simulations of diffusion in an effort to shed light on this question.

Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ehrensvärd, Martin Gustaf

2003-01-01

For two centuries, scholars have pointed to consistent differences in the Hebrew of certain biblical texts and interpreted these differences as reflecting the date of composition of the texts. Until the 1980s, this was quite uncontroversial as the linguistic findings largely confirmed the chronol......For two centuries, scholars have pointed to consistent differences in the Hebrew of certain biblical texts and interpreted these differences as reflecting the date of composition of the texts. Until the 1980s, this was quite uncontroversial as the linguistic findings largely confirmed...... the chronology of the texts established by other means: the Hebrew of Genesis-2 Kings was judged to be early and that of Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles to be late. In the current debate where revisionists have questioned the traditional dating, linguistic arguments in the dating of texts have...... come more into focus. The study critically examines some linguistic arguments adduced to support the traditional position, and reviewing the arguments it points to weaknesses in the linguistic dating of EBH texts to pre-exilic times. When viewing the linguistic evidence in isolation it will be clear...

THE ARABIC ORIGINS OF ENGLISH AND INDO-EUROPEAN "URBAN TERMS": A RADICAL LINGUISTIC THEORY APPROACH

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Zaidan Ali Jassem

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper traces the Arabic origins of English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit "urban terms" from a radical linguistic (or lexical root theory perspective. The data comprises 130 such terms like abide, building, city, construction, courtyard, hotel, house, live, mansion, mason, palace, metropolis, residence, road, rural, sedentary, sojourn, stay, structure, tent, town, urban, villa, village, zoo, and so on. The results clearly show that all such words have true Arabic cognates with the same or similar forms and meanings, whose differences are due to natural and plausible causes and different routes of linguistic change. Moreover, the results support the adequacy of the radical linguistic theory according to which, unlike the Comparative Method and/or Family Tree Model, Arabic, English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit are dialects of the same language or family, renamed Eurabian or Urban family, with Arabic being their origin all for sharing the whole cognates with them and for its huge phonetic, morphological, grammatical, and lexical variety and wealth. Also, they indicate that there is a radical language from which all human languages stemmed and which has been preserved almost intact in Arabic as the most conservative and productive language, without which it is impossible to interpret its linguistic richness and versatility on all levels.

The effect of distance on moral engagement: Event related potentials and alpha power are sensitive to perspective in a virtual shooting task

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Kirsten ePetras

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In a shooting video game we investigated whether increased distance reduces moral conflict. We measured and analysed the event related potential (ERP, including the N2 component, which has previously been linked to cognitive conflict from competing decision tendencies. In a modified go/nogo task designed to trigger moral conflict participants had to shoot suddenly appearing human like avatars in a virtual reality scene. The scene was seen either from an ego perspective with targets appearing directly in front of the participant or from a bird’s view, where targets were seen from above and more distant. To control for low level visual features, we conducted a visually identical control experiment, where the instruction to shoot was replaced by an instruction to detect. ERP waveforms showed differences between the two tasks as early as in the N1 time-range, with higher N1 amplitudes for the close perspective in the shoot task. Additionally, we found that pre-stimulus alpha power was significantly decreased in the ego, compared to the bird's view only for the shoot but not for the detect task. In the N2 time window, we observed main amplitude effects for response (nogo > go and distance (ego > bird perspective but no interaction with task type (shoot vs detect. We argue that the pre-stimulus and N1 effects can be explained by reduced attention and arousal in the distance condition when people are instructed to shoot. The lack of interaction in the N2 across tasks suggests that at that time point, the moral conflict is already resolved and response execution dominates. We discuss potential implications for real life shooting situations, especially considering recent developments in drone shootings which are per definition of a distant view.

The Effect of Distance on Moral Engagement: Event Related Potentials and Alpha Power are Sensitive to Perspective in a Virtual Shooting Task.

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Petras, Kirsten; Ten Oever, Sanne; Jansma, Bernadette M

2015-01-01

In a shooting video game we investigated whether increased distance reduces moral conflict. We measured and analyzed the event related potential (ERP), including the N2 component, which has previously been linked to cognitive conflict from competing decision tendencies. In a modified Go/No-go task designed to trigger moral conflict participants had to shoot suddenly appearing human like avatars in a virtual reality scene. The scene was seen either from an ego perspective with targets appearing directly in front of the participant or from a bird's view, where targets were seen from above and more distant. To control for low level visual features, we added a visually identical control condition, where the instruction to "shoot" was replaced by an instruction to "detect." ERP waveforms showed differences between the two tasks as early as in the N1 time-range, with higher N1 amplitudes for the close perspective in the "shoot" task. Additionally, we found that pre-stimulus alpha power was significantly decreased in the ego, compared to the bird's view only for the "shoot" but not for the "detect" task. In the N2 time window, we observed main amplitude effects for response (No-go > Go) and distance (ego > bird perspective) but no interaction with task type (shoot vs. detect). We argue that the pre-stimulus and N1 effects can be explained by reduced attention and arousal in the distance condition when people are instructed to "shoot." These results indicate a reduced moral engagement for increased distance. The lack of interaction in the N2 across tasks suggests that at that time point response execution dominates. We discuss potential implications for real life shooting situations, especially considering recent developments in drone shootings which are per definition of a distant view.

An Extended TOPSIS Method for Multiple Attribute Decision Making based on Interval Neutrosophic Uncertain Linguistic Variables

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Said Broumi

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The interval neutrosophic uncertain linguistic variables can easily express the indeterminate and inconsistent information in real world, and TOPSIS is a very effective decision making method more and more extensive applications. In this paper, we will extend the TOPSIS method to deal with the interval neutrosophic uncertain linguistic information, and propose an extended TOPSIS method to solve the multiple attribute decision making problems in which the attribute value takes the form of the interval neutrosophic uncertain linguistic variables and attribute weight is unknown. Firstly, the operational rules and properties for the interval neutrosophic variables are introduced. Then the distance between two interval neutrosophic uncertain linguistic variables is proposed and the attribute weight is calculated by the maximizing deviation method, and the closeness coefficients to the ideal solution for each alternatives. Finally, an illustrative example is given to illustrate the decision making steps and the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Taking a multiple intelligences (MI) perspective.

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Gardner, Howard

2017-01-01

The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) seeks to describe and encompass the range of human cognitive capacities. In challenging the concept of general intelligence, we can apply an MI perspective that may provide a more useful approach to cognitive differences within and across species.

Construct Relevant or Irrelevant? The Role of Linguistic Complexity in the Assessment of English Language Learners' Science Knowledge

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Avenia-Tapper, Brianna; Llosa, Lorena

2015-01-01

This article addresses the issue of language-related construct-irrelevant variance on content area tests from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics. We propose that the construct relevance of language used in content area assessments, and consequent claims of construct-irrelevant variance and bias, should be determined according to…

Social Studies Pedagogy for Latino/a Newcomer Youth: Toward a Theory of Culturally and Linguistically Relevant Citizenship Education

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Jaffee, Ashley Taylor

2016-01-01

This study examines how teachers in 4 urban newcomer high schools conceptualized and implemented social studies education for Latino/a newcomer youth through an emerging framework of culturally and linguistically relevant citizenship education. Through a multi-site, collective case study design, the perspectives and decision making of social…

Take Russia to 'task' on bioweapons transparency.

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Zilinskas, Raymond A

2012-06-06

In the run-up to his reelection, Russian president Vladimir Putin outlined 28 tasks to be undertaken by his administration, including one that commanded the development of weapons based on “genetic principles.” Political pressure must be applied by governments and professional societies to ensure that there is not a modern reincarnation of the Soviet biological warfare program.

Verbal Working Memory Is Related to the Acquisition of Cross-Linguistic Phonological Regularities

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Evelyn Bosma

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Closely related languages share cross-linguistic phonological regularities, such as Frisian -âld [ͻ:t] and Dutch -oud [ʱut], as in the cognate pairs kâld [kͻ:t] – koud [kʱut] ‘cold’ and wâld [wͻ:t] – woud [wʱut] ‘forest’. Within Bybee’s (1995, 2001, 2008, 2010 network model, these regularities are, just like grammatical rules within a language, generalizations that emerge from schemas of phonologically and semantically related words. Previous research has shown that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of grammar, but not vocabulary. This suggests that verbal working memory supports the acquisition of linguistic regularities. In order to test this hypothesis we investigated whether verbal working memory is also related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. For three consecutive years, 5- to 8-year-old Frisian-Dutch bilingual children (n = 120 were tested annually on verbal working memory and a Frisian receptive vocabulary task that comprised four cognate categories: (1 identical cognates, (2 non-identical cognates that either do or (3 do not exhibit a phonological regularity between Frisian and Dutch, and (4 non-cognates. The results showed that verbal working memory had a significantly stronger effect on cognate category (2 than on the other three cognate categories. This suggests that verbal working memory is related to the acquisition of cross-linguistic phonological regularities. More generally, it confirms the hypothesis that verbal working memory plays a role in the acquisition of linguistic regularities.

Beyond Conceptual Knowledge: The Impact of Children’s Theory-of-Mind on Dyadic Spatial Tasks

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Viana, Karine M. P.; Zambrana, Imac M.; Karevold, Evalill B.; Pons, Francisco

2016-01-01

Recent studies show that Theory of Mind (ToM) has implications for children’s social competences and psychological well-being. Nevertheless, although it is well documented that children overall take advantage when they have to resolve cognitive problems together with a partner, whether individual difference in ToM is one of the mechanisms that could explain cognitive performances produced in social interaction has received little attention. This study examines to what extent ToM explains children’s spatial performances in a dyadic situation. The sample includes 66 boys and girls between the ages of 5–9 years, who were tested for their ToM and for their competence to resolve a Spatial task involving mental rotation and spatial perspective taking, first individually and then in a dyadic condition. Results showed, in accordance with previous research, that children performed better on the Spatial task when they resolved it with a partner. Specifically, children’s ToM was a better predictor of their spatial performances in the dyadic condition than their age, gender, and spatial performances in the individual setting. The findings are discussed in terms of the relation between having a conceptual understanding of the mind and the practical implications of this knowledge for cognitive performances in social interaction regarding mental rotation and spatial perspective taking. PMID:27812344

Examining the link between adolescent brain development and risk taking from a social-developmental perspective.

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Willoughby, Teena; Good, Marie; Adachi, Paul J C; Hamza, Chloe; Tavernier, Royette

2013-12-01

The adolescent age period is often characterized as a health paradox because it is a time of extensive increases in physical and mental capabilities, yet overall mortality/morbidity rates increase significantly from childhood to adolescence, often due to preventable causes such as risk taking. Asynchrony in developmental time courses between the affective/approach and cognitive control brain systems, as well as the ongoing maturation of neural connectivity are thought to lead to increased vulnerability for risk taking in adolescence. A critical analysis of the frequency of risk taking behaviors, as well as mortality and morbidity rates across the lifespan, however, challenges the hypothesis that the peak of risk taking occurs in middle adolescence when the asynchrony between the different developmental time courses of the affective/approach and cognitive control systems is the largest. In fact, the highest levels of risk taking behaviors, such as alcohol and drug use, often occur among emerging adults (e.g., university/college students), and highlight the role of the social context in predicting risk taking behavior. Moreover, risk taking is not always unregulated or impulsive. Future research should broaden the scope of risk taking to include risks that are relevant to older adults, such as risky financial investing, gambling, and marital infidelity. In addition, a lifespan perspective, with a focus on how associations between neural systems and behavior are moderated by context and trait-level characteristics, and which includes diverse samples (e.g., divorced individuals), will help to address some important limitations in the adolescent brain development and risk taking literature. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Multilingualism and later life: a sociolinguistic perspective on age and aging.

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Divita, David

2014-08-01

In this paper, I contribute to subjective accounts of aging by focusing on a population that has been largely overlooked in social gerontology: individuals in later life who are multilingual. How do such individuals experience and make sense of their multilingualism? What role does language play in the way they experience and make sense of their lives? To answer these questions I take a life story approach to three women who experienced similar sociohistorical circumstances but arrived at different linguistic outcomes: born in Spain around the time of the civil war (1936-1939), they migrated to Paris in the 1960s to pursue social and economic mobility. Although they arrived in France as monolingual Spanish speakers, they have since acquired French and now practice their multilingualism in distinct ways. I juxtapose their life stories to illustrate how the acquisition and use of language are informed by a confluence of personal, social, and historical factors. Focusing on the linguistic dimension of the life course I thus introduce a new perspective on the heterogeneity obtained among individuals at this stage of their biographical trajectories. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Linguistic Intuitions and Cognitive Penetrability

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Michael Devitt

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Metalinguistic intuitions play a very large evidential role in both linguistics and philosophy. Linguists think that these intuitions are products of underlying linguistic competence. I call this view “the voice of competence” (“VoC”. Although many philosophers seem to think that metalinguistic intuitions are a priori many may implicitly hold the more scientifically respectable VoC. According to VoC, I argue, these intuitions can be cognitively penetrated by the central processor. But, I have argued elsewhere, VoC is false. Instead, we should hold “the modest explanation” (“ME” according to which these intuitions are fairly unreflective empirical theory-laden central-processor responses to phenomena. On ME, no question of cognitive penetration arises. ME has great methodological significance for the study of language. Insofar as we rely on intuitions as evidence we should prefer those of linguists and philosophers because they are more expert. But, more importantly, we should be seeking other evidence in linguistic usage.

EEG Correlates of Song Prosody: A New Look at the Relationship between Linguistic and Musical Rhythm

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Gordon, Reyna L.; Magne, Cyrille L.; Large, Edward W.

2011-01-01

Song composers incorporate linguistic prosody into their music when setting words to melody, a process called “textsetting.” Composers tend to align the expected stress of the lyrics with strong metrical positions in the music. The present study was designed to explore the idea that temporal alignment helps listeners to better understand song lyrics by directing listeners’ attention to instances where strong syllables occur on strong beats. Three types of textsettings were created by aligning metronome clicks with all, some or none of the strong syllables in sung sentences. Electroencephalographic recordings were taken while participants listened to the sung sentences (primes) and performed a lexical decision task on subsequent words and pseudowords (targets, presented visually). Comparison of misaligned and well-aligned sentences showed that temporal alignment between strong/weak syllables and strong/weak musical beats were associated with modulations of induced beta and evoked gamma power, which have been shown to fluctuate with rhythmic expectancies. Furthermore, targets that followed well-aligned primes elicited greater induced alpha and beta activity, and better lexical decision task performance, compared with targets that followed misaligned and varied sentences. Overall, these findings suggest that alignment of linguistic stress and musical meter in song enhances musical beat tracking and comprehension of lyrics by synchronizing neural activity with strong syllables. This approach may begin to explain the mechanisms underlying the relationship between linguistic and musical rhythm in songs, and how rhythmic attending facilitates learning and recall of song lyrics. Moreover, the observations reported here coincide with a growing number of studies reporting interactions between the linguistic and musical dimensions of song, which likely stem from shared neural resources for processing music and speech. PMID:22144972

EEG correlates of song prosody: A new look at the relationship between linguistic and musical rhythm

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Reyna L Gordon

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Song composers incorporate linguistic prosody into their music when setting words to melody, a process called textsetting. Composers tend to align the expected stress of the lyrics with strong metrical positions in the music. The present study was designed to explore the idea that temporal alignment helps listeners to better understand song lyrics by directing listeners’ attention to instances where strong syllables occur on strong beats. Three types of textsettings were created by aligning metronome clicks with all, some or none of the strong syllables in sung sentences. Electroencephalographic (EEG recordings were taken while participants listened to the sung sentences (primes and performed a lexical decision task on subsequent words and pseudowords (targets, presented visually. Comparison of misaligned and well-aligned sentences showed that temporal alignment between strong/weak syllables and strong/weak musical beats were associated with modulations of induced beta and evoked gamma power, which have been shown to fluctuate with rhythmic expectancies. Furthermore, targets that followed well-aligned primes elicited greater induced alpha and beta activity, and better lexical decision task performance, compared with targets that followed misaligned and varied sentences. Overall, these findings suggest that alignment of linguistic stress and musical meter in song enhances musical beat tracking and comprehension of lyrics by synchronizing neural activity with strong syllables. This approach may begin to explain the mechanisms underlying the relationship between linguistic and musical rhythm in songs, and how rhythmic attending facilitates learning and recall of song lyrics. Moreover, the observations reported here coincide with a growing number of studies reporting interactions between the linguistic and musical dimensions of song, which likely stem from shared neural resources for processing music and speech.

EEG Correlates of Song Prosody: A New Look at the Relationship between Linguistic and Musical Rhythm.

Science.gov (United States)

Gordon, Reyna L; Magne, Cyrille L; Large, Edward W

2011-01-01

Song composers incorporate linguistic prosody into their music when setting words to melody, a process called "textsetting." Composers tend to align the expected stress of the lyrics with strong metrical positions in the music. The present study was designed to explore the idea that temporal alignment helps listeners to better understand song lyrics by directing listeners' attention to instances where strong syllables occur on strong beats. Three types of textsettings were created by aligning metronome clicks with all, some or none of the strong syllables in sung sentences. Electroencephalographic recordings were taken while participants listened to the sung sentences (primes) and performed a lexical decision task on subsequent words and pseudowords (targets, presented visually). Comparison of misaligned and well-aligned sentences showed that temporal alignment between strong/weak syllables and strong/weak musical beats were associated with modulations of induced beta and evoked gamma power, which have been shown to fluctuate with rhythmic expectancies. Furthermore, targets that followed well-aligned primes elicited greater induced alpha and beta activity, and better lexical decision task performance, compared with targets that followed misaligned and varied sentences. Overall, these findings suggest that alignment of linguistic stress and musical meter in song enhances musical beat tracking and comprehension of lyrics by synchronizing neural activity with strong syllables. This approach may begin to explain the mechanisms underlying the relationship between linguistic and musical rhythm in songs, and how rhythmic attending facilitates learning and recall of song lyrics. Moreover, the observations reported here coincide with a growing number of studies reporting interactions between the linguistic and musical dimensions of song, which likely stem from shared neural resources for processing music and speech.

Perspective-taking abilities in the balance between autism tendencies and psychosis proneness.

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Abu-Akel, Ahmad M; Wood, Stephen J; Hansen, Peter C; Apperly, Ian A

2015-06-07

Difficulties with the ability to appreciate the perspective of others (mentalizing) is central to both autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. While the disorders are diagnostically independent, they can co-occur in the same individual. The effect of such co-morbidity is hypothesized to worsen mentalizing abilities. The recent influential 'diametric brain theory', however, suggests that the disorders are etiologically and phenotypically diametrical, predicting opposing effects on one's mentalizing abilities. To test these contrasting hypotheses, we evaluated the effect of psychosis and autism tendencies on the perspective-taking (PT) abilities of 201 neurotypical adults, on the assumption that autism tendencies and psychosis proneness are heritable dimensions of normal variation. We show that while both autism tendencies and psychosis proneness induce PT errors, their interaction reduced these errors. Our study is, to our knowledge, the first to observe that co-occurring autistic and psychotic traits can exert opposing influences on performance, producing a normalizing effect possibly by way of their diametrical effects on socio-cognitive abilities. This advances the notion that some individuals may, to some extent, be buffered against developing either illness or present fewer symptoms owing to a balanced expression of autistic and psychosis liability. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Teaching Hispanic Linguistics: Strategies to Engage Learners

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Knouse, Stephanie M.; Gupton, Timothy; Abreau, Laurel

2015-01-01

Even though many post-secondary institutions offer a variety of Hispanic linguistics classes (Hualde 2006; Lipski 2006), research on the pedagogy of Hispanic linguistics is an underdeveloped or non-existent area of the discipline. Courses in Hispanic linguistics can present not only linguistic challenges for non-native speakers of Spanish, but…

Mathematics and linguistics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Landauer, C.; Bellman, K.L.

1996-12-31

In this paper, we study foundational issues that we believe will help us develop a theoretically sound approach to constructing complex systems. The two theoretical approaches that have helped us understand and develop computational systems in the past are mathematics and linguistics. We describe some differences and strengths of the approaches, and propose a research program to combine the richness of linguistic reasoning with the precision of mathematics.

The influence of linguistic and musical experience on Cantonese word learning.

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Cooper, Angela; Wang, Yue

2012-06-01

Adult non-native speech perception is subject to influence from multiple factors, including linguistic and extralinguistic experience such as musical training. The present research examines how linguistic and musical factors influence non-native word identification and lexical tone perception. Groups of native tone language (Thai) and non-tone language listeners (English), each subdivided into musician and non-musician groups, engaged in Cantonese tone word training. Participants learned to identify words minimally distinguished by five Cantonese tones during training, also completing musical aptitude and phonemic tone identification tasks. First, the findings suggest that either musical experience or a tone language background leads to significantly better non-native word learning proficiency, as compared to those with neither musical training nor tone language experience. Moreover, the combination of tone language and musical experience did not provide an additional advantage for Thai musicians above and beyond either experience alone. Musicianship was found to be more advantageous than a tone language background for tone identification. Finally, tone identification and musical aptitude scores were significantly correlated with word learning success for English but not Thai listeners. These findings point to a dynamic influence of musical and linguistic experience, both at the tone dentification level and at the word learning stage.

Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics (SPiL) is an annual/biannual open access, peer-reviewed international journal, published by the Department of General Linguistics, Stellenbosch University. The papers published in SPiL are ... Poetry in South African Sign Language: What is different? EMAIL FREE FULL TEXT EMAIL ...

Reflex reading epilepsy: effect of linguistic characteristics on spike frequency.

Science.gov (United States)

Safi, Dima; Lassonde, Maryse; Nguyen, Dang Khoa; Denault, Carole; Macoir, Joël; Rouleau, Isabelle; Béland, Renée

2011-04-01

Reading epilepsy is a rare reflex epilepsy in which seizures are provoked by reading. Several cases have been described in the literature, but the pathophysiological processes vary widely and remain unclear. We describe a 42-year-old male patient with reading epilepsy evaluated using clinical assessments and continuous video/EEG recordings. We administered verbal, nonverbal, and reading tasks to determine factors precipitating seizures. Linguistic characteristics of the words were manipulated. Results indicated that reading-induced seizures were significantly more numerous than those observed during verbal and nonverbal tasks. In reading tasks, spike frequency significantly increased with involvement of the phonological reading route. Spikes were recorded predominantly in left parasagittal regions. Future cerebral imaging studies will enable us to visualize the spatial localization and temporal course of reading-induced seizures and brain activity involved in reading. A better understanding of reading epilepsy is crucial for reading rehabilitation in these patients. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Linguistic and Perceptual Mapping in Spatial Representations: An Attentional Account.

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Valdés-Conroy, Berenice; Hinojosa, José A; Román, Francisco J; Romero-Ferreiro, Verónica

2018-03-01

Building on evidence for embodied representations, we investigated whether Spanish spatial terms map onto the NEAR/FAR perceptual division of space. Using a long horizontal display, we measured congruency effects during the processing of spatial terms presented in NEAR or FAR space. Across three experiments, we manipulated the task demands in order to investigate the role of endogenous attention in linguistic and perceptual space mapping. We predicted congruency effects only when spatial properties were relevant for the task (reaching estimation task, Experiment 1) but not when attention was allocated to other features (lexical decision, Experiment 2; and color, Experiment 3). Results showed faster responses for words presented in Near-space in all experiments. Consistent with our hypothesis, congruency effects were observed only when a reaching estimate was requested. Our results add important evidence for the role of top-down processing in congruency effects from embodied representations of spatial terms. Copyright © 2017 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Linguistic Theory and the Study of Legal and Bureaucratic Language. Document Design Project, Technical Report No. 16.

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Charrow, Veda R.

This paper studies legal language from three perspectives. First, legal language is defined as the variety of English that lawyers, judges, and other members of the legal community use in the course of their work. In a second section, it reviews descriptions of legal language by lawyers, linguists, and social scientists. These studies indicate…

Computational Linguistics Applications

CERN Document Server

Piasecki, Maciej; Jassem, Krzysztof; Fuglewicz, Piotr

2013-01-01

The ever-growing popularity of Google over the recent decade has required a specific method of man-machine communication: human query should be short, whereas the machine answer may take a form of a wide range of documents. This type of communication has triggered a rapid development in the domain of Information Extraction, aimed at providing the asker with a  more precise information. The recent success of intelligent personal assistants supporting users in searching or even extracting information and answers from large collections of electronic documents signals the onset of a new era in man-machine communication – we shall soon explain to our small devices what we need to know and expect valuable answers quickly and automatically delivered. The progress of man-machine communication is accompanied by growth in the significance of applied Computational Linguistics – we need machines to understand much more from the language we speak naturally than it is the case of up-to-date search systems. Moreover, w...

Dynamic Neural Processing of Linguistic Cues Related to Death

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Ma, Yina; Qin, Jungang; Han, Shihui

2013-01-01

Behavioral studies suggest that humans evolve the capacity to cope with anxiety induced by the awareness of death’s inevitability. However, the neurocognitive processes that underlie online death-related thoughts remain unclear. Our recent functional MRI study found that the processing of linguistic cues related to death was characterized by decreased neural activity in human insular cortex. The current study further investigated the time course of neural processing of death-related linguistic cues. We recorded event-related potentials (ERP) to death-related, life-related, negative-valence, and neutral-valence words in a modified Stroop task that required color naming of words. We found that the amplitude of an early frontal/central negativity at 84–120 ms (N1) decreased to death-related words but increased to life-related words relative to neutral-valence words. The N1 effect associated with death-related and life-related words was correlated respectively with individuals’ pessimistic and optimistic attitudes toward life. Death-related words also increased the amplitude of a frontal/central positivity at 124–300 ms (P2) and of a frontal/central positivity at 300–500 ms (P3). However, the P2 and P3 modulations were observed for both death-related and negative-valence words but not for life-related words. The ERP results suggest an early inverse coding of linguistic cues related to life and death, which is followed by negative emotional responses to death-related information. PMID:23840787

Developmental trends in the interaction between auditory and linguistic processing.

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Jerger, S; Pirozzolo, F; Jerger, J; Elizondo, R; Desai, S; Wright, E; Reynosa, R

1993-09-01

The developmental course of multidimensional speech processing was examined in 80 children between 3 and 6 years of age and in 60 adults between 20 and 86 years of age. Processing interactions were assessed with a speeded classification task (Garner, 1974a), which required the subjects to attend selectively to the voice dimension while ignoring the linguistic dimension, and vice versa. The children and adults exhibited both similarities and differences in the patterns of processing dependencies. For all ages, performance for each dimension was slower in the presence of variation in the irrelevant dimension; irrelevant variation in the voice dimension disrupted performance more than irrelevant variation in the linguistic dimension. Trends in the degree of interference, on the other hand, showed significant differences between dimensions as a function of age. Whereas the degree of interference for the voice-dimension-relevant did not show significant age-related change, the degree of interference for the word-dimension-relevant declined significantly with age in a linear as well as a quadratic manner. A major age-related change in the relation between dimensions was that word processing, relative to voice-gender processing, required significantly more time in the children than in the adults. Overall, the developmental course characterizing multidimensional speech processing evidenced more pronounced change when the linguistic dimension, rather than the voice dimension, was relevant.

Linguistic and pragmatic aspects of narration in Finnish typically developing children and children with specific language impairment.

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Mäkinen, Leena; Loukusa, Soile; Laukkanen, Päivi; Leinonen, Eeva; Kunnari, Sari

2014-06-01

This study investigates narratives of Finnish children with specific language impairment (SLI) from linguistic and pragmatic perspectives, in order to get a comprehensive overview of these children's narrative abilities. Nineteen children with SLI (mean age 6;1 years) and 19 typically developing age-matched children participated in the study. Their picture-elicited narrations were analysed for linguistic productivity and complexity, grammatical and referential accuracy, event content, the use of mental state expressions and narrative comprehension. Children with SLI showed difficulties in every aspect of narration in comparison to their peers. Only one measure of productivity, the number of communication units, did not reach statistical significance. Not only was linguistic structure fragile but also pragmatic aspects of storytelling (referencing, event content, mental state expressions and inferencing) were demanding for children with SLI. Results suggest that pragmatic aspects of narration should be taken into account more often when assessing narrative abilities of children with SLI.

Incorporating linguistic, probabilistic, and possibilistic information in a risk-based approach for ranking contaminated sites.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Kejiang; Achari, Gopal; Pei, Yuansheng

2010-10-01

Different types of uncertain information-linguistic, probabilistic, and possibilistic-exist in site characterization. Their representation and propagation significantly influence the management of contaminated sites. In the absence of a framework with which to properly represent and integrate these quantitative and qualitative inputs together, decision makers cannot fully take advantage of the available and necessary information to identify all the plausible alternatives. A systematic methodology was developed in the present work to incorporate linguistic, probabilistic, and possibilistic information into the Preference Ranking Organization METHod for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE), a subgroup of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods for ranking contaminated sites. The identification of criteria based on the paradigm of comparative risk assessment provides a rationale for risk-based prioritization. Uncertain linguistic, probabilistic, and possibilistic information identified in characterizing contaminated sites can be properly represented as numerical values, intervals, probability distributions, and fuzzy sets or possibility distributions, and linguistic variables according to their nature. These different kinds of representation are first transformed into a 2-tuple linguistic representation domain. The propagation of hybrid uncertainties is then carried out in the same domain. This methodology can use the original site information directly as much as possible. The case study shows that this systematic methodology provides more reasonable results. © 2010 SETAC.

Constructing and validating readability models: the method of integrating multilevel linguistic features with machine learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Sung, Yao-Ting; Chen, Ju-Ling; Cha, Ji-Her; Tseng, Hou-Chiang; Chang, Tao-Hsing; Chang, Kuo-En

2015-06-01

Multilevel linguistic features have been proposed for discourse analysis, but there have been few applications of multilevel linguistic features to readability models and also few validations of such models. Most traditional readability formulae are based on generalized linear models (GLMs; e.g., discriminant analysis and multiple regression), but these models have to comply with certain statistical assumptions about data properties and include all of the data in formulae construction without pruning the outliers in advance. The use of such readability formulae tends to produce a low text classification accuracy, while using a support vector machine (SVM) in machine learning can enhance the classification outcome. The present study constructed readability models by integrating multilevel linguistic features with SVM, which is more appropriate for text classification. Taking the Chinese language as an example, this study developed 31 linguistic features as the predicting variables at the word, semantic, syntax, and cohesion levels, with grade levels of texts as the criterion variable. The study compared four types of readability models by integrating unilevel and multilevel linguistic features with GLMs and an SVM. The results indicate that adopting a multilevel approach in readability analysis provides a better representation of the complexities of both texts and the reading comprehension process.

Linguistic Phenomena in Men and Women - TOT, FOK, Verbal Fluency

OpenAIRE

Ewa Szepietowska; Barbara Gawda; Agnieszka Gawda

2013-01-01

The aim of this study is to describe the differences between women and men in the phenomena of feeling of knowing/know (FOK), tip of the tongue (TOT), and verbal fluency. Two studies are presented. The first included a group of 60 participants and focused on the analysis of FOK and TOT in men and women. The second study described the performance of 302 participants in verbal fluency tasks. Both studies showed that sex is not a significant predictor of linguistic abilities. Rather, the main fa...

Perspective taking and theory of mind in hide and seek.

Science.gov (United States)

Street, Chris N H; Bischof, Walter F; Kingstone, Alan

2018-01-01

Does theory of mind play a significant role in where people choose to hide an item or where they search for an item that has been hidden? Adapting Anderson's "Hide-Find Paradigm" Anderson et al. (Action, Perception and Performance, 76, 907-913, 2014) participants viewed homogenous or popout visual arrays on a touchscreen table. Their task was to indicate where in the array they would hide an item, or to search for an item that had been hidden, by either a friend or a foe. Critically, participants believed that their sitting location at the touchtable was the same as-or opposite to-their partner's location. Replicating Anderson et al., participants tended to (1) select items nearer to themselves on homogenous displays, and this bias was stronger for a friend than foe; and (2) select popout items, and again, more for a friend than foe. These biases were observed only when participants believed that they shared the same physical perspective as their partner. Collectively, the data indicate that theory of mind plays a significant role in hiding and finding, and demonstrate that the hide-find paradigm is a powerful tool for investigating theory of mind in adults.

A crying shame : The over-rationalized conception of man in the rational choice perspective

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Haan, W.J.M.; Vos, J.

The rational choice perspective explains all forms of crime by viewing offenders as reasoning criminals. In this article, we take this approach to task by trying out its heuristic potential. More specifically, we look at how well it works for one special type of crime, i.e. street robbery. On the

From Shared Contexts to Syntactic Categories: The Role of Distributional Information in Learning Linguistic Form-Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Reeder, Patricia A.; Newport, Elissa L.; Aslin, Richard N.

2013-01-01

A fundamental component of language acquisition involves organizing words into grammatical categories. Previous literature has suggested a number of ways in which this categorization task might be accomplished. Here we ask whether the patterning of the words in a corpus of linguistic input ("distributional information") is sufficient, along with a…

The Dutch Linguistic Intraoperative Protocol: a valid linguistic approach to awake brain surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

De Witte, E; Satoer, D; Robert, E; Colle, H; Verheyen, S; Visch-Brink, E; Mariën, P

2015-01-01

Intraoperative direct electrical stimulation (DES) is increasingly used in patients operated on for tumours in eloquent areas. Although a positive impact of DES on postoperative linguistic outcome is generally advocated, information about the neurolinguistic methods applied in awake surgery is scarce. We developed for the first time a standardised Dutch linguistic test battery (measuring phonology, semantics, syntax) to reliably identify the critical language zones in detail. A normative study was carried out in a control group of 250 native Dutch-speaking healthy adults. In addition, the clinical application of the Dutch Linguistic Intraoperative Protocol (DuLIP) was demonstrated by means of anatomo-functional models and five case studies. A set of DuLIP tests was selected for each patient depending on the tumour location and degree of linguistic impairment. DuLIP is a valid test battery for pre-, intraoperative and postoperative language testing and facilitates intraoperative mapping of eloquent language regions that are variably located. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Unbalanced Linguistic Aggregation Operator in Group Decision Making

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Li Zou

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Many linguistic aggregation methods have been proposed and applied in the linguistic decision-making problems. In practice, experts need to assess a number of values in a side of reference domain higher than in the other one; that is, experts use unbalanced linguistic values to express their evaluation for problems. In this paper, we propose a new linguistic aggregation operator to deal with unbalanced linguistic values in group decision making, we adopt 2-tuple representation model of linguistic values and linguistic hierarchies to express unbalanced linguistic values, and moreover, we present the unbalanced linguistic ordered weighted geometric operator to aggregate unbalanced linguistic evaluation values; a comparison example is given to show the advantage of our method.

A task-level perspective on work engagement: A new approach that helps to differentiate the concepts of engagement and burnout

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sabine Sonnentag

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This theoretical paper differentiates work engagement from the burnout concept by using a task-level perspective. Specifically, I argue that work engagement (i.e., the experience of vigor, dedication and absorption, Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004 emerges during the process of working. It does not only differ between persons and does not only fluctuate from one day to the other (or even within the course of a day, but can vary largely between different work tasks. Burnout (and particularly exhaustion as a chronic state does not differ from one work task to the other. I describe task features derived from the job characteristics model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976 as predictors of task-specific work engagement and discuss interaction effects between task features on the one hand and job-level social and personal resources on the other hand. I outline possible avenues for future research and address practical implications, including task design and employee's energy management throughout the workday.

A new look at risk-taking: using a translational approach to examine risk-taking behavior on the balloon analogue risk task.

Science.gov (United States)

DeMartini, Kelly S; Leeman, Robert F; Corbin, William R; Toll, Benjamin A; Fucito, Lisa M; Lejuez, Carl W; O'Malley, Stephanie S

2014-10-01

Models of risk-taking typically assume that the variability of outcomes is important in the likelihood of making a risky choice. In an animal model of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), within-session variability, or the coefficient of variability (CV), was found to be a novel predictor of behavior (Jentsch et al., 2010). Human studies have not investigated how BART performance differs when using the CV versus a traditional BART measure (e.g., number of pumps). This study sought to determine whether the CV provides a unique and valuable alternative index of risk-taking on the BART, and to determine the relationship of the CV to self-reported alcohol consumption. Young adult heavy drinkers (n = 58, 72% male, mean age 21.53) completed an assessment of drinking patterns and a modified version of the BART. Multiple regression results indicated that CV is a unique predictor of total explosions and total money earned on the BART. Higher levels of variability were associated with fewer explosions but less money earned, whereas more pumps was associated with more explosions but more money. Higher CV was also associated with lower lifetime and past 3 months peak drinking quantity, higher levels of self-efficacy to control drinking, and lower levels of drinking acceptability (i.e., injunctive norms). Total pumps was associated with higher lifetime peak drinking, lower self-efficacy to control drinking, and higher levels drinking acceptability. Overall, the CV can provide an alternative method of assessing BART performance and the association of risk-taking with drinking patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).

Quantitative Research in Systemic Functional Linguistics

Science.gov (United States)

He, Qingshun

2018-01-01

The research of Systemic Functional Linguistics has been quite in-depth in both theory and practice. However, many linguists hold that Systemic Functional Linguistics has no hypothesis testing or experiments and its research is only qualitative. Analyses of the corpus, intelligent computing and language evolution on the ideological background of…

THE PROGRAMMING NEURO-LINGUISTICS AND THEIR APPLICABILITY IN THE PROCESS OF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gilma Álamo Sánchez

2008-04-01

Full Text Available He/she is carried out a study referred to tools of Programming Neuro-linguistics (PNL for the Selection, Employment and Training that allow choosing the appropriate personnel taking the language and the behavior as a result. For their development theories were revised referred to the PNL and the recruitment process and selection sustained in the process of the interview. The summations are oriented to the importance and convenience for the Management of Human resources of applying the Programming Neuro-linguistics as selection tool of personal. Finally it is recommended to apply the proposal inside the mark of adaptability according to the necessities and demands of each organization.

Linguistic fuzzy selection of liquid levelmeters in nuclear facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ghyym, S. H.

1999-01-01

In this work, a selection methodology of liquid levelmeters, especially, level sensors in non-nuclear category, to be installed in nuclear facilities is developed using a linguistic fuzzy approach. Depending on defuzzification techniques, the linguistic fuzzy methodology leads to either linguistic (exactly, fully-linguistic) or cardinal (i.e., semi-linguistic) evaluation. In the case of the linguistic method, for each alternative, fuzzy preference index is converted to linguistic utility value by means of a similarity measure determining the degree of similarity between fuzzy index and linguistic ratings. For the cardinal method, the index is translated to cardinal overall utility value. According to these values, alternatives of interest are linguistically or numerically evaluated and a suitable alternative can be selected. Under given selection criteria, the suitable selections out of some liquid levelmeters for nuclear facilities are dealt with using the linguistic fuzzy methodology proposed. Then, linguistic fuzzy evaluation results are compared with numerical results available in the literature. It is found that as to a suitable option the linguistic fuzzy selection is in agreement with the crisp numerical selection. In addition, this comparison shows that the fully-linguistic method facilitates linguistic interpretation regarding evaluation results

Linguistic fuzzy selection of liquid levelmeters in nuclear facilities

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ghyym, S. H. [KEPRI, Taejon (Korea, Republic of)

1999-10-01