Processing quantified noun phrases with numbers versus verbal quantifiers

Statements containing quantity information are commonplace. Although there is literature explaining the way in which quantities themselves are conveyed in numbers or words (e.g., many, probably), there is less on the effects of different types of quantity description on the processing of surrounding text. Given that quantity information is usually conveyed to alter our understanding of a situation (e.g., to convey information about a risk), our understanding of the rest of the quantified statement is clearly important. In this article texts containing quantified statements expressed numerically versus verbally are compared in two text change experiments to assess how the entire quantified noun phrase is encoded in each case. On the basis of the results it is argued that numerical quantifiers place focus on the size of a subset, whereas verbal quantifiers are better integrated with nouns leading to more focus on the subset itself

Numeric Estimation and Response Options: An Examination of the Accuracy of Numeric and Vague Quantifier Responses

Many survey questions ask respondents to provide responses that contain quantitative information, often using either numeric open-ended responses or vague quantifier scales. Generally, survey researchers have argued against the use of vague quantifier scales. However, no study has compared accuracy between vague quantifiers and numeric open-ended responses. This study is the first to do so, using a unique data set created through an experiment. 124 participants studied word lists of paired words, where the experiment employed a 2 (context) x 2 (response form) x 6 (actual frequency) factorial design, with the context and form factors manipulated between subjects, and the frequency factor manipulated within subjects. The two conditions for the context factor are same-context and different-context conditions where the context word either was the same or different for each presentation of the target word. The other between subject factor was response form, where participants responded to a recall test using either vague quantifiers or numeric open-ended responses. Translations of vague quantifiers were obtained and used in accuracy tests. Finally, a numeracy test was administered to collect information about respondent numeracy. Different accuracy measures are estimated and analyzed. Results show context memory did not have a significant effect. Numeracy has an effect, but the direction depends on form and context. Actual frequency had a significant effect on accuracy, but did not interact with other variables. Importantly, results suggest vague quantifiers tend to improve accuracy more often relative to numeric open-ended response

Quantification, Restrictor Weight, and Contrast in Sentence Processing

A recent focus of study has been the impact of quantification on sentence processing. Developing from work comparing sentences with quantified NPs and referential NPs (Warren & Gibson, 2002) and work looking at quantifier restrictor weight (Warren, 2003), the current self-paced reading studies address issues of quantifier restrictor weight and quantifier type in regards to contrast set building requirements. Experiment 1 replicates previous findings showing semantically light QNPs to be easier to process than contentful ones (Warren, 2003), and suggests that the quantifier every does not require contrast set building. Experiment 2 replicates the finding for every, contrasting it with a quantifier known to require contrasts (only), and provides information about negative quantifier use as well

Quantifier expressions and information structure

Linguists and philosophers of language have shown increasing interest in the expressions that refer to quantifiers: determiners like ‘every’ and ‘many’, in addition to determiner phrases like ‘some king’ and ‘no cat’. This thesis addresses several puzzles where the way we understand quantifier expressions depends on features that go beyond standard truth conditional semantic meaning. One puzzle concerns the fact that it is often natural to understand ‘Every king is in the yard’ as being true if (say) all of the kings at the party are in the yard, even though the standard truth conditions predict it to be true if and only if every king in the universe is in the yard. Another puzzle emerges from the observation that ‘Every American king is in the yard’ sounds odd relative to contexts where there are no American kings, even though the standard truth conditions predict it to be trivially true. These puzzles have been widely discussed within linguistics and philosophy of language, and have implications for topics as diverse as the distinction between semantics and pragmatics and the ontological commitments of ordinary individuals. Yet few attempts have been made to incorporate discussions from the linguistics literature into the philosophical literature. This thesis argues that attending to the linguistics literature helps to address these puzzles. In particular, my solutions to these puzzles rely on notions from work on information structure, an often overlooked area of linguistics. I will use these notions to develop a new theory of the pragmatics of ordinary discourse, in the process of resolving the puzzles. In the first two chapters, I provide accessible overviews of key notions from the literature on quantifier expressions and information structure. In the third chapter, I discuss the problem of contextual domain restriction. In the fourth chapter, I consider the problems posed by empty restrictors. In the final chapter, I tackle the issue of category mistakes."This work was supported by the Universities of St Andrews and Stirling (SASP PhD Scholarship), and the Royal Institute of Philosophy (Jacobsen Studentship)." -- p.

Unraveling Risk Appetite: applications of decision theory in the evaluation of organizational risk appetite

In our current era of major global challenges and worldwide crises the human race is continuously searching for solutions to the fundamental economic problem of how to determine which aims should be pursued and how limited resources ought to be allocated. Economics as the science that studies “human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means” (Robbins 1932 p.16) is poised to prescribe normative antidotes to the calamities and acts of man that plague today’s financial and economic markets. Aiming to minimize the adverse effects of risk at minimum cost, organizations are engaged in a balancing act between the ex ante allocation of resources for risk reduction and the ex post adequacy of resources to absorb losses. The outcome of this trade-off is an expression of the organization’s willingness to accept risk, also known as its risk appetite. Scarcity of resources implies that the probability of occurrence and the potential impact of events identified as risks cannot always be reduced beforehand, and thus requires these risks to be ranked in priority by a decision maker in the organization. Risk attitude, a concept from decision theory, allows one to specify the rank order of a set of identified risks. In addition, the concept of risk appetite specifies the subset of this rank ordered set of risky events that requires control measures and its complement that, in contrast, is accepted. Given that organizational risk appetite is not unlimited, this thesis explores how measurements of risk attitude can be applied meaningfully in risk management to the economic problem of scarcity of resources