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ONT Re: Sequential Interactions Generating Hypotheses




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SIGH.  Note 3

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One of the things that makes this sort of categorical sequential data
interesting to me is that it provides us with an array of intermediate
cases or stepping stones in several different directions of increasing
complexity or generality in data.  In themselves, logical features can
be coded by means of the simplest type of variable, with values in the
boolean domain B = {0, 1}, but boolean data is used in connection with
some of the richest formal languages for conveying information, namely,
propositional and quantificational calculi.  In another way, the types
of finite domain categorical variables that we use in these settings
are intermediate in complexity between boolean variables, that range
over just two values, and quantitative variables, that range over
integer or real domains.  In addition, these temporal sequences
of compounds of categorical codes very often take on a simple
sort of quasi-linguistic structure that provides us with
a bridge to the more general types of linguistic data.

For example, consider the following fragment of the family interaction data:

|  2    31213     5
|  2    11233     8
|  2    34213    10
|  2    33213    18
|  2    10133    19
|  2    14233    22
|  2    30113    24
|  2    99999    29

This can be read according to the codebook in the following way:

| Begin play session.
| Mother talks to child with neutral affect.
| Child talks to mother with neutral affect.
| Mother ambiguously commands child with neutral affect.
| Mother commands child with neutral affect.
| Child obeys mother with neutral affect.
| Child ambiguously commands mother with neutral affect.
| Mother obeys child with neutral affect.
| Pause in activity.

Jon Awbrey

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