Language statistics as a window into mental representations

Large-scale linguistic data is nowadays available in abundance. Using this source of data, previous research has identified redundancies between the statistical structure of natural language and properties of the (physical) world we live in. For example, it has been shown that we can gauge city sizes by analyzing their respective word frequencies in corpora. However, since natural language is always produced by human speakers, we point out that such redundancies can only come about indirectly and should necessarily be restricted cases where human representations largely retain characteristics of the physical world. To demonstrate this, we examine the statistical occurrence of words referring to body parts in very different languages, covering nearly 4 billions of native speakers. This is because the convergence between language and physical properties of the stimuli clearly breaks down for the human body (i.e., more relevant and functional body parts are not necessarily larger in size). Our findings indicate that the human body as extracted from language does not retain its actual physical proportions; instead, it resembles the distorted human-like figure known as the sensory homunculus, whose form depicts the amount of cortical area dedicated to sensorimotor functions of each body part (and, thus, their relative functional relevance). This demonstrates that the surface-level statistical structure of language opens a window into how humans represent the world they live in, rather than into the world itself

Forschungsprogramm "Arbeitsmarktpolitik" am Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin: Ansätze zur vergleichenden Wirkungsanalyse

"Am Internationalen Institut für Management und Verwaltung (IIMV) des Wissenschaftszentrums Berlin (WZB) wurde Arbeitsmarktforschung im kleineren Rahmen seit 1974 betrieben; seit 1979 konzentriert sich einer der beiden Institutsteile (IIMV/Arbeitsmarktpolitik) ausschließlich auf international vergleichende Untersuchungen der Voraussetzungen und der Wirkungsweisen selektiver arbeitsmarktpolitischer Maßnahmen. Im Forschungsgebiet "Funktionsweise von Arbeitsmärkten" liegt derzeit das Schwergewicht auf Untersuchungen zum Berschäftigungsverhalten von Betrieben und Haushalten. Im Forschungsgebiet "Aktoren der Arbeitsmarktpolitik" werden international vergleichende Untersuchungen der Organisationsstruktur und Strategien von Gewerkschaften und Arbeitgeberverbänden und Untersuchungen zur Formulierung und Implementierung staatlicher Maßnahmen der Arbeitsmarkt- und Beschäftigungspolitik weitergeführt. Im Hauptteil des Aufsatzes werden die Forschungsansätze des IIMV zur Ermittlung und Erklärung der Wirksamkeit arbeitsmarktpolitischer Instrumente ausführlicher dargestellt."Wirkungsforschung - Methode, Arbeitsmarktpolitik

Within-Family Environment and Cross-Fostering Stress Affect Behavior and Physiology in Wild Cavies (Cavia aperea)

Kraus S, Trillmich F, Günther A. Within-Family Environment and Cross-Fostering Stress Affect Behavior and Physiology in Wild Cavies (Cavia aperea). Frontiers in Psychology. 2020;11: 178.Stability of personality traits is well-documented for a wide variety of animals. However, previous results also suggest that behavioral phenotypes are plastic during early ontogeny and can be adaptively shaped to the social environment. In cavies (Cavia aperea), it has already been documented that the size at birth relative to siblings (size rank) greatly influences various behavioral and physiological traits that last at least until independence. The aim of the current study was (1) to investigate if behavioral and physiological differences between pups of the same litter persist until after independence and influence development long-lasting, (2) to determine the potential plasticity in response to changes in the early within-family environment by cross-fostering pups either to the same, a lower, or a higher size rank in a foster-family. We measured three behavioral traits (number of interactions with a novel object, distance moved in an open field, struggle docility) and two physiological traits (resting metabolic rate and basal cortisol levels). We predicted that cross-fostering into a litter where pups occupy the same size rank would not change the expression of traits. Cross-fostering to a different size rank should not influence the expression of traits if repeatability measures indicate low plasticity. Alternatively, if the traits are plastic, animals should adjust trait expression to fit with the size rank occupied in the foster litter. Initial differences in struggle docility, distance moved in an open field and in baseline cortisol concentration between pups of different size-ranks did not remain stable beyond independence. In addition, we found remarkable plasticity of the measured traits in response to cross-fostering to the same, a smaller or larger size-rank, suggesting that differences between pups are more the result of social constraints leading to adaptive shaping of individual phenotypes within a family. We also found a significant influence of the cross-fostering procedure itself. Cross-fostered individuals were less bold, grew slower and showed elevated resting metabolic rates. This finding suggests a cautious interpretation of previous cross-fostering studies and stresses the need for proper control groups to reliably separate the effect of cross-fostering per se from those induced by an experimental treatment. Introductio

The language-invariant aspect of compounding: Predicting compound meanings across languages

In the present study, we investigated to what extent compounding involves general-level cognitive abilities related to conceptual combination. If that was the case, the compounding mechanism should be largely invariant across different languages. Under this assumption, a compositional model trained on word representations in one language should be able to predict compound meanings in other languages. We investigated this hypothesis by training a word embedding-based compositional model on a set of English compounds, and subsequently applied this model to German and Italian test compounds. The model partially predicted compound meanings in German, but not in Italian.In questo lavoro abbiamo investigato quanto la composizione sottenda abilità cognitive generali relata alla combinazione concettuale. Se questo fosse il caso, il meccanismo composizionale dovrebbe variare in maniera limitata tra diverse lingue. Di conseguenza, un modello composizionale basato su rappresentazioni lessicali in una data lingua dovrebbe essere in grado di predire significati composizionali in altre lingue. Abbiamo testato questa ipotesi addestrando un modello composizionale sui word embeddings di un set di composti inglesi, e successivamente testato lo stesso modello su composti tedeschi e italiani. Il modello è in grado di predire in modo parzialmente corretto le rappresentazioni dei composti in tedesco, ma non italiano

Characteristics of P2X7 receptors from human B lymphocytes expressed in Xenopus oocytes

AbstractHuman B lymphocytes express an ATP-gated ion channel (P2Z receptor), which shares similarities with the recently identified P2X7 receptor. Using gene specific primers, we have now isolated P2X7 cDNA from the total RNA of human B lymphocytes. This hP2X7 receptor subtype was expressed in Xenopus oocytes and electrophysiologically characterized. The hP2X7 receptor is similar to, but does not completely match, P2Z of human B cells. The hP2X7 receptors resemble the P2Z receptors with regard to the ATP concentration of half maximal activation, reproducibility, permeation characteristics and lack of desensitization of the ATP-evoked currents. However, in contrast to the native lymphocytic P2Z receptor, the time course of activation of hP2X7 displayed an additional linearly increasing current component. Furthermore, a second, small and slowly deactivating current component exists only in hP2X7 expressed in oocytes. The activation and deactivation kinetics as well as permeation characteristics of hP2X7 are different from rat P2X7 recently expressed in oocytes. Unlike in mammalian cells, hP2X7 expressed in Xenopus oocytes is not sufficient to induce large non-selective pores

Network platform for sound information analyzis

A new technique of audio information processing for automatic analysis and classification of records, including speech, has been proposed. The technique is based on information representation in the form of associative semantic (cognitive) network structure and deals with amplitude and frequency layers both

Plateauverfirnung und Talgletscher im Nordschwarzwald

Neben 158 kleineren Kargletschern trug der Nordschwarzwald in seinen höchsten Teilen eine geschlossene Firnkappe, von der aus einige Gletscher nach Osten in die Täler hinabreichten und nach 3 km endeten. Unterhalb der dortigen Würmmoränen liegen noch einige isolierte Buckel, Wälle und Becken, die von einer stärkeren Vergletscherung (Riß?) herrühren könnten. Ihre Ausdehnung kann nicht mehr festgestellt werden.In the Northern Black Forest many glacial corries are known for a long time. By morphometric methods an ice cap could be reconstructed on the Hornisgrinde Plateau, from which 5 glaciers flew down into the Eastern Valleys. They ended after 3 km at well conserved Würm moraines. Some basins, isolated rocks, humps and dams lie even more dowmstream and are interpreted as Riß relics