Contrast perception as a visual heuristic in the formulation of referential expressions

We hypothesize that contrast perception works as a visual heuristic, such that when speakers perceive a significant degree of contrast in a visual display, they tend to produce the corresponding adjective to describe a referent. We tested this hypothesis in four language-production experiments. Experiment 1 revealed that speakers overspecify color adjectives in polychrome displays, whereas in monochrome displays they overspecified those properties that were contrastive, supporting the contrast perception hypothesis. Experiment 2 further supported our hypothesis by revealing an increase in color overspecification in monochrome displays when multicolored fillers were interspersed. Experiment 3 revealed that even atypical colors (which are overspecified more often than typical colors) are only mentioned in polychrome displays. In Experiment 4, participants named a target color faster in monochrome than in polychrome displays, suggesting that the tendency to overspecify color in polychrome displays is not a bottom-up effect, but a learned communicative strategy. These results support the view that perceptual contrast works as a visual heuristic for efficient communication.

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Are phonological influences on lexical (mis)selection the result of a monitoring bias?

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ◽

10.1080/17470210701647422 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 61 (11) ◽

pp. 1687-1709 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Els Severens ◽

Elie Ratinckx ◽

Victor S. Ferreira ◽

Robert J. Hartsuiker

Keyword(s):

Information Flow ◽

Production System ◽

Language Production ◽

Related Word ◽

Lexical Selection ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Error Patterns ◽

Speech Error ◽

Interactive Models ◽

Phonological Errors

A monitoring bias account is often used to explain speech error patterns that seem to be the result of an interactive language production system, like phonological influences on lexical selection errors. A biased monitor is suggested to detect and covertly correct certain errors more often than others. For instance, this account predicts that errors that are phonologically similar to intended words are harder to detect than those that are phonologically dissimilar. To test this, we tried to elicit phonological errors under the same conditions as those that show other kinds of lexical selection errors. In five experiments, we presented participants with high cloze probability sentence fragments followed by a picture that was semantically related, a homophone of a semantically related word, or phonologically related to the (implicit) last word of the sentence. All experiments elicited semantic completions or homophones of semantic completions, but none elicited phonological completions. This finding is hard to reconcile with a monitoring bias account and is better explained with an interactive production system. Additionally, this finding constrains the amount of bottom-up information flow in interactive models.

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Real-time pragmatic inference across cultures: evidence from a non-industrialized society

10.31234/osf.io/ga83j ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Rachel Anna Ryskin ◽

Miguel Angel Salinas ◽

Steven T. Piantadosi ◽

Edward Gibson

Keyword(s):

Real Time ◽

Formal Education ◽

Eye Gaze ◽

Visual Display ◽

Referential Communication ◽

Human Communication ◽

Pragmatic Inference ◽

Communication Task ◽

Patterns Of Behavior ◽

Referential Expressions

Speakers and listeners are thought to routinely make sophisticated inferences, in real time, about their conversation partner’s knowledge state and communicative intentions. However, these inferences have only been studied in industrialized cultures. Communicative expectations may be language-dependent, as are many phonological, syntactic, and semantic aspects of language. We study pragmatic inference in communication in the Tsimane’, an indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon, who have little contact with industrialization or formal education. Using a referential communication task and eye-tracking, we probe how Tsimane' speakers use and understand referential expressions (e.g., ``Hand me the cup.'') across contexts. We manipulated aspects of the visual display to elicit contrastive inferences, including whether the referent was unique or part of a set as well as whether members of the same set differed in size or color. Strikingly, in all cases, patterns of behavior and eye-gaze of Tsimane' and English speakers were qualitatively identical, suggesting that real-time inference may be a core feature of human communication that is shared across cultures rather than a product of life in an industrialized society.

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The contribution of phonological information to visual word recognition: Evidence from Chinese Phonetic Radicals

10.31234/osf.io/39sav ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Xiaodong Liu ◽

Luc Vermeylen ◽

David Wisniewski ◽

Marc Brysbaert

Keyword(s):

Visual Cortex ◽

Word Recognition ◽

Visual Word Recognition ◽

Language Production ◽

Word Processing ◽

Right Hemisphere ◽

Visual Word ◽

Target Color ◽

Chinese Characters ◽

Phonological Information

Lateralization is a critical characteristic of language production and also plays a role in visual word recognition. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the interactions between visual input and spoken word representations are still unclear. We investigated the contribution of sub-lexical phonological information in visual word processing by exploiting the fact that Chinese characters can contain phonetic radicals in either the left or right half of the character. FMRI data were collected while 39 Chinese participants read words in search for target color words. On the basis of whole-brain analysis and three laterality analyses of regions of interest, we argue that visual information from centrally presented Chinese characters is split in the fovea and projected to the contralateral visual cortex, from which phonological information can be extracted rapidly if the character contains a phonetic radical. Extra activation, suggestive of more effortful processing, is observed when the phonetic radical is situated in the left half of the character and therefore initially sent to the visual cortex in the right hemisphere that is less specialized for language processing. Our results are in line with the proposal that phonological information helps written word processing by means of top-down feedback.

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Crisis' as Tool in the Digital Games Industry: Resistance or Command and Conquer?

eTopia ◽

10.25071/1718-4657.36719 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

Owen Livermore

Keyword(s):

Economic Crisis ◽

Digital Games ◽

Significant Degree ◽

Media Discourse ◽

Digital Game ◽

Moral Panics ◽

Game Development ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Current State ◽

Business Failures

From media-driven moral panics to colossal business failures, digital games have historically been rife with crisis, defining the games industry and its practices to a significant degree. More recently, media discourse regarding the very aggressive global economic crisis is host to an ideological game where the form and context of crisis is shaped into a number of disparate and sometimes contradictory conclusions about the current state of digital game development. I will provide an overview pinpointing some of the recent claims made about the digital games industry and relate this discursive context to the ongoing challenges of the peoplewho work within it. Additionally, in an effort to address the title and theme of the Intersections2009 Conference, I wish to highlight the ways in which crisis can be “disruptive”, but also manipulable and productive in ways that reveal both hegemonic industry mandates and opportunities for bottom-up mobilization.

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Formulaic speech in the L2 classroom

Pragmatics ◽

10.1075/prag.13.2.02gir ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 231-251 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Marie Girard ◽

Claude Sionis

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Second Language Acquisition ◽

Language Acquisition ◽

Language Production ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Analytical Process ◽

Efficient Communication

This study looks into one context of Formulaic Speech (FS) usage: The partial L2 immersion class. It tries to define and classify FS according to Raupach’s contextual list (1984) and lexical criteria as well as differentiating it from creative speech. FS is presented mostly as a pragmatic concept challenging the usual conceptions of language acquisition as an analytical process. Also challenged is the idea that language production is based on analysis of the input followed by production out of parsed output. In a Second Language Acquisition perspective, FS is shown as being a temporary stage of acquisition which, among other aspects, enables the speaker to reach idiomaticity in his or her L2 and thereby efficient communication with native speakers.

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Spatially Filtered Emotional Faces Dominate during Binocular Rivalry

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci10120998 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (12) ◽

pp. 998

Author(s):

Maria Teresa Turano ◽

Fiorenza Giganti ◽

Gioele Gavazzi ◽

Simone Lamberto ◽

Giorgio Gronchi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Binocular Rivalry ◽

Visual Display ◽

Emotional Facial Expressions ◽

Bottom Up ◽

Emotional Faces ◽

Fearful Faces ◽

Affective Quality ◽

Spatial Frequencies ◽

Coarse Information ◽

First Time

The present investigation explores the role of bottom-up and top-down factors in the recognition of emotional facial expressions during binocular rivalry. We manipulated spatial frequencies (SF) and emotive features and asked subjects to indicate whether the emotional or the neutral expression was dominant during binocular rivalry. Controlling the bottom-up saliency with a computational model, physically comparable happy and fearful faces were presented dichoptically with neutral faces. The results showed the dominance of emotional faces over neutral ones. In particular, happy faces were reported more frequently as the first dominant percept even in the presence of coarse information (at a low SF level: 2–6 cycle/degree). Following current theories of emotion processing, the results provide further support for the influence of positive compared to negative meaning on binocular rivalry and, for the first time, showed that individuals perceive the affective quality of happiness even in the absence of details in the visual display. Furthermore, our findings represent an advance in knowledge regarding the association between the high- and low-level mechanisms behind binocular rivalry.

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Single-trial fMRI Shows Contralesional Activity Linked to Overt Naming Errors in Chronic Aphasic Patients

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2009.21261 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 22 (6) ◽

pp. 1299-1318 ◽

Cited By ~ 108

Author(s):

Whitney Anne Postman-Caucheteux ◽

Rasmus M. Birn ◽

Randall H. Pursley ◽

John A. Butman ◽

Jeffrey M. Solomon ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Language Production ◽

Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽

Significant Degree ◽

Single Trial ◽

Control Subjects ◽

Two Factors ◽

Trial Basis ◽

Left And Right ◽

Cortical Regions ◽

The Right

We used fMRI to investigate the roles played by perilesional and contralesional cortical regions during language production in stroke patients with chronic aphasia. We applied comprehensive psycholinguistic analyses based on well-established models of lexical access to overt picture-naming responses which were evaluated using a single trial design that permitted distinction between correct and incorrect responses on a trial-by-trial basis. Although both correct and incorrect naming responses were associated with left-sided perilesional activation, incorrect responses were selectively associated with robust right-sided contralesional activity. Most notably, incorrect responses elicited overactivation in the right inferior frontal gyrus that was not observed in the contrasts for patients' correct responses or for responses of age-matched control subjects. Errors were produced at slightly later onsets than accurate responses and comprised predominantly semantic paraphasias and omissions. Both types of errors were induced by pictures with greater numbers of alternative names, and omissions were also induced by pictures with late acquired names. These two factors, number of alternative names per picture and age of acquisition, were positively correlated with activation in left and right inferior frontal gyri in patients as well as control subjects. These results support the hypothesis that some right frontal activation may normally be associated with increasing naming difficulty, but in patients with aphasia, right frontal overactivation may reflect ineffective effort when left hemisphere perilesional resources are insufficient. They also suggest that contralesional areas continue to play a role—dysfunctional rather than compensatory—in chronic aphasic patients who have experienced a significant degree of recovery.

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Language as a coordination tool evolves slowly

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.160259 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 3 (12) ◽

pp. 160259 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Tamas David-Barrett ◽

Robin I. M. Dunbar

Keyword(s):

Language Production ◽

Language Evolution ◽

Evolution Of Language ◽

Coordination Model ◽

Order Language ◽

Efficient Communication ◽

Group Members ◽

Coordination Tool ◽

Speed Of Evolution ◽

The Impact

Social living ultimately depends on coordination between group members, and communication is necessary to make this possible. We suggest that this might have been the key selection pressure acting on the evolution of language in humans and use a behavioural coordination model to explore the impact of communication efficiency on social group coordination. We show that when language production is expensive but there is an individual benefit to the efficiency with which individuals coordinate their behaviour, the evolution of efficient communication is selected for. Contrary to some views of language evolution, the speed of evolution is necessarily slow because there is no advantage in some individuals evolving communication abilities that much exceed those of the community at large. However, once a threshold competence has been achieved, evolution of higher order language skills may indeed be precipitate.

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Overinformative speakers are cooperative: Revisiting the Gricean Maxim of Quantity

10.31234/osf.io/f35tr ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Paula Rubio-Fernandez

Keyword(s):

Language Production ◽

Visual Display ◽

Referential Communication ◽

Spanish Speakers ◽

English Speakers ◽

Pragmatic Account ◽

Differential Efficiency ◽

Color Modification

A pragmatic account of referential communication is developed which presents an alternative to traditional Gricean accounts by focusing on cooperativeness and efficiency, rather than informativity. The results of four language-production experiments support the view that speakers can be cooperative when producing redundant adjectives, doing so more often when color modification could facilitate the listener’s search for the referent in the visual display (Experiment 1a). By contrast, when the listener knew which shape was the target, speakers did not produce redundant color adjectives (Experiment 1b). English speakers used redundant color adjectives more often than Spanish speakers, suggesting that speakers are sensitive to the differential efficiency of prenominal and postnominal modification (Experiment 2). Speakers were also cooperative when using redundant size adjectives (Experiment 3). Overall, these results show how discriminability affects a speaker’s choice of referential expression above and beyond considerations of informativity, supporting the view that redundant speakers can be cooperative.

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