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CSLI Calendar, 25 Apr 1996, vol.11:24
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To: friends@Arch.Stanford.EDU
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Subject: CSLI Calendar, 25 Apr 1996, vol.11:24
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From: Tom Burke <burke@Csli.Stanford.EDU>
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Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 13:09:40 -0700 (PDT)
C S L I C A L E N D A R O F P U B L I C E V E N T S
______________________________________________________________________________
25 April 1996 Stanford Vol. 11, No. 24
______________________________________________________________________________
A weekly publication of the Center for the Study of Language and
Information (CSLI), Stanford University, Ventura Hall, Stanford, CA 94305-4115
____________
CSLI ACTIVITIES DURING 25 APRIL -- 3 MAY 1996
THURSDAY, 25 APRIL
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
LIFE's Rich Tapestry
David Barker-Plummer, CSLI
Abstract below
12:00 - CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Consciousness as the Gatekeeper of Memory
John Gabrieli, Stanford Psychology
Abstract below
4:15 - SSP Distinguished Lecture Series
Annenberg Auditorium
Consciousness and Cognitive Science
John Searle, UC Berkeley Philosophy
FRIDAY, 26 APRIL
12:00 - Logic Lunch
Building 380, Room 383-N
Infinitary Modal Logic
Johan van Benthem, Stanford & Amsterdam
Abstract below
12:30 - HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium
Interfacing to Microworlds
Will Wright, Maxis
Abstract below
3:15 - Philosophy Department Colloquium
Encina Hall, Room 423
Deceiving Oneself or Self-Deceived? On the Formation
of Beliefs "Under the Influence"
Ariela Lazar, Stanford Philosophy
3:30 - Linguistics Department Colloquium
Building 460, Room 146
Optimizing Structure in Context: The Case of Scrambling
Hye-Won Choi, Stanford Linguistics
Abstract below
MONDAY, 29 APRIL
1:15 - Semantics Workshop
Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Phenomenon of Semantic Emphasis
Juergen Kunze, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
Abstract below
TUESDAY, 30 APRIL
6:30 - SSP Film Series
Cubberly Education Building, Room 128
Minerva's Machine: Women and Computing
[discussion afterward led by Amy Lansky] (1995)
Abstract below
8:00 - Tanner Lectures (1)
Building 200, Room 2
Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: From
Redistribution to Recognition
Nancy Fraser, New School of Social Reserach
WEDNESDAY, 1 MAY
1:15 - Applied Speech Technologies Lab Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Speechreading by Boltzmann Zippers
David G. Stork, Ricoh California Research Center
Abstract below
4:15 - Seminar on Computational Learning and Adaptation
Gates Hall, Room 104
Learning Bayesian Belief Networks Using the Minimum
Description Length Principle
Joe Suzuki, Stanford Electrical Engineering
Abstract below
THURSDAY, 2 MAY
10:00 - STASS Seminar
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Second-order Logic and Plural Noun Phrases (Part 1)
Jan Tore Loenning, University of Oslo Linguistics
Abstract below
12:00 - CSLI CogLunch
Cordura Hall, Room 100
Who's on Third? The Physical Bases of Consciousness
Brian Smith, Xerox PARC & Stanford Philosophy
4:15 - SSP Forum
Building 60, Room 61-F
Title and speaker to be announced
8:00 - Tanner Lectures (2)
Building 200, Room 2
Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Toward an
Integrated Conception of Justice
Nancy Fraser, New School of Social Reserach
FRIDAY, 3 MAY
12:30 HCI Seminar
Skilling Auditorium
Play and Learning with Technology, Realities of
the Marketplace
Ann McCormick, CAPS Mira Studio
3:30 - Linguistics Department Colloquium
Cordura Hall, Room 100 (NOTE ROOM CHANGE)
Semantic Universals in Color Terminology
Paul Kay, UC Berkeley Linguistics
Abstract below
____________
The CSLI Calendar appears weekly on Wednesdays throughout the academic year.
Announcements, abstracts, and other information to appear in the Calendar can
be submitted to [mailto:incalendar@csli.stanford.edu].
Information about CSLI's research program and past issues of the CSLI Calendar
are available at [http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/]. The CSLI Calendar is
also posted each week to [news://nntp-csli.stanford.edu/csli.bboard].
____________
CSLI INTERFACE LAB TUTORIALS
on 13--16 May 1996, Cordura Hall
Four Days of Tutorials on the
Internet, Human Interfaces to Communication Technology,
Automatic Speech Recognition, and Machine Learning
[http://www-csli.stanford.edu/csli/Workshop/]
A full schedule, a list of speakers, and registration information may be found
at the URL given above. Topics covered on each day are as follows:
May 13: THE INTERNET
New Developments in Education, Business, Medicine, Engineering.
The first day's tutorial covers a range of topics centered on the design and
development of effective internet technologies:
* Internet Agents -- software tools for finding and accessing information on
the internet;
* Distance Learning -- delivery of traditional lectures and educational
material over the internet; new ways of participating in interactive study
groups; organizing training material so that it can be found on demand;
* Professional Support Systems -- providing doctors with diagnostic
information over the internet; professional teamwork on the internet;
* Digital Libraries -- providing new ways of storing and finding information
stored in libraries, especially over the Net.
May 14: HUMAN INTERFACE DESIGN
Social Responses to Communication Technology
People respond subconsciously to computers, and other devices that convey
information, as if the devices were capable of thoughts and feelings.
Pioneering research being carried out at Stanford shows how social rules can
be exploited to improve Interface design. Experiments performed by the
creators of this field will be discussed. Interface designers are strongly
encouraged to attend this seminar.
May 15: AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION
New Developments in Spoken Language Computer Interfaces
The third day covers theoretical and practical aspects of Automatic Speech
Recognition. After nearly 30 years of gradual progress, ASR is now showing up
everywhere, over the phone, on PCs, and soon on the internet. The history,
theory, current practice, and future of the ASR field is treated in this
tutorial by several acknowledged authorities in the area who have both
industrial and academic experience.
May 16: MACHINE LEARNING
New Developments in Data Mining
The fourth day tutorial reviews computational techniques -- known as machine
learning or data mining -- designed to support this activity, then examines
the main stages of the knowledge discovery process, drawing on illustrative
examples from successsful industrial efforts. Applications to be discussed
include mechanical diagnosis, control problems, and financial prediction.
For more information, contact Michele King [mailto:mking@csli.stanford.edu].
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 25 April
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
LIFE's Rich Tapestry
David Barker-Plummer
CSLI
[dbp@csli.stanford.edu]
LIFE (a Logic of Inheritance, Functions and Equations) is an experimental
programming language which aims to integrate the logic, inheritance and
functional programming paradigms. I will describe the features of the
language, and the way in which the paradigms are smoothly integrated within
LIFE. Some techniques used in LIFE may also be appropriate for representing
features of situation theory within the Prosit programming language under
development here at CSLI.
This talk is based on the Still LIFE interpreter, the first implementation of
LIFE, which I wrote around 1988. Wild LIFE, a compiler-based version of the
language, was subsequently developed by other members of the LIFE team, and is
freely available.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 25 April
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
Consciousness as the Gatekeeper of Memory
John Gabrieli
Stanford Psychology
[gabrieli@psych.stanford.edu]
Implicit forms of memory guide behavior in the absence of conscious or
explicit awareness of the experience in which the memory was acquired. This
dissociation between memory and awareness has been examined primarily at the
moment of memory retrieval. We have conducted experiments to examine the
relation between awareness and memory at encoding to inquire whether implicit
knowledge can be acquired when people are relatively unaware of an event.
Results indicate that there are variable relations between awareness and
memory encoding, but that in all cases poor awareness leads to poor memory.
Thus, awareness of an event may serve as a gatekeeper for any long-term memory
for that event.
COGLUNCH SPRING SCHEDULE
Theme: Consciousness
The Thursday noon CogLunch series on consciousness will continue
through the Spring Quarter, starting in April. Here is a tentative
schedule of speakers and titles of the talks:
April 4: MARLEEN ROZEMOND (Philosophy, Stanford U.)
"Descartes and Consciousness"
11: TEED ROCKWELL (Berkeley, CA)
"Awareness, Mental Phenomena, and Consciousness:
A Synthesis of Dennett and Rosenthal"
18: ROGER SHEPARD (Psychology, Stanford U.)
"My Experience, Your Experience, and the World We Experience"
25: JOHN GABRIELI (Psychology, Stanford U.)
"Consciousness as the Gatekeeper of Memory"
May 2: BRIAN SMITH (Xerox PARC & Philosophy, Stanford U.)
"Who's on Third? The Physical Bases of Consciousness"
9: BOB ZAJONC (Psychology, Stanford U.)
"Unappraised Affect"
16: MICHAEL CORNER (Netherlands Institute for Brain Research)
"Prolegomena to Any Future Mind-Brain Synthesis, and
a Theory About the Nature of Self-Consciousness:
Phenomenological and Physiological Constraints"
23: JOHN PERRY [Commentary: G. Guzeldere]
"Indexicality and the Knowledge Argument"
30: KEN TAYLOR (Philosophy, Stanford U.)
"The Hard Problem of Consciousness may not be
Solvable, but Dualism is Still False"
June 6: Dead Week
____________
*****************************************************
* SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES *
* on Thursday, 25 April *
* 4:15 p.m., Annenberg Auditorium *
* Consciousness and Cognitive Science *
* John Searle *
* UC Berkeley Philosophy *
*****************************************************
____________
LOGIC LUNCH
on Friday, 26 April
12:00 noon, Building 380, Room 383-N
Infinitary Modal Logic
Johan van Benthem
Stanford & Amsterdam
[johan@csli.stanford.edu]
It is natural to move from finitary to infinitary modal formalisms, as the
latter match bisimulation more closely. Moreover, recently, Barwise, Moss &
Baltag have found new connections between definitions in infinitary modal
logic and non-wellfounded sets. In this talk, I will consider the following
issues: (i) how do standard modal results generalize to infinitary logic and
its fragments, (ii) what proof methods should replace compactness, and more
surprisingly, (iii) should we revise the formulations of classical theorems
about first-order logic?
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 26 April
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Interfacing to Microworlds
Will Wright
Maxis
[willw@emf.net]
Simulations of real world systems present the designer with a unique set of
challenges. In entertainment products we strive to maintain the "illusion" of
reality so as to nurture the megalomania in our players (the Calvin syndrome).
In educational uses, however, we want to let our players "open the hood" of
the model to view and perhaps change the underlying assumptions. These two
approaches frequently conflict in the design of edutainment (yes, I hate that
word too) programs. I will try to at least touch on the following topics:
* the intent of the program.
* maintaining the illusion.
* promoting empathy.
* granularity of interaction.
* time control.
* the use of sound.
* what's under the hood.
* collapsing and filtering of data.
When WILL WRIGHT was a kid he spent most of his free time building and playing
with models. Now he gets paid for it. He started designing game software
around 1982 after building homebrew robots for several years. In 1987 Jeff
Braun and he founded Maxis Software and released SimCity (which he started
designing in 1985) two years later. Since then he has designed several other
"Sim" games including SimEarth, SimAnt, and SimCity2000.
____________
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 26 April
3:15 p.m., Encina Hall, Room 423
Deceiving Oneself or Self-Deceived? On the Formation
of Beliefs "Under the Influence"
Ariela Lazar
Stanford Philosophy
[lazar@csli.stanford.edu]
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 26 April
3:30 p.m., Building 460, Room 146
Optimizing Structure in Context: The Case of Scrambling
A Dissertation Proposal
Hye-Won Choi
Stanford Linguistics
[choi@csli.stanford.edu]
My dissertation examines the relationship between syntactic structure and
pragmatic/contextual meaning of language focusing on the scrambling phenomena
in German and Korean. I pursue this issue from the perspective that different
ordering possibilities are motivated and constrained by interactions between
syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic principles of these languages. In
particular, I utilize Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, Grimshaw
1995) to demonstrate how these principles interact and resolve conflicts among
one another to yield the "optimal" output, i.e., a sentence with a particular
word order, in a given context.
Taking the various scrambled variants of a sentence as competing candidates, I
derive each scrambled structure as the best matching output to the given
context, which is represented as the `information structure' (cf. Vallduvi
1992) in the input. In the first part of the talk, I propose that the
Optimality-Theoretic account of scrambling, i.e., the search for the optimal
syntactic structure in a given context, naturally leads to the explanations of
the often-observed semantic and pragmatic effects associated with scrambling
such as the `definiteness/specificity' effect (Moltmann 1990, de Hoop 1992),
the `anti-focus' effect (Lenerz 1977, Abraham 1986, Webelhuth 1992), and the
`contrastive focus' effect (Abraham 1986, Moltmann 1990). In the second part,
I also argue that the OT account provides a systematic analysis of the
problematic dual characteristic of the _nun_ marking in Korean (cf. wa in
Japanese), i.e., the dual function of marking topic and contrastive focus.
Finally, the OT account I propose here also makes some predictions about the
markedness of each scrambled variant, and this seems to match a statistical
study of the frequency of some scrambled examples in real texts (Hoberg 1981).
____________
SEMANTICS WORKSHOP
on Monday, 29 April
1:15 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
The Phenomenon of Semantic Emphasis
Juergen Kunze
Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin
This phenomenon concerns the following questions:
* What triggers the choice between case objects and propositional
objects for certain verbs?
* Which actants are obligatory and which ones optional?
* How do prefixes affect the meaning of verbs?
It is shown that the allocation of semantic emphases constitutes a
necessary component of semantic forms.
____________
SSP FILM SERIES
on Tuesday, 30 April
6:30 p.m., Cubberly Education Building, Room 128
Minerva's Machine: Women and Computing
[discussion afterward led by Amy Lansky] (1995)
This one-hour documentary on women in computing profiles a diverse group of
successful women in the field today. Topics covered include the history of
women in computing, the departure of women from academic computing in the
mid-80s, why there are fewer women in computing than men, and gender
differences in response to high-technology. Sociologists, psychologists,
educators and other experts report findings on research into different
responses to computers and video games and reports are given on programs
designed to encourage girls in math, science and engineering, as well as other
ways to bridge the computer gender gap. Afterward, Amy Lansky, a Consulting
Professor in Symbolic Systems who has worked as a computer scientist at SRI
International and NASA-Ames, will lead our usual post-video discussion.
The Symbolic Systems Film Series showcases films and tapes of general
cognitive science interest. Attendance at film series events can substitute
for attendance at the Symbolic Systems Forum for students enrolled in SSP 10
for one unit. All are welcome at these events. The showing of the videos is
followed by a discussion, and researchers who are knowledgeable about the
program's topic are urged to join us in evaluating it.
____________
TANNER LECTURES
on Tuesday, 30 April
8:00 p.m., Building 200, Room 2
Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics
Lecture 1: From Redistribution to Recognition
Nancy Fraser
New School of Social Reserach
____________
ASTL SEMINAR
on Wednesday, 1 May
1:15 p.m., Cordura 100, Room 100
Speechreading by Boltzmann Zippers
David G. Stork
Ricoh California Research Center
[stork@crc.ricoh.com]
Many problems in temporal classification and prediction contain information on
a variety of time scales. For instance, natural connected speech has rapid
phonemic and sub-phonemic transitions as well as much slower word-level and
prosodic structure. Despite their extensive use in speech, first-order Hidden
Markov Models (HMMs) are poorly suited to learning and representing
information from a _range_ of scales. What is needed, therefore, is a method
that possesses the benefits HMMs (e.g., time warping and rate insensitivity)
but with the ability to represent structure at different time scales.
MacKay recently showed that Boltzmann networks with certain restricted
topologies were formally equivalent to HMMs; this enabled Saul and Jordan to
develop a learning rule for parallel networks having bidirectional
cross-linked connections. The trained network is converted to a special HMM
used for recognition. We report the first application of such Boltzmann
chains or Boltzmann "zippers" (BZs) to real-world data. (We prefer the term
"zipper", which conveys the notion of _two_ parallel chains that are
cross-linked.)
Speechreading is a natural application domain for such BZs because acoustic
transitions (~100 Hz) are faster than the visual ones (~20 Hz). Our bimodal
training data consisted of 20 utterances of a single talker's /asklee/,
/asklah/, /askluu/; these illustrate "anticipatory coarticulation," in which
the rounding associated with vowel production strongly influences the sound of
the sibilant /s/ three phonemes "earlier." (While these are particularly
clear examples, virtually all speech exhibits coarticulation.)
For optimal choice of the number of features and codebook size, we found lower
test error for BZs than the independent HMMs at a single rate (though not
under all conditions); BZs did not show significant improvement for addressing
variations in overall _rate_. The cross-modal connections were large for the
early acoustic states to the late visual states, just as we would expect from
consideration of the coarticulation.
At the Workshop we shall present more extensive tests, controlled for the
number of parameters in the two models. We shall also discuss methods for
speeding learning, such as first training independent HMMs, then adding
cross-modal links and training further.
This work is being done in collaboration with Hui-Ling Lu, Stanford Department
of Electrical Engineering [vickylu@leland.stanford.edu]. We thank L. Saul for
use of his code, and M. Hennecke and K. V. Prasad for data collection.
____________
SEMINAR ON COMPUTATIONAL LEARNING AND ADAPTION
on Wednesday, 1 May
4:15 p.m., Gates Hall, Room 104
Learning Bayesian Belief Networks Using the Minimum
Description Length Principle
Joe Suzuki
Stanford Electrical Engineering
[jsuzuki@isl.stanford.edu]
In this talk, we describe an approach to learning Bayesian belief networks
from examples based on the principle of minimum description length (MDL).
This procedure computes the sum of the description length of each candidate
network and that of the examples given the network, and finds the network with
the minimum value. We present a search algorithm that saves the computation of
the MDL procedure and ensures finding the network with the minimum description
length. The method incorporates a branch and bound technique that reduces
computation compared to a dynamic programming method. Experiments on the
Alarm database show that the algorithm is reasonably efficient for problems of
moderate size. Although we have not yet tested the combination of MDL with
branch and bound, our results suggest an advantage of the MDL procedure over
the Bayesian method that Cooper and Herskovits report.
____________
STASS SEMINAR
on Thursday, 2 May
10:00 a.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100
Second-Order Logic and Plural Noun Phrases (Part 1)
Jan Tore Loenning
University of Oslo Linguistics
[loenning@csli.stanford.edu]
It is generally assumed that the truth-conditions of plural noun phrases
transcend first-order logic. Many have further assumed that the
truth-conditions for sentences like
1) Some students gathered.
2) Some critics admire only one another,
best can be spelled out as formulas in second-order logic. But second-order
logic is not on the same firm grounds as first-order logic. It lacks a
complete axiomatization, and its semantics seems to assume the existence of
certain sets of individuals, hence it has been claimed to be set theory in
disguise. On the other hand, George Boolos has argued that the ease with
which we understand plural NPs can be taken as a starting point for
understanding second-order logic and has proposed a non-objectual semantics
for monadic second-order logic.
The first talk will consider how large a fragment of second-order logic is
needed to represent the plural noun phrases and to which degree there are
English sentences which distinguish between different possible consequence
relations for second-order logic. The topic of the second talk will be
whether the use of plural NPs carry any ontological commitments and a
comparison between the objectual and the non-objectual semantics.
____________
CSLI COGLUNCH
on Thursday, 2 May
12:00 noon, Cordura Hall, Room 100
Who's on Third? The Physical Bases of Consciousness
Brian C. Smith
Xerox PARC & Stanford Philosophy
[bcsmith@parc.xerox.com]
____________
SSP FORUM
on Thursday, 2 May
4:15 p.m., Building 60, Room 61-F
Title and speaker to be announced
____________
TANNER LECTURES
on Thursday, 2 May
8:00 p.m., Building 200, Room 2
Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics
Lecture 2: Toward an Integrated Conception of Justice
Nancy Fraser
New School of Social Reserach
____________
SEMINAR ON HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION
on Friday, 3 May
12:30 p.m., Skilling Auditorium
Play and Learning with Technology, Realities
of the Marketplace
Ann McCormick, CAPS Mira Studio
[ann@mirastudio.com]
____________
LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT COLLOQUIUM
on Friday, 3 May
3:30 p.m., Cordura Hall, Room 100 (NOTE ROOM CHANGE)
Semantic Universals in Color Terminology
Paul Kay
University of California, Berkeley
[kay@cogsci.berkeley.edu]
The World Color Survey (WCS) was begun in the late seventies to test and
refine the hypotheses proposed by Berlin and Kay (1969) that (1) there are
universal constraints on the patterns of color naming across languages and (2)
there are universal constraints on the temporal development of systems of
basic color terms. The WCS has collected data in 110 non-literate language
communities from (usually) twenty-five speakers per community, insofar as
possible monolingual. Partial analysis of the resulting data show that (a)
the main lines of the broad hypotheses given as (1) and (2) above are
confirmed, (b) the specifics of the evolutionary sequence proposed in 1969
must be loosened in the light of more recent data, (c) the resulting picture
accords in some detail with known or proposed properties of the visual system,
confirming the further hypothesis that universals in the semantics of color
naming are driven by universals in the visual processing of color (probably
shared with non-speaking species such as the great apes and old world
monkeys).
____________
NEW IAP RESEARCHERS
* Yoshiyuki Goda
The Japan Circle of Love Foundation
Osaka, Japan
March 19, 1996 - March 28, 1997
Cordura 126, 723-0520
goda@csli.stanford.edu
Archimedes Researcher
* Maria Manzano
University of Barcelona
April - June 1996
Cordura 110, 725-2319
manzano@csli.stanford.edu
* Madoka Sato
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST)
March 1996 - Janaury 1997
Cordura 201, 723-0695
msato@csli.stanford.edu
* Satoshi Sato
Japan Advanced Institute of Science Technology (JAIST)
March 1996 - Janaury 1997
Cordura 102, 723-2030
sato@csli.stanford.edu
____________