DEADLINE extension: Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition

[William Gregory Sakas]

************************************************************************

                         FINAL Call for Papers

          Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition

                       *** DEADLINE EXTENSION ***

                   New Submission deadline: 15 April


        A COLING 2004 Workshop   Geneva Switzerland    28 August 2004


              http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/


Workshop Topic
--------------

The workshop will be devoted to psychologically motivated computational
models of language acquisition -- models that are compatible with research in
psycholinguistics, developmental psychology and linguistics -- with
particular emphasis on the acquisition of syntax.

Invited panel: Learning Biases in Language Acquisition Models
----------------------------------------------------------------
  Walter Daelemans, Antwerp and Tilburg
  Charles D. Yang, Yale

Invited speaker
---------------
  Elan Dresher, Toronto


Workshop Description and Motivation
-----------------------------------

In recent decades there has been a great deal of successful research
that applies computational learning techniques to emerging natural language
technologies, along with many meetings, conferences and workshops in
which to present such research.  However, there have been few venues in which
psycho-computational models of how humans acquire their native language(s) are
the focus.

Psycho-computational models of language acquisition are of particular
interest in light of recent results in developmental psychology which suggest
that very young infants are adept at detecting statistical patterns in an
audible input stream.  However, this begs the question of whether or not a
psychologically plausible statistical learning strategy can be successfully
exploited in a full-blown psycho-computational acquisition model.  Although
there has been a significant amount of presented research targeted at modeling
the acquisition of word categories and phonology, research aimed at
psychologically motivated modeling of syntax acquisition has just begun to
emerge.

The principal goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers who
work within computational linguistics, formal learning theory, machine
learning, artificial intelligence, linguistics, psycholinguistics and other
fields,  who have created or are investigating computational models of language
acquisition. In particular, it will provide a forum for establishing
links and common themes between diverse paradigms.  Although research which
directly addresses the acquisition of syntax is strongly encouraged, related
studies that inform research on the acquisition of syntax are also welcome.

Papers are invited on, but not limited to, the following topics:

* Acquisition models that contain a parsing component
* Models that have a cross-linguistic or bilingual perspective
* Models that address the question of learning bias in terms of innate
  linguistic knowledge versus statistical regularity in the input
* Models that can acquire natural language word-order
* Hybrid models that cross established paradigms
* Models that directly make use of or can be used to evaluate existing
  linguistic or developmental theories in a computational framework
  (e.g. the principles & parameters framework or Optimality Theory)
* Empirical models that make use of child-directed corpora
* Formal models that incorporate psychologically plausible constraints
* Comparative surveys, across multiple paradigms, that critique
  previously published studies

Paper Length: Submissions should be no longer than 8 pages (A4 or the
equivalent). High-quality short papers or extended abstracts of 4 to 5
pages are encouraged. Submission and format details are below.

Lunch session: Word-order acquisition
--------------------------------------

The topic of this session will be the acquisition of different natural
language word-orders. The workshop will provide a common test-bed of abstract
sentence patterns from word order divergent languages.  The shared data contains
the sentence patterns and cross-linguistic fully-specified parses for each
sentence pattern. The patterns are available at:

  www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/grammar/data/allsentences.zip

General information and a web interface for perusing the data can be
found at:

  www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/grammar

Due to the limited amount of time available to work with novel data,
pilot studies are encouraged. The session will consist of short presentations
and roundtable discussion.  Submissions for this session are limited to 2
pages. Those who may be interested in submitting to this session should contact
the workshop organizer before the submission deadline for further details.

Dates of submissions

  Submission deadline:      15 April 2004
  Acceptance notification:  14 May 2004
  Camera-ready deadline:    10 June 2004
  Workshop date:            28 August 2004

Workshop Organizer

  William Gregory Sakas, City University of New York (sakas at hunter.cuny.edu)

Program Committee

* Robert Berwick, MIT, USA
* Antal van den Bosch, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
* Ted Briscoe, University of Cambridge, UK
* Damir Cavar, Indiana University, USA
* Morten H. Christiansen, Cornell University, USA
* Stephen Clark, University of Edinburgh, UK
* James Cussens, University of York, UK
* Walter Daelemans, University of Antwerp, Belgium and Tilburg University,
  The Netherlands
* Jeffrey Elman, University of California, San Diego, USA
* Janet Dean Fodor, City University of New York, USA
* Gerard Kempen, Leiden University, The Netherlands and The Max Planck
  Institute, Nijmegen
* Vincenzo Lombardo, University of Torino, Italy
* Larry Moss, University of Indiana, USA
* Miles Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK
* Dan Roth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
* Ivan Sag, Stanford University, USA
* Jeffrey Siskind, Purdue University, USA
* Mark Steedman, University of Edinburgh, UK
* Menno van Zaanen, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
* Charles Yang, Yale University, USA


Paper Submission
----------------

Length: Submissions should be no more than 8 pages (A4 or equivalent).
High-quality short papers or extended abstracts of 4 to 5 pages are
encouraged. Submissions to the lunch session on word-order should be no more
than 2 pages. (If accepted, final camera ready versions may be up to 8 pages or
5 pages for the word-order submissions.)

Layout: Papers must conform to COLING 2004 formatting guidelines,
available at:

  http://www.issco.unige.ch/coling2004/coling2004downloads.html

Electronic Submission: All submissions will be by email.  Reviews will
be blind, so be careful not to disclose authorship or affiliation.  PDF
submissions are preferred and will be required for the final camera-ready copy.

Submissions should be sent as an attachment to:
  Psycho.Comp at hunter.cuny.edu.
  The subject line must contain the single word: Submission.

Please be sure to include accurate contact information in the body of
the email.

Contact:

Psycho.Comp at hunter.cuny.edu
   or sakas at hunter.cuny.edu

http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/