Doctoral Dissertation Research: The mental representation and acquisition of the universal quantifiers

博士论文研究：全称量词的心理表征与习得

基本信息

批准号：
2017525
负责人：
Jeffrey Lidz
金额：
$ 1.5万
依托单位：
University of Maryland, College Park
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2020
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2020-08-01 至 2022-07-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2017525&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Doctoral Dissertation Research mental representation

项目摘要

A word like “cat” calls to mind different associations for different individuals (e.g., allergic reactions versus comforting companion). But at the same time, whatever meaning English speakers have paired with the word “cat” must be at least similar enough to enable successful communication. This suggests some level of invariance in meaning, but leaves open the level of detail at which our understanding of the word is shared. If speakers do share fine-grained details about a word’s meaning, the question of how they acquired those details arises. No two children have the exact same experience in the course of language learning, so how would they come to have a common understanding of a word? This project explores both questions – what aspect of word meaning is shared across speakers and how is this meaning acquired? – for the quantificational words “each” and “every”. Gaining a better understanding of how speakers represent and acquire these words will improve our understanding of the logical primitives of thought and the ways in which children make use of their input when learning a language.The research brings together approaches from various fields. Vision science experiments test participants’ memory for set and individual properties to determine whether the meanings of “each” and “every” implicate representations of sets. A linguistic corpus analysis identifies the data present in speech to children. Techniques from developmental psychology are used to test whether children in fact use these cues in learning the relevant difference between “each” and “every”. The project pursues the hypothesis that while a sentence like “every circle is green” implicates representations of sets (the set of circles), the minimally different “each circle is green” implicates only representations of individuals and their properties. The project also involves conducting outreach about related issues (e.g., the relationship between language and thought more generally) to local families and high school students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

像“猫”这样的词会让人想起不同个体的不同联想（例如，过敏反应与舒适的伴侣）但与此同时，英语使用者与“猫”这个词配对的任何含义必须至少足够相似才能启用。这表明意义具有某种程度的不变性，但我们对单词的理解的细节程度却是开放的。如果说话者确实分享了关于单词含义的细粒度细节，那么他们如何获得这些细节的问题。没有两个孩子出现。在语言学习过程中有着完全相同的经历，那么他们如何对一个单词有共同的理解呢？这个项目探讨了两个问题——单词含义的哪些方面在说话者之间是共享的，以及这个含义是如何获得的？量化词“each”和“every”更好地理解说话者如何表达和习得这些词将提高我们对思维逻辑原语以及儿童在学习语言时使用其输入的方式的理解。汇集了来自各个领域的视觉实验科学测试方法。参与者对集合和个体属性的记忆，以确定“每个”和“每个”的含义是否暗示集合的表示。事实上，使用这些线索来学习“每个”和“每个”之间的相关区别。该项目追求这样的假设：虽然像“每个圆圈都是绿色”这样的句子暗示了集合（圆圈的集合）的表示，但“每个”的差异最小。 “圆圈是绿色的”仅涉及个人及其财产的代表。该项目还涉及向当地家庭和高中生开展相关问题（例如，更普遍的语言和思想之间的关系）的宣传。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并被认为是值得的。通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来提供支持。

项目成果

期刊论文数量（3）

专著数量（0）

科研奖励数量（0）

会议论文数量（0）

专利数量（0）

Linguistic meanings as cognitive instructions

作为认知指令的语言意义

DOI：
10.1111/nyas.14618
发表时间：
2021
期刊：
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
影响因子：
5.2
作者：
Knowlton, Tyler;Hunter, Tim;Odic, Darko;Wellwood, Alexis;Halberda, Justin;Pietroski, Paul;Lidz, Jeffrey
通讯作者：
Lidz, Jeffrey