Linking working memory and long-term memory: A computational model of the learning of new words

The nonword repetition (NWR) test has been shown to be a good predictor of children’s vocabulary size. NWR performance has been explained using phonological working memory, which is seen as a critical component in the learning of new words. However, no detailed specification of the link between phonological working memory and long-term memory (LTM) has been proposed. In this paper, we present a computational model of children’s vocabulary acquisition (EPAM-VOC) that specifies how phonological working memory and LTM interact. The model learns phoneme sequences, which are stored in LTM and mediate how much information can be held in working memory. The model’s behaviour is compared with that of children in a new study of NWR, conducted in order to ensure the same nonword stimuli and methodology across ages. EPAM-VOC shows a pattern of results similar to that of children: performance is better for shorter nonwords and for wordlike nonwords, and performance improves with age. EPAM-VOC also simulates the superior performance for single consonant nonwords over clustered consonant nonwords found in previous NWR studies. EPAM-VOC provides a simple and elegant computational account of some of the key processes involved in the learning of new words: it specifies how phonological working memory and LTM interact; makes testable predictions; and suggests that developmental changes in NWR performance may reflect differences in the amount of information that has been encoded in LTM rather than developmental changes in working memory capacity. Keywords: EPAM, working memory, long-term memory, nonword repetition, vocabulary acquisition, developmental change

Narratives by Six Year Old and Nine Year Old Boys: Brute: Institutional, and Non-Institutional Mental Facts

Brute facts, institutional facts, and non-institutional mental facts were studied. The philosophy of constructionism and the theory of intent provided a framework for this research. Intentionality provided the basis for social facts. Brute, institutional, and noninstitutional mental facts were operationally defined. This study analyzed the use of these facts in the narratives of 6-year-old boys and 9-year-old boys. There were a total of 19 participants in this research. This research established brute, institutional, and non-institutional mental facts as appropriate operational categories for studying children\u27s narratives. The 6-year-old boys produced more brute facts than the 9-year-old boys. The 9-year-old boys produced significantly more institutional facts in spontaneous narratives than the 6-year-old boys. The production of non-institutional mental facts was not significantly different between the two groups. The discussion pertained to the ramifications of these results as related to spontaneous language samples, appropriate language sampling size, and the syntagmaticparadigmatic shift

The Dialogical Language of Law

We live in a dialogical world. The normative environment around us is many-voiced. Legal activities like drafting, negotiating, interpreting, judging, invoking, and protesting the law take place in dialogical encounters, all of which presuppose entrenched forms of social dialogue. And yet, the dominant modes of thinking about the law remain monological. How can we bring our legal conceptions into alignment with the dialogical world in which we live? The present article follows in the footsteps of a Bakhtinian dialogical theory of language that challenges the roots of contemporary positivist conceptions of law and language underpinning large swathes of legal academia and the legal profession—including recent approaches to legal interpretation called corpus linguistics. Against this backdrop, the article aims to develop a richer and more textured dialogical jurisprudence to encompass the various aspects, activities, and genres where legal language is employed

The Inevitability of Practical Reason: Statutes, Formalism, and the Rule of Law

This Symposium commemorates the publication of Karl Llewellyn\u27s assault on the canons of statutory interpretation. This Article seeks to situate Llewellyn\u27s view of statutory interpretation within the ongoing debate between advocates of practical reason and formalism. Many critics of practical reason question its compatibility with the rule of law. If we cannot precisely describe the operation of practical reason, can we have any confidence in its ability to guide judicial decisions? Or, on the contrary, does formalism provide a greater degree of democratic accountability, certainty, stability, and predictability than practical reason? These questions are the primary concern of this Article. Part I lays the groundwork by describing Llewellyn\u27s views and their relationship to current writing on practical reason. It then sketches the formalist counterattack against practical reason. Formalists argue that a jurisprudence of rules-to be interpreted primarily according to their plain meaning -provides legal certainty, predict- ability, and objectivity.\u27 Part II critiques formalist interpretation, arguing that formalism cannot deliver on its promise to provide greater implementation of these important rule of law virtues. Formalist methods of statutory interpretation neither eliminate the need for practical reason nor ease communication between legislatures and citizens. Thus, formalist methods cannot achieve the formalists\u27 own normative goals. Part II then turns to the criticism that practical reason is incoherent, subjective, and unpredictable-an appeal to an unverifiable and even unknowable faculty. Cognitive psychologists have shown, however, that experts rely on a variety of cognitive skills (such as Llewellyn\u27s situation sense ) to solve problems rather than simply executing a battery of formal rules. We have confidence in the operation of these cognitive skills in other contexts, and they are presumably also reliable enough to provide legal predictability and stability

Inductive Acquisition of Expert Knowledge

Expert systems divide neatly into two categories: those in which ( 1) the expert decisions result in changes to some external environment (control systems), and (2) the expert decisions merely seek to describe the environment (classification systems). Both the explanation of computer-based reasoning and the "bottleneck" (Feigenbaum, 1979) of knowledge acquisition are major issues in expert systems research. We have contributed to these areas of research in two ways. Firstly, we have implemented an expert system shell, the Mugol environment, which facilitates knowledge acquisition by inductive inference and provides automatic explanation of run-time reasoning on demand. RuleMaster, a commercial version of this environment, has been used to advantage industrially in the construction and testing of two large classification systems. Secondly, we have investigated a new technique called sequence induction which can be used in the construction of control systems. Sequence induction is based on theoretical work in grammatical learning. We have improved existing grammatical learning algorithms as well as suggesting and theoretically characterising new ones. These algorithms have been successfully applied to the acquisition of knowledge for a diverse set of control systems, including inductive construction of robot plans and chess end-game strategies

Some Dumb Girl Syndrome: Challenging and Subverting Destructive Stereotypes of Female Attorneys

This Essay considers ways in which female attorneys confront sexism and stereotyping in the legal profession and in life, and strongly endorses embracing feminism, and wearing comfortable shoes

An analysis of verbs within video game structures based on a video game verb theory and The Secret of Monkey Island

The aims of this thesis are as followes: to provide a review of the idea presented by three game designers – Chris Crawford, Raph Koster and Anna Anthropy – according to which, verbs should be used to describe the interactions and inner rule structures of video games; present these ideas as a unified theory of verbs within game structures; provide a method for analysing these verbs through syntactic theory presented by Bas Aarts and Van Valin and LaPolla; apply the combined theory of verbs in game structures and the methodology and concepts from syntax to analyse the verbs in the structure of the 1990 point and click adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island and its 2009 Enhanced edition.http://www.ester.ee/record=b4678178*es

Duchamp and Pragmatics

There is a correspondence between the mechanism of visual communication in Duchamp’s art and the principles of pragmatics in linguistics. The process from Duchamp’s intended meaning encoded in his art to the correct interpretation on the part of the addressee is similar to the process in which intended meaning encoded in speech being accurately decoded by the addressee. This is because the correct interpretation in both processes involves inferences. Be it language or art, to fully understand the intended meaning of a statement, an addressee must first understand the natural meaning known as entailment; and subsequently uncover the unnatural, but intended, meaning known as implicature. Uncovering the implicature requires some inferences to be drawn. For addresser to make sure that the intended but implied meaning will be successfully inferred and for addressee to draw appropriate inferences, mutually shared contextual knowledge is required. As a result, the theoretical explanations from the perspective of pragmatics used to account for language use and its comprehension are also adequately applicable to the interpretation of art