scholarly journals Ignorance implicatures of modified numerals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Cremers ◽  
Liz Coppock ◽  
Jakub Dotlačil ◽  
Floris Roelofsen
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Epistemic State ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Natural Explanation ◽  
Task Effect ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
Modified Numerals ◽  
Inference Task

AbstractModified numerals, such as at least three and more than five, are known to sometimes give rise to ignorance inferences. However, there is disagreement in the literature regarding the nature of these inferences, their context dependence, and differences between at least and more than. We present a series of experiments which sheds new light on these issues. Our results show that (a) the ignorance inferences of at least are more robust than those of more than, (b) the presence and strength of the ignorance inferences triggered by both at least and more than depends on the question under discussion (QUD), and (c) whether ignorance inferences are detected in a given experimental setting depends partly on the task that participants are asked to perform (e.g., an acceptability task versus an inference task). We offer an Optimality Theoretic account of these findings. In particular, the task effect is captured by assuming that in performing an acceptability task, participants take the speaker’s perspective in order to determine whether an expression is optimal given a certain epistemic state, while in performing an inference task they take the addressee’s perspective in order to determine what the most likely epistemic state of the speaker is given a certain expression. To execute the latter task in a fully rational manner, participants have to perform higher-order reasoning about alternative expressions the speaker could have used. Under the assumption that participants do not always perform such higher-order reasoning but also often resort to so-called unidirectional optimization, the task effect finds a natural explanation. This also allows us to relate our finding to asymmetries between comprehension and production that have been found in language acquisition.

scholarly journals Reputations for Resolve and Higher-Order Beliefs in Crisis Bargaining

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200272199554
Author(s):  
Allan Dafoe ◽  
Remco Zwetsloot ◽  
Matthew Cebul
Keyword(s):  
Belief Change ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Order Effects ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
First Order ◽  
Qualitative Evidence ◽  
Higher Order Effects

Reputations for resolve are said to be one of the few things worth fighting for, yet they remain inadequately understood. Discussions of reputation focus almost exclusively on first-order belief change— A stands firm, B updates its beliefs about A’s resolve. Such first-order reputational effects are important, but they are not the whole story. Higher-order beliefs—what A believes about B’s beliefs, and so on—matter a great deal as well. When A comes to believe that B is more resolved, this may decrease A’s resolve, and this in turn may increase B’s resolve, and so on. In other words, resolve is interdependent. We offer a framework for estimating higher-order effects, and find evidence of such reasoning in a survey experiment on quasi-elites. Our findings indicate both that states and leaders can develop potent reputations for resolve, and that higher-order beliefs are often responsible for a large proportion of these effects (40 percent to 70 percent in our experimental setting). We conclude by complementing the survey with qualitative evidence and laying the groundwork for future research.

Universals, innateness and explanation in second language acquisition

2004 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 682-703 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Eckman
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Typology ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Typological Approach

This paper considers the question of explanation in second language acquisition within the context of two approaches to universals, Universal Grammar and language typology. After briefly discussing the logic of explaining facts by including them under general laws (Hempel & Oppenheim 1948), the paper makes a case for the typological approach to explanation being the more fruitful, in that it allows more readily for the possibility of ‘explanatory ascent’, the ability to propose more general, higher order explanations by having lower-level generalizations follow from more general principles. The UG approach, on the other hand is less capable of such explanatory ascent because of the postulation that the innate, domain-specific principles of UG are not reducible in any interesting way to higher order principles of cognition (Chomsky 1982).

Perceptual Grouping of Dots in Noise

Perception ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 25 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 160-160
Author(s):  
S P Tripathy ◽  
A J Mussap ◽  
H B Barlow
Keyword(s):  
Visual System ◽  
Perceptual Grouping ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Line Detection ◽  
Order Processing ◽  
Correct Performance ◽  
Single Mechanism ◽  
Series Of Experiments

Observers were asked to report the orientation of alignment (horizontal vs vertical) of a group of target dots embedded in randomly placed noise dots. For this perceptual grouping task, sensitivity (the number of noise dots giving 75% correct performance) was measured as a function of the number of target dots. We report surprising tolerance to positional jitter of target dots, with far less tolerance exhibited to alignment jitter than separation jitter. In this respect, perceptual grouping in our task resembles line detection. In a further series of experiments the target was produced by positional shifts of an appropriate number of noise dots, rather than by addition of target dots to the noise dots (this procedure minimised density cues). The improvement in sensitivity with increasing number of target dots was found to be linear (when plotted on log — log axes) with a slope of 0.5, as opposed to bilinear [cf B Moulden, 1994, in Higher-Order Processing in the Visual System Eds G R Bock, J A Goode (Chichester: John Wiley) pp 170 – 192]. This linearity suggests that, over the range of target dot numbers tested, a single mechanism may be sufficient to explain performance.

scholarly journals Ignorance in context: The interaction of modified numerals and QUDs

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthijs Westera ◽  
Adrian Brasoveanu
Keyword(s):  
Lower Bound ◽  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Exact Answer ◽  
Processing Cost ◽  
Experimental Semantics ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Pragmatic Account ◽  
Question Under Discussion ◽  
Modified Numerals

<p>We argue for a purely pragmatic account of the ignorance inferences associated with superlative but not comparative modifiers (at least vs. more than). Ignorance inferences for both modifiers are triggered when the question under discussion (QUD) requires an exact answer, but when these modifiers are used out of the blue the QUD is implicitly reconstructed based on the way these modifiers are typically used, and on the fact that "at least n", but not "more than n", mentions and does not exclude the lower bound "exactly n". The paper presents new experimental evidence for the context-sensitivity of ignorance inferences, and also for the hypothesis that the higher processing cost reported in the literature for superlative modifiers is context-dependent in the exact same way.</p><p>Keywords: superlative vs. comparative modifiers, ignorance inferences, questions under discussion, experimental semantics and pragmatics</p>

Galvanic Skin Response As a Measure of Engagement During Play in Virtual Reality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roni Barak Ventura ◽  
Maurizio Porfiri
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Galvanic Skin Response ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Information Theoretic ◽  
Emotional Processes ◽  
Skin Response ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Under Performing ◽  
Physiological Correlate

Abstract Competition is a common design strategy used to enhance user engagement and participation. However, it remains unclear how winning or losing might influence player’s engagement. In a recent study, we used behavioral metrics to quantify player engagement during competitive gameplay in virtual reality. To control for players’ status of winning or losing, we programmed a virtual opponent to either under-perform, over-perform, or tie with them. We conducted a series of experiments and found that players’ engagement was higher when they were losing, compared to when they played alone. Nevertheless, players’ engagement did not change during competition with an under-performing or equally-performing opponent. By applying the information-theoretic notion of transfer entropy, we unveiled a causal relationships between relative performance and engagement, whereby players monitored the scores and adapted their behavior accordingly. However, behavioral metrics are not detached from volition and may be influenced by confounding factors. This limitation is addressed by the use of physiological metrics, which offer largely unbiased measurements of cognitive and emotional processes. In the present study, we sought to strengthen our prior findings by measuring engagement with a physiological correlate. We conducted experiments in the same experimental setting and we measured players’ galvanic skin response during competition. We discovered that players’ skin conductance was higher when they were outperformed by their opponent, indicating that they were experiencing less flow. The results inform the design of technology-mediated applications toward sustaining user engagement and participation.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE GRONINGEN ASSEMBLY ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION.Charlotte Koster and Frank Wijnen (Eds.). Groningen, The Netherlands: Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen, 1996. Pp. 389.

1997 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-520
Author(s):  
Robert Yates
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Experimental Setting ◽  
Lively Discussion ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Language And Cognition

This volume contains 34 papers presented at the Groningen Assembly on Language Acquisition in September 1995. According to the editors, the conference was designed to promote “a lively discussion about the merits and constraints of different approaches to language acquisition.” Not surprisingly, in a conference that explicitly mentions it is continuing in the tradition of GALA 1993, Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition, 23 of the papers in one way or the other deal with the innate properties of language and their status in language acquisition, whereas 7 papers have a connectionist perspective. Only 2 of the connectionist papers provide data from language learners. Two papers describe aspects of first language acquisition without an obvious theoretical allegiance. Only 1 paper considers how children make use of negative input provided in an experimental setting for learning about irregular verb forms. There is not a single paper on how interaction with caregivers influences language acquisition or how language is socially constructed.

Language discrimination by newborns

2002 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 85-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franck Ramus
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Newborn Infants ◽  
Temporal Correlation ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Language Discrimination ◽  
Speech Cues ◽  
Series Of Experiments

Speech rhythm has long been claimed to be a useful bootstrapping cue in the very first steps of language acquisition. Previous studies have suggested that newborn infants do categorize varieties of speech rhythm, as demonstrated by their ability to discriminate between certain languages. However, the existing evidence is not unequivocal: in previous studies, stimuli discriminated by newborns always contained additional speech cues on top of rhythm. Here, we conducted a series of experiments assessing discrimination between Dutch and Japanese by newborn infants, using a speech resynthesis technique to progressively degrade non-rhythmical properties of the sentences. When the stimuli are resynthesized using identical phonemes and artificial intonation contours for the two languages, thereby preserving only their rhythmic and broad phonotactic structure, newborns still seem to be able to discriminate between the two languages, but the effect is weaker than when intonation is present. This leaves open the possibility that the temporal correlation between intonational and rhythmic cues might actually facilitate the processing of speech rhythm.

Strategies of Rule Discovery in an Inference Task

1980 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan D. Tweney ◽  
Michael E. Doherty ◽  
Winifred J. Worner ◽  
Daniel B. Pliske ◽  
Clifford R. Mynatt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rule Discovery ◽  
Psychological Study ◽  
The Third ◽  
Multiple Hypotheses ◽  
Scientific Inference ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Strong Inference ◽  
Fourth Experiment ◽  
Inference Task

It has long been known that subjects in certain inference tasks will seek evidence which can confirm their present hypotheses, even in situations where disconfirmatory evidence could be more informative. We sought to alter this tendency in a series of experiments which employed a rule discovery task, the 2-4-6 problem first described by Wason. The first experiment instructionally modified subjects confirmatory tendencies. While a disconfirmatory strategy was easily induced, it did not lead to greater efficiency in discovering the rule. The second experiment introduced subjects to the possibility of disconfirmation only after they had developed a strongly held hypothesis through the use of confirmatory evidence. This manipulation also failed to alter the efficiency of rule discovery. In the third experiment, subjects were taught to use multiple hypotheses at each step, in the manner of Platt's “Strong Inference”. This operation actually worsened performance. Finally, in the fourth experiment, the structure of the problem was altered slightly by asking subjects to seek two interrelated rules. A dramatic increase in performance resulted, perhaps because information which in previous tasks was seen as merely erroneous could now be related to an alternative rule. The four studies have broad implications for the psychological study of inference processes in general, and for the study of scientific inference in particular.

scholarly journals Parsing entire discourses as very long strings: Capturing topic continuity in grounded language learning

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 315-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minh-Thang Luong ◽  
Michael C. Frank ◽  
Mark Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Long Strings ◽  
Grammatical Inference ◽  
Independence Assumption ◽  
Structure Information ◽  
Acquisition Task ◽  
Parse Trees ◽  
Input Strings ◽  
Inference Task

Grounded language learning, the task of mapping from natural language to a representation of meaning, has attracted more and more interest in recent years. In most work on this topic, however, utterances in a conversation are treated independently and discourse structure information is largely ignored. In the context of language acquisition, this independence assumption discards cues that are important to the learner, e.g., the fact that consecutive utterances are likely to share the same referent (Frank et al., 2013). The current paper describes an approach to the problem of simultaneously modeling grounded language at the sentence and discourse levels. We combine ideas from parsing and grammar induction to produce a parser that can handle long input strings with thousands of tokens, creating parse trees that represent full discourses. By casting grounded language learning as a grammatical inference task, we use our parser to extend the work of Johnson et al. (2012), investigating the importance of discourse continuity in children’s language acquisition and its interaction with social cues. Our model boosts performance in a language acquisition task and yields good discourse segmentations compared with human annotators.

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