[Aleader-dev] Re: Pronouns

[William L. Jarrold]

On Tue, 14 Oct 2003, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:

> [I'm going out of town for 4-5 days.  I thought I better send
> this because I think you will get more optimistic after reading
> the abstract.  Have fun with your neuropsych assessments!]
>
> Abstract
>
> Pronouns correspond with Baron-Cohen's TOM.

Right now I've read this whole thing 1.5 times and I don't know
what you mean by the above sentence.  I suggest you have a section
whose heading is "Pronouns Correspond with TOM".  And in that section
you explain this correspondence.

> Combining pronouns and
> desirability can result in an incremental extension to your thesis.
> A KR model of pronoun-desirability is presented.  A selection of
> examples scenarios from OCC are used to illustrate the utility of
> pronoun analysis.  Potential empirical studies are outlined.
>
> Discussion
>
> There was an essential inspiration I received (a few years ago) in the
> construction of Aleader.  In academic terms, I would describe it as
> organizing affect analysis around a TOM and the proposition that
> pronouns (I, we, you, he, she, they) are _the_ basic TOM concepts.
>
> There is a natural correspondance:
>
> 2nd person pronouns : Intentionality Detector, Eye Detection Detector
> and Shared Attention Mechanism.
>
> 3rd person pronouns : Theory of Mind Mechanism

Okay.  This correspondance is evocative and informal.  E.g. there is a
predicate in Cyc called #$conceptuallyRelated.  They correspond in that
way.

>
> Aleader theory is built from evidence found in language as is OCC.
> However, the emphasis is on pronouns. All other linguistic evidence is
> integrated around a pronoun architecture.
>
> In your thesis, you are concerned with computing desirability.  I want
> to combine pronoun appraisal with your goal appraisal.  This email
> textually describes how this combination might work. Hopefully we can
> meld the material into an empirical test.  I am hopeful that adding
> pronoun appraisal is a small enough incremental step that we can build
> on much of the groundwork laid by your thesis.
>
> I included the plural pronoun "we" in my list (above).  Actually I
> want to see how far we can get with only two people plus an witness.
> This means three people, or two people if one of the participants also
> takes on the role of the witness.  This is the minimum structure
> needed to introduce 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person pronouns.  By limiting
> ourselves to the minimum structure we carve out a smaller piece --
> hopefully a tractable piece -- of the affect puzzle.

Okay.  Or maybe the cognitive empathy or mindreading puzzle is more apt.
Well, in my dissertation I *really* explore mindreading or cognitive
empathy and use that as a vehicle to advance cognitive appraisal theory.
That window is cloudy but worth looking through for a while because we
emotion researchers are still quite clueless about it.

>
> Let us take Figure 3.1: Example Clinical Workbook Item from your
> thesis and re-write it in pronoun-desirability form.  For the sake of
> brevity, I will choose an arbitrary interpretation instead of trying
> to generate all possible interpretations.  We will add back
> generativity later.
>
> sentence #1: Tracy wants a banana.
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = Tracy
>     [will be] happy = want a banana
> sentence #2: Mummy gives Tracy an apple for lunch.
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = Mummy
>     indifferent = (Mummy doesn't want anything for herself.)
>   you (2nd person) = Tracy
>     happy = an apple for lunch
>   overall (3rd person) desirability state = gives

Seems like "I" and "you" are just different names of the grammatical
subject and the grammatical object.  But why give an old concept a
different name.  Therefore, I must be missing somethig here.

>
> The "appraising-agents" relation from your thesis is equivalent to the
> 1st person pronoun by convention.  Therefore, I have chosen Mummy as
> the appraising-agent.

> The rest is just a matter of assembling our
> evaluation into English sentences.

The rest of what?...Sorry, but I often feel baffled when I read these
things.

>
> Q. How does Tracy feel about receiving an apple for lunch?
> A. Mummy thinks that Tracy feels happy about it. (Mummy's point of
> view + goal substitution)
>
> A few things to note:
>
> + Sentence #1 is too simple to involve even a 2nd person pronoun.
> This suggests that sentence #1 does not involve TOM (or even shared
> attention).

Huh?  Maybe the problem is that your use of "involve" is ambigous or
vague.  Sentence #1 , i.e. "Tracy wants a banana.", does involve
TOM.  Here is how: if Mommy wants to understand Tracy, Mommy must form
representations of Tracy's goals.  Sentence #1 represents Tracy's goal.
Therefore Sentence #1 is involved in (Mommy's) TOM.

> So from a TOM point of view, sentence #1 is merely a
> logical assertion in the goal appraisal module.  On the other hand,
> sentence #2 is exactly complex enough to provide bindings for 1st,
> 2nd, and 3rd person pronouns.  If sentence #2 is affectual then the
> affect is a TOM affect.

What does affectual mean?

It is quite likely that I do not understand enough of this to
be an efficient close reader of it.  So, I am going to read the rest
quickly and have a high threshold to giving a comment.

>
> + The word "desirability" doesn't read very well for the 3rd person.
> That's why I invented a new terminology "situational intention" to
> describe 3rd person desirability states.  Each situational intention
> state corresponds to a pair of individual desirability states.
> However, there are also English words which describe situational
> intention states.  Some examples include: give, take, admire, admired,
> etc.
>
> Going through the exercise of building Aleader & etc, what I found is
> that given any two known desirabilities (1st, 2nd or 3rd) then you can
> solve for the remaining unknown desirability.  So once we pick one of
> the many interpretations of sentence #2 then we can retract knowledge
> of one of the desirabilities and predict it using logic rules.  The
> full PowerLoom (KIF) details are available at:
>
>   http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/aleader/htdocs/aleader.ploom
>
> with some example situations at:
>
>   http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/aleader/htdocs/nausicaa.ploom
>
> To get a better sense of how frequently we find simple TOM situations
> of two people plus a witness, I have undertaken a pronoun analysis of
> OCC emotions.  The analysis doesn't interfere or clash much with OCC.
> It is more a matter of being explicit about something which was
> formerly implicit.  Details follow.
>
>   Well-being emotions (p 86)
>
>   Joy's type spec: (pleased about) a desirable event
>
>   Joy's example: The man was pleased when he realized he was to
>   get a small inheritance from an unknown distant relative.
>
>   Distress' example: The driver was upset about running out
>   of gas on the freeway.
>
> Joy's type spec offers bindings only for a 1st person.  Distress'
> example involves only a 1st person.  This suggests that a TOM oriented
> model should consider Well-being as part of the desirability appraisal
> and not as an affect.  Although Joy's example offers bindings for a
> 1st person (the man), 2nd person (an unknown distant relative), and
> 3rd person (give), this TOM structure is certainly an artifact of
> English composition rather than an essential feature of the joy
> example.  So our rule-base would contain:
>
> ;; I don't really know how to write this in KM, but here goes!
>
> (every Human has
>        (goalAgent-of ((a Goal with
>                        (goalEventType (Inheritance))
>                        (goalAgentRole (receiver))
>                        (goalObjectTypeRole (transfered))
>                        (goalObjectType (money))))))

Hrm, maybe you meant to say "(a Human has" where you wrote
"(every Human has".  Right?  You are talking about one particular
person who has the goal of receiving an inheritance, right?

> (every Human has
>        (goalAgent-of ((a Goal with
>                        (goalEventType (NotRunOutOfGas))
>                        (goalAgentRole (driver))
>                        (goalObjectTypeRole (fuel))
>                        (goalObjectType (gas))))))
>
> Now if we go back and do a pronoun-desirability appraisal of joy's
> example then we can use our goals to determine the desirability.
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = The man
>     happy = because getting an inheritance (goal congruent)
>   you (2nd person) = an unknown distant relative
>     indifferent = assume dead
>   they (3rd person) situational intention = take
>
> As you can see, this is the same thing as before but with the TOM
> structure exposed.  Now we move on to Fortunes-of-others (p 92).
> These OCC emotions typically involve two instances of a TOM.  Since we
> already discussed Well-being emotions, we will only consider the
> immediate TOM structure.
>
> Happy-for example: Fred was happy for his friend Mary because she won
> a thousand dollars.
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = Fred
>     happy = aligned with Mary
>   you (2nd person) = Mary
>     happy = goal congruent
>   they (3rd person) situational intention = ready
>
>   Sorry-for example: Fred was sorry for his friend Mary because her
>   husband was killed in a car crash.
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = Fred
>     sad = aligned with Mary

I wonder what you mean by "="?.  From context it seems
that you mean to refine the sense of "sad".  I.e. A special
kind of sadness, a sadness that is "aligned with Mary".  But then .....

>   you (2nd person) = Mary
>     sad = goal incongruent
>   they (3rd person) situational intention = protest
>
> Resentment example: The executive resented the large pay raise awarded
> to a colleague whom he considered incompetent.
>
> Here is a naive analysis, but it is wrong:
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = the executive
>     sad = didn't get pay raise

....then here "=" seems to mean somethign else.  From context, it
seems that you mean to point to the situation from whence "sad"
comes from.  I.e. sadness that arises when the executive finds
himself inthe situation such that he didn't get the pay raise.

>   you (2nd person) = a colleague
>     happy = got large pay raise
>
> This is wrong because the appraising-agent is not consistent.  For the
> executive, desirability is from the executive's point-of-view.  For
> the colleague, desirability is from the colleague's point-of-view.  If
> we need to represent both points of view then we need to create two
> separate TOM situations.  Since this email is getting lengthly,

yes, maybe a trick to keep me processing emails is to send me little
bite sized emails and keep the plot brewing.  whatever.

> let us
> look only at the executive's point-of-view.
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = the executive
>     sad = didn't get pay raise
>   you (2nd person) = a colleague
>     indifferent = got large pay raise (past tense)
>   they (3rd person) situational intention = uneasy
>
> Or if the executive considers it like a theft then we should write it
> like an OCC Prospect emotion (below).  Notice that resentment involves
> an event status change from unconfirmed to dis/confirmed.
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = the executive
>     happy = due for raise (unconfirmed)
>   you (2nd person) = a colleague
>     sad = if gets pay raise (unconfirmed)
>   they (3rd person) situational intention = steals

I forgot, what is the purpose of putting stuff in
pronoun-desirability form?

>
> Or after the dis/confirmation:
>
> pronoun-desirability form:
>   I (1st person) = the executive
>     indifferent = no raise (confirmed)
>   you (2nd person) = a colleague
>     sad = got pay raise (confirmed)
>   they (3rd person) situational intention = observes
>
> This example appears especially generative because we easily found
> three interpretations with slightly different shades of meaning.
>
> OCC Appraisal of Object emotions (p. 156) operate on the basis of
> appealingness.  Your thesis did not consider appealingness

YES!  I understand this!  (-:

> but for the
> sake of discussion we can assume an equivalence: it desirable to be
> appealing and undesirable to be unappealing.

Yes.  Kind of puzzling that part of Ortony.  But I suppose it what makes
it a powerful theory?  It sorta kinda feels like Freudian theory in that
you can view somethign as just a cigar or as something that is more than a
cigar.  I'm speaking loosely and metaphorically.  In spite of the
reference to Freud, I do think there is somethign scientifically testable
in OCC.

>
> Liking example: Mary was filled with affection as she gazed at her
> newborn infant.
>
>   I (1st person) = Mary
>     happy = her infant is appealing
>   you (2nd person) = newborn infant
>     indifferent = busy breathing and looking around
>   they (3rd person) situational intention = admires
>
> Disliking example: John disliked the concert so much that he left in
> the middle.
>
>   I (1st person) = John
>     sad = her infant is appealing
>   you (2nd person) = concert

Hmm, yes, the "you" really does seem to be a grammatical object.

>     indifferent = are concerts intentional?
>   they (3rd person) situational intention = uneasy
>
> What is surprising about the Disliking example is that a concert is
> bound to the same slot as the infant.  The output of the
> intentionality detector seems to be ignored (is a concert a living
> thing?).

Ignored by who or what?

> Given what we know about autism, it seems unlikely that we
> can assign the same affect regardless of the intentionality detector.
> In OCC, it is clearly stated that Appraisal of Object emotions also
> apply to taste (as in food).  One solution is to refine the Appraisal
> of Object emotions by whether the object is judged intentional by the
> intentionality detector.
>
> Conclusion
>
> Autism research leads us to believe that TOM is a real
> psychological-brain component. Therefore, its operation should be
> accounted for clearly in cognitive appraisal theory.  Looking at the
> role of pronouns in OCC emotions highlights some mild ambiguity in
> OCC.  Pronoun analysis guides us to a more precise model of affect
> eliciting situations.

The above paragraph was clear and understandable.  It might be worth
starting with this kind of a paragraph..."In this paper I intend to show
that..."

However, I do not understand what role pronouns have in OCC emotions.

I do not understand how we have a more precise model.

When you say "Its [TOM's] operation should be accounted for clearly in
cognitive appraisal theory" should make it clearer why and how it
should be made clearer.  As you've implied elsewhere, one place that OCC
needs to reference TOM is in emotions for Concerns of Others, e.g. pity,
happy for, gloating and resentment.  You should also delineate how
TOM is "accounted for" in OCC.  E.g. OCC should not subsume TOM, right?
TOM is all about another's beliefs.  Thus, it seems to me that OCC
Mechanism and TOMM (i.e. Theory of Mind *Mechanism) are separate boxes.
OCC Mechanism does not subsume TOMM.

>
> Looking towards an empirical study, I think the dependent variable can
> be believability of appraisals (like your thesis).  Since we are doing
> appraisals (not affects), it should work OK to work in textual form
> (without video).  I'm not sure about the independent variables.  We
> can vary the point-of-view (1st person / appraising-agent) or ask
> about the situational intention.
>
> What do you think?

Well, I'm generally feeling baffled.  I suggest that *maybe*, rather than
respond to each little comment you re-write this.

Hope I'm not being to discouraging or lazy here.  Keep going.

Bill

>
> --
> A new cognitive theory of emotion, http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/aleader
>