Automatic Extraction of Property Norm‐Like Data From Large Text Corpora

Traditional methods for deriving property‐based representations of concepts from text have focused on either extracting only a subset of possible relation types, such as hyponymy/hypernymy (e.g., car is‐a vehicle ) or meronymy/metonymy (e.g., car has wheels ), or unspecified relations (e.g., car — petrol ). We propose a system for the challenging task of automatic, large‐scale acquisition of unconstrained, human‐like property norms from large text corpora, and discuss the theoretical implications of such a system. We employ syntactic, semantic, and encyclopedic information to guide our extraction, yielding concept‐relation‐feature triples (e.g., car be fast , car require petrol , car cause pollution ), which approximate property‐based conceptual representations. Our novel method extracts candidate triples from parsed corpora (Wikipedia and the British National Corpus) using syntactically and grammatically motivated rules, then reweights triples with a linear combination of their frequency and four statistical metrics. We assess our system output in three ways: lexical comparison with norms derived from human‐generated property norm data, direct evaluation by four human judges, and a semantic distance comparison with both WordNet similarity data and human‐judged concept similarity ratings. Our system offers a viable and performant method of plausible triple extraction: Our lexical comparison shows comparable performance to the current state‐of‐the‐art, while subsequent evaluations exhibit the human‐like character of our generated properties.     

Commentary on Robin Wooffitt’s Paper “Poetic Confluence: A Sociological Analysis of an Enigmatic Moment”

The author, who is a sociologist and psychoanalyst, comments upon Wooffitt’s analysis of poetic confluence. Using conversation analysis of moments of interaction where one interlocutor says something that bears a strong resemblance to what has just been in the mind of the other interlocutor, Wooffitt suggests that this form of communication has its function in the neutralization of the mental contents of this other interlocutor. In light of material presented by Schegloff in his earlier work, this appears to be a partial function of poetic confluence but not something that is there in all instances. On a conceptual level, psychoanalysis and sociology have had several moments of rapprochement in history. Wooffitt’s plea for dialogue is different: rather than focusing on conceptual linkages between the two disciplines, he proposes meeting through empirical studies of the intersubjective and interactional basis of mental phenomena.     

Hippocampal theta (3-8Hz) activity during classical eyeblink conditioning in rabbits

In 1978, Berry and Thompson showed that the amount of theta (3–8 Hz) activity in the spontaneous hippocampal EEG predicted learning rate in subsequent eyeblink conditioning in rabbits. More recently, the absence of theta activity during the training trial has been shown to have a detrimental effect on learning rate. Here, we aimed to further explore the relationship between theta activity and classical eyeblink conditioning by determining how the relative power of hippocampal theta activity [theta/(theta + delta) ratio] changes during both unpaired control and paired training phases. We found that animals with a higher hippocampal theta ratio immediately before conditioning learned faster and also that in these animals the theta ratio was higher throughout both experimental phases. In fact, while the hippocampal theta ratio remained stable in the fast learners as a function of training, it decreased in the slow learners already during unpaired training. In addition, the presence of hippocampal theta activity enhanced the hippocampal model of the conditioned response (CR) and seemed to be beneficial for CR performance in terms of peak latency during conditioning, but did not have any effect when the animals showed asymptotic learning. Together with earlier findings, these results imply that the behavioral state in which hippocampal theta activity is absent is detrimental for learning, and that the behavioral state in which hippocampal theta activity dominates is beneficial for learning, at least before a well-learned state is achieved.     

Long-term self-monitoring of weight: a case study

The aim of this study was to examine the self-monitoring of weight on a daily basis over a long period of time in order to understand the process of weight regain. An obese female client measured her weight every morning over a period of 10 years. The subject made a total of 2081 weight measurements. Thus, her weight was measured on 67% of all possible days. After the initial weight loss a pattern of gradual weight gain was observed. The subject gained weight during August and September, and at the end of December, in particular. Furthermore, her weight increased slightly at the weekends. This case study highlights the advantage of self-monitoring of weight on a daily basis. Individual patterns of weight change possibly associated with season and weekly variation may be crucial when obese subjects try to maintain their weight after weight loss. However, it may take several months or even years to detect the weekly and yearly rhythms or other patterns in the data. Thus, self-control of weight is problematic, since patterns in the weight regain process are difficult to detect. This may be one reason why self-control of weight is so difficult.     

Low-noise microvolt level calibrator for measurement of performance of biosignal recording systems

A calibrator, the noise level of which is below the noise level generated in the preamplifier system, was needed for testing and development of a multichannel recording system. A multichannel preamplifier head assembly was used for recording cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar slow potentials and multiunit activity in freely moving cats and restrained rabbits. An inexpensive, battery-powered, lownoise voltage signal generator for calibration of the preamplifiers is described. The circuit provides a square-wave output at a frequency of 10 or 1000 Hz, and the peak-to-peak (p-p) amplitude can be selected at 10, 100, or 1000µV. The measured output noise of the calibrator is below 2µV (p-p, 0.1–6000 Hz). The frequency and amplitude values can be easily adapted for different purposes by changing a few component values. An amplified (gain 1,000×) test output for direct oscilloscope monitoring is included in the calibrator circuit.     

Russell on Negative Judgement

Topoi - This paper concerns Bertrand Russell’s changing views on negative judgement. ‘Negative judgement’ is considered in the context of three theories of judgement that Russell...