Taking meaning out of context : essays on the foundations of natural language semantics

David Lewis articulated minimal constraints on a formal theory of natural language semantics that have been widely adopted by subsequent theorists: compositionality and sentence truth in a given context. In the process, Lewis distinguished between the compositional semantic value of an expression and its propositional content relative to a context. This dissertation consists of a series of essays in which I address several questions that arise from this distinction, including how we should understand semantic values, how we should understand propositional content, and how we should understand the relation between them. Related to this, I explore and address a number of interesting and unresolved methodological issues that arise in relation to context-sensitivity, and provide an account of the role of speaker intentions in a formal theory of natural language semantics. Additionally, I provide a detailed analysis of the role of context in a theory of natural language semantics and its connection to various aspects of language use and communication. I also motivate coherence with syntactic structure (in the tradition of generative grammar) as an additional constraint on a formal theory of natural language semantics and assess its import for how we theorize about tense and modality and issues related to the syntax-semantics interface, including covert structure and logical form. In broad strokes, this dissertation addresses issues concerning the aims, scope and criteria of a theory of natural language semantics. I approach these issues from the perspective of generative grammar, a theoretical framework that aims to characterize our understanding of natural language independent of its use. These essays help to clarify what should be expected of a formal theory of natural language semantics and its contribution to theories of speech acts and communication

Exploring Failure and Engagement in a Complex Digital Training Game: A Multi-method Examination

Digital games are ideal for training complex decision making skills because they allow players to experience decision making processes and consequences. However, training complex skills often results in failure, which may undermine learning engagement. Traditional training methods employing observational learning (e.g., training videos) do not cause learners to fail but forfeit experiential learning that makes training games so engaging. Our exploratory work addresses the trade-off between experiencing and observing failure and explores their effect on the level of training engagement. Building on past engagement research, we argue that learning engagement contains both cognitive and affective facets and that these facets may diverge, especially when individuals experience failure. To test these ideas, we conducted an experiment (N = 156) comparing engagement in game-based training, in which participants experienced failure, and video-based training, in which participants observed failure. We collected cognitive and affective indicators of engagement using physiological and self-report measures. We found game-based experiential learning increased such indicators of engagement as attention and temporal disassociation even though players widely failed to meet game objectives. Players also experienced elevated arousal and decreased positive affect. In addition, we compared physiological measures of engagement with self-reported measures and discuss their merits and limitations

Training Anchoring and Representativeness Bias Mitigation Through a Digital Game

Objective. Humans systematically make poor decisions because of cognitive biases. Can digital games train people to avoid cognitive biases? The goal of this study is to investigate the affordance of different educational media in training people about cognitive biases and to mitigate cognitive biases within their decision-making processes. Method. A between-subject experiment was conducted to compare a digital game, a traditional slideshow, and a combined condition in mitigating two types of cognitive biases: anchoring bias and representativeness bias. We measured both immediate effects and delayed effects after four weeks. Results. The digital game and slideshow conditions were effective in mitigating cognitive biases immediately after the training, but the effects decayed after four weeks. By providing the basic knowledge through the slideshow, then allowing learners to practice bias-mitigation techniques in the digital game, the combined condition was most effective at mitigating the cognitive biases both immediately and after four weeks.This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Mitigation of Cognitive Bias with a Serious Game: Two Experiments Testing Feedback Timing and Source

One of the benefits of using digital games for education is that games can provide feedback for learners to assess their situation and correct their mistakes. We conducted two studies to examine the effectiveness of different feedback design (timing, duration, repeats, and feedback source) in a serious game designed to teach learners about cognitive biases. We also compared the digital game-based learning condition to a professional training video. Overall, the digital game was significantly more effective than the video condition. Longer durations and repeats improve the effects on bias-mitigation. Surprisingly, there was no significant difference between just-in-time feedback and delayed feedback, and computer-generated feedback was more effective than feedback from other players

Mitigation of Cognitive Bias with a Serious Game: Two Experiments Testing Feedback Timing and Source

One of the benefits of using digital games for education is that games can provide feedback for learners to assess their situation and correct their mistakes. We conducted two studies to examine the effectiveness of different feedback design (timing, duration, repeats, and feedback source) in a serious game designed to teach learners about cognitive biases. We also compared the digital game-based learning condition to a professional training video. Overall, the digital game was significantly more effective than the video condition. Longer durations and repeats improve the effects on bias-mitigation. Surprisingly, there was no significant difference between just-in-time feedback and delayed feedback, and computer-generated feedback was more effective than feedback from other players

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

Review of Kenneth A. Taylor, Meaning diminished: toward metaphysically modest semantics

Kenneth A. Taylor, Meaning Diminished: Toward Metaphysically Modest Semantics, Oxford University Press, 2019, 206pp., $55.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780198803447