LINGUIST List 7.1810

Fri Dec 20 1996

Calls: Context'97 Workshop, Text and Discourse

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <ljubalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Boicho Kokinov, Context'97 Workshop - CFP
2. Wilbert Spooren, Call: Society for Text and Discourse '97

 ECCS'97

 2nd European Conference on Cognitive Science

 Manchester, UK, April 9-11, 1997


 Workshop on Context


The workshop aims at bringing together researchers from various
disciplines: artificial intelligence, psychology, linguistics,
philosophy, neurosciences, who are interested in various aspects of
the notion of context.


Researchers in linguistics and communication have studied for a while
how the interpretation of an utterance changes when the context
changes, how the speaker produces the utterance in accordance with
what he/she believes is the current context of the discourse, how the
hearer selects or constructs the context in which he/she will be able
to understand the message.


Researchers in psychology have studied how variations in the context
can influence various cognitive processes - perception, language
interpretation, reasoning, decision-making, problem solving, learning
etc. There are a number of phenomena studied in psychology which can
be classified as effects of context: priming effects (in memory
studies), framing effects (in decision making), fixedness and set
effects (in problem solving), lack of transfer from one context to
another (in learning), context effects in perception and
interpretation, etc.


Recently AI researchers started the endeavour of formalising the
concept of context in order to model it in computer simulations. They
are mostly interested how context relates to reasoning - how people
change the perspective, the line of reasoning, how they think of and
compare states of the world in two different moments of time, or in
two different situations.


Neuroscientists have explored the differences between implicit and
explicit memory and learning shedding light on the mechanisms
processing the information in human brain. There are a number of
differences discovered between explicitly and implicitly represented
information and its processing and storage.


It seems that the various disciplines and even subfields have
different notions of context, but still using the same term, which
actually is a sign that each of them is studying a particular aspect
of a unique phenomena. This workshop may contribute to a greater
mutual understanding between the researchers of context in various
subfields and eventually to develop a common theory of context. In
other cases people use different terms for different phenomena which,
however, seem related, so bringing this researchers together might
result in establishing new links between otherwise separate fields.


Here are some of the topics which might be discussed during the
workshop:

* is context a state of the world, a state of the mind, or the
information shared in a discourse (communication act), is it an
absolute or an relational concept (X is the context of Y);

* what are the relations between context, situation, environment,
state of mind, working memory;

* what is the relation between context-sensitive cognition and
situated cognition;

* is context being constructed, selected, or is something we are
immersed in;

* has context an explicit or an implicit representation in human mind;

* how context is being formed/established (what are the mechanisms of
formation);

* how context influences (what are the mechanisms of that influencing)
human cognitive processes: memory, reasoning, decision-making,
language processing, perception, learning

* what are the relations between priming effects, set effects,
conceptual fixedness, framing effects, context effects, etc.


Form of the workshop


The workshop will be organised in the following way.


1. There is a Web page (http://boogie.cs.unitn.it/eccs-97/) where you
can find the list

of people expressed their interest in participation in the workshop as
well as the electronic discussion on the topics of the workshop. New
people can also subscribe to the mailing list there. For sending
messages to the list you can use the following address:

 
context-disccs.unitn.it

2. The discussion so far has emphasised the following four
issues that all of us will try to address when presenting our
research at the workshop:


1) What is context?

2) How is context represented in human mind (if at all)?

3) What are the mechanisms for building of this representation?

4) What are the mechanisms by which context influences cognitive
processes?

We can analyse this aspects across various disciplines and
various specific cognitive processes.

3. Submitting extended abstracts (6 pages) describing the
author's work, relating it to the above issues. The accepted
abstracts will be published in the workshop
proceedings. Deadline for submission:

January 31st, 1997

4. Distribute the abstracts in advance (electronically) and
organise an e-mail discussion.

5. Have 3-4 interactive talks during the workshop given by
invited speakers from different disciplines (AI, psychology,
linguistics, neuroscience) and having two discussants for every
speaker ensuring an interdisciplinary discussion of their
work. In order to focus all our discussions on matters of joint
interest we ask all speakers to address the main issues we will
formulate and to present their work in a way accessible to
other discipline's representatives.

6. Have a general discussion at the end trying to bring the
different perspectives together.

7. Select some of the papers submitted to the workshop and
invite the authors to write a chapter that will present their
work reflecting the discussions held during the workshop as
well. As a result we might produce a book that will be
accessible to a wide audience from various disciplines and
which might be a synthesis of the scientific exchange during
the workshop.

Organisers:

Fausto Giunchiglia (University of Trento, Italy) faustoirst.itc.it

Paolo Bouquet (University of Trento, Italy) pbouquetcs.unitn.it

Cristiano Castelfranchi (National Research Council, Italy)
crispscs2.irmkant.rm.cnr.it

Boicho Kokinov (New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria)
kokinovbgearn.acad.bg


Timetable and Deadlines:


*	Submission of papers in both electronic and hardcopy form - January
31st, 1997

*	Acceptance/rejection notification - March 1st, 1997

*	E-mail discussion of the papers - March 1st -31st, 1997

*	Workshop - as planed by the PC of ECCS'97 during the period April
9-11th, 1997


Addresses for submission:

=46austo Giunchiglia 

IRST 

Povo, 38100 Trento, Italy 

context-eccscs.unitn.it

phone: +39 461 314517 (secr.);

 +39 461 314436 (off.)

fax: +39 461 302040/314591

 or

Boicho Kokinov

Cognitive Science Department

New Bulgarian University

21 Montevideo Str.

Sofia 1635, Bulgaria

kokinovcogs.nbu.acad.bg

phone: +359 2 558065

fax: +359 2 565037


Home page: http://boogie.cs.unitn.it/eccs-97/



- ------------------------------------------------------

Boicho Kokinov

Cognitive Science Department

New Bulgarian University

21, Montevideo Str.

Sofia 1635, Bulgaria

phone: (+3592) 558065

fax: (+3592) 558262

e-mail: kokinovcogs.nbu.acad.bg

 kokinovbgearn.acad.bg

 CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse

 Thursday and Friday, July 10 and 11, 1997
 Utrecht University
 Utrecht, The Netherlands

We are pleased to announce the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society
for Text and Discourse, to be held for the first time in Europe, in
Utrecht (The Netherlands). The meeting will be hosted by the Centre
for Language and Communication (CLC) and the the Department of
Psychonomics, both at Utrecht University, and is co-organized by the
University of Amsterdam and Tilburg University.

THE SOCIETY FOR TEXT AND DISCOURSE is an international society of
researchers who investigate all aspects of discourse processing and
text analysis. The purpose of the Society is to consolidate research
in discourse processing and to enhance communication among researchers
in different disciplines. Therefore, we invite scholars from various
disciplines (e.g., psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence,
education, sociology, anthropology, mass-communication, and
philosophy) to attend and to submit a proposal for participation in
the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society.

This year special interest will be paid to proposals that concern the
translation of empirical research findings into areas of application,
such as text and document design, learning from texts and
problem-solving, mass-communication and new media. But other PROPOSALS
ON ANY TOPIC WITHIN THE REALM OF THE TEXT AND DISCOURSE COMMUNITY ARE
HIGHLY WELCOME.

PROGRAM

The Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse will
begin with a welcome reception, on Wednesday evening, July 9. Spoken
papers and invited addresses will begin the morning of Thursday, July
10, and end in the afternoon of Friday, July 11. A poster session
will be held Thursday evening, July 10. The last event of the
conference will be a SURPRISE SOCIAL EVENT, which we are planning in
collaboration with ABLEX publishers, and which will be held Friday
evening, July 11.

The program committee consists of:
Paul van den Broek (Minnesota), Teun van Dijk (Amsterdam), Morton-Ann
Gernsbacher (Wisconsin), Herre van Oostendorp (Utrecht, Psychonomics,
chair), Ted Sanders (Utrecht, CLC, co-chair).

LOCATION

Utrecht is located in the centre of the Netherlands. It is only 20
miles from Schiphol Amsterdam Airport, and it is easily accessible by
a comfortable train connection (30 minutes). All events of the
Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse will take
place in the buildings of the Faculty of Arts of Utrecht University,
one of the oldest -- and the largest -- Dutch universities, located in
the beautiful historical centre of Utrecht.

INVITED SPEAKERS

Invited speakers, from both the US and Europe, include the following
persons: Paul van den Broek (Minneapolis), Teun A. van Dijk
(Amsterdam), Michel Fayol (Dijon; yet to be confirmed) Charles
R. Fletcher (Minneapolis), Arthur C. Graesser (Memphis), Susan
R. Goldman (Nashville), Morton Ann Gernsbacher (Wisconsin), Anthony
J. Sanford (Glasgow), Patricia Wright (Cambridge). (This list is not
complete yet.)

CONFERENCE FEE

Conference fees are $ 25 or Hfl 45 for members and $ 40 or Hfl 70 for
non-members. On-site registration is possible, but then fees are $ 35
/ Hfl 65 for members and $ 50 or Hfl 90 for non- members.

INVITATION

We hope that many researchers in the field of text and discourse will
join us by submitting a proposal for participation in this Seventh
Annual Meeting, and by attending what we believe will be an excellent
meeting.

SUBMISSION

Presentations at the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society for Text
and Discourse can be in the form of POSTERS and SPOKEN PAPERS. The
deadline for submitting proposals for both presentation formats is
MARCH, 7, 1997. Note that this is a 'receipt deadline' (proposals must
be received on or before that date). Authors will be notified whether
their proposed presentations are accepted before April 18,
1997. Please note that all presentations must be based on research
that is completed at the time that the proposal is submitted.

If you want to submit to the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society for
Text and Discourse, you can contact the conference manager, Mascha
Damen, by email, for a registration form:

 MASCHA.DAMENLET.RUU.NL

If this is problematic, please contact the conference manager,

 Mascha Damen
 Centre for Language and Communication
 Utrecht University
 Trans 10
 3512 JK Utrecht
 The Netherlands
 Telephone: (+31) 30 253 9163
 Fax: (+31) 30 253 6000

We hope to meet you in Utrecht in July 1997!

THE ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE
Mascha Damen (CLC)
Morton-Ann Gernsbacher (President of the Society for Text and
Discourse)
Herre van Oostendorp (Psychonomics, co-chair)
Mirna Pit (CLC)
Ted Sanders (CLC, chair)
Rachel Robertson (Wisconsin)
Wilbert Spooren (CLS-Tilburg).



For further information about the Society for Text and Discourse contact
IN EUROPE
Dr. Herre van Oostendorp, European Representative of the
Society for Text and Discourse, Dept. of Psychonomics, Utrecht
University, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands
fax +31 30 2534511 e-mail H.vanOostendorpfsw.ruu.nl

IN THE USA
Morton Ann Gernsbacher, Ph.D., President of the Society for
Text and Discourse, University of Wisconsin-Madison
1202 W. Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706-1611, (608) 262-6989
[fax (608) 262-4029], email MAGernsbFacstaff.Wisc.Edu.