A comparative study of approaches for the diachronic analysis of the Italian language

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest in lexical semantic change detection. Many are the existing approaches, data used, and evaluation strategies to detect semantic drift. Most of those approaches rely on diachronic word embeddings. Some of them are created as post-processing of static word embeddings, while others produce dynamic word embeddings where vectors share the same geometric space for all time slices. The large majority of the methods use English as the target language for the diachronic analysis, while other languages remain under-explored. In this work, we compare state-of-the-art approaches in computational historical linguistics to evaluate the pros and cons of each model, and we present the results of an in-depth analysis conducted using an Italian diachronic corpus. Specifically, several approaches based on both static embeddings and dynamic ones are implemented and evaluated by using the Kronos-It dataset. We train all word embeddings on the Italian Google n-gram corpus. The main result of the evaluation is that all approaches fail to significantly reduce the number of false-positive change points, which confirms that lexical semantic change is still a challenging task

Analysis of lexical semantic changes in corpora with the diachronic engine

With the growing availability of digitized diachronic corpora, the need for tools capable of taking into account the diachronic component of corpora becomes ever more pressing. Recent works on diachronic embeddings show that computational approaches to the diachronic analysis of language seem to be promising, but they are not user friendly for people without a technical background. This paper presents the Diachronic Engine, a system for the diachronic analysis of corpora lexical features. Diachronic Engine computes word frequency, concordances and collocations taking into account the temporal dimension. It is also able to compute temporal word embeddings and time-series that can be exploited for lexical semantic change detection

Extracting relations from Italian wikipedia using self-training

In this paper, we describe a supervised approach for extracting relations from Wikipedia. In particular, we exploit a self-training strategy for enriching a small number of manually labeled triples with new self-labeled examples. We integrate the supervised stage in WikiOIE, an existing framework for unsupervised extraction of relations from Wikipedia. We rely on WikiOIE and its unsupervised pipeline for extracting the initial set of unlabelled triples. An evaluation involving different algorithms and parameters proves that self-training helps to improve performance. Finally, we provide a dataset of about three million triples extracted from the Italian version of Wikipedia and perform a preliminary evaluation conducted on a sample dataset, obtaining promising results

Decision-making, cognitive distortions and alcohol use in adolescent problem and non-problem gamblers: an experimental study

In the psychological literature, many studies have investigated the neuropsychological and behavioral changes that occur developmentally during adolescence. These studies have consistently observed a deficit in the decision-making ability of children and adolescents. This deficit has been ascribed to incomplete brain development. The same deficit has also been observed in adult problem and pathological gamblers. However, to date, no study has examined decision-making in adolescents with and without gambling problems. Furthermore, no study has ever examined associations between problem gambling, decision-making, cognitive distortions and alcohol use in youth. To address these issues, 104 male adolescents participated in this study. They were equally divided in two groups, problem gamblers and non-problem gamblers, based on South Oaks Gambling Screen Revised for Adolescents scores. All participants performed the Iowa Gambling Task and completed the Gambling Related Cognitions Scale and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Adolescent problem gamblers displayed impaired decision-making, reported high cognitive distortions, and had more problematic alcohol use compared to non-problem gamblers. Strong correlations between problem gambling, alcohol use, and cognitive distortions were observed. Decision-making correlated with interpretative bias. This study demonstrated that adolescent problem gamblers appear to have the same psychological profile as adult problem gamblers and that gambling involvement can negatively impact on decision-making ability that, in adolescence, is still developing. The correlations between interpretative bias and decision-making suggested that the beliefs in the ability to influence gambling outcomes may facilitate decision-making impairment

The Shift from Local to Global Visual Processing in 6-Year-Old Children Is Associated with Grey Matter Loss

International audienceBackground: A real-world visual scene consists of local elements (e.g. trees) that are arranged coherently into a global configuration (e.g. a forest). Children show psychological evolution from a preference for local visual information to an adult-like preference for global visual information, with the transition in visual preference occurring around 6 years of age. The brain regions involved in this shift in visual preference have not been described. Methods and Results: We used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to study children during this developmental window to investigate changes in gray matter that underlie the shift from a bias for local to global visual information. Six-year-old children were assigned to groups according to their judgment on a global/local task. The first group included children who still presented with local visual processing biases, and the second group included children who showed global visual processing biases. VBM results indicated that compared to children with local visual processing biases, children with global visual processing biases had a loss of gray matter in the right occipital and parietal visuospatial areas. Conclusions: These anatomical findings are in agreement with previous findings in children with neurodevelopmental disorders and represent the first structural identification of brain regions that allow healthy children to develop a global perception of the visual world

Les croyances implicites et explicites sur la prise de risque des adolescents en contexte social.

De nombreux travaux soulignent le rôle du contexte socio-émotionnel, notamment de la présence des pairs, dans la perception et la prise de risque des adolescents (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Galvan, 2010; Shulman, et al., 2016; Somerville et al., 2010). Ce constat rejoint une croyance à première vue partagée selon laquelle les adolescents seraient particulièrement preneurs de risque et sensibles à l’influence du groupe. Cependant, les croyances des adolescents concernant leur propre prise de risque et leur sensibilité à l’influence sociale restent peu explorées, alors même que nos croyances ont une influence directe sur nos jugements et nos décisions (Ferguson & Bargh, 2004). Cette étude adresse les questions suivantes : les adolescents et les adultes (1) perçoivent-ils réellement l’adolescence comme une période de plus grande prise de risque ? (2) endossent-ils la croyance selon laquelle les adolescents, comparés aux adultes, prendraient davantage de risque lorsqu’ils sont en présence de leurs pairs ? Afin de répondre à ces questions, 56 adolescents (16-18 ans) et 43 adultes (30-60 ans) ont complété un questionnaire mesurant les croyances à propos de la prise de risque des adolescents/adultes seuls ou en présence de pairs, ainsi qu’une tâche de raisonnement syllogistique visant à mesurer indirectement ces mêmes croyances. Ces deux types de mesures indiquent que les adolescents adhèrent à la croyance selon laquelle l’adolescence est associée à une plus grande prise de risque comparé à l’âge adulte, et selon laquelle la présence de pairs accentue cet effet. Les adultes perçoivent l’effet délétère des pairs indépendamment du groupe d’âge considéré. Cette étude suggère donc que les adolescents sont les premiers à adhérer à la vision d’un adolescent preneur de risque et particulièrement influençable. Les implications de ces représentations sociales semblent décisives pour mieux comprendre et prévenir l’engagement des adolescents dans la prise de risque

Les croyances implicites et explicites sur la prise de risque des adolescents en contexte social.

De nombreux travaux soulignent le rôle du contexte socio-émotionnel, notamment de la présence des pairs, dans la perception et la prise de risque des adolescents (Crone & Dahl, 2012; Galvan, 2010; Shulman, et al., 2016; Somerville et al., 2010). Ce constat rejoint une croyance à première vue partagée selon laquelle les adolescents seraient particulièrement preneurs de risque et sensibles à l’influence du groupe. Cependant, les croyances des adolescents concernant leur propre prise de risque et leur sensibilité à l’influence sociale restent peu explorées, alors même que nos croyances ont une influence directe sur nos jugements et nos décisions (Ferguson & Bargh, 2004). Cette étude adresse les questions suivantes : les adolescents et les adultes (1) perçoivent-ils réellement l’adolescence comme une période de plus grande prise de risque ? (2) endossent-ils la croyance selon laquelle les adolescents, comparés aux adultes, prendraient davantage de risque lorsqu’ils sont en présence de leurs pairs ? Afin de répondre à ces questions, 56 adolescents (16-18 ans) et 43 adultes (30-60 ans) ont complété un questionnaire mesurant les croyances à propos de la prise de risque des adolescents/adultes seuls ou en présence de pairs, ainsi qu’une tâche de raisonnement syllogistique visant à mesurer indirectement ces mêmes croyances. Ces deux types de mesures indiquent que les adolescents adhèrent à la croyance selon laquelle l’adolescence est associée à une plus grande prise de risque comparé à l’âge adulte, et selon laquelle la présence de pairs accentue cet effet. Les adultes perçoivent l’effet délétère des pairs indépendamment du groupe d’âge considéré. Cette étude suggère donc que les adolescents sont les premiers à adhérer à la vision d’un adolescent preneur de risque et particulièrement influençable. Les implications de ces représentations sociales semblent décisives pour mieux comprendre et prévenir l’engagement des adolescents dans la prise de risque

Créativité et cognition

International audienc