| The Synthetic Teammate Project |
Apr-2009 |
9 pages |
| Authors:
Nancy Cooke; Jerry Ball; Michael Matessa; Chrisotpher Myers; Andrea Heiberg; Mary Freiman; AIR FORCE RESEARCH LAB MESA AZ WARFIGHTER READINESS RESEARCH DIVISION
|
 | The main objective of the Synthetic Teammate project is to develop language and task enabled synthetic agents capable of being integrated into team training simulations. To achieve this goal without detriment in team training, the synthetic agents must be capable of closely matching human behavior. The initial application for the Synthetic Teammate research is the creation of an agent capable of performing the functions of a pilot for an Unmanned ... |
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| Improvement Continues in DOD's Reporting on Sustainable Ranges, but Opportunities Exist to Improve Its Range Assessments and Comprehensive Plan |
15-Dec-2008 |
29 pages |
| Authors:
Brian Lepore; Harold Reich; Jason Jackson; Joanne Landesman; Katherine Lenane; Jacqueline McColl; GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE WASHINGTON DC
|
| DOD continues to make progress in addressing most of the elements of section 366. This year s report describes the progress DOD has made in implementing its range sustainment plan, as required by section 366. Further, DOD s 2008 sustainable ranges report has made progress in addressing the elements of section 366 required for DOD s original fiscal year 2004 report, but the report does not fully address three of ... |
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| Differential Effect of Correct Name Translation on Human and Automated Judgments of Translation Acceptability: A Pilot Study |
01-Sep-2008 |
28 pages |
| Authors:
Michelle Vanni; James Walrath; ARMY RESEARCH LAB ADELPHI MD COMPUTATIONAL AND INFORMATION SCIENCES DIRECTORATE
|
| This study proffers two important findings: (1) automated machine translation (MT) evaluation is insensitive to the cognitive gravitas of proper names, contributing to its weak modeling of human judgments of higher quality MT output, and (2) there is a "new" methodology that produces superior measurement of translation acceptability. Twenty Arabic sentences, each with average name density of 3.7 names in 22 words, were translated into English with a research-grade MT ... |
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| Social Sensemaking in Multinational Groups: A Common Ground Approach |
01-Jun-2008 |
17 pages |
| Authors:
Annika Larsson; Louise Rasmussen; CRANFIELD UNIV SHRIVEHAM (UNITED KINGDOM)
|
| Research efforts to investigate culture in military command and control, or indeed in any form of headquarters, are of crucial importance now that both peacekeeping and warfighting are carried out on a multinational basis. One aspect of working in a coalition headquarters is doing collaborative planning, where the group needs to understand what they as a group have been told to do (i.e., the commander's intent) and what their part ... |
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| The Process of Sensemaking in Complex Human Endeavors |
01-Jun-2008 |
|
| Authors:
Celestine A Ntuen; NORTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURE AND TECHNICAL STATE UNIV GREENSBORO NC CENTER FOR HUMAN MACHINE STUDIES
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 | This paper presents an approach to organizing the sensemaking process. The approach uses a set of cognitive constructs that translates tacit knowledge to the focal knowing of the objective world. The sensemaking process is also viewed as a robust method for developing training tools for the battle staffs critical thinking skills for various levels of problem complexities. At each stage of the sensemaking process, we have attempted to illustrate the ... |
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| Comprehension and Memory of Spatial and Temporal Event Components |
JAN 2008 |
53 pages |
| Authors:
Gabriel A. Radvansky; NOTRE DAME UNIV IN OFFICE OF RESEARCH
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| Across three experiment series, we assessed how people update mental representations of events (called situation models). The first series decomposed spatial and temporal updating with people reading texts. These components involved (1) processing shift signals, (2) establishing new frameworks, (3) maintaining relevant objects, and (4) removing irrelevant objects. We observed component independence. The second and third series assessed cognition as people moved through virtual spaces. In the second series, we ... |
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| Thinking Graphically: Connecting Vision and Cognition during Graph Comprehension |
2008 |
56 pages |
| Authors:
Raj M. Ratwani; J. G. Trafton; Deborah A. Boehm-Davis; NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC CENTER FOR APPLIED RESEARCH IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
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| Task analytic theories of graph comprehension account for the perceptual and conceptual processes required to extract specific information from graphs. Comparatively, the processes underlying information integration have received less attention. We propose a new framework for information integration that highlights visual integration and cognitive integration. During visual integration, pattern recognition processes are used to form visual clusters of information; these visual clusters are then used to reason about the graph ... |
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| Heads We Win: The Cognitive Side of Counterinsurgency (COIN) |
2007 |
|
| Authors:
David C. Gompert; RAND NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INST SANTA MONICA CA
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| This paper documents an effort to specify requirements for stronger cognition -- comprehension, reasoning, and decision making -- in 21st-century counterinsurgency (COIN). Unlike information technology (e.g., sensors, chat rooms, displays), cognition is what occurs "between the ears" after receiving information. It is as crucial to COIN as physical capabilities, organizational structures, and territorial control. Greater attention to cognitive capabilities is dictated by the rise and persistence of a new class ... |
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| Efficacy in Automated Language Translators |
01-Nov-2006 |
5 pages |
| Authors:
John Graham; Ian McCulloh; Jillian Morton; Jennifer K Jantzi; Amy M Rodriguez; MILITARY ACADEMY WEST POINT NY
|
| This paper suggests an improved measure for evaluating the usefulness of automated machine language translators. With the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the Army has increasing interest and need for accurate language translation more than ever. Today, there are approximately 20,000 linguists with language training in either the Active Duty or Reserve components of the U.S. Army. Coalition operations and U.S. presence in Iraq, Kuwait, and other areas in the ... |
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| Dialogue Structure and Pronoun Resolution |
2006 |
7 pages |
| Authors:
Joel R. Tetreault; James F. Allen; ROCHESTER UNIV NY DEPT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
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| This paper presents an empirical evaluation of a pronoun resolution algorithm augmented with discourse segmentation information. Past work has shown that segmenting discourse can aid in pronoun resolution by making potentially erroneous candidates inaccessible to a pronoun's search. However, implementing this in practice has been difficult given the complexities associated with deciding on a useful scheme and then generating the segmentation reliably. In our study, we investigate whether or not ... |
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| Shedding Light on the Graph Schema |
01-Jul-2005 |
7 pages |
| Authors:
J G Trafton; Raj M Ratwani; GEORGE MASON UNIV FAIRFAX VA
|
| The current theories of graph comprehension have posited the graph schema as providing us the necessary knowledge to interpret any graph type. Yet, little is known about the nature of the graph schema, and no empirical data exist showing that there actually is a graph schema. In experiment 1 we show evidence that a graph schema does exist, and that graph schemas are not specific to each and every graph ... |
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| Comment ameliorer la selection et le traitement des messages verbaux? (How to Improve the Selection and Processing of Verbal Messages) |
APR 2005 |
13 pages |
| Authors:
Marie Rivenez; Chris Darwin; Anne Guillaume; INSTITUT DE MEDECINE AEROSPATIALE DU SERVICE DE SANTE DES ARMEES CEDEX (FRANCE) DEPT SCIENCES COGNITIVES
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| L'objectif de cette recherche est d'ameliorer la selection des messages verbaux. Nous cherchons a determiner les facteurs influencant le traitement d'un message verbal lorsque l'attention est portee sur un autre message. Nous mesurons le traitement non attentionnel des messages en utilisant un paradigme d'amorcage en ecoute dichotique : les participants doivent detecter un mot cible appartenant a une categorie specifique, parmi une liste de mots presentes rapidement dans l'oreille focalisee ... |
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| From Specific Information Extraction to Inferences: A Hierarchical Framework of Graph Comprehension |
SEP 2004 |
6 pages |
| Authors:
Raj M. Ratwani; J. G. Trafton; Deborah A. Boehm-Davis; NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC CENTER FOR APPLIED RESEARCH IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
|
| This study examined how graph readers extract specific information, integrate information, and make inferences from choropleth graphs. The authors present a hierarchical framework of graph comprehension that suggests how graph readers extract different types of information. The framework suggests that the cognitive operations required to extract different types of information build in a hierarchical fashion as the complexity of the type of extraction increases. Empirical data gathered in their laboratory ... |
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| Working Memory Influences on Long-Term Memory and Comprehension |
JAN 2004 |
24 pages |
| Authors:
Gabriel A. Radvansky; NOTRE DAME UNIV IN
|
| This project was conducted with the aim of understanding the role of working memory in the comprehension and long-term retention of event-specific information. This study looked at how comprehension and memory processing at the mental model level is related to traditional measures of working memory capacity, including the word span, reading span, operation span, and spatial span tests. Issues of particular interest were the ability to remember event descriptions, the ... |
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| Use of Spatial Transformations in Graph Comprehension |
2004 |
2 pages |
| Authors:
Susan B. Trickett; J. G. Trafton; NAVY CENTER FOR APPLIED RESEARCH IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WASHINGTON DC
|
| Current theories of graph comprehension are largely silent about the processes by which inferences are made from graphs, although it is apparent that people are able to make such inferences. In Trickett & Trafton (2004), we proposed that people use spatial reasoning, in the form of spatial transformations to answer inferential questions. This paper is an extension of our earlier study, in which we standardized the graphs presented, so that ... |
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| Individual Differences in Interacting With Hypermedia Manuals |
30 JUN 2003 |
11 pages |
| Authors:
Mary Hegarty; CALIFORNIA UNIV SANTA BARBARA DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| We examined individual differences in interacting and learning from diagrams, multimedia presentations and hypermedia instructional manuals and how these-individual differences related to spatial abilities and knowledge. In several experiments, we found that comprehension of mechanical systems from static and animated diagrams was quite limited, and often resulted in misconceptions about how the systems worked. Students learned more from static and animated-diagrams if they were augmented with verbal instruction, and students ... |
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| CRESST Human Performance Knowledge Mapping System |
DEC 2002 |
95 pages |
| Authors:
Gregory K. Chung; Joanne K. Michiuye; David G. Brill; Ravi Sinha; Farzad Saadat; Linda F. de Vries; Girlie C. Delacruz; William L. Bewley; Eva L. Baker; CALIFORNIA UNIV LOS ANGELES CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF EVALUATION
|
| The UCLA National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) designed and developed a knowledge mapping tool intended to measure content understanding. This report presents a review of knowledge mapping scoring methods and current online mapping systems, and the overall design, functionality, scoring, usability testing, and authoring capabilities of the CRESST system. While several tools exist that are available to construct knowledge maps, CRESST's knowledge mapping tool ... |
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| Analysis and Synthesis of Hypermedia Visualizations |
2002 |
19 pages |
| Authors:
Mary Hegarty; CALIFORNIA UNIV SANTA BARBARA DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| We developed a cognitive model of how people encode information and make inference from multimedia presentations and conducted empirical studies to validate different aspects of this model in the domains of mechanics and computer algorithms. |
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| Reading for Understanding. Towards an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension |
2002 |
|
| Authors:
Catherine Snow; RAND CORP SANTA MONICA CA
|
| Recent research on reading instruction has led to significant improvements in the knowledge base for teaching primary-grade readers and for ensuring that those children have the early-childhood experiences they need to be prepared for the reading instruction they receive when they enter school. Nevertheless, evidence-based improvements in the teaching practices of reading comprehension are sorely needed. Understanding how to improve reading comprehension outcomes, not just for students who are failing ... |
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| Extracting Explicit and Implict Information from Complex Visualizations |
2002 |
16 pages |
| Authors:
J. G. Trafton; Sandra Marshall; Farilee Mintz; Susan B. Trickett; NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC CENTER FOR APPLIED RESEARCH IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
|
| How do experienced users extract information from a complex visualization? The authors examine this question by performing an experiment. They presented experienced weather forecasters with visualizations that did not show the needed information explicitly and examined their eye movements. They replicated Carpenter and Shah (1998) when the information was explicitly available on the visualization. However, when the information was not explicitly available, they found that forecasters used spatial reasoning in ... |
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| Learning to Suppress Competing Information: Do the Skills Transfer? |
OCT 2001 |
33 pages |
| Authors:
Morton A. Gernsbacher; ARMY RESEARCH INST FOR THE BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES ALEXANDRIA VA
|
| This report discusses the laboratory research on the cognitive mechanism of suppression. The goal of this study is to identify the cognitive processes and mechanisms that underlie language comprehension and comprehension in general. |
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| Reading for Understanding: Towards an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension |
JAN 2001 |
|
| Authors:
Catherine Snow; RAND CORP SANTA MONICA CA
|
| This draft report from the Rand Reading Study Group (RRSG)1 formulates an initial proposal concerning the research issues that the community of reading researchers most urgently needs to address over the next 10-15 years. We encourage readers of this draft version to respond with feedback about our summary of the issues, the coherence of our model of reading comprehension, and our sketch of the research enterprise. Ultimately, this document may ... |
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| Turning Pictures into Numbers: Extracting and Generating Information From Complex Visualizations |
01-Jan-2000 |
25 pages |
| Authors:
J G Trafton; Susan S Kirschenbaum; Ted L Tsui; Robert T Miyamoto; James A Ballas; Paula D Raymond; NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION SECTION
|
| We present a study of complex visualization usage by expert meteorological forecasters. We performed a protocol analysis and examined the types of visualizations they examined. We present evidence for how experts are able to make use of complex visualizations. Our findings suggest that users of complex visualizations create qualitative mental models from which they can then generate quantitative information. In order to build their qualitative mental models, forecasters integrated information ... |
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| C4 Software Technology Reference Guide - A Prototype |
10 JAN 97 |
|
| Authors:
Michael Bray; Kimberly Brune; David A. Fisher; John Foreman; Mark Gerken; CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INST
|
| The Air Force acquisition community tasked the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to create a reference document that would provide the Air Force with a better understanding of software technologies. This knowledge will allow the Air Force to systematically plan the research and development (R&D) and technology insertion required to meet current and future Air Force needs, from the upgrade and evolution of current systems to the development of new systems. ... |
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| Processes Involved in the Integration of Pictures and Discourse |
31 JAN 96 |
102 pages |
| Authors:
Arthur M. Glenberg; WISCONSIN UNIV-MADISON DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| There is no doubt that pictures can enhance text comprehension, and sometimes the effect is extraordinary. But how do pictures have this effect? One hypothesis is that pictures help to structure a spatial mental model. Indeed, initial results were strongly compatible with this hypothesis and contrary to others. Subsequent research was directed at characterizing the mental model. One possibility is that the mental model has a Euclidean structure and that ... |
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| Combining Concept Mapping and Adaptive Advice to Teach Reading Comprehension |
JUN 95 |
25 pages |
| Authors:
Patricia A. Carlson; Veronica Larralde; ARMSTRONG LAB BROOKS AFB TX HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTORATE
|
| This paper describes a computerized learning environment for teaching the conceptual patterns of critical literacy. While the full implementation of the software treats both reading and writing this paper covers only the reading aspects of R-WISE (Reading and Writing in a Supportive Environment). The software described posits the computer as an environment, where scaffolding and adaptive advice gently guide the fledgling learner through complex, multi- dimensional intellectual activities. The software ... |
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| Image Understanding Research in Complex Environments |
16 MAY 95 |
193 pages |
| Authors:
Ramakent Nevatia; Gerard Medioni; K. Price; UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES INST FOR ROBOTICS AND INTELLIGE NT SYSTEMS
|
| We have undertaken a broad range of research for developing image understanding technique to infer 3-D shape descriptions of-the scene front sensed data which may consist of monocular images, stereo pairs, motion sequences or range data, to recognize the objects in the scene, and to keep integrated temporal descriptions in dynamic scenes. This report details recent work in generating 3-D descriptions from range data or intensity data, object, recognition using ... |
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| Structural Domain Modeling for Understanding Equipment Failure Messages |
12 MAY 95 |
5 pages |
| Authors:
Kenneth Wauchope; NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC
|
| The goal of natural language understanding computer systems is to analyze and make use of the information contained in English or other natural language discourse. Understanding texts that discuss complex pieces of equipment such as Navy equipment failure reports (CASREPs), requires the possession not only of general knowledge about the types of objects and predicates in the domain, but also detailed knowledge about the particular equipment in question. This more ... |
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| Creation of New Items and Forms for the Project A Assembling Objects Test |
AUG 94 |
48 pages |
| Authors:
Henry H. Busciglio; Dale R. Palmer; Ivey H. King; Clinton B. Walker; ARMY RESEARCH INST FOR THE BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES ALEXANDRIA VA
|
| The Army's Project A was a comprehensive effort to improve the selection and classification of enlisted personnel. The Assembling Objects (AO) test was a major product of this effort. Previous research has shown AO to be an excellent measure of both overall spatial ability and complex, g-loaded problem- solving skills. In view of the great potential usefulness of the AO measure, researchers from the U.S. Army Research Institute for the ... |
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| Security Awareness Bulletin. Number 1-94 |
MAR 94 |
30 pages |
| Authors:
Lynn Fischer; DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECURITY INST RICHMOND VA
|
| Contents: Research on Espionage - (1) Espionage ... Why Does It Happen?; (2) PERSEREC Publications; (3) Understanding the Computer Criminal; (4) SPIN; (5) ISAC Update; and (6) OSD Transition. |
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| Induced Pictorial Representations |
30 NOV 93 |
31 pages |
| Authors:
Barbara G. Tversky; STANFORD UNIV CA DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| Language is often used to describe environments or to give directions. This project has investigated how spatial language describing large and small scale environments is comprehended and produced. The research on large scale environments, such as a town, has shown that in descriptions, people adopt either a route or a survey perspective or a mixture of both. In comprehension of such descriptions, people form spatial mental models that are more ... |
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| Processes Involved in the Integration of Pictures and Discourse |
01 JUN 93 |
3 pages |
| Authors:
Arthur M. Glenberg; WISCONSIN UNIV-MADISON DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| From 7/93 to 6/94 William Langston and Douglas Kramer continued work on a series of experiments investigating the use of spatial mental models to notice relationships (between objects) that have not been mentioned in a text (the series of experiments headed Experiment 1 in the proposal). From 7/93 to 12/93 the experiments were conducted using sentence reading time as a dependent variable to determine if readers, take longer to process ... |
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| Laboratory Investigations of the Cognitive Mechanism of Suppression |
15 MAR 93 |
37 pages |
| Authors:
Morton A. Gernsbacher; OREGON UNIV EUGENE DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| Our goal in this research was to further understand the cognitive mechanism of suppression. In our previous work (supported by AFOSR-89-0305), we found that less-skilled comprehenders are less efficient in suppressing inappropriate, irrelevant, or should-be-ignored information. For instance, less- skilled comprehenders are less efficient in suppressing the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words (e.g., the playing card meaning of spade when they read the sentence He dug with the spade). Less-skilled ... |
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| Integration of Pictures and Discourse |
01 JAN 93 |
21 pages |
| Authors:
Arthur M. Glenerg; WISCONSIN UNIV-MADISON DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| Pictures help people to comprehend and remember texts. The goal of this project is to begin to understand how this occurs. This Final Technical Report describes progress in three areas. First, we have demonstrated that pictures are used to modify the mental representation derived from texts. When reading with pictures, people tend to form mental models, even when reading in relatively unfamiliar domains. These mental models are representations of what ... |
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| Quarterly Report Number 1 on Contract N00014-92-J-1977 (University of Georgia) |
26 OCT 92 |
2 pages |
| Authors:
Bruce K. Britton; GEORGIA UNIV ATHENS DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| This quarterly report discusses a reading comprehension test (cognitive structure test) that has been developed by the present project. The paragraph comprehension section of the AFQT and the reading comprehension section of the SAT were chosen for item type selection in the pilot study. AFQT and SAT texts are being run through two computer writing aids to improve coherence. A computer program for interviewing experts on their choice of terms ... |
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| Applications of CAPS Modeling to Strategy Competition and Flexibility in Discourse Comprehension |
15 AUG 92 |
37 pages |
| Authors:
Susan R. Goldman; VANDERBILT UNIV NASHVILLE TN
|
| Behavioral data obtained by Goldman and Saul (1990) suggest the need to incorporate competition among reading strategies into text comprehension models. REREADER is a computational model that does that. The model is implemented within the Collaborative Activation-Based Production System (CAPS) architecture (Just and Carpenter, 1990). In CAPS, productions must accumulate sufficient activation to fire and their activations fluctuate depending on other aspects of the system. Total activation is limited by ... |
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| Understanding Mechanical Systems through Computer Animation and Kinematic Imagery |
30 APR 92 |
23 pages |
| Authors:
Patricia A. Carpenter; Marcel A. Just; CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| One purpose of the research is to develop models of cognitive processes in understanding mechanical systems. A particular focus was on the processes in mentally animating the representation of a mechanical system, and the contribution of animation graphics in comprehension. Several studies, involving eye fixations, verbal protocols and process tracing, indicated that mental animation was difficult for individuals who were not knowledgeable about mechanics. Animation did help them determine the ... |
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| Sylvia Beach Language Comprehension Conference 1990 |
16 APR 92 |
25 pages |
| Authors:
Morton A. Gernsbacher; OREGON UNIV EUGENE DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| A conference was held for internationally-known scholars in the field of language comprehension. It was a small, intense, two-and-a-half day conference in which participants had the opportunity to interact both formally and informally. Each participant gave a 30-minute talk overviewing the current state of his or her research. A thirty-minute round-table talk discussion followed each set of two talks. |
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| Language Comprehension as Structure Building |
17 OCT 91 |
15 pages |
| Authors:
Morton A. Gernsbacher; OREGON UNIV EUGENE DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| This research investigated language comprehension, and in particular, the general, cognitive processes and mechanisms that underlie language comprehension. These general, processes and mechanisms were investigated using a simple framework Gernsbacher (1990) refers to as the 'Structure Building Framework'. According to the Structure Building Framework, the goal of comprehension is to build a coherent, mental representation of 'structure'. To do this, comprehenders must first lay a foundation. Next, they develop the ... |
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| Computerized Assessment of Individual Differences |
29 AUG 91 |
35 pages |
| Authors:
Earl B. Hunt; UNIV OF WASHINGTON SEATTLE DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| Co-ordinating ability is the ability to integrate information from several domains in order to accomplish a single task. An example is integrating verbal instructions with visual perception of scenes. We have found that coordinating ability in linguistic and perceptual tasks is an ability that is over and above the ability to deal with linguistic or perceptual tasks alone. A related study analyzed orienting ability, i.e. the ability to locate oneself ... |
|
| Working Notes of the 1990 Spring Symposium on Automated Abduction |
27 SEP 90 |
176 pages |
| Authors:
Paul O'Rorke; CALIFORNIA UNIV IRVINE
|
| The philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce used the term abduction for a form of inference considered to be as important as deduction and induction. Abduction is concerned with explanatory reasoning and is closely related to the relatively modern notions of backward chaining and inference to the best explanation. Since explanations are important in many different aspects of intelligence, cognitive scientists have become interested in computer programs that construct and evaluate explanations. ... |
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| Comprehension of Illustrated Text: Pictures Help to Build Mental Models |
18 SEP 90 |
41 pages |
| Authors:
Arthur M. Glenberg; William E. Langston; WISCONSIN UNIV-MADISON DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| Pictures help people to comprehend and remember texts. We report two experiments designed to test among several accounts of this facilitation. Students read texts describing four-step procedures in which the middle steps were described as occurring at the same time, although the verbal description of the steps was sequential. A mental representation of the procedure would have the middle steps equally strongly related to the preceding and succeeding steps (because ... |
|
| Language Comprehension as Structure Building |
05 SEP 90 |
79 pages |
| Authors:
Morton A. Gernsbacher; OREGON UNIV EUGENE DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| This research investigated the role of two structure building mechanisms in language comprehension. They are Suppression and Enhancement. The first series of experiments investigated the role of suppression in word understanding. The results demonstrated that the mechanism of suppression dampens the activation of the inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words; they do not decrease in activation simply because their activation is consumed by appropriate meanings or because they decay. A second ... |
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| Investigating Individual Differences in General Comprehension Skill: The Role of Suppression and Enhancement |
01 AUG 90 |
69 pages |
| Authors:
Morton A. Gernsbacher; OREGON UNIV EUGENE DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| Investigation into whether the cognitive mechanism of suppression underlies differences in adult comprehensions skills are reported. Less-skilled comprehenders less-efficiently reject the inappropriate meaning of ambiguous words (e.g., the playing card vs garden tool meaning of spade), the incorrect forms of homophones (e.g., patients vs patience), the highly-typical-but-absent members of scenes (e.g., tractor in a farm scene), and words superimposed on pictures of pictures surrounding words. however, less-skilled comprehenders are not ... |
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| Perception and Temporal Properties of Speech |
26 JUL 90 |
67 pages |
| Authors:
Peter C. Gordon; HARVARD UNIV CAMBRIDGE MA DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| Two series of experiments are reported on the role of prosody in human speech comprehension. One series looked at the role of prosodic information in listeners' ability to recognize adjacent vowels and consonants cued by the common temporal feature of vowel duration. The stimuli consisted of syllables from a large sample of natural speech which listeners heard with prosodic context or without. Prosodic context was found to aid listeners in ... |
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| The Sylvia Beach Language Comprehension Conference, 1989 |
07 MAY 90 |
21 pages |
| Authors:
Morton A. Gernsbacher; OREGON UNIV EUGENE DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| The Sylvia Beach Language Comprehension Conference was a conference for internationally-known scholars in the field of language comprehension. Its format was unlike any currently available for disseminating and discussing language comprehension research. It was a small (only 27 participants), intense, two-and-a-half day conference in which participants had the opportunity to interact both formally and informally. Each participant gave a 30-minute talk overviewing the current state of his or her research. ... |
|
| Linguistic and Pragmatic Constraints on Utterance Interpretation |
MAY 90 |
166 pages |
| Authors:
Elizabeth A. Hinkelman; ROCHESTER UNIV NY DEPT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
|
| To model how people understand language, it is necessary to understand not only grammar and logic but also how people use language to affect their environment. This area of study is known as natural language pragmatics. Speech acts, for instance, are the offers, promises, announcements, etc., that people make by talking. The same expression may be different acts in different contexts, and yet not every expression performs every act. We ... |
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| Investigations of Human Question Answering |
FEB 90 |
73 pages |
| Authors:
Arthur C. Graesser; MEMPHIS STATE UNIV TN
|
| This project developed and tested a model of human question answering (called QUEST). QUEST accounts for the answers that adults produce when they answer different categories of open-class questions, such as why, how, when, and what-if. QUEST identifies the information sources for questions and assumes that knowledge is organized in the form of conceptual graph structures containing statement nodes and relational arcs. Example types of structures include goal hierarchies, casual ... |
|
| Sentence Comprehension: A Parallel Distributed Processing Approach |
14 JUL 89 |
57 pages |
| Authors:
James L. McClelland; Mark St John; Roman Taraban; CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY PRO JECT
|
| Basic aspects are reviewed of conventional approaches to sentence comprehension and point out are some of the difficulties faced by models that take these approaches. An alternative approach is described, based on the principles of parallel distributed processing, and shown how it offers different answers to basic questions about the nature of the language processing mechanism. An illustrative simulation model captures the key characteristics of the approach, and illustrates how ... |
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| Comprehension Processes in Mechanical Reasoning |
MAY 89 |
16 pages |
| Authors:
Patricia A. Carpenter; Marcel A. Just; CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA DEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY
|
| Several lines of research investigated how people reason about mechanical devices. One avenue explored the use of diagrams in conjunction with texts to understand a particular machine. Another project investigated the psychological processes that distinguish people who score high or low in a psychometric test of mechanical ability. A third project examined the visual scanning and decision processes that are used to evaluate a kinematic display of a machine in ... |
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Reports by Keyword(s)
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