The role of discourse in Italian pronoun interpretation: Investigating variations in experimental results with cognitive modeling

This paper investigates to what extent the variations in experimental results on the interpretation of Italian subject pronouns can be explained by the different discourses used in the experimental studies. A cognitive model implemented in ACT-R was used to simulate pronoun processing and interpretation in discourse, which is influenced by the various contexts used in empirical experiments. Our simulations show that the discourse contexts used in the experiments strongly influence the interpretation of Italian subject pronouns, but not to the extent that all data in different experiments can be explained by it. We therefore conclude with suggestions for further research both on the influence of discourse context and the influence of task on the interpretation of Italian pronouns and (linguistic) experiments in general

Achteruitkijkspiegels en periscopen van landbouwcoryfeeën

Elf landbouwcoryfeeen geven hun opvattingen over het functioneren van de agrosector in het algemeen en het kennissysteem en de belangenbehartiging in het bijzonder. Het rapport wordt afgesloten met een synthese van en reflectie op de interviews

Peliosis Hepatis With Intrahepatic Hemorrhage: Successful Embolization of the Hepatic Artery

Peliosis hepatis is defined as the appearance of blood filled lakes in the hepatic parenchyma. It has been associated with various pharmacological agents and infections. Treatment has been primarily symptomatic and includes discontinuation of offending medications, partial hepatectomy or occasionally liver transplantation. We report a 58 year old white female on hormone replacement therapy who developed symptomatic peliosis hepatis and underwent successful superselective hepatic artery embolization with control of bleeding

Linguistic diversity, multilingualism, and cognitive skills: A study of disadvantaged children in India

Multilingualism and linguistic diversity are the norm in India. Although studies have shown a relation between bilingualism and cognitive gains, linguistic diversity has so far been ignored as a potential factor affecting cognitive skills. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how cognitive skills—as measured by the n-back and Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices tasks—are affected by multilingualism and/or sociolinguistic diversity in a large cohort of socioeconomically disadvantaged primary school children in two urban sites of India: Delhi and Hyderabad. We present a questionnaire estimating sociolinguistic diversity and show that this measure assesses a distinct construct, as compared to a child’s multilingualism. Children were classified as growing up monolingually or bilingually, depending on whether they grew up with one or more languages in the home. Regarding cognitive performance, bilinguals were found to outperform monolinguals on the n-back task, as well as on the Raven’s task. In addition, a socially and linguistically diverse environment seems to enhance cognitive performance for children who are not multilingual themselves. Finally, several contextual factors such as city were found to influence cognitive performance. Overall, this shows that cognitive tasks are subject to contextual effects and that bilingualism and linguistic diversity can enhance cognitive performance of children in disadvantaged contexts.</jats:p