Papers reviewed and determined not to be word norm studies. Use the flag icon to report errors or suggest re-inclusion.
16504 papers
For classifying wine amphoras used at the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Empire (the so-called Dressel 2–4), we present a typological approach which combines a classification algorithm with the archeological reasoning. At the first step, clusters contain only nuclei based on the different production areas. To assign a corpus of artifacts to them, it is divided for each cluster into a context (artifacts which certainly do not belong to the cluster) and a residue. For each cluster, we built characteristic definitions with logical discriminant function of morphological attributes. Each definition cuts the residue in two classes: one containing the artifacts assigned to the cluster by the definition and the complementary one in the residue. Assignment and choices of cluster definitions and context remain with the archeological expert, who submits those typological constructions to a validation process founded on archeological knowledge. Such an approach focuses on a very common situation in human sciences: the construction of a cognitive typology beginning with a partially clustered set. Clustering must be done with descriptive attributes, without knowing if they can be connected with the wanted cluster.
Subjects’ estimates of the frequency of occurrence of the letters of the alphabet were compared with previously reported letter-frequency counts. The results indicated an overall good relationship between actual and judged rank, but there were consistent letter-specific under- and overestimations. These inaccuracies were not accounted for by letter versatility, first-position frequency, or order in the alphabet. There was evidence that subject-derived estimates of letter frequency were somewhat better predictors of reaction time performance on letter-processing tasks.
Labov 1981 argues that, in principle, sound changes may be implemented in two ways: through lexical diffusion (when the change is phonetically discrete), or by gradual sound change. It is contended here that although lexical diffusion is an important process, one must also account for discrete sound changes without such diffusion. The mode of progress of such changes is shown to involve an interplay between the production and the perception of the language user. Further, it is demonstrated that gradual sound change can be studied in perception, and that the relation between production and perception in gradual change is in some ways similar to that in discrete change. In both cases, the change in production norm is crucial.
SYNOPSIS This study was designed to measure the validity of two variations of a self‐report pain intensity scale. Sixteen children aged 9‐17, suffering from migraine headaches and one parent of each child recorded headache intensity daily at fixed intervals for four weeks in headache diaries. Half of the children used a pain intensity scale with behavioral descriptors of pain severity accompanied by numbers zero to five; the remainder used a scale that was identical except for the addition of subjective pain descriptors. Validity was determined by assessing the degree of inter‐rater concordance between the child's rating of intensity of head pain and the parent's independent rating of the same phenomenon. Concordance values, determined by weighted kappa, ranged from slight to almost perfect and all but one were significant, r<.05, providing evidence for the validity of this scale. Percentage agreement and weighted percentage agreement were also calculated and indicated high levels of concordance. Inclusion of subjective descriptors did not significantly affect ratings.
Summary The following were investigated in a series of studies on 366 college students: (a) individual differences associated with horoscope reading habits, (b) the reliability and validity of daily and monthly horoscope forecasts and astrologically based personality descriptions, and (c) the effects of knowing the zodiac sign on the perception of the usefulness of horoscope forecasts and on the accuracy of astrologically based personality descriptions. Results indicate that females were more likely to read their horoscopes. Although locus of control was unrelated to horoscope reading habits, Neuroticism on the EPI was closely related. Daily and monthly forecasts were shown to be unreliable and invalid. Astrologically based personality descriptions were found to have some reliability. Knowledge of zodiac sign was found to affect ratings of horoscope usefulness and accuracy of astrologically based personality descriptions. Such personality descriptions, even when not identified by zodiac sign, were shown to have some validity, at least in the eyes of readers. These results are explained by familiarity effects and by the “Barnum effect.”
Poetry is a form of linguistic behaviour that deviates from the norm and that breaks the rules set up by the code established by society, which is tolerated, accepted and even extolled. In fact, poetic creation is regarded as the highest outcome of the symbolic activity of the human mind, a real act of civilization, indeed. Linguistic norm is thus violated systematically and theories have been built upon this deviation like Brecht's Entfremdung and Shklovskij's Ostranenie. Contemporary poetry has come to the point of building up a sort of antilanguage as a means to express linguistic alienation; it is a language deprived of the usual connotations - the meanings attached to symbols - of the usual denotation - the meanings attached to the signs. and of the usual referents - the objects related to the signs. Poetry means in that it is the expression of social pathologies and is nonetheless accepted as an anti-formal message. The status of poetry and of other artistic contemporary expressions is thus intrinsically ambiguous, deviating and intentionally abnormal; but its acceptability is warranted by its being a code endowed with an aesthetic function. The rules are thus reverted: the elements of expression must be new, unforeseeable, unpredictable, at the antipodes of the communicative function of linguistic praxis in usual everyday social intercourses. The aim is to stun the reader in order to release his imagination from the fetters imposed by common coding-decoding linguistic processes.
Male students ( n =95) and female students ( n =77) in their penultimate year at a metropolitan high school completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) to provide masculinity (M) and femininity (F) scores and also nominated their choices of ideal and realistic occupations, the former being the occupation they would most prefer to work in and the latter the occupation that they realistically expected to choose. They then rated each choice for male dominance and status or prestige. Those subjects who indicated that they would not continue in the realistically chosen occupation until retirement also rated the likelihood that each of 10 reasons would be their reason for leaving. Results indicated strong gender effects for the male dominance ratings, males preferring gender‐congruent ideal and realistic occupations more than females. Strong gender effects also occurred from the analyses of the likelihood ratings for some of the reasons. Effects involving masculinity (M) and femininity (F) scores and their joint classification (androgynous, masculine, feminine, undifferentiated) were mostly non‐significant but the significant effects that did emerge were theoretically meaningful, especially those that concerned reasons for quitting the realistic occupation. Results were taken as support for the view that the effects of sex‐role expectations and attitudes should be distinguished from the effects of instrumental and expressive personality traits when occupational choices are considered.
ABSTRACT The present study explored the feasibility of using temperature measurement from a non‐genital location to assess sexual arousal. Based upon analyses conducted with thermographic techniques, it was hypothesized that abdominal skin cooling would occur during sexual arousal. In 2 sessions, 6 male subjects were shown low, moderate, and high arousing erotic films. Simultaneous measures of abdominal temperature, penile circumference, and subjective arousal were taken. Results indicate that while decreases in skin temperature were seen during arousal, thermister data did not correlate well with tumescence or subjective arousal ratings. It would appear that thermography and temperature measurement might be most fruitfully employed to explore basic physiological processes involved in sexual arousal, since continuous temperature measures do not appear sensitive enough for use in typical sex research paradigms.
The question examined here is how a linguistic change takes place in the behavior of the individual speaker. Examples are chosen primarily from lexical change, though phonological and semantic changes are also mentioned. The opinion is expressed that every speaker has a (usually unconscious) norm against which variants operate, change taking place in two steps: (1) when one variant is promoted to tolerated deviation, (2) when a tolerated deviation replaces the earlier norm (called here KYRIOLEXIA in the case of lexical change). The topic of gradual change is also touched upon.
A sample of 275 men and 370 women were given the Sexual Arousability Inventory which requests an arousal rating of 28 sexually-related activities. Differences were obtained between those subjects defined as having low experience in cohabitation versus high experience. The role of novelty in sexual experience is discussed in relation to the results of the study.
ABSTRACT In the New York area, there are three local terms for “dragon fly”: darning needle, dining needle, and diamond needle. We analyze the distribution of these terms and their relation to the national norm, dragon fly. (Language variation, dialectology, language change.)
During the last 20 years, linguistic data processing mainly has been seen as a tool to develop linguistic regularities (or detect irregularities) of a given natural language, especially to handle large textual databases ("Corpora"). A second motivation to use a computer was to test some theories or models of a language system (or a part of it) using a simulation program. As a result of both strategies, the "Saarbrücken Text Analysis System" has been implemented. At present, a very large lexical database is available to analyse written German texts morphologically and syntactically. The syntactic parser is able to handle every German sentence with more than 90% "correct" results. On the other hand, the development of large (textual) databases within different fields (e.g. law, patent specifications, medicine) is increasing rapidly. Therefore, a computer aided indexing system ("Computergestützte Texterschließung: CTX") has been developed at Regensburg and Saarbrücken University to improve the (even natural language oriented) access to textual data ("free text") applying linguistic strategies to information retrieval processes.\nMain results of feasibility studies, especially in the field of German Patent Documentation, are presented.
The present study investigated the relationship of mothers' childrearing attitudes, children's feelings of inferiority, and child's gender to children's total Need for Power and Fear of Power. Subjects were 51 boys and 64 girls, ages 11 to 13 attending an urban parochial school. Subjects were administered a TAT which was scored for Need for Power and Fear of Power according to Winter's system. Children's feelings of inferiority were measured using the Personal Inferiority scale of Rogers' Personal Adjustment Inventory. The mother of each subject completed Roth's Mother-Child Relationship Evaluation which produced scores for each mother on the four attitudes of Acceptance, Overprotection, Overindulgence, and Rejection, as well as a Confusion-Dominance rating. A correlational analysis of all variables revealed significant relationships between children's Fear of Power and total Need for Power; between gender and feelings of inferiority; and among the subscales of the Mother-Child Relationship Evaluation. A stepwise multiple regression analysis to determine the effect of the independent variables on children's Need for Power produced no significant results. A discriminant analysis performed to determine whether any combination of independent variables would discriminate between High and Low Fear o Power groups produced a significant discriminant function. Maternal childrearing attitudes of Overindulgence and Rejection contributed most to the function. Children High in Fear of Power tended to have mothers who were most Overindulgent and least Rejecting. Classification of subjects into the two Fear of Power groups resulted in accurately assigning 65.2% of the cases. Children's innate position of powerlessness relative to adults and the controlling qualities of mothers' Overindulgence were discussed as possible contributors to the emergence of children's power motivation. Suggestions regarding further research were offered.
Interactional analysis (IA) systems have been devised and applied to doctor-patient dialogues to describe encounters and to relate process to outcomes. Prior work in this area has been typified by the use of a single taxonomy for classifying verbal behaviors and limited outcomes (compliance and/or satisfaction). We applied three different IA systems (Bales, Roter's modified Bales with affective ratings, and Stiles' "Verbal Response Modes") to 101 new-patient visits to a general medical clinic for which multiple outcomes had been determined: several measures of patient knowledge of problems at conclusion of visit; patient compliance with drugs (over the ensuing three months); and patient satisfaction with the visit (perceived technical, interpersonal and communication quality). Within IA systems, cross tabulations and multiple regressions were performed to relate encounter events to outcomes. Across IA systems, multiple regression R2 and R2 adjusted (R2a) for the number of independent variables entering were used to characterize strength of relationships. Roter's IA system showed stronger relationships to outcomes of knowledge (41% R2, 27% R2a) and compliance (44% R2, 28% R2a) than did Bales' or Stiles' systems. R2 for patient satisfaction was identical for Bales and Roter (35%), and greater than R2 for Stiles (14%). We conclude that choice of IA system for research or teaching purposes should be based on behaviors and outcomes of particular interest and importance to the user. Based on audioreview of tapes, Roter's approach is less time-consuming and may perform as well as more complex systems requiring transcript analysis.
Formal theories have linked pathological anxiety to a failure in fear response inhibition. Previously, we showed that aberrant response inhibition is not restricted to anxiety patients, but can also be observed in anxiety-prone adults. However, less is known about the influence of currently experienced levels of anxiety on inhibitory learning. The topic is highly important as state anxiety has a debilitating effect on cognition, emotion, and physiology and is linked to several anxiety disorders. In the present study, healthy female volunteers performed a fear conditioning task, after being informed that they will have to perform the Trier Social Stress Test task (<i>n</i> = 25; experimental group) or a control task (<i>n</i> = 25; control group) upon completion of the conditioning task. The results showed that higher levels of state anxiety corresponded with a reduced discrimination between a stimulus (CS+) typically followed by an aversive event and a stimulus (CS-) that is never followed by an aversive event both during the acquisition and the extinction phase. No effect of state anxiety on the skin conductance response associated with CS+ and CS- was found. Additionally, higher levels of state anxiety coincided with more negative valence ratings of the CSs. The results suggest that increased stress-induced state anxiety might lead to stimulus generalization during fear acquisition, thereby impairing associative learning.
Abstract: Prior knowledge of the content of a passage should reduce the effort required to encode the passage, and facilitate its recall. This paper presents the results of two experiments on the effects of prior knowledge upon comprehension of simple technical prose. The basic procedure was to collect ratings of the amount of prior knowledge for individual passage sentences, and then determine whether those familiarity ratings predict reading 'study) time and recall for the sentences. Three encoding task conditions were used in the same basic procedure: a self-paced study task, a force-paced study task, and an incidental learning task. A cued recall test followed each condition. In the self-paced task, readers studied unfamiliar material longer than familiar material, but recalled at the same level regardless of familiarity. In contrast, familiarity did predict recall in the force-paced and incidential tasks. Unknown proposititons were recalled less often than known propositions; the recall of unknown propositions was especially low in the incidental task. An explanation for this pattern of results is based on the idea that increased study time is required for unfamiliar material due to the additional processing required to encode an unknown proposition and to elaborate less familiar propositions.
490 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 58, NUMBER 2 (1982) is a detailed report of the construction, development, and validation of an EFL placement test for German university students. The DELTA is a norm-referenced mix of discrete point and integrative measures, which is shown to be very efficient in predicting later success in learning English, as well as being useful in languageacquisition research. 'Measurement or global assessment of oral foreign language proficiency?', by W. Knibbeler, compares the global and analytic measurement of the French of 108 Dutch adult learners. K attempts to ascertain—via the creation of indices of correctness, fluency, and lexical variety—whether speech acts can or should be described by counting words and errors. The results show a high correlation between the global ratings of proficiency given by trained judges and the ratings derived from quantitative analysis oftranscription ofrecorded speech, the major difference being that global assessment is much less time-consuming. The last three articles are more directly concerned with the quantitative analysis of learner errors. T. Slama-Cazacu and T. Dutescu-Caliban present 'The first hierarchical system of errors (HSE) in the acquisition of English by native speakers ofRomanian', a statistical study from the Romanian-English Contrastive Project of Bucharest. A total of 1183 errors produced by 252 speakers are analysed hierarchically by grammatical structure, taking into account frequency of occurrence and communicative importance. The authors scrutinize the different tasks involved, learner strategies such as 'disguising', the effect of time on learning and errors, and other variables; they conclude that the classical contrastive hypothesis is not valid, since most errors result not from the base language, but rather from influences in the material already acquired in the target language. They outline routes for further contrastive analysis and error therapy. U. O. H. Jung compares the written English of dyslexic and non-dyslexic German school children in 'Dyslexia and the foreign-language teacher'. J first reviews the literature on dyslexia, and then examines the performance of388 subjects on a dictation-cloze test. The results indicate that the classic definition of dyslexia, as characterized by reversal or inversion ofgraphemes in reading and writing, needs to be adjusted (at least in second-language learning situations ), since such a phenomenon represents only 3% of the performance errors; indeed, the 'normal' children tended to reverse and invert letters more often than the dyslexic children. R. Grotjahn closes the volume with a critical assessment of the methodological issues inherent in the quantification of articulatory difficulties —'Zur Quantifizierung der Schwierigkeit des Sprechbewegungsablaufs'. His specific focus is the quantitative definition of the problems which learners encounter in the articulation of German consonant sequences. This volume, which shows substantial awareness of the state of language research in the United States, seems significant for several reasons, not the least of which is the presentation ofthe meticulous research ofEuropean scholars who are not well-known in America. Particularly because ofits critical perspective and dedication to empirical substantiation of learning and teaching theory, the volume will be of considerable value to researchers in language acquisition and proficiency—whether linguists, psychologists, or psychometricians. [Alicia Pousada, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, CUNY.] Deep dyslexia. Ed. by Max Coltheart, Karalyn Patterson, and John C. Marshall. London & Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980. Pp. xi, 444. $45.00. In 1966, John Marshall and Freda Newcombe published a case study concerning 'selective dysphasic impairment', with specific emphasis on 'the linguistic aspect of paralexia'. When their patient was asked to read aloud single, unrelated words, he showed an interesting error pattern; instead of saying the given words, he gave semantically-related substitutions, e.g. 'uncle-nephew', 'liberty-freedom', 'little-short' etc. In a subsequent paper (1973) Marshall & Newcombe suggested that these substitution errors indicated the impairment of the spelling -sound route to the lexicon. Within half a decade, the dysphasic profile indicating nonfluent speech, fairly good object-naming, reduced short-term memory span, and predominantly semantic substitutions in oral reading became known as 'deep dyslexia' or 'phonemic dyslexia' (T. Shallice & E. Warrington, 1975). In 1978 a symposium was held at Jesus College, Cambridge, to discuss the 22 cases (16 English and 6 Japanese) reported in the neuropsychological literature. The present book is a result of this meeting. BOOK...
Digital filter techniques have been applied to the analysis of eye movement data. Methods were developed to calculate eye velocity and eye acceleration in real-time from an electronystag-mogram (ENG) signal that was recorded using a one-pole RC high-pass filter in the preamplifier. Nonrecursive, finite impulse-response digital filters were designed to remove the effects of the RC high-pass filter and calculate the first and second time derivatives of the ENG signal, as well as remove high-frequency noise. Applying these new techniques to the analysis of vestibular nystagmus enables estimation of the transfer characteristics of the vestibuloocular system.
SUMMARYThe article assumes that each and every dictionary considers language not only as a list of (written) words, which are indexed according to specific rules, but also that it reveals a definite conception of language. It further considers the hitherto poorly examined first 25 years of mono-lingual Italian lexicography which has found its way into print. Only a few aspects of this work are discussed here, though each of them thoroughly.On the basis of explicit statements made by 16th-century lexicographers and of the manner in which their dictionaries were actually compiled, an attempt is made to indicate what sort of relationship may occur between the discordant sound of an expression which aims to pass itself for Italian, and the form that is eventually adopted as representing the (literary) code. It appears that the main tendency in Italian lexicography was that of taking over, regularly and almost exclusively, usages from literary figures of the past, particularly from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. A few pages in a lexicon compiled in 1532 by the Florentine Giovambattista Verini appear to be the only exception; they belong to an unassuming spelling-book with no other expressed goal than that of teaching the public how to read and write. These few pages also record the lexical usage current in Tuscany as well as a few words borrowed from the northern regions of Italy. The other dictionaries examined in the present paper (none of which having been compiled by a Tuscan lexicographer) express quite a different aim, namely, to teach their reading public to write well by following general principles based on the imitation of literary texts. (Only in few cases does the lexicographer recommend the use of 'good speech' under particular circumstances.)The entry word of a dictionary may be the result of an individual decision taken by the lexicographer, and based on the limited corpus of the lexicon by a single, preferred author. These indexed words may also have been based on the entire lexicon of this 'exemplary' author, but also on a more composite langue arrived at by the use of several texts belonging to different historical periods and perhaps even through the use of the lexicographer's own knowledge of the language. The present article deals with dictionaries and with the linguistic views of the authors as explicitly stated in their works. (Some of these statements pertaining to the use of Italian as a regional composite and to Latin as a model are particularly interesting.) It also takes into consideration the main features of these indexes, keeping in mind the linguistic sources from which they were derived, certain aspects of the language employed for definitions, and the function of quotations drawn from (usually) literary texts. (A few minor observations regarding contemporary rhyming dictionaries as well as references to comments on literary texts are also made.)Among the many books reviewed in the present paper, particular attention is paid to Le tre fontane (1526) by Niccolò Liburnio which contains separate lexical lists derived from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. This book may be called 'palindromic' because its headwords offer a norm which has a triple as well as a single application: on the one hand, it sets apart the writer's parole, objectifying it, and, on the other, it presents a mixture of styles to be taken as the langue of the literary subcode. Le ricchezze (1543) by Francesco Alunno is, among the dictionaries compiled on the basis of the lexicon of a single author, the one that best sheds light on the linguistic ideas of its author.The Vocabulario (1536) by Fabricio Luna is a book which, notwithstanding its poor quality, is of particular value even today since it introduced a number of changes into lexicographic practice.This includes the picking out of words for its entries from a variety of texts which cover several regions of Italy and different historical periods; beginning with written Italian used in the 14th century, which was by then regarded as 'classical', Luna's book works its way down to the modern period. In this process, the lexicographer apparently was involving himself; one encounters, in its headwords, and for the first time in the history of Italian lexicography, a so-called 'Tuscan' language, obviously labelled not according to its geographic distribution but based on stylistic characteristics, with no concrete links to time and place. Moreover, the belief or, rather, the misunderstanding that a linguistic texture never changes throughout the ages (a principle on which all historical dictionaries are based) stems from the juxtaposition of quotations that were in fact derived from different kinds of parole.La fabrica del mondo (1548), the last book of lexicography compiled by Alunno, presumes to cater for the general demand for written language by offering a new turn with regard to the listing of entry words: they are now given in accordance with an encyclopedic approach, where words are grouped according to subjects; the headwords, in addition to being drawn from these three acknowledged masters of the 14th century (who are obsequiously brought to the fore), are now taken from contemporary sources and quite intentionally selected by the lexicographer himself.RÉSUMÉTout dictionnaire considère la langue comme une liste de mots (écrits), répertoriés d'après des règles définies, mais il révèle en même temps une conception déterminée de la langue, telle est la présupposition de notre arti-cle. Celui-ci examine les vingt-cinq premières années, peu étudiées jusqu'ici, de la lexicographie italienne unilingue qui fit l'objet d'une impression. De ces travaux, nous ne discutons ici que quelques aspects, mais d'une manière exhaustive.En nous fondant sur les déclarations explicites des lexicographes du XVIe siècle et sur la manière dont ils compilèrent effectivement leurs dictionnaires, nous essayons d'indiquer quel type de relation peut naître entre les sons discordants d'une expression qui veut se faire passer pour de l'italien et les formes finalement adoptées comme représentant le code (littéraire). Il apparaît que la tendance principale de la lexicographie italienne consista à reprendre, régulièrement et presque exclusivement, les usages des grandes figures littéraires du passé, en particulier de Dante, Pétrarque et Boccace. La seule exception est constituée apparemment par quelques pages d'un lexique compilé par le Florentin Giovambattista Verini: elles font partie d'un manuel d'orthographe sans prétention, qui a pour seul but avoué d'enseigner au public comment lire et écrire. Ces quelques pages témoignent aussi de l'usage lexical existant en Toscane, ainsi que de quelques mots empruntés aux régions septentrionales de l'Italie. Les autres dictionnaires examinés ici (et dont aucun ne fut compilé par un lexicographe toscan) se proposent expressément un but tout à fait différent: enseigner à leurs lecteurs à bien écrire en se fondant sur l'imitation de textes littéraires (rares sont les cas où le lexicographe recommande l'emploi du "bien parler" dans certaines circonstances).Les 'entrées' d'un dictionnaire peuvent résulter d'une décision personnelle du lexicographe et se fonder sur le corpus limité fourni par tel auteur préféré. Les mots répertoriés peuvent aussi se fonder sur tout le lexique de cet auteur 'exemplaire', ou encore sur une langue plus composite obtenue à partir de plusieurs textes appartenant à différentes périodes, et peut-être même par l'intermédiaire de la connaissance qu'a le lexicographe lui-même de la langue. Nous nous occupons ici des dictionnaires et des conceptions linguistiques révélées par les déclarations explicites des auteurs dans leurs ouvrages (certaines de ces déclarations relatives à l'utilisation de l'italien en tant que 'composite' régional et à la référence au latin en tant que modèle présentent un intérêt particulier). Nous prenons également en considération les traits principaux de ces répertoires — en gardant présentes à l'esprit les sources linguistiques dont ils dérivaient —, certains aspects de la langue des définitions et la fonction des citations tirées de textes (en général) littéraires (nous y ajouterons quelques observations de moindre importance sur les dictionnaires de rimes de l'époque, ainsi que des renvois à des commentaires des textes littéraires.Parmi les nombreux ouvrages examinés ici, nous accordons une attention particulière à Le trefontane (1526) de Niccolô Liburnio, qui contient les listes lexicales séparées de Dante, Boccace et Pétrarque. On peut qualifier cet ouvrage de 'palindromique', étant donné qu'il propose une norme dont l'application est triple et unique à la fois: d'un côté, il met à part la parole de l'écrivain, en l'objectivant, et de l'autre, il présente un mélange de styles comme étant la langue du sous-code littéraire. Parmi les dictionnaires compilés d'après le vocabulaire d'un seul auteur, ce sont Le ricchezze (1543) de Francesco Alunno qui nous fournissent le plus de lumières sur les idées linguistiques de l'auteur.En dépit de sa médiocrité, le Vocabulario (1536) de Fabricio Luna garde un intérêt particulier, même aujourd'hui, parce qu'il introduit un bon nombre de changements dans la pratique lexicographique. Ainsi, pour ses entrées, ilrelève des mots provenant de divers textes qui recouvrent plusieurs régions et périodes; partant de l'italien écrit en usage au XIVe siècle, considéré alors comme 'classique', l'ouvrage de Luna se fraie son chemin jusqu'à la période moderne. L'auteur intervient apparemment lui-même dans ce processus; on trouve, dans ses entrées et pour la première fois dans l'histoire de la lexicographie italienne, ce qu'il appelle langue 'toscane', manifestement étiquetée ainsi non pas d'après sa distribution géographique, mais d'après des caractéristiques stylistiques, sans liens concrets avec le temps et l'espace. Par ailleurs, de la juxtaposition de citations provenant en fait de types de parole différents naît la croyance ou plutôt la méprise selon laquelle (c'est le principe même qui fonde tous les dictionnaires historiques) un tissu linguistique ne change jamais au cours des temps.La fabrica del mondo (1548), dernier ouvrage lexicographique compilé par Alunno, prétend satisfaire à la demande générale en expression écrite en proposant un nouveau procédé pour le classement des entrées: celles-ci sont maintenant présentées selon une approche encyclopédique, qui regroupe les mots d'après les thèmes; les entrées, en sus de cettes tirées des trois maîtres reconnus au XIVe siècle (mis en vedette avec obséquiesité), proviennent maintenant de sources contemporaines et font l'objet d'un choix tout à fait intentionnel du lexicographe lui-même.
A package of five FORTRAN programs that provides for fast user-controlled analyses of reading eye fixations is described. The package requires the data to be in a fixation format and to be rescaled to screen dimensions. OLDEYE identifies six types of fixations and calculates descriptive statistics on each of them, on their associated saccades, and on their average pupil diameter. CONVRT represents the text as a string of words that can be coded according to experimentally relevant variables. PLTFIX prints fixation durations by letter position and sequence of occurrence. MODDAT is an interactive program for marking parts of the text in which the data quality is below acceptable standards. It also allows the correction of systematic errors due to calibration or drift. MATCH combines the outputs from OLDEYE, CONVRT, and MODDAT and calculates 11 dependent measures for every word. The output of MATCH is suitable for input to conventional multivariate statistical programs.
Goldstein, Rennick, Welch, and Shelly (1973) developed a visual searching task (VST) that succeeded in obtaining a hit rate of 94.1% correct classifications when comparing brain-damaged and normal subjects and a 79.4% hit rate when comparing brain-damaged and psychiatric subjects. Goldstein and Kyc (1978) reported 92.5% correct classifications for the brain-damaged vs. normal comparisons and 82.5% correct classifications for brain-damaged vs. schizophrenic comparisons. We computerized the administration of the VST and found 85.7% correct classifications for the brain-damaged vs. normal groups and 71.4% correct classifications for the brain-damaged vs. psychiatric group. These results suggest that the computerized VST (CVST) is also a potentially valid indicator of brain damage.
This paper describes the opportunities offered by the application of commercially available, inexpensive microcomputers to computer-assisted administration of standard psychometric procedures. The rationale underlying this application and the requirements of software design are discussed. A project based upon the APPLE microcomputer is described, together with an example of the software being developed. Preliminary work and planned development and evaluation are reported.
A discussion of the development of a method for the analysis of salivary activity is presented. Results gained using this new method are compared with those obtained using a whole-mouth spitting technique. The application of the new method in real-world situations is indicated. Norms are presented for measures of salivary flow, pH, and salivary ion concentration based on experimental studies of a female working population.
A new mathematical procedure (BIDALGO) is suggested for application to the psychological testing field. BIDALGO, similar to past adaptive testing methods, is compared both with MMPI short-form efforts and applications in the educational testing literature. A comparison is also made between linear regression models used in past efforts and the Bayesian decision models used in BIDALGO. The requirements for an MMPI application are delineated, emphasizing branching procedures for specific scales and difficulties expected in achieving code-type congruence. Work in progress of applying BIDALGO to the depression scale and the full MMPI is also described.
The 1980 meeting of users/owners of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computer equipment is discussed.
An inexpensive and easy-to-bulid input/output interface capable of driving the electromechanical loads (relays, solenoids, dc motors, etc.) and incandescent lamps is described. The interface hardware is based on the Commodore VIC-20 microcomputer. The design is adaptable to most 8-bit microcomputers.
A number of research projects related to new uses for computers in mental health service delivery are presented. These projects include work on software psychology, new computer applications in mental health care, and studies relating to the successful implementation of technology in mental health settings. Emphasis is placed on developing a better understanding of appropriate uses of technology rather than merely describing new applications.
Just as the hardware of a large computer system requires a large program, often called software or an operating system (OS), to supervise and control its performance, so too do human beings require a mind to control the brain. Our OS, however, is hardwired in neuronal circuitry and also involves the endocrine system. Much evidence attests to the built-in nature and existence of our OS. Examples are our abilities (1) to conceive ideas, (2) to process them internally and symbolically, (3) to express them in any of several modes (e.g., as verbal strings, as visual images, in sign language, in body language), (4) to dream. Some of the probable anatomical components of the human OS are identified and some indications of its systematic effects on consciousness are discussed. Some research relating psychopathology to the OS is cited.