Raoul N. Smith

A processing theory of alexithymia

This paper presents a processing theory of alexithymia in terms of failure of report across the components of emotional processing and the nature of explicit and implicit knowledge. The typical features of alexithymia (e.g., failure of cue recognition, flattened expression, inability to articulate emotional states) correspond to disruptions at the interfaces of components in emotional processing. The output of various components of emotional processing requires explicit representations in a variety of forms: it is these structured outputs which have suggested to some that alexithymia is a deficit of awareness or of emotional representations in working memory. This combination of information transfer and explicit/implicit knowledge leads to clarifications of the nature of alexithymia, the severity of the syndrome, and methods of measurement and intervention. These insights in turn suggest a broader consideration of alexithymia in terms of the vocabulary of cognitive science.

Conjunctive cohesion in four English genres

A major ingredient of textuality is cohesion. A text is not a text unless it coheres. But different text types do not cohere in the same way. In thispaper, we foats on one type ofcohesive tie, conjuction, and compare its use in four different American English genres — fiction, journalism, religion, and science. Our results show that methods of conjunction in these genres vary in a statistically significant way and that conjunctions, althoughfew in number of types and tokens, play a major wie in structuring these different text types.

On Defining Adjectives - Part III

31. Subject to and formulas of like meaning. A considerable number of adjectives (especially in -able, -ible) signify that it is permissible, allowable, authorized, parliamentary, or legal to act on, or attempt to act on, the modificand in a given way. This sense is found in the following adjectives: an abrogable treaty, an amendable motion, an assignable note, a punishable offense, a reversible judgment, a terminable contract. For NID 3 the formula recommended as preferred to define this sense is subject to (+ noun of action). The following definitions are acceptable:

Conceptual primitives in the English lexicon

Abstract The central component of intelligent natural language understanding systems is the lexicon. The lexicon contains the meaningful elements that allow the system to perform in an intelligent manner. Published dictionaries, as products of lexicographers’ research into the meanings of words, are an important source of information about the semantic structure of the lexicon of a language. This study reports on the results of research on the definitions of words, extracted from a published dictionary, which allows for positing a set of conceptual primitives in the lexicon of English.

Computerized Aids to Writing

Graduates of our colleges and universities spend more and more of their work time on writing. (For some statistics on technical graduates, see Anderson, 1980.) Yet they, like most other people, feel dissatisfied and insecure with how they write. The process of learning to write which children go through is often accompanied by fear and apprehension. The physically handicapped who can make very few movements or have limited control over their movements find writing time-consuming and frustrating. The problems in writing which these people face (and that includes most of us) vary, of course, in type and in amount. The range is quite wide, running from cognitive linguistic problems in spelling and of cohesive argumentation to physical problems of input where the only possible movement is that of puffing and sipping on a straw or moving one’s eyes.

Alex: a computer aid for treating alexithymia

One of the principal skills that a patient in psychotherapy must acquire is to be aware of and be able to express his or her feelings and emotions. Many patients, however, especially at the beginning of their therapy, have a great deal of trouble doing this. They are able to articulate “I feel bad” but nothing more precise. One reason for this is that they may be suffering from a cognitive-affective disorder called alexithymia. This paper describes a system called Alex that we have built to help treat alexithymia. This system, currently a prototype, consists of a query processor, a pattern matcher, and a text generator written in C++.

A SKETCH OF THE MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIAN HISTORICAL PHONOLOGY

It is our purpose in this paper to provide a set of ordered rules for deriving Contemporary Standard Russian from Proto-Indo-European (Pre-Slavic) insofar äs major phonological developments are concerned. Our System will posit a single set of rules which represent the various stages between the source and target languages. This procedure can be viewed äs a chain composed of rules äs its links, the Output of one rule being the input to the next one, and so forth. The evolution from a proto-language can best be represented by such a construct. In this manner linguistic development can be conveniently and economicaHy presented, and the results of the comparative method, which posits these proto-forms, can be tested. Although rules of this type could be provided not only for the phonology but for the syntax äs well, our rules hope to reveal the relative chronology only in the phonological development of Contemporary Standard Russian. As a starting point we are taking the latest common ancestor of all the Slavic languages (Pre-Slavic) and positing äs many of its features äs are necessary to explain the phonological oppositions in these languages based on recorded evidence from them, and äs many of the features which they share in common. Our interest, äs stated above, is to derive aspects of the Contemporary Standard Russian sound pattern; however, rules to generate any of the other Slavic languages would have the same starting point. In the absence of written records or evidence based on loan words, a set of ordered rules is the only manner in which relative chronology of phonological change can be tested. The relation between the ordering of the rules and the diachronic fact is of vital importance. In this regard, two possibilities must be distinguished: (I) The most economical ordering of rules should reflect the diachronic fact. This may be demonstrated by examining two examples: (A) The reflex of the Proto-Indo-European root *piicin Russian is /pj> sati/ and NOT */pJ> xati/ because the merger of the reflexes of ProtoIndo-European *k and *s must follow the change of *s after the iurk rule results in*. Therefore, the ordering has to be:

Automatic Steno translation

The first preliminary computer translation of machine produced stenographic notes was described in Salton 1959. Since then other approaches have been suggested but none seem to have succeeded. In the meantime the need for a solution becomes more and more pressing. The impetus for a solution is coming from two user areas—court reporting and speech recognition. The purpose of this paper is to describe the problems and solutions to the problems of automatic Steno-English translation.

Automatic simulation of historical change

0.0 Purpose. One of the principal reasons for studying the history of a language has been to explain the system of its modern reflex, the contemporary language. This has been especially true in attempting to deal with certain anomalies in the modern language. But the role, if appropriate, of utilizing information concerning diaehronie processes in a synchronic description is not a~ all i clear. Recent studies describing contemporary languages, based purely on synchronically motivated grounds, suggest a much more intimate relation between a synchronic grammar and what has been 2 previously posited as a dlachronic description of that language. The two major problems involved in historical studies have been the statement of the sound change (or, as this has been reinterpreted, the grammar change) and the relation of this change to other diachronic changes, that is, its relative chronology. A great deal of attention has been paid to the former but very little to the latter, whose significance has g-oatly increased

Human factors in information filing and retrieval

Session Overview: The development of, and increased reliance on, advanced workstations by a variety of users is creating the need for more user oriented filing and retrieving systems. With manuscripts, reports, personal mail, and data being stored in computers, the need for simplifying the storage and access of this information is increasing in importance. Part of this simplifying process has to address the problem of remembering file structure and file names, keywords, passwords, and other retrieval cues all of which can be very taxing to the user. The purpose of this session is to focus on those cognitive issues which affect user performance and satisfaction in the filing and retrieving of information from computer systems.