Modeling Language, Cognition And Action - Proceedings Of The Ninth Neural Computation And Psychology Workshop


Book Description

This volume collects together peer reviewed versions of most of the papers presented at the Ninth Neural Computation and Psychology Workshop (NCPW9), held in 2004 at the University of Plymouth (England). The conference invited submissions on neural computation models of all cognitive and psychological processes. The special theme of this year's workshop was “Modeling of Language, Cognition and Action. This topic had the aim to extend the conference appeal from the connectionist psychology community to leaders in neuroscience, robotics and cognitive systems design.The chapters cover the breadth of research in neural computation and psychology, with numerous papers that focus on language modeling, this year's special theme. The book includes chapters from internationally renowned researchers in the various fields of cognitive psychology (such as Art Glenberg and Jonathan Evans) as well as computer science and robotics (such as Stefan Wermter & Stefano Nolfi).The proceedings have been selected for coverage in:• Neuroscience Citation Index®• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings® (ISTP® / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings® (ISSHP® / ISI Proceedings)• Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (ISSHP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)• CC Proceedings — Engineering & Physical Sciences• CC Proceedings — Biomedical, Biological & Agricultural Sciences




Language, Cognition, and Computational Models


Book Description

How do infants learn a language? Why and how do languages evolve? How do we understand a sentence? This book explores these questions using recent computational models that shed new light on issues related to language and cognition. The chapters in this collection propose original analyses of specific problems and develop computational models that have been tested and evaluated on real data. Featuring contributions from a diverse group of experts, this interdisciplinary book bridges the gap between natural language processing and cognitive sciences. It is divided into three sections, focusing respectively on models of neural and cognitive processing, data driven methods, and social issues in language evolution. This book will be useful to any researcher and advanced student interested in the analysis of the links between the brain and the language faculty.




Modeling Language, Cognition and Action


Book Description

Introduction. Modeling language, cognition and action : from connectionist simulations to embodied neural cognitive systems / Angelo Cangelosi -- Language, perception and action. Lessons from the embodiment of language : why simulating human language comprehension is hard / Arthur M. Glenberg. Associative neural models for biomimetic multi-modal learning in a mirror neuron-based robot / Stefan Wermter, Cornelius Weber and Mark Elshaw. Grounding language in perception : a connectionist model of spatial terms and vague quantifiers / Angelo Cangelosi ... [et al.]. Structured connectionist models of language, cognition and action / Nancy Chang, Jerome Feldman and Srini Narayanan. Predicting the effect of slightly complex utterances / Michael Klein and Kenji Doya. An associative model of cortical language and action processing / Andreas Knoblauch, Heiner Markert and Guenther Palm -- Categorization and language. Carving nature at its joints and carving joints into nature : how labels augment category representations / Gary Lupyan. Language as an aid to categorization : a neural network model of early language acquisition / Marco Mirolli and Domenico Parisi -- Language processing. A connectionist evaluation of schemes to measure difficulty of words based on their phonological structure / Jennifer Hayes and Peter Howell. Sentence comprehension without propositional structure / Stefan L. Frank. Emergence of linguistic features : independent component analysis of contexts / Timo Honkela, Aapo Hyvärinen and Jaakko Väyrynen. Latent linguistic codes for morphemes using independent component analysis / Krista Lagus, Mathias Creutz and Sami Virpioja. A neural network model for natural language : the case of homonymy / Eleni Koutsomitopoulou. Dynamic representation of stack- and queue-like syntactic structures / Andre Grüning. The active role of proper names : evidence from neural network experiments and philosophy of language considerations / Barbara Giolito -- Cooperation and communication. Emergence of communication in embodied agents : co-adapting communicative and non-communicative behaviours / Davide Marocco and Stefano Nolfi. Estimating intentions of others for imitation and cooperation / Norikazu Sugimoto, Kenji Doya and Mitsuo Kawato -- Motor representations and cognition. Mental representations and cognitive behaviour : a recurrent neural network approach / Sirnone Kühn and Holk Cruse. Spatial cognition in action-SCA model : children's gestural imagery in action / Marilyn Panayi and D. M. Roy. Evolving a simulated robotic arm able to grasp objects / Gianluca Massera, Stefano Nolfi and Angelo Cangelosi. Is language necessary to merge geometric and non-geometric spatial cues? The case of the "Blue- Wall Task" / Michela Ponticorvo and Orazio Miglino -- Attention and perception. A neurocognitive theory of attentional modulation of spread of activation / Eddy J. Davelaar. Modelling the attentional blink / Howard Bowman and Bradley Wyble. A model of spatial and object-based attention for active visual search / Linda Lanyon and Susan Denham. Hemispheric asymmetries in the neglect syndrome : a computational study / Andrea Di Ferdinando ... [et al.]. An oscillatory neural model for tracking a moving object / Yakov B. Kazanovich and Roman M. Borisyuk. Selective attention and action in an artificial, evolved agent : reactive inhibition / Robert Ward and Ronnie Ward. A proposed model of repetition blindness / Colm G. Connolly and Ronan G. Reilly -- Cognitive processing and control. Modelling the slow emotional Stroop effect : suppression of cognitive control / Bradley Wyble, Dinkar Sharma and Howard Bowman. Evidence of modularity from primate errors during task learning / Joanna J. Bryson. Accounting for episodic, semantic and procedural memory in the recommendation archtecture cognitive model / L. Andrew Coward. Can self-control be explained through games? / Gaye Banfield and Chris Christodoulou. An investigation of the myopia for future consequences theory of VMF patient behaviour on the Iowa gambling task : an abstract neural network simulation / Kiran Kalidindi, Howard Bowman and Bradley Wyble -- Face processing and classification. Recognition of pain expressions / Peter J. B. Hancock ... [et al.]. Global and feature based gender classification of faces : a comparison of human performance and computational models / Samarasena Buchala ... [et al.] -- Developmental processes. A neural network investigation of the head preference : problems Explaining Empirical Results by bottom-up processes alone / Martial Mermillod ... [et al.]. Children's causal inferences as revealed by backwards blocking tasks : a memory self-refreshing neural networks account / Serban C. Musca -- Neural network methodology. Embryological modelling of the evolution of neural architecture / Chris P. Bowers and John A. Bullinaria. Evolving neural networks that suffer minimal catastrophic forgetting / Tebogo Seipone and John A. Bullinaria. Improving cell assembly categories by fatigue / Christian Huyck and Hina Ghalib. Comparing computational and human measures of visual similarity / Tim M. Gale ... [et al.]. Psychological ALife : bridging the gap between mind and brain. Enactive distributed associationism and transient localism / Anthony F. Morse -- Future challenges : thinking and reasoning. Modelling thinking and reasoning : the challenge ahead / Jonathan St B T Evans




Computational Cognitive Modeling and Linguistic Theory


Book Description

This open access book introduces a general framework that allows natural language researchers to enhance existing competence theories with fully specified performance and processing components. Gradually developing increasingly complex and cognitively realistic competence-performance models, it provides running code for these models and shows how to fit them to real-time experimental data. This computational cognitive modeling approach opens up exciting new directions for research in formal semantics, and linguistics more generally, and offers new ways of (re)connecting semantics and the broader field of cognitive science. The approach of this book is novel in more ways than one. Assuming the mental architecture and procedural modalities of Anderson's ACT-R framework, it presents fine-grained computational models of human language processing tasks which make detailed quantitative predictions that can be checked against the results of self-paced reading and other psycho-linguistic experiments. All models are presented as computer programs that readers can run on their own computer and on inputs of their choice, thereby learning to design, program and run their own models. But even for readers who won't do all that, the book will show how such detailed, quantitatively predicting modeling of linguistic processes is possible. A methodological breakthrough and a must for anyone concerned about the future of linguistics! (Hans Kamp) This book constitutes a major step forward in linguistics and psycholinguistics. It constitutes a unique synthesis of several different research traditions: computational models of psycholinguistic processes, and formal models of semantics and discourse processing. The work also introduces a sophisticated python-based software environment for modeling linguistic processes. This book has the potential to revolutionize not only formal models of linguistics, but also models of language processing more generally. (Shravan Vasishth) .




Grounding Cognition


Book Description

One of the key questions in cognitive psychology is how people represent knowledge about concepts such as football or love. Some researchers have proposed that concepts are represented in human memory by the sensorimotor systems that underlie interaction with the outside world. These theories represent developments in cognitive science to view cognition no longer in terms of abstract information processing, but in terms of perception and action. In other words, cognition is grounded in embodied experiences. Studies show that sensory perception and motor actions support understanding of words and object concepts. Moreover, even understanding of abstract and emotion concepts can be shown to rely on more concrete, embodied experiences. Finally, language itself can be shown to be grounded in sensorimotor processes. This book brings together theoretical arguments and empirical evidence from several key researchers in this field to support this framework.




Language and Cognition


Book Description

Interaction between language and cognition remains an unsolved scientific problem. What are the differences in neural mechanisms of language and cognition? Why do children acquire language by the age of six, while taking a lifetime to acquire cognition? What is the role of language and cognition in thinking? Is abstract cognition possible without language? Is language just a communication device, or is it fundamental in developing thoughts? Why are there no animals with human thinking but without human language? Combinations even among 100 words and 100 objects (multiple words can represent multiple objects) exceed the number of all the particles in the Universe, and it seems that no amount of experience would suffice to learn these associations. How does human brain overcome this difficulty? Since the 19th century we know about involvement of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas in language. What new knowledge of language and cognition areas has been found with fMRI and other brain imaging methods? Every year we know more about their anatomical and functional/effective connectivity. What can be inferred about mechanisms of their interaction, and about their functions in language and cognition? Why does the human brain show hemispheric (i.e., left or right) dominance for some specific linguistic and cognitive processes? Is understanding of language and cognition processed in the same brain area, or are there differences in language-semantic and cognitive-semantic brain areas? Is the syntactic process related to the structure of our conceptual world? Chomsky has suggested that language is separable from cognition. On the opposite, cognitive and construction linguistics emphasized a single mechanism of both. Neither has led to a computational theory so far. Evolutionary linguistics has emphasized evolution leading to a mechanism of language acquisition, yet proposed approaches also lead to incomputable complexity. There are some more related issues in linguistics and language education as well. Which brain regions govern phonology, lexicon, semantics, and syntax systems, as well as their acquisitions? What are the differences in acquisition of the first and second languages? Which mechanisms of cognition are involved in reading and writing? Are different writing systems affect relations between language and cognition? Are there differences in language-cognition interactions among different language groups (such as Indo-European, Chinese, Japanese, Semitic) and types (different degrees of analytic-isolating, synthetic-inflected, fused, agglutinative features)? What can be learned from sign languages? Rizzolatti and Arbib have proposed that language evolved on top of earlier mirror-neuron mechanism. Can this proposal answer the unknown questions about language and cognition? Can it explain mechanisms of language-cognition interaction? How does it relate to known brain areas and their interactions identified in brain imaging? Emotional and conceptual contents of voice sounds in animals are fused. Evolution of human language has demanded splitting of emotional and conceptual contents and mechanisms, although language prosody still carries emotional content. Is it a dying-off remnant, or is it fundamental for interaction between language and cognition? If language and cognitive mechanisms differ, unifying these two contents requires motivation, hence emotions. What are these emotions? Can they be measured? Tonal languages use pitch contours for semantic contents, are there differences in language-cognition interaction among tonal and atonal languages? Are emotional differences among cultures exclusively cultural, or also depend on languages? Interaction of language and cognition is thus full of mysteries, and we encourage papers addressing any aspect of this topic.




The Pragmatic Turn


Book Description

Experts from a range of disciplines assess the foundations and implications of a novel action-oriented view of cognition. Cognitive science is experiencing a pragmatic turn away from the traditional representation-centered framework toward a view that focuses on understanding cognition as “enactive.” This enactive view holds that cognition does not produce models of the world but rather subserves action as it is grounded in sensorimotor skills. In this volume, experts from cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, robotics, and philosophy of mind assess the foundations and implications of a novel action-oriented view of cognition. Their contributions and supporting experimental evidence show that an enactive approach to cognitive science enables strong conceptual advances, and the chapters explore key concepts for this new model of cognition. The contributors discuss the implications of an enactive approach for cognitive development; action-oriented models of cognitive processing; action-oriented understandings of consciousness and experience; and the accompanying paradigm shifts in the fields of philosophy, brain science, robotics, and psychology. Contributors Moshe Bar, Lawrence W. Barsalov, Olaf Blanke, Jeannette Bohg, Martin V. Butz, Peter F. Dominey, Andreas K. Engel, Judith M. Ford, Karl J. Friston, Chris D. Frith, Shaun Gallagher, Antonia Hamilton, Tobias Heed, Cecilia Heyes, Elisabeth Hill, Matej Hoffmann, Jakob Hohwy, Bernhard Hommel, Atsushi Iriki, Pierre Jacob, Henrik Jörntell, Jürgen Jost, James Kilner, Günther Knoblich, Peter König, Danica Kragic, Miriam Kyselo, Alexander Maye, Marek McGann, Richard Menary, Thomas Metzinger, Ezequiel Morsella, Saskia Nagel, Kevin J. O'Regan, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Giovanni Pezzulo, Tony J. Prescott, Wolfgang Prinz, Friedemann Pulvermüller, Robert Rupert, Marti Sanchez-Fibla, Andrew Schwartz, Anil K. Seth, Vicky Southgate, Antonella Tramacere, John K. Tsotsos, Paul F. M. J. Verschure, Gabriella Vigliocco, Gottfried Vosgerau




From Associations to Rules


Book Description

This book introduces a host of connectionist models of cognition and behavior. The major areas covered are high-level cognition, language, categorization and visual perception, and sensory and attentional processing. All of the articles cover unpublished research work. The key contribution of this book is that it focuses exclusively on the advances in connectionist modeling in psychology. The papers are relatively short, and were explicitly written to be accessible to both connectionist modelers and experimental psychologists.




Artificial Neural Networks - ICANN 2010


Book Description

This three volume set LNCS 6352, LNCS 6353, and LNCS 6354 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, ICANN 2010, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in September 2010. The 102 revised full papers, 68 short papers and 29 posters presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 241 submissions. The second volume is divided in topical sections on Kernel algorithms – support vector machines, knowledge engineering and decision making, recurrent ANN, reinforcement learning, robotics, self organizing ANN, adaptive algorithms – systems, and optimization.




Human Language


Book Description

A unique overview of the human language faculty at all levels of organization. Language is not only one of the most complex cognitive functions that we command, it is also the aspect of the mind that makes us uniquely human. Research suggests that the human brain exhibits a language readiness not found in the brains of other species. This volume brings together contributions from a range of fields to examine humans' language capacity from multiple perspectives, analyzing it at genetic, neurobiological, psychological, and linguistic levels. In recent decades, advances in computational modeling, neuroimaging, and genetic sequencing have made possible new approaches to the study of language, and the contributors draw on these developments. The book examines cognitive architectures, investigating the functional organization of the major language skills; learning and development trajectories, summarizing the current understanding of the steps and neurocognitive mechanisms in language processing; evolutionary and other preconditions for communication by means of natural language; computational tools for modeling language; cognitive neuroscientific methods that allow observations of the human brain in action, including fMRI, EEG/MEG, and others; the neural infrastructure of language capacity; the genome's role in building and maintaining the language-ready brain; and insights from studying such language-relevant behaviors in nonhuman animals as birdsong and primate vocalization. Section editors Christian F. Beckmann, Carel ten Cate, Simon E. Fisher, Peter Hagoort, Evan Kidd, Stephen C. Levinson, James M. McQueen, Antje S. Meyer, David Poeppel, Caroline F. Rowland, Constance Scharff, Ivan Toni, Willem Zuidema