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.     

A marginalization model for the multidimensional unfolding analysis of ranking data

A marginalization model for the multidimensional unfolding analysis of ranking data is presented. A subject samples one of a number of random points that are multivariate normally distributed. The subject perceives the distances from the point to all the stimulus points fixed in the same multidimensional space. The distances are error perturbed in this perception process. He/she produces a ranking dependent on these error-perturbed distances. The marginal probability of a ranking is obtained according to this ranking model and by integrating out the subject (ideal point) parameters, assuming the above distribution. One advantage of the model is that the individual differences are captured using the posterior probabilities of subject points. Three sets of ranking data are analyzed by the model.     

Fixation disengagement and eye-movement latency

We examined eye-movement latencies to a target that appeared during visual fixation of a stationary stimulus, a moving stimulus, or an extrafoveal stimulus. The stimulus at fixation was turned off either before target onset (gap condition) or after target onset (overlap condition). Consistent with previous research, saccadic latencies were shorter in gap conditions than they were in overlap conditions (the gap effect). In Experiment 1, a gap effect was observed for vergence eye movements. In Experiment 2, a gap effect was observed for saccades directed at a target that appeared during visual pursuit of a moving stimulus. In Experiment 3, a gap effect was observed for saccades directed at a target that appeared during extrafoveal fixation. The present results extend reports of the gap effect for saccadic shifts during visual fixation to (a) vergence shifts during visual fixation, (b) saccadic shifts during smooth visual pursuit, and (c) saccadic shifts during extrafoveal fixation. The present findings are discussed with respect to the incompatible goals of fixation-locking and fixation-shifting oculomotor responses.     

Effectiveness of word order and grammatical marker as syntactic indicators of semantic relations

The effectiveness of word order and grammatical markers as syntactic indicators of semantic relations was explored using an artificial linguistic system. The results showed: (1) semantic interpretation of novel sentences was possible not only for Ss given fixed word order sentences with or without the markers, but also for Ss given the markers in random word order sentences; (2) Ss given neither indicator showed chance performance; (3) word order tended to be more efficient than grammatical markers as clues to semantic relations. The results suggest that the critical condition for language acquisition is the constant covariation of linguistic structure with semantic contexts. A process approach is discussed in accounting for the findings.Half of the data of the present experiment (FP and FA) were collected by Miss Norie Wake for her BA thesis, Okayama University (1978). The other half (RP and RA) were collected by the three juniors for their advanced course of experimental psychology, Okayama University (1979).     

Temporal course of activation of the antecedent by the reflexive in syntactically ambiguous sentences in Japanese

Three experiments examined the temporal course of the activation of an antecedent triggered by a reflexive,jibun, in syntactically ambiguous sentences in Japanese. Twenty-two students in Experiment 1 were tested for sentences where a subject word occupied the first position and an indirect object word the second, with the probe given for each word either immediately after the reflexive or at the end of the sentence. Reaction times (RTs) were faster when the probe was for subject (S-probe) than when it was for indirect object (IO-probe) irrespective of the probe position. Experiment 2 tested 22 students to determine the effect of order of mention of participant on the probe recognition time. RTs were faster for the S-probe than for the IO-probe, although the difference between the two probes was smaller when the probe was given immediately after the reflexive. Experiment 3 tested 22 students to examine the effect of context on an activation pattern. RTs were lower for the S-probe than for the IO-probe, though no difference was found between them for the probe given at the end of the sentence. Findings were interpreted as supporting the single-interpretation model for on-line analysis of syntactically ambiguous sentences and also the immediate-activation model in an assignment of the reflexive to its antecedent.     

Four methods of locating the egocenter: A comparison of their predictive validities and reliabilities

An attempt was made to identify the best method of locating the egocenter by comparing the predictive validity and reliability of the four methods introduced by Fry (1950), Funaishi (1926), Howard and Templeton (1966), and Roelofs (1959). To determine predictive validity, egocenters located by these methods were used to predict the responses of 14 subjects on three visual direction tasks; the correlation between the predicted and the actual responses on each task was computed. To determine reliability, the test-retest stability and the internal consistency were estimated for each method. All of the methods were reliable, but only the Howard and Templeton method predicted the results on all three of the visual direction tasks. The high reliability and predictive validity of the Howard and Templeton method is attributed to its high precision.