Conceptual combination with prototype concepts

This paper deals with how people combine simple, prototype concepts into complex ones; e.g., how people combine the prototypes for brown and apple so they can determine the typicality of objects in the conjunction brown apple. We first consider a proposal from fuzzy-set theory (Zadeh, 1965), namely, that the typicality of an object in a conjunction is equal to the minimum of that object's typicality in the constituents (e.g., an object's typicality as a brown apple cannot exceed its typicality as a brown or as an apple). We evaluated this “min rule” against the typicality ratings of naive subjects in two experiments. For each of numerous pictured objects, one group of subjects rated its typicality with respect to an adjective concept, a second group rated its typicality vis-à-vis a noun concept, and a third group rated its typicality with respect to the adjective-noun conjunction. In both studies, most objects were rated as more typical of the conjunction than of the noun. These findings violate not only the min rule but also other simple rules for relating typicality in a conjunction to typicalities in the constituents. As an alternative to seeking such rules, we argue for an approach to conceptual combination that starts with the prototype representations themselves. We illustrate one version of this approach in some detail, and show how it accounts for the major findings of the present experiments.     

Shindigs,brunches, and rodeos: The neural basis of event words

Events (e.g., “running” or “eating”) constitute a basic type within human cognition and human language. We asked whether thinking about events, as compared to other conceptual categories, depends on partially independent neural circuits. Indirect evidence for this hypothesis comes from previous studies showing elevated posterior temporal responses to verbs, which typically label events. Neural responses to verbs could, however, be driven either by their grammatical or by their semantic properties. In the present experiment, we separated the effects of grammatical class (verb vs. noun) and semantic category (event vs. object) by measuring neural responses to event nouns (e.g., “the hurricane”). Participants rated the semantic relatedness of event nouns, as well as of two categories of object nouns—animals (e.g., “the alligator”) and plants (e.g., “the acorn”)—and three categories of verbs—manner of motion (e.g., “to roll”), emission (e.g., “to sparkle”), and perception (e.g., “to gaze”). As has previously been observed, we found larger responses to verbs than to object nouns in the left posterior middle (LMTG) and superior (LSTG) temporal gyri. Crucially, we also found that the LMTG responds more to event than to object nouns. These data suggest that part of the posterior lateral temporal response to verbs is driven by their semantic properties. By contrast, a more superior region, at the junction of the temporal and parietal cortices, responded more to verbs than to all nouns, irrespective of their semantic category. We concluded that the neural mechanisms engaged when thinking about event and object categories are partially dissociable.     

Conceptual combination: Conjunction and negation of natural concepts

The operation of negation on combinations of natural categories was examined in two experiments. In the first, category membership ratings of lists of items were obtained for pairs of concepts considered individually and in two logical combinations: conjunctions (e.g., “Tools which are also Weapons”) and negated conjunctions—forms of those conjunctions in which the modifier noun category was negated (“Tools which arenot Weapons”). For conjunctions, results supported earlier findings of overextension and the geometric averaging of constituent membership values (Hampton, 1988b). Previous findings of concept dominance and noncommutativity within conjunctions were also replicated, both for typicality ratings and for probability of class membership. For negated conjunctions, the pattern of dominance was similar but interacted with order within the conjunction. Negated conjunctions were also overextended. The second experiment explored how the attributes of negated conjunctions were derived from those of the two component concepts. Frequency of generation of attributes expressed positively (has wheels) or negatively (has no wheels) followed rated frequency in the negated category. The distinctiveness of an attribute to distinguish the complement from the head-noun class was associated with the generation of attributes, particularly when there was relatively high overlap between the two categories.     

The role of visual form in lexical access: Evidence from Chinese classifier production

The interface between the conceptual and lexical systems was investigated in a word production setting. We tested the effects of two conceptual dimensions – semantic category and visual shape – on the selection of Chinese nouns and classifiers. Participants named pictures with nouns (“rope”) or classifier–noun phrases (“one-classifier–rope”) in three blocked picture naming experiments. In Experiment 1, we observed larger semantic category interference with phrases than with nouns, suggesting comparable semantic categorical effects on classifier and noun selection. In Experiments 2 and 3, items with similar shapes produced an interference effect when they were named with classifier–noun phrases, but not with bare nouns. This indicates that object shape modulates classifier (but not noun) selection. We conclude that object shape properties can by themselves influence word selection processes just as semantic relationships (captured by semantic category) do. The factors operating during word selection may be more diverse than has been previously thought.     

TEACHING GENERALIZED RECEPTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE BEHIND-FRONT DISCRIMINATIONS TO TWO RETARDED CHILDREN1

Typically, a generalized discrimination for two linguistic forms (e.g., “behind the (noun)” and “in front of the (noun)”) has been developed in a sequence of three treatment conditions, with generative usage developed for each form consecutively in the first two conditions and a generalized discrimination developed for those forms in the third condition. Moreover, generalized discriminations have typically been measured by a set of unreinforced probes, rather than by first-trial performances across a series of new tasks, as in some studies that have taught generative usage of a single form of language. In this study, successive sets of instructions were presented to two children. Each set contained four tasks, the four possible combinations of two new nouns with the linguistic forms “Put the (noun) behind the (noun)” and “Put the (noun) in front of the (noun)”. For each set, receptive usage of nouns was taught, and then the four instructions were presented, once each, to test for generative usage of the prepositional forms. First-trial performances were never prompted. After a baseline of five sets of tasks, correct first-trial performances earned praise and tokens. Also, in each set with three or fewer such performances, the specific receptive discriminations were taught to a criterion before presentation of the next set. Successive sets were presented until all first-trial performances were correct in five consecutive sets, whereupon this generalized discrimination was reversed and subsequently reinstated. Similar procedures were then used to teach the same children a generalized productive-discrimination for the forms “behind the (noun)” and “in front of the (noun)”. This study demonstrated the development of generalized receptive and productive behind-front discriminations without the prior development of generative usage in each linguistic form and with measurement of the generalized discrimination across first-trial performances. The method may offer a less time-consuming procedure for the development and measurement of generalized discriminations in receptive and productive language.     

Different time courses of integrative semantic processing for plural and singular nouns: implications for theories of sentence processing

The research investigated the time course of integrative semantic processing during sentence processing. Reading time was measured on sentences containing an NP composed of an adjective and a noun whose combined meaning was plausible or anomalous (Experiment 1) or was typical or atypical (Experiment 2). The noun in the NP was either plural or singular. Plural nouns were expected to be more rapidly integrated with a preceding adjective than singular nouns because plural nouns can be ruled out as the first noun in a noun compound more rapidly than singular nouns. The results confirmed this prediction, showing that the effects of semantic plausibility and typicality were observed immediately during the processing of plural nouns, but were observed at a delay following the processing of singular nouns. Implications for theories of sentence processing are discussed.     

Individual differences in infant fixation duration: Dominance of global versus local stimulus properties

In three experiments, the dominance of global versus local visual properties was investigated in 4-month-old infants as a function of individual differences in fixation duration (i.e., “long-” versus “short-looking” infants). Dominance was assessed through paired-comparison discrimination tasks in which global and local visual properties were placed in competition with one another for infants' attention. Familiarization time was varied parametrically across experiments. Short-looking infants showed responses consistent with a global-to-local sequence of processing: dominance for the global attribute was supplanted by dominance for the local attribute as familiarization was extended. Long-looking infants, however, did not show dominance for either visual property until after considerable familiarization. When dominance was observed for this group, it was for the local visual attribute. These findings are in accord with previous observations that long-looking infants process visual information more slowly than short-looking infants, but further suggest that there may be qualitative differences in the manner in which the two groups of infants attend to the properties of visual stimuli. Links between this finding and the long-term predictive validity of fixation duration are discussed.     

Category norm data and relationships with lexical frequency and typicality within verb semantic categories

The aim of the present study was to expand the scope of category norm and typicality data to include verbs for use when investigating semantic memory in fields such as linguistics, psychology, and aphasiology. Two experiments were conducted. In the first, participants were asked to list verbs within 10 semantic categories (e.g. breaking, cleaning, cooking, etc.) and 10 noun categories (e.g. animals, fruit, tools, etc.). In the second experiment, participants were asked to rate the typicality of verbs within 8 of the previously investigated verb categories. Although participants listed fewer verbs in verb categories than nouns in noun categories, the overall patterns with regard to correlation analyses between production frequency, mean rank of responses, lexical frequency, and typicality were consistent with those observed in noun categories. These patterns are also consistent with those observed in previous research. Potential similarities and differences between nouns and verbs, as well as future applications of such data, are discussed.     

名词短语加工中个体量词通达的影响因素

“双系统”和“双向选择组合网络”理论认为,在汉语使用者的心理词典中存在名词系统和量词系统,两者之间存在双向选择关系。采用启动范式考察在名词短语产生和理解中量词的名词搭配量、名词的量词拥有量和量词-名词定配率对个体量词通达的影响。结果表明,量词的名词搭配量、名词的量词拥有量和量词-名词定配率显著地影响量词的词汇通达,量词和名词之间是双向选择关系。量词通达是直接通达和间接通达的有机结合。     

Imageability and distributional typicality measures of nouns and verbs in contemporary English

Dissociations between noun and verb processing are not uncommon after brain injury; yet, precise psycholinguistic comparisons of nouns and verbs are hampered by the underrepresentation of verbs in published semantic word norms and by the absence of contemporary estimates for part-of-speech usage. We report herein imageability ratings and rating response times (RTs) for 1,197 words previously categorized as pure nouns, pure verbs, or words of balanced noun-verb usage on the basis of the Francis and Ku?era (1982) norms. Nouns and verbs differed in rated imageability, and there was a stronger correspondence between imageability rating and RT for nouns than for verbs. For all word types, the image-rating-RT function implied that subjects employed an image generation process to assign ratings. We also report a new measure of noun-verbtypicality that used the Hyperspace Analog to Language (HAL; Lund & Burgess, 1996) context vectors (derived from a large sample of Usenet text) to compute the mean context distance between each word and all of thepure nouns andpure verbs. For a subset of the items, the resulting HAL noun-verb difference score was compared with part-of-speech usage in a representative sample of the Usenet corpus. It is concluded that this score can be used to estimate the extent to which a given word occurs in typical noun or verb sentence contexts in informal contemporary English discourse. The item statistics given in Appendix B will enable experimenters to select representative examples of nouns and verbs or to compare typical with atypical nouns (or verbs), while holding constant or covarying rated imageability.     

Learning Count Nouns and Adjectives: Understanding the Contributions of Lexical Form Class and Social-Pragmatic Cues

In two experiments, one hundred ninety-two 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, and adults heard a novel word for a target object and then were asked to extend the label to one of two test objects, one matching in shape-based object category (the shape match) and the other matching in a property other than shape (the property match). We independently manipulated the lexical form class cues (count noun, adjective) and social-pragmatic cues (point actions, property-highlighting actions) accompanying the label. The impact of these two types of cue on extension differed markedly across age groups. Adults and 4-year-olds extended the word to the property match significantly more often when the term was modeled as an adjective and when it was presented with property-highlighting actions; but adults extended both adjectives and count nouns systematically to the property match when the speaker highlighted the non-shape property, whereas 4-year-olds systematically extended only adjectives to the property match under these conditions. Three-year-olds extended the word to the property match significantly more often when the label was modeled as an adjective but were not significantly affected by the social-pragmatic cues; and they failed to extend either adjectives or count nouns systematically to the property match when the speaker highlighted the non-shape property. We discuss the results in terms of the proposal that word learning draws on cues from multiple sources and the nature of the “shape bias” in lexical development.     

Effects of testing on subsequent re‐encoding and long‐term forgetting of action‐relevant materials: On the influence of recall type

Testing one's memory of previously studied information reduces the rate of forgetting, compared to restudy. However, little is known about how this direct testing effect applies to action phrases (e.g., “wash the car”) – a learning material relevant to everyday memory. As action phrases consist of two different components, a verb (e.g., “wash”) and a noun (e.g., “car”), testing can either be implemented as noun‐cued recall of verbs or verb‐cued recall of nouns, which may differently affect later memory performance. In the present study, we investigated the effect of testing for these two recall types, using verbally encoded action phrases as learning materials. Results showed that repeated study–test practice, compared to repeated study–restudy practice, decreased the forgetting rate across 1 week to a similar degree for both noun‐cued and verb‐cued recall types. However, noun‐cued recall of verbs initiated more new subsequent learning during the first restudy, compared to verb‐cued recall of nouns. The study provides evidence that testing has benefits on both subsequent restudy and long‐term retention of action‐relevant materials, but that these benefits are differently expressed with testing via noun‐cued versus verb‐cued recall.     

成人言语输入对儿童早期单词获得影响的个案追踪

追踪观察一名婴儿(6~20个月), 分析其中看护者的言语输入特征及婴儿早期词汇获得的发展变化。主要对成人言语输入中动、名词比例、单词在句中的位置、具体环境等因素及婴儿早期动、名词理解和产生等方面进行探讨。结果显示, 成人言语输入中动词比例显著高于名词, 更多动词位于句首或句尾使得主语和宾语省略; 同时, 这种动词优势的输入特征促进儿童早期动词获得, 使得婴儿早期语言样本中动、名词理解相对比例与成人言语输入一致。这一结果表明, 婴儿词汇发展初期就已经利用言语或社会线索, 同时这种早期词汇组成中较高的动词比例进一步支持“名词优势”理论存在跨语言差异     

Category typicality effects in children's memory performance: Qualitative and quantitative differences in the processing of category information

Kindergarten, third, and sixth graders (6, 9, and 12 years of age, respectively) received a cue-at-input/cue-at-output recall task, using category typical and atypical items that were based on either (1) children's conceptions of item typicality, or (2) adults' conceptions of item typicality. At each grade level, recall was greater with the child-defined lists than with the adult-defined lists, and typical items were recalled to a greater extent than atypical items. Further analyses items were recalled to a greater extent than atypical items. Further analyses revealed that the recall of typical items varied as a function of children's typicality ratings of items, and that the “typicality effect” in the adult-norm condition was due primarily to the childrennot realizing that many of the atypical items were appropriate category exemplars. In contrast, typicality effects in the child-norm condition were attributed to qualitative differences in the judged “goodness of example” of the typical and atypical items. The results were discussed in terms of the appropriateness of typicality as a dimension of children's natural language concepts, the role of age differences in knowledge base in affecting performance on a cognitive task, and of the importance of using child-generated norms in studies of children's processing of category information.     

The Luscher Color Test: An Investigation of Validity and Underlying Assumptions

This experiment investigated several underlying assumptions and one aspect of the validity of the Luscher Color Test, a projective test developed in Europe and relatively unknown in the United States. It was predicted that Ss would report increases in “negative” feelings to the color red, while blue would have the opposite effect, and yellow would produce an increase in “positive” feelings. Twenty-three male and 23 female Ss rated their immediate reactions to the LCT colors on seven mood adjectives, following which they were given the short version LCT and the IPAT Anxiety Scale. The results supported the hypotheses regarding blue and yellow, but not those regarding red nor the validity of the LCT as an anxiety measuring instrument.     

Short‐term and working memory: Past,progress, and prospects

Abstract

The role of current personal experience in understanding of word meaning was investigated in a patient, WM, who suffers from semantic dementia. The study was prompted by the observation that WM, despite being severely impaired on formal tests of word comprehension and naming, retained a range of vocabulary pertaining to her daily life. If autobiographical experience has a general facilitatory effect, then this should affect which concepts are retained and which lost, but not influence the quality of that conceptual knowledge. Conversely, if personal autobiography has a direct role in investing concepts with meaning, then WM's understanding of nominal terms that she uses spontaneously in conversation ought not to be normal, but should be constrained by the autobiographical context in which she uses those terms. WM could define nouns and noun phrases drawn from her conversational vocabulary, but her definitions had a markedly autobiographical quality. Moreover, WM was extremely impaired in her ability to define new noun phrases, constructed by combining words from her conversational vocabulary (e.g. “dog licence”, constructed from “driving licence” and “dog” “oil field” constructed from “oil” and “field”). It was concluded that WM does not have normal conceptual understanding of nouns and noun phrases that she uses appropriately in conversation. Her understanding is narrow and autobiographically constrained. The findings, which suggest an interactive relationship between autobiographical and semantic memory, have implications for understanding of the progressive breakdown of semantic knowledge.     

The Role of Reasoning and Pragmatics in the Modifier Effect

The modifier effect refers to the fact that the perceived likelihood of a property in a noun category is diminished if the noun is modified. For example, “Pigs live on farms” is rated as more likely than “Dirty pigs live on farms.” The modifier effect has been demonstrated in many studies, but the underlying cognitive mechanisms are still unclear. This paper reports two series of experiments that jointly point to the conclusion that the modifier effect is the result of a superposition of three cognitive mechanisms: (a) probabilistically softened default inheritance, (b) pragmatic implicatures due to Gricean relevance assumptions, and (c) inference based on world knowledge. We present evidence that the pragmatic effects operate largely on an unconscious level and that their influence can be reduced by changing the presentation format of the cognitive task.     

Granularity and the acquisition of grammatical gender: how order-of-acquisition affects what gets learned

Why do adult language learners typically fail to acquire second languages with native proficiency? Does prior linguistic experience influence the size of the “units” adults attend to in learning, and if so, how does this influence what gets learned? Here, we examine these questions in relation to grammatical gender, which adult learners almost invariably struggle to master. We present a model of learning that predicts that exposure to smaller units (such as nouns) before exposure to larger linguistic units (such as sentences) can critically impair learning about predictive relations between units: such as that between a noun and its article. This prediction is then confirmed by a study of adult participants learning grammatical gender in an artificial language. Adults learned both nouns and their articles better when they were first heard nouns used in context with their articles prior to hearing the nouns individually, compared with learners who first heard the nouns in isolation, prior to hearing them used in context. In the light of these results, we discuss the role gender appears to play in language, the importance of meaning in artificial grammar learning, and the implications of this work for the structure of L2-training.