An examination of the distinction between nouns and verbs: Associations with two different kinds of motion

Four experiments provide evidence that people are biased to associate particular types of motion with nouns and different types of motion with verbs. Novel nouns and verbs were related to two types of motion: (1) path, or the direction of motion of one character with respect to the other character, and (2) movement orientation, or the direction a character was facing as it moved. Subjects associated verbs more strongly with path than with movement orientation. In contrast, they associated nouns more strongly with movement orientation than with path. Movement orientation was associated with both object categories and verbs, inconsistent with a complete division of labor between these two types of categories. These results are consistent, however, with the notion that people are biased to associate verbs with relations between objects, whereas they are biased to associate object categories with motions defined with respect to the object carrying out those motions.     

Two different kinds of key peck in the pigeon: some properties of responses maintained by negative and positive response-reinforcer contingencies

Pigeons emitted almost exclusively short-duration key pecks (shorter than 20 msec) when on negative automaintenance procedures, in which pecks prevented reinforcement. Peck durations under fixed-interval and fixed-ratio reinforcement schedules were generally two to five times longer than pecks under a negative automaintenance schedule. However, initial key pecks were of short duration, independent of procedure. The frequency of short-duration pecks was insensitive to differential reinforcement, while the frequency of long-duration pecks was sensitive to differential reinforcement. It is proposed that short-duration pecks arise from the pigeon's normal feeding pattern and are directly enhanced by food presentation, while long-duration pecks are controlled by the contingent effects of food presentation. The implications of the existence of two classes of pecks for the functional definition of operants and the separation of phylogenetic and ontogenetic sources of control of key pecking are discussed.     

What's behind different kinds of kinds: effects of statistical density on learning and representation of categories

This research examined how differences in category structure affect category learning and category representation across points of development. The authors specifically focused on category density--or the proportion of category-relevant variance to the total variance. Results of Experiments 1-3 showed a clear dissociation between dense and sparse categories: Whereas dense categories were readily learned without supervision, learning of sparse categories required supervision. There were also developmental differences in how statistical density affected category representation. Although children represented both dense and sparse categories on the basis of the overall similarity (Experiment 4A), adults represented dense categories on the basis of similarity and represented sparse categories on the basis of the inclusion rule (Experiment 4B). The results support the notion that statistical structure interacts with the learning regime in their effects on category learning. In addition, these results elucidate important developmental differences in how categories are represented, which presents interesting challenges for theories of categorization.     

Different kinds of bilinguals: different kinds of brains: the neural organisation of two languages in one brain

The aim of this study was to determine whether the type of bilingualism affects neural organisation. We performed identification experiments and mismatch negativity (MMN) registrations in Finnish and Swedish language settings to see, whether behavioural identification and neurophysiological discrimination of vowels depend on the linguistic context, and whether there is a difference between two kinds of bilinguals. The stimuli were two vowels, which differentiate meaning in Finnish, but not in Swedish. The results indicate that Balanced Bilinguals are inconsistent in identification performance, and they have a longer MMN latency. Moreover, their MMN amplitude is context-independent, while Dominant Bilinguals show a larger MMN in the Finnish context. These results indicate that Dominant Bilinguals inhibit the preattentive discrimination of native contrast in a context where the distinction is non-phonemic, but this is not possible for Balanced Bilinguals. This implies that Dominant Bilinguals have separate systems, while Balanced Bilinguals have one inseparable system.     

The effect of self-referencing on memory for different kinds of source information

ABSTRACT

Self-referential processing has been proven to be effective in improving source memory. However, it is unclear whether different types of source information would be consistently enhanced when an item is self-referentially processed. In two experiments, the authors examined the influence of the self (compared with other-referencing and semantic processing) as well as learning intention (incidental/intentional learning) on memory for two types of source information (spatial location and colour) that differ in the amount of cognitive resources they require to be encoded in memory. Results show that self-referencing has enhanced memory for spatial location of words whatever this information is learned intentionally or incidentally, whereas it cannot facilitate memory for the colour of words under the intentional learning condition, nor can it under the incidental condition. These findings suggest that self-referential processing is beneficial in memory improvement but not all-powerful, a source self-reference effect is subject to source information type.     

Children's acceptance of underinformative sentences: The case of some as a determiner

In recent literature there is unanimous agreement about children's pragmatic competence in drawing scalar implicatures about some, if the task is made easy enough. However, children accept infelicitous some sentences more often than adults do. In general their acceptance is assumed to be synonymous with a logical interpretation of some as a quantifier. But in our view an overlap with some as a determiner in under-informative sentences cannot be ruled out, given the ambiguity of the experimental instructions and the attitude of trust by children in adults. Our study investigated this hypothesis with different experimental manipulations. We found that when the experimenter's intentions are clear (Experiment 1, all/some order effect; Experiments 2 and 4, conditions 2 and 3), under-informative sentences are usually rejected; otherwise (Experiment 1, some/all order effect; Experiments 3 and 4, control condition) they are accepted. However, analysis of verbal protocols indicated that pragmatically infelicitous sentences are accepted, with some interpreted mostly as a determiner, irrespective of the function of some as a quantifier. Acceptance is not in itself synonymous with a logical interpretation of some as a quantifier.     

Matrix analysis of identifiability of some finite markov models

Methods developed by Bernbach [1966] and Millward [1969] permit increased generality in analyses of identifiability. Matrix equations are presented that solve part of the identifiability problem for a class of Markov models. Results of several earlier analyses are shown to involve special cases of the equations developed here. And it is shown that a general four-state chain has the same parameter space as an all-or-none model if and only if its representation with an observable absorbing state is lumpable into a Markov chain with three states.This research was supported by the U.S. Public Health Service under Grant MH-12717 to Indiana University and Grant GM-1231 to the University of Michigan.Now at the University of Texas, Austin.     

Accenting and detection of timing variations in tone sequences: different kinds of accents have different effects.

The effect of intensity and pitch accents on the perception of timing was examined in two experiments using a signal detection procedure. Analyses of sensitivity and response bias revealed opposite effects of intensity and pitch accents under similar conditions. Time intervals preceding intensity accents were perceived as longer, but time intervals preceding pitch accents were perceived as shorter. These results showed that listeners found it easier to detect timing variations that were contrary to expectations, as compared with variations that were consistent with expectations. In the present case, listeners should have expected shorter time intervals before intensity accents and longer intervals before pitch accents. The fact that the effects were observed with stimuli that had minimal musical structure demonstrated the contribution of psychoacoustic factors to such phenomena.     

Labeling: The relationship between certain personal characteristics and some attribution processes

Ideas proposed by labeling theorists in criminology have been the focus of considerable controversy. However, these ideas have often not been systematically formulated and tested. In order to go beyond “sensitizing concepts,” it is necessary to restate the basic propositions in testable terms. In this paper, labeling and attribution perspectives were combined and labeling hypotheses were derived from attribution theory. These hypotheses were tested on a population of institutionalized juveniles in Washington State correctional facilities. We were interested in whether the age, sex, or race of a child activates stereotypes and biases staff attributions about the child. The results suggest that these characteristics do not affect certain staff perceptions of the child.