Syntactic Complexity Effects in Sentence Production

Syntactic complexity effects have been investigated extensively with respect to comprehension (e.g., Demberg & Keller, 2008; Gibson, 1998, 2000; Gordon et al., 2001, 2004; Grodner & Gibson, 2005; King & Just, 1991; Lewis & Vasishth, 2005; Lewis et al., 2006; McElree et al., 2003; Wanner & Maratsos, 1978). According to one prominent class of accounts (experience‐based accounts; e.g., Hale, 2001; Levy, 2008; Gennari & MacDonald, 2008, 2009; Wells et al., 2009), certain structures cause comprehension difficulty due to their scarcity in the language. But why are some structures less frequent than others? In two elicited‐production experiments we investigated syntactic complexity effects in relative clauses (Experiment 1) and wh‐questions (Experiment 2) varying in whether or not they contained non‐local dependencies. In both experiments, we found reliable durational differences between subject‐extracted structures (which only contain local dependencies) and object‐extracted structures (which contain nonlocal dependencies): Participants took longer to begin and produce object‐extractions. Furthermore, participants were more likely to be disfluent in the object‐extracted constructions. These results suggest that there is a cost associated with planning and uttering the more syntactically complex, object‐extracted structures, and that this cost manifests in the form of longer durations and disfluencies. Although the precise nature of this cost remains to be determined, these effects provide one plausible explanation for the relative rarity of object‐extractions: They are more costly to produce.     

中国特色心理学问题的思考

摘 要 中国特色社会心理学应当对在中国社会转型的独特过程中所产生的有别于欧美的社会问题进行回应,对从改革发展过程中所产生的种种具体社会问题进行解决,以此建立中国特色心理学研究。应当从中国社会转型过程中的现实、具体问题出发,提出具有现实关怀、解决社会发展中具体困难的学术问题;应当具有更深层的人文关怀、精神关怀,从心理学的角度回应中国社会转型与社会变迁形成的当代中国人精神层面的巨大变化所产生的社会问题。中国特色心理学研究应当在借鉴西方心理学研究方法的基础上,根据问题的特征选择适合的研究方法。研究中国特色心理学对中国心理学发展与中国社会发展均有巨大的积极意义。     

From Daily Life to Philosophy

Abstract: This article argues that the little everyday things of life often provide excellent entries into the intellectual problems of academic philosophy. This is illustrated with an analysis of four small stories taken from daily life in which people are in agony because they do not know what to do. It is argued that the crucial question in these stories is a philosophical question—not a closed request for empirical or formal information but an open question about how best to conceive of human experience. A discussion follows of the merits and shortcomings of transcendentalism as an attempt by philosophers to make progress. It is argued that reformulating questions is what philosophers can do to contribute to people's comfort in life. This is illustrated with an argument showing that in the small stories discussed the question of what to do should be reformulated as the question of who to be.     

AIDS: Globalization and Its Discontents

Abstract. HIV/AIDS has changed from a disease of white gay men in the United States to a pandemic that largely involves women and dependent children in developing countries. Many theologies of disease are necessary to cope with the variety of expressions of this pandemic. Christian theoethical reflection on HIV/AIDS has been largely focused on sexual ethics, with uneven and mainly unhelpful results. Among the ethical issues that shape future useful conversations are globalized economics and resource sharing, the morality and economics of the pharmaceutical industry, and the need for sex education and access to reproductive choice. Considering such issues in international, interreligious, multiscientific contexts is a concrete next step for the religion‐and‐science dialogue. It will put the powerful tools of both fields to the service of the common good.     

教师心理健康评价量表的编制及现状研究

在理论分析和借鉴前人研究成果的基础上,自行编制了针对我国教师心理健康的评价量表,并对来自北京、河北、江苏、山东、山西、青海、浙江等7个省市的1819名教师进行了测试。结果发现:《教师心理健康评价量表》由自我、社会、工作和生活四个分量表构成。经检验,《教师心理健康评价量表》具有良好的信度和效度,可以在今后相关研究中作为了解教师心理健康状况的测量工具使用;同时研究还发现,幼儿园、小学、初中和大学的教师同时存在发展性问题和适应性问题,而高中教师只有适应性问题,没有发展性问题。     

Summarizing information by means of causal sentences through causal graphs

The objective of this work is to propose a complete system able to extract causal sentences from a set of text documents, select the causal sentences contained, create a causal graph in base to a given concept using as source these causal sentences, and finally produce a text summary gathering all the information connected by means of this causal graph. This procedure has three main steps. The first one is focused in the extraction, filtering and selection of those causal sentences that could have relevant information for the system. The second one is focused on the composition of a suitable causal graph, removing redundant information and solving ambiguity problems. The third step is a procedure able to read the causal graph to compose a suitable answer to a proposed causal question by summarizing the information contained in it.     

Can propositional biases modulate syntactic repair processes? Insights from preceding comprehension questions

ABSTRACT

There is an ongoing debate about whether discourse biases can constrain sentence processing. Previous work has shown comprehension question accuracy to decrease for temporarily ambiguous sentences preceded by a context biasing towards an initial misinterpretation, suggesting a role of context for modulating comprehension. However, this creates limited modulation of reading times at the disambiguating word, suggesting initial syntactic processing may be unaffected by context [Christianson & Luke, 2011 Christianson, K. , & Luke, S. G. (2011). Context strengthens initial misinterpretations of text. Scientific Studies of Reading , 15 (2), 136–166. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/10888431003636787 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. Context strengthens initial misinterpretations of text. Scientific Studies of Reading, 15(2), 136–166]. The current experiments examine whether propositional and structural content from preceding comprehension questions can cue readers to expect certain structures in temporarily ambiguous garden-path sentences. The central finding is that syntactic repair processes remain unaffected while reading times in other regions are modulated by preceding questions. This suggests that reading strategies can be superficially influenced by preceding comprehension questions without impacting the fidelity of ultimate (mis)representations.