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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (57 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 43 (2021)
Linguistic complexity – manifested in terms of hierarchical recursive structures generated by grammar – is often discussed from the perspective of cross-linguistic comparison (cf. Everett, 2005; Nevins, Pesetsky, & Rodrigues, 2009 on Pirahã). In this paper, we focus instead on the variation in complexity within a single language, English, and on the lower bound of complexity, specifically (cf. Futrell et al., 2016). We report results of two studies, a corpus study (Study 1) and a production experiment (Study 2), that investigate syntactic complexity of expressions that arise in the context of human-computer interaction and compare them to the standard language. The results of both studies show that the expressions generated in the context of human-computer interaction exhibit lesser structural complexity and often violate the norm of the language (cf. margaret mead culture famous research). Our results suggest that such expressions are generated by a qualitatively different type of formal grammar, Linear Grammar (Jackendoff & Wittenberg, 2017), rather than by recursive grammar (Roeper, 1999).
    Cover page: Variation in Linguistic Complexity and its Cognitive UnderpinningCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 45 (2023)
    In the absence of any restrictions on utterance length, fully formed sentences are usually the norm. But when space is limited, as in telegrams, headlines, and social media platforms like Twitter, an elliptic language variety – reduced register – is born. The fundamental question is what linguistic and cognitive principles are responsible for packaging information into a tight space. Using search queries as a case study, we demonstrate that the process of reduction involves restructuring of linguistic material and that the main grammatical mechanism responsible for restructuring is compounding – concatenation of adjacent words into a novel linguistic unit. The results of three studies demonstrate productivity of compounding in search queries and shed light on the nature of grammar that generates them. Rather than assuming a deletion mechanism or a domain-general information theoretical principle, we argue that queries are generated by a qualitatively different mechanism – linear grammar (Jackendoff & Wittenberg, 2017).
      Cover page: Compounds as a Window into the Grammar of Reduced RegistersCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 46 (2024)
      Reduced registers – search queries, print and TV ads, and navy messages – are characterized by an unusually high number of novel compounds. Results of a production study reported here reveal combinatorial patterns not attested in the standard language and allow us to establish the range of possibilities. We argue that productivity and creative use of compounds in reduced registers is not coincidental but follows directly from the grammar that generates expressions in these registers. We adopt an analysis couched in the Parallel Architecture framework (Jackendoff, 1997; Jackendoff & Audring, 2016) and demonstrate how productivity and idiosyncrasy of compounds in reduced registers can be explained.
        Cover page: Productivity and Creative Use of Compounds in Reduced Registers: Implications for Grammar ArchitectureCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 37 (2015)
        The paper investigates how speakers understand constructions with deverbal nominals, i.e. nominals such as destruction that are morphologically related to verbs. Specifically, given the expression the enemy’s destruction, how do the speakers decide whether the possessive argument is the entity that initiates the action (agent) or the entity that is causally affected by the event (patient)? The results of an experimental study show that this choice is dependent on the lexical semantics of the nominal. The theoretical implication is that deverbal nominals are similar to verbs in that they have argument structure. By studying comprehension of deverbal nominals the current study extends the scope of previous experimental work on lexical semantics that has been primarily concerned with verbs
          Cover page: Understanding Deverbal Nominals: World Knowledge or Lexical Semantics?
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 45 (2023)
          Previous work has suggested that abstraction should not be treated as a unitary construct, but it should be split in at least two components. Concreteness is based on the proportion of sensory information in a concept, while precision is based on the aggregation of information corresponding to the concept position in a semantic taxonomy. This line of work showed that while both of these components have been used as operationalizations of abstraction, they can have opposite effects on cognitive performance. In this paper we extend those findings by showing that precision and concreteness are also differently related to affective content. Our current findings are relevant to some inconsistencies and puzzles in the existing research on the link between abstraction and affective content, and further emphasize the multi-component structure of abstraction.
            Cover page: Abstraction and affective contentCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
            • Article
            • Peer Reviewed
            Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 36 (2014)
              Cover page: Evidentiality in Language and Cognition: The View from Construal Level Theory
              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              International Journal of Comparative Psychology, Volume 24, Issue 2 (2011)
              The ability of the Glaucous-winged Gull (Larus glaucescens) to observationally learn has been investigated in their natural habitat, in a gull’s colony located on Toporkov Island (Comandorsky State Nature Reserve, Far East, Russia). The experiment was carried out in the gull’s breeding period, when each bird’s pair in the colony occupies and protects vigilantly their small nesting sites surrounded by those of neighboring pairs. The gulls chosen to be demonstrators were trained to solve two different tasks both of which were not part of the species’ behavioral repertoire. The first task was obtaining a bait placed by an experimenter into an opaque box within the bird's visual field ; the second one was choosing a red box from a set of four identically-looking boxes differing only incolor. In contrast to the demonstrator gulls, which needed considerably training, most observers (the gulls nesting side-by-side with the demonstrators) performed the same tasks correctly in the first trial.Thus, gulls have proven to be capable of successful learning to solve simple choice tasks by observing what their conspecifics are doing. Observational learning can be a way to distribute individual experience among the gulls in a colony. The ability to observationally learn quickly maybe one of the factors underlying a higher adaptive potential of these birds.
                Cover page: Observational Learning in a Glaucous-winged Gull Natural ColonyCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
                • Thesis
                • Peer Reviewed
                UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2022)

                Microplastics are continuously released into the terrestrial environment from sources near where they are used and produced. These microplastics are conveyed via wind and water to the surrounding areas, where they accumulate in soil, sediment, and freshwater environments. The concentration gradient between terrestrial inland and boundary regions, the factors that influence the concentration, and the fundamental transport processes that could dynamically affect the microplastic transport in subsurface soil are unclear. In urban areas, stormwater control measures can accumulate microplastics, where they can break down into smaller fragments and be transported into the subsurface environment to groundwater. Subsurface soil experiences weathering cycles such as freeze-thaw cycles and dry-wet cycles, which could increase the downward transport potential of the accumulated microplastics. Yet, it is unknown whether or how the fluctuation in the water phase and content during these transient weather conditions could affect microplastic transport in the subsurface. The overall objective of the dissertation is to improve the understanding of microplastic transport and accumulation pathways in terrestrial environments with an emphasis on urban areas and stormwater. The dissertation consists of six research chapters. Chapter 2 estimates the global distribution and abundance of microplastics in terrestrial environments and shows that urban areas and glaciers are the hotspots of microplastic pollution. Chapter 3 calculates the mass balance of microplastics in wastewater treatment plants based on the global data and reveals that wastewater sludge could contain 25 times more microplastics than the reported concentration. Chapter 4 analyzes microplastic sources and types inside urban playgrounds in Los Angeles and shows that playgrounds could contain a higher concentration of microplastics than the surrounding due to extensive release of the microplastics from plastic structures inside the playground. Chapter 5 analyzes microplastic contamination across stormwater treatment systems in Los Angeles and shows atmospheric deposition, not just stormwater, could be the major conveyor of microplastics to the stormwater treatment systems, but the accumulated microplastic concentration decreased exponentially with an increase in soil depth. Chapter 6 shows that freeze-thaw cycles increase the vertical penetration of microplastics in the subsurface, but the effect is more prominent if the subsurface media contain more sand. Chapter 7 shows that microplastics of higher density can be preferentially transported deeper into subsurface during the freeze-thaw cycles. Overall, the results help understand the transport and accumulation of microplastics in urban areas and identify research needs to assess microplastic exposure in urban areas.

                  Cover page: Microplastic accumulation and transport in the subsurface under weathering cycles
                  • Article
                  • Peer Reviewed
                  UCLA Previously Published Works (2014)
                  Galactoside/H(+) symport across the cytoplasmic membrane of Escherichia coli is catalyzed by lactose permease (LacY), which uses an alternating access mechanism with opening and closing of deep cavities on the periplasmic and cytoplasmic sides. In this study, conformational changes in LacY initiated by galactoside binding were monitored in real time by Trp quenching/unquenching of bimane, a small fluorophore covalently attached to the protein. Rates of change in bimane fluorescence on either side of LacY were measured by stopped flow with LacY in detergent or in proteoliposomes and were compared with rates of galactoside binding. With LacY in proteoliposomes, the periplasmic cavity is tightly sealed and the substrate-binding rate is limited by the rate of opening of this cavity. Rates of opening, measured as unquenching of bimane fluorescence, are 20-30 s(-1), independent of sugar concentration and essentially the same in detergent or in proteoliposomes. On the cytoplasmic side of LacY in proteoliposomes, slow bimane quenching (i.e., closing of the cavity) is observed at a rate that is also independent of sugar concentration and similar to the rate of sugar binding from the periplasmic side. Therefore, opening of the periplasmic cavity not only limits access of sugar to the binding site of LacY but also controls the rate of closing of the cytoplasmic cavity.
                    Cover page: Real-time conformational changes in LacY
                    • Article
                    • Peer Reviewed
                    UCLA Previously Published Works (2022)
                    We argue that the actions for which actors receive recognition vary as they move up the hierarchy. When actors first enter a community, the community rewards them for their easier-to-evaluate contributions to the community. Eventually, however, as these actors rise in status, further increases in stature come increasingly from engaging in actions that are more difficult to evaluate or even impossible to judge. These dynamics produce a positive feedback loop, in which those who have already been accorded some stature garner even greater status through quality-ambiguous actions. We present evidence from Stack Overflow, an online community, and from two online experiments consistent with these expected patterns. Funding: All authors would like to acknowledge funding from the Austrian Science Fund [Grant P 25768-G16]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.1559 .
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