The Usual and the Unusual: Solving Remote Associates Test Tasks Using Simple Statistical Natural Language Processing Based on Language Use

In this study we show how complex creative relations can arise from fairly frequent semantic relations observed in everyday language. By doing this, we reflect on some key cognitive aspects of linguistic and general creativity. In our experimentation, we automated the process of solving a battery of Remote Associates Test tasks. By applying Statistical Natural Language Processing techniques to a large web‐based corpus, we perform a frequency and collocation analysis of the test items. Results show that 37% of the 68 tasks were automatically solved, whereas human accuracy reached 43%. Our method outperformed humans in the tasks rated as difficult: 38% and 32%, respectively. Highly relevant is that the novel and adequate relations established in order to solve the RAT were not previously present in the corpus. The frequency based approach pervades all stages of our method: during the divergent stage, highly frequent collocations are listed, while the convergent stage starts by matching each task's triads output, shrinking that list, and finalizing it by choosing the least frequent, therefore more informative and often correct, result. Finally, we discuss the implications of our model in overcoming functional fixedness and understanding cognitive salience in the creative process.     

Utility and Language Generation: The Case of Vagueness

This paper asks why information should ever be expressed vaguely, re-assessing some previously proposed answers to this question and suggesting some new ones. Particular attention is paid to the benefits that vague expressions can have in situations where agreement over the meaning of an expression cannot be taken for granted. A distinction between two different versions of the above-mentioned question is advocated. The first asks why human languages contain vague expressions, the second question asks when and why a speaker should choose a vague expression when communicating with a hearer. While the former question is purely theoretical, the latter has practical implications for the computational generation of utterances in Natural Language Generation (NLG).     

The Language of Thought and The Embodied Nature of Language Use

Philosophical Studies -     

The Use of Standardized Intraoperative Language Tests in Awake Craniotomies: A Scoping Review

Neuropsychology Review - Assessment of speech and language functions is an essential part of awake craniotomies. Although standardized and validated tests have several advantages compared to...     

From Theory of Rhetoric to the Practice of Language Use: The Case of Appeals to Ethos Elements

In their book Commitment in Dialogue, Walton and Krabbe claim that formal dialogue systems for conversational argumentation are “not very realistic and not easy to apply”. This difficulty may make argumentation theory less well adapted to be employed to describe or analyse actual argumentation practice. On the other hand, the empirical study of real-life arguments may miss or ignore insights of more than the two millennia of the development of philosophy of language, rhetoric, and argumentation theory. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology for adapting such theories to serve as applicable tools in the study of argumentation phenomena. Our approach is both theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded in large-scale corpus analysis. The area of interest are appeals to ethos, the character of the speaker, building upon Aristotle’s rhetoric. Ethotic techniques are used to influence the hearers through the communication, where speakers might establish, but also emphasise, weaken or undermine their own or others’ credibility and trustworthiness. Specifically, we apply our method to Aristotelian theory of ethos elements which identifies practical wisdom, moral virtue and goodwill as components of speakers’ character, which can be supported or attacked. The challenges we identified in this case and the solutions we proposed allow us to formulate general guidelines of how to exploit rich theoretical frameworks to the analysis of the practice of language use.

     

The Language of Love: Sex, Sexual Orientation, and Language Use in Online Personal Advertisements

Stereotypes and biological theories suggest that psychological gender differences found in predominantly heterosexual samples are smaller or reversed among gay men and lesbians. Computerized text analysis that compares peoples language style on a wide range of dimensions from pronoun use to body references offers a multivariate personality marker to test such assumptions. Analysis of over 1,500 internet personal advertisements placed by heterosexual men, heterosexual women, gay men, and lesbians found little evidence that orientation alters the impact of gender on linguistic behaviors. Previously reported gender differences were replicated in the gay as well as the heterosexual advertisements studied. Main effects of sexual orientation indicated that gay people of both sexes apparently felt less need to differentiate themselves from potential mates than did heterosexual people. Virtually no crossover sexual orientation by sex interactions emerged indicating that several popular models of sexual orientation are not supported on a linguistic level.     

Analyzing Machine-Learned Representations: A Natural Language Case Study

As modern deep networks become more complex, and get closer to human-like capabilities in certain domains, the question arises as to how the representations and decision rules they learn compare to the ones in humans. In this work, we study representations of sentences in one such artificial system for natural language processing. We first present a diagnostic test dataset to examine the degree of abstract composable structure represented. Analyzing performance on these diagnostic tests indicates a lack of systematicity in representations and decision rules, and reveals a set of heuristic strategies. We then investigate the effect of training distribution on learning these heuristic strategies, and we study changes in these representations with various augmentations to the training set. Our results reveal parallels to the analogous representations in people. We find that these systems can learn abstract rules and generalize them to new contexts under certain circumstances—similar to human zero-shot reasoning. However, we also note some shortcomings in this generalization behavior—similar to human judgment errors like belief bias. Studying these parallels suggests new ways to understand psychological phenomena in humans as well as informs best strategies for building artificial intelligence with human-like language understanding.     

The Use of Strategic Family Therapy in the School Setting: A Case Study

The authors describe a school counselor's shift from a traditional, individualized counseling approach to the use of strategic family therapy as a way of helping a young man succeed in school and leave home.     

A Case of Functional Urinary Retention: The Use of Family Play Therapy

This case presents a technique for doing family therapy in families with young children. In family play therapy, the entire family plays together, allowing full participation of even the youngest children in the therapeutic process. Standard family therapy interventions in the latter part of each session make use of family interaction patterns and unconscious processes revealed during the earlier play. In the case presented here, the technique was successfully applied to a family with a 3-year-old son who had functional urinary retention. This case also provided an opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration between the separate Child and Family Services at a major teaching hospital.     

The Use of Hermeneutics in the Criminological Interpretation of Forensic Documents: A Case Study

This study explored the use of hermeneutics to retrospectively construct a criminological assessment. The data are archival records on a convicted woman (Mrs B: not real name) for the murder of her husband. The data are analyzed using a Ricoeurian narrative identity analysis framework. The results indicate that Mrs B has a history of violent behaviour and is manipulative and does not accept responsibility for her behaviour, suggesting that hermeneutic inquiry is appropriate for criminology assessments.     

语言和音乐中短语边界的认知加工

综述了近年来语言和音乐中有关短语边界加工的一些研究成果。首先,语言中使用事件相关电位技术（ERP）进行的众多研究表明,口语中的语调短语边界和阅读中的逗号都能诱发中止正漂移（CPS）这种反映语调短语中止的ERP成分。然后介绍了近期关于音乐短语结构的一系列ERP和事件相关磁场（ERF）研究,结果发现在各种实验条件下音乐CPS都能够稳定产生。最后,对今后汉语韵律层级结构边界的认知加工研究做出展望     

The Lowenfeld Mosaic Test: Review of Its Use

The Lowenfeld Mosaic Test (LMT), despite rich potential for yielding information about ways in which subjects experience themselves and the world, has for many years gone unstudied and unused. A forthcoming book on this test, the first in over 20 years, may generate some renewed interest in it. As background, this article reviews the history and development of the LMT.     

The Use of Metaphor and Drawings in Case Conceptualization

The author describes a procedure whereby counselors, as part of their conceptualization for case conferences or supervision, develop metaphors and then make them concrete by constructing drawings or collages. The drawings or collages are used as the basis for case discussions.