scholarly journals The cognitive mechanisms involved in the “DEGREE ADVERB + PROPER NAME” construction: Evaluating proposals from Construction Grammar and Formal Semantics

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Frazer-McKee ◽  
Patrick Duffley
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Mechanism ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
Competing Models

There are broad disagreements between existing models regarding the mental representations and processes involved in the "DEGREE ADVERB + PROPER NAME" construction, including disagreements regarding the semantics of the degree device, the category status of the proper name, the construction’s expressed meaning and its (non-)compositionality, and, crucially, the operation that holds between the degree device and the proper name. Our corpus-based investigation into two competing models from Construction Grammar and Formal Semantics shows that these models collectively make useful contributions to the scientific understanding of this construction, but neither is empirically adequate. Most importantly, we find that the construction participates in several non-predicted expressed meanings; multivariate analyses show that the three amenable to statistical analysis cluster with different semantic usage-features. We argue that the best way to account for the construction’s semantics-pragmatics is via a previously-dismissed cognitive mechanism: an enrichment-/strengthening-type operation whereby a pragmatically-supplied scale is added to the message.

scholarly journals Communication in Action: Planning and Interpreting Communicative Demonstrations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark K Ho ◽  
Fiery Andrews Cushman ◽  
Michael L. Littman ◽  
Joseph L. Austerweil
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Intentional Behavior ◽  
The World ◽  
Communication Culture

Theory of mind enables an observer to interpret others' behavior in terms of unobservable beliefs, desires, intentions, feelings, and expectations about the world. This also empowers the person whose behavior is being observed: By intelligently modifying her actions, she can influence the mental representations that an observer ascribes to her, and by extension, what the observer comes to believe about the world. That is, she can engage in intentionally communicative demonstrations. Here, we develop a computational account of generating and interpreting communicative demonstrations by explicitly distinguishing between two interacting types of planning. Typically, instrumental planning aims to control states of the physical environment, whereas belief-directed planning aims to influence an observer's mental representations. Our framework (1) extends existing formal models of pragmatics and pedagogy to the setting of value-guided decision-making, (2) captures how people modify their intentional behavior to show what they know about the reward or causal structure of an environment, and (3) helps explain data on infant and child imitation in terms of literal versus pragmatic interpretation of adult demonstrators' actions. Additionally, our analysis of belief-directed intentionality and mentalizing sheds light on the socio-cognitive mechanisms that underlie distinctly human forms of communication, culture, and sociality.

Lexical expansion in the HAVE and BE perfect in Dutch

Diachronica ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evie Coussé
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Prototype Theory ◽  
Verb Classes ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Over Time

This article investigates lexical expansion in the HAVE and BE perfect in Dutch. It is known from previous research that early perfects show more lexical restrictions than their modern counterparts. The aim of this article is to uncover how perfects change their collocational preferences over time. The present study tackles this issue taking a quantitative corpus perspective. The empirical basis for this study is a sample of HAVE and BE perfects taken from a corpus of Dutch legal texts (1250–1800). The sample is analyzed using the method of diachronic distinctive collexeme analysis. The statistical analysis indicates that both perfect constructions show fine-grained shifts in collocational preferences over time. The observed lexical expansion has the following properties: it proceeds (a) gradually, (b) through semantically related verb classes, (c) away from a prototype. These properties are accounted for making use of insights from prototype theory and construction grammar.

Untangling the effects of partner responsiveness on health and well-being: The role of perceived control

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 1150-1171
Author(s):  
María Alonso-Ferres ◽  
Ledina Imami ◽  
Richard B. Slatcher
Keyword(s):  
Perceived Control ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Daily Stressors ◽  
Perceived Partner Responsiveness ◽  
Competing Models ◽  
Partner Responsiveness ◽  
Health And Well Being

Perceived partner responsiveness (PPR)—the extent to which people feel understood, cared for, and appreciated—has been identified as an organizing principle in the study of close relationships. Previous work indicates that PPR may benefit physical health and well-being, but how PPR is associated with personal benefits is less clear. One cognitive mechanism that may help to explain these associations is perceived control. Here we tested two competing models (moderation vs. mediation) in which we assessed whether perceived control might explain how PPR impacts health, well-being, and mortality in a 20-year longitudinal study of adults ( N = 1,186). We found that PPR has a long-term positive association with health, well-being, and mortality via increased perceived control and, in turn, decreased negative affect reactivity to daily stressors. These findings have important implications for understanding the cognitive mechanisms that link PPR to health and well-being.

scholarly journals Rigorous Statistical Methods for Rigorous Microbiome Science

mSystems ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy D. Willis
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
High Throughput ◽  
High Throughput Sequencing ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Biodiversity Data ◽  
Statistical Software ◽  
False Discoveries ◽  
Spurious Signals

ABSTRACT High-throughput sequencing has facilitated discovery in microbiome science, but distinguishing true discoveries from spurious signals can be challenging. The Statistical Diversity Lab develops rigorous statistical methods and statistical software for the analysis of microbiome and biodiversity data. Developing statistical methods that produce valid P values requires thoughtful modeling and careful validation, but careful statistical analysis reduces the risk of false discoveries and increases scientific understanding.

scholarly journals Creative industry as a key creative component of the Slovak economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 03009
Author(s):  
Daniela Rybarova
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Creative Industry ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Social Mechanism ◽  
Cognitive Mechanism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
Definition Of

The global economy is understood as an economy of information, knowledge, creativity, networks and services. The creation of value in the economy is involved in the economic, social and cognitive mechanisms. The economic mechanism emphasizes the processes of cooperation and production, the social mechanism, in turn, communication and marketing techniques, the cognitive mechanism is based on human imagination and interpretation. Under the cognitive mechanism is meant creativity, the ability to bring new motive, ideas. Cognitive mechanisms are in value creation process complementary to economic and social mechanisms and they are capable of producing value separately. One of the approaches to measuring creativity is to define and analyse creative industries. The creative industries are industries in which “combine and overlap the fields of art, culture, business and technology. They create a cycle of creation, production and distribution, using their intellectual capital as primary capital [1]. The contribution of the creative industry lies in its cross-sectoral dimension with minimal territorial constraints. The article will focus on the definition of creative industries and the analysis of creative industries in the Slovakia. The method used was the analysis of trends in the form of percentage year-on-year change. The creative industry is the sensitive on the state and development of the economy in Slovakia.

Cognitive mechanism of writing to dictation of logographic characters

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 517-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZAIZHU HAN ◽  
LUPING SONG ◽  
YANCHAO BI
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Regression ◽  
Healthy Adults ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Large Sample ◽  
Cognitive Mechanism ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Chinese Writing ◽  
Semantic Attributes ◽  
Production Probability

ABSTRACTThe cognitive mechanisms for writing to dictation of Chinese syllables by healthy adults were investigated using large-sample multiple regression analyses. In the experiment, subjects wrote down a corresponding character upon hearing a syllable. We mainly examined the effects of three types of attributes (i.e., lexical, semantic, and phonology to orthography conversion [POC] ones) in predicting the production probability of specific characters out of the homophone families for target syllables. We observed significant effects for all three types of attributes, as well as interactions between POC and the lexical attributes, and between POC and the semantic attributes. We further found that the semantic effects vanished for the writing stimuli without homophones. A feedback procedure (i.e., phonetic radical transparency) was also observed to influence Chinese writing performances. Our results support the hypothesis that the extent of semantic involvement in writing (spelling) to dictation is influenced by the effectiveness of POC procedure in a certain language and/or word set. The existence of an interaction between the lexical semantic route and the POC route in writing is further consolidated.

scholarly journals Working out multiword verbs within an Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar framework

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-86
Author(s):  
Sergio Torres-Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Focus On Form ◽  
Working Out ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Cognitive Construction Grammar

AbstractThis article presents a constructionist approach to the teaching of multiword verbs. To that end, I outline a pedagogical model, Applied Cognitive Construction Grammar (ACCxG), which is deemed to provide insight into a novel classification of multiword verbs as constructions (form-function pairings). The ACCxG framework integrates four cognitively-driven rationales, namely Focus on Form, Task-based Language Teaching, Data-driven Learning, and Paper-based Data-Driven Learning. It is argued that the syntax-semantics of multiword verbs can be better understood through recourse to their relation with syntactic constructions (Argument Structure Constructions). Endorsing this rationale entails, among other things, the recognition that the same general cognitive mechanisms intervening in the construction of our experience of the world are at play during the construction of linguistic knowledge.

scholarly journals Cognitive Basis of Making Creative Decisions in Translation Activities

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Anastasia Kolmogorova ◽  
Elena Chistova
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Color Gamut ◽  
Translation Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Mechanism ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Mental Operations ◽  
Cognitive Orientations

The purpose of the paper is to model the cognitive mechanism of generating creative elements in translation activities that are increasingly relevant in the context of modern requirements for the translator's work. The authors systematize, refine and supplement the available theoretical knowledge about translation creativity. The authors describe the available results of searching for creativity in target texts. The paper provides a cognitive mechanism scheme that launches creative ideas in translation activities. It works by constructing a cognitive focus – a sort of conscious reasonable integration of cognitive orientations, translation strategies and mental operations, actualizing weak associative links between mental representations available in the information field of the translation subject, in most cases leads to making creative translation decisions that require high efforts. The results of the study showed that translation creativity goes beyond the limits of linguistic creativity, and is realized both with the help of linguistic (ready-made speech word forms or new word-formations), and paralinguistic (color gamut, etc.). The examples considered in the article show that modulation and "thinking transcription" are the most productive mental operations of generating creative translation decisions. Strategies for domestication and transcreation also contribute most to the development of translation creativity.

scholarly journals Metapher, Metonymie und mentales Bild als Motiviertheitsmechanismen in der Phraseologie

2018 ◽  
Vol 143 ◽  
pp. 341-358
Author(s):  
Anna Sulikowska
Keyword(s):  
Mental Image ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Research Topic ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Mechanism

Das Ziel des Artikels liegt in der Veranschaulichung der Komplexität von Bedeutungskonstituierungs- und Motiviertheitsmechanismen in der Phraseologie. In einer korpusbasierten semantischen Untersuchung des Idioms ein harter Brocken werden Verwendungsprofile ermittelt und kognitive Mechanismen aufgezeigt, die zur Konstruktion der Bedeutung führen und sie motivieren. Außer den etablierten Metaphern und Metonymien wird auch der Einfluss des mentalen Bildes als ein kognitiver Mechanismus aufgezeigt und diskutiert. Metaphor, metonymy and rich image as motivating mechanismsin phraseologyThe aim of the article is to show the complexity of meaning construction and motivation procedures within phraseology. The research concentrates on the idiom ein harter Brocken, on the basis of which usage profiles and cognitive mechanisms have been shown, which support the construction of its meaning and motivation. Another research topic, beyond established metaphors and metonymies, was the influence of the mental image as a cognitive mechanism.

scholarly journals Representations of rectilinear light propagation in the thinking of 12-13 year olds: A transformative teaching intervention

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-199
Author(s):  
Alyona Grigorovitch
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Light Propagation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Sampling Technique ◽  
Traditional School ◽  
Transformative Teaching ◽  
Effective Interventions ◽  
Propagation Of Light ◽  
School Teaching ◽  
Quasi Experimental

This research investigates the transformation of the seventh-grade students' mental representations of the rectilinear propagation of light. The researcher employed the quasi-experimental method on two groups of students aged 12-13 years. The survey involved 102 students who were divided into two equal groups determined by the stratified sampling technique. The first group participated in a didactic intervention based on the students' representations. The second group of students participated in a traditional school teaching. The Mann–Whitney U test was utilized for calculating the significance of the data. The statistical analysis showed that the pretest and the posttest progress was statistically significant for the first group. It resulted in the mental constitution of a representation that is compatible with the scientific model.The research results allow the design of effective interventions for the teaching of light propagation and geometric optics in general.

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