Psycholinguistics

The use of lexical signs like ‘knowledge’ has consequences. Not only do they have direct psychological resonances, but people ascribe beliefs and act based on their semantics. This paper proposes that such consequences are up for negotiation, and introduces a formal framework from financial theory to suggest constraints on those negotiations and implications of those constraints. The upshot is that changing language will be easier sometimes than others, and philosophers’ projects of linguistic change should be aware of those conditions.

How does experimental philosophy address philosophical questions and problems? That is: What projects does experimental philosophy pursue? What is their philosophical relevance? And what empirical methods do they employ? Answers to these questions will reveal how experimental philosophy can contribute to the longstanding ambition of placing philosophy on the ‘secure path of a science’, as Kant put it. We argue that experimental philosophy has introduced a new methodological perspective – a ‘meta-philosophical naturalism’ that addresses philosophical questions about a phenomenon by (...) empirically investigating how people think about this phenomenon. This chapter asks how this novel perspective can be successfully implemented: How can the empirical investigation of how people think about something address genuinely philosophical problems? And what methods – and, specifically, what methods beyond the questionnaire – can this investigation employ? We first review core projects of experimental philosophy and raise the question of their philosophical relevance. For ambitious answers, we turn to experimental philosophy’s most direct historical precursor, mid-20th century ordinary language philosophy, and discuss empirical implementations of two of its research programmes that use experimental methods from psycholinguistics and corpus methods from the digital humanities. (shrink)

Empirical evidence suggests that perceptual-motor simulations are often constitutively involved in language comprehension. Call this “the simulation view of language comprehension.” This paper applies the simulation view to illuminate the much-discussed phenomenon of copredication, where a noun permits multiple predications which seem to select different senses of the noun simultaneously. On the proposed account, the (in)felicitousness of a copredicational sentence is closely associated with the perceptual simulations that the language user deploys in comprehending the sentence.

Occurrences of sentences that are traditionally considered category mistakes, such as 'The red number is divisible by three', tend to elicit a sense of oddness in assessors. In attempting to explain this oddness, existing accounts in the philosophical literature commonly claim that occurrences of such sentences are associated with a defect or phenomenology unique to the class of category mistakes. It might be thought that recent work in experimental psycholinguistics—in particular, the recording of event-related brain potentials (patterns of voltage variation (...) in the brain)—holds the potential to shed new light on this debate. I review the relevant experimental results, before arguing that they present advocates of accounts of category mistakes with a dilemma: either the uniqueness claims should be rejected, or the experimental technique in question cannot be used to test existing accounts of category mistakes in the manner that philosophers might hope. (shrink)

Several important philosophical problems (including the problems of perception, free will, and scepticism) arise from antinomies that are developed through philosophical paradoxes. The critical strand of ordinary language philosophy (OLP), as practiced by J.L. Austin, provides an approach to such ‘antinomic problems’ that proceeds from an examination of ‘ordinary language’ (how people ordinarily talk about the phenomenon of interest) and ‘common sense’ (what they commonly think about it), and deploys findings to show that the problems at issue are artefacts of (...) fallacious reasoning. The approach is capable, and in need of, empirical development. Proceeding from a case-study on Austin’s paradigmatic treatment of the problem of perception, this paper identifies the key empirical assumptions informing the approach, assesses them in the light of empirical findings about default inferences, contextualisation failures, and belief fragmentation, and explores how these findings can be deployed to address the problem of perception. This facilitates a novel resolution of the problem of perception. Proceeding from this paradigm, the paper proposes ‘experimental critical OLP’ as a new research program in experimental philosophy that avoids apparent non-sequiturs of OLP, extends and transforms experimental philosophy’s ‘sources program’, and provides a promising new strategy for deploying empirical findings about how people ordinarily talk and think about phenomena, to address longstanding philosophical problems. (shrink)

Empirical insights into language processing have a philosophical relevance that extends well beyond philosophical questions about language. This chapter will discuss this wider relevance: We will consider how experimental philosophers can examine language processing in order to address questions in several different areas of philosophy. To do so, we will present the emerging research program of experimental argument analysis (EAA) that examines how automatic language processing shapes verbal reasoning – including philosophical arguments. The evidential strand of experimental philosophy uses mainly (...) questionnaire-based methods to assess the evidentiary value of intuitive judgments that are adduced as evidence for philosophical theories and as premises for philosophical arguments. Extending this prominent strand of experimental philosophy, EAA underpins such assessments, extends the scope of the assessments, and expands the range of the empirical methods employed: EAA examines how automatic inferences that are continually made in language comprehension and production shape verbal reasoning, and draws on findings about comprehension biases that affect the contextualisation of such default inferences, in order to explain and expose fallacies. It deploys findings to assess premises and inferences from premises to conclusions, in philosophical arguments. To do so, it adapts methods from psycholinguistics and recruits methods from computational linguistics. (shrink)

Philosophers are often credited with particularly well-developed conceptual skills. The ‘expertise objection’ to experimental philosophy builds on this assumption to challenge inferences from findings about laypeople to conclusions about philosophers. We draw on psycholinguistics to develop and assess this objection. We examine whether philosophers are less or differently susceptible than laypersons to cognitive biases that affect how people understand verbal case descriptions and judge the cases described. We examine two possible sources of difference: Philosophers could be better at deploying concepts, (...) and this could make them less susceptible to comprehension biases (‘linguistic expertise objection’). Alternatively, exposure to different patterns of linguistic usage could render philosophers vulnerable to a fundamental comprehension bias, the linguistic salience bias, at different points (‘linguistic usage objection’). Together, these objections mount a novel ‘master argument’ against experimental philosophy. To develop and empirically assess this argument, we employ corpus analysis and distributional semantic analysis and elicit plausibility ratings from academic philosophers and psychology undergraduates. Our findings suggest philosophers are better at deploying concepts than laypeople but are susceptible to the linguistic salience bias to a similar extent and at similar points. We identify methodological consequences for experimental philosophy and for philosophical thought experiments. (shrink)

Recent research in psycholinguistics suggests that language processing frequently involves mental imagery. This paper focuses on visual imagery and discusses two issues regarding the processing of polysemous words (i.e. words with multiple related meanings or senses) – co-predication and sense-relatedness. It aims to show how mental imagery can illuminate these two issues.

Mental imagery often occurs during testimonial belief transmission: a testifier often episodically remembers or imagines a scene while describing it, while a listener often imagines that scene as it’s described to her. I argue that getting clear on imagery’s psychological roles in testimonial belief transmission has implications for some fundamental issues in the epistemology of testimony. I first appeal to imagery cases to argue against a widespread “internalist” approach to the epistemology of testimony. I then appeal to the same sort (...) of case to argue for an alternative, externalist view. (shrink)

Formalization of the semantics of generics has been considered extremely challenging for their inherent vagueness and context-dependence that hinder a single fixed truth condition. The present study suggests a way to formalize the semantics of generics by constructing flexible acceptance conditions with comparative probabilities. Findings from our in-depth psycholinguistic experiment show that two comparative probabilities—cue validity and prevalence—indeed construct the flexible acceptance conditions for generics in a systematic manner that can be applied to a diverse types of generics: Acceptability of (...) IS_A relational generics is mostly determined by prevalence without interaction with cue validity; feature-describing generics are endorsed acceptable with high cue validity, albeit mediated by prevalence; and acceptability of feature-describing generics with low cue validity is mostly determined by prevalence irrespective of cue validity. Such systematic patterns indicate a great potential for the formalization of the semantics of generics. (shrink)

Purpose. This article is devoted to the case study of relevant linguacultural stereotypes of the particular organization’s managerial culture and based on corresponding results the inquiry of the discourses formation features associated with the lexico-semantic meanings dispersion of (Foucault). -/- Methods and Procedure of Research. Top managers of a large Ukrainian enterprise (67 respondents) were asked to arbitrarily describe the following concepts – “manager”, “subordinate”, “managerial style”. Each concept was differentiated according to the principle of the lexico-semantic opposition (“productive – (...) counterproductive”). The obtained set of texts was lemmatized and a frequency analysis of the lemmas was carried out as well. Collocations were also evaluated, in particular, repeated n-grams were identified. In the further analysis were used all detected n-grams and those lemmas, the observed frequencies of which statistically significantly exceeded the expected ones. -/- Results. Discourse formation features are determined by the paradigmatic relations of lexico-semantic units (words) and their semantic linear compatibility. The paradigmatic dispersion of a discourse is represented by the quality of connections between lemmas according to the criterion of the paradigm types to be found. Also informative is the assessment of the lemmas number (granularity of the discourse) and the spectrum diversity of paradigmatic relations in the discourse. These parameters reflect the properties of homogeneity/complexity of discourse meanings dispersion. The syntagmatic dissemination of discourse is manifested by the features of the words semantic linear interrelationship in each n-gram. This parameter reflects the quality of rationalizations (verbal-logical chains) associated with the corresponding discourses. The length of n-grams (the number of words) is also indicative – the higher n, the more differentiated the discourse is and vice versa. Matching the words semantics in n-grams with lemmas allows one to draw a conclusion regarding the internal consistency (integration) of the discourse. -/- Conclusions. Psycholinguistic tools can be effectively used in an organizational phenomena study. In particular, the frequency analysis of lemmas, their lexico-semantic evaluation, as well as the qualitative analysis of n-grams in the problem-targeted texts of respondents allows one to solve applied research issues related to the assessment of current linguacultural trends in an organization and understanding their possible causes. Managerial culture, as a linguacultural phenomenon, is represented by a set of stably reproduced discourses in the process of the organization’s functioning. At the same time, discourses are constituted by the dispersion of meanings (words), which is being realized in two linguistic dimensions – paradigmatic and syntagmatic ones. (shrink)

The standard approach to model how human beings understand natural languages is the symbolic, compositional approach according to which the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of its constituents. In other words, meaning plays a fundamental role in the model. In this work, because of the polysemous, flexible, dynamic, and contextual structure of natural languages, this approach is rejected. Instead, a connectionist model which eliminates the concept of meaning is proposed.

In the globalizing world foreign language learning is becoming more and more important. This case leads to new developments in language learning research. The purpose of this study is to depict whether the second language learning would occur better in the childhood or later. In other words to investigate the question of in which period of bilingualism it will be better. In order to answer this question, important sources in the linguistic field, related to the topic, were highlighted. The important (...) researches and theories mentioned in the literature have been examined, evaluated, information about the first and second language learning has been given and the subject has been discussed from the scientific point of view. In this context, it has been understood that many reasons exist affecting the level of proficiency of preand post- 12 year's language learning (in mono-, bi-, tri-, quadra- or multi-, lingualism) such as age, brain function, individual differences, ambience differences; social, political, economic background and how to regard the language. The idea that bilingualism after the critical period (around the age of 12) could not be as that of the childhood has been gained weight, due to the system differences between two languages, especially the difficulties in intoning and pronouncing. (shrink)

Prepositions as function words and single monomorphemic words are the most basic words of the human language, especially in the context of maintaining daily life. They are probably the first lexes/words entered to the human’s linguistic repertoire, as their requirements in the language are so essential. Prepositions shows various relationships between lexes or phrases in sentences. Among these relationships time, points, position, direction and various degrees of mental or emotional attitudes seem to be significant. The purpose of the research is (...) try to reveal what kind of challenges English prepositions have for the learners and also to confirm if they are as difficult as some linguists have stated before. Another purpose is to find out which features are more difficult among all their entity properties. The results of this study disclose that English prepositions possess very complex structures, different meanings and an associating duty of various types of part of speeches. In particular, those that construct the phrasal verbs require great effort for learning due to the loss of the meaning (sometimes partially, sometimes completely) they undergo. It has been understood that their properties such as steadily changing meaning and function make them quite difficult elements for learners of English. (shrink)

The concept of gender (male and female) is an issue that can be handled biologically, socially and individually. Whether the gender - based language production differences are linguistic, social hierarchy or culture has long been discussed and debated by different scientific circles. Studies on whether men and women produce different languages coincide with the 1970s, when the feminism movement emerged in the world. In the same period, sociolinguistic researches were carried out at scientific levels. These sociolinguistic studies are considered to (...) be the first important studies on malefemale language production differences. Looking at language and gender studies, it is seen that there is a general, intensified focus on two questions: First, do men and women use language differently (in different dimensions)? Secondly, is the language that describes the man and the language that describes the woman different from each other in written or oral modules in social life? An attempt was made to find an answer to the question “do men and women really speak differently” in this qualitative study, based on the literature. Although there are various studies on gender-based language use differences, it seems that this issue is open to discussion. It is possible to say that the difference in gender-based language use is not certain due to reasons such as the fact that most of the studies were conducted with small data and different methods, up-to-date data were not used, and most of the data were collected from the English language. (shrink)

Psycholinguistics has provided numerous theories that explain how a person acquires a language, produces and perceives both spoken and written language, including theories of proceduralization. Learners of English as a foreign language often find it difficult to achieve oral fluency, a key construct closely related to the mental state or even mental health of learners. According to previous research, this problem could be addressed by the mastery of formulaic sequences, since the employment of formulaic sequences could often promote oral fluency (...) in the long run, reflected in the positive relationship between formulaic sequence use and oral fluency. However, there are also findings contradicting the abovementioned ones, without adequate explanations. This study aims to explore the roles of formulaic sequences in oral fluency, taking into account the relationship between formulaic sequence use and oral fluency. This study investigated 120 pieces of spoken narratives by Chinese EFL learners, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, combined with artificial intelligence techniques. Results of canonical correlation analysis showed that the frequency of formulaic sequences was significantly related to speed fluency and breakdown fluency, while the variety of formulaic sequences was significantly related to repair fluency. Case studies further demonstrated that formulaic sequences could contribute to oral fluency development by promoting speed and reducing pausing when retrieved holistically, but they sometimes lost processing advantages when retrieved and processed in a word-by-word manner. The inappropriate use of formulaic sequences also neutralized the facilitative effects of formulaic sequences on repair fluency and could mirror speakers’ occasional tendency to sacrifice repair fluency for the improvement of speed and breakdown fluency when using formulaic sequences. Pedagogical implications were provided accordingly to promote sustainable oral fluency development through the use of formulaic sequences. (shrink)

In argumentation, metaphors are often considered as ambiguous or deceptive uses of language leading to fallacies of reasoning. However, they can also provide useful insights into creative argumentation, leading to genuinely new knowledge. Metaphors entail a framing effect that implicitly provides a specific perspective to interpret the world, guiding reasoning and evaluation of arguments. In the same vein, emotions could be in sharp contrast with proper reasoning, but they can also be cognitive processes of affective framing, influencing our reasoning and (...) behavior in different meaningful ways. Thus, a double (metaphorical and affective) framing effect might influence argumentation in the case of emotive metaphors, such as “Poverty is a disease” or “Your boss is a dictator,” where specific “emotive words” (disease, dictator) are used as vehicles. We present and discuss the results of two experimental studies designed to explore the role of emotive metaphors in argumentation. The studies investigated whether and to what extent the detection of a fallacious argument is influenced by the presence of a conventional vs. novel emotive metaphor. Participants evaluated a series of verbal arguments containing either “non-emotive” or “emotive” (positive or negative) metaphors as middle terms that “bridge” the premises of the argument. The results show that the affective coherence of the metaphor's vehicle and topic plays a crucial role in participants' reasoning style, leading to global heuristic vs. local analytical interpretive processes in the interplay of the metaphorical and the affective framing effects. (shrink)

In philosophical thought experiments, as in ordinary discourse, our understanding of verbal case descriptions is enriched by automatic comprehension inferences. Such inferences have us routinely infer what else is also true of the cases described. We consider how such routine inferences from polysemous words can generate zombie intuitions: intuitions that are ‘killed’ (defeated) by contextual information but kept cognitively alive by the psycholinguistic phenomenon of linguistic salience bias. Extending ‘evidentiary’ experimental philosophy, this paper examines whether the ‘zombie argument’ against materialism (...) is built on zombie intuitions. We examine the hypothesis that contextually defeated stereotypical inferences from the noun ‘zombie’ influence intuitions about ‘philosophical zombies’. We document framing effects (‘zombie’ vs ‘duplicate’) predicted by the hypothesis. Findings undermine intuitions about the conceivability of ‘philosophical zombies’ and address the philosophical ‘hard problem of consciousness’. Findings support a deflationary response: The impression that principled obstacles prevent scientific explanation of how physical processes give rise to conscious experience is generated by philosophical arguments that rely on epistemically deficient intuitions. (shrink)

Recently, we have witnessed an explosion of studies and discussions claiming that Neanderthals engaged in a range of “symbolic” behaviors, including personal ornament use (Radovčić et al., 2015), funerary practices (Balzeau et al., 2020), visual arts (Hoffmann et al., 2018), body aesthetics (Roebroeks et al., 2012), etc. In Paleolithic archaeology, it has become mainstream to axiomatically infer from these putative behaviors that Neanderthals engaged in symbol use and that Neanderthals thus possessed some form of language. Rudolf Botha's bombastic title "Neanderthal (...) Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins" provides a detailed and very critical overview of the archaeological hypotheses and speculations about Neanderthal language. (shrink)

Psycholinguistics as a discipline can be traced back further than one would think, but what we refer to as modern psycholinguistics emerged in the 1950s. The gradual accumulation of interdisciplinary knowledge, cross-linguistic research, and the development of ideas formed the foundation for new approaches. Indeed, interdisciplinarity, multi-methodology, and linguistic diversity are to this day inevitable and integral parts of psycholinguistics. The aim of this paper is to argue the interplay of different approaches and methodologies, namely in relation to syntactic processing. (...) The paper provides a general overview of former state-of-the-art and newer research trends, discusses the challenges of new approaches, and presents them in the context of a recently performed attachment preference study in Croatian. Using multiple methodologies, the study shows that Croatian is a high attachment preference language. More importantly, it illustrates the significance of a carefully planned research design and the relevance of obeying the properties of the studied language. These considerations are crucial in order to avoid that someone’s choice of theoretical framework and methods influences results. (shrink)

Objective. Study of the validity and reliability of the discourse approach for the psycholinguistic understanding of the nature, structure, and features of the linguistic consciousness functioning. -/- Materials & Methods. This paper analyzes artificial neural network models built on the corpus of texts, which were obtained in the process of experimental research of the coronavirus quarantine concept as a new category of linguistic consciousness. The methodology of feedforward artificial neural networks (multilayer perceptron) was used in order to assess the possibility (...) of predicting the leading texts semantics based on the discourses ranks and their place in the respective linear sequence. Same baseline parameters were used to predict respondents' self-assessments of changes in their psychological well-being and in daily life routine during the quarantine, as well as to predict their preferences of the quarantine strategies. The study relied on basic ideas about discourse as a meaning constituted by the dispersion of other meanings (Foucault). The same dispersion mechanism realizes itself in interdiscourse interaction, forming a discursive formation at a higher level. The method of T-units (Hunt) was used to identify and count discourses in the texts. The ranking of discourses was provided based on the criterion of their semantic-syntactic autonomy. -/- Results. The conducted neural network modeling revealed a high accuracy in predicting the work of the linguistic consciousness functions associated with retrospective self-assessment and anticipatory imagination of the respondents. Another result of this modeling is a partial confirmation of the assumption concerning existence a relationship between the structural parameters of the discursive field (the rank of the discourses and their place in the respective linear sequence) and the leading semantics of the text. -/- Conclusions. A discourse approach to the study of linguistic consciousness, understanding of its structure and functioning features seems to be reasonably appropriate. The implementation of the approach presupposes the need to form a base of linguistic corpora with the inclusion in each text markup of such parameters as: the presence of specific discourses, their ranks, positions in the linear sequence of discourses. (shrink)

It is known that Turkish, like all languages, has changed and is in a process of change. The direction of the change in question is both from verbal language to written language and from written language to verbal language. Changes are studied in linguistics by two different types of research approaches, namely diachronic and synchronic. This qualitative study using the quantitative data collection tool focused on the phenomenon of synchronic change. The aim of this descriptive study is to reveal to (...) what extend the reductions in verbal Turkish has reflected on written language. For this purpose, four words with adverbial functions (daha, beri, kadar ve kere), whose use in daily speech is gradually decreasing, from everyday language in standard Turkish of Turkey have been chosen, a " grammatical judgement test " has been prepared and applied to sample group that consists of 24 undergraduate students studying in Turkish Language and Literature department. As a result of the research, is has been determined that the functions of these words dropped in daily language use are provided with suffixes. It was observed that a significant part of the participants tended to accept the sentences whose words with adverbial were omitted. (shrink)

The majority of our linguistic exchanges, such as everyday conversations, are divided into turns; one party usually talks at a time, with only relatively rare occurrences of brief overlaps in which there are two simultaneous speakers. Moreover, conversational turn-taking tends to be very fast. We typically start producing our responses before the previous turn has finished, i.e., before we are confronted with the full content of our interlocutor’s utterance. This raises interesting questions about the nature of linguistic understanding. Philosophical theories (...) typically focus on linguistic understanding characterized either as an ability to grasp the contents of utterances in a given language or as outputs of this ability—mental states of one type or another. In this paper, I supplement these theories by developing an account of the process of understanding. I argue that it enables us to capture the dynamic and temporal aspect of understanding and reconcile philosophical investigations with empirical research on language comprehension. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper is concerned with the ontological status of linguistic types. According to a widely held view, linguistic types are abstract objects that are instantiated or represented by tokens. The same types might be tokened by both speech, signing and text. This view has implications for how we consider what it is to know a language since knowledge of language is typically taken to be knowledge of linguistic types. We argue below that linguistic types are not abstract objects but (...) action-types and that these action-types are individuated by the capacities that they manifest. The picture that results from this view is that to know a language is to have the capacities required to perform these action-types. (shrink)

Objective. Study of the Covid-19 related quarantine concept as an emerging category of linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians. -/- Materials & Methods. The strategy of the study is based on the logical and methodological concept of inductivism. Respondents were asked to write down their own understanding of the quarantine, formulate an appropriate definition and describe the situation, which in their opinion is the exact opposite to quarantine. Respondents also assessed how much their psychological well-being, their daily lifestyle during quarantine had changed, (...) and ranked their preferences for the quarantine strategies proposed to them. A discursive analysis was applied to the obtained texts, as a result of which nine discourses were identified. These data, along with some socio-demographic characteristics were subjected to multidimensional mathematical and statistical processing. -/- Results. Covid-19 related quarantine is represented in the linguistic consciousness of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by a discursive field, which includes at least nine recognizable, semantically autonomous discourses. Empirically discovered such phenomenon as – inter-discourse semantic dissociation. Its essence is a statistically significant reduction in the probability of some discourses appearing in the texts when others are being actualized there. This feature is associated with the innate negativity of the language and determines the semantic biasing of the quarantine concept. Inter-discourse semantic dissociation, as well as the influence of non-discursive factors constitute the discursive formation of the quarantine concept, which is qualitatively characterized by the hierarchical relationship of its components. At the same time, it was revealed that part of the discourses interacting “horizontally” are indirectly associated “vertically”, which forms the stable semantic core of the quarantine concept. Partial empirical confirmation has been found of the previously put forward assumptions about: a) the existence of such a relationship between discourses and psychological defense mechanisms (as character-forming factors) that contributes to the hierarchical structure construction of discursive formations; b) the differential nature of discourses and mechanisms of psychological defenses interaction, which makes it possible to single out the discursive aspect in a characterological profile and consider a discourse as an operator of characterological semantics. -/- Conclusions. An empirical study made it possible to form a primary idea of the substantive and structural semantic features of the quarantine concept, as an emerging category of linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians. The results obtained have a potentially useful application perspective. Thus, when implementing anti-epidemiological measures, it is important to consider the studied features of the discursive formation hierarchical structure of the quarantine concept, since discursive semantics are associated with cognitive focusing, which, in turn, affects the behavior direction and its upshots. (shrink)

The manuscript presents a summary of the results of the linguistic semantics study of Covid-19 related quarantine. Research conducted on a sample of Russian speaking Ukrainians. Found content and structure of the respective discursive field. Described features of inter-discourse connections. Established that the actualization of some discourses is accompanied by the deactivation of others, what makes quarantine semantics biased. Also, it was suggested that some of the discourses are indirectly positively associated and form the semantic core of the quarantine concept.

Psycholinguistic methods hold great promise for experimental philosophy. Many philosophical thought experiments and arguments proceed from verbal descriptions of possible cases. Many relevant intuitions and conclusions are driven by spontaneous inferences about what else must also be true in the cases described. Such inferences are continually made in language comprehension and production. This chapter explains how methods from psycholinguistics can be employed to study such routine automatic inferences, with a view to assessing intuitions and reconstructing arguments. We demonstrate how plausibility (...) ratings, pupillometry, and reading time measurements can be used to examine hypotheses about automatic inferences in speech and text comprehension. Two experiments on inferences from polysemous (perception-)verbs provide evidence of a potentially consequential ‘salience bias’. Findings help assess intuitions about unusual cases and analyse a philosophical paradox (‘argument from hallucination’). The paper thus illustrates how we can adapt psycholinguistic methods for philosophical purposes and demonstrates the methods’ philosophical usefulness. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop an essentialist model of the semantics of slurs. I defend the view that slurs are a species of kind terms: Slur concepts encode mini-theories which represent an essence-like element that is causally connected to a set of negatively-valenced stereotypical features of a social group. The truth-conditional contribution of slur nouns can then be captured by the following schema: For a given slur S of a social group G and a person P, S is true of (...) P iff P bears the “essence” of G—whatever this essence is—which is causally responsible for stereotypical negative features associated with G and predicted of P. Since there is no essence that is causally responsible for stereotypical negative features of a social group, slurs have null-extension, and consequently, many sentences containing them are either meaningless or false. After giving a detailed outline of my theory, I show that it receives strong linguistic support. In particular, it can account for a wide range of linguistic cases that are regarded as challenging, central data for any theory of slurs. Finally, I show that my theory also receives convergent support from cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics. (shrink)

This article contains the results of a theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of natural language understanding (NLU), as a methodological problem. The combination of structural-ontological and informational-psychological approaches provided an opportunity to describe the subject matter field of NLU, as a composite function of the mind, which systemically combines the verbal and discursive structural layers. In particular, the idea of NLU is presented, on the one hand, as the relation between the discourse of a specific speech message and the meta-discourse (...) of a language, in turn, activated by the need-motivational factors. On the other hand, it is conceptualized as a process with a specific structure of information metabolism, the study of which implies the necessity to differentiate the affective (emotional) and need-motivational influences on the NLU, as well as to take into account their interaction. At the same time, the hypothesis about the influence of needs on NLU under the scenario similar to the pattern of Yerkes-Dodson is argued. And the theoretical conclusion that emotions fulfill the function of the operator of the structural features of the information metabolism of NLU is substantiated. Thus, depending on the modality of emotions in the process of NLU, it was proposed to distinguish two scenarios for the implementation of information metabolism - reduction and synthetic. The argument in favor of the conclusion about the productive and constitutive role of emotions in the process of NLU is also given. (shrink)

Objective – is to formulate a methodological discourse regarding the place and role of the language interconnected with the process of socialization of a person and develop a systemic idea of the corresponding functional features. -/- Materials & Methods – this discourse is formulated on the basis of a systemic idea of the personality socialization, which, in turn, is realized using the structural-ontological method of studying the subject matter field in interdisciplinary researches. This method involves the construction of special visual-graphic (...) matrices that reflect the interaction of the primary process and the material of the studied system. -/- Results. The work with the structural-ontological matrix made it possible to analyze the functions of the language in the context of such significant factors of socialization as complex psychodynamics, civilization space and the function of reflection. At the same time, reflection is considered at the level of two plans – primary (reflection-bond) and secondary (reflection-splitting). This made it possible to deduce the idea of the role of language beyond the traditional framework of working with text and analyze the place of the language in the context of activities to establish a connection between individuals, which is realized in a specific cooperative situation (Shchedrovitsky). In particular, the look at language as a specific tool of civilizational rationing, the mechanism of which is provided through reflection-communication. Thus, the language is examined through the prism of its systemic influence on the morphology of the psyche. -/- Conclusions – a structural-ontological analysis of the place and role of language in the process of personality socialization has led us to construction of a hypothesis about the phenomenon of language discontentment, as a tendency to distance away ego-consciousness in the process of individuation from linguistic ontology. The arguments were also advanced in favor of the assumption regarding the peculiarities of the influence of language discontentment on cultural activities and the psychodynamic contribution of this phenomenon in the midlife crisis (Jung). (shrink)

Il volume, in un'ottica cognitiva, affronta il tema delle patologie del linguaggio coniugando la riflessione teorica con le più recenti evidenze empiriche provenienti dalle neuroscienze, dalla neuropsicologia e dalla psicopatologia. Tra i casi presi in esame, ampio spazio è dedicato alla discussione dei deficit comunicativi che caratterizzano patologie quali la sindrome dello spettro autistico, il trauma cranico, la schizofrenia e la demenza di Alzheimer. In casi del genere, i disturbi linguistici e comunicativi chiamano in causa la dimensione pragmatica del linguaggio (...) e dipendono da deficit che coinvolgono in primo luogo la sfera cognitiva e solo in seconda istanza la dimensione specificatamente linguistica. Lo studio dei disturbi pragmatici diventa, così, un modo particolarmente proficuo per indagare una questione più generale di estremo interesse da un punto di vista teorico: i rapporti tra linguaggio e cognizione. (shrink)

Musical systems develop associations over time between aspects of musical form and concepts from outside of the music. Experienced listeners internalize these connotations, such that the formal elements bring to mind their extra-musical meanings. An example of musical form-meaning mapping is the association that Western listeners have between the major and minor modes and happiness and sadness, respectively. We revisit the emotional semantics of musical mode in a study of 44 American participants (musicians and non-musicians) who each evaluated the relatedness (...) of 96 melody-word pairs. Among the tonal melodies, we manipulated mode (major and minor) and timbre (clarinet and flute) while systematically controlling for other musical factors including pitch register and melodic contour. Similarly, among the English words, we manipulated word affect (happy and sad) while systematically controlling for other lexical factors including frequency and word length. Results demonstrated that participants provided a higher proportion of related responses for major melodies paired with happy words and minor melodies paired with sad words than for the reverse pairings. This interaction between mode and word affect was highly significant for both musicians and non-musicians, albeit with a larger effect for the former group. Further interactions with timbre suggested that while both clarinet and flute conveyed happiness when in the major mode, the clarinet was somewhat more successful than the flute at conveying sadness in the minor mode. Debriefing questionnaires suggested that the majority of the participants, including all of the non-musicians, had no awareness of the major-minor manipulation, and instead directed their attention to register and contour. We argue that the affective character of the major and minor modes is but one example of form-meaning mapping in music, and suggest further exploration of the roles of timbre, register, and contour in conveying musical emotions. (shrink)

This paper identifies a new source that explains environmental behaviour: the presence of future tense marking in language. We predict that languages that grammatically mark the future affect speakers' intertemporal preferences and thereby reduce their willingness to address environmental problems. We first show that speakers of languages with future tense marking are less likely to adopt environmentally responsible behaviours and to support policies to prevent environmental damage. We then document that this effect holds across countries: future tense marking is an (...) important determinant of climate change policies and global environmental cooperation. The results suggest that there may be deep and surprising obstacles for attempts to address climate change. (shrink)

In this article, the results of conceptualization of the definition of mind as an object of interdisciplinary applied research are described. The purpose of the theoretical analysis is to generate a methodological discourse suitable for a functional understanding of the mind in the context of the problem of natural language processing as one of the components of developments in the field of artificial intelligence. The conceptual discourse was realized with the help of the author's method of structural-ontological analysis, and developed (...) in the mainstream of the system-methodological tradition of the school of G.P. Shchedrovitsky and intended for descriptive research of subject areas of interdisciplinary objects of scientific study. As a result of the structural and ontological analysis of the super-system, the relevant place and role of the directly studied system (mind) are determined, and its primary process and material are localized and structural and functional connections are described. At the basic level, the mind is conceptualized as an energy process unfolding in a spatio-temporal environment and accompanied by archetypal structuring of neural impulses into images. The genesis of the system is separately analyzed by constructing a structural-ontological matrix that reflects the initial stage of the development of the mind. The primary process is concretized with the help of hetero- and homeostatic dichotomy, and also the most significant features of the consistent transformation of the material of the system and its ascent to verbal morphology are described. The structural-ontological comparison of the functioning of the verbal intelligence with the preverbal level has been carried out. The transformation of neural impulses of needs into words, as verbal units fixing semiotic values is analyzed. Structural-ontological connections that determine the reactive and prospective characteristics of the functioning of the system are disclosed. The position of the chronological primacy of "semiotic readiness" for language with respect to the debut of the latter as an information-sign model of the environment is argued. The hypothesis of domination at the initial stage of the development of the mind of exopsychic functions over endopsychic ones is formulated. The theoretical substantiation of the hypothesis of the inevitability of the ontology of language in the functional understanding of the mind is given, corresponding structural and ontological arguments are given, including those based on the ideas about the information relationship between affects and needs, according to the views of P.V. Simonov. The arguments are presented in favor of the non-alternative methodology of A. Turing in studies of artificial intelligence. (shrink)

This article is devoted to describing results of conceptualization of the idea of mind at the stage of maturity. Delineated the acquisition by the energy system (mind) of stable morphological characteristics, which associated with such a pivotal formation as the discourse. A qualitative structural and ontological sign of the system transition to this stage is the transformation of the verbal morphology of the mind into a discursive one. The analysis of the poststructuralist understanding of discourse in the context of the (...) dispersion of meanings (Foucault) made it possible to formulate a notion of it as a meaning that is constituted by the relation between the discursive practice and the worldview, regarded as a meta-discourse or a global discursive formation. In consequence of this relationship, a discrete and simultaneous scattering of meanings arises, the procedural side of which is a concrete discourse, and its productive aspect is linked with the creation of a local discursive formation. Based on this view it is proposed a logical formula of discourse, which takes into account the entropy of the language and the entropy of the worldview, as a particular manifestation of the mind entropy. Using this formula and considering the reactive nature of discourse, it was developed a classification, which included such types of discourses as reactive, suggestive, synthetic and creative. In turn, the proposed types of discourses are correlated with the specific characteristics of certain activities, as a psychological category. Also, it was considered the translation of the structure of discourse dissipation from the cognitive plan into the affective sphere because of which it is formed a hierarchy of significances, which performs the sense-forming function. It was analyzed the inverse influence of the hierarchy of significances on the structure of meanings dispersion and for respective account it was introduced a conditional coefficient of the value deviation of the significance of the meanings. This parameter reflects the sense correction of the meaning that occurs in the process of the emergence of discourse from discursive practice. Thus, the discourse is presented as a complex dynamic formation of the mind arising at the maturity stage of the system as a result of the combined effect of entropic dispersion of meanings and the value deviation of their significances. (shrink)

The author of the article reveals the possibilities of psycholinguistics in the identifi cation and interpretation of languages and texts of Alien Civilizations. The author combines modern interdisciplinary research in psycholinguistics with the theory “Evolving Matter” proposed by Oleg Bazaluk and concludes that the identifi cation of languages and texts of Alien Civilizations, as well as the communication of terrestrial civilization with Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is in principle possible. To that end, it is necessary to achieve the required level of the (...) modeling of neurophilosophy and to include these achievements of modern psycholinguistics studies: а) language acquisition; b) language comprehension; c) language production; d) second language acquisition. On the one hand, the possibilities of neurophilosophy to accumulate and model advanced neuroscience research; on the other hand, highly specialized psycholinguistic studies in language evolution are able to provide the communication of terrestrial civilization with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. (shrink)

The article presents the results of our observations on syntactic, semantic and plot peculiarities of oral language activity, we find it justified to consider the above mentioned parameters as identification criteria for discovering characterological differences of Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking objects of contact profiling. It describes the connection between mechanisms of psychological defenses as the character structural components, and agentive and non-agentive speech constructions, internal and external predicates. Localized and described plots of oral narratives inherent to representatives of different character types.

This paper examines precursors and consequents of perceived relevance of a proposition A for a proposition C. In Experiment 1, we test Spohn's assumption that ∆P = P − P is a good predictor of ratings of perceived relevance and reason relations, and we examine whether it is a better predictor than the difference measure − P). In Experiment 2, we examine the effects of relevance on probabilistic coherence in Cruz, Baratgin, Oaksford, and Over's uncertain “and-to-if” inferences. The results suggest (...) that ∆P predicts perceived relevance and reason relations better than the difference measure and that participants are either less probabilistically coherent in “and-to-if” inferences than initially assumed or that they do not follow P = P. Results are discussed in light of recent results suggesting that the Equation may not hold under conditions of irrelevance or negative relevance. (shrink)

Primary and secondary processes are the foundational axes of the Freudian mental apparatus: one horizontally as a tendency to associate, the primary process, and one vertically as the ability for perspective taking, the secondary process. Primary process mentation is not only supposed to be dominant in the unconscious but also, for example, in dreams. The present study tests the hypothesis that the mental activity during REM-sleep has more characteristics of the primary process, while during non-REM-sleep more secondary process operations take (...) place. Because the solving of a rebus requires the ability to non-contexually condensate the literal reading of single stimuli into a new one, rebus solving is a primary process operation by excellence. In a replication of the dream-rebus study of Shevrin and Fisher (1967), a rebus, which consisted of an image of a comb (German: “Kamm”) and an image of a raft (German: “Floß”), resulting in the German rebus word “kampflos” (Engl.: without a struggle), was flashed subliminally (at 1 ms) to 20 participants before going to sleep. Upon consecutive awakenings participants were asked for a dream report, free associations and an image description. Based on objective association norms, there were significantly more conceptual associations referring to Kamm and Floß indexing secondary process mentation when subjects were awakened from non-REM sleep as compared to REM-awakenings. There were not significantly more rebus associations referring to kampflos indexing primary process mentation when awakened from REM-sleep as compared to non-REM awakenings. However, when the associations were scored on the basis of each subject’s individual norms, there was a rebus effect with more idiosyncratic rebus associations in awakenings after REM than after non-REM-sleep. Our results support the general idea that REM-sleep is characterized by primary process thinking, while non-REM-sleep mentation follows the rules of the secondary process. (shrink)

In this paper we address the question of what determines the content of our conscious episodes of thinking, considering recent claims that phenomenal character individuates thought contents. We present one prominent way for defenders of phenomenal intentionality to develop that view and then examine ‘sensory inner speech views’, which provide an alternative way of accounting for thought-content determinacy. We argue that such views fare well with inner speech thinking but have problems accounting for unsymbolized thinking. Within this dialectic, we present (...) an account of the nature of unsymbolized thinking that accords with and can be seen as a continuation of the activity of inner speech, while offering a way of explaining thought-content determinacy in terms of linguistic structures and representations. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to bring to the light what difficulties or burden the English Adverbial Clauses have for foreign language learners (FLLs) or second language learners (SLLs) In this context, the syntactic structure of such grammatical category has been examined. This has been done by examining the syntactic properties of adverbial clauses as grammatical unity by emphasising their structures. The most important books that are available in the English speaking world have been inquired. This corpus analysis has (...) depicted that steadily changing of some adverbial clauses as subordinates is a problem for the learners in sentence processing. The varieties of the construction have proved to be a burden for the foreign learners. Moreover, the study underlines that the adverbial constructions contradict with the typological word order (SVO) of English language i.e. the canonical word order of English is violated through these operations. Again the classifications, the reduction and the inversion of them are great challenges for the foreign learners. (shrink)

This book provides linguists with a clear, critical, and comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental work on information structure. Leading researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields. Following the editors' introduction the book is divided into four parts. The first, on theories of and theoretical perspectives on information structure, includes chapters on topic, prosody, and implicature. Part 2 covers a range of current issues in (...) the field, including focus, quantification, and sign languages, while Part 3 is concerned with experimental approaches to information structure, including processes involved in its acquisition and comprehension. The final part contains a series of linguistic case studies drawn from a wide variety of the world's language families. This volume will be the standard guide to current work in information structure and a major point of departure for future research. (shrink)

Lexicalized theories of syntax often assume that verb-structure regularities are mediated by lemmas, which abstract over variation in verb tense and aspect. German syntax seems to challenge this assumption, because verb position depends on tense and aspect. To examine how German speakers link these elements, a structural priming study was performed which varied syntactic structure, verb position, and verb overlap.structural priming was found, both within and across verb position, but priming was larger when the verb position was the same between (...) prime and target. Priming was boosted by verb overlap, but there was no interaction with verb position. The results can be explained by a lemma model where tense and aspect are linked to structural choices in German. Since the architecture of this lemma model is not consistent with results from English, a connectionist model was developed which could explain the cross-linguistic variation in the production system. Together, these findings support the view that language learning plays an important role in determining the nature of structural priming in different languages. (shrink)

This review covers experimental approaches to sound-symbolism—from infants to adults, and from Sapir’s foundational studies to twenty-first century product naming. It synthesizes recent behavioral, developmental, and neuroimaging work into a systematic overview of the cross-modal correspondences that underpin iconic links between form and meaning. It also identifies open questions and opportunities, showing how the future course of experimental iconicity research can benefit from an integrated interdisciplinary perspective. Combining insights from psychology and neuroscience with evidence from natural languages provides us with (...) opportunities for the experimental investigation of the role of sound-symbolism in language learning, language processing, and communication. The review finishes by describing how hypothesis-testing and model-building will help contribute to a cumulative science of sound-symbolism in human language. (shrink)

Slurs such as spic, slut, wetback, and whore are linguistic expressions that are primarily understood to derogate certain group members on the basis of their descriptive attributes and expressions of this kind have been considered to pack some of the nastiest punches natural language affords. Although prior scholarship on slurs has uncovered several important facts concerning their meaning and use –including that slurs are potentially offensive, are felicitously applied towards some targets yet not others, and are often flexibly used not (...) only derogatorily to convey offense towards out-group members but also non-derogatorily to convey affiliation with in-group members– the literature remains largely focused on slurs that typically target African Americans, male homosexuals, and sexually active females. Since no account of slurs that typically target Hispanics or Mexican-Americans has so far been proposed, here I offer the first systematic and empirically informed analysis of these that accounts for both their derogatory and appropriative use. Importantly, this article reviews over a dozen Spanish stereotypes and slurs and explains how the descriptive attributes involved in a stereotype associated with a slur can contribute to the predication of certain content in the application of that slur toward its target in context. This article further explains how the psychological effects of stereotype threat and stereotype lift can be initiated through the application of a relevant slur towards its target in context as well. -/- ----- -/- Las expresiones peyorativas tales como spic (‘spic’), slut (‘zorra’), wetback (‘espalda mojada’) y whore (‘puta’) son expresiones lingüísticas que se entienden principalmente para minusvalorar ciertos miembros de un grupo sobre la base de sus atributos descriptivos (como la raza o el sexo). Se ha considerado que las expresiones de este tipo conllevan algunos de los puñetazos más desagradables que el lenguaje natural puede proporcionar. Aunque la literatura especializada sobre expresiones peyorativas ha descubierto varios hechos importantes en cuanto a significado y uso –entre los que se incluyen que tales expresiones son potencialmente ofensivas, apuntan efectivamente hacia unos objetivos pero no hacia otros, y con frecuencia se utilizan con flexibilidad no sólo despectivamente para ofender a miembros por fuera de un grupo, sino que también de forma no despectiva para afiliar con miembros dentro de un mismo grupo–, tal literatura sigue centrada en gran medida en las expresiones peyorativas que típicamente apuntan contra los afroamericanos (nigger ‘negro’), los homosexuales varones (fagot ‘maricón’), y las mujeres sexualmente activas (slut ‘zorra’). En tanto que no se ha propuesto al momento dar cuenta de expresiones peyorativas dirigidas contra hispanos o mexicano-americanos, en este trabajo se ofrece el primer análisis sistemático y empíricamente informado de tales expresiones, tanto en sus usos despectivos y de apropiación. Es importante destacar que en este artículo se revisan más de una docena de estereotipos y expresiones peyorativas en español, además de explicar cómo los atributos descriptivos que participan de un estereotipo asociado con una difamación pueden contribuir a la predicación de determinados contenidos en la aplicación de esa expresión hacia su objetivo en contexto. Asimismo, en este artículo se explica cómo comienzan los efectos psicológicos de la amenaza estereotipada y el realce estereotipado cuando se emplea una expresión peyorativa relevante contra un objetivo en contexto. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 4 Seiten: 617-653.