WORKSHOP INFORMATION and SCHEDULE

We have an exciting program of workshops lined up for CogSci 2007! All workshop organizers, speakers, and attendees are required to register for their workshop through the on-line conference registration system (available beginning in April, 2007), but there is no additional fee for the workshops. Workshop participation is FREE of charge!

Space is limited, so admittance into the workshops will be on a first come, first served basis. Rooms will be assigned at a later date or on the day of the workshops.

The workshop program will be held on Wednesday, August 1, 2007. All of the CogSci2007 workshops are full-day workshops. The sessions will run from 8:30AM to 5:00PM, with a break for lunch at noon.

NOTE: Attendance at a workshop requires conference registration, but there is no additional fee beyond that.

Please see the following workshop descriptions for more information.

Workshop 1: Psychocomputational Models of Human Language Acquisition
Organizer: William Gregory Sakas

Workshop 2: Analogies: Integrating Multiple Cognitive Abilities
Organizers: Angela Scdhwering, Ulf Krumack, Kai-Uwe Kuehnberger, and Helmar Gust

Workshop 3: Cognition and Culture
Organizer: Afzal Upal

Workshop 4: Interactive Computer-Based Activities for Undergraduate Cog Sci Instruction: Training in their Use & Exploring Future Directions in their Development and Dissemination
Organizer: David L. Anderson

Psychocomputational Models of Human Language Acquisition

Organizer: William Gregory Sakas (sakas@hunter.cuny.edu)

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

Abstract:
This workshop will present research and foster discussion centered around psychologically-motivated computational models of language acquisition, with an emphasis on the acquisition of syntax. It is a third meeting of the workshop following successful meetings at COLING-2004 and ACL-2005.

In recent decades there has been a thriving research agenda that applies computational learning techniques to emerging natural language technologies and many meetings, conferences and workshops in which to present such research. However, there have been only a few (but growing number of) venues in which psychocomputational models of how humans acquire their native language(s) are the primary focus. By psychocomputational models we mean models that are compatible with, or might inform research in psycholinguistics, developmental psychology or linguistics.

Psychocomputational models of language acquisition are of particular interest in light of recent results in developmental psychology that suggest that very young infants are adept at detecting statistical patterns in an audible input stream. Though, how children might plausibly apply statistical 'machinery' to the task of grammar acquisition, with or without an innate language component, remains an open and important question. One effective line of investigation is to computationally model the acquisition process and determine interrelationships between a model and linguistic or psycholinguistic theory, and/or correlations between a model's performance and data from linguistic environments that
children are exposed to.

Although there has been a significant amount of presented research targeted at modeling the acquisition of word categories, morphology and phonology, research aimed at modeling syntax acquisition has just begun to emerge. Research directly addressing the acquisition of syntax is well represented at this meeting, though several related studies are also part of the workshop program.

Workshop on Analogies: Integrating Multiple Cognitive Abilities

Organizers: Angela Schwering (aschweri@uni-osnabrueck.de), Ulf Krumack, Kai-Uwe Kuehnberger, and Helmar Gust
Workshop web page: http://www.cogsci.uos.de/~anica07/

Abstract:
Analogical reasoning is a highly sophisticated cognitive process in which two domains are compared and analyzed for common patterns. The workshop focuses on analogical reasoning as an integrating basis for human cognition. Particularly, the potential of analogical reasoning to integrate learning and abstraction, memory, context, adaptation, and general intelligence in large-scale systems is examined and assessed. In many current approaches, cognitive abilities are examined in isolation from related issues in order to control the environment and the underlying context. Although these research endeavors clearly are successful in various aspects and applications, it seems as if each result of modeling a particular ability minimizes the chances to reach overall goals like modeling human-level intelligence.

Analogical reasoning is the adaptation of knowledge about one domain so that it can be applied to the second domain and new analogous inferences can be drawn. It differs from standard forms of reasoning, e.g. it does not require a large number of examples (as inductive learning does) and it is not truth-preserving (different to deductive reasoning). On the other hand, analogical reasoning meets exactly certain requirements where standard reasoning fails: it has the ability to handle vagueness, to adapt knowledge to different contexts and to generate new knowledge in a creative process.

The workshop aims to gather researchers who are working in the field of analogical reasoning and are relating their models to other cognitive abilities. It focuses on analogy as an integrating basis for human cognition. Therefore researchers who attempt to use analogies for the modeling of other cognitive abilities are particularly considered as a special target group. Analogical reasoning could be the missing link for the understanding of cognitive abilities in natural complex systems. The workshop assesses and evaluates the relation between analogies and other cognitive abilities as well as the possibility of using analogies for the integration of various cognitive capacities.

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Workshop #3

Workshop on Cognition and Culture

Organizer: Afzal Upal (afzalupal@gmail.com)
Workshop web page: http://www.cognitionandculture.com

Abstract:
Even though explaining the mental foundations of culture and the cultural foundations of mental life has always been one of the ultimate objectives of the collective social sciences, there seemed little hope of developing a natural science of culture until the recent interdisciplinary attempts coined cognition and culture. What sets the new approach apart is its twin foci of understanding the relationship between individual level cognition and social processes (rather than settling for explanations that appeal to only one of these levels) and developing algorithmic descriptions of socio-cognitive processes allowing cognition and culture researchers from diverse traditional disciplines to productively communicate with each other and make progress on problems that transcend their disciplinary boundaries. Thus anthropologists, religious studies experts, marketing researchers, and experimental psychologists can work together to identify the ecological, cognitive and ontological factors that are critical to the spread of ideas. This line of work has resulted in identification of counterintuitiveness as a crucial property of concepts that makes them more memorable allowing them to faster and wider spread. Developmental psychologists can work together with social scientists to identify innate human abilities for the acquisition of cultural information. There is a need for the diverse body of researchers to come together to take stock of the progress and to identify future directions. A workshop at the cognitive science society meeting will allow us to do that.

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Workshop #4

Interactive Computer-Based Activities for Undergraduate Cog Sci Instruction: Training in their Use & Exploring Future Directions in their Development and Dissemination

Organizer: David L. Anderson (dlanders@ilstu.edu)
Workshop web page: http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/events/07cog_sci_workshop.html

Abstract:
This all-day workshop will provide training in the use of interactive computer-based curriculum modules which offer undergraduates an effective “hands-on” introduction to a wide range of research methodologies in the cognitive sciences. The expertise of researchers from many different disciplines are built into online modules that give students research activities that can be accomplished in 1-2 hours as a “take-home” assignment or that can be used during an in-class computer lab session. Some of the modules are designed for use by students with little or no previous background in the field and some can either be used with intro-level students or made more ambitious for upper-division majors in cog sci or related disciplines.

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Workshop Chairs
Michael Schoelles (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Katja Weimer-Hastings (Northern Illinois University)

Program Committee
Erik M. Altmann (Michigan State University)
Matthew Crocker (Saarland University)
Tom Griffiths (Brown University)
Glenn Gunzelmann (US Air Force)
John Hale (Michigan State University)
Gary Jones (Nottingham-Trent University)
Padraic Monaghan (University of York)
Yvette Tenney (BBN Labs)
Richard Young (University College London)
Frank Ritter (Pennsylvania State University)

Katja Wiemer-Hastings
Department of Psychology
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb IL 60115
USA
Phone +1-815-753-5227
Fax +1-815-753-8088