koglist February 2010

koglist@maillist.ttk.hu

12 participants
29 discussions

Summer School on "Beliefs and Decisions: of Minds and Machines"

by Máté Lengyel

We invite applications for the Summer School on "Beliefs and Decisions: of Minds and Machines" that will be held in Budapest, Hungary between 5-9 July 2010. http://www.summer.ceu.hu/02-courses/course-sites/beliefs/index-beliefs.php *Note extended deadline: 15 March 2010* The aim of the course is to demonstrate that some basic principles of decision making can provide a unifying framework for constructing intelligently behaving artefacts on one hand, and for explaining human and animal cognition both in simple as well as in the most complex domains of behaviour on the other hand. To achieve this, lectures will progress via domains of gradually increasing abstraction that machine learning algorithms and humans deal with starting from representing uncertainty and beliefs about unobserved quantities, through learning internal models of the environment, to making adaptive and successful decisions. The course is aimed at students, post docs, and junior faculty working in machine learning, cognitive science, neuroscience, or related fields, and especially those who are interested in a combination of these approaches. Faculty: - József Fiser, Brandeis University, Department of Psychology and the Neuroscience Program, USA - Zoubin Ghahramani, University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering, UK - Máté Lengyel, University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering, UK - Michael N. Shadlen, University of Washington, Medical School, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA - Daniel Wolpert, University of Cambridge, Department of Engineering, UK (Apologies for crossposting.)

16 years, 2 months

Meghívó - BME Kognitív Szemináriumsorozat

by Attila Keresztes

A BME Kognitív Tudományi Tanszék szeretettel vár mindenkit tanszéki szemináriumsorozatának következő előadására: Március 3., szerda, 14:00-15:00, BME, XI., Stoczek u. 2., St. ép., 320.-as terem. An Information Theoretic Approach to the Processing of Inflectional Paradigms and Classes Petar Milin Department of Psychology, University of Novi Sad Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, University of Belgrade Bővebb info itt Attila Keresztes Junior research fellow Budapest University of Technology and Economics Dept. of Cognitive Science, Stoczek u. 2., Budapest 1111, Hungary +36 1 4631072 akeresztes(a)cogsci.bme.hu

16 years, 2 months

invitation to a talk ON GALEN’S THEORY OF VISION, 23 February,4.30 PM

by Krisztina Biber

The CEU Philosophy Department and The Center for Hellenic Traditions cordially invite you to a talk (as part of the Philosophy Department’s Colloquium series) by Katerina Ierodiakonou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens ) on ON GALEN’S THEORY OF VISION Tuesday, 23 February 2010, 4.30 PM, Zrinyi 14, Room 412 ABSTRACT The standard interpretation of Galen’s general philosophical stance presents him as an eclectic, that is to say as a philosopher who does not commit himself to the entirety of the doctrines of a particular philosophical school, but selects from different theories different elements which seem fitting to him and which he combines in such a way as to produce a coherent system. Galen’s theory of vision confirms, I think, such an overall account of his philosophical position, for there is no indication in the Galenic corpus which could suggest that Galen is a devoted adherent of one or another of the various theories of vision presented in antiquity by his predecessors. Thus, my aim in this paper is simply to focus on how Galen interacts with the previous philosophical tradition when it comes to his understanding of how we see. I hope to show that Galen refuses to blindly follow the views of a particular philosophical school, but collects elements from the Platonic, the Aristotelian and the Stoic model in order to form his own eclectic theory. Indeed, it is quite intriguing to study the amalgam which Galen himself produces for two reasons: (a) in order to understand why he selects the specific elements which he does from the previous theories of vision; and (b) in order to investigate whether the theory of vision that he finally comes up with is actually coherent or not. Kriszta Biber Department Coordinator Philosophy Department Tel: 36-1-327-3806 Fax: 36-1-327-3072 E-mail: biberk(a)ceu.hu

16 years, 2 months

Four more CEU CDC seminars

by Gergely Csibra

Upcoming seminars at the Cognitive Development Center of CEU: --------------------------------------------- Water Schroyens (Psychology, Gent & Leuven) at 10.00am on Monday, 1 March 2010 Title: Meaning and idealization in reasoning towards an interpretation of conditionals: Is there a singular specific meaning or are there a multitude of ephemeral interpretations of natural language connectives, or both? Abstract: The paper investigates the thesis that while the pragmatics of content and context can yield many interpretations, there is an idealized core- meaning for sentential connectives: People do not reason from this core meaning, but can reason towards a corresponding interpretation, i.e., the conditional interpretation akin to the much dis-reputed material implication of classic logic. In reasoning towards this conditional-interpretation of “if A then C”, the utterances are interpreted as meaning that all possibilities except the “A and not-c” contingency are possible. In idealizing towards the conditional interpretation as the core meaning 'if', theorists abstract, simplify and generalize across conditions. Six experiments show that when the context is idealized by taking account of cognitive processing hurdles and auxiliary hypothesis in the mental-models theory of reasoning (e.g., people tend not to throw away semantic information, they start reasoning on the basis of a minimal representation, they are sensitive to the principles of parsimony in positing theoretical entities, … ) people are more likely to reason towards a conditional interpretation. That is, the context induces people to reason towards a more idealized interpretation (which must not be an ideal interpretation). A series of developmental studies additionally indicates that with age (i.e., experience and education) people are more likely to reason towards the conditional interpretation and two individual-differences studies show that people higher in general ability are similarly more likely to reason towards the conditional interpretation. --------------------------------------------- Patrick Shafto (Psychology, Lousville) at 10.00am on Tuesday, 2 March 2010 Title: Computational modeling of pedagogical reasoning Abstract: Much of human learning goes on in social situations. Among these situations, pedagogical situations stand out as potentially the most important. In pedagogical situations, a person (a teacher) chooses data for the purpose of helping another person learn a concept. I will present a computational model of pedagogical data sampling, which formalizes the problem as complementary inferences on the parts of both the teacher and learner. I will present a series of experiments that test the model's predictions about reasoning with adults and children. I will conclude by sketching a larger picture, in which pedagogical sampling is a special case of reasoning about intentionally sampled data, and outline directions of future research in this context. --------------------------------------------- Afra Alishahi (Computational Linguistics, Saarland University) at 16.30pm on Wednesday, 3 March 2010 Title: Modeling different aspects of child language acquisition as a probabilistic process Abstract: I will first present a probabilistic model of word learning by children. A major source of disagreement among the different theories of word learning is whether children are equipped with special mechanisms and biases for word learning, or their general cognitive abilities are adequate for the task. I present a novel computational model of early word learning which learns word meanings as probabilistic associations between words and semantic elements, using an incremental learning mechanism, and drawing only on general cognitive abilities. The computational simulations of the model demonstrate that much about word meanings can be learned from naturally-occurring child-directed utterances (paired with meaning representations), without using any special biases or constraints, and without any explicit developmental changes in the underlying learning mechanism. Furthermore, our model provides explanations for the occasionally contradictory child experimental data, and offers predictions for the behaviour of young word learners in novel situations. Children use their knowledge of word meanings in order to learn the structural properties of the language. I will also present a probabilistic usage-based model of verb argument structure acquisition that can successfully learn abstract knowledge of language from instances of verb usage, and use this knowledge in various language tasks. The model further demonstrates the feasibility of a usage-based account of language learning, and provides concrete explanation for the observed patterns in child language acquisition. --------------------------------------------- József Fiser (Psychology, Brandeis) at 16.30pm on Monday, 8 March 2010 Title: Developing internal representations in the mind to understand the visual world Abstract: Arguably, the mind's internal representations of its environment have a crucial role in the emergence of intelligent behavior, yet there are few concrete proposals about the nature of these internal representations or the way they are acquired. Using the domain of visual recognition, I will present a framework and a combined empirical-computational program that explore these issues. First, I will demonstrate that in everyday perceptual tasks humans process not only the sensory information but also their uncertainty about that information, and they do this in a theoretically optimal manner. As such behavior assumes a probabilistic internal representation of the world, I present evidence that indeed, adults and infants develop such representations when they face a novel visual environment. I will show how this framework can cover not only low-level statistical regularities of events and features, but also more complex abstract “rules” of the sensory world, as well as internal models of higher cognitive functions. Next, I turn to the issue of whether the implementation of such representations and computations is feasible in the brain. I will outline how probabilistic internal representations could be implemented in the cortex in a sampling-based manner, and how this can explain a wide range of puzzling observations such as illusions and dreams, as well as the high level of spontaneous activity in the brain. I provide confirmation of this framework by demonstrating that as young animals grow, the visually evoked and spontaneous activity in their brains becomes statistically similar, indicating how their internal model gets tuned to the structure of their environment. Thus this framework offers a rigorous approach to the age-old question of subjectivity and it provides tools for exploring empirically the structure of internal representations in the mind. --------------------------------------------- Venue: CEU Cognitive Development Center Hattyuhaz 1015 Budapest Hattyu u 14. Level 3 (one level up from the entrance level) Everyone is welcome to attend.

16 years, 2 months

Emlékeztető - BME kognitív szeminárium hétfőn

by Attila Keresztes

A BME Kognitív Tudományi Tanszék szeretettel vár mindenkit tanszéki szemináriumsorozatának következő előadására: Február 22., hétfő, 12:00-13:00, BME, XI., Stoczek u. 2., St. ép., 320.-as terem. How to compare apples and oranges: Controlling visual salience in infant studies Káldy Zsuzsa Associate Professor UMass Boston Bővebb info itt Attila Keresztes Junior research fellow Budapest University of Technology and Economics Dept. of Cognitive Science, Stoczek u. 2., Budapest 1111, Hungary +36 1 4631072 akeresztes(a)cogsci.bme.hu

16 years, 2 months

MAKOG XVI. , TANULMÁNYKÖTET

by Lehel Simon

Tisztelt Érdeklődők, Megjelent a XVI. MAKOG tanulmánykötete (L'Harmattan és Tan Kapuja Buddhista Főiskola Kelet - Nyugat Kutatóintézet Kiadása, Bp., 2009) "Szubjektív Tudás - Objektív Tudomány" címmel. SZERKESZTETTE: Csörgő Zoltán és Szabados Levente TANULMÁNYSZERZŐK: Paksi Dániel, Limbay Róbert, Deczki Sarolta,Bodor Péter,Illés Anikó, Levendel Sára,Végh József,Porosz Tibor, Szekeres András Márk,Simon Lehel - Czibere András - Szilágyi Levente, Lehmann Miklós,Zemplén Gábor, Kutrovátz Gábor,Mund Katalin,Turcsány Borbála- Kubinyi Enikő - Miklósi Ádám, Bodor Péter - Végh Viola Megvásárolható a L'Harmattan Könyvesboltban:1053 Budapest, Kossuth Lajos utca 14-16. (1)2675979 A Tan Kapuja Buddhista Főiskola április elején tervez egy könyvbemutatóval egybekötött minikonferenciát, erről időben tájékoztatnak. Simon Lehel

16 years, 2 months

Theoretical Philosophy Forum, Martina Fuerst

by Laszlo E. Szabo

THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY FORUM Institute of Philosophy Faculty of Humanities, Eotvos University Wednesday 5:00 PM Room 226 Muzeum krt. 4/i, Budapest Web site: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf 22 February (Monday!!!) 4:30 PM Room 226 (Please note the unusual day and time!) Martina Fuerst Department of Philosophy, University of Graz The Phenomenal Concept Strategy as Response to the Knowledge Argument Abstract: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf/2009-2010/February/#4 ___________________________________ The Forum is open to everyone, including students, visitors, and faculty members from all departments and institutes! Format: 60 minute lecture, 10 minute coffee break, followed by a 30-60 minute discussion. The language of presentation is English or Hungarian. A printable poster is available from here: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf/2009-2010/February/poster.pdf Please feel free to post it in your institution! The organizer of the Forum: Laszlo E. Szabo (leszabo(a)phil.elte.hu) -- Laszlo E. Szabo professor of philosophy DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC, INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY EOTVOS UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo

16 years, 2 months

CEU CDC seminar: Andras Lorincz, 25 Feb

by Gergely Csibra

Correction: the seminar will start at 4pm. ---- Upcoming seminar at the CEU Cognitive Development Center: A talk by Andras Lorincz (Informatics, ELTE) at 4.00pm on Thursday, 25 February 2010 Title: Goal Oriented Intelligence: A Workable Hypothesis? Abstract: In cognitive science, one starts from the assumption that cognitive functions are, or at least can be modeled by computations. Then, we need a pragmatic definition for intelligence that lends itself into a workable algorithm. We start from the hypothesis that basically all facets of intelligence are related to goal oriented behavior. Goal oriented behavior, however, can be the result of evolution and may not be intelligent per se. On the other hand, intelligence can manifest itself through communication. We consider problem types of different complexities and (i) establish the category of problems that are worth to communicate, (ii) give a definition for intelligence based on this special category, and (iii) identify another computational problem type, which is necessary for communication and which is highly problematic for present day machine learning algorithms. Communication requires agreements about symbol meaning associations. We show that such agreements are very hard without a mind model, where mind simply means a predictive model of the communicating partner and partial access (observation) to her actual internal rewards (emotions). We will present two examples to illustrate matters. Our project called “Innovation Engine in BlogSpace” intends to develop information seeking conversational agents that could interfere with people in BlogSpace. The other example is about “Testing and communicating with severely handicapped, non-speaking, but speech understanding children”, where the goal is to estimate the zone of proximal development and to optimize training materials. Very recent results on collaborative filtering made recommendation systems highly efficient provided that databases are available. Collection of the data without endangering privacy has become feasible. Venue: CEU Cognitive Development Center Hattyuhaz 1015 Budapest Hattyu u 14. Level 3 (one level up from the entrance level) Everyone is welcome to attend.

16 years, 2 months

Theoretical Philosophy Forum, March

by Laszlo E. Szabo

THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY FORUM Institute of Philosophy Faculty of Humanities, Eotvos University Wednesday 5:00 PM Room 226 Muzeum krt. 4/i, Budapest Web site: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf March Program 3 March (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226 Marton Gomori (speaker) and Laszlo E. Szabo Department of Logic, Institute of Philosophy Eotvos University, Budapest Mit is allit pontosan a relativitas elve? (What exactly does the relativity principle state?) Abstract: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf/2009-2010/March/#1 10 March (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226 Alexander V. Tyaglo Department of Philosophy and Political Science National University of Internal Affairs, Kharkiv Is informal logic a manifestation of new logical and philosophical paradigm? Abstract: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf/2009-2010/March/#2 17 March (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226 Szilvia Rati Department of Logic, Institute of Philosophy Eotvos University, Budapest A genek es az a priori (Genes and the a priori) Abstract: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf/2009-2010/March/#3 24 March (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226 Adam Majdanyi Institute of Philosophy Eotvos University, Budapest A fenomenalis tudatossag intencionalista magyarazatanak vedelme (In defence of an intentionalist theory of consciousness) Abstract: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf/2009-2010/March/#4 ___________________________________ The Forum is open to everyone, including students, visitors, and faculty members from all departments and institutes! Format: 60 minute lecture, 10 minute coffee break, followed by a 30-60 minute discussion. The language of presentation is English or Hungarian. A printable poster is available from here: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf/2009-2010/March/poster.pdf Please feel free to post it in your institution! The organizer of the Forum: Laszlo E. Szabo (leszabo(a)phil.elte.hu) -- L a s z l o E. S z a b o Professor of Philosophy DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC, INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY EOTVOS UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo

16 years, 2 months

CEU CDC seminar: Andras Lorincz, 25 Feb

by Gergely Csibra

Upcoming seminar at the CEU Cognitive Development Center: A talk by Andras Lorincz (Informatics, ELTE) on Thursday, 25 February 2010 Title: Goal Oriented Intelligence: A Workable Hypothesis? Abstract: In cognitive science, one starts from the assumption that cognitive functions are, or at least can be modeled by computations. Then, we need a pragmatic definition for intelligence that lends itself into a workable algorithm. We start from the hypothesis that basically all facets of intelligence are related to goal oriented behavior. Goal oriented behavior, however, can be the result of evolution and may not be intelligent per se. On the other hand, intelligence can manifest itself through communication. We consider problem types of different complexities and (i) establish the category of problems that are worth to communicate, (ii) give a definition for intelligence based on this special category, and (iii) identify another computational problem type, which is necessary for communication and which is highly problematic for present day machine learning algorithms. Communication requires agreements about symbol meaning associations. We show that such agreements are very hard without a mind model, where mind simply means a predictive model of the communicating partner and partial access (observation) to her actual internal rewards (emotions). We will present two examples to illustrate matters. Our project called “Innovation Engine in BlogSpace” intends to develop information seeking conversational agents that could interfere with people in BlogSpace. The other example is about “Testing and communicating with severely handicapped, non-speaking, but speech understanding children”, where the goal is to estimate the zone of proximal development and to optimize training materials. Very recent results on collaborative filtering made recommendation systems highly efficient provided that databases are available. Collection of the data without endangering privacy has become feasible. Venue: CEU Cognitive Development Center Hattyuhaz 1015 Budapest Hattyu u 14. Level 3 (one level up from the entrance level) Everyone is welcome to attend.

16 years, 2 months

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koglist February 2010