“Motority” in three functional domains of word meaning

This article deals with relations between mental motor evoking capacity (motority, Putnoky, 1975a, b) and the sensory and affective connotations, as well as certain denotations, of words. Sensory connotation is indexed by degree of visual auditory, and tactual imagery, as assessed on a 7-point scale, while affective connotation is indexed by the usual three factors tapped by the semantic differential. The aspect of denotation used here is the abstractness value of words, also based on rating by scales. The general conclusions about motority are as follows: (1) the finding that its sensory connotations are mainly via theauditory modality of imagery, and especially in correlation with abstract words, suggests that it has a specific function that may have originated in the processing of heard language; (2) it correlates with thepotency andactivity factors of affective connotation, which suggests the existence of a nonspecific function or component in it; (3) correlations with abstractness reflect that motority must have a denotative function or component, especially in case of abstract verbal stimuli. On the basis of the results, motority is supposed to play a regulative role at higher levels of the organization of word meaning in particular.Computation of SD data was carried out under the direction and according to the programming of Professor William H. May in the Center for Comparative Psycholinguistics (Director: Charles E. Osgood), University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, with support provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH 07705) and National Science Foundation (NSF GS 360 and 2012-X).     

Epilepsy by looking at patterns]

The author, after pointing out the rare occurence and peculiarities of pattern-sensitive forms of epilepsy, reports the case of a seven-year-old boy with infantile cerebral paresis characterized by symptomatic attacks, who was observed to show absence-like conditions when looking at small-checkered patterns of nylon fabric. Grasping and looking at such fabrics assumed the form of an addiction, with a sense of pleasure being believed to be derived therefrom. Although anticonvulsive therapy resulted in attacks of epilepsy being no longer detectable clinically and by electroencephalography, seizures were still triggered by looking at patterns. Also discussed in this article is the problem of transition from real to psychogenic attacks.     

Time errors are perceptual

Summary Methods for the measurement of time-errors (TEs) in the comparison of successive stimulus magnitudes are discussed. Combining a Thurstonian scaling method with the assumption of a fixed subjective width of the equal category, independent of stimulus level, a ratio scale for subjective differences within pairs of successive stimuli is derived. In a tone duration comparison experiment, with the TE defined in the terms of these subjective duration differences, data from four experimental groups were compared, the groups using different modes of judging and responding. Only minor effects of this factor were found, and hence it is concluded that the TE is a true perceptual phenomenon rather than an effect of response bias, criterion bias, or mediating verbal responses to the absolute level of stimulation. The quantitative results are interpreted in terms of a general model for the comparison of successive stimuli, employing the concepts of adaptation and differential weighting of sensation magnitudes.This investigation was supported by grants to the author from the University of Stockholm and from the Swedish Office of Administrative Rationalization and Economy (for computer time), and by grants to Mats Björkman and Hannes Eisler from the Swedish Council for Social Science Research, whose free consultation service at the Department of Statistics, University of Stockholm, also benefited the author.     

Children's attention to stimulus components with variation in relative salience of components and degree of stimulus integration

A total of 400 children at ages 5, 9, and 12 years were given a component selection task with stimuli differing in color and shape. Relative salience of these two stimulus components was manipulated across subjects in two ways: the standard shapes and colors from previous studies were compared with standard shapes in fluorescent colors, and the latter materials were compared with nonsense shapes in fluorescent colors. While fluorescence of color had little effect, the replacement of standard shapes with nonsense figures caused attention to be redirected from shape to color as the primary cue for learning. This effect was more pronounced at age 9 than at age 5. Apparently there is a greater tendency for older than for younger children to withdraw attention from a normally dominant component such as shape, when it is advantageous to adopt another feature such as color as the primary functional cue. An additional variable was integration of components (color within shape vs color as background for shape). Integration produced generally greater attention to color but did not affect the general pattern of salience effects.     

Influence of linguistic complexity,rate of presentation,and interphrase pause time on auditory-verbal comprehension of adult aphasic patients

Among the variables affecting comprehension of linguistic stimuli by aphasic subjects are syntactic complexity and processing time. Comprehension performance of 15 aphasic adults was studied while altering the rate of speech presentation and varying the pause time between the major phrases within sentences of increasing grammatical complexity.Simple Active Affirmative Declarative Sentences, Negative, and Passive sentences were presented (1) at the rate of 150 words per minute (wpm) with 1-sec interphrase pause time (IPT); (2) 150 wpm with no pauses; (3) 120 wpm with 1-sec IPT; (4) 120 wpm with no pauses added.Performance was seen to vary with increasing syntactical complexity and as a function of processing time. Greater comprehension was seen with active affirmative than negative; greater with passive affirmative than with active negative. Clinical implications are discussed. Subjects demonstrated greater comprehension when sentences were presented at slower than normal rate; addition of interphrase pause time intervals aided comprehension. Combining slower rate of presentation and IPT intervals provided greatest increase in auditory processing time and showed concomitant increase in comprehension performance.     

Person‐Group Value Congruence and Subjective Well‐Being in Students from Argentina,Bulgaria and Finland: The Role of Interpersonal Relationships

The present study examined the relations between personal values, value congruence, interpersonal relationships and subjective well‐being in psychology/education and business students from Argentina (N = 275), Bulgaria (N = 182) and Finland (N = 148). Regression analyses showed, first, that there were no direct relations between higher order value priorities and life satisfaction (LS), positive affect (PA) or negative affect (NA). Second, objective value‐congruence (VC)—the similarity between individual and group values—was positively related to LS and PA, and negatively related to NA. Most importantly, the effects of VC on LS, NA and PA were partially mediated by good interpersonal relationships. Our results show that interpersonal relationships are facilitated by sharing values similar to those of one's fellow students. More generally, personal values per se appear not to be associated with subjective well‐being, more important is how these values fit into the social context. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Influence of Shared Visual Context on the Successful Emergence of Conventions in a Referential Communication Task

Human communication is thoroughly context bound. We present two experiments investigating the importance of the shared context, that is, the amount of knowledge two interlocutors have in common, for the successful emergence and use of novel conventions. Using a referential communication task where black‐and‐white pictorial symbols are used to convey colors, pairs of participants build shared conventions peculiar to their dyad without experimenter feedback, relying purely on ostensive‐inferential communication. Both experiments demonstrate that access to the visual context promotes more successful communication. Importantly, success improves cumulatively, supporting the view that pairs establish conventional ways of using the symbols to communicate. Furthermore, Experiment 2 suggests that dyads with access to the visual context successfully adapt the conventions built for one color space to another color space, unlike dyads lacking it. In linking experimental pragmatics with language evolution, the study illustrates the benefits of exploring the emergence of linguistic conventions using an ostensive‐inferential model of communication.