Processing temporary syntactic ambiguity: The effect of contextual bias

This paper reports two experiments using sentences with a temporary ambiguity between a direct object and a sentence complement analysis that is resolved toward the normally preferred direct object analysis. Postverbal noun phrases in these sentences could be ambiguously attached as either a direct object or the subject of a sentence complement, whereas in unambiguous versions of the sentences the subcategorization of the verb forced the direct object interpretation. Participants read these sentences in relatively long paragraph contexts, where the context supported the direct object analysis (“preferred”), supported the sentence complement analysis (“unpreferred”), or provided conflicting evidence about both analyses (“conflicting”). Self-paced reading times for ambiguous postverbal noun phrases were almost equivalent to the reading times of their unambiguous counterparts, even in unpreferred and conflicted context conditions. However, time to read a following region, which forced the direct object interpretation, was affected by the interaction of verb subcategorization ambiguity and contextual support. The full pattern of results do not fit well with either an unelaborated single-analysis (“garden path”) model or a competitive constraint-satisfaction model, but are consistent with a race model in which multiple factors affect the speed of constructing a single initial analysis.     

汉语词类歧义解决初探

采用自定步速移动窗口阅读实验范式,考察汉语词类歧义解决过程。阅渎材料为含有单字词类歧义词的句子,歧义词前面的语境不提供明确的偏向性信息．后语境提供解歧信息。结果发现,主要用法和次要用法的句子都在解歧区比控制句阅读时间加长,表明汉语词类歧义解决没有即时受到歧义词两种用法的相对频率影响,而是在歧义词处暂时不进行完全的句法分配,延迟到获得充分解歧信息的时候才分配句法角色。这一结果支持词类歧义解决的延迟模型。     

A Fine Risk To Be Run? The Ambiguity of Eros and Teacher Responsibility

Teachers are often placed in a space of tensionbetween responding to students as persons andresponding to students through theirinstitutionally-defined roles. Particularlywith respect to eros, which has becomeincreasingly the subject of strictinstitutional legislation and regulation,teachers have little recourse to a language ofresponsibility outside an institutional frame. By studying the significance of communicativeambiguity for responsibility, this paperexplores what is ethically at stake forteachers in erotic forms of communication. Specifically, it is Levinas's own ambiguousunderstanding of the ethical significance oferos, and what we have to learn from it, thatoffers a way of reading the place of eros inresponsibility. I conclude my discussion withsome thoughts on what a renewed understandingof responsibility might mean at the personaland institutional levels.     

汉语同音异形词意义识别中的抑制过程

使用被试自定步速逐词阅读的移动窗口技术,考察了视觉呈现的均衡型和偏向型两类汉语同音异形词意义识别中的抑制过程。实验要求被试阅读由三个分句组成的句子。重复条件下,句子第一个分句中的一个词与第三个分句中的一个词同音异形。同不重复条件(用控制词替换重复条件下第一个分句中的同音异形词)相比,重复条件下,被试对第三个分句中均衡型同音异形词之后的第一个区段阅读时间要长,即出现重复性效应。这种效应在偏向型同音异形词中并未出现。这一结果支持VHMR模型的抑制控制模块假设。简单的抑制假设或衰退假设均无法解释上述结果。此外,上述重复性效应仅出现在阅读速度较快的被试身上。这说明正是对无关信息的高效能的抑制,使得被试表现出较快的阅读速度。     

Miscarriages of psychoanalytic treatment with suicidal patients2

The author describes a particularly perilous frontier on the psychoanalytic landscape‐ namely, the treatment of suicidal patients with serious personality disorders. Using a clinical example of egregious boundary violations by an analyst, he describes specific countertransference pitfalls that lead to mishandling the patients' expressions of suicidal despair. These include disidentification with the aggressor, failure of mentalization, collapse of the analytic play space, reactions to loss in the analyst's personal life, omnipotence, envy of the patient and masochistic surrender. The author emphasizes the unique vulnerabilities that accompany analytic treatment of such patients.     

A Theological Challenge: Coordinating Biological, Social, and Religious Visions of Humanity

This paper attempts two tasks. First, it sketches how the natural sciences (including especially the biological sciences), the social sciences, and the scientific study of religion can be understood to furnish complementary, consonant perspectives on human beings and human groups. This suggests that it is possible to speak of a modern secular interpretation of humanity (MSIH) to which these perspectives contribute (though not without tensions). MSIH is not a comprehensive interpretation of human beings, if only because it adopts a posture of neutrality with regard to the reality of religious objects and the truth of theological claims about them. MSIH is certainly an impressively forceful interpretation, however, and it needs to be reckoned with by any perspective on human life that seeks to insert its truth claims into the arena of public debate. Second, the paper considers two challenges that MSIH poses to specifically theological interpretations of human beings. On the one hand, in spite of its posture of religious neutrality, MSIH is a key element in a class of wider, seemingly antireligious interpretations of humanity, including especially projectionist and illusionist critiques of religion. It is consonance with MSIH that makes these critiques such formidable competitors for traditional theological interpretations of human beings. On the other hand, and taking the religiously neutral posture of MSIH at face value, theological accounts of humanity that seek to coordinate the insights of MSIH with positive religious visions of human life must find ways to overcome or manage such dissonance as arises. The goal of synthesis is defended as important, and strategies for managing these challenges, especially in light of the pluralism of extant philosophical and theological interpretations of human beings, are advocated.     

Group boundary permeability moderates the effect of a dependency meta‐stereotype on help‐seeking behaviour

Previous studies have found that when low‐status group members are aware that their in‐group is stereotyped as dependent by a specific out‐group (i.e. a dependency meta‐stereotype is salient), they are reluctant to seek help from the high‐status out‐group to avoid confirming the negative meta‐stereotype. However, it is unclear whether low‐status group members would seek more help in the context of a salient dependency meta‐stereotype when there is low (vs. high) group boundary permeability. Therefore, we conducted two experiments to examine the moderating effect of permeability on meta‐stereotype confirmation with a real group. In study 1, we manipulated the salience of the dependency meta‐stereotype, measured participants' perceived permeability and examined their help‐seeking behaviour in a real‐world task. Participants who perceived low permeability sought more help when the meta‐stereotype was salient (vs. not salient), whereas participants who perceived high permeability sought the same amount of help across conditions. In study 2, we manipulated the permeability levels and measured the dependency meta‐stereotype. Participants who endorsed a high‐dependency meta‐stereotype sought more help than participants who endorsed a low‐dependency meta‐stereotype; this effect was particularly strong in the low‐permeability condition. The implications of these results for social mobility and intergroup helping are discussed.     

Promise and Ontological Ambiguity in the In vitro Meat Imagescape: From Laboratory Myotubes to the Cultured Burger

In vitro meat (IVM), also known as cultured meat, involves growing cells into muscle tissue to be eaten as food. The technology had its most high-profile moment in 2013 when a cultured burger was cooked and tasted in a press conference. Images of the burger featured in the international media and were circulated across the Internet. These images—literally marks on a two-dimensional surface—do important work in establishing what IVM is and what it can do. A combination of visual semiotics and narrative analysis shows that images of IVM afford readings of their story that are co-created by the viewer. Before the cultured burger, during 2011, images of IVM fell into four distinct categories: cell images, tissue images, flowcharts, and meat in a dish images. The narrative infrastructure of each image type affords different interpretations of what IVM can accomplish and what it is. The 2013 cultured burger images both draw upon and depart from these image types in an attempt to present IVM as a normal food stuff, and as ‘matter in place’ when placed on the plate. The analysis of individual images and the collection of images about a certain object or subject—known as the imagescape—is a productive approach to understanding the ontology and promise of IVM and is applicable to other areas of social life.     

The Interactive Effects of Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity on Job Satisfaction and Attitudes Toward Organizational Change: A Moderated Multiple Regression Approach

This study investigates the joint effects of both role conflict and role ambiguity on job satisfaction and three dimensions of attitudes toward organizational change, namely affective, cognitive, and behavioral tendency in a multicultural work setting. The study used a sample of 397 employees from several manufacturing and service organizations in the United Arab Emirates. Results of the moderated regression analysis revealed that role conflict and role ambiguity have no interactive effects on job satisfaction and the three dimensions of attitudes toward organizational change. Results of the moderated regression analysis revealed that role conflict and role ambiguity independently and negatively affect job satisfaction, cognitive attitudes, and behavioral tendency attitudes toward organizational change. Results further pointed out that role ambiguity affected attitude toward organizational change independently and negatively. Implications, limitations, and lines of future research were discussed.     

Application of GIS and multicriteria evaluation in locating sustainable boundary between the tunari National Park and Cochabamba City (Bolivia)

Increased population growth and urbanization, has caused increase in demand for land around the city of Cochabamba, which has led to encroachment into the National Park and the construction of illegal settlements. This has created a number of problems, some of which are the direct consequences of the new settlements in the ‘Tunari’ foothills. These settlements constitute a threat to the environment and people because of their location in flood risk and aquifer recharge areas. In response to this problem the city authorities are considering relocating the boundary between the National Park and the city. This study has focused on the design and evaluation of alternative locations for a sustainable boundary between the north of ‘Cochabamba City’ and the southern boundary of the ‘Tunari National Park’. In this process, a rational and systematic approach of collaborative‐decision‐making, supported by geographical information systems (GIS) and multicriteria evaluation (MCE) has been employed and evaluated. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.