Ambiguous Items Research Articles

Developing a scale of communicative participation: A cognitive interviewing study

Purpose. To revise and improve the instructions, candidate items and response format for a tool to measure communicative participation.Method. Cognitive interviewing techniques, designed to study the process that respondents use to answer survey questions, were used to test a bank of candidate items for a measure of communicative participation. Twelve participants with spasmodic dysphonia (SD), a neurologic condition characterized by voice and speech changes, were asked to complete a sample questionnaire and then were interviewed regarding the clarity of instructions, candidate items and response format. Analysis of the interviews was conducted using qualitative techniques and resulted in a series of modifications to the measurement tool.Results. Problems identified related to candidate items included inadequate context, double-barreled or ambiguous items, redundancy, unclear or generally confusing items, infrequent situations, and cultural sensitivity. Participants preferred response options that asked them to rate interference rather than other dimensions such as satisfaction.Conclusions. Subtle differences in items and response options make key differences in how participants interpret and make decisions about their responses. Rich contextual information is needed in order to respond to items that sample communicative participation. Participants preferred response options that capture the barriers that they experience when participating in everyday communication situations.

STUDY ON THE DEFINITION OF THE NAME, LIMITS AND BUFFER ZONES OF THE WORLD HERITAGE PROPERTY IN QUITO, ECUADOR

The “City of Quito” in Ecuador, is one of the first properties inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978. However, through the analysis of the Nomination Dossier and ICOMOS Advisory Body Evaluation of the “City of Quito”, several ambiguous items related to the name, limits and buffer zones of the property could be found. This ambiguity makes difficult to discern if the entire “City of Quito” or the “Historic Center” is the concerned World Heritage property. This study is aimed to analyze the planning maps, Nomination Dossier and submitted maps related to the inscription of the “City of Quito”, in order to determine the name, limits and buffer zones of the World Heritage property, and in addition to determine the changes on the planning maps until the present. Based on the analysis, this study has concluded that it would be better to revise the name of the World Heritage property to “Historic Center” instead of “City of Quito” according to the Legal Status of the Nomination Dossier. As a result, it would be better to revise the limits and buffer zones according to the current planning maps of legal instruments.

The validity of the Child Behavior Checklist for children with epilepsy

The validity of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) for patients with epilepsy has been questioned, because several items may reflect seizure semiology rather than habitual behavior. This study compared a standard version of the CBCL with an adjusted version that excluded those ambiguous items. Participants were 58 pediatric patients with epilepsy who were assessed preoperatively and 1 year after successful surgical treatment. Before surgery, the adjusted version indicated significantly lower values for the scales Attention Problems, Thought Problems, and Total Problems than the standard version. After surgery, the difference between the standard and adjusted versions and the scores for the ambiguous items were unchanged, although all patients were completely seizure free at that time. Elevated scores on the ambiguous items thus probably reflect real behavioral problems and are not due to confusion with seizure semiology. The results support the CBCL as a valid assessment tool in children with epilepsy.

Translation norms for English and Spanish: The role of lexical variables, word class, and L2 proficiency in negotiating translation ambiguity

We present a set of translation norms for 670 English and 760 Spanish nouns, verbs and class ambiguous items that varied in their lexical properties in both languages, collected from 80 bilingual participants. Half of the words in each language received more than a single translation across participants. Cue word frequency and imageability were both negatively correlated with number of translations. Word class predicted number of translations: Nouns had fewer translations than did verbs, which had fewer translations than class-ambiguous items. The translation probability of specific responses was positively correlated with target word frequency and imageability, and with its form overlap with the cue word. Translation choice was modulated by L2 proficiency: Less proficient bilinguals tended to produce lower probability translations than more proficient bilinguals, but only in forward translation, from Ll to L2. These findings highlight the importance of translation ambiguity as a factor influencing bilingual representation and performance. The norms can also provide an important resource to assist researchers in the selection of experimental materials for studies of bilingual and monolingual language performance. These norms may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.

To watch, to see, and to differ: An event-related potential study of concreteness effects as a function of word class and lexical ambiguity

Electrophysiological techniques were used to assess the generalizability of concreteness effects on word processing across word class (nouns and verbs) and different types of lexical ambiguity (syntactic only and combined syntactic/semantic). The results replicated prior work in showing an enhanced N400 response and a sustained frontal negativity to concrete as compared with abstract nouns. The effect of concreteness on the N400 generalized to all word class and ambiguity conditions, whereas the frontal effect was present for all word types except for the syntactically and semantically ambiguous items when these were used as verbs. The seemingly dissociable ERP effects of concreteness at frontal and central/posterior electrode sites revealed by these data suggest that concreteness may impact multiple aspects of neurocognitive processing.

The Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ): A new measure for evaluating hostile social-cognitive biases in paranoia

Introduction. This study reports on the development of a new measure of hostile social-cognitive biases for use in paranoia research, the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ). The AIHQ is comprised of a variety of negative situations that differ in terms of intentionality. Items were developed to reflect causes that were ambiguous, intentional, and accidental in nature. Methods. Participants were 322 college students who completed the AIHQ along with measures of paranoia, hostility, attributional style, and psychosis proneness. The reliability and validity of the AIHQ was evaluated using both correlational and multiple regression methods. Results. The AIHQ had good levels of reliability (internal consistency and interrater reliability). The AIHQ was positively correlated with paranoia and hostility and was not correlated with measures of psychosis proneness, which supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale. In addition, the AIHQ predicted incremental variance in paranoia scores as compared to the attributional, hostility, and psychosis proneness measures. Ambiguous items showed the most consistent relationships with paranoia. Conclusions. The AIHQ appears to be a reliable and valid measure of hostile social cognitive biases in paranoia. Recommendations for using the AIHQ in the study of paranoia are discussed.

Items as Context: Effects of Item Order and Ambiguity on Factor Structure

Based on previous work (Darkes, Greenbaum, & Goldman, 1998), we evaluated the effects of item order and ambiguity on factor structure using items from the Disinhibition subscale of the Sensation Seeking Scales Form V (Zuckerman, 1979). Participants completed the items with order of item-group (alcohol, sex, ambiguous) presentation manipulated between respondents. The factor structure varied as a function of item-group order. In addition, factor covariances varied across the 3 item orders as a function of item-group order. Apparently, ambiguous items were interpreted differently (as related either to alcohol use or to sexual behavior) depending on the content of items that preceded them. Results suggest that item order and ambiguity are important considerations in assessment.

To mind the mind: An event-related potential study of word class and semantic ambiguity

The goal of this study was to jointly examine the effects of word class, word class ambiguity, and semantic ambiguity on the brain response to words in syntactically specified contexts. Four types of words were used: (1) word class ambiguous words with a high degree of semantic ambiguity (e.g., ‘duck’); (2) word class ambiguous words with little or no semantic ambiguity (e.g., ‘vote’); (3) word class unambiguous nouns (e.g., ‘sofa’); and (4) word class unambiguous verbs (e.g., ‘eat’). These words were embedded in minimal phrases that explicitly specified their word class: “the” for nouns (and ambiguous words used as nouns) and “to” for verbs (and ambiguous words used as verbs). Our results replicate the basic word class effects found in prior work (Federmeier, K.D., Segal, J.B., Lombrozo, T., Kutas, M., 2000. Brain responses to nouns, verbs and class ambiguous words in context. Brain, 123 (12), 2552–2566), including an enhanced N400 (250–450 ms) to nouns compared with verbs and an enhanced frontal positivity (300–700 ms) to unambiguous verbs in relation to unambiguous nouns. A sustained frontal negativity (250–900 ms) that was previously linked to word class ambiguity also appeared in this study but was specific to word class ambiguous items that also had a high level of semantic ambiguity; word class ambiguous items without semantic ambiguity, in contrast, were more positive than class unambiguous words in the early part of this time window (250–500 ms). Thus, this frontal negative effect seems to be driven by the need to resolve the semantic ambiguity that is sometimes associated with different grammatical uses of a word class ambiguous homograph rather than by the class ambiguity per se.

Ego-syntonicity in responses to items in the California Psychological Inventory

Responding to items on a personality questionnaire can evoke a variety of feelings, from discomfort to indifference to pleasure. Harrison Gough reported that when he wrote items for the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough & Bradley, 1996), he tried to make the items as ego-syntonic as possible. Ego-syntonic items are those “which a respondent finds congenial, and on which giving an opinion is a rewarding act” ( Gough & Bradley, 1996, p. 10). The present study asked 79 respondents to report how they felt after answering each CPI item. Average affect ratings were above neutral for a majority of items, indicating that Gough had some success in writing ego-syntonic items. Differences in item ego-syntonicity were attributable to other item characteristics. Respondents disliked responding to relatively odd and ambiguous items, items with linguistic negations, and items referring to negative feelings and situations. As predicted by Gough, respondents enjoyed responding to items on the communality scale, items with which most people agree. They also enjoyed items that referred to positive emotions and attitudes and to items indicating extraversion, conscientiousness, low neuroticism, and openness to experience. Highly ego-syntonic items were found to be more valid than less ego-syntonic items. Individuals who reported disliking many items were found to be socially anxious. The relation between reports of liking or disliking items, identity, and reputation are discussed, and further research on item response dynamics and validity is proposed.

Design of a Questionnaire to Measure Trust in an Emergency Department

To develop a valid and reliable questionnaire for measuring patient trust in an emergency department (ED) that can be administered by phone, direct interview, or mail. This was a survey conducted at a Level 1 urban trauma center with an annual census of 52,000 visits. Literature review, focus group discussions, and direct patient interviews identified potential items for pilot surveys. Fifteen ED nurses, residents, and faculty scored the items on a 1-10 scale, rephrasing or removing ambiguous items to ensure face and content validity. A telephone survey with responses recorded on a five-point Likert scale was conducted. Reliability and internal consistency of items were tested using SPSS software. Factor analyses were performed using principal components analysis and Varimax rotation with Eigen values set at 1.0. A total of 383 patients seen in the ED were surveyed. Using two pilot surveys, 18 of 42 potential items were extracted among five factors identified as important to the development of trust. Internal consistency for the final 18 items was calculated, and a Cronbach's alpha of 0.88 was obtained for all items. Test-retest reliability was calculated by telephoning 38 patients twice, two weeks apart, and correlation coefficients of >0.748 were obtained for all items. This questionnaire can be used for telephone or direct interview to survey patients' trust in EDs.

Familiar words in unfamiliar contexts

Studies of the translation of the Qur'an into English have produced countless descriptions of lexical, syntactic, stylistic, and rhetorical translation problems. This article seeks to fill a gap in this literature. Using a corpus of twenty Qur'anic texts, I investigated how Jordanian translation students render religious items that may be interpreted in different ways. It was found that the problems could be divided into ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ knowledge problems and a failure to identify the items’ field‐specific meaning in Qur'anic contexts in which it differed from the everyday meaning in Arabic. Surprisingly, some of these lexical items also pose problems to professionals. The findings suggest that translators of the Qur'an must be familiar with exegeti‐cal writing ana that, in the teaching and training of future translators, it is important to stress that the bilingual dictionaries must be supplemented with specialist dictionaries, word and terminology lists, and that students must learn to pay attention to con‐textual clues in order to detect the intended meaning of familiar lexical items when they occur in unfamiliar contexts. Introduction Despite a long‐running argument over the untranslatability of the Holy Qur'an, no matter whether literal or explanatory, no Qur'anic translator has claimed that his translation is the equivalent of the Qur'an. This is due to the Our'an's unique discourse nature (Abdul‐Raof 2000). Qur'anic texts often carry stylistic, rhetorical, and semantic‐specific features that cannot be adequately appreciated and translated without a sound linguistic competence in both Arabic and English and an advanced knowledge of semantic relations in sophisticated Arabic rhetorics (El‐Hassan and Al‐Said 1989). Therefore, target‐language readers only get a crude approximation of the meaning (Hatim and Mason 1990) since “the ideal of total equivalence is a chimera “ (Bell 1991: 6). Even when we accept that a translation of the Qur'an is only an approximation, the source‐language meaning can only be conveyed by translators who fully understand the message. The literature has dealt with various aspects of translations of the Holy Qur'an, including, for example, the types of lexical, grammatical, and rhetorical problems in the translation of the Qur'anic texts: Abdul‐Raof (2000) investigated syntactical and semantic ambiguity, El‐Hassan and Al‐Said (1989) looked at lexical problems in translation of collocations, ambiguous items, ana culture‐specific terms, and Al‐Momani (1999) and Abd El‐Raheem (2000) dealt with the translation of synonymous items. Although synonymy and other meaning relations have thus been researched, there are no studies of the translation of lexical items in specific Qur'anic contexts that are intended to convey another, even the opposite, meaning in particular Qur'anic co‐texts than the one they have in common everyday usage in Arabic. This article discusses how students of translation cope with such issues and the extent to which field‐specific knowledge of Qur'anic expressions affects their translation. In addition to being a translational problem and providing an account of unique semantic features that reveal “what is so special about Qur'anic discourse that makes it different from other types of discourse” (Abdul‐Raof 2000: 1), my study also offers some views on religious texts, such as Language‐for‐Special‐Purpose texts (hencer‐

A connectionist account of Spanish determiner production

Evidence from experimental studies of Spanish children's production of determiners reveals that they pay more attention to phonological cues present in nouns than to natural semantics when assigning gender to determiners (Pérez-Pereira, 1991). This experimental work also demonstrated that Spanish children are more likely to produce the correct determiner when given a noun with phonological cues which suggest it is masculine, and more likely to assign masculine gender to nouns with ambiguous cues. In this paper, we investigate the phonological cues available to children and seek to explore the possibility that differential frequency in the linguistic input explains the priority given to masculine forms when children are faced with ambiguous novel items. A connectionist model of determiner production was incrementally trained on a lexicon of determiner-noun phrases taken from parental speech in a longitudinal study of a child between the ages of 1;7 and 2;11 (López Ornat, Fernandez, Gallo & Mariscal, 1994) preserving the type and token frequency information. An analysis of the database of parental productions revealed that while regular feminine nouns were slightly more frequent than regular masculine nouns, irregular masculine nouns outnumbered irregular feminine nouns by roughly 2 to 1. On the basis of this, we made the prediction that as the training lexicon builds up, the network will perform better overall on masculine determiners than would be predicted from their forms alone and will tend to assign masculine gender to ambiguous novel nouns in a test set. The findings indicate that, at least in the case of Spanish gender agreement for determiners and nouns, a general associative learning mechanism can account for important characteristics of the acquisition process seen in children.

Information-processing predictors of emotional response to stress

Information-processing biases of attention toward and interpretation of threat were measured in 29 undergraduates during a period of low academic stress. During a later period of high academic stress, participants were interviewed about their emotional response: anxious and depressive symptoms, and positive and negative affect. Anxiety symptoms at follow-up were predicted by attention to masked threat stimuli, while negative affect at follow-up was predicted by interpretation of ambiguous items as threatening. Results suggest that although attentional processes appears to play a role in the development of anxiety symptoms, the experience of negative affect during stress may be regulated by more interpretive processes.

The development and initial validation of the Exercise Causality Orientations Scale

Deci and Ryan's causality orientations theory suggests that there are individual differences in motivational orientation towards initiating and regulating behaviour. They described three causality orientations: autonomy, control and impersonal. The aim of this paper is to describe the development and concurrent validity of the Exercise Causality Orientations Scale (ECOS), which was designed to measure the strength of these three orientations within exercise. Altogether, 592 working adults aged 35.0±11.4 years (mean±s ) completed the ECOS and measures of self-determination, self-consciousness and social desirability. The analysis was conducted in two parts. First, the data were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis using a multi-trait, multimethod framework. The original model resulted in a poor fit to the data. On the basis of its modification indices, three scenarios with ambiguous items were removed successively, resulting in a scale with good psychometric properties. Secondly, Pearson's correlations were conducted between the subscales of the ECOS and those of the questionnaires used for validation. Most of the results supported a priori hypotheses. In conclusion, our results show the ECOS to have good psychometric properties and they provide some support for its concurrent validity.

Intonation et levée de l'ambiguïté : le cas du négatif no en anglais

Intonation and ambiguity resolution : the case of no. Isabelle Gaudy, University of Metz At the beginning of an utterance, no can give a negative information, agree with a negative utterance or do away with a statement. So, we notice that for a single word we get three different meanings. It can therefore be considered as an ambiguous item. If we then look at its intonative representations, we notice that the patterns are quite unrelated to the positioning on the polarity of what was said before. Rather, the intonation corresponds to different disagreement attitudes. No can be modulated or flat. The latter corresponds to an indifferent and neutral negative answer. It proves more interesting to deal with the modulated no. We can indeed make out two modulations, high low on the one hand and low high on the other hand. The former is used when the utterer feels deeply involved toward the co-utterer.

Crypto-ambiguity

The two most familiar sources of ambiguity in an ambiguous sentence or phrase are ambiguous lexical items like bank, or alternative syntactic construals involving hierarchical structure (as in He saw the man with the telescope) or construction (as in The chimp is cooking). However, there are also examples of phrasal ambiguity, called here “crypto-ambiguity”, which involve neither lexical nor syntactic ambiguity. The ambiguity in these cases is essentially an ambiguity of scope. What they have in common is that a semantic process targets not the whole of the meaning of a lexical item, but alternative sub-portions. These sub-portions may be facets, micro-senses, qualia roles, active zones or classical semantic features.

Effects of Response Order on Likert-Type Scales

The study investigated whether the change of response order in a Likert-type scale altered participant responses and scale characteristics. Response order is the order in which options of a Likert-type scale are offered. The sample included 490 college students and 368 junior high school students. Scale means with different response orders were compared. Structural equation modeling was used to test the invariance of interitem correlations, covariances, and factor structure across scale formats and educational levels. The results indicated that response order had no substantial influence on participant responses and scale characteristics. Motivating participants and avoiding ambiguous items may minimize possible effects of scale format on participant responses and scale properties.

New approach to translating instruments for cross‐cultural research: a combined qualitative and quantitative approach for translation and consensus generation

AbstractTranslation is the very essence of ethnographic research. The current practice of translation and back translation of an instrument is considered by some as inadequate. We used a combined qualitative and quantitative method: a nominal group to translate and assess the extent of agreement (consensus measurement) on the appropriateness of the translation and resolve disagreement (consensus development).A panel (n = 9) fluent in English and Sinhala, translated the 21‐item Bradford Somatic Inventory, independently of one another. Each member rated each individual translation independently, for conceptual and semantic equivalence based on predefined quantitative measures for consensus. Translations failing to reach consensus were discussed by the group for modifications and subjected to the process of consensus generation. Translations agreed to be inappropriate were excluded. Translations agreed as appropriate were subjected to ranking and the final selection.The process of translation confirmed that only part of the original meaning could be expressed in local terms. This resulted in the loss of some connotations making the item too narrow, or conversely in having to expand the original meaning in the local language terms making the translated item broader.No single participant produced a significantly different contribution to the final outcome than other participants. The range of contribution to the finally selected questionnaire was five to eight translations with median of seven. Therefore the likelihood of one individual producing a translation of an instrument with 100% probability of acceptance to a wider group is unrealistic.A group is better placed to translate, modify or eliminate inadequate or ambiguous items and generate culturally appropriate translation with semantic and conceptual equivalents. The process we describe, to assess and guide translations by a group, is better than arbitrary decision making by one or more individuals handling the translations and back translations. The combined qualitative and quantitative approach provides a more rigorous, systematic and contextual approach to translations. Copyright © 2000 Whurr Publishers Ltd.

The relative time course of neighborhood and lexical effects

We have previously demonstrated that neighborhood density can have effects similar to those of lexical status in phoneme identification tasks. In a typical task demonstrating a lexical effect, subjects might hear two series, one ranging from ‘‘bag’’ to ‘‘pag,’’ while the other varies from ‘‘pal’’ to ‘‘bal.’’ Subjects are more likely to classify ambiguous stimuli from each series as members of the category that makes a word (they would classify ambiguous items as ‘‘b’’ in the bag–pag series but as ‘‘p’’ in the pal–bal series). In a similar task where none of the four endpoints were words, subjects classified ambiguous items as members of the category that had a greater neighborhood density. The current study examines the relative time course of these effects. We created both lexical and neighborhood series using the identical initial contrast, and presented them to the same set of listeners. Neighborhood effects occurred primarily in the fastest responses, while lexical effects occurred in the medium and slower responses. That is, neighborhood effects appear earlier in processing, and dissipate quickly, whereas lexical effects take longer to build up. These results will be discussed in terms of their implications for models of word recognition.

Measuring Satisfaction with Amplification in Daily Life: the SADL scale.

To develop a self-report inventory to quantify satisfaction with hearing aids. The inventory was developed in several stages. To determine the elements that are most important to satisfaction for most people, we conducted structured interviews and then designed a questionnaire. Hearing aid owners responded to the questionnaire, indicating the relative importance of 14 different elements in their hearing aid satisfaction. Analyses indicated that the elements could be placed into four importance content areas. Trial satisfaction items were designed for each content area and submitted to focus groups to identify highly salient items as well as ambiguous items. A 25-item satisfaction questionnaire then was developed and disseminated to hearing aid owners. Results were obtained from 257 individuals. These data were analyzed to generate the final questionnaire. Fifteen items, divided into four subscales, were selected for the final Satisfaction with Amplification in Daily Life (SADL) questionnaire. The questionnaire yields a Global satisfaction score and a profile of subscale scores, which address Positive Effects, Service and Cost, Negative Features, and Personal Image. A preliminary evaluation of retest stability was conducted with 104 subjects. Ninety percent critical differences for the various scores ranged from 0.9 to 2.0 score intervals on a 7 point scale. The SADL scale is both brief enough to be clinically acceptable and comprehensive enough to provide a valid assessment of an inherently multidimensional variable. Additional assessment is necessary to refine understanding of its test-retest properties, explore validity issues, and determine clinical, research, and administrative applications of the data.