scholarly journals Incremental Understanding of Conjunctive Generic Sentences

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Henry Tessler ◽  
Karen Gu ◽  
Roger Philip Levy
Keyword(s):  
Computational Model ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Incremental Processing ◽  
Generic Language ◽  
Processing Mechanism ◽  
Generic Sentences

Generic statements convey generalizations about categories, but how generic predications combine is unclear. “Elephants live in Africa and Asia” does not mean that individual elephants live on both continents. In addition, such conjunctive generics pose interesting questions for theories of incremental processing because the meaning of the sentence can change part-way through: “Elephants live in Africa” would imply most or all do, but “Africa and Asia” implies some live in each. We extend a recently proposed computational model of generic language understanding with an incremental processing mechanism that can begin to interpret an utterance before a speaker has finished their sentence. This model makes novel predictions about partial interpretations of conjunctive generic sentences, which we test in two behavioral experiments. The results support a strong view of incrementality, wherein listeners continuously update their beliefs based on expectations about where a speaker will go next with their utterance.

scholarly journals Not unreasonable: Why two negatives don't make a positive

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Henry Tessler ◽  
Michael Franke
Keyword(s):  
Computational Model ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Additional Prediction

Logic tells us that two negatives make a positive, but in language, things are not so black and white: A person "not unhappy" may not be entirely happy. We hypothesize that innovative uses of double negatives like "not unhappy" stem from listeners entertaining flexible meanings for negation markers like "not" and "un-", which context can then help disambiguate. We formalize this hypothesis in a computational model of language understanding, which predicts that "not unhappy" means something different from "happy" but also makes the additional prediction that single negations ("unhappy" vs. "not happy") are interpreted identically except when a speaker uses both in the same context, which we confirm experimentally. Even double negations that flagrantly use the same negation marker twice (e.g., "not not happy") are interpreted in subtle ways. These findings suggest that even one of the most logical elements of language—negation—can mean many things at once.

scholarly journals On Incrementality in Dialogue: Evidence from Compound Contributions

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 279-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Howes ◽  
Matthew Purver ◽  
Patrick G. T. Healey ◽  
Gregory J. Mills ◽  
Eleni Gregoromichelaki
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
General Definition ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Incremental Processing ◽  
Natural Context ◽  
Turn Taking ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Shared Context ◽  
Processing Mechanism

Spoken contributions in dialogue often continue or complete earlier contributions by either the same or a different speaker. These compound contributions (CCs) thus provide a natural context for investigations of incremental processing in dialogue.We present a corpus study which confirms that CCs are a key dialogue phenomenon: almost 20% of contributions fit our general definition of CCs, with nearly 3% being the cross-person case most often studied. The results suggest that processing is word-by-word incremental, as splits can occur within syntactic ‘constituents’; however, some systematic differences between same- and cross-person cases indicate important dialogue-specific pragmatic effects. An experimental study then investigates these effects by artificially introducing CCs into multi-party text dialogue. Results suggest that CCs affect people’s expectations about who will speak next and whether other participants have formed a coalition or ‘party’.Together, these studies suggest that CCs require an incremental processing mechanism that can provide a resource for constructing linguistic constituents that span multiple contributions and multiple participants. They also suggest the need to model higher-level dialogue units that have consequences for the organization of turn-taking and for the development of a shared context.

scholarly journals “Master” of None: Institutional Language Change Linked to Reduced Gender Bias

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
April Bailey ◽  
John F. Dovidio ◽  
Marianne LaFrance
Keyword(s):  
Gender Bias ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Gender Inequity ◽  
Inclusive Language ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Generic Language

Concern that masculine generic language (e.g., man to mean humanity) perpetuates gender inequity has led several institutions to formally discourage its use. While previous experimental research indicates that generic terms like man bring more exemplars of men than women to mind, only recently have researchers begun exploring additional consequences of gendered language. Understanding the range of processes affected is of particular importance when evaluating real-world policies. Yale University recently changed the title of a leadership role from master to head. The present study (N=341) investigated what exemplars come to mind (i.e., cognitive accessibility) while also probing memory for women and men in the leadership role both before and after Yale’s language policy change. Students exposed to master generated a male exemplar more than would be expected by the incidence of men and recognized actual men than women in the role more accurately (d’) in a face recognition task. Among students exposed to head, both biases were eliminated. The previous literature shows that masculine generic language brings men to mind. The present work demonstrates a similar effect but in an applied context while further documenting consequences for memory. Gender-inclusive language polices have potential to reduce gender biased thinking with applied significance.

Relation Between Level of Prefrontal Activity and Subject's Performance

1999 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Casini ◽  
Françoise Macar ◽  
Marie-Hélène Giard
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Practice Phase ◽  
Trained Subjects ◽  
Anagram Task ◽  
Economic Information ◽  
Long Duration ◽  
Level Of Activity ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Processing Mechanism

Abstract The experiment reported here was aimed at determining whether the level of brain activity can be related to performance in trained subjects. Two tasks were compared: a temporal and a linguistic task. An array of four letters appeared on a screen. In the temporal task, subjects had to decide whether the letters remained on the screen for a short or a long duration as learned in a practice phase. In the linguistic task, they had to determine whether the four letters could form a word or not (anagram task). These tasks allowed us to compare the level of brain activity obtained in correct and incorrect responses. The current density measures recorded over prefrontal areas showed a relationship between the performance and the level of activity in the temporal task only. The level of activity obtained with correct responses was lower than that obtained with incorrect responses. This suggests that a good temporal performance could be the result of an efficacious, but economic, information-processing mechanism in the brain. In addition, the absence of this relation in the anagram task results in the question of whether this relation is specific to the processing of sensory information only.

Inference making and memory for text: A computational model

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Van Den Broek ◽  
Yuhtsuen Tzeng ◽  
Sandy Virtue ◽  
Tracy Linderholm ◽  
Michael E. Young
Keyword(s):  
Computational Model ◽  
Inference Making ◽  
Memory For Text
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