scholarly journals Uncovering variability in children's concepts and conceptual change

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Leon-Villagra ◽  
Christopher G. Lucas ◽  
Daphna Buchsbaum ◽  
Isaac Ehrlich
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Developmentally Appropriate ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Developmental Studies ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Fixed Set ◽  
Similarity Judgments ◽  
True Structure ◽  
Insight Into

Capturing the structure and development of human conceptual knowledge is a challenging but fundamental task in Cognitive Science. The most prominent approach to uncovering these concepts is Multidimensional scaling (MDS), which has provided insight into the structure of human perception and conceptual knowledge. However, MDS usually requires participants to produce large numbers of similarity judgments, leading to prohibitively long experiments for most developmental research. Furthermore, MDS provides a single psychological space, tailored to a fixed set of stimuli. In contrast, we present a method that learns psychological spaces flexibly and generalizes to novel stimuli. In addition, our approach uses a simple, developmentally appropriate task, which allows for short and engaging developmental studies. We evaluate the feasibility of our approach on simulated data and find that it can uncover the true structure even when the data consists of aggregations of diverse categorizers. We then apply the method to data from the World Color Survey and find that it can discover language-specific color organization. Finally, we use the method in a novel developmental experiment and find age-dependent differences in conceptual spaces for fruit categories. These results suggest that our method is robust and widely applicable in developmental tasks with children as young as four years old.

scholarly journals Acoustic-Prosodic and Lexical Cues to Deception and Trust: Deciphering How People Detect Lies

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 199-214
Author(s):  
Xi (Leslie) Chen ◽  
Sarah Ita Levitan ◽  
Michelle Levine ◽  
Marko Mandic ◽  
Julia Hirschberg
Keyword(s):  
Deception Detection ◽  
Human Perception ◽  
Lie Detection ◽  
Challenging Problem ◽  
Cues To Deception ◽  
Lexical Cues ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Large Corpus ◽  
Better Than

Humans rarely perform better than chance at lie detection. To better understand human perception of deception, we created a game framework, LieCatcher, to collect ratings of perceived deception using a large corpus of deceptive and truthful interviews. We analyzed the acoustic-prosodic and linguistic characteristics of language trusted and mistrusted by raters and compared these to characteristics of actual truthful and deceptive language to understand how perception aligns with reality. With this data we built classifiers to automatically distinguish trusted from mistrusted speech, achieving an F1 of 66.1%. We next evaluated whether the strategies raters said they used to discriminate between truthful and deceptive responses were in fact useful. Our results show that, although several prosodic and lexical features were consistently perceived as trustworthy, they were not reliable cues. Also, the strategies that judges reported using in deception detection were not helpful for the task. Our work sheds light on the nature of trusted language and provides insight into the challenging problem of human deception detection.

scholarly journals Fish and other faunal remains from a Late Iron Age site on the Letaba River, Kruger National Park

Koedoe ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ina Plug ◽  
Paul Skelton
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fish Population ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
Hunting Strategies ◽  
The People ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Fish Remains ◽  
Insight Into

Fish remains from Late Iron Age sites in the Transvaal are relatively scarce. It seems as if the people did not utilize the riverine resources extensively. Therefore the unique assemblage of large numbers of fish bones on a Late Iron Age site, provides some insight into the fish population of a section of the Letaba River a few hundred years ago. The presence of other faunal remains provides some information on prehistoric utilization of the environment in general. Hunting strategies and aspects of herding can also be deduced from the faunal remains.

scholarly journals Closing up onto our sun: solar imaging

2020 ◽  
Vol 240 ◽  
pp. 07011
Author(s):  
Kushagra Shrivastava ◽  
Keith Wen Kai Chia ◽  
Kang Jun Wong ◽  
Alfred Yong Liang Tan ◽  
Hwee Tiang Ning
Keyword(s):  
Solar Activity ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Future Science ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Term Data ◽  
Made In

Solar activity research provides insight into the Sun’s past, future (Science Daily, 2018). The solar activity includes observations of large numbers of intense sunspots, flares, and other phenomena; and demands a wide range of techniques and measurements on the observations. This research needs long term data collection before critical analyses can occur, to generate meaningful learning and knowledge. In this project, we will use solar imaging to make observations of solar activity, and take our baby steps to make contributions in citizen science. Observations will be made in 3 wavelengths to gain a more thorough analysis by looking at different perspectives of the Sun, namely H-Alpha, Calcium-K, and white light.

Wingless induces transdetermination in developing Drosophila imaginal discs

Development ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 121 (5) ◽  
pp. 1263-1272 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Maves ◽  
G. Schubiger
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Level ◽  
Ectopic Expression ◽  
Imaginal Discs ◽  
Developmental Studies ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Cell Determination ◽  
Disc Cells ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Insight Into

Drosophila imaginal discs, the precursors of the adult fly appendages, have been the subject of intensive developmental studies, particularly on cell determination. Cultured disc fragments are recognized not only for the ability to maintain their determined state through extra cell divisions but also for the ability to transdetermine, or switch to the determined state of a different disc. An understanding of transdetermination at a molecular level will provide further insight into the requirements for maintaining cell determination. We find that ectopic expression of the Drosophila gene wingless induces transdetermination of foreleg imaginal disc cells to wing cells. This transdetermination occurs in foreleg discs of developing larvae without disc fragmentation. The in situ-transdetermining cells localize to the dorsal region of the foreleg disc. This wingless-induced transdetermination event is remarkably similar to the leg-to-wing switch that occurs after leg disc culture. Thus we have identified a new approach to a molecular dissection of transdetermination.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Suffixing Preference: Native-Language Affixation Patterns Influence Perception of Sequences

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (9) ◽  
pp. 1107-1116
Author(s):  
Alexander Martin ◽  
Jennifer Culbertson
Keyword(s):  
Human Perception ◽  
Perceptual Bias ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Perceptual Similarity ◽  
Extensive Experience ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Rural Kenya ◽  
Similarity Judgments ◽  
Complex Words

Similarities among the world’s languages may be driven by universal features of human cognition or perception. For example, in many languages, complex words are formed by adding suffixes to the ends of simpler words, but adding prefixes is much less common: Why might this be? Previous research suggests this is due to a domain-general perceptual bias: Sequences differing at their ends are perceived as more similar to each other than sequences differing at their beginnings. However, as is typical in psycholinguistic research, the evidence comes exclusively from one population—English speakers—who have extensive experience with suffixing. Here, we provided a much stronger test of this claim by investigating perceptual-similarity judgments in speakers of Kîîtharaka, a heavily prefixing Bantu language spoken in rural Kenya. We found that Kîîtharaka speakers ( N = 72) showed the opposite judgments to English speakers ( N = 51), which calls into question whether a universal bias in human perception can explain the suffixing preference in the world’s languages.

A Case Study of Sesame Workshop’s Cleaner, Happier, Healthier Intervention in Bangladesh, India, and Nigeria: Reporting on Exposure and Impact

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina L. G. Borzekowski
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Outcomes ◽  
Public Service Announcements ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Future Health ◽  
Broadcast Television ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Hygiene Intervention ◽  
Insight Into

The Cleaner, Happier, Healthier hygiene intervention was developed and tested in 2013, featuring the Sesame Workshop characters. Through broadcast television, four public service announcements (PSAs) addressed washing hands with soap, using a latrine, wearing sandals, and drinking clean water. The main audiences were young preschool children and their parents or guardians. Research occurred in Bangladesh, India, and Nigeria, exploring the reach and impact of these PSAs. Although low percentages, from well-drawn samples of extremely vulnerable populations in these countries, reported awareness and recall of these messages, such percentages can reflect large numbers of viewers. Considering data from the participating children, measures of knowledge and attitudes were associated with engaging in several of the behavioral outcomes. As well, awareness and recall of the PSA messages predicted “all the time” for several of the hygiene behaviors. In contrast, parents’ reports of PSA awareness and recall were not associated with reports of children’s hygiene behaviors. Conducting reach studies is extremely difficult, especially in developing countries and communities. Despite the challenges, this study is encouraging. Participants reported seeing the messages, and in several models, this “reach” predicted reports of hygiene and health behaviors. Lessons learned from this case study and research can offer valuable insight into the production of future health PSAs, especially with harder-to-reach populations.

scholarly journals Using Guttman errors to explore rater fit in rater-mediated performance assessments

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 205979911881439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie A Wind
Keyword(s):  
Measurement Theory ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Performance Assessments ◽  
Fit Indices ◽  
Assessment Data ◽  
Fit Statistics ◽  
Measurement Framework ◽  
Invariant Measurement ◽  
Nonparametric Procedure ◽  
Insight Into

Model-data fit indices for raters provide insight into the degree to which raters demonstrate psychometric properties defined as useful within a measurement framework. Fit statistics for raters are particularly relevant within frameworks based on invariant measurement, such as Rasch measurement theory and Mokken scale analysis. A simple approach to examining invariance is to examine assessment data for evidence of Guttman errors. I used real and simulated data to illustrate and explore a nonparametric procedure for evaluating rater errors based on Guttman errors and to examine the alignment between Guttman errors and other indices of rater fit. The results suggested that researchers and practitioners can use summaries of Guttman errors to identify raters who exhibit misfit. Furthermore, results from the comparisons between summaries of Guttman errors and parametric fit statistics suggested that both approaches detect similar problematic measurement characteristics. Specifically, raters who exhibit many Guttman errors tended to have higher-than-expected Outfit MSE statistics and lower-than-expected estimated slope statistics. I discuss implications of these results as they relate to research and practice for rater-mediated assessments.

Teaching The Words Of The Prophet: Women Instructors Of The Hadith (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries)

Hawwa ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omaima Abou-Bakr
Keyword(s):  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Male Students ◽  
Professional Status ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Women Scholars ◽  
Important Field ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractThe muhaddithat were women experts and teachers of the hadith and its literature, who were very prominent in their societies - especially of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The article highlights their role in this important field of higher education and argues that they should be given more credit for being interacting educators and not just transmitters. Reading closely the biographies of dozens of these women scholars, one discerns their professional status and efforts in disseminating a large corpus of the ad th sciences to male and female students. Significant details reveal their personal characteristics, the nature of their work, methods of teaching, and their social and cultural milieu. The biographies therefore offer an insight into the 'mixed' environment of this field, where male and female scholars interacted and where the muhaddithat taught and supervised large numbers of male students. This history also reveals the active involvement of these women in public work, albeit in the informal sector.

Structural insight into the thermostable NADP+-dependentmeso-diaminopimelate dehydrogenase fromUreibacillus thermosphaericus

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 1136-1146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hironaga Akita ◽  
Tomonari Seto ◽  
Toshihisa Ohshima ◽  
Haruhiko Sakuraba
Keyword(s):  
Main Chain ◽  
Hydrophobic Interactions ◽  
Point Mutations ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Structural Comparison ◽  
Amino Acid Dehydrogenase ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Ureibacillus Thermosphaericus ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
Insight Into

Crystal structures of the thermostablemeso-diaminopimelate dehydrogenase (DAPDH) fromUreibacillus thermosphaericuswere determined for the enzyme in the apo form and in complex with NADP+andN-tris(hydroxymethyl)methyl-2-aminoethanesulfonic acid. The main-chain coordinates of the enzyme showed notable similarity to those ofSymbiobacterium thermophilumDAPDH. However, the subunit arrangement ofU. thermosphaericusDAPDH (a dimer) was totally different from that of theS. thermophilumenzyme (a hexamer). Structural comparison with the dimeric enzyme from the mesophileCorynebacterium glutamicumrevealed that the presence of large numbers of intrasubunit and intersubunit hydrophobic interactions, as well as the extensive formation of intersubunit ion-pair networks, were likely to be the main factors contributing to the higher thermostability ofU. thermosphaericusDAPDH. This differs fromS. thermophilumDAPDH, within which the unique hexameric assembly is likely to be responsible for its high thermostability. Analysis of the active site ofU. thermosphaericusDAPDH revealed the key factors responsible for the marked difference in substrate specificity between DAPDH and the D-amino acid dehydrogenase recently created from DAPDH by introducing five point mutations [Akitaet al.(2012).Biotechnol. Lett.34, 1693–1699; 1701–1702].

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