When is irony influenced by communicative constraints? ERP evidence supporting interactive models

First published: 07 July 2019Distinct theoretical proposals have described how communicative constraints (contextual biases, speaker identity) impact verbal irony processing. Modular models assume that social and contextual factors have an effect at a late stage of processing. Interactive models claim that contextual biases are considered early on. The constraint‐ satisfaction model further assumes that speaker's and context's characteristics can compete at early stages of analysis. The present ERP study teased apart these models by testing the impact of context and speaker features (i.e., speaker accent) on irony analysis. Spanish native speakers were presented with Spanish utterances that were ironic or literal. Each sentence was preceded by a negative or a positive context. Each story was uttered in a native or a foreign accent. Results showed that contextual biases and speaker accent interacted as early as 150 ms during irony processing. Greater N400‐like effects were reported for ironic than literal sentences only with positive contexts and native accent, possibly suggesting semantic difficulties when non‐prototypical irony was produced by natives. A P600 effect of irony was also reported indicating inferential processing costs. The results support the constraintsatisfaction model and suggest that multiple sources of information are weighted and can interact from the earliest stages of irony analysis.Spanish State Research Agency (Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation), Grant/ Award Number: SEV‐2015‐0490; the Basque Government, Grant/Award Number: BERC 2018–2021, PI_2015_1_25; Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Grant/Award Number: PSI2014‐54500, PSI2017‐82941‐P, IJCI‐2016‐27702; Grant/Award Number: H2020‐MSCA‐IF‐2018‐837228. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 837228

From Quasars to Extraordinary N-body Problems

We outline reasoning that led to the current theory of quasars and look at George Contopoulos's place in the long history of the N-body problem. Following Newton we find new exactly soluble N-body problems with multibody forces and give a strange eternally pulsating system that in its other degrees of freedom reaches statistical equilibrium.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX with 1 postscript figure included. To appear in Proceedings of New York Academy of Sciences, 13th Florida Workshop in Nonlinear Astronomy and Physic

Calcium ion-dependent diacylglycerol accumulation in erythrocytes is associated with microvesiculation but not with efflux of potassium ions

Erythrocytes from several different species were exposed to Ca2+ and the bivalent-cation ionophore A23187. The lipid composition, morphology and K+ permeability of the treated cells were investigated. Erythrocytes from human, rat, guinea pig and rabbit (a) showed an increased concentration of 1,2-diacyl-sn-glycerol and enhanced labelling of phosphatidate with 32P, (b) underwent echinocytosis and outward vesiculation, and (c) rapidly released much of their intracellular K+. Pig cells showed only the K+ loss, and ox and sheep (high-K+) cells showed none of these Ca2+-evoked effects. All of the cells underwent stomatocytosis and inward vesiculation when treated externally with Clostridium perfringens phospholipase C. These results support the idea that there is a correlation between the asymmetric insertion of diacylglycerol (or ceramide) into the membrane and the shape-changes leading to microvesiculation, but they indicate that Ca2+-triggered K+ efflux and diacylglycerol production are unrelated events. Erythrocytes of chicken and turkey showed no Ca2+-stimulated K+ efflux. They showed slight ionophore A23187-stimulated vesiculation, but this appeared to be associated with the appearance in the membrane of ceramide rather than of diacylglycerol. Phospholipase C treatment caused very similar changes in morphology and phosphatidate labelling to those seen in mammalian erythrocytes

Hogwash: Coming to Terms with Critical Race Theory in Adult Education

Today’s adult and community education classrooms and sites of practice are increasingly diverse. As adult educators, we have a responsibility to appropriately meet each student at their level of need. Critical race theory provides a non-hegemonic lens for understanding and meeting the needs of our diverse student population

'Bending and morphing': the department of women's studies at the University of Adelaide continues past its twenty year anniversary

Pam Papadelos, Dee Michell and Penelope Eat

Simultaneous optical and radar observations of meteor head-echoes utilizing SAAMER

We present simultaneous optical and radar observations of meteors observed with the Southern Argentine Agile MEteor Radar (SAAMER). Although such observations were performed in the past using High Power and Large Aperture radars, the focus here is on meteors that produced head echoes that can be detected by a significantly less sensitive but more accessible radar system. An observational campaign was conducted in August of 2011, where an optical imager was operated near the radar site in Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Six head echo events out of 150 total detections were identified where simultaneous optical meteors could also be clearly seen within the main radar beam. The location of the meteors derived from the radar interferometry agreed very well with the optical location, verifying the accuracy of the radar interferometry technique. The meteor speeds and origin directions calculated from the radar data were accurate—compared with the optics—for the 2 meteors that had radar signal-to-noise ratios above 2.5. The optical meteors that produced the head echoes had horizontal velocities in the range of 29–91 km/s. These comparisons with optical observations improve the accuracy of the radar detection and analysis techniques, such that, when applied over longer periods of time, will improve the statistics of southern hemisphere meteor observations. Mass estimates were derived using both the optical and radar data and the resulting masses agreed well with each other. All were within an order of magnitude and in most cases, the agreement was within a factor of two.Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísica

Interferometric meteor head echo observations using the Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar

A radar meteor echo is the radar scattering signature from the free electrons generated by the entry of extraterrestrial particles into the atmosphere. Three categories of scattering mechanisms exist: specular, nonspecular trails, and head echoes. Generally, there are two types of radars utilized to detect meteors. Traditional VHF all-sky meteor radars primarily detect the specular trails, while high-power, large-aperture (HPLA) radars efficiently detect meteor head echoes and, in some cases, nonspecular trails. The fact that head echo measurements can be performed only with HPLA radars limits these studies in several ways. HPLA radars are sensitive instruments constraining the studies to the lower masses, and these observations cannot be performed continuously because they take place at national observatories with limited allocated observing time. These drawbacks can be addressed by developing head echo observing techniques with modified all-sky meteor radars. Such systems would also permit simultaneous detection of all different scattering mechanisms using the same instrument, rather than requiring assorted different classes of radars, which can help clarify observed differences between the different methodologies. In this study, we demonstrate that such concurrent observations are now possible, enabled by the enhanced design of the Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar (SAAMER). The results presented here are derived from observations performed over a period of 12 days in August 2011 and include meteoroid dynamical parameter distributions, radiants, and estimated masses. Overall, the SAAMER's head echo detections appear to be produced by larger particles than those which have been studied thus far using this technique.Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísica