On the least-squares orthogonalization of an oblique transformation

After proving a special case of a theorem stated by Eckart and Young, namely, that an oblique transformationG is the product of two different orthogonal transformations and an intervening diagonal, this note shows that the best fitting orthogonal approximation toG is obtained simply by replacing the intervening diagonal by the identity matrix. This result is shown to be identical with two earlier orthogonalizing procedures whenG is of full rank. A multiplicity of solutions is shown for the case of a singularG.I am grateful to J. J. Mellinger for pointing out a flaw in a previous version of this paper.Opinions expressed herein are those of the author, not necessarily those of the Army.     

Nonsmokers' Attributions for the Outcomes of Smokers: Some Potential Consequences of the Stigmatization of Smokers1

The current research examines intergroup attributional biases made by nonsmokers for the outcomes of smokers. Nonsmokers were asked to make attributions for either the success or failure of either an in-group member (a nonsmoker) or an out-group member (a smoker). Overall, subjects attributed the preponderance of cause for the outcomes to external or unstable (approximately 80%) rather than internal (approximately 20%) factors. However, results confirmed the expected in-group protective and in-group enhancing attributions on the part of nonsmokers. Specifically, nonsmokers attributed a significantly higher proportion of success to external factors and a lower proportion of success to internal factors when the target was a smoker compared to when the target was a nonsmoker. The implications of these results for smokers and smoking policy are discussed.     

The relationship between the frequency and the processing complexity of linguistic structure

In this paper the relative frequencies of the possible resolutions of ambiguities involving noun phrase attachment sites are compared to the results of off-line psycholinguistic measurements of syntactic complexity. A lack of correlation between the two is observed. It is therefore argued that the comprehension system is distinct from what is driving the frequencies in the corpora. A production heuristic separate from the comprehension system is proposed to account for the observed frequencies.We would like to thank Susanne Tunstall for providing linguistic judgments in the corpus analyses reported in Sec. 3.3. We also wish to thank the following people for helpful, comments and discussions on earlier presentations of this paper: the audience at the Eighth Human Sentence Processing Conference, in Tucson Arizona, Maria Babyonyshev, Tom Bever, Martin Corley, Danny Fox, Don Mitchell, Edson Miyamoto, Janet Nicol, Colin Phillips, Gregg Solomon, Michael Spivey-Knowlton, James Thomas, and Tom Wasow. All remaining errors are our own. The second author was supported by the Research Training Grant Language: Acquisition and Computation awarded by the National Science Foundation (U.S.) to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (DIR 9113607), and by a fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.     

Semantic differential techniques in the identification of individuals assessment of health state: A case study of a patient within a homoeopathic regime

A retrospective study of patients (n = 166) on a wheat free diet showed improvements in patients diagnosed as wheat sensitive over patients not so diagnosed (p = 0.05). Clinical history indicated marked differences between these groups in perceptions of health. Individual follow up studies indicated that a Semantic Differential grid, derived from a patient group (n = 20) through semantic and repertory techniques, was a good indicator of these clinical perceptions. The results of one patient in this group are presented and show the typical results obtained by principal component analysis of the semantic grid administered over two visits to the hospital. Patient perception of well being shown by the grid analysis was confirmed by clinical history. The implications of this semantic approach for patient self reporting and clinical counselling are discussed. Larger scale studies are currently being planned on wheat sensitivity and associated psychological effects, using a variety of psychological measures, in a large range of patient groups (including Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Multiple Sclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis).     

Use of Bowen Theory

A theory-based approach to treatment of co-dependency is missing in both fields of chemical dependency and traditional mental health. Bowen family systems therapy is presented as a foundation and framework for treatment goals and interventions. Similarities between the characteristics of low levels of differentiation of self and co-dependency are illustrated.     

Fantasy play in 5- and 6-year-old children

We studied the verbal pretend play of 5- and 6-year-old boys and girls to delineate age and sex differences during the later preoperational period. Sixteen children with average language ability were paired by age and sex and were videotaped for three 15-min intervals. Verbal interactions were transcribed, and the pretend play was classified as object fantasy, imaginative action plans/themes, or fantasy roles. Language used for pretend play increased in proportion to all utterances with age. Older children referred to more invented objects than younger ones but primarily in the service of realistic action formats. Girls' conversations were scored as having significantly more verbal pretending than boys' and a higher proportion of it referred to play roles. There were both age and sex differences in the types of themes, toys used, and roles enacted, including more sex-typed behavior in older children. The continued increase in the proportion of pretend play to all verbal interaction with age and the characteristics of play behavior is consistent with developmental theory.     

The processing of extraposed structures in English

In most languages, most of the syntactic dependency relations found in any given sentence are projective: the word-word dependencies in the sentence do not cross each other. Some syntactic dependency relations, however, are non-projective: some of their word-word dependencies cross each other. Non-projective dependencies are both rarer and more computationally complex than projective dependencies; hence, it is of natural interest to investigate whether there are any processing costs specific to non-projective dependencies, and whether factors known to influence processing of projective dependencies also affect non-projective dependency processing. We report three self-paced reading studies, together with corpus and sentence completion studies, investigating the comprehension difficulty associated with the non-projective dependencies created by the extraposition of relative clauses in English. We find that extraposition over either verbs or prepositional phrases creates comprehension difficulty, and that this difficulty is consistent with probabilistic syntactic expectations estimated from corpora. Furthermore, we find that manipulating the expectation that a given noun will have a postmodifying relative clause can modulate and even neutralize the difficulty associated with extraposition. Our experiments rule out accounts based purely on derivational complexity and/or dependency locality in terms of linear positioning. Our results demonstrate that comprehenders maintain probabilistic syntactic expectations that persist beyond projective-dependency structures, and suggest that it may be possible to explain observed patterns of comprehension difficulty associated with extraposition entirely through probabilistic expectations.