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- Backman, Jarl, 1941-
(author)
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Perception of polysemy
- 1978
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A seldom expressed assumption in word comprehension studies, that words have invariant semantic qualities, was tested in three experiments. The first experiment showed that subjects produced different interpretations from polysemous words. There always, however, seemed to be a most frequent representation. In the second experiment subjects rated degree of polysemy and a striking jump was found in the transition from two to three meanings in a polysemous word. The third experiment also tested perceived degree of polysemy but with the additionof objective frequency and syntactic category as independent variables. A theoretically predicted tripleinteraction was confirmed. It is conecluded that the phenomenon of polysemy has to bee incorporated in research on word perception and comprehension. Theoretical alternatiwes for representation of polysemous and homonymous words are presented. The invariance hypothesisin word comprehension is finally recommended to be substitutedby a variance hypothesis.
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| 4. |
- Backman, Jarl, 1941-
(author)
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Reading comprehension and perceived comprehensibility of lexical density at discourse and sentence level
- 1976
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A text was varied in three levels with regard to lexical density (LD=the qouta lexical words/total amounts of words in a sentence). One hundred and thirty-two subjects comprehension of text (discourse comprehension) was tested by a knowledge test and by subjective ratings. From the same text were also sampled 10 sentences of which each varied in the same density levels and were judged in the same comprehension scale as the whole text (sentence comprehension). The discourse analysis gave no differential effects of comprehension defined via knowledge tests and ratings. The single-sentence analysis gave significant contrasts between different LD-levels for 7 of 10 sentences. In a factorial analysis a significant interaction effect between LD and sentence was obtained. The discrepancy between discourse comprehension and sentence comprehension was interpreted so that the subjects in the latter case were oriented towards non-lexical factors, one of the reasons beeing lack of context. Implications for reading research are finally discussed.)
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- Backman, Jarl, 1941-
(author)
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Semantic variability and word comprehension
- 1978
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Four different age groups (9, 12, 15 and 18 years) judged words which varied in three dimensions: syntactic category, objective frequency and polysemy (multiple meaning). The subjects judged ease of comprehension of 24 words in a factorial arrangement, and the method was Thurstone's paired comparisons.A predicted complex relationship between the three independent variables e.g. a triple interaction could, however, not be supported. Subjects in older ages did not seem to have a finer discrimination ability for words with different degrees of polysemy It was concluded that the phenomenon of polysemy has to be incorporated in research on word comprehension This approach avoids the current normative approach and leads to a more relevant starting-point where semantic invariance must be substituted for semantic variability.
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| 6. |
- Backman, Jarl, 1941-
(author)
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Sentence production with homonymous and polysemous words
- 1978
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Forty subjects produced sentences from homonymous words which could be interpreted either as verbs or nouns. The words also varied in degree of polysemy. The results indicated that the subjects pre- fered verbproductions when the words were grouped according to objective frequency. This was more evident when the choice of syntactic category was related to the words polysemous character. The results were explained by a presumed easier access and a larger number of entries in the subjective lexicon for verbs, caused by their relational charac ter and context dependence. The nouns on the other hand are semantically more stable and an increase in degree of polysemy restricts access to a specific interpretation.
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- Backman, Jarl, 1941-
(author)
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Some common word attributes and their relations to objective frequency counts
- 1974
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A sample of 50 words taken from an American frequency count was used in obtaining subjective estimates of the following attributes: subjective frequency (SF), familiarity (F), associability (A), pronounciability (P), and comprehensibility (C). The last mentioned attribute had hitherto not been reported as scaleable with words presented in singelitem form. The results showed among other things that all attributes, except A, were reliable and highly intercorrelatejd and an ANOVA also separated A from the other. Correlations with objective frequency counts, one American and two Swedish, were highest for SF, F, and P. Comprehensibility was judged to be a scaleable attribute according to the method used (magnitude estimation). This attribute seems, however, to measure something slightly different from what the other attributes do. Some hypotheseses for this are finally formulated.
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- Backman, Jarl, 1941-
(author)
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Subjective structures in linguistic recurrence
- 1978
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Three experiments were conducted to test the psychological relevance of objectively quantified word collocations. The first experiment showed that perceived frequency of word combinations roughly followed the objective count. Another recurrent quality of words, constructional tendency, was supplemented as independent variable in the two following experiments. This variable reflects a words tendency to appear in word combinations and it was found to interact with frequency when subjects rated frequency and comprehensibility. The experiments showed that word collocations, defined at the levels of combinations and constructional tendency of individual words, can be supposed to have psychological counterparts; that linguistic recurrence seems to have cognitive representations.
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- Backman, Jarl, 1941-
(author)
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Word comprehension as function of syntactic category of content words
- 1978
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- One hundred subjects rated words of the category content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs). One half of the group rated comprehensibility, the other half subjective frequency. The rating technique was Thurstone’s paired comparisons. The results were in good agreement with a previous investigation as regards the relation comprehension - objective frequency. The comprehension ratings did not co-vary with subjective frequency and underlines their status as a higher-order variable. A linguistic prediction about the unclear position of adjectives and adverbs as syntactic categories was supported. An interactive relation between nouns and verbs and relations to objective frequency were explained by the difference in context dependency and accessibility of entries in semantic memory.
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- Edvardsson, Bo, 1944-
(author)
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Perceived and wanted ego states for social workers and clients
- 1979
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Social work students (N = 50) were asked to ascribe psychological characteristics to themselves as social workers and to their clients. Students had to ascribe bothe perceived and wanted characteristics. These were classified into six ego state categories in transactional analysis theory. Students perceived themselves as mainly Nurturing Parents (NP) and their clients as mainly Adapted Childs (AC). Students wanted to keep their strong Nurturing Parents (NP) and wanted clients in Adult (A) ego state.
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