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The following chapter offers an introduction and overview to the special issue, Why antiracism and critical whiteness now? It highlights how racial concerns are—at their core—fundamentally relational, emblematizing not only antiracism's greatest hope but also its most tenacious, enduring challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new modal logic endowed with a simple deductive system to interpret Aristotle's theory of the modal syllogism. While being inspired by standard propositional modal logic, it is also a logic of terms that admits a (sound) extensional semantics involving possible states-of-affairs in a given world. Applied to the analysis of Aristotle's modal syllogistic as found in the Prior Analytics A8-22, it sheds light on various fine-grained distinctions which when made allow us to clarify some ambiguities and obtain a completely consistent system and prove all of the modal syllogisms considered valid by Aristotle. This logic allows us also to make a connection with the axioms of modern propositional modal logic and to perceive to what extent these are implicit in Aristotle's reasoning. Further work will involve addressing the question of the completeness of this logic (or variants thereof) together with an extension of the logic to include a calculus of relations (for instance the relational syllogistic treated in Galen's Introduction to Logic) which Slomkowsky has argued is already found in the Topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we demonstrate the effects of Information Theory measures on the processing of polysemous nouns and reveal that the sensitivity to multiple related senses can be learned from the linguistic context. We collected large-scale data and applied a correlation design to show that an increase in sense uncertainty (or sense diversity) is followed by a faster visual lexical decision. The facilitatory effect of sense uncertainty was revealed by the predictive power of entropy, followed by the additional analysis, which revealed that both the number of senses and the balance of sense probabilities affected processing. For the first time, the balance of sense probabilities was described via redundancy to demonstrate the effect of the numerical description of the balance of sense probabilities. Finally, we crossed distribution semantics and discrimination learning to show that polysemy effects can arise as a consequence of the principles of error-driven learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a taxonomy of uses of 'because' from the linguistics literature. It traces the apparent semantic differences between content, epistemic, and act 'because' to differences in attachment height. But it argues that the fact that these uses of 'because' never occur in the same environments is evidence of an underlying semantic unity. Arguments from such a distribution to underlying unity are familiar from phonology and morphology, and they are implicit in Quine's comments on ambiguity in Word and Object, but they have too rarely been deployed in semantics. Here, such an argument points the way towards an underexplored conception of polysemy, while also making progress on the rather more limited topic of the lexical semantics of 'because'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research on how patients with Broca's aphasia and concomitant agrammatism process dependency structures online offers a window into the understanding of how language is organized in the mind. Previous studies have shown that patients evince differential performances on dependency structures generated at different levels of linguistic representation. The present study extends this line of research to investigate patients' online processing of referential dependencies involving ambiguous pronominal interpretations. Aims: Mandarin, unlike English, allows the object to be missing (null) in some contexts, rendering these null pronominal forms as ambiguous between two interpretations (strict vs. sloppy), which are generated in different levels of linguistic representation. This study examined Mandarin-speaking healthy and agrammatic aphasic participants' processing of the two interpretations of the null pronominal form such as Zhangsan qile ta de ma, Lisi ye qile e "literally: Zhangsan rode his horse and Lisi rode, too", where Lisi rode either Zhangsan's horse (strict) or Lisi's horse (sloppy). Methods & Procedures: Two experiments, employing a Cross-Modal Picture Priming paradigm, manipulated three probe picture conditions (strict, sloppy, control) and two probe positions (at the verb phrase offset and 400 ms afterwards). Experiment 1 tested neurologically unimpaired controls in order to establish the time course of processing as a standard of comparison. Experiment 2 tested patients with agrammatic aphasia. Outcomes and Results: Immediately at the verb phrase offset where the null object is structurally licensed, unimpaired individuals primed both the strict and the sloppy interpretations, with no significant difference in reaction times between the two conditions. At the position 400 ms after the verb phrase offset; however, unimpaired participants did not show priming of either of the two interpretations. Patients showed the opposite pattern: at verb phrase offset, they did not show threshold-level priming of either of the two interpretations; 400 ms afterwards, they showed priming of both the strict and sloppy interpretations, with the strict interpretation eliciting significantly longer reaction times than the sloppy interpretation. Conclusions: Patients' delay in priming both the strict and the sloppy interpretations shows that patients evince a temporal delay when processing dependency structures, which may arise from patients' deficit with lexical integration. Additionally, patients spent significantly longer reaction times on the strict interpretation relative to the sloppy interpretation, which confirms the prediction that that the former, which is generated in the level of discourse, is computationally more costly than the latter, which is generated in the level of semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have reported that temporarily ambiguous sentences sometimes cause reading disruption (garden-path effects). These studies have interpreted their finding as indicating that the human sentence processing device (the processor) initially assigns incorrect structures and subsequently attempts revision. That is a logical interpretation. However, no previous studies have demonstrated evidence of a causal relationship between garden-path effects and initial misanalysis. Besides, there is currently limited evidence regarding whether the processor conducts revision. The present study reports two self-paced reading experiments that investigated these fundamental issues about garden-path effects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the processor initially misanalyses temporarily ambiguous sentences and consequently encounters garden-path effects and persists with initial misinterpretations. Experiment 2 similarly observed garden-path effects. Additionally, there was evidence that the processor constructs globally correct structures during revision. These findings provide evidence that garden-path effects result from initial misanalysis, and the processor conducts revision upon disambiguation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dylan Thomas's poems have frequently been subjected to critical glosses which treat his poems almost like puzzles to be solved, or codes to be deciphered. This is a method of reading, however, which diminishes the pleasure and opportunity of his 'difficulty', and belies the complexity and ambiguity that characterise Thomas's work. This article will argue against 'explanations' of Thomas, taking its instead cues from the notes Thomas issued in his correspondence with friends and interested readers to reflect on the uncertainty or 'smudg[iness]' (in William Empson's phrase) of his poetics. This is a more playful way of reading Thomas which embraces his formal habits as well as his semantic ones, to more faithfully represent where his 'difficulty' is generated, and the readerly opportunities it affords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restrictive contextual information has been found to bias syntactic disambiguation, when only one alternative leads to a meaningful interpretation. The current study tests whether disambiguation can be influenced by nonrestrictive cues – when several alternatives are equally plausible. We first evaluated if modifier number biased the disambiguation of number- and case-ambiguous nouns in Basque. In a noun phrase comprehension paradigm, ambiguous noun number judgments were biased by preceding modifier number. Then, using a preamble completion paradigm, we examined whether headnoun disambiguation and thus sentence completion was also biased by modifier number. Our results suggest that nonrestrictive information (singular and plural number) can affect disambiguation. We also report task differences in the overall interpretation of ambiguous Basque nouns, as well modifier-induced agreement errors. We suggest that the parser uses any available context information when there is ambiguity, including preceding modifier markings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Words of one language often have multiple translations into another language. Does mapping of an L2 word onto multiple L1 words impact how these L1 words are represented in the bilingual lexicon? Russian-English bilinguals decided on the lexical status (Exp1) or the conceptual relatedness (Exp2) of pairs of Russian words that had the same or different translations in English. We obtained evidence for a facilitative effect of L2-to-L1 translation ambiguity. In Exp1, bilinguals were faster to respond to a Russian target if a prime had the same vs. different English translation as the target. Further, the magnitude of the N400 ERP component was reduced and the P200 was enhanced in the translation ambiguous compared to non-ambiguous condition. In Exp2, translation alternatives were rated as being more conceptually similar than words with different translations. Thus, the presence of a shared L2 translation leads to some convergence of corresponding L1 lexico-conceptual representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has shown that adults are skilled at learning new words and meanings. We examined whether learning new meanings for familiar words affects the processing of their existing meanings. Adults learnt fictitious meanings for previously unambiguous words over four consecutive days. We tested comprehension of existing meanings using a semantic relatedness decision task in which the probe word was related to the existing but not the new meaning. Following the training, responses were slower to the trained, but not to the untrained, words, indicating competition between newly-acquired and well-established meanings. This effect was smaller for meanings that were semantically related to existing meanings than for the unrelated counterparts, demonstrating that meaning relatedness modulates the degree of competition. Overall, the findings confirm that new meanings can be integrated into the mental lexicon after just a few days' exposure, and provide support for current models of ambiguity processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesity is an important emerging problem in adolescence because it causes psychological distress and social prejudice. Using Ugazio's theory, this study aims to test if the construct 'winner/loser' and its associated meanings are used and considered important among obese adolescents. The personal constructs of 68 participants (young and adult; obese and normal weight) were elicited through the repertory grid test and analysed using the log-linear model. The power dimension was the most used in the obese groups (young and adult) but it was considered the most relevant among adolescents rather than women, regardless of the weight variable. The results allow us to provide several suggestions on a clinical level and on a wider social perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined how the degree of semantic similarity between an ambiguous word’s meanings (homonyms vs. irregular polysemes) and meaning frequency (biased vs. balanced meanings) interact during lexical access and disambiguation. In Experiment 1, which was a continuous priming experiment, and with an ITI of 50 ms, we observed exhaustive access of meanings for all ambiguous words. With an ITI of 200 ms, we found a dominance effect for biased homonyms. There was no priming for biased irregular polysemes. For balanced homonyms and polysemes, we observed strong and roughly equivalent priming for target words associated with either meaning. In Experiment 2, using sentence reading, all ambiguous words elicited longer reading times in the absence of biasing context, while only biased and balanced homonyms also led to longer reading times in subsequent subordinate-biased context. Taken together, our data support a shared features model of irregular polyseme representation and retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To test the separate and combined abilities of the two cerebral hemispheres to perform controlled semantic selection and integration processes, Hebrew readers saw pairs of words and had to decide whether the two words were semantically related. The first word in each pair was presented centrally. The second word was presented in the left, right, or central visual field (LVF, RVF, and CVF). We compared response latencies for related pairs in two conditions: In the ambiguous condition, the first word was a homograph (either homophonic or heterophonic) and the second word was related to either its dominant or subordinate meaning. In the unambiguous condition, homographs were replaced with unambiguous control words. Irrespective of VF or homograph type, response times for ambiguous pairs were significantly longer than for unambiguous pairs only when targets were related to the subordinate meaning of the homograph. In the left hemisphere (RVF/LH), this ambiguity effect was larger for heterophones than for homophones, whereas in the right hemisphere (LVF/RH), similar patterns were observed for both types of homographs. Finally, performance patterns in the CVF revealed the same patterns as those in the RVF/LH, and were different from those in the LVF/RH. The implications of these results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Attitudes to risk (known probabilities) and attitudes to ambiguity (unknown probabilities) are separate constructs that influence decision making, but their development across adolescence remains elusive. We administered a choice task to a wide adolescent age-range (N = 157, 10–25 years) to disentangle risk- and ambiguity-attitudes using a model-based approach. Additionally, this task was played in a social context, presenting choices from a high risk-taking peer. We observed age-related changes in ambiguity-attitude, but not risk-attitude. Also, ambiguity-aversion was negatively related to real-life risk taking. Finally, the social context influenced only risk-attitudes. These results highlight the importance of disentangling risk- and ambiguity-attitudes in adolescent risk taking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Three experiments were conducted to investigate how syntactic-category and semantic information is processed in visual word recognition. The stimuli were two-character Chinese words in which semantic and syntactic-category ambiguities were factorially manipulated. A lexical decision task was employed in Experiment 1, whereas a semantic relatedness judgment task and a syntactic-category judgment task were adopted in Experiments 2 and 3, respectively. A semantic ambiguity disadvantage was observed in all three experiments, whereas a syntactic-category ambiguity disadvantage was only found in Experiment 3. In addition, no significant semantic ambiguity×syntactic-category ambiguity interaction was obtained across the three experiments. These results are consistent with the view that in isolated visual word recognition, the semantic information is crucial, but the syntactic-category information is not, at least in Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shifts of attention that are directed by spatial words are thought to be mediated by a spatial frame of reference. Previous studies have documented a selection cost when visual attention is directed along the left/right axis relative to the above/below axis due to the greater ambiguity of the horizontal endpoints. The present study investigated whether the horizontal endpoints may be more fully disambiguated when 'left/right' cues are first enacted by nondivisible, more discrete, modes of orienting such as directional motor responses. This issue was investigated using a repetition priming paradigm in which the effects of prior enactments were measured on the subsequent conceptual control of visual attention. The results of four experiments showed that grounding spatial language in the motor system can enhance the focus of visual attention by disambiguating the endpoints of the horizontal axis. In so doing, the present study extends previous research demonstrating that spatial concepts can influence the spatial distribution of attention by demonstrating that different modes of orienting can also influence the semantics of space. Implications for the premotor theory of attention and grounded theories of cognition are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments investigated the processing and appreciation of double grounding, a form of intentional ambiguity often used in the construction of headlines. For example, in “Russia takes the froth off Carlsberg results,” the key element, “takes the froth off,” is significant both metaphorically, where it refers to the detrimental impact of Russia, and metonymically via a contextual link between the company Carlsberg and beer, its best-known product. This study predicted that double-grounded metaphors would be more cognitively demanding than comparable single-grounded metaphors (where there is no such contextual link) and that, consequently, they would result in greater cognitive effects. Experiment 1 found longer reading times for headlines that employed double-grounded metaphors than for headlines that employed single-grounded metaphors with a similar meaning. Results suggested the re-profiling of the literal interpretation in double-grounded metaphors is cognitively demanding. Experiment 2 found that double-grounded metaphors were rated higher on a wittiness scale than single-grounded ones, revealing the aesthetic effect of double grounding. Results of Experiment 2 also suggest that participants in Experiment 1 were aware of the local ambiguity, ruling out the possibility that increased reading times observed in that experiment indexed failure of comprehension. Results of both experiments are discussed in terms of ideas from cognitive semantics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is demonstrated that the meaning given to an ambiguous word (e.g., stick) can be biased by the masked presentation of a polymorphemic word derived from that meaning (e.g., sticky). No bias in interpretation is observed when the masked prime is a word that is semantically related to the target with no morphological relationship (e.g., glue), though such a semantically based bias is revealed when the prime is unmasked. Because the masked priming results cannot be explained in terms of facilitation of processing at either the form level or the semantic level, it is concluded that an intermediate level provides the locus of the effect, referred to here as the 'lemma' level. Thus, any model of lexical processing needs to incorporate such an intermediate level to capture the relationship between stem morphemes and their derived forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semantic roles are a critical aspect of linguistic knowledge because they indicate the relations of the participants in an event to the main predicate. Experimental studies on children and adults show that both groups use associations between general semantic roles such as Agent and Theme, and grammatical positions such as Subject and Object, even in the absence of familiar verbs. Other studies suggest that semantic roles evolve over time, and might best be viewed as a collection of verb-based or general semantic properties. A usage-based account of language acquisition suggests that general roles and their association with grammatical positions can be learned from the data children are exposed to, through a process of generalisation and categorisation. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic usage-based model of semantic role learning. Our model can acquire associations between the semantic properties of the arguments of an event, and the syntactic positions that the arguments appear in. These probabilistic associations enable the model to learn general conceptions of roles, based only on exposure to individual verb usages, and without requiring explicit labelling of the roles in the input. The acquired role properties are a good intuitive match to the expected properties of various roles, and are useful in guiding comprehension in the model to the most likely interpretation in the face of ambiguity. The learned roles can also be used to select the correct meaning of a novel verb in an ambiguous situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Occupation of France, the German Organisation Todt used thousands of Spanish Republican exiles for the construction of military facilities along the Channel and Atlantic coast. So far there has been little research into the dynamics shaping the lives of Spanish OT workers at the local level. This article seeks to contribute to this history with a case study of Bordeaux. As well as highlighting the difficulties in defining the Spanish Republicans' experiences according to the dichotomy of resistance and collaboration, this article suggests that the dynamics shaping work practices in and around Bordeaux provided exiles with certain, if limited, opportunities over other OT centres. The ambiguities of working for the German authorities in this port city explain the significance of a story that continues to circulate in contemporary Bordeaux regarding the deaths of a number of OT workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the effects of concreteness and ambiguity on language processing. In Experiment 1, English-Spanish bilinguals translated words with a single translation. Contrary to past findings, we observed no concrete-word advantage in translation latency. In Experiment 2, English-Spanish bilinguals translated words with one and more than one translation. Words with multiple translations were translated more slowly and showed the typical concrete-word advantage. Words with one translation showed a reversal of the typical concrete-word advantage in latency. Further, concrete words were uninfluenced by ambiguity. In Experiment 3, we explored whether the interaction between concreteness and ambiguity was a general property of the language processing system. Supporting this idea, in a monolingual lexical decision task, we found an interaction between concreteness and number of meanings analogous to the interaction in translation. We discuss the common mechanism that may lead to this interaction in both within and cross-language processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ambiguity disadvantage (slower processing of ambiguous words relative to unambiguous words) has been taken as evidence for a distributed semantic representational system like that embodied in parallel distributed processing (PDP) models. In the present study, we investigated whether semantic ambiguity slows meaning activation, as PDP models would predict, by examining homophone effects in semantic categorisation tasks. We observed a homophone effect in a go/no-go semantic categorisation task, but not in a yes/no semantic categorisation task. Our results suggest that previously reported ambiguity effects may have been due to the decision phase of the semantic categorisation task and not to the semantic processing phase, in which case the interpretation of the ambiguity disadvantage will need to be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the reconciliation of rational-choice and social-influence approaches to media choice offered here, the choice process is decomposed into two subprocesses. In the first subprocess—that of rational choice—decisional ambiguity frustrates complete optimization. Optimization is partial, yielding a set of effectively interchangeable media alternatives over which the user is indecisive. In the second subprocess—that of social influence—imitation, deference, and other cues act on the set of interchangeables, yielding a single ultimate choice. If in the social-influence subprocess there are benefits to coordinating with others, group choice crystallizes around a single media alternative. If these benefits are absent, individual choice remains idiosyncratic, with each decision maker making random choices within the set of interchangeables. In organizational life, media choice transpires sequentially, with each choice conditioning a succeeding one. In its dynamic form, the present model explicitly incorporates such sequential environments: The twofold choice process transpires iteratively within individual decision sites (in the multiple purchasing decisions of a committee, for example) and sequentially across decision sites (from committee to individual, for example). The model generates considerable empirical implications. As decisional ambiguity grows, the rational-choice component of the choice process shrinks, implying upper-bound conditions for the explanatory power of rational-choice statistical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual search is speeded when the target-defining property (a feature- or dimension difference relative to the distractors) is repeated relative to when it changes. It is thought that automatic and implicit intertrial priming mechanisms underlie this effect. However, intertrial priming has been found to be less robust in compound search tasks (in which the response property is unrelated to the target-defining property) than in present/absent search tasks (in which the response is directly related to the presence of a target-defining property). This study explored the hypothesis that intertrial priming is dependent on the level of ambiguity in a task, with the present/absent task being inherently more ambiguous than the compound search task. The first three of five experiments further established the dissociation between the tasks and excluded alternative explanations. Intertrial priming was strong in present/absent and go/no-go tasks, but absent in compound and compound/absent tasks. The last two experiments supported the ambiguity hypothesis by introducing more uncertainty in the compound task, after which intertrial priming returned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by adult models of language production and comprehension, we investigate whether children's nonadult interpretation of ambiguous negative quantified sentences reflects their sensitivity to distributional patterns of language use. Studies 1 and 2 show that ambiguous negative quantified sentences of the sort typically used in acquisition studies are strongly avoided in adult production and are judged as poor alternatives by adults. Corpus Studies 3 and 4 show that children and adults overwhelmingly use quantifiers and negation in ways that promote one interpretation of these ambiguous quantified sentences over others. We argue that these patterns guide children's ambiguity resolution processes and explain children's interpretations of ambiguous quantified sentences. The origin of distributional patterns in adult production processes is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was designed to investigate the effects of task ambiguity and expectancy control groups on the Experimenter Bias Effect (EBE). The results indicated that the main effects of Induced Expectancy, Ambiguity, and Actual State (actual pre-established score differences on the test protocols), as well as the interaction of Ambiguity X Induced Expectancy and Ambiguity X Actual State, were all significant at the .01 level. The Ambiguity X Induced Expectancy interaction indicated that Induced Expectancy had an effect only when subjects were given ambiguous criteria with which to score the test protocols. The Ambiguity X Actual State interaction indicated that the high ambiguity condition resulted in inaccurate scoring, while low and medium ambiguity did not. Finally, the main effect of Induced Expectancy was small when compared to the Actual State effect, suggesting that some of the experimenter bias effects in the literature may have been obtained because basically unscorable stimuli were used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of becoming assimilated into a new culture can be a very stressful experience. One of the manifest symptoms of stress is elevated blood pressure. Scores obtained by 50 immigrants on a composite index of assimilation were compared with their blood pressure levels to determine if those experiencing the greatest difficulty in adjusting to the new culture also had the highest blood pressure levels. The blood pressure/assimilation relationship was found to be curvilinear; the low assimilated had the highest blood pressure levels. This relation was not affected by age and general cardiovascular health. It was further assumed that those high on intolerance of ambiguity would experience the greatest difficulty in the assimilation process. This hypothesis was not validated; in fact it appears as though intolerance of ambiguity operated somewhat positively in the assimilation of immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a case study of the disciplines thesis and the curriculum. It also examines the thesis and its implications in relation to mathematics. The thesis is associated with educationists P.H. Hirst and P.H. Phenix and it is in the works of these two theorists that it can be found in its most developed forms. The practical significance of the disciplines thesis lies in its use in justifying or criticizing patterns of curricular organization. While both Hirst and Phenix are cautious about the implications of the disciplines thesis for curriculum design. It is clear that both are sympathetic to the argument that it is in general desirable to base curricular units on distinct, logically defined, disciplines such as mathematics. The disciplines thesis then provides a weak foundation for a defense of the traditional curriculum. As the case of mathematics illustrates, traditional subject divisions do not accord with the logical distinctions at the heart of the disciplines thesis. It is concluded in this study that the critical weakness of the disciplines thesis lies in the ambiguity with which the term discipline is used.

The concept of "metacommunication" is examined in its historical context by noting the foundations of the concept. Then some of the conceptual ambiguities of the term are discussed with recommendations for discarding the analogic/digital distinction that has become common in the field of communication. Two levels of metacommunication--relationship and episodic, are postulated as providing conceptual clarity in the use of the term, Finally, extant research on metacommunication is examined and future directions for our inquiry are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role of arts in cognition. The author stated that artistic cognition, including aesthetic cognition, rest in a profound manner upon polysemy, the entertaining of two or more meanings for a lone symbol or object. Moreover, a somewhat belittling manner of pertaining to polysemy is as ambiguity. He further posited that polysemy is not in equal standing relative to ambiguity. He also forwarded that in the arts, it is the multitude of levels of meaning and their interactions that are essential.