Signal Words Research Articles

White matter anisotropy in the ventral language pathway predicts sound-to-word learning success.

According to the dual stream model of auditory language processing, the dorsal stream is responsible for mapping sound to articulation and the ventral stream plays the role of mapping sound to meaning. Most researchers agree that the arcuate fasciculus (AF) is the neuroanatomical correlate of the dorsal steam; however, less is known about what constitutes the ventral one. Nevertheless, two hypotheses exist: one suggests that the segment of the AF that terminates in middle temporal gyrus corresponds to the ventral stream, and the other suggests that it is the extreme capsule that underlies this sound-to-meaning pathway. The goal of this study was to evaluate these two competing hypotheses. We trained participants with a sound-to-word learning paradigm in which they learned to use a foreign phonetic contrast for signaling word meaning. Using diffusion tensor imaging, a brain-imaging tool to investigate white matter connectivity in humans, we found that fractional anisotropy in the left parietal-temporal region positively correlated with the performance in sound-to-word learning. In addition, fiber tracking revealed a ventral pathway, composed of the extreme capsule and the inferior longitudinal fasciculus, that mediated auditory comprehension. Our findings provide converging evidence supporting the importance of the ventral steam, an extreme capsule system, in the frontal-temporal language network. Implications for current models of speech processing are also discussed.

A three-stage model summarizes product warning and environmental sign research

The past 25years have experienced a substantial amount of research on safety communications, more specifically, warnings. This article focuses on the most important factors in designing effective warnings. The warning process is modeled in three stages. Effective warnings attract attention; elicit knowledge, and enable compliance behavior. Two main categories are design factors and non-design factors. Non-design factors include the effects of target audience and situational factors. For attention, important design factors are size, color/contrast, signal word, graphics, and format. The non-design factors for attention include context, location, and distraction. Design factors affecting the knowledge and compliance stages include explicit wording and pictorials to provide hazard, consequences and instructional content. Non-design factors for the knowledge stage include familiarity and perceived hazard. Non-design factors for the compliance stage include modeling the behavior of others and cost of compliance. The research literature offers practical design recommendations to aid application decisions.

Loudness interacts with semantics in auditory warnings to impact rear-end collisions

► Auditory collision warning system (CWS) alarms can reduce crash probability if designed to convey appropriate hazard levels. ► Semantic and acoustics parameters of in-vehicle collision warning system (CWS) auditory alarms interact to effect driver response. ► Inappropriately hazard matched auditory warnings (extreme urgency or very low urgency) are ineffective. ► Auditory warning context impacts behavioral response and ratings of perceived urgency. ► The signal word “Notice” presented at a relatively high acoustic intensity of 85 dB and “Danger” presented at a relatively low acoustic intensity of 70 dB resulted in equal crash reduction probability and were perceived as having equivalent urgency levels. This study examined the impact of semantic and acoustics parameters of in-vehicle collision warning system (CWS) alarms on driver response. Thirty participants drove a simulated vehicle through scenarios containing five different unexpected hazard events. As drivers approached the hazard event one of four CWS alarms, counter balanced with the hazard event type, or no alarm (control) was presented. Alarms consisted of the signal word “Notice” or “Danger” presented at either 70 or 85 dBA. Rear-end collision events resulted in the highest crash rate, accounting for 45.4% of all crashes. In these scenarios, CWSs significantly reduced crash rates. CWS alarms with an intermediate urgency level achieved through an interaction of semantics and acoustics (“Danger” at 70 dB and “Notice” at 85 dB) resulted in significant reductions in crash probability. Providing an extremely urgent signal word, “Danger” at a high acoustically urgent presentation level – 85 dB was not effective in reducing crashes, nor was a low urgency signal word, “Notice” presented at a low acoustical urgency level – 70 dB. Implications of these results for the design and implementation of CWS systems and auditory alarms in general, are discussed.

Real-Time Correlates of Phonological Quantity Reveal Unity of Tonal and Non-Tonal Languages

Discrete phonological phenomena form our conscious experience of language: continuous changes in pitch appear as distinct tones to the speakers of tone languages, whereas the speakers of quantity languages experience duration categorically. The categorical nature of our linguistic experience is directly reflected in the traditionally clear-cut linguistic classification of languages into tonal or non-tonal. However, some evidence suggests that duration and pitch are fundamentally interconnected and co-vary in signaling word meaning in non-tonal languages as well. We show that pitch information affects real-time language processing in a (non-tonal) quantity language. The results suggest that there is no unidirectional causal link from a genetically-based perceptual sensitivity towards pitch information to the appearance of a tone language. They further suggest that the contrastive categories tone and quantity may be based on simultaneously co-varying properties of the speech signal and the processing system, even though the conscious experience of the speakers may highlight only one discrete variable at a time.

Effects of GHS Hazard Category, Signal Words, and Pictograms on an Individual's Assessment of Perceived Risk

This preliminary investigation evaluates the impact of pictograms and signal words that would be present on chemical product labels following the modification of the Hazard Communication Standard by OSHA to incorporate the United Nation's Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). The GHS classification for a given hazard determines the hazard classification category (Category 1 or Category 2), if a pictogram and/or a signal word will be present on the label, and the hazard and precautionary statements that would appear on the label. Participants were able to refer to samples of chemical product labels to assist them in completing an on-line questionnaire. The hazard classification category and the presence of a signal word (“Danger” or “Warning”) were significant with regard to the level of perceived risk by individuals, but there was no significant effect for pictograms on the sample chemical product labels.

Phonetic tone signals phonological quantity and word structure

Many languages exploit suprasegmental devices in signaling word meaning. Tone languages exploit fundamental frequency whereas quantity languages rely on segmental durations to distinguish otherwise similar words. Traditionally, duration and tone have been taken as mutually exclusive. However, some evidence suggests that, in addition to durational cues, phonological quantity is associated with and co-signaled by changes in fundamental frequency in quantity languages such as Finnish, Estonian, and Serbo-Croat. The results from the present experiment show that the structure of disyllabic word stems in Finnish are indeed signaled tonally and that the phonological length of the stressed syllable is further tonally distinguished within the disyllabic sequence. The results further indicate that the observed association of tone and duration in perception is systematically exploited in speech production in Finnish.

The neural process of hazard perception and evaluation for warning signal words: Evidence from event-related potentials

Warning signs have been widely applied to industrial production. As an important component of warning signs, warning signal words were mostly studied by using questionnaire. This study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore neural temporal features during the processing of warning signal words in human brain, and found that there were two stages involved in processing warning signal words, providing an electrophysiological evidence for a previous warning information processing model, the Communication-Human Information Processing Model (C-HIP). Previous behavioral studies indicated that the subjective hazard perception of participants facilitates their attention to the warning sign, and people can get hazard information from warning words. Our results provided direct evidence for these conclusions. The present findings of significant differences in subjective hazard perception for warning words among individuals showed the importance and necessity of training for people to get the similar understanding of these words. Our results implicated that the warning words reflecting the same hazard level used in the warning sign should be somewhat changed, at the same time, convey equally or similarly hazardous information, to avoid desensitization and habituation due to overuse of them.

The changes in hazard classification and product notification procedures of the new European CLP and Cosmetics Regulations

Introduction. The United Nations Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (UN-GHS) is developed to harmonize the criteria for hazard communication worldwide. The European Regulation on classification, labeling, and packaging of substances and mixtures [CLP Regulation (European Commission, EC) No 1272/2008] will align the existing European Union (EU) legislation to the UN‐GHS. This CLP Regulation entered into force on January 20, 2009, and will, after a transitional period, replace the current rules on classification, labeling, and packaging for supply and use in Europe. Both old and new classifications will exist simultaneously until 2010 for substances and until 2015 for mixtures. Hazard classification. The new hazard classification will introduce new health hazard classes and categories, with associated new hazard pictograms, signal words, Hazard (H)-statements, and Precautionary (P)-statements as labeling elements. Furthermore, the CLP Regulation will affect the notification of product information on hazardous products to poisons information centers (PICs). Product notification procedures. At this moment product notification widely varies in procedures and requirements across EU Member States. Article 45 of the CLP Regulation contains a provision stating that the EC will (by January 20, 2012) review the possibility of harmonizing product notification. The European Association of Poisons Centres and Clinical Toxicologists (EAPCCT) is recognized as an important stakeholder. For cosmetic products, the new Cosmetics Regulation will directly implement a new procedure for electronic cosmetic product notification in all EU Member States. Conclusion. Both the CLP Regulation and the Cosmetics Regulation will develop their own product notification procedure within different time frames. Harmonization of notification procedures for both product groups, especially a common electronic format, would be most effective from a cost-benefit viewpoint and would be welcomed by PICs.

Does prosodic constituency signal relative predictability? A Smooth Signal Redundancy hypothesis

AbstractThis paper explores issues relating to signaling word boundaries from the perspective of Aylett's Smooth Signal Redundancy proposal (Aylett, Stochastic suprasegmentals: Relationships between redundancy, prosodic structure and care of articulation in spontaneous speech, University of Edinburgh, 2000, Aylett and Turk, Language and Speech 47: 31–56, 2004) that language has evolved to spread redundancy, i.e. recognition likelihood, evenly throughout utterances. In Aylett's proposal, information that enables listeners to identify sequences of elements in an utterance (signal redundancy) comes from two sources: a) language redundancy, recognition likelihood based on lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and other factors, and b) acoustic redundancy, recognition likelihood based on acoustic salience. Smooth signal redundancy is achieved by a complementary relationship between language redundancy and acoustic redundancy that is implemented via prosodic structure.While Aylett and Turk (Language and Speech 47: 31–56, 2004) present the case for prosodic prominence as a lever for modulating the acoustic salience of syllables, the current paper proposes that prosodic constituency also fulfils this function for words. The current paper proposes that the signal redundancy, or recognition likelihood, of words can be manipulated by signaling their boundaries, and that the occurrence and strength of these boundary markers correlates inversely with language redundancy. Prosodic constituency implements the complementary relationship between language redundancy and word boundary salience.Smooth Signal Redundancy provides an integrated explanation for a set of properties relating to prosodic constituent structure.

Polish-Turkish Relations: A Social-Political Analysis

Polish-Turkish Relations: A Social-Political Analysis

On the Classical Meaning of Philanthrôpía

The academic study of philanthropy presupposes a comprehensive definition that guides inquiry into what, exactly, philanthropy is and why it matters. At present, though, no such well-thought-out definition exists. Scholars tend to explore various facets of philanthropy, according to their particular academic interests, but without a comprehensive understanding of its full meaning. This article attempts to correct this lack of synoptic understanding by surveying prominent instances of usage and definitions of philanthrôpía in the classical Greek era and synthesizing them into a overall framework for understanding its full classical meaning. In so doing, philanthrôpía is revealed to be a signal word, the meaning of which significantly evolved to reflect historically dominant philosophical and cultural trends in classical Greek society. This article concludes the exploration of this subject begun in an article published in the previous issue of NVSQ, titled “On the Modern Meaning of Philanthropy.”

On the Modern Meaning of Philanthropy

The academic study of philanthropy presupposes a comprehensive definition that guides inquiry into what, exactly, philanthropy is and why it matters. At present, though, no such well-thought-out definition exists. Scholars tend to explore various facets of philanthropy, according to their particular academic interests, but without a comprehensive understanding of its full meaning. This article attempts to correct this lack of synoptic understanding by surveying prominent instances of usage and definitions of philanthropy in the modern era and synthesizing them into a overall framework for understanding its full modern meaning. In so doing, philanthropy is revealed to be a signal word, the evolution in the meaning of which reflects historically dominant philosophical and cultural trends in modern Western society. The subject of this article is further explored in a forthcoming article, to be published in the next issue of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, titled “On the Classical Meaning of Philanthrôpía.”

A cross-cultural comparison of perceived hazard in response to warning components and configurations: US vs. China

There is increasing momentum towards international harmonization of warning standards. Therefore, it is critical to determine the applicability of existing standards across different cultures. Perceived hazard in response to isolated warning components (colors, signal words and symbols) and warning configurations was examined as a function of culture of the product-user (US vs. China) to determine the extent to which ANSI (American National Standards Institute)-recommended components/configurations communicate the expected level of hazard across cultures. 40 college students in the US and 43 in China rated colors, signal words, symbols, and complex configurations on a scale from 1 (not at all hazardous) to 9 (extremely hazardous). US participants consistently provided higher ratings of perceived hazard than Chinese participants. Cross-cultural differences were also observed in the relative levels of perceived hazard assigned to different levels of a label component, particularly in response to colors. However, relative levels of perceived hazard among more complex configurations were similar across culture, even though Chinese participants continued to provide lower absolute ratings of perceived hazard. These results have important implications – if it is assumed that perceived hazard-level must attain some threshold value in order to trigger compliance, then differences in perception could result in a failure of product-users to take appropriate precautions.

Basic English Writing: An Experimental Course Structure Against Semantic Misinterpretation In Undergraduate Student Writing

Course designs for Basic English Writing classes vary from one course to another. The objective of this study was to investigate the semantic misinterpretation of English words found in the English compositions written by native-Chinese-speaking undergraduate students and to overcome if such a barrier occurred in the process of writing. First, this study made use of both linguistic and literary theories in an attempt of exemplifying the existence of the translation and semantic misinterpretation adopted by undergraduate students when writing in English. This hypothesis could be proved by the detached relation between the sign and the referent, or in Saussure’s terminology, between the signifier and the signified, in particular in translating from Chinese into English. This study included an experimental course structure, which consisted of some feasible teaching methods. These methods were applied to Basic English Writing classes investigated in the present study. They were dictionary-consulting activities, team discussions (brainstorming as a team), sentence-making activities in which signal words were used, and team writing activities, in order to improve the student’s writing skills and his or her vocabulary size. Test instruments included a pretest (pre-class questionnaires) and a posttest (a midterm writing test). Targeted students were Chinese non-English majors taking Basic English Writing (BEW) classes. The students in the treatment group performed better in the posttest than those in the control group. Moreover, the students, who failed to get into the habit of consulting English dictionaries, did not perform better than those consistently consulting English dictionaries. It seems that the experimental course structure may facilitate university students’ learning of how to write in English.

The Effects of Questioning on Text Processing

This study investigated whether structured or unstructured questioning strategies, combined with two levels of domain knowledge and text coherence, significantly affect text memory and text learning. Results of this study suggest that high domain knowledge and structured questioning strategies are the most reliable predictors of text memory and text learning. Several main effects favoring high domain knowledge arose on text memory and, to a lesser extent, text learning measures. Significant results involving structured questioning techniques (i.e., signal words and generic question stems) were detected primarily through interaction effects and one main effect. While not always significantly superior, generic question stem participants outperformed their signal word and unguided questioning counterparts on the majority of text memory and text learning variables.

Formats for Section Safety Messages in Printed Manuals

This study compared four formats for safety messages in printed manuals based on layouts found in a new standard of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI Z535.6, 2006). These four designs are specifically for use as section safety messages. Two used a signal word panel, and two used a safety alert symbol (exclamation in a triangle). The four formats were rated by 55 college students from three different classes using a five-point scale for hazardousness. All four messages were presented on the same page of a test booklet, with order balanced using a Latin Square. Results of a Friedman test indicated significant differences in ratings. The ranked order of the formats based on estimated median was yellow safety alert symbol left of the text (3.37), signal word in black panel above text (3.13), signal word in black panel imbedded in first line of text (2.87), and black hazard alert symbol left of the text (2.13). Post-hoc analyses of ratings using a Bonferroni test indicated the signs fit into three groups: the two highest rated signs, the second and third rated signs, and the lowest rated sign.

Signal Words and Signal Icons in Application Control and Information Technology Exception Messages—Hazard Matching and Habituation Effects

Information technology (IT) users encounter signal words (e.g., “Warning”) and signal icons (e.g., an exclamation point) in “exception messages.” The first of two experiments reported in this paper examines the “arousal strength” associated with signal words and icons that commonly appear in exception messages. An elicitation exercise was completed by 316 participants, in which each viewed exception messages containing combinations of signal words and icons and provided their perception as to the severity of a computer problem communicated. The results allow “hazard matching”; whereby, the severity of hazard implied by the exception message can be matched to the level of the hazard. The second experiment reports a strong habituation effect in that users exhibit decreased attention to an exception message after repeated exposure, with a corresponding decrease in compliance. The effect was also found to be mitigated by increasing the arousal strength of the exception message.

Volume of Left Heschl's Gyrus and Linguistic Pitch Learning

Research on the contributions of the human nervous system to language processing and learning has generally been focused on the association regions of the brain without considering the possible contribution of primary and adjacent sensory areas. We report a study examining the relationship between the anatomy of Heschl's Gyrus (HG), which includes predominately primary auditory areas and is often found to be associated with nonlinguistic pitch processing and language learning. Unlike English, most languages of the world use pitch patterns to signal word meaning. In the present study, native English-speaking adult subjects learned to incorporate foreign pitch patterns in word identification. Subjects who were less successful in learning showed a smaller HG volume on the left (especially gray matter volume), but not on the right, relative to learners who were successful. These results suggest that HG, typically shown to be associated with the processing of acoustic cues in nonspeech processing, is also involved in speech learning. These results also suggest that primary auditory regions may be important for encoding basic acoustic cues during the course of spoken language learning.

A Multi Dimensional Analysis of Warning Signal Words

Warning signal words (e.g. DANGER, WARNING and CAUTION) are often used on warning signs and labels to denote the level of hazard implied by the situation they indicate. This process of hazard matching assumes that warning signal words communicate primarily hazard and yet we know little about the alternative associations they may communicate. Here we take a broader perspective on warning signal words and consider whether they do lie on a single dimension of hazard or whether they are in fact multidimensional. Multidimensional analysis of similarity ratings of 17 signal words ratings revealed three dimensions ‐ the level of hazard implied by the signal words, the extent to which they explicitly implied a risk and the explicitness of the instruction given. A follow up study supported the interpretation of dimensions 1 and 2. The results support the practice of using signal words to achieve hazard matching, and further suggest that there might be utility in mapping signal words to the conditions that they indicate in terms of the extent to which the situation or product constitutes an explicit risk.

Does it Pay to Watch Central Bankers’ Lips? The Information Content of ECB Wording

SummaryIn this analysis, the informational content of central bank rhetoric is assessed based on the experience with the ECB since 1999. Among the ECB’s communication channels we focus on the monthly press conferences. Based on a counting of certain signal words we construct a wording indicator reflecting the “hawk-ishness” of monetary rhetorics. For the construction, we develop an objective algorithm. We then integrate this indicator into a standard Taylor type ordered probit model for the explanation of the interest rate. We show that the wording indicator can improve the model’s fit when added to the standard explanatory variables. However, a model based solely on this indicator performs worse than the baseline. The results are confirmed by an out of sample analysis where the determination of the wording indicators’ weights is based on the early ECB period which, subsequently, is excluded from the tests. Our conclusion is that linguistic analysis can improve but not substitute more rigorous forecasting techniques based on hard economic data.