scholarly journals Intersentential coreference expectations reflect mental models of events

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theres Grüter ◽  
Aya Takeda ◽  
Hannah Rohde ◽  
Amy J. Schafer
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Discourse Processing ◽  
Mental Event ◽  
Event Representation ◽  
The World ◽  
Incoming Information ◽  
New Evidence

Comprehenders’ perception of the world is mediated by the mental models they construct. During discourse processing, incoming information allows comprehenders to update their model of the events being described. At the same time, comprehenders use these models to generate expectations about who or what will be mentioned next. The temporal dynamics of this interdependence between language processing and mental event representation has been difficult to disentangle. The present visual world eye-tracking experiment measures listeners’ coreference expectations during an intersentential pause between a sentence about a transfer-of-possession event and a continuation mentioning either its Source or Goal. We found a temporally dispersed but sustained preference for fixating the Goal that was significantly greater when the event was described as completed rather than incomplete (passed versus was passing). This aligns with reported offline sensitivity to event structure, as conveyed via verb aspect, and provides new evidence that our mental model of an event leads to early and, crucially, proactive expectations about subsequent mention in the upcoming discourse.

Where is the body in the mental model for a story?

1997 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur C. Graesser
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
The Body ◽  
Discourse Processing ◽  
On Line

Researchers in the field of discourse processing have investigated how mental models are constructed when adults comprehend stories. They have explored the process of encoding various classes of inferences “on-line” when these mental microworlds are constructed during comprehension. This commentary addresses the extent to which these inferences and mental microworlds are “embodied.”

Dance? I Can’t Dance! Developing an Understanding of Mental Models Through Line Dancing

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 226-241
Author(s):  
Tim O. Peterson ◽  
Claudette M. Peterson ◽  
Cynthia L. Krom ◽  
Brian A. Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Business Courses ◽  
The World

Mental models guide our attitudes and direct our actions. Senge defined a mental model as a deeply ingrained set of assumptions, generalizations, or images that influence how we understand and respond to the world around us. Line dancing is an example of a process that includes many types of mental models. In fact, each dance is a mental model of its own. In addition, we each come to dancing with our own mental models about dancing and our self-concept. In this article, we share experiences of using line dances in classes as a way to help students be engaged while learning about a complex topic. Three sets of supplemental materials are included: (a) music suggestions, video links, and steps to help teach each dance; (b) suggestions to apply line dancing in various business courses; and (c) reflections on dance and mental models by the instructors.

scholarly journals Context-Sensitive Control of Adaptation: Self-Modeling Networks for Human Mental Processes Using Mental Models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raj Bhalwankar ◽  
Laila van Ments ◽  
Jan Treur
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Computational Approaches ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Computational Architecture ◽  
The World ◽  
Learning And Adaptation ◽  
Adaptation Processes

Within their mental and social processes, humans often learn, adapt and apply specific mental models of processes in the world or other persons, as a kind of blueprints. In this paper, it is discussed how analysis of this provides useful inspiration for the development of new computational approaches from a Machine Learning and Network-Oriented Modeling perspective. Three main elements are: applying the mental model by internal simulation, developing and revising a mental model by some form of adaptation, and exerting control over this adaptation in a context-sensitive manner. This concept of controlled adaptation relates to the Plasticity Versus Stability Conundrum from neuroscience. The presented analysis has led to a three-level computational architecture for controlled adaptation. It is discussed and illustrated by examples of applications how this three-level computational architecture can be specified based on a self-modeling network and used to model controlled learning and adaptation processes based on mental models in a context-sensitive manner.

scholarly journals A starring role for inference in the neurocognition of visual narratives

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
Brain Potentials ◽  
Visual Narratives ◽  
Inferential Processing

AbstractResearch in verbal and visual narratives has often emphasized backward-looking inferences, where absent information is subsequently inferred. However, comics use conventions like star-shaped “action stars” where a reader knows events are undepicted at that moment, rather than omitted entirely. We contrasted the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to visual narratives depicting an explicit event, an action star, or a “noise” panel of scrambled lines. Both action stars and noise panels evoked large N400s compared to explicit-events (300–500 ms), but action stars and noise panels then differed in their later effects (500–900 ms). Action stars elicited sustained negativities and P600s, which could indicate further interpretive processes and integration of meaning into a mental model, while noise panels evoked late frontal positivities possibly indexing that they were improbable narrative units. Nevertheless, panels following action stars and noise panels both evoked late sustained negativities, implying further inferential processing. Inference in visual narratives thus uses cascading mechanisms resembling those in language processing that differ based on the inferential techniques.

Efficiency in discourse processing: Does morphosyntax adapt to accommodate new referents?

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Schnell ◽  
Nils Norman Schiborr ◽  
Geoffrey Haig
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Discourse Processing ◽  
Discourse Production ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Challenge ◽  
Direct Objects

Abstract The introduction of new referents into discourse has traditionally been regarded as a major challenge to language processing, for which speakers deploy specific syntactic configurations, guided by the speaker’s assessment of the recipient’s state of mind (‘recipient design’). In this paper we probe these assumptions against discourse data from nine languages. We find little evidence for specialized syntactic configurations accommodating new referents; the only notable exception is the association of new reference with direct objects, suggests that linking new referents to already established discourse frames through a transitive construction is preferable to isolating them in an intransitive one. Where specific intransitive predicates are indeed found to host new referents, we find this to be motivated primarily by semantic considerations. Contrary to long-held assumptions, we conclude that the cognitive challenge of referent introduction is only weakly reflected in morphosyntax; instead, discourse production is most efficient when new referents are integrated seamlessly with content-driven demands of the narration.

scholarly journals Extending the extended consciousness debate: perception, imagination, and the common kind assumption

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Deery
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Mental Event ◽  
The World ◽  
Predictive Approach ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

AbstractFor some, the states and processes involved in the realisation of phenomenal consciousness are not confined to within the organismic boundaries of the experiencing subject. Instead, the sub-personal basis of perceptual experience can, and does, extend beyond the brain and body to implicate environmental elements through one’s interaction with the world. These claims are met by proponents of predictive processing, who propose that perception and imagination should be understood as a product of the same internal mechanisms. On this view, as visually imagining is not considered to be world-involving, it is assumed that world-involvement must not be essential for perception, and thus internalism about the sub-personal basis is true. However, the argument for internalism from the unity of perception and imagination relies for its strength on a questionable conception of the relationship between the two experiential states. I argue that proponents of the predictive approach are guilty of harbouring an implicit commitment to the common kind assumption which does not follow trivially from their framework. That is, the assumption that perception and imagination are of the same fundamental kind of mental event. I will argue that there are plausible alternative ways of conceiving of this relationship without drawing internalist metaphysical conclusions from their psychological theory. Thus, the internalist owes the debate clarification of this relationship and further argumentation to secure their position.

A WORD-BASED CHINESE LANGUAGE UNDERSTANDING SYSTEM

1988 ◽  
Vol 02 (01) ◽  
pp. 25-35
Author(s):  
TIAN-SHUN YAO
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
Computer Programs ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Source ◽  
Language Understanding ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
The World

With the word-based theory of natural language processing, a word-based Chinese language understanding system has been developed. In the light of psychological language analysis and the features of the Chinese language, this theory of natural language processing is presented with the description of the computer programs based on it. The heart of the system is to define a Total Information Dictionary and the World Knowledge Source used in the system. The purpose of this research is to develop a system which can understand not only Chinese sentences but also the whole text.

Watch For Failing Objects: What Inappropriate Compliance Reveals About Shared Mental Models In Autonomous Cars

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 643-647
Author(s):  
Yosef S. Razin ◽  
Jack Gale ◽  
Jiaojiao Fan ◽  
Jaznae’ Smith ◽  
Karen M. Feigh
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Mental Model ◽  
False Positive Rate ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
True Positive Rate ◽  
Shared Mental Models ◽  
Shared Mental Model ◽  
Autonomous Cars ◽  
Positive Rate ◽  
Dispositional Factors

This paper evaluates Banks et al.’s Human-AI Shared Mental Model theory by examining how a self-driving vehicle’s hazard assessment facilitates shared mental models. Participants were asked to affirm the vehicle’s assessment of road objects as either hazards or mistakes in real-time as behavioral and subjective measures were collected. The baseline performance of the AI was purposefully low (<50%) to examine how the human’s shared mental model might lead to inappropriate compliance. Results indicated that while the participant true positive rate was high, overall performance was reduced by the large false positive rate, indicating that participants were indeed being influenced by the Al’s faulty assessments, despite full transparency as to the ground-truth. Both performance and compliance were directly affected by frustration, mental, and even physical demands. Dispositional factors such as faith in other people’s cooperativeness and in technology companies were also significant. Thus, our findings strongly supported the theory that shared mental models play a measurable role in performance and compliance, in a complex interplay with trust.

scholarly journals Early Koranic Manuscripts: The Blue Koran Debate

Elements ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Neumeier
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Art ◽  
The World ◽  
New Evidence

The art of calligraphy and illumination of manuscripts holds a revered place in Islamic art because Musilms believe that God revelaed to them the World through the Prophet Muhammad in the form of the Koran. The beauty of the Blue Koran, one of the most exquisite early manuscripts of the Koran, speaks for itself with its richly dyed parchment with gold and silver inking. But this object of beauty is an object of mystery as well. A century-long debate among scholars centers around the Blue Koran and its provenance. Here their opinions will be weighed and new evidence and theories will be brought to light. This project was begun in anticipatio of the exhibit at the McMullen Museum in the fall of 2006 of the David Collection, an impressive and varied collection of Islamic art.

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