Spatial Semantics,Cognition, and Their Interaction: A Comparative Study of Spatial Categorization in English and Korean

This study has two goals. First, we present much‐needed empirical linguistic data and systematic analyses on the spatial semantic systems in English and Korean, two languages that have been extensively compared to date in the debate on spatial language and spatial cognition. We conduct our linguistic investigation comprehensively, encompassing the domains of tight‐ and loose‐fit as well as containment and support relations. The current analysis reveals both cross‐linguistic commonalities and differences: From a common set of spatial features, each language highlights a subset of those features for its principal categorization, and those primary features are importantly different between English and Korean: English speakers categorize events predominantly by containment and support relations (and do so with prepositions), whereas Korean speakers categorize them by tight‐fit and loose‐fit relations (and do so with verbs), with a further distinction of containment and support within the loose‐fit relation. The analysis also shows that the tight‐fit domain is more cross‐linguistically diverse in categorization than is the loose‐fit domain. Second, we test the language data against the nonlinguistic categorization results reported in Choi and Hattrup (2012). The results show a remarkable degree of convergence between the patterns predicted from the current linguistic analysis and those found in C&H's nonlinguistic study and thus provide empirical and strong evidence for an influence of language on nonlinguistic spatial cognition. At the same time, the study reveals areas where the two systems closely interact with each other as well as those where one is independent from the other. Taking both parts of the study together, we identify the specific roles that language and spatial perception/cognition play in spatial categorization.     

TDQ-60 – a color picture-naming test for adults and elderly people: validation and normalization data

Word-finding difficulties are usually assessed with picture-naming tests. In this article, we present the TDQ-60, a new test designed to assess acquired lexical access deficits, taking into account semantics and psycholinguistic variables. The article includes three studies. Study 1 describes the development phase of the TDQ-60. In study 2, healthy control participants and individuals with a diagnosis of the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia were assessed to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of the TDQ-60. Finally, in Study 3, a group of 305 young and elderly French-speaking adults from Quebec were assessed in order to provide normative data. The results demonstrate that the TDQ-60 has good convergent validity and good discriminant validity. This study also provides normative data in which were considered the effect of age and education.The TDQ-60 is a new valid picture-naming test, controlled for psycholinguistic variables and designed to identify the influence of semantics on lexical access in spoken production.     

视觉经验缺失对盲人听觉词汇识别的影响

听觉词汇识别包含复杂的认知加工过程。视觉通道受阻的盲人在听觉词汇加工中具有一定听觉补偿优势; 但由于视觉经验的缺失, 盲人对一些视觉相关词(比如颜色词)的语义加工和理解比明眼人弱。未来的研究应对词汇的视觉相关性进行分类讨论; 对音、形、义等多层面及其神经生理机制进行深入探究, 发展符合盲人感知特点的听觉词汇加工模型; 并拓展不同年龄段的发展性研究。最终, 揭示视觉经验缺失对盲人听觉词汇识别影响机制的全貌。     

From reasonable preferences,via argumentation,to logic

This article demonstrates that typical restrictions which are imposed in dialogical logic in order to recover first-order logical consequence from a fragment of natural language argumentation are also forthcoming from preference profiles of boundedly rational players, provided that these players instantiate a specific player type and compute partial strategies. We present two structural rules, which are formulated similarly to closure rules for tableaux proofs that restrict players' strategies to a mapping between games in extensive forms (i.e., game trees) and proof trees. Both rules are motivated from players' preferences and limitations; they can therefore be viewed as being player-self-imposable. First-order logical consequence is thus shown to result from playing a specific type of argumentation game. The alignment of such games with the normative model of the Pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation is positively evaluated. But explicit rules to guarantee that the argumentation game instantiates first-order logical consequence have now become gratuitous, since their normative content arises directly from players' preferences and limitations. A similar naturalization for non-classical logics is discussed.     

Altering access to autobiographical episodes with prior semantic knowledge

Within autobiographical knowledge, semantic and episodic memory are traditionally considered separate, but newer models place them along a continuum, which raises the possibility of an intermediate form of knowledge - personal semantics. This study tested how different types of semantics – general semantics and two forms of personal semantics – impact access to personal episodic memories. In two experiments, participants made a series of true/false judgments about a prime statement, which reflected a general semantic fact, a context-dependent (e.g., repeated event) or context-independent (e.g., trait), personal semantic fact and then retrieved a specific past episodic memory. There was a significantly stronger priming effect for accessing specific episodic memories after judging personal semantic facts versus general facts. We also found that context-dependent and -independent personal semantic facts had separable priming effects on episodic memory. These findings support a continuum model of memory and verifies that there are multiple forms of personal knowledge.     

The Dizzying Turn of Epistemic Contextualism

The debate concerning epistemic contextualism represents a kind of linguistic turn in epistemology, where the focus has shifted from theorising about knowledge to theorising about knowledge attributions. Such a shift may well prove valuable, but only if we are clear on what the relationship is between a semantic analysis of knowledge attributions and a philosophical analysis of knowledge. One plausible approach is to claim that the semantic analysis entails and is entailed by the philosophical analysis. Yet this view—referred to here as the default view—has been explicitly adopted by few in the contextualism debate. This paper considers a form of argument in favour of the default view, and then considers the challenges that arise from either accepting or rejecting the default view.     

Making Things Happen

We explore some logics of change, focusing on commands to change the world in such a way that certain elementary propositions become true or false. This investigation starts out from the following two simplifying assumptions: (1) the world is a collection of facts (Wittgenstein), and (2), the world can be changed by changing elementary facts (Marx). These assumptions allow us to study the logic of imperatives in the simplest possible setting.     

On the Existence of Continua of Logics Between Some Intermediate Predicate Logics

A method for constructing continua of logics squeezed between some intermediate predicate logics, developed by Suzuki [8], is modified and applied to intervals of the form [L, L+ ¬¬S], where Lis a predicate logic, Sis a closed predicate formula. This solves one of the problems from Suzuki's paper.