This investigation examined whether children can code the relative proximity of two objects to a landmark and whether they use verbal or nonverbal strategies to remember a target location. Two- to 2.5-year-olds completed a memory task where they watched an experimenter hide two different toys in two identical containers placed 2 and 12 inches from a landmark. The experimenter either used neutral language (e.g., “here”; Experiment 1) or spatial labels (e.g., “close/far”; Experiment 2) to describe objects’ hiding locations. After hiding, children were carried outside the enclosure to a new viewpoint during a 10-second delay and then looked for a target toy. Experiment 2 also included language measures: parent reports of children’s general and relational vocabularies and performance on a language task, which measured children’s understanding of spatial (close/far) and color (red/blue) terms. We found that children successfully coded relative to proximity to a landmark in the memory task. However, hearing spatial labels during hiding in Experiment 2 did not improve performance relative to Experiment 1, and children’s spatial term comprehension in the language task did not predict memory task performance. We also found that children’s productive relational vocabulary predicted memory task performance; however, children’s color term comprehension in the language task was the strongest overall predictor of memory task performance. Collectively, these results suggest that children initially rely on a nonverbal strategy when coding relative proximity to a landmark in a memory task and that children who are better at forming abstract categories may code relative proximity more successfully.

The thesis underpinning this study is as follows; it is possible to build machine models that are indistinguishable from the mental models used by humans to generate language to describe their environment. This is to say that the machine model should perform in such a way that a human listener could not discern whether a description of a scene was generated by a human or by the machine model. Many linguistic processes are used to generate even simple scene descriptions and developing machine models of all of them is beyond the scope of this study. The goal of this study is, therefore, to model a sufficient part of the scene description process, operating in a sufficiently realistic environment, so that the likelihood of being able to build machine models of the remaining processes, operating in the real world, can be established. The relatively under-researched process of reference object selection is chosen as the focus of this study. A reference object is, for instance, the `table' in the phrase ``The flowers are on the table''. This study demonstrates that the reference selection process is of similar complexity to others involved in generating scene descriptions which include: assigning prepositions, selecting reference frames and disambiguating objects (usually termed `generating referring expressions'). The secondary thesis of this study is therefore; it is possible to build a machine model that is indistinguishable from the mental models used by humans in selecting reference objects. Most of the practical work in the study is aimed at establishing this. An environment sufficiently near to the real-world for the machine models to operate on is developed as part of this study. It consists of a series of 3-dimensional scenes containing multiple objects that are recognisable to humans and `readable' by the machine models. The rationale for this approach is discussed. The performance of human subjects in describing this environment is evaluated, and measures by which the human performance can be compared to the performance of the machine models are discussed. The machine models used in the study are variants on Bayesian networks. A new approach to learning the structure of a subset of Bayesian networks is presented. Simple existing Bayesian classifiers such as naive or tree augmented naive networks did not perform sufficiently well. A significant result of this study is that useful machine models for reference object choice are of such complexity that a machine learning approach is required. Earlier proposals based on sum-of weighted-factors or similar constructions will not produce satisfactory models. Two differently derived sets of variables are used and compared in this study. Firstly variables derived from the basic geometry of the scene and the properties of objects are used. Models built from these variables match the choice of reference of a group of humans some 73\% of the time, as compared with 90\% for the median human subject. Secondly variables derived from `ray casting' the scene are used. Ray cast variables performed much worse than anticipated, suggesting that humans use object knowledge as well as immediate perception in the reference choice task. Models combining geometric and ray-cast variables match the choice of reference of the group of humans some 76\% of the time. Although niether of these machine models are likely to be indistinguishable from a human, the reference choices are rarely, if ever, entirely ridiculous. A secondary goal of the study is to contribute to the understanding of the process by which humans select reference objects. Several statistically significant results concerning the necessary complexity of the human models and the nature of the variables within them are established. Problems that remain with both the representation of the near-real-world environment and the Bayesian models and variables used within them are detailed. While these problems cast some doubt on the results it is argued that solving these problems is possible and would, on balance, lead to improved performance of the machine models. This further supports the assertion that machine models producing reference choices indistinguishable from those of humans are possible.

Introduction: This study investigated the use of spatial language by preschool teachers and children in 12 preschool classrooms to see if there are gender differences in the length and amount of spatial language teachers used with preschool boys versus girls or in the language boys versus girls used, during small group geometry activities. Spatial language, which includes words that explain the configuration of objects and their location in an environment, is related to math skill more broadly (Verdine, Bunger, Athanasopoulou, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2017). Research indicates that girls are scoring lower on spatial skill tests as early as third grade (Levine et al., 1999), so this study aims to determine if one of the contributors may be differences in the way teacher or child language varies at an early age. Research Questions 1. Will teachers use words from all three categories of spatial language during geometry small group activities in preschool? 2. How much of the teachers’ spatial language use during geometry small group activities is directed at boys versus girls? 3. Will children use words from all three categories of spatial language during geometry small group activities in preschool? 4. How much spatial language are boys using versus girls during geometry small group activities Methods: Teacher and child language was coded in videotaped observations of preschool geometry activities collected for a larger study. The resulting data were not normally distributed so frequency counts and duration were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U tests. To further analyze the results from my Mann-Whitney U tests, I ran correlations for both preschool boys and preschool girls. Results and Conclusion: Mann-Whitney U tests showed a significantly longer duration of teachers’ use of spatial language towards preschool boys versus girls (p = .03) and of preschool boys’ versus girls’ own use of spatial language (p = .04). The frequency of spatial words used was not statistically significant for either teachers or preschoolers. There was no positive correlation that occurred for the preschool boys in terms of how long the teacher talked to them and the boys’ use of spatial language. There was a positive correlation in terms of the frequency with which the teacher talked to the girls and the girls use of spatial language. Though the boys’ spatial language was not related to the amount of time teachers’ used spatial language, the fact that girls spatial language was may suggest in general girls are more sensitive to teachers’ verbal interactions and their cues for responding. Children’s understanding of spatial language is important and contributes to their continued understanding of other important concepts as they progress through their education. Therefore, it is important that children gain an early confidence and skill in using spatial language. Preschool teachers have an opportunity to support them in developing their skills in this area through their own use of spatial language as well as the way in which they encourage children to use it themselves.

This study investigated the use of spatial language by preschool teachers and children (ages 3-5 years) in 12 preschool classrooms to see if there are gender differences in the length and amount of spatial language used toward and by preschool boys versus preschool girls. Frequency counts and duration were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U tests and correlations. Mann-Whitney U tests showed that duration of the teachers’ use of spatial language towards preschool boys versus girls (p = .03) and preschool boys’ versus girls’ use of spatial language (p = .04) were statistically significant, p < .05. The frequency of spatial language was not statistically significant for either teachers or preschoolers. Correlation analyses revealed various statistically significant relationships among frequency and duration variables. The study of gender differences in spatial language should continue to investigate further what may be causing girls not to use spatial language for long period of times.

This thesis seeks to contribute to the growing literature on the theoretical issues surrounding the notions of space and place, by examining how they can be put to work in a historical study. This work is achieved through a reading of Foucault, who not only sketched a history of space, but also undertook a number of spatial histories. To understand this, and these histories, this thesis begins by reading Foucault's professed influence on history, Nietzsche, and goes on to highlight the key role that Heidegger plays in this understanding. Just as Heidegger is central to Foucault's work on history, it is suggested that the importance of space also stems from Heidegger, especially from his work in the 1930s which critically engages with Nietzsche and the Romantic poet Hölderlin. The importance of space, or more fundamentally place, becomes central to Heidegger's later work on modern technology, his rethinking of politics and the πόλις, and art. Reading Foucault's work on history draws out the nature of his spatial language. Not only is his work replete with spatial metaphors, but he also made analyses of actual spaces. This is most evident in Foucault's two large scale historical projects – the history of madness from the Renaissance to the beginnings of psychology in Histoire de la folie, and the study of modern discipline in the army, hospitals, schools and prisons found in The Birth of the Clinic, Discipline and Punish but also in numerous shorter pieces and lectures. His two major works are re-read as spatial histories, and the standard interpretations to an extent re-placed, in the light of the argument developed in the previous chapters. Foucault's historical approach is often described as a history of the present: given the emphasis on space, it is here rethought as mapping the present.

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Herta Müller represents physical suffering and repression in her works, often reflecting on the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and her constant interest in language and reflexivity towards writing have led her to develop sophisticated metaphors that she uses to illuminate language and its functioning under such subjugation. With reference to her fiction and non-fiction, I demonstrate how she uses concrete ideas to understand linguistic phenomena. She evokes injury, destruction, force, life, space, touch, silence, and other bodily experiences to make sense of language in the condition of suffering from social oppression. Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory within the framework of cognitive literary studies, I argue that Müller both relies on and estranges the ways in which people speak and think about language. Language is imagined differently depending on the circumstances and in close relationship with various sensory experiences. The complexity of the relationship between language and thought problematises the process of metaphor building and makes it difficult to identify its key aspects across different contexts and sensory modalities. Müller’s tropes are easy to experience, but difficult to analyse. The idea of language does not exist as a stable concept and is regularly reimagined in her texts; but its meaning is not arbitrary and depends on bodily experience. While Müller evokes such experience to understand language in the condition of suffering, she can also use linguistic concepts to elucidate more abstract ideas. Language can be regarded as an abstract or concrete phenomenon depending on the relevant bodily, linguistic, and cultural contexts. This project contributes to the study of Müller’s poetics as well as to the literary critical interpretation of embodied cognition, and develops the use of conceptual metaphor theory for literary analysis. It also seeks to develop understanding of the role of bodily experience in the metaphorical conceptualisation of language.

<p>The present work is concerned with projective prepositions, which express the relation between two objects by referring to a direction in three-dimensional space. The projective prepositions have been regarded as expressing simple schematic relations of a geometric nature. A theory of the apprehension of projective relations can account for their meanings when they express strictly geometric relations. However, many studies have shown that the appropriateness of the prepositions also depends on the functional relation between the objects and that a number of functional factors influence the comprehension of English prepositions. This experimental study investigates if the acceptability of the Swedish prepositions över, under, ovanför and nedanför are influenced by functional factors as well, and whether acceptability judgments about över and under are more sensitive to functional influences than judgments about ovanför and nedanför, as has been shown for the corresponding English prepositions over and under, and above and below, respectively. It also investigates how the shapes and the parts of the related objects influence their functional interaction, and how the acceptability of the prepositions is in consequence influenced by the shapes of the objects. It was found that the theory of apprehension can indeed account for the acceptability of the prepositions when the relation between the objects is strictly geometric. It was further found that acceptability judgments about them are influenced by functional factors in a similar manner to the corresponding English prepositions when the objects are functionally related, although judgments about under and nedanför are not differentially influenced by these factors. Furthermore, the shapes and the parts of both of the related objects influence acceptability judgments about the prepositions in predictable manners. An extension of the theory of apprehension is suggested which can account for the functional influences indicated in the present study.</p>

The present work is concerned with projective prepositions, which express the relation between two objects by referring to a direction in three-dimensional space. The projective prepositions have been regarded as expressing simple schematic relations of a geometric nature. A theory of the apprehension of projective relations can account for their meanings when they express strictly geometric relations. However, many studies have shown that the appropriateness of the prepositions also depends on the functional relation between the objects and that a number of functional factors influence the comprehension of English prepositions. This experimental study investigates if the acceptability of the Swedish prepositions över, under, ovanför and nedanför are influenced by functional factors as well, and whether acceptability judgments about över and under are more sensitive to functional influences than judgments about ovanför and nedanför, as has been shown for the corresponding English prepositions over and under, and above and below, respectively. It also investigates how the shapes and the parts of the related objects influence their functional interaction, and how the acceptability of the prepositions is in consequence influenced by the shapes of the objects. It was found that the theory of apprehension can indeed account for the acceptability of the prepositions when the relation between the objects is strictly geometric. It was further found that acceptability judgments about them are influenced by functional factors in a similar manner to the corresponding English prepositions when the objects are functionally related, although judgments about under and nedanför are not differentially influenced by these factors. Furthermore, the shapes and the parts of both of the related objects influence acceptability judgments about the prepositions in predictable manners. An extension of the theory of apprehension is suggested which can account for the functional influences indicated in the present study.