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NL-KR Digest Volume 09 No. 14
NL-KR Digest (Fri Mar 27 15:00:02 1992) Volume 9 No. 14
Today's Topics:
Program: Conference on Cognition & Representation (FINAL)
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Newsgroups: comp.ai.nlang-know-rep,comp.ai.neural-nets,comp.ai.vision,sci.logic,sci.philosophy.meta
From: rapaport@acsu.buffalo.edu (William J. Rapaport)
Subject: Conference on Cognition & Representation--FINAL PROGRAM
Nntp-Posting-Host: adara.cs.buffalo.edu
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1992 18:20:29 GMT
State University of New York at Buffalo
CENTER FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE
with funding from
The Marvin Farber Memorial Fund
The Department of Philosophy
The Department of Linguistics
The Department of Psychology
The Department of Computer Science.
presents
CONFERENCE ON COGNITION AND REPRESENTATION
April 3-5, 1992
Center for Tomorrow
State University of New York at Buffalo
INVITED SPEAKERS:
Charles Fillmore
Jerry Fodor
Whitman Richards
Paul Smolensky
John F. Sowa
PROGRAM
(Abstracts of papers are listed at end of the Program)
(Further information on lodging and registering for the Conference is
also at the end of the Program)
Friday, April 3, 1992
Afternoon Session, 1-4:45 pm
PAUL SMOLENSKY, Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado:
"Connectionism, Compositionality, & The Explanation of Productivity"
TIM VAN GELDER, Department of Philosophy, Indiana University:
"Distributed Representation--An Outline"
DAVID BANACH, Department of Philosophy, St. Anselm College"
"Representing, Similarity, and the Storage of Information"
ANN ROBYNS, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
"Primary and Mature Conceptual Structures--Evidence from Child Language"
Reception and Dinner, 5-7:30 pm
Evening Session, 7:30-10 pm
CHARLES FILLMORE, Department of Linguistics,
University of California at Berkeley:
"Representing Grammatical Knowledge as a Repertory of Constructions"
Panel discussion among the day's participants
Saturday, April 4, 1992
Coffee, juice, and rolls, 8:30 am
Morning Session, 9-12:15 am
JOHN KOUNIOS and PHILLIPS HOLCOMB, Department of Psychology, Tufts University:
"Inferring Semantic-Memory Structure from Behavioral and
Electrophysiological Measures"
VINOD GOEL, Institute for Cognitive Science,
University of California at Berkeley"
"Specifying and Classifying Representational Systems: A Critique and
Proposal for Cognitive Science"
STEVEN HORST, Department of Philosophy, Wesleyan University:
"Notions of Representation and the Diverging Interests of Philosophy
and Empirical Science"
JERRY A. FODOR, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University,
and the Graduate School, City University of New York:
"Representation, Compositionality, and Analyticity"
Lunch, 12:15-1:15 pm.
Afternoon Session, 1:15-5:30 pm
JOHN F. SOWA, IBM Thornasfjkafjk Educational Center:
"Matching Logical Structure to Linguistic Structure"
BARBARA L. SPEICHER, Communication Department, DePaul University:
"Disentangling Conceptual and Linguistic Knowledge"
BARBARA ABBOTT, Department of Linguistics,
and LARRY HAUSER, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University:
"Natural Language and Thought"
Panel discussion among the day's participants
Sunday, April 5, 1992
Coffee, juice, and rolls, 8:30 am
Morning Session, 9:00 am - 12:30 pm
MICHAEL J. TARR, Department of Psychology, Yale University:
"Behavioral and Computational Constraints in Human Shape Representation"
K. N. LEIBOVIC, Department of Biophysical Sciences, SUNY Buffalo:
"Brain Mechanisms for Perceptual Representation"
WHITMAN RICHARDS, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT
"Is Perception for Real?"
Panel discussion among the day's speakers and the invited speakers
=========================================================================
ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS
FRIDAY AFTERNOON
PAUL SMOLENSKY
"Connectionism, Compositionality, and the Explanation of Productivity"
The most fundamental fact that any theory of human cognition must
explain is the incredible productivity of human knowledge. Most
obviously in language, but also in other cognitive domains, human
knowledge supports a range of appropriate behaviors that is
appropriately idealized as infinite. The strategy for explaining this
fact that has virtually defined cognitive science since its inception
has been to (1) analyze the behaviors in question as possessing
combinatorial structure, and (2) to identify human knowledge as part of
an internal causal mechanism that physically realizes this
combinatorial system. Possessing a finite repertoire of basic
constituents and the means to (recursively) compose them, this
mechanism explains productivity. Connectionism can respond to this in
at least the following three ways:
(1) Deny the problem.
(2) Implement the standard explanation.
(3) Offering a new explanation, possibly while revising the problem.
Radical eliminativist connectionism takes option (1)--by default if
not by explicit intent. Connectionist critics such as Fodor & Pylyshyn
have advocated (2), and some connectionist research has also followed
this option. In this talk, I will present results of my program of technical
connectionist research based on option (3), and discuss its implications
for the foundations of cognitive science.
TIM VAN GELDER
"Distributed Represenation--An Outline"
What is distributed representation? This question is central to
many practical and philosophical concerns, both in connectionism and in
cognitive science more generally, yet it has never been given an answer
that is both comprehensive and precise. In this talk I propose a way
of defining distribution that, on one hand, reveals the fundamental
similarity between (for example) the gross functional neuroanatomy of
the various brain areas and connectionist hidden unit activity patterns,
while on the other is strict enough to yield mathematically precise
descriptions in real modeling contexts. The key concept is that of
semantic superimposition; I elaborate this suprisingly tricky concept,
offer a formal framework rendering it precise, and explain how
superimposition can be incorporated into a general definition of
distributed representation.
DAVID BANACH
"Representing, Similarity, and the Storage of Information"
Representing is an activity, a process through which a subject cognizes
the world. Most theories of representation take one element or
component of this activity and identify it as the representation by
attributing to the element, in isolation, properties it has only in the
context of the act of representing. In particular, I argue that the
similarity of an icon to an object is neither necessary nor sufficient
for representation and that seeing why this is so reveals fundamental
defects with views that see representations as (1) stored information,
which represents in virtue of an isomorphism effected by an information
storage and retrieval algorithm; or (2) as a distributed pattern of
activity over a set of units or phase space, which represents in virtue
of a topological isomorphism to the represented object. All of these
models identify the representation with some element of the cognitive
process that cannot intrinsically represent apart from its situation in
a wider context. I argue that such models of representation will fail
to account for the cognitive role of representation as long as they
mistake part of the representing process for the representating itself.
ANN ROBYNS
"Primary and Mature Conceptual Structures--Evidence from Child Language"
Currently, in semanic enquiry some researchers represent
lexical-conceptual structure as an architecture of sets and truth
conditions. Others borrow from psychology such terms as 'conceptual
primitives', 'canonical' and 'marginal' structures, and 'prototypes'
(e.g. Jackendoff, 1990).
The documentation of usage of verb argument structures, may shed
considerable light on this division. Differentials in production of
argument structures by children over time may shed light on the
construction of underlying representations. These differences over time
appear to also have an effect on complexity of context sentences.
Production of tense, mood and negation markers appears to be contingent
on the stability of conceptual structures underlying production of
arguments. The current study supports the view that childrens'
conceptual structures can be characterized as prototypes, and that
gradual extension of structures is contingent on transition to new
prototypes.
Early on (1968), Fillmore advocated the need for distinct treatment of
propositional and modal information. Our results show that the presence
of modality in a sentence is contingent on high-frequency argument
structures. If the development of modality (in Fillmore's sense) and
propositional content are distinguishable but show this relation, how is
it to be characterized?
Jackendoff (1990) distinguishes between I-languages (internal,
based on innate predispositions) and E-languages (input-dependent).
He holds that truth-conditional semantics requires a theory of language
as an abstract artifact extrinsic to speakers. A possible interpretation of
our findings is that modality overlayed on propositional content may be the
means whereby this abstract artifact is reconstructed as part of a speaker's
internal representation. Truth-conditional semantics, then, involves
modelling mature inferential processes, or mature representation. This
possibility will be examined in light of actual developmental sequences, where
modal forms can be shown to emerge gradually to condition verb meaning
in ways at least reminiscent of model theoretic semantics.
FRIDAY EVENING
CHARLES FILLMORE
"Representing Grammatical Knowledge as a Repertory of Constructions"
In the Construction Grammar model being developed in Berkeley and
elsewhere, the attempt is made to represent knowledge of a linguistic
system as knowledge of a repertory of interconnected "grammatical
constructions", each of these being a package comprising (i) conditions
on lexical and grammatical form, (ii) conditions on the meanings of
expressions containing the construction, and (iii) understandings -
which can be quite minimal--on the extralinguistic setting within which
expressions containing the construction are appropriately used.
Grammatical constructions can be as structurally simple as the
so-called subject/predicate construction, or as complex as the mechanism
which allows speakers of English to assemble such sentences as "The
longer we stay here the more bored we're going to get." They can be as
general as the pattern by which the elements of "transitive" structures
are assigned grammatical functions, or as specific as the valence and
collocational descriptions of highly idiosyncratic lexical items. They
can be as autonomous as idiomatic speech formulas dedicated to specific
pragmatic purposes, or they can be linked to numbers of other
constructions in the language by associations of metaphor and inheritance.
In this talk I will demonstrate the workings of a constructionist
model by taking a small number of richly varying syntactic and lexical
types in English, and will show how things that start out looking simple
end up looking complex, and vice versa.
I will close with some speculation about the relevance of
a constructionist view to questions of automatic parsing, text
understanding, and language acquisition.
SATURDAY MORNING
JOHN KOUNIOS and PHILLIPS HOLCOMB
"Inferring Semantic-Memory Structure from Behavioral and Electrophysiological
Measures"
Researchers have investigated the structure of semantic-memory
representations by examining subjects' performance in tasks in which
they must judge the truth of sentences relating familar categories
(e.g., _ALL DOGS ARE ANIMALS_., or _SOME PEOPLE ARE TREES_.).
Differences in time to verify various classes of sentences were initally
interpreted in terms of characteristics of the semantic representations
retrieved from memory. Subsequent investigators have reinterpreted
these findings in terms of characteristics of the verification
_processes_ operating on these representations, rather than in terms of
the representations themselves. We have taken a different approach.
Instead of inferring the nature of knowledge representations based on
how people _use_ them (i.e., "behavioral" response date), we have been
investigating electrical protentials in the brain during sentence
verification. A certain component of these potentials seems to reflect
the _access_ or _retrieval_ of the stored knowledge, and not the
processes that use this information to judge truth. These
access/retrieval mechanisms better reflect structural characteristics of
semantic memory than do behavioral measures, yielding a different
picture of semantic-memory structure.
VINOD GOEL
"Specifying Classifying Representational Systems: A Critique and Proposal for
Cognitive Science"
Much of the work in cognitive science presupposes a theory of
representation complete with a classification scheme; a scheme which
allow us to say that two representations are interestingly similar or
interestingly different for particular purposes.
It is argued that such a scheme needs to meet at least the following
eight constraints:
(i) It must be grounded in some intuitions or a discipline-specific theory;
(ii) It must not beg the crucial questions;
(iii) It must result in an interesting number of categories (i.e.,
something other than a unit or infinite number);
(iv) It must individuate on the basis of relevant/constitutive
properties of symbol systems;
(v) It must be readily applicable;
(vi) It must be widely applicable;
(vii) The distinctions must be detectable by our behavioral data and
methodology;
(viii) It must be compatible with the computational story of mind.
The most widely used apparatus for classifying symbol systems is that of
informational and computational equivalence. This is critiqued and
found wanting on most accounts. A diagnosis of the problem is offered.
Time permitting, some prescriptive suggestions will also be made.
STEVEN HORST
"Notions of Representation and the Diverging Interests of Philosophy and
Empirical Science"
Contemporary discussions of mental representation often seem to assume that
there is a single sense of the word `representation' that (a) is applied
univocally to such disparate objects as pictures, maps and symbols, (b) is
utilized by empirical researchers in cognitive science, and (c) can readily be
used to provide a philosophical account of intentionality. In fact, however,
the notion of "representation" is paradigm-driven, and all of the familiar
paradigms (symbols, etc.) are convention- or interpretation-dependent. This
undercuts one philosophical strategy for explaining the content of mental
states in representational terms. However, a non-conventional notion of
"representation" as a theoretical term can be developed which seems to capture
the empirical scientist's needs even if it does not explain the intentionality
of mental states. This accords well with the following view of the importance
of the computer paradigm: that what it provides is (i) a formalism for the
mathematization of psychology and (ii) suggestive strategies for
microexplanation.
JERRY A. FODOR (and ERNEST LEPORE)
"Representation, Compositionality, and Analyticity"
We claim that three principles, all of which have been widely espoused in the
philosophy of language and in cognitive science, cannot be simultaneously
satisfied. These are:
1. That meaning is inferential role.
2. That there is no analytic/synthetic distinction.
3. That meaning is compositional.
If 1-3 are not simultaneously satisfiable, at least one of them must be
abandoned. We consider the question of which to give up, and of what the
implications of doing so are likely to be.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
JOHN F. SOWA:
"Matching Logical Structure to Linguistic Structure"
Systems of logic that have equivalent expressive power may have very
different structure. Short, simple statements in one system can often
be expressed only by awkward circumlocutions in another. During the
last quarter of the nineteenth century, three complete systems of
first-order logic were developed: Frege's Begriffsschrift, Peirce's
linear form of predicate calculus, and Peirce's existential graphs.
This talk compares the structures of propositions stated in these
systems to one another and to the underlying semantic structures of
language. Of the three, existential graphs have the most direct
translations to natural language. Remarkably, they are isomorphic
to Kamp's discourse representation structures that were independently
developed over 80 years later. They also form the logical foundation
for conceptual graphs, which are based on research on semantic
networks in artificial intelligence. Although Peirce's linear notation
has proved to be a powerful tool for foundational studies in mathematics,
his existential graphs seem better suited to studies of language.
BARBARA L. SPEICHER
"Disentangling Conceptual and Linguistic Knowledge"
Language is the principal mediator of thought and one of the few vehicles with
which to explore abstract conceptual structures. Cognitive psychologists use
linguistic evidence to study psychological functions such as memory and
categorization and to construct models of knowledge representation. However,
researchers in cognitive psychology seldom address how to disentangle
conceptual and linguistic knowledge. In fact, the field seems to assume that
the two systems are isomorphic. The related field of neurology provides
insights into the relationship between cognition and language. Findings from
both split-brain and aphasic populations encourage a separation of linguistic
and conceptual structures. Specifically, Antonio Damasio's neurological theory
of convergence zones is presented and used to explain the differential
cognitive and linguistic abilities of neurologically impaired individuals
such as split-brain populations and aphasic populations. The paper analyuzes
both simple concepts and complex conceptual structures known as scripts.
BARBARA ABBOTT and LARRY HAUSER
"Natural Language and Thought"
Hauser defends the proposition that our languages of thought are public
languages. One group of arguments points to the coincidence of clearly
productive thought with overt possession of recursive symbol systems. Another
group relies on phenomenological experiences of mental discourse and making
thoughts physical. A third group cites practical considerations, e.g. Occam's
razor and the `streetlight principle' (look under the lamp) motivating looking
for instantiations of outer languages in thought first.
Abbott points to the literature and adduces a number of specific replies to
Hauser. Examples of productive behavior showing thatnatural language is not
necessary for productive thought includeproblem solving by chimpanzees, dreams,
and feral human cases (Genie). On phenomenological and practical grounds,
Abbott argues that communication of thoughts should be trivial if the inner
language is the outer language, but it is not; the decryption analogy Hauser
uses to apply the `streetlight principle' is flawed; and Occam's razor doesn't
cut any ice with Mother Nature.
SUNDAY MORNING
MICHAEL TARR
"Behavioral and Computational Constraints in Human Shape Representation"
Do visual representations use an object-centered or viewer-centered
reference frame? Studies suggest that recognition is
orientation-dependent under many circumstances. The resulting theory,
Multiple-Views-Plus-Transformations, hypothesizes that recognition is
achieved by using a mental transformation to match input shapes to
object representations in a viewer-centered reference frame. Moreover,
these representations are orientation-specific, e.g. "views", and are
stored according to the frequency of occurrence of an object in a
particular orientation. However, familiarity is not the only factor
that determines represented views. First, there is evidence that views
are contingent upon the frequency with which other objects appear at
particular orientations. Representations of familiar objects in novel
views may arise as a result of the frequent appearance of an object's
visually similar cohorts. Second, there is evidence that views are
contingent upon the geometry of an object. The likelihood of a
representation arising increases with the distinctiveness of visible
surfaces at each orientation -- novel orientations are likely to be
represented to the extent that their geometry is unique, while
orientations in which the geometry differs only slightly from that
depicted in preexisting views are unlikely to be represented.
K. N. LEIBOVIC
"Brain Mechanisms for Perceptual Representation"
The brain is designed on a pattern of converging and diverging fiber
tracts with their associated broadly tuned receptive and responsive
fields. This puts certain constraints on the processing, transmission
and representation of information. The properties of perceptive fields
and target cells are taken as neural analogs of cognitive and logical
operations. Analysis and synthesis can then be carried out in
parallel; and the neural representations of elementary constituents
and categorical constructs can be grounded in associational programs
of activity in groups of cells.
WHITMAN RICHARDS
"Is Perception for Real?"
What is the relation between the "external" world and our
conceptualization of this world? At one extreme an independent
external reality is denied, whereas at the other, an external reality
is a requirement for any conceptualization. Perception lies at the
heart of this controversy: can our percepts really reflect (or
approximate) the true structure of the world independent of our
observations or not? To address this question we need a clear
understanding of just what a percept is and what it entails. I offer
one definition and provide support for this choice using examples from
vision (Jepson & Richards 1991). For our percepts to be useful,
enabling us to predict the consequences of events and actions, certain
conditions must be met. Two I will discuss are (1) the ability to
manipulate representations or internal models, and (2) criteria for
data (observations) which generate reliable interpretations. This
second condition imposes limitations on the scope of useful percepts,
and shows that percepts (perhaps like scientific theories?) are
critically dependent upon a matching of cognitive concepts to modal
regularities in the world.
=========================================================================
Futher information may be obtained by writing to:
The Center for Cognitive Science
652 Baldy Hall
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
email: dcp@cs.buffalo.edu
Registration for the conference is $24, which includes lunch on Saturday.
Dinner Friday night is $14.
To register or make a dinner reservation, please send a check made out to
SUNY Research Foundation/Representation Conference
and send it to the address above.
Organizing Committee:
John T. Kearns, Department of Philosophy (dcp@cs.buffalo.edu)
William J. Rapaport, Department of Computer Science (rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu)
Erwin M. Segal, Department of Psychology (segal@cs.buffalo.edu)
Leonard A. Talmy, Department of Linguistics and
Director, Center for Cognitive Science (talmy@acsu.buffalo.edu)
=========================================================================
LODGING
The following hotels and motels are located near the
Amherst campus of the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Hampton Inn, 10 Flint Rd., Amherst, NY (716) 869-4414. Ask
for ``University Rate'', $53 single, $64 double. (these
rates are approximate and are not guaranteed for April 1992)
Holiday Inn, 1881 Niagara Falls Blvd., Amherst, NY 14150
(716) 691-8181 and (800) 465-4329. Ask for ``University
Rate'', $59.00 single or double.
Journey's End, 4400 Maple Rd., Amherst, NY (716) 834-2231
and (800) 668-4200. Ask for ``University Rate'', $45.65 sin-
gle, $53.79 double.
Marriott Inn, 1340 Millersport Hwy., Amherst, NY (716) 689-
6900 and (800) 228-9290. Ask for ``University Rate'', $73.00
single or double (these rates are approximate)
Red Roof Inn, I-190 and Millersport Hwy., Amherst, NY (716)
689-7474 and (800) 843-7663. Ask for ``University Rate'',
$43.95 single, $47.95 double
Super 8 Motel, 1 Flint Rd., Amherst, NY (716) 688-0811 and
(800) 843-1991. Ask for ``University Rate'', $36.79 single,
$44.89 double. (these rates are not guaranteed for April
1992)
------------------------------
End of NL-KR Digest
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