Grammar change

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-55
Author(s):  
Hubert Haider
Keyword(s):  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Domain ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Biological Domain ◽  
Structural Parts ◽  
Grammar Systems ◽  
Random Variation

Abstract Structurally, cognitive and biological evolution are highly similar. Random variation and constant but blind selection drive evolution within biology as well as within cognition. However, evolution of cognitive programs, and in particular of grammar systems, is not a subclass of biological evolution but a domain of its own. The abstract evolutionary principles, however, are akin in cognitive and biological evolution. In other words, insights gained in the biological domain can be cautiously applied to the cognitive domain. This paper claims that the cognitively encapsulated, i.e. consciously inaccessible, aspects of grammars as cognitively represented systems, that is, the procedural and structural parts of grammars, are subject to, and results of, Darwinian evolution, applying to a domain-specific cognitive program. Other, consciously accessible aspects of language do not fall under Darwinian evolutionary principles, but are mostly instances of social changes.

scholarly journals Association of Depression and Anxiety With Cognitive Impairment 6 Months After Stroke

Neurology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 10.1212/WNL.0000000000011748
Author(s):  
Owen A Williams ◽  
Nele Demeyere
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Acute Stroke ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Anxiety Symptoms ◽  
Cognitive Domain ◽  
Stroke Severity ◽  
Depression And Anxiety ◽  
Post Stroke ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Post Stroke Depression

Objective:Investigate the associations between general cognitive impairment and domain specific cognitive impairment with post-stroke depression and anxiety at six-months post-stroke.Methods:Participants were confirmed acute stroke patients from the OCS-CARE study who were recruited on stroke wards in a multi-site study and followed up at a 6 months post-stroke assessment. Depression and anxiety symptoms were assessed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale sub-scales, with scores greater than seven indicating possible mood disorders. General cognitive impairment at follow-up was assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, stroke-specific cognitive domain impairments was assessed using the Oxford Cognitive Screen. Linear regression was used to examine the associations between cognition and depression/anxiety symptoms at 6-months, controlling for acute-stroke severity and ADL-impairment, age, sex, education, and co-occurring post-stroke depression/anxiety.Results:437 participants mean age=69.28 years (S.D.=12.17), 226 male (51.72%), were included in analyses. Six-month post-stroke depression (n=115, 26%) was associated with six-month impairment on the MoCA (beta [b] =0.96, standard error [SE] =0.31, p=0.006), and all individual domains assessed by the OCS: spatial attention (b=0.67, SE=0.33, p =0.041), executive function (b=1.37, SE=0.47, p=0.004), language processing (b=0.87, SE=0.38, p=0.028), memory (b=0.76, SE=0.37, p=0.040), number processing (b=1.13, SE=0.40, p=0.005), praxis (b=1.16, SE =0.49, p=0.028). Post-stroke anxiety (n=133, 30%) was associated with impairment on the MoCA (b=1.47, SE=0.42, p=0.001), and spatial attention (b=1.25, SE=0.45, p=0.006), these associations did not remain significant after controlling for co-occurring post-stroke depression.Conclusion:Domain-general and domain-specific post-stroke cognitive impairment was found to be highly related to depressive symptomatology but not anxiety symptomatology.

Techniques for Named Entity Recognition

2012 ◽  
pp. 191-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Girish Keshav Palshikar
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Named Entity Recognition ◽  
Entity Recognition ◽  
Named Entities ◽  
Named Entity ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Web Contents ◽  
Biological Domain

While building and using a fully semantic understanding of Web contents is a distant goal, named entities (NEs) provide a small, tractable set of elements carrying a well-defined semantics. Generic named entities are names of persons, locations, organizations, phone numbers, and dates, while domain-specific named entities includes names of for example, proteins, enzymes, organisms, genes, cells, et cetera, in the biological domain. An ability to automatically perform named entity recognition (NER) – i.e., identify occurrences of NE in Web contents – can have multiple benefits, such as improving the expressiveness of queries and also improving the quality of the search results. A number of factors make building highly accurate NER a challenging task. Given the importance of NER in semantic processing of text, this chapter presents a detailed survey of NER techniques for English text.

Techniques for Named Entity Recognition

2013 ◽  
pp. 400-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Girish Keshav Palshikar
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Named Entity Recognition ◽  
Entity Recognition ◽  
Named Entities ◽  
Named Entity ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Web Contents ◽  
Biological Domain

While building and using a fully semantic understanding of Web contents is a distant goal, named entities (NEs) provide a small, tractable set of elements carrying a well-defined semantics. Generic named entities are names of persons, locations, organizations, phone numbers, and dates, while domain-specific named entities includes names of for example, proteins, enzymes, organisms, genes, cells, et cetera, in the biological domain. An ability to automatically perform named entity recognition (NER) – i.e., identify occurrences of NE in Web contents – can have multiple benefits, such as improving the expressiveness of queries and also improving the quality of the search results. A number of factors make building highly accurate NER a challenging task. Given the importance of NER in semantic processing of text, this chapter presents a detailed survey of NER techniques for English text.

scholarly journals Profile of and risk factors for poststroke cognitive impairment in diverse ethnoregional groups

Neurology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (24) ◽  
pp. e2257-e2271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica W. Lo ◽  
John D. Crawford ◽  
David W. Desmond ◽  
Olivier Godefroy ◽  
Hanna Jokinen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Risk Factors ◽  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Neuropsychological Test ◽  
Cognitive Domain ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Individual Participant ◽  
Potential Risk Factors ◽  
Domain Scores

ObjectiveTo address the variability in prevalence estimates and inconsistencies in potential risk factors for poststroke cognitive impairment (PSCI) using a standardized approach and individual participant data (IPD) from international cohorts in the Stroke and Cognition Consortium (STROKOG) consortium.MethodsWe harmonized data from 13 studies based in 8 countries. Neuropsychological test scores 2 to 6 months after stroke or TIA and appropriate normative data were used to calculate standardized cognitive domain scores. Domain-specific impairment was based on percentile cutoffs from normative groups, and associations between domain scores and risk factors were examined with 1-stage IPD meta-analysis.ResultsIn a combined sample of 3,146 participants admitted to hospital for stroke (97%) or TIA (3%), 44% were impaired in global cognition and 30% to 35% were impaired in individual domains 2 to 6 months after the index event. Diabetes mellitus and a history of stroke were strongly associated with poorer cognitive function after covariate adjustments; hypertension, smoking, and atrial fibrillation had weaker domain-specific associations. While there were no significant differences in domain impairment among ethnoracial groups, some interethnic differences were found in the effects of risk factors on cognition.ConclusionsThis study confirms the high prevalence of PSCI in diverse populations, highlights common risk factors, in particular diabetes mellitus, and points to ethnoracial differences that warrant attention in the development of prevention strategies.

scholarly journals Culture shapes the evolution of cognition

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (16) ◽  
pp. 4530-4535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Thompson ◽  
Simon Kirby ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Reciprocal Interactions ◽  
Biological Adaptation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Default Assumption ◽  
Rule Out

A central debate in cognitive science concerns the nativist hypothesis, the proposal that universal features of behavior reflect a biologically determined cognitive substrate: For example, linguistic nativism proposes a domain-specific faculty of language that strongly constrains which languages can be learned. An evolutionary stance appears to provide support for linguistic nativism, because coordinated constraints on variation may facilitate communication and therefore be adaptive. However, language, like many other human behaviors, is underpinned by social learning and cultural transmission alongside biological evolution. We set out two models of these interactions, which show how culture can facilitate rapid biological adaptation yet rule out strong nativization. The amplifying effects of culture can allow weak cognitive biases to have significant population-level consequences, radically increasing the evolvability of weak, defeasible inductive biases; however, the emergence of a strong cultural universal does not imply, nor lead to, nor require, strong innate constraints. From this we must conclude, on evolutionary grounds, that the strong nativist hypothesis for language is false. More generally, because such reciprocal interactions between cultural and biological evolution are not limited to language, nativist explanations for many behaviors should be reconsidered: Evolutionary reasoning shows how we can have cognitively driven behavioral universals and yet extreme plasticity at the level of the individual—if, and only if, we account for the human capacity to transmit knowledge culturally. Wherever culture is involved, weak cognitive biases rather than strong innate constraints should be the default assumption.

The living individual and its kind

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Domain Specific ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Biological Domain

The empirical advances the target article makes over Atran (1990) tend not so much to enrich our knowledge of the “folk taxonomic” hierarchy as to militate against the idea of one. Folk-biological domain-specific universals are to be found not in “taxonomic” kind-kind subordination relations, but in the relation of individual organisms to low ranking kinds and in the peculiarities of those kinds.

scholarly journals Midlife Marital Status and Subsequent Cognitive Decline over 20 Years: Discovery from ARIC

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simo Du
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Cognitive Decline ◽  
Marital Status ◽  
Community Dwelling ◽  
Cognitive Domain ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Never Married ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Significant Difference

Background — Recent studies show that marriage is associated with a protective effect against cognitive decline among older adults. However, definite evidence from large prospective cohorts is lacking. Even less is known about the association between marital status during midlife and domain-specific cognitive decline in later life. Objective — To investigate the effect of midlife marital status on subsequent domain specific cognitive decline over 20 years among community dwelling older adults. Methods — Prospective cohort study of a biracial population of 14148 participants in the Artherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. Participants were followed from 1990-1992 through 2011-2013 and underwent three cognitive assessments at visit 2 (1990-1992), visit 4 (2004-2006) and visit 5 (2011-2013). Factor scores of cognitive functions were developed from neurocognitive tests during three visits and harmonized into three cognitive domains including executive, memory and language as well as general cognitive performance. Marital status was collected at visit 2 and categorized into four groups: married, divorced or separated, widowed, and never married. Multiple imputation using chained equations (MICE) was applied to address the challenge of informative attrition. Multivariable mixed effect linear models were applied after imputation with a spline term at year six to represent non-linear cognitive decline and a random slope to allow individual variations in cognitive decline after year six. Models were adjusted for age, sex, race, education, hypertension, diabetes, alcohol consumption, smoking status, and BMI measured at baseline. Results — The median age of 14148 participants was 56.8; 24.2% of participants were black and 55.6% were female. Median follow-up time was 20.78 years. For the first six years, there was no statistically significant cognitive decline difference comparing groups without partners at baseline to the married group. After year six, models suggested that being widowed at baseline was associated with greater cognitive decline compared to the married group across all cognitive domains. In the general cognitive domain, the difference in annual cognitive decline comparing the widowed group to the married group was -0.019 standard deviation (SD) units [95%CI (-0.023, -0.015)] (p < 0.001). Similarly, the corresponding difference in cognitive decline in the memory domain was -0.017 [95%CI (-0.023, -0.012), p< 0.001] unit, and for language was -0.028 [ 95%CI (-0.032, -0.024) , p<0.001 ]. For participants who were divorced or separated, annual cognitive decline only presented statistically significant difference in language domain with -0.006 [95%CI (-0.010, -0.003) , p=0.001] unit greater decline but not in other cognitive domains. There was no difference in the rate of cognitive decline between the married and never-married group.Conclusion — Widowhood by midlife may increase the risk of cognitive decline across all cognitive domains, while being divorced or separated in midlife was associated with greater annual cognitive decline in language domain. Being never married is not associated with greater cognitive decline.

Agents Matter and Matter Agents: Interpretation and Value from Cells to Gaia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Clayton ◽  
Elizabeth Singleton
Keyword(s):  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Living Thing ◽  
Living Entity ◽  
Biological Spectrum

What happens to agency at the ends of the biological spectrum? On the standard scientific interpretation of biological evolution, single-celled organisms are not themselves agents, at least not in any serious sense; and the planet as a whole most definitely is not. This paper challenges both interpretations. Every participant in the dynamics of Darwinian evolution is an agent with interests, acting with and through its environment. Every living thing is thus teleological; each has a semiotic or “meaning-ed” relationship with its environment; and each possesses value in its own right. How far up can one extend this insight? Because organisms are communities cum individuals, the biosphere as a whole should be conceived as a living entity, Gaia. These conclusions are transformative for eco-theology and its pictures of God, which become “green” and teeming with life.

Associations between lesions and domain-specific cognitive decline in poststroke dementia

Neurology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. e45-e54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chathuri Yatawara ◽  
Kok Pin Ng ◽  
Russell Chander ◽  
Nagaendran Kandiah
Keyword(s):  
Executive Functions ◽  
Acute Stroke ◽  
Cognitive Status ◽  
Cognitive Domain ◽  
Cortical Atrophy ◽  
Stroke Patients ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Poststroke Dementia ◽  
Incident Cases

ObjectiveTo investigate whether the effect of prestroke and stroke-related lesions on incident poststroke dementia (PSD) is mediated by a unique pattern of domain-specific cognitive impairment, and the relative strength of these anatomical–cognitive associations in predicting incident PSD.MethodsIn this incident case-control study (n = 150), we defined incident cases as acute stroke patients who developed PSD and controls as acute stroke patients who remained free from dementia at a 6 month follow-up, matched on age, prestroke cognitive status, and number of stroke-related lesions. MRI was performed at initial clinical presentation; neuropsychological assessments and clinical diagnosis of PSD was performed 6 months poststroke. Moderated mediation analysis evaluated the interactions among PSD, anatomical lesions, cognitive domains, and individual demographic and medical characteristics.ResultsCompared to stroke-related lesions, prestroke lesions were associated with the widest range of cognitive domain impairments and had stronger clinical utility in predicting incident PSD. Specifically, global cortical atrophy (GCA) and deep white matter hyperintensities (WMH) were indirectly associated with PSD by disrupting executive functions, memory, and language. Acute infarcts were indirectly associated with PSD by disrupting executive functions and language. The strongest mediator was executive dysfunction, increasing risk of PSD in patients with deep WMH, GCA, and large infarcts by more than 9 times, with sex and educational attainment moderating the magnitude of association. Periventricular WMH were directly associated with incident PSD but not mediated by deficits in cognitive domains.ConclusionWe provide an anatomical–cognitive framework that can be applied to stratify patients at highest risk of PSD and to guide personalized interventions.

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