LM
Louise McNally
Sat, Dec 2, 2023 8:35 AM
Dear all,
Please pass on this call for papers to colleagues or students who might
be interested.
Thanks,
Louise McNally
2nd Call for Papers
2024 CORE Project Workshop: Unpacking Efficient Communication: The Roles
of Cognitive Bias and Extralinguistic Context in Referring Expression
Choice
When: April 18-19, 2024
Where: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Poblenou Campus, c/Roc Boronat 138,
08018 Barcelona
Language offers a rich set of lexical and syntactic options for
reference, reflecting the different ways we can choose to identify,
describe, categorize, and differentiate the entities and events we talk
about. For example, in any given context, a speaker can choose between a
more or less specific expression (the dog, the spotted dog, the
Dalmatian), or between expressions that convey complementary information
about the referent (the woman, the skier). A well-established line of
research highlights the role of efficiency in referring expression
choice. But what makes a referring expression “efficient”? Efficiency in
communication has frequently characterized in terms of an
informativity/effort trade-off, with informativity operationalized in
terms of inference, and effort, in terms of cognitive or physical cost
(Horn 1984, Levshina 2021). However, there is also evidence that other
factors such as the salience of visual features (e.g., color,
Rubio-Fernández 2016) or the prototypicality of an entity as an exemplar
of a category (see, e.g., Degen, et al. 2020) can lead speakers to use
expressions that are, strictly speaking, overinformative in the
narrowest sense of the term. Efficiency can also be examined at the
level of the whole system; for instance, Brochhagen and Boleda (2022)
argue that the informativity/effort trade-off helps explain
cross-linguistic patterns in colexification, or how meanings are
organized in the lexicon.
The goal of this workshop, supported by the Spanish AEI-funded CORE
project (“COntextual effects in the choice of Referring Expressions for
visually presented entities”, PID2020-112602GB-I00), is to dig deeper
into what makes a linguistic expression “efficient”, considering factors
such as:
- Cognitive biases that influence the potential for rapid/efficient
discrimination.
- Potential for exploiting inferences due to choice of one expression
vs. another.
- Information load a referring expression has to bear given
extralinguistic sources of information in the context, especially visual
information.
- Lexical/constructional frequency effects and association strength
between RE options and the referent in question.
The workshop aims to give a forum to new and especially exploratory
research in this area. The workshop will include a combination of
invited talks, presentations of ongoing research by project members, and
presentations and/or posters selected in this open call.
We invite submissions on topics including, but not limited to:
- The general principles that intervene in efficient communication,
especially alternatives to or refined definitions of notions such as
“efficiency”, “effort”, and “informativity”.
- Which features of entities or events are more likely to be used for
discrimination.
The role of the visual context and/or distractor entities in influencing
RE choice; more generally, the role of multi-modal aspects.
- The role of the implicit semantic organization of RE alternatives and
the conventionalized division of labor between them, especially
organization based on implicative semantic relations (e.g. hyponymy,
troponymy).
- The factors influencing the choice among alternative
cross-classifications of a target referent (e.g. the choice between
“taxonomic” descriptions such as woman vs. role-based descriptions such
as skier).
- The dynamics between reference and the linguistic system, that is, how
efficient communication is enabled by and at the same time transforms a
given language.
We take a methodologically pluralistic approach and thus welcome
presentations on experimental studies, analysis of corpus data,
computational modeling, critiques or analyses of published research, as
well as position papers.
Invited speakers:
- Lilia Rissman, Rochester Institute of Technology
- Paula Rubio-Fernández, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
- Sina Zarrieß, University of Bielefeld
Abstract guidelines: Abstracts should not exceed 2 pages in length (A4
or letter-size), in 12 pt. font, with 1-inch/2,5-cm margins; a third
page can be used for references, data, and figures. Please indicate
whether you want the submission to be considered for an oral
presentation, a poster (+flash presentation), or either. Abstracts
should be submitted to EasyChair at the following link:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=core2024.
Important dates:
Deadline for abstract submission: December 20, 2023
Notification of acceptance: January 15, 2024
Workshop dates: April 18-19, 2024
Contact e-mail address: marina.bolea@upf.edu
Organizers: Louise McNally, Gemma Boleda, Jialing Liang, Marina Bolea.
References:
Degen, J., Hawkins, R. D., Graf, C., Kreiss, E., & Goodman, N. D.
(2020). When redundancy is useful: A Bayesian approach to
“overinformative” referring expressions. Psychological Review, 127(4),
591–621.
Gualdoni, E., T. Brochhagen, A. Mädebach, G. Boleda. 2023. What's in a
name? A large-scale computational study on how competition between names
affects naming variation. Journal of Memory and Language, 133, 104459.
Brochhagen, T., G. Boleda. 2022. When do languages use the same word for
different meanings? The Goldilocks Principle in colexification.
Cognition, 226, 105179.
Horn, L.R. (1984). Towards a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference:
Q-based and R-based implicature. In Schiffrin, D. (ed.), Meaning, Form,
and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications, 11-42. Georgetown
University Press, Washington, DC. Levshina, N. (2023). Communicative
efficiency: Language structure and use. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Rissman, L., & Lupyan, G. (2022). A Dissociation Between Conceptual
Prominence and Explicit Category Learning: Evidence From Agent and
Patient Event Roles. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,
151(7):1707-1732.
Rubio-Fernandez, P., Mollica, F., & Jara-Ettinger, J. (2021). Speakers
and listeners exploit word order for communicative efficiency: A
cross-linguistic investigation. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General, 150(3), 583–594.
Schüz, S., Han, T., Zarrieß, S. (2021) Diversity as a By-Product:
Goal-oriented Language Generation Leads to Linguistic Variation.
Proceedings of the 22nd Annual SIGdial Meeting on Discourse and
Dialogue. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Dear all,
Please pass on this call for papers to colleagues or students who might
be interested.
Thanks,
Louise McNally
----
2nd Call for Papers
2024 CORE Project Workshop: Unpacking Efficient Communication: The Roles
of Cognitive Bias and Extralinguistic Context in Referring Expression
Choice
When: April 18-19, 2024
Where: Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Poblenou Campus, c/Roc Boronat 138,
08018 Barcelona
Language offers a rich set of lexical and syntactic options for
reference, reflecting the different ways we can choose to identify,
describe, categorize, and differentiate the entities and events we talk
about. For example, in any given context, a speaker can choose between a
more or less specific expression (the dog, the spotted dog, the
Dalmatian), or between expressions that convey complementary information
about the referent (the woman, the skier). A well-established line of
research highlights the role of efficiency in referring expression
choice. But what makes a referring expression “efficient”? Efficiency in
communication has frequently characterized in terms of an
informativity/effort trade-off, with informativity operationalized in
terms of inference, and effort, in terms of cognitive or physical cost
(Horn 1984, Levshina 2021). However, there is also evidence that other
factors such as the salience of visual features (e.g., color,
Rubio-Fernández 2016) or the prototypicality of an entity as an exemplar
of a category (see, e.g., Degen, et al. 2020) can lead speakers to use
expressions that are, strictly speaking, overinformative in the
narrowest sense of the term. Efficiency can also be examined at the
level of the whole system; for instance, Brochhagen and Boleda (2022)
argue that the informativity/effort trade-off helps explain
cross-linguistic patterns in colexification, or how meanings are
organized in the lexicon.
The goal of this workshop, supported by the Spanish AEI-funded CORE
project (“COntextual effects in the choice of Referring Expressions for
visually presented entities”, PID2020-112602GB-I00), is to dig deeper
into what makes a linguistic expression “efficient”, considering factors
such as:
- Cognitive biases that influence the potential for rapid/efficient
discrimination.
- Potential for exploiting inferences due to choice of one expression
vs. another.
- Information load a referring expression has to bear given
extralinguistic sources of information in the context, especially visual
information.
- Lexical/constructional frequency effects and association strength
between RE options and the referent in question.
The workshop aims to give a forum to new and especially exploratory
research in this area. The workshop will include a combination of
invited talks, presentations of ongoing research by project members, and
presentations and/or posters selected in this open call.
We invite submissions on topics including, but not limited to:
- The general principles that intervene in efficient communication,
especially alternatives to or refined definitions of notions such as
“efficiency”, “effort”, and “informativity”.
- Which features of entities or events are more likely to be used for
discrimination.
The role of the visual context and/or distractor entities in influencing
RE choice; more generally, the role of multi-modal aspects.
- The role of the implicit semantic organization of RE alternatives and
the conventionalized division of labor between them, especially
organization based on implicative semantic relations (e.g. hyponymy,
troponymy).
- The factors influencing the choice among alternative
cross-classifications of a target referent (e.g. the choice between
“taxonomic” descriptions such as woman vs. role-based descriptions such
as skier).
- The dynamics between reference and the linguistic system, that is, how
efficient communication is enabled by and at the same time transforms a
given language.
We take a methodologically pluralistic approach and thus welcome
presentations on experimental studies, analysis of corpus data,
computational modeling, critiques or analyses of published research, as
well as position papers.
Invited speakers:
- Lilia Rissman, Rochester Institute of Technology
- Paula Rubio-Fernández, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
- Sina Zarrieß, University of Bielefeld
Abstract guidelines: Abstracts should not exceed 2 pages in length (A4
or letter-size), in 12 pt. font, with 1-inch/2,5-cm margins; a third
page can be used for references, data, and figures. Please indicate
whether you want the submission to be considered for an oral
presentation, a poster (+flash presentation), or either. Abstracts
should be submitted to EasyChair at the following link:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=core2024.
Important dates:
Deadline for abstract submission: December 20, 2023
Notification of acceptance: January 15, 2024
Workshop dates: April 18-19, 2024
Contact e-mail address: marina.bolea@upf.edu
Organizers: Louise McNally, Gemma Boleda, Jialing Liang, Marina Bolea.
References:
Degen, J., Hawkins, R. D., Graf, C., Kreiss, E., & Goodman, N. D.
(2020). When redundancy is useful: A Bayesian approach to
“overinformative” referring expressions. Psychological Review, 127(4),
591–621.
Gualdoni, E., T. Brochhagen, A. Mädebach, G. Boleda. 2023. What's in a
name? A large-scale computational study on how competition between names
affects naming variation. Journal of Memory and Language, 133, 104459.
Brochhagen, T., G. Boleda. 2022. When do languages use the same word for
different meanings? The Goldilocks Principle in colexification.
Cognition, 226, 105179.
Horn, L.R. (1984). Towards a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference:
Q-based and R-based implicature. In Schiffrin, D. (ed.), Meaning, Form,
and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications, 11-42. Georgetown
University Press, Washington, DC. Levshina, N. (2023). Communicative
efficiency: Language structure and use. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Rissman, L., & Lupyan, G. (2022). A Dissociation Between Conceptual
Prominence and Explicit Category Learning: Evidence From Agent and
Patient Event Roles. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,
151(7):1707-1732.
Rubio-Fernandez, P., Mollica, F., & Jara-Ettinger, J. (2021). Speakers
and listeners exploit word order for communicative efficiency: A
cross-linguistic investigation. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General, 150(3), 583–594.
Schüz, S., Han, T., Zarrieß, S. (2021) Diversity as a By-Product:
Goal-oriented Language Generation Leads to Linguistic Variation.
Proceedings of the 22nd Annual SIGdial Meeting on Discourse and
Dialogue. Association for Computational Linguistics.