scholarly journals The Processing of Negation and Polarity: An Overview

Author(s):  
Carolin Dudschig ◽  
Barbara Kaup ◽  
Mingya Liu ◽  
Juliane Schwab

AbstractNegation is a universal component of human language; polarity sensitivity (i.e., lexical distributional constraints in relation to negation) is arguably so while being pervasive across languages. Negation has long been a field of inquiry in psychological theories and experiments of reasoning, which inspired many follow-up studies of negation and negation-related phenomena in psycholinguistics. In generative theoretical linguistics, negation and polarity sensitivity have been extensively studied, as the related phenomena are situated at the interfaces of syntax, semantics and pragmatics, and are thus extremely revealing about the architecture of grammar. With the now long tradition of research on negation and polarity in psychology and psycholinguistics, and the emerging field of experimental semantics and pragmatics, a multitude of interests and experimental paradigms have emerged which call for re-evaluations and further development and integration. This special issue contains a collection of 16 research articles on the processing of negation and negation-related phenomena including polarity items, questions, conditionals, and irony, using a combination of behavioral (e.g., rating, reading, eye-tracking and sentence completion) and neuroimaging techniques (e.g., EEG). They showcase the processing of negation and polarity with or without context, in various languages and across different populations (adults, typically developing and ADHD children). The integration of multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives in this collection provides new insights, methodological advances and directions for future research.

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (12) ◽  
pp. 4450-4463
Author(s):  
Rikke Vang Christensen

Purpose The aim of the study was to explore the potential of performance on a Danish sentence repetition (SR) task—including specific morphological and syntactic properties—to identify difficulties in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) relative to typically developing (TD) children. Furthermore, the potential of the task as a clinical marker for Danish DLD was explored. Method SR performance of children with DLD aged 5;10–14;1 (years;months; n = 27) and TD children aged 5;3–13;4 ( n = 87) was investigated. Results Compared to TD same-age peers, children with DLD were less likely to repeat the sentences accurately but more likely to make ungrammatical errors with respect to verb inflection and use of determiners and personal pronouns. Younger children with DLD also produced more word order errors that their TD peers. Furthermore, older children with DLD performed less accurately than younger TD peers, indicating that the SR task taps into morphosyntactic areas of particular difficulty for Danish children with DLD. The classification accuracy associated with SR performance showed high levels of sensitivity and specificity (> 90%) and likelihood ratios indicating good identification potential for clinical and future research purposes. Conclusion SR performance has a strong potential for identifying children with DLD, also in Danish, and with a carefully designed SR task, performance has potential for revealing morphosyntactic difficulties. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.10314437


Crisis ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Chen ◽  
Brian L. Mishara ◽  
Xiao Xian Liu

Background: In China, where follow-up with hospitalized attempters is generally lacking, there is a great need for inexpensive and effective means of maintaining contact and decreasing recidivism. Aims: Our objective was to test whether mobile telephone message contacts after discharge would be feasible and acceptable to suicide attempters in China. Methods: Fifteen participants were recruited from suicide attempters seen in the Emergency Department in Wuhan, China, to participate in a pilot study to receive mobile telephone messages after discharge. All participants have access to a mobile telephone, and there is no charge for the user to receive text messages. Results: Most participants (12) considered the text message contacts an acceptable and useful form of help and would like to continue to receive them for a longer period of time. Conclusions: This suggests that, as a low-cost and quick method of intervention in areas where more intensive follow-up is not practical or available, telephone messages contacts are accessible, feasible, and acceptable to suicide attempters. We hope that this will inspire future research on regular and long-term message interventions to prevent recidivism in suicide attempters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-178
Author(s):  
Samantha Major ◽  
Kimberly Carpenter ◽  
Logan Beyer ◽  
Hannah Kwak ◽  
Geraldine Dawson ◽  
...  

Abstract. Auditory sensory gating is commonly assessed using the Paired-Click Paradigm (PCP), an electroencephalography (EEG) task in which two identical sounds are presented sequentially and the brain’s inhibitory response to the second sound is measured. Many clinical populations demonstrate reduced P50 and/or N100 suppression. Testing sensory gating in children may help to identify individuals at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders earlier, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which could lead to more optimal outcomes. Minimal research has been done with children because of the difficulty of performing lengthy EEG experiments with young children, requiring them to sit still for long periods of time. We designed a modified, potentially child-friendly version of the PCP and evaluated it in typically developing adults. The PCP was administered twice, once in a traditional silent room (silent movie condition) and once with an audible movie playing (audible movie condition) to minimize boredom and enhance behavioral compliance. We tested whether P50 and N100 suppression were influenced by the presence of the auditory background noise from the movie. N100 suppression was observed in both hemispheres in the silent movie condition and in the left hemisphere only during the audible movie condition, though suppression was attenuated in the audible movie condition. P50 suppression was not observed in either condition. N100 sensory gating was successfully elicited with an audible movie playing during the PCP, supporting the use of the modified task for future research in both children and adults.


1996 ◽  
Vol 76 (06) ◽  
pp. 0887-0892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Ricotta ◽  
Alfonso lorio ◽  
Pasquale Parise ◽  
Giuseppe G Nenci ◽  
Giancarlo Agnelli

SummaryA high incidence of post-discharge venous thromboembolism in orthopaedic surgery patients has been recently reported drawing further attention to the unresolved issue of the optimal duration of the pharmacological prophylaxis. We performed an overview analysis in order to evaluate the incidence of late occurring clinically overt venous thromboembolism in major orthopaedic surgery patients discharged from the hospital with a negative venography and without further pharmacological prophylaxis. We selected the studies published from January 1974 to December 1995 on the prophylaxis of venous thromboembolism after major orthopaedic surgery fulfilling the following criteria: 1) adoption of pharmacological prophylaxis, 2) performing of a bilateral venography before discharge, 3) interruption of pharmacological prophylaxis at discharge in patients with negative venography, and 4) post-discharge follow-up of the patients for at least four weeks. Out of 31 identified studies, 13 fulfilled the overview criteria. The total number of evaluated patients was 4120. An adequate venography was obtained in 3469 patients (84.1%). In the 2361 patients with negative venography (68.1%), 30 episodes of symptomatic venous thromboembolism after hospital discharge were reported with a resulting cumulative incidence of 1.27% (95% C.I. 0.82-1.72) and a weighted mean incidence of 1.52% (95% C.I. 1.05-1.95). Six cases of pulmonary embolism were reported. Our overview showed a low incidence of clinically overt venous thromboembolism at follow-up in major orthopaedic surgery patients discharged with negative venography. Extending pharmacological prophylaxis in these patients does not appear to be justified. Venous thrombi leading to hospital re-admission are likely to be present but asymptomatic at the time of discharge. Future research should be directed toward improving the accuracy of non invasive diagnostic methods in order to replace venography in the screening of asymptomatic post-operative deep vein thrombosis.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Gullick ◽  
James R. Booth

Crossmodal integration is a critical component of successful reading, and yet it has been less studied than reading’s unimodal subskills. Proficiency with the sounds of a language (i.e., the phonemes) and with the visual representations of these sounds (graphemes) are both important and necessary precursors for reading, but the formation of a stable integrated representation that combines and links these aspects, and subsequent fluent and automatic access to this crossmodal representation, is unique to reading and is required for its success. Indeed, individuals with specific difficulties in reading, as in dyslexia, demonstrate impairments not only in phonology and orthography but also in integration. Impairments in only crossmodal integration could result in disordered reading via disrupted formation of or access to phoneme–grapheme associations. Alternately, the phonological deficits noted in many individuals with dyslexia may lead to reading difficulties via issues with integration: children who cannot consistently identify and manipulate the sounds of their language will also have trouble matching these sounds to their visual representations, resulting in the manifested deficiencies. We here discuss the importance of crossmodal integration in reading, both generally and as a potential specific causal deficit in the case of dyslexia. We examine the behavioral, functional, and structural neural evidence for a crossmodal, as compared to unimodal, processing issue in individuals with dyslexia in comparison to typically developing controls. We then present an initial review of work using crossmodal- versus unimodal-based reading interventions and training programs aimed at the amelioration of reading difficulties. Finally, we present some remaining questions reflecting potential areas for future research into this topic.


1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Reimers ◽  
David P. Wacker ◽  
Linda J. Cooper ◽  
Agnes O. Deraad

The authors examined the acceptability ratings of positive reinforcement procedures recommended to parents seen in a pediatric behavior management outpatient clinic. Parental ratings of acceptability were obtained in the clinic and 1, 3, and 6 months following their initial clinic visit. Acceptability variables were examined by group (parents who rated the acceptability of treatments as high vs. low) and by severity (parents who rated their children's behavior problem as severe vs. mild). The relationship between these variables and reported compliance was also examined. Results show that the acceptability variables were useful in differentiating between parents who rated treatments to be more acceptable and parents who rated treatments to be less acceptable. Differences were also observed as a function of behavior problem severity. Significant correlations occurred between acceptability variables and compliance at each of the follow-up points. Results are discussed in relation to the clinical significance of these findings and the impetus they might serve for future research.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Martina Madl ◽  
Marietta Lieb ◽  
Katharina Schieber ◽  
Tobias Hepp ◽  
Yesim Erim

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Due to the establishment of a nationwide certification system for cancer centers in Germany, the availability of psycho-oncological services for cancer patients has increased substantially. However, little is known about the specific intervention techniques that are applied during sessions in an acute care hospital, since a standardized taxonomy is lacking. With this study, we aimed at the investigation of psycho-oncological intervention techniques and the development of a comprehensive and structured taxonomy thereof. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> In a stepwise procedure, a team of psycho-oncologists generated a data pool of interventions and definitions that were tested in clinical practice during a pilot phase. After an adaptation of intervention techniques, interrater reliability (IRR) was attained by rating 10 previously recorded psycho-oncological sessions. A classification of interventions into superordinate categories was performed, supported by cluster analysis. <b><i>Results:</i></b> Between April and June 2017, 980 psycho-oncological sessions took place. The experts agreed on a total number of 22 intervention techniques. An IRR of 89% for 2 independent psycho-oncological raters was reached. The 22 techniques were classified into 5 superordinate categories. <b><i>Discussion/Conclusion:</i></b> We developed a comprehensive and structured taxonomy of psycho-oncological intervention techniques in an acute care hospital that provides a standardized basis for systematic research and applied care. We expect our work to be continuously subjected to further development: future research should evaluate and expand our taxonomy to other contexts and care settings.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. e047349
Author(s):  
Ewoud ter Avest ◽  
Barbara C van Munster ◽  
Raymond J van Wijk ◽  
Sanne Tent ◽  
Sanne Ter Horst ◽  
...  

PurposeResearch in acute care faces many challenges, including enrolment challenges, legal limitations in data sharing, limited funding and lack of singular ownership of the domain of acute care. To overcome these challenges, the Center of Acute Care of the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, has established a de novo data, image and biobank named ‘Acutelines’.ParticipantsClinical data, imaging data and biomaterials (ie, blood, urine, faeces, hair) are collected from patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with a broad range of acute disease presentations. A deferred consent procedure (by proxy) is in place to allow collecting data and biomaterials prior to obtaining written consent. The digital infrastructure used ensures automated capturing of all bed-side monitoring data (ie, vital parameters, electrophysiological waveforms) and securely importing data from other sources, such as the electronic health records of the hospital, ambulance and general practitioner, municipal registration and pharmacy. Data are collected from all included participants during the first 72 hours of their hospitalisation, while follow-up data are collected at 3 months, 1 year, 2 years and 5 years after their ED visit.Findings to dateEnrolment of the first participant occurred on 1 September 2020. During the first month, 653 participants were screened for eligibility, of which 180 were approached as potential participants. In total, 151 (84%) provided consent for participation of which 89 participants fulfilled criteria for collection of biomaterials.Future plansThe main aim of Acutelines is to facilitate research in acute medicine by providing the framework for novel studies and issuing data, images and biomaterials for future research. The protocol will be extended by connecting with central registries to obtain long-term follow-up data, for which we already request permission from the participant.Trial registration numberNCT04615065.


Autism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136236132110240
Author(s):  
Jung-Chi Chang ◽  
Meng-Chuan Lai ◽  
Yueh-Ming Tai ◽  
Susan Shur-Fen Gau

Cross-sectional research has demonstrated the overrepresentation of gender dysphoria in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder. However, the predictors and underlying mechanisms of this co-occurrence remain unclear. This follow-up study aimed to explore baseline (childhood/adolescence) predictors for the follow-up (adulthood) self-reported wish to be of the opposite sex and to investigate its mental health correlates in a sample of 88 autistic individuals as compared with 42 typically developing controls. An item on the Adult Self-Report Inventory-4, “I wish I was the opposite sex,” was used. We compared mental health symptoms between adults with and without this item endorsement. We used prediction models to explore family and autism-related predictors in childhood/adolescence to endorse this item in adulthood. There were more adults endorsing the item in the autism spectrum disorder group compared with the typically developing group. Autistic adults who endorsed the item experienced more mental health challenges, more bullying victimization, more suicidal ideations, and worse quality of life. Lower parent-reported family support and more stereotyped/repetitive behaviors during childhood/adolescence predicted the self-reported wish to be of the opposite sex in adulthood in autistic individuals. It is necessary to raise more attention to gender development and related mental health impact in autistic individuals. Lay abstract Autistic people/people with autism spectrum disorder are more likely to experience gender dysphoria. However, the possible longitudinal predictors and underlying mechanisms of this co-occurrence are unclear. To fill this knowledge gap, we assessed 88 people with autism spectrum disorder and 42 typically developing individuals at their average ages of 13.0 (baseline, childhood/adolescence) and 20.2 years old (follow-up, adulthood). At follow-up, their endorsement on the item “I wish I was the opposite sex” was used to evaluate gender dysphoric symptoms. We compared mental health symptoms between adults with and without this item endorsement at the follow-up assessment. We explored parent-reported family and autism characteristics-related predictors in childhood/adolescence to this item endorsement in adulthood. We found that more autistic adults reported the wish to be of the opposite sex than did typically developing individuals. Autistic adults who endorsed this item experienced more mental health challenges, more school bullying and cyberbullying, more suicidal ideation, and worse quality of life. Moreover, parent-reported lower family support and more stereotyped/repetitive behaviors during childhood/adolescence predicted the self-reported wish to be of the opposite sex in adulthood in autistic individuals. More attention and support should be provided to autistic people regarding gender development and related mental health and quality of life impact, especially during the transition period to young adulthood.


Author(s):  
J. R. Mullaney ◽  
L. Makrygianni ◽  
V. Dhillon ◽  
S. Littlefair ◽  
K. Ackley ◽  
...  

Abstract The past few decades have seen the burgeoning of wide-field, high-cadence surveys, the most formidable of which will be the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) to be conducted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. So new is the field of systematic time-domain survey astronomy; however, that major scientific insights will continue to be obtained using smaller, more flexible systems than the LSST. One such example is the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) whose primary science objective is the optical follow-up of gravitational wave events. The amount and rate of data production by GOTO and other wide-area, high-cadence surveys presents a significant challenge to data processing pipelines which need to operate in near-real time to fully exploit the time domain. In this study, we adapt the Rubin Observatory LSST Science Pipelines to process GOTO data, thereby exploring the feasibility of using this ‘off-the-shelf’ pipeline to process data from other wide-area, high-cadence surveys. In this paper, we describe how we use the LSST Science Pipelines to process raw GOTO frames to ultimately produce calibrated coadded images and photometric source catalogues. After comparing the measured astrometry and photometry to those of matched sources from PanSTARRS DR1, we find that measured source positions are typically accurate to subpixel levels, and that measured L-band photometries are accurate to $\sim50$ mmag at $m_L\sim16$ and $\sim200$ mmag at $m_L\sim18$ . These values compare favourably to those obtained using GOTO’s primary, in-house pipeline, gotophoto, in spite of both pipelines having undergone further development and improvement beyond the implementations used in this study. Finally, we release a generic ‘obs package’ that others can build upon, should they wish to use the LSST Science Pipelines to process data from other facilities.


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