Data‐driven approaches to information access

This paper summarizes three lines of research that are motivated by the practical problem of helping users find information from external data sources, most notably computers. The application areas include information retrieval, text categorization, and question answering. A common theme in these applications is that practical information access problems can be solved by analyzing the statistical properties of words in large volumes of real world texts. The same statistical properties constrain human performance, thus we believe that solutions to practical information access problems can shed light on human knowledge representation and reasoning.     

论伦理命题的意义

元伦理学在有意无意之间坚持了伦理命题没有“描述性”意义的教条。从“意义单位”理论出发 ,一个语言单位 (语词、语句或话语 )的意义 ,内在于它与同类单位发生联系而构成更高层次语言单位的能力 ,因此 ,一个有意义的纯伦理命题应该是一个“实质蕴涵”的复合命题 ,即“‘应该A’蕴涵‘应该B’”。     

HUMANITY IN THE WORLD OF LIFE

Abstract. The position and role of humanity in the world of life is examined in the light of the ontological structure of life itself. This problem is approached by considering the possible units of life representing various modes of life phenomena. I argue that the only meaningful unit of life without interposing some special external conditions is "global life" framed in a star-planet system. Any other possible unit of life exhibited by various kinds of individuals is conditional in the sense that it would leave out an essential part as "co-life." The relationship between human being and the global life should be understood in this general scheme of individual and global life. It is emphasized, however, that human being occupies a unique position in global life in the sense that humanity can promote either a cancerous situation or a healthy higher-order enhancement of the global life.     

汉字词特征语义提取的实验研究

本研究运用语义判断的方法,对汉字词特征语义的提取做了初步的探讨,被试是28名大学生。实验结果表明,汉字形声字的义符在汉字词定义特征语义提取中有重要作用,在义符与词义一致时,能加速词的定义特征语义的提取。义符对词的特有特征的语义提取无作用,而特有特征的强度能很好地预测提取时间。本研究还发现,词的熟悉性和该词距其上属的语义距离对词的定义特征的语义提取亦有重要影响。     

Unit price as a useful metric in analyzing effects of reinforcer magnitude.

In this paper, we applied the behavioral-economic concept of unit price to the study of reinforcer magnitude in an attempt to provide a consistent account of the effects of reinforcer magnitude on behavior. Recent research in the experimental analysis of behavior and in behavioral pharmacology suggests that reinforcer magnitude interacts with the schedule of reinforcement to determine response rate and total consumption. The utility of the unit-price concept thus stems from its ability to quantify this interaction as a cost-benefit ratio (i.e., unit price = characteristics of the schedule of reinforcement divided by magnitude of reinforcement). Research employing the unit-price concept has shown that as unit price increases, a positively decelerating function exists for consumption (i.e., a function with an increasingly negative slope, when plotted on log coordinates) and a bitonic function exists for response rate. Based on these findings, the present analysis applied the unit-price concept to those studies of reinforcer magnitude and drug self-administration that examined the effects of reinforcer magnitude on response rate using simple schedules of reinforcement (e.g., fixed-ratio schedule). This resulted in three findings: (a) Reinforcer-magnitude manipulations and schedule manipulations interact in a manner that can be quantified in terms of unit price as benefit and cost factors, respectively; (b) different reinforcer-magnitude manipulations are functionally interchangeable as benefit factors in the unit-price ratio; and (c) these conclusions appear warranted despite the differences in reinforcers (food or drug), species (dogs, monkeys, or rats), and schedules (interval or ratio), and despite the fact that these studies were not designed for a unit-price analysis. In methodological terms, these results provide further evidence that employing the unit-price concept is a parsimonious method for examining the effects of reinforcer magnitude. In theoretical terms, these results suggest that a single process may underlie the effect of combined reinforcer-magnitude and schedule manipulations.     

语义联系类型和强度对预期推理生成的制约作用

首先采用开放式问卷实验方法,由被试生成日常生活中的事件以及组成这些事件的各种活动和活动的参加者。然后,对这些事件熟悉性、对活动的典型性和可区分性三个维度进行主观评价,形成事件以及每个事件活动序列,并据此编制实验材料。实验主要考察活动的典型性和可区分性对于熟悉性高的事件的预期推理的影响,以及不同工作记忆能力的被试进行事件预期推理时的加工模式。实验结果表明：（１）高工艺记忆能力的被试对事件的预期量小于     

Behavioral economics of drug self-administration. II. A unit-price analysis of cigarette smoking.

In behavioral economics, the ratio of response requirement to reinforcer magnitude is referred to as unit price. Previous research with nonhuman subjects has demonstrated that (a) comparable amounts of food are consumed at the same unit price even though different response requirements and reinforcer magnitudes comprise that unit price and (b) increases in unit price decrease food consumption in a positively decelerating fashion. The present study assessed the generality of these findings to the cigarette smoking of 5 human volunteers. During approximately 18 3-hr sessions, various combinations of response requirement (fixed-ratio 200, 400, and 1,600) and reinforcer magnitude (1, 2, and 4 puffs per bout) were arranged. Consumption (i.e., the number of puffs) generally was comparable at the same unit price independent of the response requirement and reinforcer magnitude comprising that unit price. In addition, increasing unit price generally decreased consumption in a positively decelerating fashion. These results extend the generality of the unit-price analysis to human cigarette smoking. Moreover, these results further support the position that reinforcer magnitude and response requirement are functionally equivalent and interact to determine consumption. The concept of unit price, by integrating and summarizing the effects of those two operations, provides a more parsimonious explanation of the results than do separate evaluations of the effects of response requirement and reinforcer magnitude.     

词汇共现频率视角下语义联想效应及其神经机制

词汇识别与记忆受到词汇之间语义联想关系的影响。鉴于自由联想方法建立词汇语义联想关系的局限性, 研究者们提出用共现联想法建立词汇之间的语义联想关系。本文对词汇共现频率视角下的语义联想效应及其神经机制的研究进行分析发现, 语义联想的丰富程度和关联程度影响词汇的加工; 与少语义联想词相比, 多语义联想词导致P200波幅增大和N400波幅减小; 语义联想加工涉及的脑区主要是额上回和左内侧颞叶区域。未来研究需要探讨自由联想法和共现联想法建立语义联想关系的差异, 基于共现联想法进一步地探究语义联想的行为规律和神经机制, 并从共现联想的角度开展汉语语义联想效应及神经机制的研究。     

象似性和手语学习经验对中国手语-汉语跨模态语义启动效应的影响

采用启动条件下的词汇判断任务,考察熟练手语使用者和无手语经验成年听人的跨模态语义启动效应。结果发现：1)在象似词条件下,两组被试判断汉语语义相关词的反应时均快于语义无关词,说明手语象似词和汉语词之间存在跨模态语义启动效应。2)在非象似词条件下,仅手语熟练被试判断汉语语义相关词的反应时快于语义无关词,无手语经验被试判断汉语语义相关词和无关词的速度没有差异。这是由于前者心理词库中的手语词和口语词共享语义表征,而后者主要依赖手语象似词的视觉模拟性。整个研究表明,中国手语和汉语间存在跨模态语义启动效应,但该效应受到手语词象似性和手语学习经历的调节。     

Metasemantic ethics

The idea that experts (especially scientific experts) play a privileged role in determining the meanings of our words and the contents of our concepts has become commonplace since the work of Hilary Putnam, Tyler Burge, and others in the 1970s. But if experts have the power to determine what our words mean, they can do so responsibly or irresponsibly, from good motivations or bad, justly or unjustly, with good or bad effects. This paper distinguishes three families of metasemantic views based on their attitudes towards bad behaviour by meaning-fixing experts, and draws a series of distinctions relevant for the normative evaluation of meaning-determining actions.