Action Language Research Articles

Embodied Semantics: Early Simultaneous Motor Grounding in First and Second Languages

Background/Objectives: Although the embodiment of action-related language is well-established in the mother tongue (L1), less is known about the embodiment of a second language (L2) acquired later in life through formal instruction. We used the high temporal resolution of ERPs and topographic ERP analyses to compare embodiment in L1 and L2 and to investigate whether L1 and L2 are embodied with different strengths at different stages of linguistic processing. Methods: Subjects were presented with action-related and non-action-related verbs in a silent reading task. Subjects were late French–German and German–French bilinguals, respectively, and we could therefore collapse across languages to avoid common confounding between language (French and German) and order of acquisition (L1, L2). Results: We could show distinct effects of embodiment and language. Embodiment affected only the sensory and lexical stages of processing with increased strength and power of the N1 component for motor vs. non-motor verbs, and language affected the lexical and semantic stages of processing with stronger P2/N400 components for L2 than for L1. Non-motor verbs elicited a stronger P1 component in L2. Conclusions: Our results suggest that processing words in L2 requires more effortful processing. Importantly, L1 and L2 are not embodied differently, and embodiment affects early and similar stages of processing in L1 and L2, possibly integrating other process of action–language interaction

A Study of Multimodal Communicative Acts in Selected Nollywood Film Advertisement Posters

Movie posters employ multiple modes of communication in their display to communicate with the audience. Identifying the modes and the meanings realised through them as projected in most scholarly works on film posters are not sufficient in interpreting the intentional goals of the image designers or advertisers. It is against this backdrop that this article articulates the pragmatic functions of Nollywood film posters’ advertising language as a form of language in action and intention in the situational context of users. Eight (8) Nollywood film advertisement posters which were purposively selected were analysed using insights from van Leeuwen’s (2005) theory of multimodal communicative acts and Bach and Harnish’s (1979) speech acts theory. The findings from the analysis reveal that communicative acts of informing, stating, expressing, describing and asserting are frequently demonstrated via visual and verbal modes in the advertisement posters. The less employed multimodal communicative acts are questioning and ordering. These multimodal communicative acts utilised demonstrate the persuasive illocutionary and communicative intentions of Nollywood film advertisers which is primarily aimed at enhancing viewing patronage. The article concludes that the adaptability of Nollywood advertisement posters to the context and situation of users is considered pertinent to the appropriate interpretation of meanings realised from the complex modes of communication employed in them.

Effective action approach to the dynamical map

The dynamical map represents a fundamental concept in quantum field theory, providing a solution of the field equations in the Fock space of asymptotic fields. In this paper, we show how to express the dynamical map of a scalar field in the language of quantum effective action. This grants us new insights into the study of topological defects in quantum field theory by showing a connection between the usual least-action principle and Umezawa’s boson transformation method.

LEARNING GERMAN BASED ON TEXTS

The focus of the paper is text analysis at this point in text linguistics’ evolution. It clarifies the views of both foreign and domestic linguists on how to define the term “text” and examines the research methods used in this area of study. Modern linguistics needs new principles and methods of text formation that are based on corpus linguistics. The study of language and speech is also impossible without the anthropocentric and speech principle, which is formed in perspective: man and language. In this regard, his role in the text is of great importance. In the paper, special emphasis is placed on teaching German as a “foreign” language using the text as a higher-level communicative unit, an informative code that is addressed from the subject to the object. The text should contain cognitive material, have educational opportunities, be comprehensible, arouse interest and have feedback from the learners. Of course, the perception of the text depends on many aspects: the lexical and grammatical base of the students, their general knowledge, experience, etc. While working with the text, you should not only pay attention to phonetics, grammar, vocabulary, etc., but also to the subject matter of the texts, which should be interesting to students. We believe that it is very effective to use newspaper texts related to education, life of young people in Ukraine and abroad, hobbies, sports, medicine, political and economic issues, etc. Approaching the study and description of the language in action is essential for interacting with the text (be it artistic, journalistic, scientific, etc.). This is an excellent chance for students to discover and apply the knowledge they have learned.

The role of embodied cognition in action language comprehension in L1 and L2

In this study we carried out a behavioral experiment comparing action language comprehension in L1 (Italian) and L2 (English). Participants were Italian native speakers who had acquired the second language late (after the age of 10). They performed semantic judgments on L1 and L2 literal, idiomatic and metaphorical action sentences after viewing a video of a hand performing an action that was related or unrelated to the verb used in the sentence. Results showed that responses to literal and metaphorical L1 sentences were faster when the action depicted was related to the verb used rather than when the action depicted was unrelated to the verb used. No differences were found for the idiomatic condition. In L2 we found that all responses to the three conditions were facilitated when the action depicted was related to the verb used. Moreover, we found that the difference between the unrelated and the related modalities was greater in L2 than in L1 for the literal and the idiomatic condition but not for the metaphorical condition. These findings are consistent with the embodied cognition hypothesis of language comprehension.

Flexible and fine-grained simulation of speed in language processing.

According to the embodied cognition theory, language comprehension is achieved through mental simulation. This account is supported by a number of studies reporting action simulations during language comprehension. However, which details of sensory-motor experience are included in these simulations is still controversial. Here, three experiments were carried out to examine the simulation of speed in action language comprehension. Experiment 1 adopted a lexical decision task and a semantic similarity judgment task on isolated fast and slow action verbs. It has been shown that fast action verbs were processed significantly faster than slow action verbs when deep semantic processing is required. Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 investigated the contextual influence on the simulation of speed, showing that the processing of verbs, either depicting fast actions or neutral actions, would be slowed down when embedded in the slow action sentences. These experiments together demonstrate that the fine-gained information, speed, is an important part of action representation and can be simulated but may not in an automatic way. Moreover, the speed simulation is flexible and can be modulated by the context.

A correct-by-construction approach for development of reliable planning problems

Abstract The automated planning community has developed a defacto standard planning language called PDDL. Using the PDDL tools, the reliability of PDDL descriptions can only be posterior examined. However, the Event-B method supports a rich refinement technique that is mathematically proven. Indeed, the Event-B method relies on a first-order predicates language and sets (including mathematical functions and relations) to model the data and on a simple action language to model the treatments. A model described in Event-B includes static modeling elements (sets, constants, axioms and theorems) and dynamic modeling elements (variables, invariant properties and events). Moreover, the Event-B method allows the step-by-step correct construction of Event-B models. To specify and solve the planning problems, a development process based on the combination of Event-B and PDDL is proposed. Our development process favors the obtaining of reliable PDDL description from an ultimate Event-B model using our Event-B2PDDL Eclipse plugin. Our process is successfully experimented on the sliding puzzle game.

Towards Epistemic-Doxastic Planning with Observation and Revision

Epistemic planning is useful in situations where multiple agents have different knowledge and beliefs about the world, such as in robot-human interaction. One aspect that has been largely neglected in the literature is planning with observations in the presence of false beliefs. This is a particularly challenging problem because it requires belief revision. We introduce a simple specification language for reasoning about actions with knowledge and belief. We demonstrate our approach on well-known false-belief tasks such as the Sally-Anne Task and compare it to other action languages. Our logic leads to an epistemic planning formalism that is expressive enough to model second-order false-belief tasks, yet has the same computational complexity as classical planning.

From breaking bread to breaking hearts: embodied simulation and action language comprehension

ABSTRACT In this study, we conducted a behavioural experiment using literal, idiomatic, conventional and novel metaphorical action sentences. Participants viewed an action video, immediately after a sentence containing a verb that did (matching modality) or did not (mismatching modality) match the observed action. All the sentences were presented both in the matching modality and the mismatching modality. Participants had to indicate whether the sentence made sense or not by pressing a designated response key. We recorded participants' reaction times and accuracy. We found no significant differences between the matching and mismatching modality in the idiomatic condition. Instead, we found a facilitation effect for the literal and the metaphorical conventional condition in the matching modality compared to the mismatching modality and an interference effect for the metaphorical novel condition in the matching modality compared to the mismatching modality. We interpret these findings in light of the Embodied Cognition approach to language.

Information extraction tool text2alm: From narratives to action language system descriptions and query answering

In this work we design an information extraction tool text2alm capable of narrative understanding with a focus on action verbs. This tool uses an action language ALM to perform inferences on complex interactions of events described in narratives. The methodology used to implement the text2alm system was originally outlined by Lierler, Inclezan, and Gelfond (In IWCS 2017 – 12th International Conference on Computational Semantics – Short Papers (2017)) via a manual process of converting a narrative to an ALM model. We refine that theoretical methodology and utilize it in design of the text2alm system. This system relies on a conglomeration of resources and techniques from two distinct fields of artificial intelligence, namely, (i) knowledge representation and reasoning and (ii) natural language processing. The effectiveness of system text2alm is measured by its ability to correctly answer questions from the bAbI tasks published by Facebook Research in 2015. This tool matched or exceeded the performance of state-of-the-art machine learning methods in six of the seven tested tasks. We also illustrate that the text2alm approach generalizes to a broader spectrum of narratives. On the path to creating system text2alm, a semantic role labeler text2drs was designed. Its unique feature is the use of the elements of the fine grained linguistic ontology VerbNet as semantic roles/labels in annotating considered text. This paper provides an accurate account on the details behind the text2alm and text2drs systems.

RUSSIAN LANGUAGE FOR SPEECH ACTIONS: TO THE ANNIVERSARY OF IGOR G. MILOSLAVSKIY

The article deals with the direction in linguistics focused on the description of the language for productive and receptive speech actions. The developer of this direction, Igor G. Miloslavskiy, proves in his writings that the classification approach is clearly insufficient to describe in full the language understood as activity. Orientation to the reflection of reality and to the understanding of speech activity as a set of receptive and productive actions lead to the understanding that language serves to ensure speaking / writing and understanding when listening and reading. Different initial data (meaning and text) require that the grammars intended for reception and production should have fundamental differences. The speaker/writer’s goal is (ideally) to strive to make an accurate choice of language units and ways of connecting them that correspond to his intention. For a person reading / listening, the most important task is to extract complete and accurate content from lexical and phraseological units in the process of listening or reading, as well as distinguishing between objective and subjective meanings contained in the statement. As convincingly, showed Miloslavskiy, the activity approach to the language, demanded by life and society, is able to ensure the effective development of the linguistics of the future. The article presents a brief review of the works of Igor G. Miloslavskiy and the main stages of his scientific and pedagogical activity, strongly associated with the Lomonosov Moscow State University

No support for a causal role of primary motor cortex in construing meaning from language: An rTMS study

Embodied cognition theories predict a functional involvement of sensorimotor processes in language understanding. In a preregistered experiment, we tested this idea by investigating whether interfering with primary motor cortex (M1) activation can change how people construe meaning from action language. Participants were presented with sentences describing actions (e.g., "turning off the light”) and asked to choose between two interpretations of their meaning, one more concrete (e.g., "flipping a switch") and another more abstract (e.g., "going to sleep"). Prior to this task, participants’ M1 was disrupted using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). The results yielded strong evidence against the idea that M1-rTMS affects meaning construction (BF01 > 30). Additional analyses and control experiments suggest that the absence of effect cannot be accounted for by failure to inhibit M1, lack of construct validity of the task, or lack of power to detect a small effect. In sum, these results do not support a causal role for primary motor cortex in building meaning from action language.

Relationships among the gut microbiome, brain networks, and symptom severity in schizophrenia patients: A mediation analysis

The microbiome-gut-brain axis (MGBA) plays a critical role in schizophrenia (SZ). However, the underlying mechanisms of the interactions among the gut microbiome, brain networks, and symptom severity in SZ patients remain largely unknown. Fecal samples, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) scores were collected from 38 SZ patients and 38 normal controls, respectively. The data of 16S rRNA gene sequencing were used to analyze the abundance of gut microbiome and the analysis of human brain networks was applied to compute the nodal properties of 90 brain regions. A total of 1,691,280 mediation models were constructed based on 261 gut bacterial, 810 nodal properties, and 4 PANSS scores in SZ patients. A strong correlation between the gut microbiome and brain networks (r = 0.89, false discovery rate (FDR) -corrected p < 0.05) was identified. Importantly, the PANSS scores were linearly correlated with both the gut microbiome (r = 0.5, FDR-corrected p < 0.05) and brain networks (r = 0.59, FDR-corrected p < 0.05). The abundance of genus Sellimonas significantly affected the PANSS negative scores of SZ patients via the betweenness centrality of white matter networks in the inferior frontal gyrus and amygdala. Moreover, 19 significant mediation models demonstrated that the nodal properties of 7 brain regions, predominately from the systems of visual, language, and control of action, showed significant mediating effects on the PANSS scores with the gut microbiome as mediators. Together, our findings indicated the tripartite relationships among the gut microbiome, brain networks, and PANSS scores and suggested their potential role in the neuropathology of SZ.

Motor experience modulates neural processing of lexical action language: Evidence from rugby players

The perceptual symbol theory proposes a sensorimotor simulation in language processing, emphasizing the role of motor experience. However, the neural basis of motor experience on lexical-level language processing remains little known. In the current fMRI study, we compared brain activation and task-based functional connectivity in 28 rugby players and 28 novices during rugby- specialized and daily verb processing. Distinct differences were observed between the two groups in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus and left angular gyrus regions during specialized verb processing. Notably, intergroup functional connectivity was evident between the left superior temporal gyrus and the right precentral gyrus during specialized verb processing. This study contributes insights into the neural responses and connectivity patterns associated with motor experience at the lexical level, highlighting its potential impact on language processing.

An answer set programming-based implementation of epistemic probabilistic event calculus

We describe a general procedure for translating Epistemic Probabilistic Event Calculus (EPEC) action language domains into Answer Set Programs (ASP), and show how the Python-driven features of the ASP solver Clingo can be used to provide efficient computation in this probabilistic setting. EPEC supports probabilistic, epistemic reasoning in domains containing narratives that include both an agent's own action executions and environmentally triggered events. Some of the agent's actions may be belief-conditioned, and some may be imperfect sensing actions that alter the strengths of previously held beliefs. We show that our ASP implementation can be used to provide query answers that fully correspond to EPEC's own declarative, Bayesian-inspired semantics.

Mental Simulations and Action Language Are Impaired in Individuals with Aphantasia.

Action reading is thought to engage motor simulations, such as those involved during the generation of mental motor images. These simulations would yield modulations in activity of motor-related cortical regions and contribute to action language comprehension. To test these ideas, we measured corticospinal excitability during action reading, and reading comprehension ability, in individuals with normal and impaired imagery (i.e., phantasia and aphantasia, respectively). Thirty-four participants (17 phantasic and 17 aphantasic) were asked to read manual action sentences. By means of TMS, we triggered motor-evoked potentials in the target right index finger. Motor-evoked potential amplitude, a marker of corticospinal excitability, increased during action reading relative to rest for phantasic individuals, but not for aphantasic individuals. This result provides neurophysiological evidence that individuals living with aphantasia present a real neurophysiological deficit in motor system engagement during action reading. Furthermore, deep-level reading comprehension ability was impaired in individuals with aphantasia, who had difficulty selecting words that best fit the context of sentences. Altogether, these findings support the idea that motor simulations, along with the activation within the motor system, contribute to action language comprehension.

The Economic Politics of Anti‐Displacement Struggle: Connecting Diverse and Community Economies Research with Critical Urban Studies on the Carpenters Estate, London

AbstractThis article explores the economic politics of anti‐displacement struggle, bringing into conversation critical urban studies and diverse and community economies research. It draws on my research and collaboration with a community planning group which emerged from residents’ and businesses’ struggle against displacement on the Carpenters Estate in Newham, London in 2012/13. My analysis makes visible the ways in which anti‐displacement struggle both animates and limits the production of new economic subjectivities, language, and possibilities for collective action. Ideas and tools from diverse and community economies research—lightly held and adapted for specific struggles and contexts—can help to support and strengthen these messy and fragile economic politics. The article advances diverse and community economies research on antagonism and the diversity of capitalism and contributes to re‐orienting critical urban research towards the production of economic alternatives.

Review of Brdar &amp; Brdar-Szabó (2022): Figurative Thought and Language in Action

Review of Brdar &amp; Brdar-Szabó (2022): Figurative Thought and Language in Action

A Unified Logical Framework for Reasoning about Deontic Properties of Actions and States

This paper studies some normative relations that hold between actions, their preconditions and their effects, with particular attention to connecting what are often called ‘ought to be’ norms with ‘ought to do’ norms. We use a formal model based on a form of transition system called a ‘coloured labelled transition system’ (coloured LTS) introduced in a series of papers by Sergot and Craven. Those works have variously presented a formalism (an ‘action language’) nC+ for defining and computing with a (coloured) LTS, and another, separate formalism, a modal language interpreted on a (coloured) LTS used to express its properties. We consolidate these two strands. Instead of specifying the obligatory and prohibited states and transitions as part of the construction of a coloured LTS as in nC+, we represent norms in the modal language and use those to construct a coloured LTS from a given regular (uncoloured) one. We also show how connections between norms on states and norms on transitions previously treated as fixed constraints of a coloured LTS can instead be defined within the modal language used for representing norms.

ERRA: An Embodied Representation and Reasoning Architecture for Long-Horizon Language-Conditioned Manipulation Tasks

This letter introduces ERRA, an embodied learning architecture that enables robots to jointly obtain three fundamental capabilities (reasoning, planning, and interaction) for solving long-horizon language-conditioned manipulation tasks. ERRA is based on tightly-coupled probabilistic inferences at two granularity levels. Coarse-resolution inference is formulated as sequence generation through a large language model, which infers action language from natural language instruction and environment state. The robot then zooms to the fine-resolution inference part to perform the concrete action corresponding to the action language. Fine-resolution inference is constructed as a Markov decision process, which takes action language and environmental sensing as observations and outputs the action. The results of action execution in environments provide feedback for subsequent coarse-resolution reasoning. Such coarse-to-fine inference allows the robot to decompose and achieve long-horizon tasks interactively. In extensive experiments, we show that ERRA can complete various long-horizon manipulation tasks specified by abstract language instructions. We also demonstrate successful generalization to the novel but similar natural language instructions.