Relative Judgments Research Articles

한국어 동철동음 및 중다의미 동사의 표상에 관한 연구

Two experiments were performed to investigate whether meanings of Korean ambiguous verbs are represented distinctly or as single core meanings in the mental lexicon. In experiment 1, participants were asked to determine to determine how sentences which used the same ambiguous verbs were relevant to each other by performing on a computerized program. The relatedness judgement task were measured in the same meaning context and the different meaning context. In Experiment 2, sensicality judgement data of the phrases that contained the ambiguous verbs were obtained just after the verbs were proceed as specific meanings. he results of Experiments 1 and 2 suggested single core representation in the case of the polysemous verbs, and meanings of homonymous verbs are represented as distinct lexical entries. Some limits were discussed in terms of the previous research on the representation of ambiguous verbs, and directions for future research were suggested.

A test of the symbol interdependency hypothesis with both concrete and abstract stimuli.

In Experiment 1, the symbol interdependency hypothesis was tested with both concrete and abstract stimuli. Symbolic (i.e., semantic neighbourhood distance) and embodied (i.e., iconicity) factors were manipulated in two tasks—one that tapped symbolic relations (i.e., semantic relatedness judgment) and another that tapped embodied relations (i.e., iconicity judgment). Results supported the symbol interdependency hypothesis in that the symbolic factor was recruited for the semantic relatedness task and the embodied factor was recruited for the iconicity task. Across tasks, and especially in the iconicity task, abstract stimuli resulted in shorter RTs. This finding was in contrast to the concreteness effect where concrete words result in shorter RTs. Experiment 2 followed up on this finding by replicating the iconicity task from Experiment 1 in an ERP paradigm. Behavioural results continued to show a reverse concreteness effect with shorter RTs for abstract stimuli. However, ERP results paralleled the N400 and anterior N700 concreteness effects found in the literature, with more negative amplitudes for concrete stimuli.

Phonological and semantic priming in American Sign Language: N300 and N400 effects

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the electrophysiological signatures of phonological and semantic priming in American Sign Language (ASL). Deaf signers made semantic relatedness judgments to pairs of ASL signs separated by a 1300 ms prime-target SOA. Phonologically related sign pairs shared two of three phonological parameters (handshape, location, and movement). Target signs preceded by phonologically related and semantically related prime signs elicited smaller negativities within the N300 and N400 windows than those preceded by unrelated primes. N300 effects, typically reported in studies of picture processing, are interpreted to reflect the mapping from the visual features of the signs to more abstract linguistic representations. N400 effects, consistent with rhyme priming effects in the spoken language literature, are taken to index lexico-semantic processes that appear to be largely modality independent. Together, these results highlight both the unique visual-manual nature of sign languages and the linguistic processing characteristics they share with spoken languages.

Utility and regulatory decision-making under conditions of uncertainty: Balancing resilience and affordability

Public utilities and their regulators frequently make decisions in conditions of uncertainty, where it can be difficult to confidently assign probabilities to possible future states. Choices can be particularly challenging where a utility faces requirements both to ensure that a system is resilient in terms of meeting service levels and quality standards, and that utility rates are affordable. This paper explores how utilities and regulators might respond to uncertainty, and sets out a menu of factors to guide decision-making. The paper also identifies some challenges for utilities and regulators in adapting their decision-making to account for uncertainty, balancing the objectives of resilience and affordability, determining who should make judgments in relation to this balance (consumers, regulators or experts), and allocating the risks associated with uncertainty across different parties (utilities, consumers, or taxpayers).

Robust, domain‐specific effects of prior context in risk preferences for pension choice

AbstractEvidence that context changes measured risk preferences raises concerns about the practice of measuring financial risk attitude in one context to guide investment choice. We found that participants who first made choices between pairs of high (low) risk pension funds subsequently preferred higher (lower) risk funds when offered a choice from a wider range of funds. This effect was also observed when the riskiness of the initial pension funds was manipulated within subjects. Effects were not influenced by order, or attenuated by a bias warning. Tests across the domains of recreational and financial risk found that context effects are domain specific and that they influence both choices and judgments. Our results are consistent with theories of relative judgement. However, we also observed some evidence of sensitivity to absolute values. From an applied perspective, understanding such contextual sensitivity is important for recognising the limitations of risk profiling tools as part of a regulated financial advice process.

Fostering the Understanding of Positive Test Results.

The majority of health-service users seem unable to properly compute the positive predictive value of medical tests. The research reported in the present study sought to investigate whether, and to what extent, probabilistic inferences about a positive test result can be improved by changing the traditional way in which probability judgments are elicited and medical information is presented. Online survey respondents were presented with a positive test result regarding a pregnant woman, and had to estimate the chances that her unborn baby had an anomaly (standard judgment), to apportion the numbers of chances for and against this hypothesis (distributive judgment), and to indicate whether the hypothesis that the baby had an anomaly was more or less likely than its alternative (relative judgment). Test sensitivity and information framing were also manipulated. Irrespective of education and to some extent of numeracy, the majority of respondents produced correct distributive assessments of chances, which were in line with relative judgments and more accurate than standard ones. When information displayed exclusively positive test results, inferences resulted further improved and unaffected by test sensitivity. Simple communication strategies that prompt extensional reasoning on the relevant set of number of chances can help individuals to overcome probabilistic inference errors.

Reflecting on the use and abuse of scientific data facilitates students’ ethical and epistemological development

AbstractScientists use judgment in deciding what and how much data to present in publications but science degrees rarely address this issue. Instead, scientific knowledge is presented as certain and students have limited opportunities to use their own judgment in the laboratory. A consequence of this may be that students approach science with a moral absolutist mindset, believing that science is about learning facts and scientists have little need to exercise ethical judgments in relation to data. Students may also hold different ethical standards for themselves and professional scientists. We draw on data from a first‐year science module to show that these views can be challenged by encouraging students to reflect on their own behavior and that of famous scientists in situations with varying degrees of professional ethical ambiguity. We provide evidence of significant transitions in students’ thinking, suggesting that reflection on these issues may lead to substantial epistemological and ethical development. By the end of the module, many students had moved from an initial position of certainty to the acceptance of multiple viewpoints or to a more mature understanding of the evidence‐based nature of science, as well as gaining the ability to critique decisions and make ethical judgments.

Rapid L2 Word Learning through High Constraint Sentence Context: An Event-Related Potential Study.

Previous studies have found quantity of exposure, i.e., frequency of exposure (Horst et al., 1998; Webb, 2008; Pellicer-Sánchez and Schmitt, 2010), is important for second language (L2) contextual word learning. Besides this factor, context constraint and L2 proficiency level have also been found to affect contextual word learning (Pulido, 2003; Tekmen and Daloglu, 2006; Elgort et al., 2015; Ma et al., 2015). In the present study, we adopted the event-related potential (ERP) technique and chose high constraint sentences as reading materials to further explore the effects of quantity of exposure and proficiency on L2 contextual word learning. Participants were Chinese learners of English with different English proficiency levels. For each novel word, there were four high constraint sentences with the critical word at the end of the sentence. Learners read sentences and made semantic relatedness judgment afterwards, with ERPs recorded. Results showed that in the high constraint condition where each pseudoword was embedded in four sentences with consistent meaning, N400 amplitude upon this pseudoword decreased significantly as learners read the first two sentences. High proficiency learners responded faster in the semantic relatedness judgment task. These results suggest that in high quality sentence contexts, L2 learners could rapidly acquire word meaning without multiple exposures, and L2 proficiency facilitated this learning process.

Destination memory accuracy and confidence in younger and older adults

ABSTRACTBackground/Study Context: Nascent research on destination memory—remembering to whom we tell particular information—suggested that older adults have deficits in destination memory and are more confident on inaccurate responses than younger adults. This study assessed the effects of age, attentional resources, and mental imagery on destination memory accuracy and confidence in younger and older adults.Methods: Using computer format, participants told facts to pictures of famous people in one of four conditions (control, self-focus, refocus, imagery).Results: Older adults had lower destination memory accuracy than younger adults, driven by a higher level of false alarms. Whereas younger adults were more confident in accurate answers, older adults were more confident in inaccurate answers. Accuracy across participants was lowest when attention was directed internally but significantly improved when mental imagery was used. Importantly, the age-related differences in false alarms and high-confidence inaccurate answers disappeared when imagery was used.Conclusion: Older adults are more likely than younger adults to commit destination memory errors and are less accurate in related confidence judgments. Furthermore, the use of associative memory strategies may help improve destination memory across age groups, improve the accuracy of confidence judgments in older adults, and decrease age-related destination memory impairment, particularly in young-old adults.

Evaluating news actors in Chinese hard news reporting: language patterns and social values

Abstract This paper interrogates the ways Chinese journalists judge behaviors of different news actors (individuals or institutions written about in a news report) in Chinese hard news reporting on risk events. Drawing on a newly constructed corpus of hard news reporting and following the appraisal framework, the study examines language patterns of judgement and suggests how lexicogrammatical patterns of judgement, semantic features of judgement and social orders are intimately connected. Corpus analytic findings show that news actors of different social statuses are judged in different manners. Social elites are primarily judged positively in relation to their “capacity” and “tenacity” in dealing with risk situations, whereas ordinary risk makers are mainly judged negatively in relation to their “propriety” in producing risk situations. Additionally, the same judgement marker in the same phraseological pattern may realize different valences of judgement in relation to news actors of different social statuses, and judgement of different news actors tends to select distinctive local patterns. It is argued that such different discursive patterns of judging news actors point to the distinction in the way social values are (re)produced and journalistic professional practices undertaken in the production of Chinese hard news.

Self-efficacy in Activities of daily living and symptom management in people with dizziness: a focus group study

Background: Self-efficacy is associated with health status, health behaviour and health behaviour change in various chronic health conditions.Purpose: To describe self-efficacy in relation to Activities of daily living and symptom management in people with dizziness.Material and methods: Thirteen women and three men, aged 45–82 years, with persistent dizziness (duration 4 months to 30 years) were recruited from an outpatient physiotherapy unit. A qualitative study was conducted using four focus groups and one individual interview and was then analysed with qualitative content analysis.Results: The participants conveyed, in-depth information concerning two predefined main categories. Self-efficacy in Activities of daily living was related to challenging body positions and motions, environments, social activities, work tasks, and complex cognitive behaviours. Self-efficacy in symptom management was related to distress and aggravated symptoms, unfamiliar environment, and unknown people.Conclusions: People with dizziness describe how self-efficacy for specific activities varies according to the perceived difficulty of the task, the context of the activity, and day-to-day variations in general wellbeing. The results underscore the importance of targeting self-efficacy in the rehabilitation of people with dizziness. Our findings can guide the rehabilitation process by providing a deeper understanding of self-efficacy judgements in relation to Activities of daily living and symptom management in people with dizziness.Implication for rehabilitationThis study adds important in-depth knowledge to the rehabilitation area on self-efficacy beliefs in relation to Activities of daily living and symptom management in people with dizziness.Self-efficacy for specific activities varies according to the perceived difficulty of the task, the context in which the activity takes place and day-to-day variations in perceived general well-being.The results can be used as a topic list to guide rehabilitation efforts in exploring and intervening aspects of people’s everyday activities that are affected by low self-efficacy judgements.Activities perceived to be crucial to everyday life and important for well-being should be targeted in rehabilitation to increase self-efficacy and thereby activity performance and participation in people with dizziness.

A meta-ethnography of the facilitators and barriers to successful implementation of patient complaints processes in health-care settings.

ObjectiveTo synthesize experiences of the patient complaints process for patients and health‐care professionals to identify facilitators and barriers in the successful implementation of patient complaints processes. This will assist the development of cultural change programmes, enabling complaints managers to incorporate stakeholder perspectives into future care.DesignSystematic literature search and meta‐ethnography, comprising reciprocal syntheses of “patient” and “professional” qualitative studies, combined to form a “line‐of‐argument” embodying both perspectives.Data sources MEDLINE, CINAHL and PsycINFO (database inception to April 2015) were searched to identify international literature in primary and secondary health‐care settings, involving qualitative data collection and analysis. Further studies were identified from hand‐searching relevant journals, contacting authors, article reference lists and Google Scholar.ResultsA total of 13 papers, reporting 9 studies from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand, were included in the synthesis. Facilitators and barriers to the successful implementation of patient complaints processes were identified across the perspectives of both patients and health‐care professionals. Patients sought to individualize the complaints process by targeting specific professionals who engaged in practices that undermined the identity of patients. In contrast, professionals obscured their own individualism through maintaining a collective identity and withholding personal judgement in relation to patient complaints.ConclusionsComplainants recognized health‐care professionals as bearers of individual accountability for unsatisfactory care, in opposition to the stance of collective responsibility endorsed by professionals. Implementation of patient complaints processes must reconcile the need for individualized resolution, whilst striving to improve the future provision of health care through a collaborative approach between patients and professionals.

A STEP BACK IN THE PROTECTION OF MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS: THE GRAND CHAMBER’S JUDGMENT IN KHLAIFIA V. ITALY

On 15 December 2016 the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights adopted the judgment in Khlaifia and Others v. Italy. The case was referred to the Grand Chamber by Italy following the judgment released by the Second Section of the Court on 1 September 2015. The case concerns the detention and the ensuing repatriation to Tunisia of three irregular immigrants who arrived in Italy in 2011 during the “Arab Spring”. The judgment of the Grand Chamber confirms the Chamber’s judgment in relation to some important aspects, finding a violation of Article 5, paragraphs (1)(2) and (4), and of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 3, and recognising no violation of Article 3 as to the conditions in which the applicants were held on the ships Vincent and Audace in the harbour of Palermo. On the contrary, the Grand Chamber distances itself from the Chamber’s assessment concerning the respect of Article 3 in relation to the conditions in which the applicants were held in the Centro di soccorso e prima accoglienza (Centre for Rescue and Initial Reception) on Lampedusa, of Article 4 Protocol No. 4 and of Article 13 ECHR taken together with Article 4 Protocol No. 4 ECHR, as the majority in the Chamber found the violation of these articles. This note analyses the differences between the two judgments, emphasising possible implications for the protection of the rights of migrants in Europe. In this context, the European Union “hotspot approach” and the Italian “Decreto Minniti” are also considered.

Derogating Innocent Victims: The Effects of Relative Versus Absolute Character Judgments

Drawing on just-world theory and research into the suppression and justification of prejudice, we propose that the use of relative compared with absolute measures of an innocent victim's character enables observers to derogate the victim without transparently violating social norms or values proscribing derogation. In Study 1, we found that positive feelings expressed toward victims mirrored social norms proscribing negative reactions toward them. In Studies 2a, 2b, and 3, innocent victims were evaluated more negatively when ratings were made using relative (i.e., compared with evaluations of the average student or the self) versus absolute scales. In Study 4, this effect of scale type on derogation was stronger for people higher in the motivation to avoid prejudiced reactions to victims. Relative judgments seem to allow individuals to enact their counternormative motivation to derogate the victim under the cover of ambiguity and ostensibly rationally motivated social comparison processes.

Making Sense of the Initial Home visit: The Role of Intuition in Child and Family Social Workers’ Assessments of Risk

This article conceptualises the role of intuition in professional judgement. It draws on findings from an empirical study of home visiting in child and family social work. The study used a psychosocial analysis of narrative interviews (n = 18) to investigate how workers constructed a professional judgement in relation to an initial home visit. In contrast to deliberative or analytic reasoning, intuition is defined as a non-conscious mode of reasoning, allowing the individual to reach a rapid judgement about a situation or person, often with striking accuracy. In this study, CFSWs’ intuitions during their first encounter with the family were an important source of information for their assessment of risk – their emotional responses, ‘niggles’ and ‘gut feelings’ sensitised them to potentially salient information before it was rationally accessible. The study identifies five patterns used by Child and Family Social Workers (CFSWs) to assess risk during the initial encounter with parents: openness, coherence, emotional congruence, child focus and personal responsibility. It is argued that intuition is a product of experience, and is an important part of CFSWs’ decision-making toolkit. However, when accepted uncritically, intuitive reasoning can represent a risk for professional judgement through the creation of bias. The article identifies specific biases relevant to judgements made on the basis of an initial visit.

Phonological ambiguity modulates resolution of semantic ambiguity during reading: An fMRI study of Hebrew.

The current fMRI study examined the role of phonology in the extraction of meaning from print in each hemisphere by comparing homophonic and heterophonic homographs (ambiguous words in which both meanings have the same or different sounds respectively, e.g., bank or tear). The analysis distinguished between the first phase, in which participants read ambiguous words without context, and the second phase in which the context resolves the ambiguity. Native Hebrew readers were scanned during semantic relatedness judgments on pairs of words in which the first word was either a homophone or a heterophone and the second word was related to its dominant or subordinate meaning. In Phase 1 there was greater activation for heterophones in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), pars opercularis, and more activation for homophones in bilateral IFG pars orbitalis, suggesting that resolution of the conflict at the phonological level has abolished the semantic ambiguity for heterophones. Reduced activation for all ambiguous words in temporo-parietal regions suggests that although ambiguity enhances controlled lexical selection processes in frontal regions it reduces reliance on bottom-up mapping processes. After presentation of the context, a larger difference between the dominant and subordinate meaning was found for heterophones in all reading-related regions, suggesting a greater engagement for heterophones with the dominant meaning. Altogether these results are consistent with the prominent role of phonological processing in visual word recognition. Finally, despite differences in hemispheric asymmetry between homophones and heterophones, ambiguity resolution, even toward the subordinate meaning, is largely left lateralized. (PsycINFO Database Record

Social and Nonsocial Relational Reasoning in Adolescence and Adulthood.

Reasoning during social interactions requires the individual manipulation of mental representations of one’s own traits and those of other people as well as their joint consideration (relational integration). Research using nonsocial paradigms has linked relational integration to activity in the rostrolateral PFC. Here, we investigated whether social reasoning is supported by the same general system or whether it additionally relies on regions of the social brain network, such as the medial PFC. We further assessed the development of social reasoning. In the social task, participants evaluated themselves or a friend, or compared themselves with their friend, on a series of traits. In the nonsocial task, participants evaluated their hometown or another town or compared the two. In a behavioral study involving 325 participants (11–39 years old), we found that integrating relations, compared with performing single relational judgments, improves during adolescence, both for social and nonsocial information. Thirty-nine female participants (10–31 years old) took part in a neuroimaging study using a similar task. Activation of the relational integration network, including the rostrolateral PFC, was observed in the comparison condition of both the social and nonsocial tasks, whereas the medial PFC showed greater activation when participants processed social as opposed to nonsocial information across conditions. Developmentally, the right anterior insula showed greater activity in adolescents compared with adults during the comparison of nonsocial versus social information. This study shows parallel recruitment of the social brain and the relational reasoning network during the relational integration of social information in adolescence and adulthood.

Sequentially increasing or decreasing data and relative judgments among different cultures

Sequentially increasing or decreasing data and relative judgments among different cultures

Decision making about healthcare-related tests and diagnostic test strategies. Paper 3: a systematic review shows limitations in most tools designed to assess quality and develop recommendations

ObjectivesThe objective of this study was to identify and describe critical appraisal tools designed for assessing the quality of evidence (QoE) and/or strength of recommendations (SoRs) related to health care–related tests and diagnostic strategies (HCTDSs). Study Design and SettingWe conducted a systematic review to identify tools applied in guidelines, methodological articles, and systematic reviews to assess HCTDS. ResultsWe screened 5,534 titles and abstracts, 1,004 full-text articles, and abstracted data from 330 references. We identified 29 tools and 14 modifications of existing tools for assessing QoE and SoR. Twenty-three out of 29 tools acknowledge the importance of assessing the QoE and SoR separately, but in 8, the SoR is based solely on QoE. When making decisions about the use of tests, patient values and preferences and impact on resource utilization were considered in 6 and 8 tools, respectively. There is also confusion about the terminology that describes the various factors that influence the QoE and SoR. ConclusionAlthough at least one approach includes all relevant criteria for assessing QoE and determining SoR, more detailed guidance about how to operationalize these assessments and make related judgments will be beneficial. There is a need for a better description of the framework for using evidence to make decisions and develop recommendations about HCTDS.

The semantic distance task: Quantifying semantic distance with semantic network path length.

Semantic distance is a determining factor in cognitive processes, such as semantic priming, operating upon semantic memory. The main computational approach to compute semantic distance is through latent semantic analysis (LSA). However, objections have been raised against this approach, mainly in its failure at predicting semantic priming. We propose a novel approach to computing semantic distance, based on network science methodology. Path length in a semantic network represents the amount of steps needed to traverse from 1 word in the network to the other. We examine whether path length can be used as a measure of semantic distance, by investigating how path length affect performance in a semantic relatedness judgment task and recall from memory. Our results show a differential effect on performance: Up to 4 steps separating between word-pairs, participants exhibit an increase in reaction time (RT) and decrease in the percentage of word-pairs judged as related. From 4 steps onward, participants exhibit a significant decrease in RT and the word-pairs are dominantly judged as unrelated. Furthermore, we show that as path length between word-pairs increases, success in free- and cued-recall decreases. Finally, we demonstrate how our measure outperforms computational methods measuring semantic distance (LSA and positive pointwise mutual information) in predicting participants RT and subjective judgments of semantic strength. Thus, we provide a computational alternative to computing semantic distance. Furthermore, this approach addresses key issues in cognitive theory, namely the breadth of the spreading activation process and the effect of semantic distance on memory retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record