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Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation (ZLA) states that the more frequently a word is used, the shorter its length tends to be. This arises due to the optimal trade-off between competing pressures for accuracy and efficiency in communication, known as the Principle of Least Effort. Existing research has not focused on how individuals adapt their language use to remain optimal despite language change and whether social factors like common ground affect this. To investigate this, we replicated and extended the artificial language learning paradigm and communication game of Kanwal et al. (2017). We found participants were able to re-optimize their language use according to ZLA after a language change event, but this ability was hampered by common ground. This research identifies common ground as one potential cause for observed sub-optimalities in human languages and may have implications for understanding the dynamics of language change across communities where common ground varies.

CogSci 2021

Zipf&#39;s law of abbreviation and common ground: Past communicative success hampers the re-optimization of language

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**Dear Colleagues,**

Welcome to the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society! 

This year’s conference brings together the latest research from all Cognitive Science and also highlights this year’s theme **Comparative Cognition: Animal Minds.** 

The program features four plenary speakers: Friederike Range (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna), Onur Güntürkün (Ruhr University Bochum), Julia Fischer (University of Göttingen), and Erich Jarvis (The Rockefeller University). The keynotes and invited symposia showcase the broad spectrum of ideas that encompass the conference theme of comparative cognition. 

Further, the program includes the Rumelhart Prize keynote presentation by Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago), and symposia to celebrate the winner of the Elman Prize: Wei Ji Ma (New York University), the Heineken Award winner Robert Zatorre (McGill University), and the Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Prizes session.

The program committee for CogSci 2021 received 1,025 submissions, including 710 full papers, 275 member abstracts, 8 publication-based talks, as well as 15 proposals for symposia, and 17 for workshops and tutorials. After a rigorous review process, the committee selected 152 papers for oral presentation and inclusion in the conference proceedings (14.8%), 332 papers for poster presentation and inclusion in the proceedings (32.4%), and 175 papers for poster presentation with inclusion of abstracts in the proceedings (17.1%) We also selected 275 submitted member abstracts. In addition, we accepted 6 publication-based talks, 12 symposia, and 9 workshops and tutorials to make for an exciting and inclusive program.

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The Cognitive Science Society brings together researchers from around the world who hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The mission of the Society is to promote Cognitive Science as a discipline, and to foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education. The Society is a non-profit professional organization and its activities include sponsoring an annual conference and publishing the journals Cognitive Science and TopiCS.

Zipf's law of abbreviation and common ground: Past communicative success hampers the re-optimization of language

poster

Syntactic priming may be a key mechanism underlying children’s learning of novel words. Havron et al. (2019) exposed French-speaking children (ages 3 to 4) to a speaker biased by the use of either familiar verbs or nouns presented in the same syntactic context. This influenced participants’ interpretations of ambiguous novel words presented in the same syntactic frame. In Experiment 1, we successfully replicated Havron et al. with 77 French-speaking adults, using a web-based eye-tracking paradigm. Experiment 2 adapted this paradigm to English: Repeated exposure to a syntactic structure induced 102 English-speaking adults to update their expectations about the meanings of novel words. Our results indicate participants adapted to the specific linguistic structure used, not just the speaker’s tendency to mention actions or objects. These findings support the role of rapid adaptation during word learning. Experiments in progress investigate whether the English paradigm yields successful learning in 3- to 5-year-old children.

Syntactic adaptation and word learning in French and English

Language guides how we conceptualize the level of detail in categorical spatial relations (Bowerman, 1996; Choi, 2006). This study examined whether details in different dimensions (i.e., distance and direction) given in spatial descriptions vary as a function of spatial categories. We asked Turkish speaking participants (N=40) to describe the spatial relation between two geometric objects aligned either on the horizontal or the vertical axis. There were three relations (on/above, under/below, next to/near) of which the direction (left, right) and the distance (adjacent, 5 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm) varied equally. More detailed descriptions in terms of direction and distance were provided for ‘next to/near’ compared to ‘on/above’ and ‘under/below’ relations. These results suggest an asymmetry between vertical and horizontal axes. Sensitivity for detailed descriptions along the horizontal axis may relate to language-specific spatial categorization.

The asymmetry between descriptions of vertical and horizontal spatial relations

Can learning a second language (L2) redirect what we perceive to be similar events? This study investigated how Cantonese- English bilinguals categorized and processed spontaneous motion when the access to language ranged from maximal to minimal. In Experiment 1, participants verbalized the target events in either Cantonese or English right before making their similarity judgements. Results suggested that bilinguals patterned with English monolinguals in both lexicalization and conceptualization irrespective of the language of operation. In Experiment 2, participants experienced verbal interference while making their decisions. Results showed that bilinguals followed an English-like way in event conceptualization as indicated by their processing efficiency of manner and path. However, no cross-linguistic differences were found in speakers’ categorical preferences. The overall findings suggest that subtle typological differences between the L1 and L2 can restructure bilinguals’ cognitive behaviour. And the magnitude of such impact is modulated by different degrees of language involvement.

Two languages, one mind: the effects of language learning on motion event processing in early Cantonese-English bilinguals

Infants have been shown to be particularly adept at extracting so-called non-adjacent dependencies (NADs) from auditory linguistic input (for a review, cf. Mueller, Milne, & Männel, 2018). Mueller, Friederici & Männel (2012) showed that 3-4 month-olds readily learn arbitrary associations between specific non-adjacent syllables from an artificial language (e.g. fikato) and related this ability to individual differences in pitch processing. Here, we addressed the question whether syllables are the building block NAD learning operates on, or whether smaller segmental units also allow for such structural generalizations (Nespor, Peña, & Mehler, 2003). In an oddball paradigm, 8-10-months-olds showed a differential ERP response to standard (e.g. bokäwu, liwase) and deviant (e.g. sogäle, kisüru) exemplars of an exclusively vowel-based NAD, and to an intensity manipulation. Implications of successful rule generalization from this smaller segmental unit and its relation to auditory sensory processing are discussed.

8-10 months old infants extract non-adjacent dependencies from segmental information

Studies of the speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) have been influential in arguing for the direct-access model of retrieval in sentence processing. The direct-access model assumes that long-distance dependencies rely on a content-addressable search for the correct representation in memory. Here, we address two important weaknesses in the statistical methods standardly used for analysing SAT data. First, these methods are based on non-hierarchical modelling. We show how a hierarchical model can be fit to SAT data, and we test parameter recovery in this more conservative model. The parameters most relevant to the direct-access account cannot be accurately estimated, and we attribute this to the standard SAT model being overparameterised for the limited data available to fit it. Second, the power properties of SAT studies are unknown. We conduct a power analysis and show that inferences from null results to the null hypothesis, though commonplace in the SAT literature, may be unwarranted.

Statistical properties of the speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) paradigm in sentence processing

Despite wide variation among natural languages, there are linguistic properties thought to be universal to all or almost all natural languages. Here, we consider universals at the semantic level, in the domain of quantifiers, which are given by the properties of monotonicity, quantity, and conservativity. We investigate whether these universals might be explained by differences in complexity. We generate a large collection of quantifiers, based on a simple yet expressive grammar, and compute both their complexities and whether they adhere to these universal properties. We find that quantifiers satisfying semantic universals are less complex: they have a shorter minimal description length.

Quantifiers satisfying semantic universals are simpler

A considerable amount of cognition is, in some way, social. Here we consider one example: our reliance upon experts for information about phenomenon within a particular domain. Novices and experts share some knowledge within a domain in question which is crucial for knowing when to seek expert advice and how to evaluate that advice. Just when we decide to relinquish our own knowledge or skill in deference to an expertise remains an important question for cognitive scientists. Here we explored some conditions that might influence when we choose to defer to experts. In two experiments (N=570) we demonstrated that participants have a greater willingness to defer when experts have provide descriptive information (i.e., facts) about their domain of expertise, than when they provide prescriptive advice about what we ought to do with those facts. We interpret these results from the perspective that individuals exercise greater vigilance when given prescriptive advice in the form of normative statements. From this perspective individuals feel threatened, and therefore are less deferential, when experts tell them what to do, rather than share knowledge with them.

What we ought to do is…’: Are we More Willing to Defer to Experts who Provide Descriptive Facts Than Those who Offer Prescriptive Advice?

The current paper brings experimental evidence that Romanian 4-and 5-year-olds are able to understand recursive prepositional modifiers such as "papagalul de lȃngǎ hamsterul de lȃngǎ iepuraş", ‘the parrot next to the hamster next to the bunny’. 23 children engaged in a picture matching task (PMT) where they heard sentences containing either recursive structures or coordinative structures, and they had to choose between a picture corresponding to a recursive interpretation and a picture corresponding to a coordinative interpretation. Interestingly, children provided recursive interpretations to recursive structures to a quite high degree, though their behavior was not fully adult-like. We argue that this can be accounted for through children’s sensitivity to specific recursion cues that are present in Romanian, as well as to the contrast between recursion and coordination, which is activated through the experimental set-up.

"The Parrot next to the Hamster (and) next to the Bunny" Sheds Light on Recursion in Child Romanian

Does playing Chess improve reading, writing, speaking, and listening skill, the components of Linguistic Intelligence? The ability to manipulate syntax, phonetics, pragmatics, and semantics of the language is defined as Linguistic Intelligence. The experimental group underwent Chess training once a week, through the year (around 25 to 30 sessions), as part of co-curricular school activity. ANCOVA showed significant gains in Verbal Reasoning (an integral part of Linguistic Intelligence) for the experimental group than the control group who were involved in other extra-curricular activities. The study used pretest–posttest with control group design with WISC IV India and Binet Kamat Test of Intelligence for the assessment. 70 children in the experimental group and 81 children in the control group were randomly selected from four schools of both genders in the age group of 5 -16. Results indicate enhanced Linguistic Intelligence, which could also lead to improved communication, critical and analytical skills.

AUGMENTING LINGUISTIC INTELLIGENCE THROUGH CHESS TRAINING - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Linguistic complexity – manifested in terms of hierarchical recursive structures generated by grammar – is often discussed from the perspective of cross-linguistic comparison (cf. Everett, 2005; Nevins, Pesetsky, & Rodrigues, 2009 on Pirahã). In this paper, we focus instead on the variation in complexity within a single language, English, and on the lower bound of complexity, specifically (cf. Futrell et al., 2016). We report results of two studies, a corpus study (Study 1) and a production experiment (Study 2), that investigate syntactic complexity of expressions that arise in the context of human-computer interaction and compare them to the standard language. The results of both studies show that the expressions generated in the context of human-computer interaction exhibit lesser structural complexity and often violate the norm of the language (cf. margaret mead culture famous research). Our results suggest that such expressions are generated by a qualitatively different type of formal grammar, Linear Grammar (Jackendoff & Wittenberg, 2017), rather than by recursive grammar (Roeper, 1999).

Zipf's law of abbreviation and common ground: Past communicative success hampers the re-optimization of language

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Syntactic adaptation and word learning in French and English

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