Pragmatic Factors in Image Description: The Case of Negations

We provide a qualitative analysis of the descriptions containing negations (no, not, n't, nobody, etc) in the Flickr30K corpus, and a categorization of negation uses. Based on this analysis, we provide a set of requirements that an image description system should have in order to generate negation sentences. As a pilot experiment, we used our categorization to manually annotate sentences containing negations in the Flickr30K corpus, with an agreement score of K=0.67. With this paper, we hope to open up a broader discussion of subjective language in image descriptions.Comment: Accepted as a short paper for the 5th Workshop on Vision and Language, collocated with ACL 2016, Berli

Negation, 'presupposition' and the semantics/pragmatics distinction

A cognitive pragmatic approach is taken to some long-standing problem cases of negation, the so-called presupposition denial cases. It is argued that a full account of the processes and levels of representation involved in their interpretation typically requires the sequential pragmatic derivation of two different propositions expressed. The first is one in which the presupposition is preserved and, following the rejection of this, the second involves the echoic (metalinguistic) use of material falling in the scope of the negation. The semantic base for these processes is the standard anti-presuppositionalist wide-scope negation. A different view, developed by Burton-Roberts (1989a, b), takes presupposition to be a semantic relation encoded in natural language and so argues for a negation operator that does not cancel presuppositions. This view is shown to be flawed, in that it makes the false prediction that presupposition denial cases are semantic contradictions and it is based on too narrow a view of the role of pragmatic inferencing

Perisylvian Functional Connectivity during Processing of Sentential Negation

Every language has the means to reverse the truth value of a sentence by using specific linguistic markers of negation. In the present study we investigated the neural processing costs afforded by the construction of meaning in German sentences containing negation in different clause types. We studied negations within and across clause boundaries as well as single and double negations. Participants read German sentences comprising of affirmations, single negations in the main or in the subordinate clause, or double negations. As a result, we found a network including the left inferior frontal gyrus (pars triangularis, BA 45), and the left inferior parietal gyrus (BA 40) to be activated whenever negations in the main clause had to be processed. Additionally, we found increased functional coupling between the left pars triangularis (BA 45), left pars opercularis (BA 44), left SMA (BA 6), and left superior temporal gyrus (BA 42) during the processing of main clause negations. The study shows that in order to process negations that require semantic integration across clause boundaries left BA 45 interplays with other areas that have been related to language processing and/or the processing of cognitive demands and logical/conditional reasoning. Thus, the results indicate that the left perisylvian language network synchronizes in order to resolve negations, in particular, whenever requirements on meaning integration are enhanced

Cross-linguistic differences and similarities in image descriptions

Automatic image description systems are commonly trained and evaluated on large image description datasets. Recently, researchers have started to collect such datasets for languages other than English. An unexplored question is how different these datasets are from English and, if there are any differences, what causes them to differ. This paper provides a cross-linguistic comparison of Dutch, English, and German image descriptions. We find that these descriptions are similar in many respects, but the familiarity of crowd workers with the subjects of the images has a noticeable influence on description specificity.Comment: Accepted for INLG 2017, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 4-7 September, 2017. Camera-ready version. See the ACL anthology for full bibliographic informatio

Framing in the Wild: Expressions of Decisions in Real-World Situations

An important phenomenon in the study of behavioral decision-making is the surprising finding that people who are given choices framed in positive vs. negative terms exhibit different preferences. This study focused on a newer question: what factors influence the selection of frames by decision-makers? The development of a decision frame that has positive or negative overall value is a process that can be influenced by a number of factors. Several theoretical approaches to decision-making were examined with respect to making predictions regarding factors that would influence frame selection: mental accounting, task complexity, mental workload, expertise, regulatory focus, and message formulation goals. Predictions were extrapolated from each of these approaches and tested with data from a real-world decision-making situation - planning conversations from a set of NASA mission control meetings. The planning statements were transcribed and coded for frame selection and other behavioral/situational elements that were predicted to be related to frame selection. Mental accounting was not found to be related to frame selection. A predominance of positive framing, along with minimal use of negations, provided some support for the influence of positive expression bias. There was also evidence for aspiration mode impacting the selection of frame. The strongest predictor of frame selection, however, was an increase in expertise that occurred over the course of the mission. Between early and late mission phases, there was a significant decrease in positive framing, and this decrease interacted with task complexity. Based on these results, the hypothesis was proposed that decision-makers use opportunities for action as a means to frame decisions

Opposites in reasoning processes: do we use them more than we think, but less than we could?

Our aim in this paper is to contribute toward acknowledging the general role of opposites as an organizing principle in the human mind. We support this claim in relation to human reasoning by collecting evidence from various studies which shows that \u201cthinking in opposites\u201d is not only involved in formal logical thinking, but can also be applied in both deductive and inductive reasoning, as well as in problem solving. We also describe the results of a series of studies which, although they have been developed within a number of different theoretical frameworks based on various methodologies, all demonstrate that giving hints or training reasoners to think in terms of opposites improves their performance in tasks in which spontaneous thinking may lead to classic biases and impasses. Since we all possess an intuitive idea of what opposites are, prompting people to \u201cthink in opposites\u201d is something which is undoubtedly within everyone's reach and in the final section, we discuss the potential of this strategy and suggest possible future research directions of systematic testing the benefits that might arise from the use of this technique in contexts beyond those tested thus far. Ascertaining the conditions in which reasoners might benefit will also help in terms of clarifying the underlying mechanisms from the point of view, for instance, of analytical, conscious processing vs. automatic, unconscious processing

REALIZATION OF REFUSALS IN HABIBURRAHMAN EL SHIRAZY’S AYAT-AYAT CINTA

ABSTRACT Refusal belongs to illocutionary acts of commissive. It occurs in all languages and is formulated differently based on their cultural background. People refuse either directly or indirectly. Beebe and Takahashi (1990) provided a classification of refusal strategy that can be used to analyze the form of refusal utterances. This study aims to discover the refusal strategies used in the novel of Ayat-ayat Cinta by Habiburrahman El Shirazy. The analysis was done to the speech act of refusals (SARs) in response to requests, questions, suggestions, orders, and invitations. The data were analyzed and categorized according to the refusal taxonomy by Beebe et al. The IFIDs are also used to indicate the performative verbs of refusals utterances. The finding showed that the refusers perform different SARs. Indirect SARs of excuse/reason/explanation, statement of principle, and statement of regret were the preferred formula used in refusing. Besides, the power relation of the refusers who were higher, equal, and lower also distinguished the choice of semantic formula. The indirect SAR of flat “no” was not much prefered by the three power relation of the refusers. The performative verbs used in the refusal utterances are “tell, ask, threaten, promise, request, inform, forbid, and beg”. Key words: speech acts of refusals, refusal strategy, directive speech acts xii INTISARI Penolakan merupakan tindak illokusi komisif. Tindak penolakan terjadi dalam semua bahasa dan dirumuskan secara berbeda berdasarkan latar belakang budayanya. Orang-orang melakukan penolakan baik secara langsung maupun tidak langsung. Beebe dan Takahashi (1990) membuat urutan formula semantik yang dapat digunakan untuk menganalisis bentuk strategi penolakan. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan formula semantik atau strategi-strategi penolakan yang digunakan dalam novel Ayat-ayat Cinta karangan Habiburrahman El Shirazy. Analisis dilakukan pada pada tindak tutur penolakan (SARs) terhadap tindak tutur permintaan, pertanyaan, saran, perintah, dan undangan. Data dianalisis dan dikelompokkan sesuai dengan taksonomi penolakan oleh Beebe dkk. Untuk melihat kata kerja performatif dalam tuturan-tuturan penolakan digunakan juga Piranti Daya Ilokusi (IFIDs). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa para penolak melakukan tindak tutur penolakan yang berbeda. Tindak tutur penolakan tidak langsung berupa alasan/keterangan, pernyataan prinsip, dan pernyataan penyesalan merupakan formula yang banyak digunakan dalam menolak. Selain itu, status sosial para penolak juga membedakan pemilihan formula semantik. Tindak tutur tidak langsung no tidak menjadi pilihan penolak dari ketiga status sosial. Kata kerja performatif yang digunakan dalam tuturantuturan penolakan adalah “tell, ask, threaten, promise, request, inform, forbid, and beg”. Kata kunci: tindak tutur penolakan, strategi penolakan, tindak tutur direkti

EXPLORATION OF RELEVANCE EFFECTS IN REASONING

The study examines possible underlying mechanisms that may be responsible for generally observed biased response patterns in two conditional reasoning tasks: the Wason selection task and the conditional inference evaluation task. It is proposed that memory processes that may account for priming phenomenon, may also account for the phenomena of matching bias and double-negation effects in reasoning. A new mental activation model is proposed, based on distributed theories of memory, which models relevance effects of the problem materials by way of a simple algorithm. The model is seen to parsimoniously predict previous general response patterns found using the two reasoning tasks and makes unusual predictions concerning the size of the concepts used in the reasoning problems. The findings show that matching bias can occur between materials that do not lexically match but correlate on a semantic basis, which clarifies a previously uncertain area in the literature. It is also shown that previously deemed 'irrelevant' or mismatching cards on the selection task can interfere with the perceived relevance of matching cards if they are semantically related. The findings also show a weak but significant effect of concept size on matching bias in the inference task, supporting the proposed mental activation model. Issues concerning the notion of relevance perceptions being measured by particular response choices are raised with respect to both the selection and inference tasks

On the use of human reference data for evaluating automatic image descriptions

Automatic image description systems are commonly trained and evaluated using crowdsourced, human-generated image descriptions. The best-performing system is then determined using some measure of similarity to the reference data (BLEU, Meteor, CIDER, etc). Thus, both the quality of the systems as well as the quality of the evaluation depends on the quality of the descriptions. As Section 2 will show, the quality of current image description datasets is insufficient. I argue that there is a need for more detailed guidelines that take into account the needs of visually impaired users, but also the feasibility of generating suitable descriptions. With high-quality data, evaluation of image description systems could use reference descriptions, but we should also look for alternatives.Comment: Originally presented as a (non-archival) poster at the VizWiz 2020 workshop, collocated with CVPR 2020. See: https://vizwiz.org/workshops/2020-workshop