An important application of cognitive architectures is to provide human performance models that capture psychological mechanisms in a form that can be “programmed” to predict task performance of human–machine system designs. Although many aspects of human performance have been successfully modeled in this approach, accounting for multitalker speech task performance is a novel problem. This article presents a model for performance in a two-talker task that incorporates concepts from psychoacoustics, in particular, masking effects and stream formation.

In 1738, Jacques Vaucanson unveiled his masterpiece before the court of Louis XV: a gilded copper duck that ate, drank, quacked, flapped its wings, splashed about, and, most astonishing of all, digested its food and excreted the remains. The imitation of life by technology fascinated Vaucanson's contemporaries. Today our technology is more powerful, but our fascination is tempered with apprehension. Artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, to name just two areas, raise profoundly disturbing ethical issues that undermine our most fundamental beliefs (...) about what it means to be human. In The Vital Machine, David Channell examines the history of our relationship with technology and argues that, while the resolution of these issues may not be imminent, a philosophical framework for dealing with them is already in place. The source of our fears, he suggests, lies in an outmoded distinction between organic life and machines, a distinction rooted in the two world-views that have defined and guided Western civilization: the mechanical and the organic. The mechanical view holds that the universe is basically a machine--we can understand it by breaking it down into its smallest components. Even organisms are machines. The organic view claims that there is something more, some vital, directive force. The whole is more than just the sum of its parts. Even machines are organisms. Channell presents these polar views in a fascinating chronicle of human thought and achievement, ranging over the discoveries of Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein, the philosophies of Plato, Descartes, Kant, and Marx, the fields of alchemy, physics, astrology, and biology. We see not only how the two views progressed independently, but also how they influenced each other, not only how they persisted, but also how they changed. Most fascinating of all, we follow the emergence of a third, all-embracing world view as developments in genetics, relativity, quantum mechanics, and computer intelligence force both science and philosophy to come to a more complex understanding of the universe. As a central metaphor for this third view Channell proposes "the vital machine." And in this stimulating work by the same name, he reveals how this new metaphor may provide us with the philosophical understanding we need to address the ethical issues our science has created. (shrink)

This article presents an overview of the single-channel dereverberation methods suitable for distant speech recognition application. The dereverberation methods are mainly classified based on the domain of enhancement of speech signal captured by a distant microphone. Many single-channel speech enhancement methods focus on either denoising or dereverberating the distorted speech signal. There are very few methods that consider both noise and reverberation effects. Such methods are discussed under a multistage approach in this article. The article concludes (...) with a hypothesis that the methods that do not require an a priori reverberation impulse response is desirable in varying the environmental conditions for DSR applications such as intelligent home and office environments, humanoid robots, and automobiles rather than the methods that require an a priori reverberation impulse response. (shrink)

We discuss potential benefits of research in which attention is directed toward or away from a spoken channel and measures of the allocation of attention are used. This type of research is relevant to at least two basic, still-unresolved issues in cognitive psychology: the extent to which unattended information is processed and the extent to which unattended information that is processed can later be remembered. Four recent studies of this type that address these questions in various ways are reviewed as (...) illustrations. We conclude from these studies that unattended information appears to be partially processed automatically, though attention enhances the processing considerably, and the unattended information that is processed may not be retrievable in direct or many indirect memory tasks, though it remains possible that there is an automatically stored memory trace. (shrink)

Our limited evidence for the formula of the Roman sponsio is enough to clear up lingering controversy about two otherwise obscure speeches preserved only in testimonia and fragments. The elder Cato wrote a speech whose title is variously cited by our sources: ‘si se Caelius tribunus plebis appellasset’; ‘in M. Caelium si se appellasset’; ‘contra M. Caelium’ ; ‘in Marcum Cae[ci]lium’. On the reasonable postulate that these are variations on a single original, the fullest expression is relatively easy to (...) reconstruct: ‘si se M. Caelius tribunus plebis appellasset’.Doubts about the sense of these words have led to more radical proposals which have little to recommend them, especially in view of the new analysis I intend to offer. The conclusion among those who have attempted to explain the obvious reading has been that the title of the speech is a condition contrary to fact referring to a hypothetical situation to which the speech responded: some have suggested that Cato wrote the speech against the possibility that Caelius might make an accusation against him; Antonio Cima suggested that Caelius had made a speech against Cato without naming him and that Cato had responded, ‘if Caelius had meant to refer to me… ’. (shrink)

Training under high interference conditions through interleaved practice results in performance suppression during training but enhances long-term performance relative to repetitive practice involving low interference. Previous neuroimaging work addressing this contextual interference effect of motor learning has relied heavily on the blood-oxygen-level-dependent response using functional magnetic resonance imaging methodology resulting in mixed reports of prefrontal cortex recruitment under IP and RP conditions. We sought to clarify these equivocal findings by imaging bilateral PFC recruitment using functional near-infrared spectroscopy while discrete key (...) pressing sequences were trained under IP and RP schedules and subsequently tested following a 24-h delay. An advantage of fNIRS over the fMRI BOLD response is that the former measures oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin changes independently allowing for assessment of cortical hemodynamics even when there is neurovascular decoupling. Despite slower sequence performance durations under IP, bilateral PFC oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin values did not differ between practice conditions. During test, however, slower performance from those previously trained under RP coincided with hemispheric asymmetry in PFC recruitment. Specifically, following RP, test deoxygenated hemoglobin values were significantly lower in the right PFC. The present findings contrast with previous behavioral demonstrations of increased cognitive demand under IP to illustrate a more complex involvement of the PFC in the contextual interference effect. IP and RP incur similar levels of bilateral PFC recruitment, but the processes underlying the recruitment are dissimilar. PFC recruitment during IP supports action reconstruction and memory elaboration while RP relies on PFC recruitment to maintain task variation information in working memory from trial to trial. While PFC recruitment under RP serves to enhance immediate performance, it does not support long-term performance. (shrink)

SummaryMuch excitement surrounded the proposal that a family of endo‐lysosomal channels, the two‐pore channels (TPCs) were the long sought after targets of the Ca2+‐mobilising messenger, nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP). However, the role of TPCs in NAADP signalling may be more complex than originally envisaged. First, NAADP may not bind directly to TPCs but via an accessory protein. Second, two papers recently challenged the notion that TPCs are NAADP‐regulated Ca2+ channels by suggesting that they are highly selective Na+ channels (...) regulated by the lipid phosphatidylinositol 3,5‐bisphosphate and by ATP. This paper aims critically to evaluate the evidence for TPCs as NAADP targets and to discuss how the new findings fit in with what we know about endo‐lysosomal Ca2+ stores. (shrink)

The object of this study is the speech style of artists of the Bolshoi Drama Theater in the 1950s and 1960s. The subject of the study is the evolution of the speech style from the first to the second edition of G. Tovstonogov's performance "The Fox and the Grapes" ("Aesop"). The author of the article studies in detail two versions of the famous performance, analyzes the acting speech of N. Korn, V. Polizeimako, O. Basilashvili and S. Yursky (...) from aesthetic and technological positions. The author pays special attention to the fundamental changes in the intonation-melodical architectonics of sounding speech in less than one decade. A change in speech style in the Bolshoi Drama Theater is included by the author in the wider context of changes in the art of the "thaw" era. The methodology of this study includes measurement (auditory analysis of the pace of speech, auditory analysis of diction and orthoepia, instrumental analysis of the intonation-melodic score), comparative analysis, induction, historical method. The novelty of the present study lies in the combined use of auditory and instrumental analysis tools for acting speech. The author clearly proves the subjectively obvious difference between the sound of speech in the first and second editions of the performance "The Fox and The Grapes" by conducting a detailed comparative analysis of acting speech in all main parameters: tempo, diction, orthoepia, melodics. From the study of a specific performance and specific acting works, the author goes to generalization, concluding about the powerful influence of screen (cinematic) speech on theatrical speech in the 1950s and 1960s, about the formation of a new standard of audience perception and a new idea of the naturalness of acting speech. (shrink)

This article explores and examines research in the field of human vocalization, proposing an evolutionary sequence for human acoustic perception and productive response. This involves updating and extending Charles Darwin’s 1871 proposal that musical communi­cation predated language, while providing the anatomical and behavioral foundations for the articulacy on which it depends. In presenting evidence on which a new consensus regarding the emergence of human vocal ability may be based, we present and review contributions from a wide range of disciplines, illustrating (...) that the phenomenon of human musicality may have had more of a core function in shaping our anatomy and culture than has hitherto been recognized. Essential to the adaptive sequence on which this depends is human perceptual and productive response to the properties of the Harmonic Series. Both music and language have emerged from the auditory and performative consequences of this relationship. (shrink)

Balāgha, which consists of three main branches today, has benefited from various channels in the process of completing its formation. Before the formation of systematic balāgha, it is assumed that there were two main currents, one represented by poets and lite-rati, and the other represented by scholars. This article aims to determine the place of Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ (255/869), one of the main names who wrote in the field of balāgha, in the pre-formation period of balāgha science. The documentary analysis (...) method will be used mainly in the research. The determinations of al-Jāḥiẓ on balāgha will be analysed in accord-ance with the parameters, categories and concepts of systematic balāgha. By examining al-Jāḥiẓ’s rhetorical understanding through the filter of systematic balāgha, the share of pre-for-mation period balāgha within systematic balāgha will be revealed. Another contribution of the study would be to reveal the balāgha understanding of al-Jāḥiẓ with its main frames. Ex-amining al-Jāḥiẓ’s concept of balāgha, on the other hand, will facilitate understanding of his unique concepts of balāgha and bayān. Because al-Jāḥiẓ designed a broad communication framework, which he calls bayān, and considered balāgha as a sub-category within this de-sign. Balāgha is the subject of verbal communication in this design.Summary: The formation of a discipline called balāgha passed through several stages. Balāgha as a term, which was in circulation as a qualification of beautiful and convincing words, has attracted the attention of some circles, had been dealt with it in various occasions and some thoughts had been recorded on the subject. These accumulations and records contained a number of basics and principles that formed the core of balāgha science which would later be systematized. Since these recorded cumulative basics and principles cannot be called balāgha science, it is possible to name them as the idea of balāgha. The independent works that emerged during this period were written by poets and literary writers. Religious scholars and linguists also had mentioned rhetorical issues in their works even though they did not write specific books on the topic. It is possible to say that there are two channels from which balāgha science is nourished: The literary criticism channel represented by poets and writers and the other channel which is held by various branches of science, the majority of which are religious sciences.The literary criticism channel is the product of some social and scientific developments in Arab history. When Jāhiliyya (pre-Islamic) poetry became a data source to serve the emerging grammar, an intensive movement of collecting Jāhiliyya poetry has begun. Compiled Jāhiliyya poetry was not only a source for linguists, but also a literary legacy that poets sang and used as a model for their new styles in poetry. Innovations in poetry led to a comparison between the old and the new, and these developments have also brought about the need for certain criteria to be used in literary criticism. Eventually, these critical activities circulated many terms, including the word balāgha.When it comes to religious sciences, balāgha has been a concept used mostly in iʿjāzu’l-Qurʿān issue. The discussions of the miraculous feature of the Qurʿān, which continued on theological grounds, must have aroused the desire to explain the eloquence of verses in concrete exam-ples. Because the scholars of these fields shifted their interest towards the use of linguistic tools. The balāgha channel shaped by the pressures of religious sciences such as kalām, fiqh and tafsīr could be called the balāgha developed by grammar; and the channel that began to take shape with the work of poets and writers can be called the balāgha developed by litera-ture.In the period after the formation of grammar and before the formation of balāgha, although there was not a balāgha science in the present-day sense, it is clear that there was a thought of balāgha. One of the scholars who reflects the idea of balāgha of the pre-establishment pe-riod is Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ. Al-Jāḥiẓ did not address the issue of persuasive and beautiful speech only in his book al-Bayān wa al-tabyīn. In various articles, he talks about the qualities of beautiful and impressive speeches, sometimes under different topics and sometimes under a special title. In his al-Bayān wa al-tabyīn, al-Jāḥiẓ establishes a communication theory called bayān that takes into account all the means of conveying meaning. He divides the means of communication into five, which are word, sign, number, text and posture. The book puts spe-cial emphasis on balāgha, which is one of the means of bayān, and its conditions of conveying meanings. Although the issues discussed in the work do not conform to the norms of the later systematic balāgha, it continues to be an important source in theoretical balāgha studies. Sys-tematic balāgha and al-Jāḥiẓ’s bayān project are different in terms of frame, but they have overlapping points and a piece-whole relationship between them. Bayān, developed by al-Jāḥiẓ’s, addresses the wide range of communication that takes into account including the ges-tures and signs; while balāgha is used to refer to the verbal communications only, which is part of the broader field of communication.In systematic balāgha, it is important to distinguish between balāgha and faṣāḥa terms; the former used to signify the word, the speech and the speaker, and the latter to signify only the word and the speaker. We have noticed that al-Jāḥiẓ uses them interchangeably. Nonetheless, the emphasis on the factor of transmitting messages, when he talks about the clarity of mean-ing on several occasions, shows that he considers the combined words rather than the indi-vidual words, which is the same assertion of systematic balāgha. According to him, the fact that a misarranged sentence is understood by the interlocutor should not mean that the sen-tence itself is capable of transmitting the meaning.The context factor, which is the determinant of systematic balāgha, is also taken into consid-eration in al-Jāḥiẓ’s understanding of balāgha. However, al-Jāḥiẓ generally considered the context together with the length and shortness of the speeches and did not mention the as-pects reflected in the sentence sequence. Although the major concern of al-Jāḥiẓ was the transmission ability of the speech, he also dealt with the expression forms. There are some other terms that he used less frequently like ījāz, iṭnāb, ishāb and kināya. Although some of these words are used in contexts similar to the meanings of today's term, most of them are used in such a context to meet more than one meaning. Ījāz, which is one of these concepts, is the name of expressing the meanings with little word in al-Jāḥiẓ’s usage. The use of terms reflects the types of narrative and figurative usages could not reach a stable point in al-Bayān wa al-tabyīn, because it was not written for the purpose of systematically analysing them. The author, who aims to examine the persuasive and beautiful words in many dimensions, under-took the issue with a view that takes into consideration the orator, and this caused his work to be designed in a way that serves speech making rather than analysing. This consideration prevented the emergence of an analysis system. Al-Jāḥiẓ mostly used balāgha in the context of oral performance. According to him, the written texts and performed sermons are different in style and therefore the balāgha criteria of these two species should be different as well. (shrink)

My main argument in this paper is that the right to freedom of expression is not a single right, complex as it may be, but spans two separate rights that I label the right to speak and the right to hear. Roughly, the right to speak stands for the right of a person to express freely whatever they wish to communicate to some other persons or to the public at large. The right to hear stands for the right to have (...) free and unfettered access to any kind of content that has been communicated by others. The right to speak and the right to hear are two separate rights, grounded in different kinds of interests. I try to show that this division of rights and their respective rationales can be utilized to explain how we think about some of the limits of the right to freedom of expression, particularly in the context of conflicts between the right to speak and the right to hear, conflicts that are rather pervasive. I also argue, though perhaps less conclusively, that in thinking about the limits of freedom of expression, an exclusive focus on the harm principle would be misguided. There is no reason to deny that speech is often harmful, sometimes very much so, but the prevention of harm is not sufficient to justify legal prohibition, at least not in this case. (shrink)

In the article, the problem of speech understanding/misunderstanding between non-native speakers using English as lingua franca is discussed. It is argued that the mechanism of EFL discourse comprehensibility and interpretability can be explained basing on Shannon’s model of information exchange, which is constructed of sender and receiver, message, two channels, coding and decoding of information, mutual feedback, noise and context. A malfunction of one or more of these components may result in ‘language noise‘ or interruption of intelligibility of (...) class='Hi'>speech. In ELF communication malfunction of these components provokes deviations from language norms in pronunciation, grammar structure and semantics. Recurrent deviations in EFL speech production can increase or reduce noise in the coding and/or decoding channel and, correspondingly, in the information processing. Following Jenkins’ classification of kernel and non-kernel phonological deviations in EFL speech, the author maintains that the kernel deviations increase noise only if they are present in one channel and absent in the other one. If they are inherent to both speakers’ production they don’t hinder intelligibility. Non-kernel deviations affect intelligibility by the same pattern though in a weaker mode. It is claimed that comfortable intelligibility in transnational communication does not necessarily require standardization of norms and high ELF proficiency of speakers. (shrink)

Rebate has long been a crucial tool that has attracted researchers from a diverse range of fields including marketing and supply chain management. When a manufacturer uses a retailer for reaching end customers, the rebate strategy undertakes an additional dimension. Here we show whether the two rebate strategies, manufacturer rebate and channel rebate, can be the optimal choice for the manufacturer and the retailer. And we aim at full coordination with rebate. Game theory is exploited to identify the equilibrium rebate (...) decisions, which are fully characterized with two rebate strategies considering rebate sensitivity. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the decisions depend on parameters, such as market size, rebate redemption rate, and competition intensity in monopoly and duopoly supply chain systems. Our work also coordinates the supply chain with two coordination policies and examines if they can achieve full coordination. Counterintuitive findings suggest that the channel rebate with sensitivity and discrimination is not effective and the manufacturer rebate is the unique optimal option. Besides, the coordination can be realized with a centralized rebate in monopoly setting when the manufacturer forgoes her own interest. Then full coordination can be achieved in duopoly setting with a new coordination policy, rebate combination, given the redemption rate for the channel rebate is lower compared with the manufacturer rebate. Managerial insights are suggested that offering rebates with discrimination can have significant inventory and coordination policy implications and can lead to a double win under a well-controlled redemption rate. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss two roles for the concept of joking in political speech. First, I discuss how claiming to have been joking can provide speakers with a powerful form of deniability. I argue that the aesthetic dimension of jokes makes such a denial especially well placed to undermine both a hearer's evidence for an utterance having been sincere, and, separately, their belief that it was sincere—I call the latter ‘aesthetic gaslighting’. Second, I discuss the use of jokes (...) to influence hearers’ thinking and behaviour under the radar. I show that not only does the fact that an utterance was a joke fail to prevent it from influencing hearers, but in some cases, the fact that it was a joke actually makes it more influential than a sincere utterance would have been. (shrink)

Freedom of speech has been essential in building democracy in Lithuania after regaining its independence. Exercise of the constitutional freedom of expression within the societies following constitutional values is the major factor shaping the political will of citizens. Wide-ranging, all round public discussion about all public interest issues is possible only when it is subject to due freedom of information. In indirect democracy, strong disseminator of information acting between citizens and the Parliament able to create the field for discussion (...) and mutual impact is a necessity. Significance, quality, all-roundedness of discussion on all public interest issues is the major factor determining correct choices of citizens and politicians. Restriction of freedom of expression and information or prohibition of free search, receipt and dissemination thereof shall be considered as subjugation of a human being as a free and autonomous creature. Freedom of speech is a highly important feature in building democracy. The media in Lithuania during two decades of democracy building has actively made the use of freedom of self-expression. The courts have solved a lot of case-laws, where freedom of speech, honour, dignity and private life were at stake. The Parliament, the Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg, the Government, the Inspector of Journalist Ethics and the Commission on Journalists and Publishers Ethics, the courts of Lithuania – all institutions took part in the process of defining freedom of speech and its limits in Lithuania during two decades of its independence. The purpose of this publication is to identify if the case-law of Lithuania’s courts in balancing the contradictions between the freedom of self-expression and personal dignity, honour and private life is in line with the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, jurisprudence of the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. Defining if the case-law of Lithuania’s courts are in line with the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, the research is concentrated on legal tests applied in the case-law of freedom of speech – distinguishing between public and private figures, estimating disseminated information as facts or value-judgments, freedom of speech decriminalization problems, compensation in respect of pecuniary damage. (shrink)

Following and extending Searle’s speech act theory, both Pragma-Dialectics and the Linguistic Normative Model of Argumentation characterize argumentation as an illocutionary act. In these models, the successful performance of an illocutionary act of arguing depends on the securing of uptake, an illocutionary effect that, according to the Searlean account, characterizes the successful performance of any illocutionary act. However, in my view, there is another kind of illocutionary effect involved in the successful performance of an illocutionary act of arguing, which (...) affects both the speaker’s and the hearer’s set of rights, obligations, and entitlements. In order to give an account of this second type of effect, I will argue that it is necessary to distinguish two levels in the analysis of the illocutionary act of arguing. The first one is related to the illocutionary effect of securing of uptake and thus to the speech act performed by the speaker, while the second one allows us to account for the changes produced by the performance of the illocutionary act of arguing in the deontic modal competence of both the speaker and the hearer. (shrink)

The concept of vocal charisma has changed in the past decades from something that people have to something that people do, thereby stimulating research on how vocal charisma can be created and improved. Broadening the perspective on vocal charisma beyond the speaker’s performance itself to the context of the speech, we conducted acoustic-prosodic analyses of public speeches of two prominent Israelian politicians – Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. The speech material consisted of 311–516 prosodic phrases per politician from (...) the election campaigns 2019–2020 and, crucially, was balanced so as to include an equal number of pre- and post-election speeches. Results show a superiority of Netanyahu over Gantz in almost all facets of vocal charisma, although Gantz caught up over time. Moreover, unlike Gantz, Netanyahu showed a strong adaptation of his vocal charisma patterns to before- and after-election contexts. Scrutinizing this versatility difference, an additional perception experiment with 42 listeners and excerpts from the two politicians’ speeches was carried out. Results show that Netanyahu’s speech excerpts were, unlike those of Gantz, mainly rated as more charismatic in those contexts in which they were performed. Gantz’ post-election speech excerpts, by contrast, were primarily rated as not fitting into that context, i.e., as unfolding their charisma better in a pre-election context. Moreover, listeners also rated Netanyahu as overall more charismatic than Gantz. The combined production and perception evidence suggests the relevance of context in the evaluation and interpretation of vocal charisma signals. (shrink)

This paper examines two recent contributions to the hate speech literature – by Steven Heyman and Jeremy Waldron – which seek a justification for the legal restriction of hate speech in an account of the way that hate speech infringes against people’s dignity. These analyses look beyond the first-order hurts and disadvantages suffered by the immediate targets of hate speech, and consider the prospect of hate speech sustaining complex social structures whose wide-scale operations lower the (...) social status of members of targeted groups. In Heyman’s and Waldron’s accounts we find plausible insights into the nature of identity-based social hierarchies, and the harms that redound to subordinated people under the operations of such hierarchies. I argue, however, that both analyses are unsuccessful as justifications for the restriction of hate speech, because they do not ultimately provide reason to think that hate speech is responsible for creating or sustaining identity-based social hierarchies. (shrink)

In the verbal domain, there is only very weak evidence favoring the view that working memory is an active state of long-term memory. We strengthen existing evidence by reviewing two recent fMRI studies of verbal working memory, which clearly demonstrate activation in the superior temporal lobe, a region known to be involved in processing speech during comprehension tasks.

Many philosophers and psychologists have sought to explain experiences of auditory verbal hallucinations and “inserted thoughts” in schizophrenia in terms of a failure on the part of patients to appropriately monitor their own inner speech. These self-monitoring accounts have recently been challenged by some who argue that AVHs are better explained in terms of the spontaneous activation of auditory-verbal representations. This paper defends two kinds of self-monitoring approach against the spontaneous activation account. The defense requires first making some important (...) clarifications concerning what is at issue in the dispute between the two forms of theory. A popular but problematic self-monitoring theory is then contrasted with two more plausible conceptions of what the relevant self-monitoring deficits involve. The first appeals to deficits in the neural mechanisms that normally filter or attenuate sensory signals that are the result of one’s own actions. The second, less familiar, form of self-monitoring approach draws an important analogy between Wernicke’s aphasia and AVHs in schizophrenia. This style of self-monitoring theory pursues possible connections among AVHs, inserted thoughts, and the disorganized speech characteristic formal thought disorder. (shrink)

We study the deviations from the exponential decay law, both in quantum field theory (QFT) and quantum mechanics (QM), for an unstable particle which can decay in (at least) two decay channels. After a review of general properties of non-exponential decay in QFT and QM, we evaluate in both cases the decay probability that the unstable particle decays in a given channel in the time interval between t and t+dt. An important quantity is the ratio of the probability of decay (...) into the first and the second channel: this ratio is constant in the Breit-Wigner limit (in which the decay law is exponential) and equals the quantity Γ1/Γ2, where Γ1 and Γ2 are the respective tree-level decay widths. However, in the full treatment (both for QFT and QM) it is an oscillating function around the mean value Γ1/Γ2 and the deviations from this mean value can be sizable. Technically, we study the decay properties in QFT in the context of a superrenormalizable Lagrangian with scalar particles and in QM in the context of Lee Hamiltonians, which deliver formally analogous expressions to the QFT case. (shrink)

Speech is a perceptuo-motor system. A natural computational modeling framework is provided by cognitive robotics, or more precisely speech robotics, which is also based on embodiment, multimodality, development, and interaction. This paper describes the bases of a virtual baby robot which consists in an articulatory model that integrates the non-uniform growth of the vocal tract, a set of sensors, and a learning model. The articulatory model delivers sagittal contour, lip shape and acoustic formants from seven input parameters that (...) characterize the configurations of the jaw, the tongue, the lips and the larynx. To simulate the growth of the vocal tract from birth to adulthood, a process modifies the longitudinal dimension of the vocal tract shape as a function of age. The auditory system of the robot comprises a “phasic” system for event detection over time, and a “tonic” system to track formants. The model of visual perception specifies the basic lips characteristics: height, width, area and protrusion. The orosensorial channel, which provides the tactile sensation on the lips, the tongue and the palate, is elaborated as a model for the prediction of tongue-palatal contacts from articulatory commands. Learning involves Bayesian programming, in which there are two phases: specification of the variables, decomposition of the joint distribution and identification of the free parameters through exploration of a learning set, and utilization which relies on questions about the joint distribution. Two studies were performed with this system. Each of them focused on one of the two basic mechanisms, which ought to be at work in the initial periods of speech acquisition, namely vocal exploration and vocal imitation. The first study attempted to assess infants’ motor skills before and at the beginning of canonical babbling. It used the model to infer the acoustic regions, the articulatory degrees of freedom and the vocal tract shapes that are the likeliest explored by actual infants according to their vocalizations. Subsequently, the aim was to simulate data reported in the literature on early vocal imitation, in order to test whether and how the robot was able to reproduce them and to gain some insights into the actual cognitive representations that might be involved in this behavior. Speech modeling in a robotics framework should contribute to a computational approach of sensori-motor interactions in speech communication, which seems crucial for future progress in the study of speech and language ontogeny and phylogeny. (shrink)

I here present two different models of oppressive speech. My interest is not in how speech can cause oppression, but in how speech can actually be an act of oppression. As we shall see, a particular type of speech act, the exercitive, enacts permissibility facts. Since oppressive speech enacts permissibility facts that oppress, speech must be exercitive in order for it to be an act of oppression. In what follows, I distinguish between two sorts (...) of exercitive speech acts (the standard exercitive and the covert exercitive) and I argue that each such exercitive affords a distinct model of oppressive speech. (shrink)

This study analyzes two public speeches of two North-American Seventh-day Adventist women who oppose women’s ordination, in order to understand how they reconcile inequity perpetuated by their religious position that denigrates women. The two women in this study address the apparent disadvantage by reframing the issue and reordering their reality. Whereas one speaker creates other formidable sub-issues that make exclusion of women from church leadership imperative, the other speaker resorts to the elusive notion of female privilege. I demonstrate how their (...) discourse surrounding ministry and headship illuminates the fact that gender relations and religious convictions are ordered through permeable boundaries of arbitrary lexico-semantics. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 1 Seiten: 61-94.

To understand one another as individuals and to fulfill the moral duties that require such understanding, we must communicate with each other. We must also maintain protected channels that render reliable communication possible, a demand that, Seana Shiffrin argues, yields a prohibition against lying and requires protection for free speech. This book makes a distinctive philosophical argument for the wrong of the lie and provides an original account of its difference from the wrong of deception. Drawing on legal as (...) well as philosophical arguments, the book defends a series of notable claims—that you may not lie about everything to the "murderer at the door," that you have reasons to keep promises offered under duress, that lies are not protected by free speech, that police subvert their mission when they lie to suspects, and that scholars undermine their goals when they lie to research subjects. Many philosophers start to craft moral exceptions to demands for sincerity and fidelity when they confront wrongdoers, the pressures of non-ideal circumstances, or the achievement of morally substantial ends. But Shiffrin consistently resists this sort of exceptionalism, arguing that maintaining a strong basis for trust and reliable communication through practices of sincerity, fidelity, and respecting free speech is an essential aspect of ensuring the conditions for moral progress, including our rehabilitation of and moral reconciliation with wrongdoers. (shrink)

This dissertation fits within the literature on subordinating speech and aims to demonstrate that how language subordinates is more complex than has been described by most philosophers. I argue that the harms that subordinating speech inflicts on its targets (chapter one), the type of authority that is exercised by subordinating speakers (chapters two and three), and the expansive variety of subordinating speech acts themselves (chapter three) are all under-developed subjects in need of further refinement—and, in some cases, (...) large paradigm shifts. I also examine cases that have yet to be adequately addressed by philosophers working on this topic, like the explosion of abusive speech online (chapter four) or the distinctive speech acts of protest groups (chapter five). I argue that by considering these alongside the ‘paradigm’ cases of subordinating speech that inform most models, we are better able to capture the lived realities of this phenomena, as described by members of groups targeted by such speech. I develop a novel account of speaker authority to explain the variety of pragmatic effects subordinating speech generates. Instead of seeing this authority as reducible to either a formal position or a merely local, linguistic phenomenon, I argue for a conception of speaker authority that is a richly contextual social fact, distributed unevenly among members of different social groups. I also develop an account of collective authority that explains how a group of speakers can join together to subordinate in a way that no individual speaker is capable of doing. This account, I argue, is better able to explain the social reality of subordinating speech than individualist models. Overall, I show how a more fine-grained account of subordinating speaker authority gives us a more accurate picture of the different subordinating speech acts available to different speakers, along with how these may harm their targets. (shrink)

:Neuroprosthetic speech devices are an emerging technology that can offer the possibility of communication to those who are unable to speak. Patients with ‘locked in syndrome,’ aphasia, or other such pathologies can use covert speech—vividly imagining saying something without actual vocalization—to trigger neural controlled systems capable of synthesizing the speech they would have spoken, but for their impairment.We provide an analysis of the mechanisms and outputs involved in speech mediated by neuroprosthetic devices. This analysis provides a (...) framework for accounting for the ethical significance of accuracy, control, and pragmatic dimensions of prosthesis-mediated speech. We first examine what it means for the output of the device to be accurate, drawing a distinction between technical accuracy on the one hand and semantic accuracy on the other. These are conceptual notions of accuracy.Both technical and semantic accuracy of the device will be necessary for the user to have sufficient control over the device. Sufficient control is an ethical consideration: we place high value on being able to express ourselves when we want and how we want. Sufficient control of a neural speech prosthesis requires that a speaker can reliably use their speech apparatus as they want to, and can expect their speech to authentically represent them. We draw a distinction between two relevant features which bear on the question of whether the user has sufficient control: voluntariness of the speech and the authenticity of the speech. These can come apart: the user might involuntarily produce an authentic output or might voluntarily produce an inauthentic output. Finally, we consider the role of the interlocutor in interpreting the content and purpose of the communication.These three ethical dimensions raise philosophical questions about the nature of speech, the level of control required for communicative accuracy, and the nature of ‘accuracy’ with respect to both natural and prosthesis-mediated speech. (shrink)

Philosophical interest in inner speech has grown in recent years. In seeking to understand the phenomenon, many philosophers have drawn heavily on two theories from neighbouring disciplines: Lev Vygotsky’s theory on the development of inner speech in children and a cognitive-scientific theory about speech production. I argue that they have been too uncritical in their acceptance of these theories, which has prevented a proper analysis of inner speech.

The paper presents two objections against Putnam’s Twin Earth argument, which was intended to secure semantic externalism. I first claim that Putnam’s reasoning rests on two assumptions and then try to show why these assumptions are contentious. The first objection is that, given what we know about science, it is unlikely that there are any natural-kind terms whose extension is codetermined by a small set of microstructures required by Putnam’s indexical account of extension determination. The second objection is that there (...) may not be a plausible concept of a speech community whose adoption would classify Oscar and Twin Oscar as members of different speech communities and, at the same time, render Oscar and Twin Oscar as being in the same psychological state. I contend that Putnam’s argument fails because both objections are justified. (shrink)

Adults and children spontaneously produce gestures while they speak, and such gestures appear to support and expand on the information communicated by the verbal channel. Little research, however, has been carried out to examine the role played by gesture in the listener's representation of accumulating information. Do listeners attend to the gestures that accompany narrative speech? In what kinds of relationships between gesture and speech do listeners attend to the gestural channel? If listeners do attend to information received (...) in gesture, how is this information represented— is it 'tagged' as originating in the gestural channel? In this article research is described that addresses these questions. Results show that listeners do attend to information conveyed in gesture, when that information supplements or even contradicts the information conveyed by speech. And information received via gesture is available for retelling in speech. These results are taken to demonstrate that gesture is not taken by the listener to be epiphenomenal to the act of speaking, or a simple manual translation of speech. But they also suggest that the information conveyed in a discourse may be represented in a manner that is neither gesture nor language, although accessible to both channels. (shrink)

Many theorists claim that inner speech is importantly linked to human metacognition (thinking about one's own thinking). However, their proposals all rely upon unworkable conceptions of the content and structure of inner speech episodes. The core problem is that they require inner speech episodes to have both auditory-phonological contents and propositional/semantic content. Difficulties for the views emerge when we look closely at how such contents might be integrated into one or more states or processes. The result is (...) that, if inner speech is especially valuable to metacognition, we do not currently understand why it is. The article concludes with two positive proposals for understanding the content and structure of inner speech episodes, which should serve as constraints on future accounts of the metacognitive value of inner speech. (shrink)