The use theory of meaning and semantic stipulation

According to Horwich’s use theory of meaning, the meaning of a word W is engendered by the underived acceptance of certain sentences containing W. Horwich applies this theory to provide an account of semantic stipulation: Semantic stipulation proceeds by deciding to accept sentences containing an as yet meaningless word W. Thereby one brings it about that W gets an underived acceptance property. Since a word’s meaning is constituted by its (basic) underived acceptance property, this decision endows the word with a meaning. The use-theoretic account of semantic stipulation contrasts with the standard view that semantic stipulation proceeds by assigning the meaning (reference) to W that makes a certain set of sentences express true propositions. In this paper I will argue that the use-theoretic account does not work. I take Frege to have already made the crucial point: "a definition does not assert anything but lays down something ["etwas festsetzt"]” (Frege 1899, 36). A semantic stipulation for W cannot be the decision to accept a sentence containing W or be explained in terms of such an acceptance. Semantic stipulation constitutes a problem for Horwich's use theory of meaning, especially his basic notion of acceptance.

Context,content, and relativism

This paper argues against relativism, focusing on relativism based on the semantics of predicates of personal taste. It presents and defends a contextualist semantics for these predicates, derived from current work on gradable adjectives. It then considers metasemantic questions about the kinds of contextual parameters this semantics requires. It argues they are not metasemantically different from those in other gradable adjectives, and that contextual parameters of this sort are widespread in natural language. Furthermore, this paper shows that if such parameters are rejected, it leads to an unacceptably rampant form of relativism, that relativizes truth to an open-ended list of parameters.

Beyond stop consonants: Consonantal specificity in early lexical acquisition

Previous research has shown that 20-month-old infants can simultaneously learn two words that only differ by one of their consonants, but fail to do so when the words differ only by one of their vowels. This asymmetry was interpreted as developmental evidence for the proposal that consonants play a more important role than vowels in lexical specification. However, the consonant/vowel distinction was confounded with another distinction, that of the continuous status of the phonemes used (discontinuous stop consonants versus continuous vowels). The present study investigated 20-month-olds’ use of phonetic specificity while simultaneously learning two words that differ by a continuous consonant. The results obtained parallel those previously found for stop consonants, confirming the original claim of an asymmetry between the roles of consonants and vowels at the lexical level.     

社会信息归类过程中刻板印象的内隐效应

采用信号检测论和间接测量方法探讨社会信息归类过程中的刻板印象内隐效应。实验结果表明 :⑴范畴启动可以自动激活有关的刻板印象内容 ,说明在很大程度上刻板印象是归类过程的一种必然结果与产物 ;⑵那些在内容上与范畴启动所导致自动的刻板印象激活及其相关内容一致、不一致或相反的建构分别易于出现同化与对比效应 ;⑶在个体水平上 ,通过意识性抑制在短期内很难压制刻板印象的自动激活 ,这表明刻板印象加工在很大程度上涉及到内隐过程     

规则策略和样例策略在归类过程中的运

探讨人们在归类过程中对规则策略和样例策略的运用。包括3个实验,被试为华南师范大学110名本科生。用计算机呈现类别学习材料,被试学习后立即进行归类迁移测试,考察被试的归类策略倾向。实验1提高了Erickson和Kruchke研究中例外类别规则的清晰性,考察当学习材料中潜在规则易于掌握时,被试是否会倾向于运用规则策略进行归类;实验2探讨当学习材料中的潜在规则较难掌握时,被试是否会倾向于运用样例策略进行归类;实验3探讨人们在运用规则进行归类时对不同规则选用的特点。结果表明：当学习情境中潜在规则易于掌握时,被试倾向于运用规则策略进行归类;当潜在规则难以掌握时,被试则倾向于运用样例策略进行归类;当同时可以运用不同规则时,被试会选用更概括、更有普遍性的规则而弃用较具体、适用范围较限定的规则。据此,研究初步认为,人们在归类中首选的是规则策略,只有当学习情境中潜在规则难以掌握时,才转而采用样例策略;当有多种规则可以选择时,则倾向于选择更概括、更有普遍意义的规则     

Victim’s innocence, social categorization, and the threat to the belief in a just world

This research studies people’s reactions to the suffering of victims, examining the hypothesis of the belief in a just world (BJW) (Lerner, 1980) according to which the awareness of innocent victims threatens people’s BJW, and extending the scope of BJW theory to intergroup contexts. An implicit measure of the threat to the BJW (Hafer, 2000a) is used in this research. After participants viewed a videotaped film containing the victimization story they performed an emotional modified Stroop task. Study 1 examined the threat to the BJW as function of the innocence of the victim at an interpersonal level of analysis. Results show that only the innocent victim threatens the observer’s BJW. Study 2 examined the threat to the BJW as function of the victim’s group and of the victim’s innocence. Results show that an ingroup victim threatens the participant’s BJW more than a victim belonging to an outgroup.     

Multiple Cues in Social Perception: The Time Course of Processing Race and Facial Expression

The purpose of the present study was to examine the time course of race and expression processing to determine how these cues influence early perceptual as well as explicit categorization judgments. Despite their importance in social perception, little research has examined how social category information and emotional expression are processed over time. Moreover, although models of face processing suggest that the two cues should be processed independently, this has rarely been directly examined. Event-related brain potentials were recorded as participants made race and emotion categorization judgments of Black and White men posing either happy, angry, or neutral expressions. Our findings support that processing of race and emotion cues occur independently and in parallel, relatively early in processing.     

Naming and categorization in young children: v. manual sign training

Following pre-training with everyday objects, 8 children aged from 2 to 4 years learned to produce one manual sign (fists placed one above the other, in front of body) to one stimulus and an alternative manual sign (shoulders touched with ipsilateral hands) to the other stimulus, with each of three pairs of different arbitrary wooden shapes (Set 1). The six stimuli then were presented in category match-to-sample tests, which all subjects passed. Three of the children were next trained to produce the manual signs (denoted as fist/shoulder) for an additional six arbitrary stimuli, Set 2. All 3 children went on to pass category match-to-sample tests for Set 2, and for Set 1 and Set 2 combined. In the final experimental phase, 2 of the children were trained, for one of the six stimulus pairs, to produce the vocal tact "zag" to one stimulus and "vek" to the other. Both children showed category transfer of these vocalizations in test trials with each of the remaining five stimulus pairs, and all the stimuli combined in a 12-stimulus array. In line with Horne and Lowe's (1996) naming account, manual sign naming was found to be as effective as vocal naming in establishing arbitrary stimulus categorization, measured in terms of category sorting and transfer of function. The findings also have implications for the training of verbal repertoires in people with learning disabilities.     

基于机器学习的古典诗词作者的判别研究

主要基于机器学习的NaveBaye等方法,对诗词文本采用向量空间模型来表示,首次提出了中国古代诗人李白和杜甫作品判别计算模型,并采用了信息增益作为特征选择的依据,结合爬山法完善了计算模型,该模型已经在精典语料《全唐诗》的机器学习基础上得到实现,获得较好的诗人作品判别效果,准确度可达到98.3%,该方法已成功地推广到古典诗词的风格流派的机器判别上[1],准确度达到88.5%。本文提出了古典诗词研究的技术方向。     

Conceptual Hierarchies in a Flat Attractor Network: Dynamics of Learning and Computations

The structure of people's conceptual knowledge of concrete nouns has traditionally been viewed as hierarchical ( Collins & Quillian, 1969 ). For example, superordinate concepts ( vegetable ) are assumed to reside at a higher level than basic-level concepts ( carrot ). A feature-based attractor network with a single layer of semantic features developed representations of both basic-level and superordinate concepts. No hierarchical structure was built into the network. In Experiment and Simulation 1, the graded structure of categories (typicality ratings) is accounted for by the flat attractor network. Experiment and Simulation 2 show that, as with basic-level concepts, such a network predicts feature verification latencies for superordinate concepts ( vegetable ). In Experiment and Simulation 3, counterintuitive results regarding the temporal dynamics of similarity in semantic priming are explained by the model. By treating both types of concepts the same in terms of representation, learning, and computations, the model provides new insights into semantic memory.