基于语义的词汇判断的计算模型

词汇判断是一种在字词认知研究中广泛使用的实验范式。本文提出了一个基于分布式语义表征的计算模型,用来解释某些在词汇判断作业中出现的实验现象。模型是一个包括词形层、隐层、语义层、词典层和判断层的前传网络。词形层、隐层和语义层之间的连接权重在学习过程中被不断调整,使用反传算法进行学习。语义层、词典层和判断层之间的连接权重在学习前就已被固定,在学习过程中不进行调整。模型模拟了在词汇判断作业中出现的四种实验现象：（１）频率效应;（２）语义启动效应;（３）频率与语境的交互作用;（４）重复启动效应。模型所表现出的行为特性由模型的框架和学习算法所决定。     

Activation of emotion information in text among younger and older adults

The ability to represent emotions is an important capacity for the understanding of discourse. In the current literature, it is unclear whether older adults represent emotion information in the course of language processing, in particular as it relates to developing an adequate mental model of characters in narratives. We addressed this issue in two studies, one assessing emotion activation at the word level and the other at the mental model level. In the first experiment, subjects performed a lexical decision task in which words were drawn from both logic- and emotion-based categories. For both category types, priming was evident for young and old. In the second experiment, subjects read passages with emotion information that was consistent or inconsistent with the implied emotional tone. Both age groups showed an increase in reading time in response to inconsistent emotion information, indicating that the protagonist's emotional state was represented while reading. Results of these studies generally suggest age preservation in the activation of emotion information in language processing.     

Some linguistic determinants of Swedish word recognition

Native Swedish words and words of foreign origin were studied in a word fill-in task (Experiment 1), in a task in which words were explicitly classified as being native or loan words (Experiment 2), and in a lexical decision task in which a small onset asynchrony was introduced in displaying a word's letter pattern (Experiment 3). The findings obtained show that, both in simple printed word recognition and when asked to make explicit judgments about origin, readers are sensitive to phonological features of words not marked in Swedish orthography. It was further found that previewing a substring of word-initial letters which determines a word's root morpheme will prime recognition, whereas previewing a randomly selected pattern of letters inhibits recognition.     

关于幼儿嗅、味、动、触摸感觉道记忆的研究

记忆在幼儿心理的发展过程中,具有极为重要的作用。幼儿知识的掌握,语言的学习,技巧的培养,以至个性的形成,都与记忆活动密切联系。国内外关于幼儿记忆的研究,主要限于有意与无意识记,机械与意义识记,形象与语词记忆等方面,很少从不同感觉道输入信息来进行比较。有的实验虽然涉及到不同感觉道的记忆,但被试者都是7岁以上的儿童,如斯梅德利(Smedley)和三岛、横尾等人的研究。为了全面了解幼儿的记忆发展水平,我们设计了关于幼儿不同感觉道记忆的实验研究,试图通过对幼儿各个感觉道输入信息来全面测查幼儿的视觉、听觉、味觉、嗅觉、动觉和触摸党的记忆水平,了解其发展规律及特点,以便为幼儿记忆的理论研究提供实验数据,为幼儿教育提供心理学依据。     

Conceptual Factors Influence Children's Distributivity Bias

Sentences such as “The girls read a book” can lead to multiple interpretations: They could be reading the same book (collective) or they could each be reading their own book (distributive). In ambiguous contexts, adults prefer the collective interpretation, and preschool children show a slight bias for a distributive interpretation. The current research investigated whether conceptual factors (number of actors) influences interpretations of these kinds of predicates. The data with children show a stronger collective bias when there are four actors compared to two actors. This may be because children are more likely to conceptualize groups of four (vs. two) as sets rather than collections of individuals. These data are discussed with reference to research on visual and conceptual integration abilities, showing that children lag behind in their ability to combine components into a whole in comparison to parsing objects into their component parts.     

Why do older adults have difficulty with semantic fluency?

Aging involves many cognitive declines, particularly in fluid intelligence, with relative maintenance of crystallized intelligence. This paradox is evident in the language domain: lexical retrieval becomes slower and less accurate, despite well preserved vocabularies. Verbal fluency assesses both crystallized and fluid aspects of language. Semantic fluency hypothetically reflects semantic knowledge, while letter fluency putatively reflects executive functioning, which would predict a greater impact of aging on the latter. However, the opposite is typically observed.

To investigate factors contributing to such asymmetries, we examined verbal fluency in 86 adults (30-89 years). Multiple regression analyses indicated that semantic fluency depends largely on lexical retrieval speed, as well as visualization strategies to support controlled retrieval, skills which may disproportionately decline with age. By contrast, letter fluency relies heavily on vocabulary knowledge, providing some protection against age-related declines. These findings contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms of typical age-related declines in word retrieval.     

The oral and written side of word production in young and older adults: generation of lexical neighbors

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of aging on both spoken and written word production by using analogous tasks. To do so, a phonological neighbor generation task (Experiment 1) and an orthographic neighbor generation task (Experiment 2) were designed. In both tasks, young and older participants were given a word and had to generate as many words as they could think of by changing one phoneme in the target word (Experiment 1) or one letter in the target word (Experiment 2). The data of the two experiments were consistent, showing that the older adults generated fewer lexical neighbors and made more errors than the young adults. For both groups, the number of words produced, as well as their lexical frequency, decreased as a function of time. These data strongly support the assumption of a symmetrical age-related decline in the transmission of activation within the phonological and orthographic systems.     

Proto-Semantics for Positive Free Logic

This paper presents a bivalent extensional semantics for positive free logic without resorting to the philosophically questionable device of using models endowed with a separate domain of non-existing objects. The models here introduced have only one (possibly empty) domain, and a partial reference function for the singular terms (that might be undefined at some arguments). Such an approach provides a solution to an open problem put forward by Lambert, and can be viewed as supplying a version of parametrized truth non unlike the notion of truth at world found in modal logic. A model theory is developed, establishing compactness, interpolation (implying a strong form of Beth definability), and completeness (with respect to a particular axiomatization).