Additive conjoint isotonic probabilistic models (ADISOP)

The ISOP-model or model of twodimensional or bi-isotonicity (Scheiblechner, 1995) postulates that the probabilities of ordered response categories increase isotonically in the order of subject ability and item easiness. Adding a conventional cancellation axiom for the factors of subjects and items gives the ADISOP model where the c.d.f.s of response categories are functions of an additive item and subject parameter and an ordinal category parameter. Extending cancellation to the interactions of subjects and categories as well as of items and categories (independence axiom of the category factor from the subject and item factor) gives the CADISOP model (completely additive model) in which the parallel c.d.f.s are functions of the sum of subject, item and category parameters. The CADISOP model is very close to the unidimensional version of the polytomous Rasch model with the logistic item/category characteristic(s) replaced by nonparametric axioms and statistics. The axioms, representation theorems and algorithms for model fitting of the additive models are presented.     

Rating scale analysis with latent class models

A general approach for analyzing rating data with latent class models is described, which parallels rating models in the framework of latent trait theory. A general rating model as well as a two-parameter model with location and dispersion parameters, analogous to Andrich's Dislocmodel are derived, including parameter estimation via the EM-algorithm. Two examples illustrate the application of the models and their statisticalcontrol. Model restrictions through equality constrains are discussed and multiparameter generalizations are outlined.     

Seeing red primes tomato: evidence for comparable priming from colour and colour name primes to semantically related word targets

There is ample evidence that an independent processing stream exists that subserves the perception and appreciation of colour. Neurophysiological research has identified separate brain mechanisms for the processing of wavelength and colour, and neuropsychological studies have revealed selective colour disorders, such as achromatopsia, colour agnosia, and colour anomia. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether the perception of colour may, despite its independent processing, influence other cognitive functions. Specifically, we investigate the possibility that the perception of a colour influences higher order processes such as the activation of semantically related concepts. We designed an associative priming task involving a colour prime (e.g. a red patch or the word RED) and a lexical decision response to a semantically related (‘tomato’ vs. ‘timato’) or unrelated (‘grass’ vs. ‘griss’) word target. The results of this experiment indicate that there is comparable facilitation of accessing colour-related semantics through the perception of a colour or the reading of a colour name. This suggests that colour has a direct effect on higher order level, cognitive processing. These results are discussed in terms of current models of colour processing.     

The influence of the immediate visual context on incremental thematic role-assignment: evidence from eye-movements in depicted events

Studies monitoring eye-movements in scenes containing entities have provided robust evidence for incremental reference resolution processes. This paper addresses the less studied question of whether depicted event scenes can affect processes of incremental thematic role-assignment. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants inspected agent-action-patient events while listening to German verb-second sentences with initial structural and role ambiguity. The experiments investigated the time course with which listeners could resolve this ambiguity by relating the verb to the depicted events. Such verb-mediated visual event information allowed early disambiguation on-line, as evidenced by anticipatory eye-movements to the appropriate agent/patient role filler. We replicated this finding while investigating the effects of intonation. Experiment 3 demonstrated that when the verb was sentence-final and thus did not establish early reference to the depicted events, linguistic cues alone enabled disambiguation before people encountered the verb. Our results reveal the on-line influence of depicted events on incremental thematic role-assignment and disambiguation of local structural and role ambiguity. In consequence, our findings require a notion of reference that includes actions and events in addition to entities (e.g. Semantics and Cognition, 1983), and argue for a theory of on-line sentence comprehension that exploits a rich inventory of semantic categories.     

Preschoolers' extension of familiar adjectives

In two experiments, we examined the role of labels in guiding preschoolers' extension of three types of familiar adjectives: emotional state adjectives, physiological state adjectives, and trait adjectives. On each trial, we labeled a target animal with one of the three different types of adjectives and asked whether these terms could apply to a subordinate-level match, a basic-level match, a superordinate-level match, or an inanimate object. In Experiment 1, participants extended trait adjectives, but not emotional or physiological adjectives, to members of the same basic-level category, regardless of whether an explicit basic-level label was provided for the target animal. Similarly, children in Experiment 2 also extended trait adjectives to the members of the same basic-level category, even when explicit superordinate- and subordinate-level labels were provided for the target animals. Together, these results demonstrate that children appreciate that emotional and physiological adjectives cannot be generalized to the same extent as can trait adjectives, and the results document the privileged status of basic-level categories in preschoolers' extension of trait adjectives.     

Choice model analysis of the “pick any/n” type of binary data

In the “pick any/n” method, subjects are asked to choose any number of items from a list of n items according to some criterion. This kind of data can be analyzed as a special case of either multiple-choice data or successive categories data where the number of response categories is limited to two. An item response model was proposed for the latter case, which is a combination of an unfolding model and a choice model. The marginal maximum-likelihood estimation method was developed for parameter estimation to avoid incidental parameters, and an expectation-maximization algorithm used for numerical optimization. Two examples of analysis are given to illustrate the proposed method, which we call MAXSC.     

The asymptotic posterior normality of the latent trait for polytomous IRT models

Chang and Stout (1993) presented a derivation of the asymptotic posterior normality of the latent trait given examinee responses under nonrestrictive nonparametric assumptions for dichotomous IRT models. This paper presents an extention of their results to polytomous IRT models in a fairly straightforward manner. In addition, a global information function is defined, and the relationship between the global information function and the currently used information functions is discussed. An information index that combines both the global and local information is proposed for adaptive testing applications.This research was partially supported by Educational Testing Service Allocation Project No. 79424. The author wishes to thank Charles Davis, Xuming He, Frank Jenkins, Spence Swinton, William Stout, Ming-Mai Wang, and Zhiliang Ying for their helpful comments and discussions. The author particularly wishes to thank the Editor, Shizuhiko Nishisato, the Associate Editor, and three anonymous reviewers for their thoroughness and thoughtful suggestions.     

GENDER IS AN ORGANON

Abstract. Gender is a social construct. Technically, it is a grammatical structuring category that may refer to sex, as is typical of Indo-European languages, or to another set of features such as animate versus inanimate, as is typical of Algonkian languages. Gender in language forces speakers of the language to be continually conscious of application of the category, and they tend to project the categorization into their experience of the world and collocate observations under these broad categories. Western science has been developed by speakers of Indo-European languages employing male/female (and sometimes neuter) genders, and in a cultural tradition that at least since the time of Classical Greece has collocated male with active, creative, rational, and public (political)/dominant (Olympian), and female with passive, irrational/emotional, and private (nonpolitical)/subordinate. Religion and science-organons for rendering existential experience intelligible-have always been used by the dominant class as instruments of power, and therefore in Western cultures have been entangled with legitimization of a congeries of concepts collocated with male gender. This paper illustrates the social construction of this congeries by contrasting it with non-Western usages and valuations.     

Hegel and Sellars on the Unity of Things

ABSTRACT

I have claimed previously that Hegel and Sellars are both, in the end, monistic visionaries, though with radically different visions of the grand unity of things. In this paper I explain and defend that claim. Section one differentiates several kinds of monism; section two discusses Hegel’s vision of the underlying unity of thing, while section three does the same for Sellars. The compare-and-contrast assignment is brought to completion in section four.