Radical parochialism about reference

We can use radically different reference-schemes to generate the same truth-conditions for the sentences of a language. In this paper, we do three things. (1) Distinguish two arguments that deploy this observation to derive different conclusions. The first argues that reference is radically indeterminate: there is no fact of the matter what ordinary terms refer to. This threat is taken seriously and most contemporary metasemantic theories come with resources intended to rebut it. The second argues for radical parochialism about reference: it's a reflection of our parochial interests, rather than the nature of the subject matter, that our theorizing about language appeals to reference rather than another relation that generates the same truth-conditions. Rebuttals of the first argument cut no ice against the second, because radical parochialism is compatible with reference being determinate. (2) Argue that radical parochialism, like radical indeterminacy, would be shocking if true. (3) Argue that the case for radical parochialism turns on the explanatory purposes of “reference”-talk: on relatively “thin” conceptions, the argument goes through, and radical parochialism is (shockingly!) true; on richer conceptions, the argument can be blocked. We conclude that non-revisionists must endorse, and justify, a relatively rich conception of the explanatory purposes of “reference”-talk.     

Book reviews

The Journal of Value Inquiry -     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.     

Temporal coordination of alternative and simultaneous aiming movements of constrained timing structure

Two experiments are reported addressing the preparation and initiation of movements with equal or unequal timing properties for both hands. Temporal coordination was examined in two movement tasks: one in which both hands performed the movements simultaneously (simultaneous aiming task) and one in which only one alternative of two possible movements was executed (choice aiming task). For each task a different group of subjects was used. Besides the timing relationships between both movements, the effects of preparation interval (1, 3, and 5 s), the average velocity (7, 14, 17.5, and 70 cm/s), the presence of advance information about the required velocity of the movement(s), and practice were investigated. Based on the common- and the specific-timing notions, distinct hypotheses were tested as to the effects of the variables on the temporal coordination as revealed by reaction time. A main result was that the effects of timing differences between the hands was task specific. For the choice task the data are in agreement with the common-timing notion of coordination, i. e., only one timing demand at a time can be prepared, whereas in the simultaneous task evidence was obtained for the specific-timing notion, i. e., independent preparation and initiation of different timing properties for the hands. However, it is argued that the results of the choice task probably do not reflect a general inability to prepare movements of different timing requirements for both hands, but is related to a task-specific strategy of selective preparation.     

Track-draw: A graphical interface for controlling the parameters of a speech synthesizer

In this report we describe a graphical interface for generating voiced speech using a frequency-domain implementation of the Klatt (1980) cascade formant synthesizer. The input to the synthesizer is a set of parameter vectors, calledtracks, which specify the overall amplitude, fundamental frequency, formant frequencies, and formant bandwidths at specified time intervals. Tracks are drawn with the aid of a computer mouse that can be used either inpoint-draw mode, which selects a parameter value for a single time frame, or inline-draw mode, which uses piecewise linear interpolation to connect two user-selected endpoints. Three versions of the program are described: (1) SYNTH draws tracks on an empty time-frequency grid, (2) SPECSYNTH creates a spectrogram of a recorded signal upon which tracks can be superimposed, and (3) SWSYNTH is similar to SPECSYNTH, except that it generatessine-wave speech (Remez, Rubin, Pisoni, & Carrell, 1981) using a set of time-varying sinusoids rather than cascaded formants. The program is written for MATLAB, an interactive computing environment for matrix computation. Track-Draw provides a useful tool for investigating the perceptually salient properties of voiced speech and other sounds.     

Spatial compatibility of signal-response position in pointing

Two experiments are reported in which, by means of a pointing task, we studied the stimulus-position effect, i.e. the inverted U-shape form of the reaction-time function in relation to stimulus position in tasks in which stimuli and/or responses are arranged in a horizontal array. The response consisted of aiming the index finger from a central starting point at a target area on a screen. Reaction time was the main dependent variable. The spatial relation between the position of the imperative signal and the position of the response was manipulated by varying the spatial S-R compatibility and physical distance that separated the positions of stimulus and response. The stimulus-position effect was shown to depend on the compatibility of the S-R relation (Exp. 1). In Exp. 2 it was found that the modulation of the stimulus-position effect by spatial compatibility disappeared completely when the distance between the positions of stimulus and response was reduced. None of the experiments revealed that the stimulus position effect depended on signal discriminability, which renders an interpretation of this effect in terms of perceptual processes unlikely. We argue that the attentional model of spatial coding provides the most reasonable explanation of the obtained reaction-time patterns.