21.2065, Calls: Cog Sci, Comp Ling, Semantics/USA

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-2065. Sun May 02 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.2065, Calls: Cog Sci, Comp Ling, Semantics/USA

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1)
Date: 01-May-2010
From: Robert Ross < robert.j.ross at gmail.com >
Subject: Computational Spatial Language Interpretation Workshop
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Sun, 02 May 2010 23:06:20
From: Robert Ross [robert.j.ross at gmail.com]
Subject: Computational Spatial Language Interpretation Workshop

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Full Title: Computational Spatial Language Interpretation Workshop 
Short Title: CoSLI 

Date: 15-Aug-2010 - 15-Aug-2010
Location: Mt. Hood / Portland, Oregon, USA 
Contact Person: Robert Ross
Meeting Email: robert.j.ross at gmail.com
Web Site: http://www.cosli.org 

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science; Computational Linguistics; Semantics 

Call Deadline: 10-May-2010 

Meeting Description:

Workshop on Computational Spatial Language Interpretation (CoSLI)
In conjunction with Spatial Cognition 2010
Mt Hood / Portland Oregon, Aug 15 2010
http://www.cosli.org

The CoSLI workshop provides a venue for discussion and advancement of 
spatial language meaning and understanding. The workshop aims to draw 
together the often orthogonal views on formal symbolic and embodied 
spatial language interpretation in order to foster theories which adequately 
draw on both geometric and functional spatial language meaning.

Description:
Competence in spatial language requires that we assign appropriate 
meaning to spatial terms such as projective, perspective, topological, 
distance, and path descriptive markers. However, it is not the case that a 
given linguistic unit such as a spatial preposition has a meaning that can be 
described in terms of a single qualitative or quantitative model. The same 
preposition can have multiple meanings, and such variance must be 
handled through either underspecified models that can be stretched to 
particular situations, or models which incorporate multiple disparate 
meanings that are assigned to terms as a situation invites, or models that 
take into account vague interpretations in situated contexts. In spite of some 
formal proposals in this area, such heterogeneous meaning accounts are 
rarely seen in practical computational systems. Moreover, while early 
models of spatial term interpretation focused on the geometric interpretation 
of spatial language, it is now widely recognized that spatial term meaning is 
also dependent on functional and pragmatic features. Competent models of 
spatial language must thus draw on complex models of situated meaning, 
and while some early proposals exist, it is not at all clear how geometric, 
functional and pragmatic features should be integrated in computational 
models of spatial language interpretation.

Aims:
The aim of this workshop is to draw together the often orthogonal
views on formal semantic and embodied spatial language interpretation
in order to foster theories which adequately draw on both geometric
and functional spatial language meaning. On one hand, formal semantic
approaches have attempted to assign meaning to spatial terms through
well defined theories that provide a natural symbolic backbone to
connect spatial meaning with heterogeneous sources of knowledge and
reasoning. These symbolic models, however, often simplify and
generalize spatial term meanings and ignore their various situated
interpretations. On the other hand, embodied quantitative interpretation 
models assign meaning to spatial terms through spatial templates which 
relate the symbolic level to sub-symbolic knowledge such as sensory-motor 
information and spatial representations more suited to real situated 
systems. These quantitative models, however, often define templates in a 
rigid way that allows only few generalizations. By drawing together these 
formal semantic and embodied models of spatial meaning we wish to move 
the research community towards models of spatial meaning which couple 
embodied geometric and functional features in order to improve and support
situated natural language interpretation systems. 

Final Call for Papers

Due to a number of deadline extension requests, we have now offered a 
general deadline extension for the CoSLI workshop. 

Submission Deadline (Extended): 10 May

Workshop on Computational Spatial Language Interpretation (CoSLI)
http://www.cosli.org

Description:
Competence in spatial language requires that we assign appropriate
meaning to spatial terms such as projective, perspective, topological,
distance, and path descriptive markers. However, it is not the case that a 
given linguistic unit such as a spatial preposition has a meaning that can be 
described in terms of a single qualitative or quantitative model. The 
same preposition can have multiple meanings, and such variance must be 
handled through either underspecified models that can be stretched to 
particular situations, or models which incorporate multiple disparate 
meanings that are assigned to terms as a situation invites, or models that 
take into account vague interpretations in situated contexts. In spite of some 
formal proposals in this area, such heterogeneous meaning accounts are 
rarely seen in practical computational systems. Moreover, while early 
models of spatial term interpretation focused on the geometric interpretation
of spatial language, it is now widely recognized that spatial term meaning is 
also dependent on functional and pragmatic features. Competent models of 
spatial language must thus draw on complex models of situated meaning, 
and while some early proposals exist, it is not at all clear how geometric, 
functional and pragmatic features should be integrated in computational 
models of spatial language interpretation.

Aims:
The aim of this workshop is to draw together the often orthogonal views on 
formal semantic and embodied spatial language interpretation in order to 
foster theories which adequately draw on both geometric and functional 
spatial language meaning. On one hand, formal semantic approaches have 
attempted to assign meaning to spatial terms through well defined theories 
that provide a natural symbolic backbone to connect spatial meaning with 
heterogeneous sources of knowledge and reasoning. These symbolic 
models, however, often simplify and generalize spatial term meanings and 
ignore their various situated interpretations. On the other hand, embodied 
quantitative interpretation models assign meaning to spatial terms through 
spatial templates which relate the symbolic level to sub-symbolic knowledge
such as sensory-motor information and spatial representations more
suited to real situated systems. These quantitative models, however,
often define templates in a rigid way that allows only few generalizations. By 
drawing together these formal semantic and embodied models of spatial 
meaning we wish to move the research community towards models of 
spatial meaning which couple embodied geometric and functional features 
in order to improve and support situated natural language interpretation 
systems.

Submissions:
We particularly welcome contributions that address the following:
-Computational models of spatial language that incorporate both
geometric and functional or pragmatic context either in terms of
implemented systems, computational models, empirical findings, or
position papers that make clear a novel approach to this problem

More generally we also invite papers that address topics including:
-Formal semantic theories of spatial language and its use
-Computational models of spatial language interpretation based on formal 
symbolic and qualitative theories.
-Computational models of spatial language interpretation based on 
embodied or quantitative models
-Connectionist theories of spatial language meaning
-Dynamic systems models of spatial term meaning
-Empirically motivated models of spatial term meaning
-Implemented robotics and situated systems which incorporate models of 
spatial language interpretation
-Computational models of spatial language interpretation based on spatial 
calculi or spatial ontologies
-Uncertain or vague theories and applications for spatial language 
interpretation systems

All papers should be submitted in English as PDF documents. We welcome
papers of length 4-8 pages formatted in accordance with the Springer
LNCS style (see http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html).

Proceedings for the workshop will be published through CEUR-WS.org
archive. Depending on the quality of submissions, we are also planning
on publishing a full post-proceedings with extended papers.

Submissions can be made shortly via the EasyChair website. Submission
information is available from the workshop website at: http://www.cosli.org.

Important Dates:
Submission Deadline (Extended): 10 May
Notification of Acceptance / Rejection: 15 June
Updated Paper Due: 15 July
Workshop: 15 August

Organizers:
Robert Ross
Artificial Intelligence Group
Dublin Institute of Technology
Ireland

Joana Hois
SFB/TR8 Spatial Cognition
University of Bremen
Germany

John Kelleher
Artificial Intelligence Group
Dublin Institute of Technology
Ireland

Program Committee:
-John Bateman, University of Bremen, Germany
-Brandon Bennett, University of Leeds, UK
-Kenny Coventry, Northumbria University, UK
-Max J. Egenhofer, University of Maine, USA
-Carola Eschenbach, University of Hamburg, Germany
-Ben Kuipers, University of Michigan, USA
-Reinhard Moratz, University of Maine, USA
-Philippe Muller, Université Paul Sabatier, France
-Robert Porzel, University of Bremen, Germany
-Terry Regier, UC Berkeley, USA
-David Schlangen, University of Potsdam, Germany
-Andrea Tyler, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA





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