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While there are interesting correspondences between form and meaning in many languages, psycholinguists conventionally consider them to be marginal, as they affect only a small subset of words. As such, a common simplification in computational models is to use empirically- or theoretically-motivated representations for form and random vectors for semantics. We recently introduced a novel model of human speech recognition, EARSHOT, which maps spectral slices (form) to pseudo-semantic patterns (sparse random vectors [SRVs]). Here, we replace SRVs with SkipGram vectors. Empirically-based semantics allow the model to learn more quickly and, surprisingly, exhibit more realistic form competition effects. These improved form competition effects do not depend on the particular form-to-meaning mapping in the training lexicon; rather, they arise as a result of the nontrivial output structure. These results suggest that while form-meaning mappings may be mainly arbitrary, realistic semantics afford important computational qualities that promote better fits to human behavior.

CogSci 2021

Distributed semantics in a neural network model of human speech recognition

**31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication**
 This conference is a leading forum where state-of-the-art innovative results, the latest developments as well as future perspectives relating to robot and human interactive communication are presented and discussed.
 
 The conference covers a wide range of topics related to Robot and Human Interactive Communication, involving theories, methodologies, technologies, empirical and experimental studies. Papers related to the study of robotic technology, psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, human factors, ethics and policies, interaction-based robot design and other topics related to human-robot interaction are welcome.
 
 **CONFERENCE THEME:**
 Social, asocial, and antisocial robots
 
 Robots are starting to populate our lives: at work, in our homes, hotels, shops. However, not everybody is comfortable with robots finding a place in society. For example, people may be afraid that robots will replace humans in their jobs. This belief is exacerbated by the media that, on one side, raise expectations of robots’ capabilities, while amplifying fears and worries on the other side.
 
 In the next years, due to the increasing request for interaction with people in social environments, academic research and market analyses predict that robots will become more and more “social”. But, at the same time, robots may incur the risk of being perceived as “asocial” as their pervasiveness in everyday environments may become an obstacle to social interaction between humans. Or they may even be rejected as “antisocial” if researchers do not take care to develop robots that behave according to the customs and habits of the communities where they are expected to operate.
 
 To prevent this from happening, robotic researchers can no longer take the luxury of being mere technicians. They must be capable of addressing all the challenges raised by future robot-populated communities in a multidisciplinary way. They need to share their knowledge with the public to make people aware of what robots really are, what expectations we can have from them, the risks we may incur, and the possible mitigation plans.
 
 While being open to any kind of contribution related to Human-Robot Interactive Communication, the RO-MAN 2022 conference will emphasize these aspects of robotic research. How can we create robots capable of being welcomed as our assistants and companions in society while, at the same time, not being perceived as “asocial” or “antisocial?” How can we create robots perceived as facilitators of the natural development of human beings and communities, rather than obstacles?
 
 Contributions from different disciplines, not exclusively related to technological development, will be welcomed as crucial to pave the way to global acceptance of future robots with an informed attitude.
 
 [![](https://assets.underline.io/uploads/markdown_image/1/image/af259abe105b3791c498ae1552d75710.png)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/18w73BZPB_JVOgcrcdZDqYpEupwVt4CnU/view?usp=sharing)

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IEEE RO-MAN 2022

31st IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication
This conference is a leading forum where state-of-the-art innovative results, the latest developments as well as future perspectives relating to robot and human interactive communication are presented and discussed.

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### Looking for Cogsci 2023? Please [click here](https://underline.io/events/405/reception) to switch to 2023 edition.


**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.

We hope that you enjoy the conference this year! 

**Your Program Chairs,**
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**Learn more about the Vienna Cognitive Science Hub at the University of Vienna, hosts of CogSci 2021**

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To review the proceedings for the conference or review the searchable program, please visit the [website](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/program/).

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.

In signed languages, space can be used to build linguistic analogs for mental images and linguistically support conceptual domains such as time. This research aimed to (i) describe the spatial patterns of the Uruguayan Sign Language (LSU) time lexicon, (ii) test whether variables such as time construal, reference type, and iconicity labeling produce a clear-cut spatial pattern in the LSU time lexicon, and (iii) determine whether the LSU time lexicon might prime the mental timeline for LSU signers. We discuss how we selected a corpus, labeled space according to certain parameters, and characterized signs within unidimensional spaces. We applied a Chi-square goodness of fit test to compare multiple observed proportions among variables. The results confirmed a bias toward the Sagittal space for deictic time and biases for sequential and span time for Hand number and Reference type. We suggest considering these biases in time discrimination with deaf population.

Distribution of unidimensional space in the LSU time lexicon

The concept of accessibility has often been evoked to explain reference resolution. According to the Givenness Hierarchy theory, a referent’s accessibility in the mental state of a comprehender is encoded in the form of the referent as part of its lexical semantic representation. However, the current literature has not reached a consensus on what accessibility exactly means and how to best quantify it. The factors that modulate accessibility show a great extent of overlap with another independently motivated concept of predictability, raising the possibility of a “Predictability Hierarchy” that mirrors Givenness Hierarchy. In a self-paced reading study, the current study examines whether there is such “Predictability Hierarchy” by manipulating the predictability and the form of a referent presented to the participants. Our results indicate that although there is no strong evidence for approximating the Givenness Hierarchy with a “Predictability Hierarchy,” there is some preliminary evidence for a partial correlation between the form and the predictability of a referent.

Is there a predictability hierarchy in reference resolution?

This study focused on associative learning for new words in the first language and haptic stimuli. In the first, healthy Japanese participants made nine subjective evaluations of haptic stimuli using five-point semantic differential scales (e.g., regarding stickiness, scored from 1 [not sticky] to 5 [sticky]). In the second and third, the participants carried out two learning tasks for associative pairs of a new word in Japanese and haptic stimulus (H), or new words only (W). In the fourth one, after each learning task, participants performed recognition and free recall tasks. The results of the recognition tasks showed that the accuracy rates of W were better than those of H, whereas the response times of W were faster than those of H. Further, preference of haptic features negatively correlated with free recall scores of H; however, there was no significant difference between the free recall scores of H and W.

Associative learning of new word forms in a first language and haptic features in a single-day experiment

This study addresses the hypothesis that the aesthetic appeal of linguistic features may influence their learnability and in turn their stability in a language. Focusing on prosodic patterns, we investigated the crucial baseline assumption that linguistic features like stress affect aesthetic appeal. Listeners’ liking, beauty and naturalness ratings of isochronous words and words with initially, medially or finally lengthened or shortened syllables revealed that, indeed, these patterns differed in their aesthetic appeal. Interestingly, the aesthetic appeal of prosodic patterns corresponded to their effectiveness for speech segmentation in other experiments, indicating a potential connection between aesthetics and language learning and opening up avenues for further research on the role of aesthetics in language acquisition and change.

Aesthetic perception of prosodic patterns as a factor in speech segmentation

Child directed language has been characterized by exaggerated prosody which can serve multiple functions including highlighting properties of meaning via iconicity. Iconic prosody may help language acquisition by bringing properties of displaced or unknown referents to the language learner’s “mind’s eye” or facilitating the acquisition of abstract features such as “direction”, or “speed”. We investigate iconic prosody in semi-naturalistic caregiver-child interactions. 50 caregivers were asked to talk to their child (2-4 years) about a set of toys either known or unknown to the child, and either present or absent from the interaction. In a first analysis, we included instances of iconic prosody as subjectively coded. In a second analysis, we looked at acoustic modulations for a set of seed words. In both analyses, we found that caregivers made use of iconic prosody more when talking about unknown or displaced objects, pointing to a neglected role for prosody in word learning.

Do you hear how BIG it is? Iconic Prosody in Child Directed Language Supports Language Acquisition

Domesticated animals and modern humans show a set of behavioral and molecular changes that converge on shared genetic targets. There is evidence that these changes disproportionately target neurotransmission, in particular the glutamatergic signaling system. This has led to proposals that attenuation of glutamatergic signaling may be crucial for the downregulation of the stress response in both modern humans and domesticates and the potentiation of exploratory motor output in our species. Here, we use a deep learning method (ExPecto) to predict gene expression in silico of H. sapiens-specific (relative to the closest extinct human species, Neanderthals and Denisovans) variants of genes involved in glutamatergic signaling. This approach allows us to hone hypotheses about the functional implications of genetic changes in our species' recent evolution, including proposals as to the neurobiological substrates of H. sapiens so called 'self-domestication hypothesis'.

Gene expression under human self-domestication: an in silico exploration of modern human high-frequency variants

Social factors, such as partner familiarity (e.g., talking to a friend vs. stranger) may affect some conversations but not others. While researchers do not always control the partner identity when conducting interactive studies, the current empirical report of a language production experiment conducted via Zoom presents effects of partner familiarity (friends vs. strangers) on the form and content of referring expressions in the mundane task of describing everyday objects. First, speakers interacting with a friend were less disfluent than speakers interacting with a stranger, showing that more effort is invested in interactions with strangers. Second, speakers interacting with a friend showed more sensitivity to prior context. Surprisingly, these effects reveal that speakers are sensitive to the partner identity even when describing everyday objects whose labels are shared across all language users. The current findings suggest that researchers should consider social factors as part of the experimental design of interactive tasks.

The identity of the partner matters even when naming everyday objects

Is numerosity an abstraction that arises downstream of basic perceptual processing, or does the brain process numerosity like a primary perceptual feature such as color or motion? Here, we tested whether visual cortex computes number automatically, even when number is task-irrelevant and is being processed unconsciously. We recorded electroencephalography while subjects watched dotcloud stimuli that alternated in numerical content at 15 Hz, under one of three conditions: judging numerosity, judging convex hull, or making no judgments. Under all three conditions, we observed oscillatory activity at 15 Hz in early visual cortex. The strength of this signal depended on the numerical content of the stimuli in all three conditions and did not differ significantly across the conditions. Results show that number can be computed spontaneously by visual cortex, even when participants are attending to non-numerical information, consistent with the proposal that number is a primary perceptual attribute of visual stimuli.

The human visual system spontaneously computes approximate number

How related is skin to a quilt or door to worry? Here, we show that linguistic experience strongly informs people’s judgments of such word pairs. We asked Chinese-speakers, English-speakers, and Chinese-English bilinguals to rate semantic and visual similarity between pairs of Chinese words and of their English translation equivalents. Some pairs were unrelated, others were also unrelated but shared a radical (e.g., “expert” and “dolphin” share the radical meaning “pig”), others also shared a radical which invokes a metaphorical relationship. For example, a quilt covers the body like skin; understand, with a sun radical, invokes understanding as illumination. Importantly, the shared radicals are not part of the pronounced word form. Chinese speakers rated word pairs with metaphorical connections as more similar than other pairs. English speakers did not even though they were sensitive to shared radicals. Chinese-English bilinguals showed sensitivity to the metaphorical connections even when tested with English words.

Metaphors Embedded in Chinese Characters Bridge Dissimilar Concepts

Recent research has proposed that adjective form (i.e., whether adjectives typically occur before or after the nouns they modify) interacts with considerations from efficient communication to determine the rate at which we use adjectives to resolve reference to objects. According to this efficiency hypothesis, languages with pre-nominal adjectives use modifying adjectives at a higher rate in an effort to aid incremental reference resolution. We test this broad typological prediction in a large-scale corpus analysis of 74 languages, finding that languages that favor pre-nominal adjectives indeed do exhibit higher rates of adjectival modification than languages that favor post-nominal adjectives.

Distributed semantics in a neural network model of human speech recognition

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Distribution of unidimensional space in the LSU time lexicon

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