Degree Of Semantic Overlap Research Articles

Liking music with and without sadness: Testing the direct effect hypothesis of pleasurable negative emotion.

Negative emotion evoked in listeners of music can produce intense pleasure, but we do not fully understand why. The present study addressed the question by asking participants (n = 50) to self-select a piece of sadness-evoking music that was loved. The key part of the study asked participants to imagine that the felt sadness could be removed. Overall participants reported performing the task successfully. They also indicated that the removal of the sadness reduced their liking of the music, and 82% of participants reported that the evoked sadness also adds to the enjoyment of the music. The study provided evidence for a "Direct effect hypothesis", which draws on the multicomponent model of emotion, where a component of the negative emotion is experienced as positive during music (and other aesthetic) experiences. Earlier evidence of a mediator, such as 'being moved', as the source of enjoyment was reinterpreted in light of the new findings. Instead, the present study applied a semantic overlap explanation, arguing that sadness primes emotions that share meaning with sadness, such as being-moved. The priming occurs if the overlap in meaning is sufficient. The degree of semantic overlap was defined empirically. The present study therefore suggests that mediator-based explanations need to be treated with caution both as a finding of the study, and because of analytic limitations in earlier research that are discussed in the paper.

Meaning differences between the inputs to syntactic blends

AbstractWhen speakers combine (or blend) expressions – that is, utter them in overlapping fashion – there is usually some degree of semantic overlap between the expressions. There is much agreement on this point. Some authors have gone further and suggested that the expressions involved are usually synonyms or near-synonyms. Others have gone further still, claiming, at least implicitly, that blends always involve synonyms or near-synonyms. In this paper I show that in many cases where expressions are combined they differ substantially in meaning, in some cases even expressing distinguishable events. I show that there is regularity in the nature of the differences in meaning, and that the differences often correspond to construal distinctions identified in the cognitive linguistics literature. Four degrees of semantic overlap between combined expressions are identified: synonymy; subsumption, where the meaning of one expression encompasses that of the other as well as contributing a bit extra; partial complementarity, where each expression conveys some element of meaning not conveyed by the other; and distinctness. Despite the parsing cost to the hearer of the speaker combining two expressions rather than choosing one over the other, the many cases of partial complementarity can be seen as serving a useful purpose. By combining semantic content that is not conventionally combined the speaker can cover more of his/her intended meaning. And by combining different construals of the same semantic content (e.g. interpretive and descriptive, different viewpoints, stative and dynamic, agentive and non-agentive, etc.) the speaker can equivocate in areas where conventionally a commitment is required. Twelve recurrent meaning differences are illustrated with examples from three different datasets.

Content integration across multiple documents reduces memory for sources

The current experiments systematically examined semantic content integration as a mechanism for explaining source inattention and forgetting when reading-to-remember multiple texts. For all 3 experiments, degree of semantic overlap was manipulated amongst messages provided by various information sources. In Experiment 1, readers’ source recognition was significantly poorer when the sources presented semantically-congruent compared to semantically-distinct messages. Experiment 2 replicated the findings, despite half of the participants receiving a pre-reading warning. Experiment 3 extended the examination to include longer argument-based texts; readers additionally wrote a comprehensive essay on the topic. The results indicated longer reading times and better recall memory for the claims and evidence statements from semantically-congruent compared to semantically-distinct texts, while still reproducing the poorer source recognition effects of Experiments 1 and 2. We discuss implications for contemporary accounts of multiple text comprehension as well as directions for future research.

Semantic gradients in picture-word interference tasks: is the size of interference effects affected by the degree of semantic overlap?

We report two experiments attempting to identify the role of semantic relatedness in picture-word interference studies. Previously published data sets have rendered results which directly contradict each other, with one study suggesting that the stronger the relation between picture and distractor, the more semantic interference is obtained, and another study suggesting the opposite pattern. We replicated the two key experiments with only minor procedural modifications, and found semantic interference effects in both. Critically, these were largely independent of the strength of semantic overlap. Additionally, we attempted to predict individual interference effects per target picture, via various measures of semantic overlap, which also failed to account for the effects. From our results it appears that semantic interference effects in picture-word tasks are similarly present for weakly and strongly overlapping combinations. Implications are discussed in the light of the recent debate on the role of competition in lexical selection.

A New Algorithm for Semantic Web Service Matching

Considering the existing problems in Web service such as lack of semantic information and interoperability, atomic services can not cooperate with each other and be combined into composite services. In this paper, based on extended UDDI, we present a semantic annotation framework for Web service description and composition. The novel service matching algorithm not only takes into account the height factor of ontology tree and local density factor for the impact of semantic distance, but also the degree of semantic overlap. Experimental results show that the proposed service matching algorithm improved the efficiency of Web service discovery, and thus Web service can be composed easily to form more complicated inter-related services.

Effects of the degree of meaning similarity on cross-language semantic priming in highly proficient bilinguals

This study aimed to determine if access to meaning can be directly achieved from the words in the two languages, examining the influence of the degree of semantic overlap between related words across languages in the pattern of priming effects. Nonassociative semantically related words (members of the same category) were used, avoiding explicitly associative relationships. Using a priming paradigm, highly proficient Catalan–Spanish bilinguals were visually presented with pairs of words that either were translations of each other, had a very close semantic relationship (in terms of shared features), a close semantic relationship, or no semantic relationship at all. Participants performed either a lexical decision task (Experiment 1) or a semantic decision task (Experiment 2). The main results of the study were the same in both language directions (Spanish–Catalan and Catalan–Spanish), showing that the degree of semantic overlap (in terms of shared features) between words in different languages can modulate priming effects, regardless of the language of the prime and the task used. These results demonstrate that there is cross-language activation of shared semantic representations and, thus, that highly proficient bilinguals can have direct access to word meaning from the two languages.

Retroactive interference from translation equivalents: Implications for first language forgetting

First language vocabulary is vulnerable to forgetting after massive exposure to a second language. Two possible factors responsible for the forgetting are degree of semantic overlap between concepts in the two languages and amount of second language exposure. In a laboratory simulation of the language forgetting situation, participants received 10 exposures to a list of words in a foreign language, followed by 2, 5, 10, or 15 exposures to a list in a second foreign language. The second list consisted of either translation equivalents or new concepts. Participants were then tested for retention of the first list. More retroactive interference was found for translation equivalents than for new concepts and for higher degrees of exposure to the second list. When retention of the first list was broken down in terms of gains and losses, effects of both similarity of the second list to the first and amount of exposure to the second list were found only for losses--a fact that points to lack of discriminability as one of the underlying causes of forgetting. Overall, the experimental paradigm proved useful for exploring and developing theories about the causes of first language forgetting.

German Synonyms: A Bibliography of Works Explaining Their Usage

items in the language which show a large degree of semantic overlap. The selection is wide-ranging and draws on sources intended for diverse audiences, from the interested layperson who is addressed in such 'popular' periodicals as Sprachdicnst, to linguists concerned with lexical fields and lexical semantics in general (where German examples are employed). The principles of selection were: 1) books and articles published from 1945 through 1987; 2) studies which treat not only German synonyms but also those which deal with German synonyms and their lexical differences from English; 3) articles and books which explain differences rather than list synonyms. Important reference works are listed first, followed by monographs and books, and finally by articles, both those found in journals as well as those which have appeared in various collections of articles. For each article the words treated are