Computational and Robotic Models of Evolutionary Semantics

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                Joint Seminar
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The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
Human Language Technology Center
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
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Speaker:        Dr. Michael SPRANGER
                Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Tokyo
                Japan

Title:          "Computational and Robotic Models of Evolutionary
                 Semantics"

Date:           Friday, 7 March 2014

Time:           3:00pm - 4:00pm

Venue:          Lecture Theater G (near lifts 25 & 26), HKUST

Abstract:

Natural Language is evidence for the ingenious ways humans conceptualize
reality. English, for instance, provides various ways for talking about
objects using many spatial relations such as front, back, up etc.
Importantly, English allows to use these different spatial relations in
many different conceptualization strategies. For instance, spatial
relations can be used in group-based reference (adjectives), or to denote
regions (prepositional use). Another type of evidence for the complexity
of Natural language semantics comes from the analysis of cross-cultural
variation which shows that languages other than English have found
radically different ways for conceptualizing reality. E.g. Tzeltal
speakers exclusively use absolute spatial relations such as
uphill/downhill for talking about objects. These findings point to
semantics as an evolutionary system in itself with wide-ranging impact on
the evolution of language as a whole.

This talk will discuss a computational system that allows to model complex
conceptualizations underlying natural language, and enables robots to
automatically conceptualize the world. The second part of the talk details
how the system can be used to investigate the evolution of rich,
open-ended semantics similar to those found in natural language. The talk
primarily uses examples from investigations into spatial language, but
other language domains will also be discussed.


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Biography:

Michael SPRANGER received his Diploma from the Humboldt-Universitat zu
Berlin (Germany) in 2008 and a PhD from the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels
(Belgium) in 2011 (both in Computer Science). For his PhD he was a
researcher at Sony CSL Paris, France. He then worked in the R&D department
of Sony Corporation in Tokyo (Japan) for almost 2 years. He currently
holds a position in Sony Computer Science Laboratories Tokyo, Japan. He is
a roboticist by training with extensive experience in research on and
construction of autonomous systems including research on robot perception,
world modeling and behavior control. After his diploma he fell in love
with the study of language and has since worked on different language
domains from action language and posture verbs to time, tense,
determination and spatial language. His work focuses on artificial
language evolution, computational cognitive semantics and robotics.