Neutral Questions Research Articles

Functions of the particle üldse ‘at all’ in questions in Estonian everyday conversations

Abstract The goal of the paper is to examine the use of the particle üldse ‘at all; ever; generally; absolutely (not)’ in questions in Estonian everyday face-to-face and telephone conversations. The analysis is based on the methodological framework of interactional linguistics. The particle üldse is found to serve three central functions in questions: (a) marking topic shifts and topic changes, (b) intensifying doubt or challenges, (c) emphasizing someone’s norm-violating behavior. Questions containing the particle üldse can be divided into two groups: neutral information-seeking questions and multifunctional questions that perform several social actions simultaneously. The particle üldse is commonly backward looking and serves both interpersonal and textual functions. Its use is often associated with non-preference, disagreement, or contradiction.

Language sentiment predicts changes in depressive symptoms

The prevalence of depression is a major societal health concern, and there is an ongoing need to develop tools that predict who will become depressed. Past research suggests that depression changes the language we use, but it is unclear whether language is predictive of worsening symptoms. Here, we test whether the sentiment of brief written linguistic responses predicts changes in depression. Across two studies (N = 467), participants provided responses to neutral open-ended questions, narrating aspects of their lives relevant to depression (e.g., mood, motivation, sleep). Participants also completed the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to assess depressive symptoms and a risky decision-making task with periodic measurements of momentary happiness to quantify mood dynamics. The sentiment of written responses was evaluated by human raters (N = 470), Large Language Models (LLMs; ChatGPT 3.5 and 4.0), and the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool. We found that language sentiment evaluated by human raters and LLMs, but not LIWC, predicted changes in depressive symptoms at a three-week follow-up. Using computational modeling, we found that language sentiment was associated with current mood, but language sentiment predicted symptom changes even after controlling for current mood. In summary, we demonstrate a scalable tool that combines brief written responses with sentiment analysis by AI tools that matches human performance in the prediction of future psychiatric symptoms.

Does patient behaviour drive physicians to practice defensive medicine? Evidence from a video experiment

ObjectiveBy manipulating patients’ critical attitude in a video experiment, we examined whether physicians are more intended to perform defensive acts because of a higher perceived liability risk in Belgium.MethodsWe assigned 85 practicing gynaecologists/obstetricians and orthopaedists randomly to four hypothetical video consultations, in which the patients show either a critical attitude (i.e., getting ahead of the facts, showing distrust) or a non-critical attitude (i.e., displaying more neutral questions and expressions). We asked the physicians about the care they would administer in the presented cases and the expected likelihood that the patient would sue the physician in case of a medical incident.ResultsBy manipulating patients’ verbal critical attitude (which indicates patients’ intention to take further steps), while keeping constant physician’s communication, patients’ clinical situation, preferences, and non-verbal behaviour in the videos, we were able to discover differential treatment styles driven by physicians’ perceived liability risk among patients with a different critical attitude. We found that physicians perform 17 percentage points more defensive acts (e.g., surgeries and diagnostic tests that are not medically necessary) when experiencing a high liability risk.ConclusionsOur results show that patients’ critical attitude drives physicians’ perceived liability risk and consequent defensive behaviour among obstetricians/gynaecologists and orthopaedists.

Insights into the Structure of Comirnaty Covid-19 Vaccine: A Theory on Soft, Partially Bilayer-Covered Nanoparticles with Hydrogen Bond-Stabilized mRNA-Lipid Complexes.

Despite the worldwide success of mRNA-LNP Covid-19 vaccines, the nanoscale structures of these formulations are still poorly understood. To fill this gap, we used a combination of atomic force microscopy (AFM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM), and the determination of the intra-LNP pH gradient to analyze the nanoparticles (NPs) in BNT162b2 (Comirnaty), comparing it with the well-characterized PEGylated liposomal doxorubicin (Doxil). Comirnaty NPs had similar size and envelope lipid composition to Doxil; however, unlike Doxil liposomes, wherein the stable ammonium and pH gradient enables accumulation of 14C-methylamine in the intraliposomal aqueous phase, Comirnaty LNPs lack such pH gradient in spite of the fact that the pH 4, at which LNPs are prepared, is raised to pH 7.2 after loading of the mRNA. Mechanical manipulation of Comirnaty NPs with AFM revealed soft, compliant structures. The sawtooth-like force transitions seen during cantilever retraction imply that molecular strands, corresponding to mRNA, can be pulled out of NPs, and the process is accompanied by stepwise rupture of mRNA-lipid bonds. Unlike Doxil, cryo-TEM of Comirnaty NPs revealed a granular, solid core enclosed by mono- and bilipid layers. Negative staining TEM shows 2-5 nm electron-dense spots in the LNP's interior that are aligned into strings, semicircles, or labyrinth-like networks, which may imply cross-link-stabilized RNA fragments. The neutral intra-LNP core questions the dominance of ionic interactions holding together this scaffold, raising the possibility of hydrogen bonding between mRNA and the lipids. Such interaction, described previously for another mRNA/lipid complex, is consistent with the steric structure of the ionizable lipid in Comirnaty, ALC-0315, displaying free ═O and -OH groups. It is hypothesized that the latter groups can get into steric positions that enable hydrogen bonding with the nitrogenous bases in the mRNA. These structural features of mRNA-LNP may be important for the vaccine's activities in vivo.

Language Contact, Language Ecology, and Intonational Variation in the Yami Community.

This study investigates socioprosodic variation in Yami, a moribund indigenous language under intense contact with Mandarin in Taiwan: 32 bilingual (Yami-dominant, balanced, Mandarin-dominant) and 5 Yami-monolingual participants were recruited. We used an Interactive Card Game to elicit semi-spontaneous speech for neutral questions (NQ), default declarative questions (DQ1), and declarative questions with lighter incredulity (DQ2). Results reveal that (1) yes/no question intonation in Yami is highly variable; (2) on a broad community level, the DQ1-DQ2 distinction is absent from Yami; and (3) there is prosodic hybridization and innovation in bilingual speech. In particular, we see significant differences in DQ1 and NQ productions, with DQ1s having a rising nuclear configuration, higher pitch level, and wider pitch span, while NQs are realized with a mid-level pattern, lower pitch level, and narrower pitch span. DQ2 utterances exhibited highly varied nuclear configuration patterns with no significant differences in either pitch level or pitch span in DQ1-DQ2 comparisons. Yet, there is evidence that a hybridized DQ2 has begun to be integrated into Yami among younger bilinguals, suggesting that present-day Yami is in flux and is undergoing restructuring.These intonational variations are not easily attributable to a weakened Yami identity. Rather, younger bilinguals, who are leading the change, are highly dedicated to cultural practices and show strong rootedness in their Indigenous identity. Seemingly, while these less fluent speakers no longer use Yami to fulfill their everyday communicative needs, they are leaning more on its socio-indexical functions to reflect their ethnocultural identity.

Lessons learned from a formative study evaluating student pharmacists' experience with a case-based learning “choose your own adventure” activity

BackgroundA case-based learning “Choose Your Own Adventure” (CBL-CYOA) activity was designed to support students in learning to identify drug-related problems and make clinical decisions related to drug therapy management. The purpose of this study was to describe student pharmacists' experiences in order to understand, from their perspective, which design features of the CBL-CYOA activity were valued as useful for developing clinical decision-making skills in an Applied Pharmacy Practice I course. However, several limitations with various features of study design minimized the usefulness of results. ImpactIn retrospect, methodological limitations with both the survey and focus group designs negatively impacted the interpretation of results in this study. RecommendationsAttention to thoughtful survey development with better alignment to the purpose of the study and neutral questions may produce more useful results. Further, additional focus groups and a purposeful sampling strategy may add to increasing the credibility of the findings in this study. DiscussionOverall, formative studies like this one have the potential to produce insights into how innovative instructional designs operate in real-world contexts. They also have the capacity to output results that provide an evidence base for refining and improving those designs. We hope that our reflections in this paper may be useful to other educators and researchers working to plan similar projects in the future.

Assessing unintentional creation of bias against men who have sex with men as a function of exposure to blood donor screening questionnaire: A national randomized controlled trial

Canadian Blood Services (CBS) screens donors based on group status (e.g., men who have sex with men, MSM) instead of specific, high-risk sexual practices (e.g., occurrence of condomless sex). The MSM screening question is embedded in a cluster of questions about stigmatized attributes such as history of imprisonment and illicit substance use. This juxtaposition of the "MSM question" and stigmatized attributes may unintentionally cause blood donors to perceive MSM more negatively. The aim of this research is to determine whether the CBS donor eligibility questionnaire generates negative bias against MSM. A national, randomized online study of 903 CBS donors was conducted. Participants completed either the existing blood donor eligibility questionnaire or a modified donor questionnaire that repositioned the MSM question among neutral questions. After completing the existing or modified questionnaire, bias against MSM was measured using the sexuality implicit association test (IAT) and Modern Homonegativity Scale - Gay Men (MHS-G). Lastly, participants estimated prevalence rates among MSM of certain stigmatized behaviors. Participants who completed the existing donor eligibility questionnaire more strongly associated gay men with negative attributes on the IAT (pone-tailed =.045), suggesting question position generated implicit negative bias toward MSM. Responses to the MHS-G (pone-tailed =.506) and prevalence estimation task (p=.443) indicated that question order had no significant impact on explicit bias. Positioning the MSM screening question among stigmatizing questions creates implicit negative bias against MSM. Policy makers should be mindful of question positioning when designing donor questionnaires.

Intonational Commitments

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis of inquisitive rising declaratives (Gunlogson 2001, Jeong 2018) within the Table model (Farkas & Bruce 2010). On this account, intonational tunes are modifiers of context update functions: rising intonation removes the speaker commitment component of a context update. This delivers a compositional account of the contributions of sentence type and intonational tune to the illocutionary mood of an utterance, showing how the semantic type of declarative sentences, the rising intonational tune, and a general-purpose utterance function (Farkas & Roelofsen 2017) conspire to derive the basic discourse effect of rising declaratives without any construction-specific stipulations. The account makes use of only the most fundamental representational primitives independently necessary to model assertions and neutral questions, showing that rising declaratives can be accounted for without recourse to projected commitments, metalinguistic issues, or explicit marking of commitment strength, evidence source, or epistemic bias (cf. Gunlogson 2008, Northrup 2014, Malamud & Stephenson 2015, Farkas & Roelofsen 2017). Inferences of bias generated by rising declaratives are accounted for with a novel pragmatics for the Table model, formalizing what is implicit in discussions of the role played in the model by speaker commitments and projected Common Grounds.

A entoação do português falado em Maputo, Moçambique: Um estudo de caso

ABSTRACT This case study of Portuguese as spoken in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, describes the intonation of neutral declarative SVO sentences and neutral yes-no questions using the theory and methodological tools of Prosodic Phonology and Autosegmental-Metrical Intonational Phonology. In neutral declaratives, 1) prosodic phrasing of Subject and Predicate into independent (S)(VO) intonational phrases (IPs) predominated; 2) LH+L* L% and H+L* L% nuclear contours predominated in final IPs, while contours with high H% boundary were most frequent in medial IPs; 3) phrase accents frequently occurred between S and V, between V and O and even within S, separating the nucleus from its complements; and 4) an additional tone was possible in association with the pre-stressed syllables of long (5-syllable), mostly IP-initial, prosodic words. In neutral questions, the nucleus most often featured a rising-falling L+(<¡)H* L% movement. High tonal density was also found, with pitch accents associated with stressed syllables of all PWs in both declaratives and yes-no questions.

Português guineense: O que a entoação das sentenças interrogativas mostra sobre essa variedade

ABSTRACT In Guinea-Bissau, Portuguese is the only official language, and, for historical and sociopolitical reasons, European Portuguese (EP) is assumed as the variety spoken. However, we find a multilingual space in which Kriol is the national unity language and Portuguese is spoken as a second language. In this context, we analyzed the intonation of neutral yes-no questions of Guinea-Bissau Portuguese (GBP), to examine whether the intonation of this sentence type resembles that found SEP (spoken in Lisbon) or whether we are facing a Guinea-Bissau Portuguese variety in formation. Using the theoretical framework of Prosodic Phonology and Intonational Phonology, we analyzed neutral yes-no questions produced through a reading task performed by four Guinea-Bissau participants, native speakers of Kriol, and speakers of Portuguese as a second language. Our results show that, for the pre-nuclear and nuclear contour as well as tonal density, the intonation of GBP neutral yes-no questions differs from SEP and is closer to Brazilian and African varieties already studied. This outcome was previously pointed out in the literature for declarative sentences, suggesting that GBP is developing its own intonational grammar.

On Rising Intonation in Balkan Slavic

abstract: Crosslinguistic work on the meanings of intonational tunes across clause types remains rare. Rudin (2018a) notes an apparent correlation between the behavior of declarative and imperative sentences with rising terminal contours. Languages in which 'rising declaratives' comprise non-canonical biased questions allow for 'rising imperatives', interpreted as suggestions, while languages in which rising declaratives comprise canonical neutral questions disallow rising imperatives. Bulgarian and Macedonian, closely related languages which differ in the status of their rising declaratives, provide an ideal test case for investigating this correlation. Initial investigation of these two Balkan Slavic languages lends support to the prediction that rising imperatives occur only in languages whose rising declaratives are biased questions.

Updating politicized beliefs: How motivated reasoning contributes to polarization

This paper examines how the political significance of information can affect subjects’ perceived reliability of that information and their motivated belief updating. In this study, 1,222 subjects were randomly assigned to receive low-reliability, high-reliability, or ambiguous information about neutral and political questions. For each question, subjects were first asked to give a numerical estimate. After receiving new information, subjects had the opportunity to update their previous numerical estimates, and then, they reported their perceived reliability of the information they received. I observed that subjects were more reluctant to update their beliefs for politically significant questions compared to neutral questions. I also found that subjects were more likely to discredit and reject new information when it challenged their preexisting ideology, indicating that one’s rooted political beliefs can distort the belief updating process. In addition, subjects drew different conclusions from ambiguous information depending on their political ideology, illustrating how ambiguity may lead to greater polarization. Finally, I discuss possible explanations for subjects’ biased integration of new information using motivated reasoning and belief-based utility theories. The results of this study contribute to the understanding of why people remain divided on politically charged issues.

Why do pre-clinical medical students learn ultrasound? Exploring learning motivation through ERG theory

BackgroundIn recent years, point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become an essential field of medical education. Bedside ultrasound has become a necessary skill for clinical physicians. Previous studies have already discussed the importance of advancements in ultrasound education. However, learning motivations for ultrasound education have seldom been analyzed in the literature. For medical students, learning ultrasound could have a relevance for their future career. The Existence, Relatedness and Growth (ERG) theory extended Maslow’s hierarchy of needs through these three concepts. This theory has been widely used in the workplace to analyze employee job performance but has not yet been applied in medical education. In this study ERG theory was applied to analyze pre-clinical medical students’ learning motivation toward ultrasound education.MethodThis mixed method study used online questionnaires consisting of open-ended questions as a data collection tool, and based on these results, both qualitative and quantitative analysis were conducted. Participants answered a series of neutral and open-ended questions regarding their motivations to learn ultrasonography. After data collection, a three-step analysis was conducted based on the grounded theory approach. Finally, the results of the thematic coding were used to complete additional quantitative analysis.ResultsThe study involved 140 pre-clinical medical students, and their responses fell into 13 specific categories. The analysis demonstrated that students’ motivations toward ultrasound education were unbalanced across the three ERG domains (F = 41.257, p < .001). Pairwise comparisons showed that students mentioned existence motivation (MD = 39.3%; p < .001) and growth motivation (MD = 40.7%; p < .001) more frequently than relatedness motivation. However, there was no significant difference between existence motivation and growth motivation (MD = − 1.4%; p = .830).ConclusionThe results revealed that students placed a high value on existence and growth needs rather than relatedness based on the survey. In addition, the findings suggest that ERG theory can be a useful tool to conduct medical education motivation analysis.

Citizens’ duties across generations

ABSTRACT There is a wide academic agreement on the existence of two different types of citizenship norms (“dutiful” and “engaged”), along with a generalized conviction about the prevalence of “engaged” norms among the young cohorts. These conclusions rely on a questionnaire battery that is omnipresent in the most important public opinion surveys and which nevertheless presents several shortcomings that might convey social desirability. We contend that the “how important” questions used to tap attitudes about what the “good citizen” should do are probably affecting conclusions about citizenship norms’ endorsement and generational change. This research puts forward an alternative battery and puts it to empirical test on a Canadian sample. Using more neutral questions aimed at tapping whether citizens construe a series of political activities as duties or else, we find that many citizens do not feel that it is their duty to participate in politics and that there is no generational divide when it comes to different conceptions of civic duties.

Grading Rage in the Pastoral Care Classroom

Assessment and grading can elicit rage on the part of both learners and teachers. Can rage lead to creative transformation of classroom cultures to support students in achieving learning goals? Can rage sharpen pedagogical commitments? The author reviews a critical incident of unexpected grading rage that emerged in her once a week three-hour masters level introductory pastoral care classroom, what she did about it in the moment, and how three strategies she employed could be helpful for teaching and learning religion and theology more broadly. When grading rage emerges in the pastoral care classroom and beyond, teaching and learning misunderstanding stories, facilitated by neutral questions in charged contexts, can make room for creative transformation when supported by third voices.

Results of recording electrophysiological signals by nanosensors during tests on volunteers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the results of recording electrophysiological signals by nanosensors during tests on volunteers using neutral questions and questions that cause excitement.Design/methodology/approachThe nanosensor-based hardware and software complex (HSC) was used for simultaneous recording of electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram and galvanic skin response during tests on volunteers using neutral questions and questions that cause excitement. The recording was carried out in real time without averaging and filtering in the extended frequency range from 0 to 10,000 Hz, level of more than 1 µV and sampling frequency equal to 64 kHz.FindingsFor the first time, the following signals were recorded by nanosensors without filtering and averaging in the measuring channels: real-time micropotentials on an electrocardiogram with a duration of 0.2 ms and a level of 1 µV or more. Also, for the first time, changes in the shape and amplitude of the P wave, slow waves on the electroencephalography (EEG), high impulse activity of the EEG and impulse activity of short duration on the GSR were recorded in response to questions that cause excitement.Practical implicationsThe obtained results will be used for high-resolution equipment to develop additional measuring channels in existing types of equipment for psychophysiological studies.Originality/valueFor the first time, new data undistorted by filters was obtained on the amplitude and time parameters of electrophysiological signals in the frequency range from 0 to 10,000 Hz in response to questions that cause excitement, which was due to high sensitivity and noise immunity of nanosensors in comparison with existing electrodes for biopotential recording.

T59. ACOUSTIC SPEECH MARKERS FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA

BackgroundClinicians routinely use impressions of speech as an element of mental status examination, including ‘pressured’ speech in mania and ‘monotone’ or ‘soft’ speech in depression or psychosis. In psychosis in particular, descriptions of speech are used to monitor (negative) symptom severity. Recent advances in computational linguistics have paved the way towards automated speech analyses as a biomarker for psychosis. In the present study, we assessed the diagnostic value of acoustic speech features in schizophrenia. We hypothesized that a classifier would be highly accurate (~ 80%) in classifying patients and healthy controls.MethodsNatural speech samples were obtained from 86 patients with schizophrenia and 77 age and gender matched healthy controls through a semi-structured interview, using a set of neutral open-ended questions. Symptom severity was rated by consensus rating of two trained researchers, blinded to phonetic analysis, with the Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Acoustic features were extracted with OpenSMILE, employing the Geneva Acoustic Minimalistic Parameter Set (GeMAPS), which comprises standardized analyses of pitch (F0), formants (F1, F2 and F3, i.e. acoustic resonance frequencies that indicate the position and movement of the articulatory muscles during speech production), speech quality, length of voiced and unvoiced regions. Speech features were fed into a linear kernel support vector machine (SVM) with leave-one-out cross-validation to assess their value for psychosis diagnosis.ResultsDemographic analyses revealed no differences between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls in age or parental education. An automated machine-learning speech classifier reached an accuracy of 82.8% in classifying patients with schizophrenia and controls on speech features alone. Important features in the model were variation in loudness, spectral slope (i.e. the gradual decay in energy in high frequency speech sounds) and the amount of voiced regions (i.e. segments of the interview where the participant was speaking). PANSS positive, negative and general scores were significantly correlated with pitch, formant frequencies and length of voiced and unvoiced regions.DiscussionThis study demonstrates that an algorithm using quantified features of speech can objectively differentiate patients with schizophrenia from controls with high accuracy. Further validation in an independent sample is required. Employing standardized parameter sets ensures easy replication and comparison of analyses and can be used for cross linguistic studies. Although at an early stage, the field of clinical computational linguistics introduces a powerful tool for diagnosis and prognosis of psychosis and neuropsychiatric disorders in general. We consider this new diagnostic tool to be of high potential given its ease of acquirement, low costs and patient burden. For example, this tool could easily be implemented as a smartphone app to be used in treatment settings.

Citizen Science, the Body of Christ, and Testimonial Epistemology

AbstractHow does explicit theological knowledge emerge out of communal practices, who is involved in its production, and what are its procedures? These are neither neutral nor arbitrary methodological questions; they are themselves deeply theological. Digital innovations and the subsequent transformations of society and academia invite us to redefine the work of theology. Epistemologically drawing on a theology of the cross and centring the communal nature and vulnerable existence of the witnessing community, we develop a model of doing theology that is collaborative and exploratory within the medial transformations of the digital age. Taking cues from participatory research conceptions of “citizen science,” we propose going toward and beyond a “citizen theology.” We need the courage to conceive of a theology that is ultimately centreless. Therefore, we cannot aspire to testimonially responsible forms of doing theology without striving for epistemic justice and diaconal empowerment at a global level. The “distributed theology” we envision promotes global (catholic), decentral (apostolic), and communal (local) forms of knowledge production by the whole of the body of Christ in ever more distributed ways.

Neutral but not in the middle: cross-cultural comparisons of negative bias of “neutral” emotional stimuli

ABSTRACT Previous studies have shown that the perception of neutral emotion stimuli can be negative rather than absolutely neutral. In the current study, we examined the negative bias of both neutral faces and scenes, cross-culturally between East Asians (e.g. Koreans) and Caucasian Americans. In all experiments, participants performed a Go/No-go task, by either executing or withholding a response toward neutral stimuli presented in the context of positive or negative stimuli. Differentiating neutral stimuli from negative stimuli was less accurate, measured in d’, than doing so from positive stimuli. This negative bias was evident with both faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and scenes (Experiment 3). In all experiments, while both ethnic groups demonstrated significant negative biases, there was a subtle modulation of the bias by cultural background. For example, for Korean faces and IAPS scenes, Koreans showed a mitigated negative bias and Caucasian Americans demonstrated a greater negative bias. However, for Caucasian faces, bias was comparable between the two groups. With the possibility of cultural modulation, the prevalent negative bias of neutral emotion questions the validity of the neutrality assumption of the neutral emotion. The study discusses the necessity of methodological and theoretical reconsiderations for the utilisation of neutral emotion stimuli.

The Information Behavior of Mothers: Instinct as Information

Previous research on the information-seeking behaviour of parents is extremely narrow in scope, focusing on parents whose children have medical or psychological concerns. This research hopes to share the information-seeking behaviours of a broader population, parents of adolescents (children between 10-19 years old). Using the Information Horizon Method (Sonnenwald 1999), this research project incorporates semi-structured interviews with three mothers who currently have two adolescent children each. The interviews contained neutral questions regarding information resources used by parents when determining general information regarding their children’s lives. The findings show that there is a great preference for interpersonal resources, with the most attended to and preferred ones being the resources inside the home, which include spouse, the child, or the child’s sibling. It is only if they are not satisfied with the information gathered from those resources that the parents would go outside the home, at which point the resources are chosen based on the situation. Certain resources that parents are attempting to have in their information horizon are social media and internet use. Parents use different techniques to access information on their children’s social media accounts or look at friends’ private profiles. They also incorporate techniques with computers in general, such as allowing them only in open spaces, where parents are able to quickly glance at screens. Lastly, all parents depicted an indescribable embodied knowledge that concerned the state of their children. This intuition was the starting point of all information-seeking processes depicted in this research project. They called this intuition maternal instinct.