Ambiguous Scale Research Articles

The decision-making process in learners’ failure using fuzzy scale

This study aims to determine how to use an ambiguous scale to assess student performance and proficiency, whether students perform well or poorly in subjects such as reading comprehension, vocabulary, and punctuation. In this study, Sugeno Integral is a good choice for decision-making. Although other scales may be better than the one used, Sugeno Integral is easier to use than different scales, as evidenced by the results obtained.

Conductors' tempo choices shed light over Beethoven's metronome.

During most part of Western classical music history, tempo, the speed of music, was not specified, for it was considered obvious from musical context. Only in 1815, Maelzel patented the metronome. Beethoven immediately embraced it, so much as to add tempo marks to his already published eight symphonies. However, these marks are still under dispute, as many musicians consider them too quick to be played and even unmusical, whereas others claim them as Bethoven's supposedly written will. In this work, we develop a methodology to extract and analyze the performed tempi from 36 complete symphonic recordings by different conductors. Our results show that conductor tempo choices reveal a systematic deviation from Beethoven's marks, which highlights the salience of "correct tempo" as a perceptive phenomenon shaped by cultural context. The hasty nature of these marks could be explained by the metronome's ambiguous scale reading point, which Beethoven probably misinterpreted.

영어 쓰기 평가에서 학생 예시글을 이용한 평가 등급표 타당화

The purposes of this study are 1) to explore essay selection process to find out representative writing examples for a four-point rating scale, and 2) to validate rating scales based on the analysis of the key features of essays selected. In performance assessment, assessors have been confronted with challenging situations due to abstract and ambiguous scale descriptors, and insufficient rating practices. Benchmark essays (sample essays) are an alternative for assessors to improve the rating validity and to maintain their consistency. The rating data were derived from multiple ratings of seven assessors on 38 essays. Using a four-point scale with assessment criteria, assessors first gave scores on holistic score, then analytical scores on content, organization, and language use. The collected data were analyzed using the Many-Faceted Rasch Model (MFRM) and K-mean cluster analysis. The results showed that seven out of eight essays were representative for the rating scale, with one essay showing the unsuitable misfit statistic. Scale descriptors were modified based on the analysis of essays chosen. Implications of the findings were discussed in reference to the modifications of rating scale descriptors, improving assessor reliability, and writing instruction in EFL.

Active Sampling Exploiting Reliable Informativeness for Subjective Image Quality Assessment Based on Pairwise Comparison

Subjective image quality assessment (IQA) based on pairwise comparison (PC) overcome the shortcomings of IQA based on category rating, such as an ambiguous scale definition. However, the testing scale of PC tests can be very large, as the number of image pairs for comparison is a quadratic form of the number of images. To conduct PC tests on a large-scale image set with limited budget, an active sampling strategy to reduce testing scale is required. The conventional active sampling strategies usually select the most informative sample and assume that any image pair's correct label can be obtained from any subjects who are attentive. However, this is not true for IQA, because of human visual system's limitation. If two images are similar, their difference can be too subtle for some subjects to perceive. It means that it takes subjects more effort to obtain correct preference labels of two similar images, and that it is even impossible to obtain the correct preference labels of two images that are too similar. To address this issue, we study the reliability of preference labels. Based on the combination of reliability and informativeness, we design a new active sampling framework. It not only considers the informativeness, but also adjusts the effort spent on an image pair according to its ambiguity. Experiments show that this adjustment can effectively improve the performance of sampling strategies only based on informativeness. Besides, the proposed method is expected to be applied to more general subjective tests based on PC beyond IQA.

Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Early Psychosis

Relapse following stabilization of acute psychotic symptoms is common. Psychosocial intervention following stabilization is essential to improve long-term outcome in patients with first-episode or recent-onset psychosis. The present study investigated the efficacy of group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in further improving clinical status in stable outpatients with first-episode or recent-onset (≤5 years) psychosis. Twenty four patients participated in 12 weekly sessions. Clinical variables were assessed pre- and post-treatment. Primary outcome measures were the Ambiguous Intention Hostility Questionnaire, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, and Psychotic Symptoms Rating Scales. Secondary outcome measures included self-report scales evaluating emotion, functioning, insight, and schemas. Treatment significantly improved the primary and most of the secondary outcome measures. Insight was not significantly changed. Moderate correlations were observed between the primary and some secondary outcome measures. The results indicate that group CBT further improves the clinical status of stable outpatients with first-episode or recent-onset psychosis.

Response Scale Ambiguity as a Moderator of the Choice Shift

The vast majority of choice shift inquiry employs choice dilemma (CD) items. In the main, responses to CD items are scaled by asking participants to report the odds of the risky response being successful before they would attempt it. Recent research challenges the validity of the odds scale. This article reports the results of two experiments that demonstrate that response scale ambiguity influences the interpretation of choice shift processes. Specifically, response scale ambiguity moderates the impact of social comparison and persuasive arguments processes. The former is more potent when the ambiguous odds scale is used, whereas the latter exerts a stronger impact when the less ambiguous Likert scale is employed.

Scale-checking styles on the semantic differential among older people.

Two groups of older (60 plus) respondents, matched on age but differing in educational level, and a group of young university undergraduates were compared for scale-checking styles on the Semantic Differential. Subjects rated six concepts pertaining to stages of life on 27 pairs of bipolar adjectives. Although the three groups did not differ in frequency of endorsing extreme scale positions, the less well-educated older group showed a greater tendency to use fewer intermediate scale positions and more neutral midpoint positions than either the undergraduates or the group of retired professors emeriti. Data were interpreted as a propensity for older people to emphasize concrete, well-anchored scale positions in making ambiguous multiple-point scale discriminations, a tendency related to educational background but not to age per se.