Intonation and discourse : biased questions

This paper surveys a range of constructions in which prosody affects discourse function and discourse structure.We discuss English tag questions, negative polar questions, and what we call “focus” questions. We postulate that these question types are complex speech acts and outline an analysis in Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT) to account for the interactions between prosody and discourse

Consumer behavioural biases in competition: A survey

This is a survey of studies that examine competition in the presence of behaviourally biased or boundedly rational consumers. It will tackle questions such as: How does competition and pricing change when consumers are biased? Can inefficiencies that arise from consumer behavioural biases be mitigated by lowering barriers to entry? Do biased consumers make rational ones better or worse off? And will biased consumer behaviour be overcome through learning or education?Behavioural Economics, Industrial Organization, Biased Consumers

Did the arctic ice recover? Demographics of true and false climate facts

Abstract Beliefs about climate change divide the U.S. public along party lines more distinctly than hot social issues. Research finds that better-educated orinformed respondents are more likelytoalign with their partiesonclimate change. This information-elite polarization resembles a process of biased assimilation first described in psychological experiments. In nonexperimental settings, college graduates could be prone to biased assimilation if they more effectively acquire information that supports their beliefs. Recent national and statewide survey data show response patterns consistent with biased assimilation (and biased guessing) contributing to the correlation observed between climate beliefs and knowledge. The survey knowledge questions involve key, uncontroversial observations such as whether the area of late-summer Arctic sea ice has declined, increased, or declined and then recovered to what it was 30 years ago. Correct answers are predicted by education, and some wrong answers (e.g., more ice) have predictors that suggest lack of knowledge. Other wrong answers (e.g., ice recovered) are predicted by political and belief factors instead. Response patterns suggest causality in both directions: science information affecting climate beliefs, but also beliefs affecting the assimilation of science information

Good, bad, or biased? Using best practices to improve the quality of your survey questions

Surveys can be an effective tool for gathering information from library users and assessing library services, yet the quality of the survey questions can make all the difference between a survey that is completed and one that is abandoned in indifference or frustration. The increased emphasis on user informed library assessment and the availability of free online survey tools combine to make the use of surveys very popular in libraries, but inexperienced survey writers are not typically aware of best practices in the social sciences for the format and syntax of survey question and response options. These widely used best practices are meant to ensure that survey questions are clear and understandable, produce unbiased responses in appropriate formats, and are ethical with respect to the user. Flawed survey questions may confuse and frustrate users, resulting in survey fatigue and low survey response rates, inaccurate or difficult to interpret results, and wasted time and effort for both the surveyor and surveyed. Learning best practices for writing effective survey questions will help librarians improve their survey outcomes while maintaining the goodwill of users who provide needed survey data. Survey planning and pretesting are addressed as critical components of survey development, and example good and bad questions give presentation attendees the opportunity to immediately apply the concepts discussed. This poster was presented at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) 2013 National Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana

Derive the biased reading of A-not-A questions in Mandarin

Among many forms of A-not-A questions in Mandarin Chinese, the shi-not-shi question is found to be unique in that it obligatorily gives rise to a biased reading toward its prejacent, so-called positive bias. The previous pragmatic approach by Ye (2020) establishes a link between focus in polar questions and question bias to explain this biased reading. However, the current study finds that two other A-not-A questions formed by epistemic modals, hui-not-hui and keneng-not-keneng which are not focus markers, obligatorily produce positively biased readings as well. I propose that biased A-not-A questions are a type of high-negation questions with A-not-A residing outside of TP. shi, hui and keneng should all be analyzed as epistemic modals which are the overt realization of Goodhue’s (2019) epistemic operator scoped by the negator. The positively biased reading is derived from the resulting unbalanced partition based on general pragmatic principles. This analysis from the semantic aspect provides new evidence for the argument that the first A has reality only in PF. Furthermore, the Mandarin Chinese data lends evidence to Goodhue’s (2019) argument that there exists a doxastic speech operator between NegP and TP in high negation questions. The paper also provides explanations for previously remaining questions on bias cancelation by the stress marker daodi and factive predicates like zhidao (“know”)

Self-Regulation through Goal Setting

Goals are an important source of motivation. But little is known about why and how people set them. We address these questions in a model based on two stylized facts from psychology and behavioral economics: i) Goals serve as reference points for performance. ii) Present-biased preferences create self-control problems. We show how goals permit self-regulation, but also that they are painful self-disciplining devices. Greater self-control problems therefore lead to stronger self-regulation through goals only up to a certain point. For severely present-biased preferences, the required goal for self-regulation is too painful and the individual rather gives up.goals, self-control, motivation, time inconsistency, psychology

Prestige-biased social learning: current evidence and outstanding questions

This is the final version. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Cultural evolution theory posits that a major factor in human ecological success is our high-fidelity and selective social learning, which permits the accumulation of adaptive knowledge and skills over successive generations. One way to acquire adaptive social information is by preferentially copying competent individuals within a valuable domain (success bias). However, competence within a domain is often difficult or impossible to directly assess. Almost 20 years ago, Henrich and Gil-White (H&GW) suggested that people use indirect cues of success (e.g., differential levels of attention paid to models by other social learners) as adaptive short-cuts to select models from whom to learn. They called this use of indirect markers of success prestige bias. In this review, we re-visit H&GW’s proposal, examining the evidence amassed since for the adaptiveness and use of prestige bias in humans. First, we briefly outline H&GW’s theory. Second, we analyse whether prestige is associated with competence within valuable domains, which is a crucial assumption underlying the adaptiveness of prestige bias. Third, we discuss prestige cues that people use to infer success (e.g., the amount of voluntary deference and attention received by models). Fourth, we examine the evidence for and against the use of prestige bias in human adults and children. Finally, we point out limitations in the current literature and present new avenues for research on prestige bias.Leverhulme Trus

Open questions in quarkonium and electromagnetic probes

In my ("not a summary") talk at the Hard Probes 2006 conference, I gave "a personal and surely biased view on only a few of the many open questions on quarkonium and electromagnetic probes". Some of the points reported in that talk are exposed in this paper, having in mind the most important of all the open questions: do we have, today, from experimental data on electromagnetic probes and quarkonium production, convincing evidence that shows, beyond reasonable doubt, the existence of "new physics" in high-energy heavy-ion collisions?Comment: Invited talk at the 2nd Int. Conf. on Hard and EM Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions, Asilomar, California, June 9--16, 2006. To be published in Nuclear Physics A. Late submission to the arXi