scholarly journals Algorithms in the historical emergence of word senses

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (10) ◽  
pp. 2323-2328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Ramiro ◽  
Mahesh Srinivasan ◽  
Barbara C. Malt ◽  
Yang Xu
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
Nearest Neighbor ◽  
Computational Framework ◽  
Cognitive Efficiency ◽  
The Past ◽  
Generative Processes ◽  
Infinite Set ◽  
Word Senses ◽  
Over Time

Human language relies on a finite lexicon to express a potentially infinite set of ideas. A key result of this tension is that words acquire novel senses over time. However, the cognitive processes that underlie the historical emergence of new word senses are poorly understood. Here, we present a computational framework that formalizes competing views of how new senses of a word might emerge by attaching to existing senses of the word. We test the ability of the models to predict the temporal order in which the senses of individual words have emerged, using an historical lexicon of English spanning the past millennium. Our findings suggest that word senses emerge in predictable ways, following an historical path that reflects cognitive efficiency, predominantly through a process of nearest-neighbor chaining. Our work contributes a formal account of the generative processes that underlie lexical evolution.

scholarly journals Algorithms in the historical emergence of word senses.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Ramiro ◽  
Mahesh Srinivasan ◽  
Barbara Claire Malt ◽  
Yang Xu
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Order ◽  
Nearest Neighbor ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Cognitive Efficiency ◽  
The Past ◽  
Generative Processes ◽  
Word Senses ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Past Millennium

Human language relies on a finite lexicon to express a potentiallyinfinite set of ideas. A key result of this tension is that wordsacquire novel senses over time. However, the cognitive processesthat underlie the historical emergence of new word senses arepoorly understood. Here, we present a computational frameworkthat formalizes competing views of how new senses of a wordmight emerge by attaching to existing senses of the word. We testthe ability of the models to predict the temporal order in whichthe senses of individual words have emerged, using an historicallexicon of English spanning the past millennium. Our findingssuggest that word senses emerge in predictable ways, followingan historical path that reflects cognitive efficiency, predominantlythrough a process of nearest-neighbor chaining. Our work contributesa formal account of the generative processes that underlielexical evolution.

scholarly journals Chaining algorithms and historical adjective extension

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Xu ◽  
Karan Grewal
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Probabilistic Models ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Semantic Space ◽  
Context Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Text ◽  
Google Books ◽  
Infinite Set ◽  
Over Time

Natural language relies on a finite lexicon to express a potentially infinite set of ideas. This tension often results in the innovative reuse of existing words to describe emerging ideas. In this chapter, we take a computational perspective to examine how English adjectives extend their range over time to modify nouns and form previously unattested adjective-noun pairs. We hypothesize that how novel adjective-noun pairings emerge is non-arbitrary and follows a process of chaining, whereby novel noun referents for an adjective link to existing nouns modified by the same adjective that are close in semantic space. We test this proposal by exploring a set of probabilistic models that predict adjective-noun pairs from a historical text corpus (Google Books) that spans the past 150 years. Our findings across three diverse sets of adjectives support a chaining mechanism sensitive to local semantic neighbourhood -- formulated as an exemplar model of categorization similar to the Generalized Context Model. These findings mirror existing work on chaining in the historical growth of grammatical categories. We discuss the limitations and implications of our approach toward a general theory of word meaning extension in natural language.

Process Accountability as a De-Escalation Technique

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Klaus Moser ◽  
Hans-Georg Wolff ◽  
Roman Soucek
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Information Search ◽  
Employment Relationship ◽  
Escalation Of Commitment ◽  
Tunnel Vision ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Performance Problems ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Biased Information

Abstract. Escalation of commitment occurs when a course of action is continued despite repeated drawbacks (e.g., maintaining an employment relationship despite severe performance problems). We analyze process accountability (PA) as a de-escalation technique that helps to discontinue a failing course of action and show how time moderates both the behavioral and cognitive processes involved: (1) Because sound decisions should be based on (hopefully unbiased) information search, which requires time to gather, the effect of PA on de-escalation increases over time. (2) Because continuing information search creates behavioral commitment, the debiasing effect of PA on information search diminishes over time. (3) Consistent with the tunnel vision notion, the effects of less biased information search on de-escalation decrease over time.

Exploring the Boundaries of the Number–Temporal Order Association

2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 198-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana Ganor-Stern
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Numerical Comparison ◽  
Negative Number ◽  
Comparison Task ◽  
Negative Numbers ◽  
The Past

Past research has shown that numbers are associated with order in time such that performance in a numerical comparison task is enhanced when number pairs appear in ascending order, when the larger number follows the smaller one. This was found in the past for the integers 1–9 ( Ben-Meir, Ganor-Stern, & Tzelgov, 2013 ; Müller & Schwarz, 2008 ). In the present study we explored whether the advantage for processing numbers in ascending order exists also for fractions and negative numbers. The results demonstrate this advantage for fraction pairs and for integer-fraction pairs. However, the opposite advantage for descending order was found for negative numbers and for positive-negative number pairs. These findings are interpreted in the context of embodied cognition approaches and current theories on the mental representation of fractions and negative numbers.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Telesca Giuseppe
Keyword(s):  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
The Past ◽  
Final Goal ◽  
Social Structural ◽  
Country Analysis ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Over Time

The ambition of this book is to combine different bodies of scholarship that in the past have been interested in (1) providing social/structural analysis of financial elites, (2) measuring their influence, or (3) exploring their degree of persistence/circulation. The final goal of the volume is to investigate the adjustment of financial elites to institutional change, and to assess financial elites’ contribution to institutional change. To reach this goal, the nine chapters of the book introduced here look at financial elites’ role in different European societies and markets over time, and provide historical comparisons and country and cross-country analysis of their adaptation and contribution to the transformation of the national and international regulatory/cultural context in the wake of a crisis or in a longer term perspective.

Newman's Early Roman Catholic Legacy, 1845-1854

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Michael Shea
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
John Henry Newman ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
European Continent ◽  
The Past ◽  
Immaculate Conception ◽  
Over Time

For the past several decades, scholars have stressed that the genius of John Henry Newman remained underappreciated among his Roman Catholic contemporaries, and in order to find the true impact of his work, one must look to the century after his death. This book takes direct aim at that assumption. Examining a host of overlooked evidence from England and the European continent, Newman’s Early Legacy tracks letters, recorded conversations, and obscure and unpublished theological exchanges to show how Newman’s 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine influenced a cadre of Catholic teachers, writers, and Church authorities in nineteenth-century Rome. The book explores how these individuals then employed Newman’s theory of development to argue for the definability of the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary during the years preceding the doctrine’s promulgation in 1854. Through numerous twists and turns, the narrative traces how the theory of development became a factor in determining the very language that the Roman Catholic Church would use in referring to doctrinal change over time. In this way, Newman’s Early Legacy uncovers a key dimension of Newman’s significance in modern religious history.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Downes ◽  
Sally Holloway ◽  
Sarah Randles
Keyword(s):  
Material World ◽  
The Past ◽  
Over Time

This book is about the ways in which humans have been bound affectively to the material world in and over time; how they have made, commissioned, and used objects to facilitate their emotional lives; how they felt about their things; and the ways certain things from the past continue to make people feel today. The temporal and geographical focus of ...

Anti-corruption in History

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Global Media ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Wellbeing ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Legitimate Power ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Over Time

Anticorruption in History is the first major collection of case studies on how past societies and polities, in and beyond Europe, defined legitimate power in terms of fighting corruption and designed specific mechanisms to pursue that agenda. It is a timely book: corruption is widely seen today as a major problem, undermining trust in government, financial institutions, economic efficiency, the principle of equality before the law and human wellbeing in general. Corruption, in short, is a major hurdle on the “path to Denmark”—a feted blueprint for stable and successful statebuilding. The resonance of this view explains why efforts to promote anticorruption policies have proliferated in recent years. But while the subjects of corruption and anticorruption have captured the attention of politicians, scholars, NGOs and the global media, scant attention has been paid to the link between corruption and the change of anticorruption policies over time and place. Such a historical approach could help explain major moments of change in the past as well as reasons for the success and failure of specific anticorruption policies and their relation to a country’s image (of itself or as construed from outside) as being more or less corrupt. It is precisely this scholarly lacuna that the present volume intends to begin to fill. A wide range of historical contexts are addressed, ranging from the ancient to the modern period, with specific insights for policy makers offered throughout.

scholarly journals Characterizing Bilingual Effects on Cognition: The Search for Meaningful Individual Differences

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Kristina C. Backer ◽  
Heather Bortfeld
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Language Background ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
The Past ◽  
General Movement ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

A debate over the past decade has focused on the so-called bilingual advantage—the idea that bilingual and multilingual individuals have enhanced domain-general executive functions, relative to monolinguals, due to competition-induced monitoring of both processing and representation from the task-irrelevant language(s). In this commentary, we consider a recent study by Pot, Keijzer, and de Bot (2018), which focused on the relationship between individual differences in language usage and performance on an executive function task among multilingual older adults. We discuss their approach and findings in light of a more general movement towards embracing complexity in this domain of research, including individuals’ sociocultural context and position in the lifespan. The field increasingly considers interactions between bilingualism/multilingualism and cognition, employing measures of language use well beyond the early dichotomous perspectives on language background. Moreover, new measures of bilingualism and analytical approaches are helping researchers interrogate the complexities of specific processing issues. Indeed, our review of the bilingualism/multilingualism literature confirms the increased appreciation researchers have for the range of factors—beyond whether someone speaks one, two, or more languages—that impact specific cognitive processes. Here, we highlight some of the most salient of these, and incorporate suggestions for a way forward that likewise encompasses neural perspectives on the topic.

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