Ambiguous Constructions Research Articles

Re-evaluating the factor structure of the Tolerance of Ambiguity of Medical Students And Doctors (TAMSAD) scale in newly qualified doctors

Background Ambiguity and uncertainty are inherent within the practice of medicine. While theory suggests the construct may be multidimensional, scales such as the Tolerance of Ambiguity of Medical Students And Doctors (TAMSAD) act unidimensionally, at least in a local population. Therefore, the dimensionality of the Tolerance of Ambiguity (ToA) construct remains unclear. This study aims to explore the dimensionality of ToA in early postgraduate doctors using the TAMSAD scale in a UK national sample and consider the implications of this dimensionality for theory and practice. Methods We used data from 428 respondents in a national research project examining the experiences of newly qualified doctors in the UK (2020). We undertook an exploratory factor analysis (extracting one-factor to six-factor solutions) of the 29-item TAMSAD scale and compared findings to an existing integrative model of uncertainty tolerance. Results The analysis suggested that the ToA construct is multidimensional. The three-factor model and five-factor model provided clinically interpretable factors and had different merits. It appears that having an affinity for complexity is not simply the opposite of experiencing discomfort from uncertainty, and that a professional’s epistemological beliefs about the nature of medicine may influence their ToA. Conclusions These findings support an extension to a key integrative model of uncertainty tolerance, and support development of interventions to increase ToA in doctors. For example, through encouraging increased reflection on an individual’s own epistemological beliefs about medicine and the role of doctors. The potential impact of such interventions can be evaluated using scales such as the TAMSAD.

Assessing the Arabic Parsing Capabilities of ChatGPT and Cloude: An Expert-Based Comparative Study

Arabic, known for its rich morphological and syntactic complexity, poses significant challenges for natural language processing technologies. This study presents a comparative evaluation of two artificial intelligence tools, ChatGPT and Cloude, in their abilities to parse Arabic sentences accurately. Five sentences embodying diverse linguistic features were selected, and the parsing outputs were evaluated by three Arabic language experts. The results revealed a clear performance gap, with Cloude outperforming ChatGPT in overall accuracy (72.9% vs. 33.3%). Cloude excelled in handling morphological complexities and basic syntactic relationships but encountered difficulties with highly idiomatic expressions and ambiguous constructions. Conversely, ChatGPT struggled with complex morphology and long-distance dependencies. The findings highlight the importance of developing specialized Arabic language processing tools while acknowledging the potential of general-purpose language models with further fine-tuning. Recommendations include incorporating domain-specific knowledge, leveraging transfer learning, and exploring ensemble approaches to enhance the accuracy and robustness of AI-based Arabic parsing systems.

Using a systematic literature review to clarify ambiguous construct definitions: identifying a leader credibility definitional model

Using a systematic literature review to clarify ambiguous construct definitions: identifying a leader credibility definitional model

Professional Skepticism in Practice: An Analysis of Auditors’ Stories

SUMMARY Professional skepticism is a complex and ambiguous construct. Prior research has primarily focused on examining antecedents that affect professional skepticism. Yet, little is known about auditors’ perceptions and experiences of exercising professional skepticism in everyday audit practice. Through analyzing 78 stories collected from interviewing 35 auditors, our research finds that exercising professional skepticism constitutes a sensemaking process that involves noticing discrepant cues, creating interpretations, and arguing with clients to give sense. Within this process, professional skepticism is constructed by auditors’ microlevel actions and interactions in their collective efforts to seek and interpret meanings of discrepant cues. Prior studies highlight the cognitive and psychological nature of professional skepticism at an individual level. Our study provides an incremental understanding of how professional skepticism is enacted and collectively constructed by auditors in practice and shows that the meanings and practices of professional skepticism are fluid and emergent.

ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION: A SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY ANALYSIS OF A STUDY PROGRAM’S NAME

This qualitative descriptive research aims to explore the different meanings that can be derived from the name of a study program, i.e., English for Business and Professional Communication, using a syntactic approach. The syntactic approach employed was the X-bar theory rules to analyze the possibilities of the structural meaning. The results show three possible structural interpretations of the program’s name: (i) an English language program with two specific objectives, namely business and professional communication, (ii) a program with two specializations, namely English language for business purposes and professional communication, and (iii) an English language program with a specific purpose in the field of communication, which is divided into two sub-fields, namely business communication and professional communication. Thus, the English for Business and Professional Communication study program name is an ambiguous construction with three possible structural readings.

Culture or commerce? Craft as an ambiguous construction between culture and economy

ABSTRACT Contemporary craft presents a conceptual difficulty for many Marshall Islanders, who struggle to construct definitions that rely on a clear-cut separation between culture and economy, in which craft is perceived to serve either cultural or commercial purposes. However, this article ethnographically illustrates that craft is an ambiguous construction. Its ambiguity stems from conflicting notions of culture and commerce, which is tied to valuations along the commodity – non-commodity spectrum. Marshallese craft was initially conceptualized locally and externally as something akin to tourist art aimed at an external other – that is, as commercial craft – but has since turned inwards to become culturally meaningful. Yet, despite this conceptual separation between commercial and cultural crafts, Marshall Islanders make, use, and circulate craft in ways that muddles such clear-cut categories. Instead, people see themselves and others as catering to economic and cultural needs at different moments using the same artifacts – a contextual alteration that contributes to a gradual shift in valuation. The ambiguity of craft therefore illuminates the continuous conceptual work of keeping culture and economy separated, a work that itself should be understood as a process of cultural production.

Surviving the Ordinary

Abstract This article analyzes Tash Aw's novel We, the Survivors and Jewel Maranan's documentary film In the Claws of a Century Wanting, works that trace a poetics of survival as neoliberalism's good-life fantasies become decreasingly credible. It proposes that Aw's and Maranan's texts delineate part of a framework for narrating endurance under capitalism, contributing to an archive of detachment from neoliberal narrativity. Capitalism's modes of violence are embedded in ordinary life and legitimized through a pervasive neoliberal ideology that espouses heroic individualism, personal responsibility, and free-market dynamics. The politics of everyday worlds interpreted through neoliberal storytelling fail to show the contested entanglements of affect and exhaustion that make up endurance under capitalism. The texts analyzed here present their subjects as nonsovereign and embedded in the nonhomogeneous project of global capitalism and engage an eventfulness that exposes capitalism's subtle modes of violence. Moreover, through an ambiguous construction of subjects, they orient readers toward an implicated solidarity while refusing to locate a resolution within neoliberal ontology. This article contributes to the emergent aesthetics of survival detached from the good life promise of neoliberalism.

Juggling arguments: VSVO and other word orders in Hul’q’umi’num’ Salish SVCs

This paper investigates the word order of serial-verb constructions in Hul’q’umi’num’ Salish. Hul’q’umi’num’ SVCs are monoclausal constructions consisting of two or more verbs that can function as independent lexical verbs, have matching aspect, share one or more arguments, and are not connected by any linking element. Two-verb SVCs may consist of transitive and intransitive verbs. The first question concerns subject and object NP placement. For constructions with two overt NPs, an alternating VSVO pattern is both preferred in elicitation, and the only order occurring in the corpus. Only shared arguments may intervene between the verb components. Hul’q’umi’num’ SVCs exhibit flexible word order in elicitation, but certain grammatical word orders generate ambiguity. Various pragmatic strategies work together to prevent or rescue ambiguous constructions. SVCs are an understudied feature of Central Salish languages; thus investigation of this topic broadens the scope of the current literature.

Unexpected side effects: A cautionary note on challenges of persistent self-transcendence

Self-transcendence is an ambiguous construct without consensual meaning, yet many claim that it relates to, or even causes, beneficial outcomes. Few discuss its potential deleterious side effects, choosing to focus primarily on positive effects. However, anything with sufficient potency to heal may have unintended side effects, especially when it leads beyond a transitory state to becoming an enduring trait, such as when self-transcendence (ST) becomes persistent self-transcendence (PST). With PST, evidence is overviewed here, along with two illustrative case reports, that people can suffer emotional difficulties, motivation changes, loss of self-reflexivity, anhedonia, dissociation, depersonalization, memory problems, and other psychological concerns. This is discussed in terms of the disruption of the sense of self, which ordinarily serves as an integrative center for the person that conveys a sense of agency. Possible neurobiological and sociocultural effects of PST are also discussed, with a focus on its role on narrative memory as the construction of self-concept. Evidence has also been accumulating on problematic side effects of meditation and mindfulness, techniques commonly presented as paths to PST. Given that PST is often presented as a pinnacle of human development and spiritual attainment, seekers of PST, psychologists, and other mental health professionals are urged to become informed about its possible side effects, and view this phenomenon in a more balanced way.

Ambiguities and tensions in the construction of ‘global’ graduates

ABSTRACT Increasingly, competing discourses shape tensions between the role of the contemporary university and the global markets in which universities must exist. This paper draws on the examination of interviews with nine education academics in Australia to illuminate the construction of ‘global’ in the production of the global graduate (GG). Discourse analysis is used to explore how, against the backdrop of COVID 19, participants construct different identities variously related to current and future orientations for the GG. This paper uses two big ‘D’ discourses – efficiency as centralised imperative and boundless productivity – to explore knowledge production and accountabilities, neoliberalism, internationalisation and the construction of marketised universities operating in global knowledge economies. We conclude, the GG is an elusive notion, which draws mobile and multiple positionings to reveal unsettled and often ambiguous constructions of ‘university’ and ‘teacher’, with related tensions for the role and identity of education academics.

Narrative and Temporal Ambiguity in Caravaggio and Rembrandt’s Supper at Emmaus

Caravaggio and Rembrandt have often been considered together in light of their realism and use of chiaroscuro, as propounded in the 2006 exhibition “Caravaggio-Rembrandt”. This article explores another unifying characteristic of their paintings, ambiguity. By specifically considering the artists’ construction of narrative ambiguity in their first versions of The Supper at Emmaus, from their respective climates of Protestant Holland and Counter-Reformation Italy, it analyses the significance of the pictorial and temporal strategies employed for the exegesis of the Emmaus narrative. It considers these paintings as intentionally aporetic artworks, relying on the spiritual awareness of the viewer to resolve their indeterminacy and to reactivate their Eucharistic meaning.

Does a walk-through video help the parser down the garden-path? A visually enhanced self-paced reading study in Dutch.

The human language processing mechanism assigns a structure to the incoming materials as they unfold. There is evidence that the parser prefers some attachment types over others; however, theories of sentence processing are still in dispute over the stage at which each source of information contributes to the parsing system. The present study aims to identify the nature of initial parsing decisions during sentence processing through manipulating attachment type and verbs' argument structure. To this end, we designed a self-paced reading task using globally ambiguous constructions in Dutch. The structures included double locative prepositional phrases (PPs) where the first PP could attach both to the verb (high attachment) and the noun preceding it (low attachment). To disambiguate the structures, we presented a visual context in the form of short animation clips prior to each reading task. Furthermore, we manipulated the argument structure of the sentences using 2- and 3-argument verbs. The results showed that parsing decisions were influenced by contextual cues depending on the argument structure of the verb. That is, the visual context overcame the preference for high attachment only in the case of 2-argument verbs, while this preference persisted in structures including 3-argument verbs as represented by longer reading times for the low attachment interpretations. These findings can be taken as evidence that our language processing system actively integrates information from linguistic and non-linguistic sources from the initial stages of analysis to build up meaning. We discuss our findings in light of serial and parallel models of sentence processing.

Речежанровая структура флирта у советской интеллигенции: композитные жанры и субжанры (на материале драматургических текстов Л. Зорина и В. Азерникова)

The article studies speech behavior of the class of Soviet intelligentsia in communicative situations of flirting. The research is based on Soviet comedy plays of the 1960s–1970s: “Dobryaki”, “Entsiklopedisty”, “Tranzit”, “Pokrovskie vorota”, “Teatral’naya fantaziya” by Leonid Zorin and “Vozmozhny varianty” by Valentin Azernikov. The relevance of the topic is related to the increased interest ofmodern linguistics in the verbal means typical of romantic discourse in general and of the genre of flirting in particular. Authors of dramatic texts create a speech portrait of the characters and place them in different communicative situations using speech genres and their verbal means of actualization, appropriated for the social group to which the character belongs. The semantic content of the lexeme “flirt” includes the following main features: ambiguity, elements of comic genres and play. The article presents the subgenres of the speech genre of flirting: compliment, gratitude, hint, joke. The author describes the revealed verbal means which actualize the speech genre of flirting in the speech of the class of Soviet intelligentsia. They are complicated and ambiguous constructions, polysemous words, lexical repetitions, use of plural “you”, vocabulary with positive semantics in assessing moral qualities, precedent statements. Stage directions describing characters’ intonation, gestures and movements are treated as supporting means of modeling of the non-verbal behavior in flirting.

Exploiting and constructing legal ambiguity. UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia during the war in Yemen

ABSTRACT While ambiguity is a common feature of international obligations, there is a strong theoretical anticipation that ambiguities may be exploited, and obligations circumvented, under competing interests. This article largely backs this anticipation. The article scrutinises how ambiguous arms export control obligations are handled under strong incentives for arms export. The empirical case explored is the UK government’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia during the war in Yemen. Exports continued despite evidence that the Saudi-led coalition was violating international humanitarian law (IHL) in Yemen, and despite obligations not to export if there is a risk that the exported equipment can be used in IHL violations. A resulting legal challenge against the UK government provides valuable information about the role of ambiguity in the implementation of arms export controls. Drawing on primary sources from the legal process, this article argues that the UK government has taken advantage of linguistic ambiguity. The article also argues that the government has engaged in the continuous construction of ambiguity around events in Yemen and around the ideal parameters for arms trade risk assessment. Together, these strategies have facilitated continued arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

Stakeholder definitions of responsible drinking: a call to define an ambiguous construct

To mitigate alcohol-related harm, various stakeholders have advanced the construct of ‘responsible drinking.’ However, clarity regarding ‘responsible drinking’ in evaluation research is limited. Additionally, the alcohol industry often uses the term without any mention of clear limits or meaning. At this point it is unclear whether stakeholders are adopting a shared understanding of the ‘responsible drinking’ concept; such a shared understanding is essential for the development, implementation, and evaluation of consumer protection strategies that rest on individual responsibility. Therefore, we sought to describe 6 stakeholders’ use of the construct. Stakeholder sectors included (1) academics, (2) government organizations, (3) alcohol industry, (4) alcohol treatment centers, (5) U.S. higher education institutions, and (6) addiction professionals’ organizations. We searched a total of 133 sources representing these stakeholder sectors. Despite frequent use of the term ‘responsible drinking’ or a close derivative, only 17 sources provided an explicit definition. Coding revealed that the ‘responsible drinking’ message is still ambiguous, which means that consumers are not being provided clear harm avoidance guidance. Future research should create a shared conceptualization of responsible drinking to include all dimensions relevant to the construct. Furthermore, alternative phrases such as ‘safe drinking’ or ‘moderate drinking’ may be used to emphasize different dimensions of responsible drinking and may warrant further study. Like responsible drinking, other terms will require careful development, as well, but might benefit in terms of acceptability and reception from the absence of a positive connotation.

Chronic Fatigue After Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Is Not Stable: Evidence From An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

<h3>Research Objectives</h3> To study daily variability in fatigue after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) using the ecological momentary assessment (EMA) method. <h3>Design</h3> Observational study with repeated-measures of fatigue during 7 consecutive days using EMA. <h3>Setting</h3> General community. <h3>Participants</h3> Patients (n=42) with SAH who suffer from chronic fatigue, recruited by their treating physician. <h3>Interventions</h3> Not applicable. <h3>Main Outcome Measures</h3> Momentary fatigue on a 1 to 7 scale, assessed 10-12 times per day for 7 consecutive days using the EMA method and average fatigue on a 1 to 7 scale assessed with the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS). <h3>Results</h3> Mean age of the group was 53.9 years (SD=13.0), 43% male, and mean time post SAH onset was 9.3 months (SD=3.2). All patients completed in total 2872 momentary fatigue questions. Mean momentary fatigue over all days was 3.22 (SD=1.47) and mean FSS score was 5.02 (SD=1.18). Total variance in fatigue (2.21) was explained for 52.3% by between-person variance and for 47.7% by within-person variance. Multilevel analyses revealed that fatigue varied significantly (p<0.001) within the day. Moreover, diurnal patterns of fatigue differed between and within individuals. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Fatigue is often assessed retrospectively with a questionnaire (e.g. FSS), in which daily variability in fatigue is not reflected. This study shows that fatigue after SAH is not stable: momentary fatigue varies over the day and is lower than retrospectively assessed fatigue. In addition, individuals show different momentary fatigue patterns between days. These results imply that fatigue is an ambiguous construct; retrospectively assessed fatigue might not capture all the aspects of fatigue as experienced by patients after SAH. Therefore it should be considered to also take into account EMA measures in the assessment of fatigue, this might provide valuable input to optimize personalized interventions to treat fatigue after SAH. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Faking Is as Faking Does: A Rejoinder to Marcus (2021)

Applicant faking poses serious threats to achieving personality-based fit, negatively affecting both the worker and the organization. In articulating this “faking-is-bad” (FIB) position, Tett and Simonet (2021) identify Marcus’ (2009) self-presentation theory (SPT) as representative of the contrarian “faking-is-good” camp by its advancement of self-presentation as beneficial in hiring contexts. In this rejoinder, we address 20 of Marcus’ (2021) claims in highlighting his reliance on an outdated empiricist rendering of validity, loosely justified rejection of the negative and moralistic “faking” label, disregard for the many challenges posed by blatant forms of faking, inattention to faking research supporting the FIB position, indefensibly ambiguous constructs, and deep misunderstanding of person–workplace fit based on personality assessment. In demonstrating these and other limitations of Marcus’ critique, we firmly uphold the FIB position and clarify SPT as headed in the wrong direction.

Modelling Speaker Attribution in Narrative Texts With Biased and Bias-Adjustable Neural Networks.

Literary narratives regularly contain passages that different readers attribute to different speakers: a character, the narrator, or the author. Since literary narratives are highly ambiguous constructs, it is often impossible to decide between diverging attributions of a specific passage by hermeneutic means. Instead, we hypothesise that attribution decisions are often influenced by annotator bias, in particular an annotator's literary preferences and beliefs. We present first results on the correlation between the literary attitudes of an annotator and their attribution choices. In a second set of experiments, we present a neural classifier that is capable of imitating individual annotators as well as a common-sense annotator, and reaches accuracies of up to 88% (which improves the majority baseline by 23%).

The Kid’s Kid(’s) Bed: Generic or Possessive? A Mandarin Insight

The recursive computational mechanism generates an infinite range of expressions. However, little is known about how different concepts interact with each other within recursive structures. The current study investigated how Mandarin-speaking children dealt with possessives and generics in recursive structures. The picture-matching task showed that Mandarin-speaking children 4 to 6 had a bias for generics in ambiguous possessive constructions in Mandarin, where the genitive maker was covert (e.g., Yuehan de baobao chuang John&amp;rsquo;s kid bed, where baobao chuang kid bed has both a generic interpretation and a referential interpretation). It was found that that Mandarin-speaking children below 6 had a non-recursive interpretation of the possessive John&amp;rsquo;s kid(&amp;rsquo;s) bed, and instead understand kid&amp;rsquo;s bed to refer generically to a type of bed. This finding suggests that semantics does not parallel syntax in the acquisition of indirect recursion, in line with the prediction of the generic-as-default hypothesis which claims that generics are the default mode of representation of ambiguous statements when the statement can be either generic or non-generic. The delayed recursive possessive interpretation suggests that the full determiner phrase is acquired later than a noun phrase modification, which is universal in all languages. We also discuss the role of the overt functional category in the acquisition of indirect recursion.

Evaluating the Content Validity of Digital Literacy Instrument for School Teachers in Malaysia through Expert Judgement

— In the development of digital technology, schools must equip students with digital literacy skills to develop thinking both critically and creatively and make teaching and learning relevant to the students. There are various measuring instruments that have been developed to assess digital literacy for various target groups. However, quality and valid instruments are still limited and lacking. It is important to apply a valid measuring instrument for digital literacy based on its results in the case of overlapping and ambiguous constructions in the name of digital literacy. Thus, to assess the content validity of the questionnaire that had been generated to evaluate digital literacy of the school teachers is the main focus. The validity of the content was used as a criterion to confirm that the questionnaire was of high quality. The instrument's content validity was assessed according to the feedbacks of six professional in the field. The item content validity index and scale content validity index were implemented for content validity. Three (3) constructs namely; technical, cognitive, and social-emotional contain 6 items each were identified. The results of content validity index (I-CVI) showed between 0.97 to 1 and the scale content validity index (S-CVI/Ave) for the technical, cognitive, and social-emotional dimension of digital literacy was 1.00, 0.97, and 0.97 respectively. The questionnaire was identified with acceptable content validity. Further research able to guarantee that the questionnaire is checked for reliability as well as the other types of validity, including as face validity, construct validity, and criterion validity, in order to improve the assessment instrument's usefulness. Keywords— Instrument Assessment, Scale Content Validity Index, Content Validity Index, Digital Literacy, School Teachers.