(Press-News.org) Most people are familiar with the concept that sentences have syntax. A verb, a subject, and an object come together in predictable patterns. But actions have syntax, too; when we watch someone else do something, we assemble their actions to mean something, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
"There are oceans and oceans of work on how we understand languages and how we interpret the things other people say," says Matthew Botvinick of Princeton University, who cowrote the paper with his colleagues Kachina Allen, Steven Ibara, Amy Seymour, and Natalia Cordova. They thought the same principle might be applied to understanding actions. For example, if you see someone buy a ticket, give it to the attendant, and ride on the carousel, you understand that exchanging money for a piece of paper gave him the right to get on the round thing and go around in circles.
Botvinick and his colleagues focused on action sequences that followed two contrasting kinds of syntax—a linear syntax, in which action A (buying a ticket) leads to action B (giving the ticket to the attendant), which leads to outcome C (riding the carousel), and another syntax in which actions A and B both independently lead to outcome C. They were testing whether the difference in structure affected the way that people read about the actions.
The experiments were based on studies suggesting that people read a sentence faster if it comes after a sentence with the same grammatical form. But in this case, the scientists varied relationships between actions rather than the order of parts of speech. In one experiment, volunteers read sentences that described three actions. They took one of two forms: either one action leads to the next action, which leads to the outcome, such as "John purchased a carousel ticket, gave it to the attendant, and went for a ride," or sentences like "John sliced up some tomatoes, rinsed off some lettuce, and tossed together a salad"—in which both of the first two actions lead to the result, without the second depending on the first.
Indeed, people were able to read a sentence more quickly if it followed a set of actions arranged the same way than if it followed a sentence of the other type. This indicates that readers' minds had some kind of abstract representation of the ways goals and actions relate, says Botvinick. "It's the underlying knowledge structure that kind of glues actions together. Otherwise, you could watch somebody do something and say it's just a random sequence of actions."
In the carousel example, a Martian might not understand why John exchanges paper for another piece of paper, why he gives the paper to the other man, why he goes around and around in circles, and what relationship there is between these actions. As humans, we've worked all of those things out, and Botvinick thinks he's a step closer to understanding the process.
###
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Abstract Structural Representations of Goal-Directed Behavior" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Keri Chiodo at 202-293-9300 or kchiodo@psychologicalscience.org.
END
The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres (JGR-D), and Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface (JGR-F).
1. Exploring climate patterns linking stratosphere, lower atmosphere
Roughly every 28 months, the zonal winds in the stratosphere at the equator cycle from easterly to westerly and then back to easterly. Known to atmospheric scientists as the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), these shifting wind patterns result when the energy from ...
November 4, 2010 – (BRONX, NY) -- A team of scientists has found a way to eliminate a debilitating side effect associated with one of the main chemotherapy drugs used for treating colon cancer. The strategy used in their preclinical research—inhibiting an enzyme in bacteria of the digestive tract—could allow patients to receive higher and more effective doses of the drug, known as CPT-11 or Irinotecan.
The study, spearheaded by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and involving collaborators at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University ...
Scientists have long known that large volcanic explosions can affect the weather by spewing particles that block solar energy and cool the air.
Some suspect that extended "volcanic winters" from gigantic eruptions helped kill off dinosaurs and Neanderthals.
In the summer following Indonesia's 1815 Tambora eruption, frost wrecked crops as far away as New England, and the 1991 blowout of the Philippines' Mount Pinatubo lowered average global temperatures by 0.7 degrees F--enough to mask the effects of greenhouse gases for a year or so.
Now, in research funded by the ...
Clement Loo, a University of Cincinnati doctoral student in the philosophy program, was one of the featured researchers at the biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association Nov. 4-6 in Montreal, Quebec. The association promotes research, teaching and free discussion of issues in the philosophy of science.
Loo presented research themed around a Nov. 4 session on biology, evolution and selection. His paper was titled, "Invasive Species and Evaluating the Relative Significance of the Shifting Balance Theory."
The paper focused on the R.A. Fisher and Sewall ...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) today released the first in a series of video programs called Innovation Nation, hosted by veteran science and technology correspondent Miles O'Brien and currently airing nationally on the the Science Channel.
Innovation Nation is a quick look at what happens when genius meets possibility: stories about some of the NSF-funded inventions and research shaping our world.
The 26-part video series is produced by CBS News Productions, in partnership with the National Science Foundation and Discovery Science. Each episode is one minute ...
Many children, especially those with eczema, are unnecessarily avoiding foods based on incomplete information about potential food-allergies, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. The food avoidance poses a nutritional risk for these children, and is often based primarily on data from blood tests known as serum immunoassays.
Many factors, including patient and family history, physical examination, and blood and skin tests, should be used when evaluating potential food allergies. The oral food challenge, in which patients consume the suspected allergenic food, ...
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Estimating the long-term impact of agriculture on land is tricky when you don't have much information about what a field was like before it was farmed. Some fields in Missouri started producing crops more than a century ago—long before anyone kept detailed records about the physical and chemical properties of the soil in a field.
Researchers can't go back in time to revisit old fields in their pristine state, but a University of Missouri graduate student did perhaps the next best thing, using a detailed computer model to simulate, year-by-year, the effects ...
The motto of the organization is "Because Readers Rule Romance". Ballots were distributed to all attendees of the event, which included readers, bloggers and authors. Romance writers in 41 categories were nominated for their prestigous Bookie Award for 2010.
My latest paranormal/shifter Where The Rain Is Made was nominated under "Best E-book Novel". You can find out more about Authors After Dark when voting opens in November here:
About Where The Rain Is Made
After a decadent-looking savage captures Francesca DuVall and her brother Marsh, she spends every waking ...
Lanner Group, the process improvement solution and simulation software provider, and HospitaLogix, the healthcare logistics and operations planning specialist, have agreed a new consultancy partnership following a joint collaboration on a project for Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.
As part of the Rush's $1 billion Campus Transformation, the Lanner Group / HospitaLogix project included the development of a consulting methodology that led to the program making major savings and performance improvement.
The new methodology is based on expertise in healthcare, ...
Internet Business Group (IBG) is pleased to announce that it will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new Las Vegas area offices from 5:30PM to 7:30PM on November 5, 2010. Notable leaders of the Las Vegas business community are expected to attend this catered event.
IBG is Las Vegas' largest full service Internet Marketing and Reputation Management firm. IBG works with its clients to create a dynamic and evolving marketing message and executes it across multiple platforms giving a broad reach. IBG represents political campaigns, hotels, nightclubs, rehabilitation ...