Representation of Structure in Vision and Language

NOTE: the Spring 2002 course is HERE

Instructor: Shimon Edelman (se37@cornell.edu)

Time: Thursday 4:45-6:30P
Place: Uris Hall, G88

Requirements for credit:

1. Presentation of a topic chosen from the list provided below (more than one person may present in a given week);
2. Participation in discussions;
3. A term paper (~ 2000-3000 words).

Weeks for which the speaker has been determined are marked below in bold; weeks that are still open are marked in italics.

Schedule: 

week 1	1/25	Introduction and motivation	Shimon Edelman	.
Theme I	w.2	Psychological findings on the vision/language interface	.
week 2	2/3	Analogical representation and language structure. Optic aphasia: a process of interaction between vision and language. The language-to-object perception interface: evidence from neuropsychology.	Mark Andrews	.
Theme II	w.3-6	Linguistic representation of visual space	.
week 3	2/10	How language structures space.  A spatial representation system in humans.	Jon Slemmer	.
week 4	2/17	no seminar	.	.
week 5	2/24	On beyond zebra: the relation of linguistic and visual information. ``What'' and ``where'' in spatial language and spatial cognition.	Daniel Richardson	.
week 6	3/2	Multiple geometric representations of objects in languages and language learners.	Shimon Edelman	.
Theme III	w.7-10	Iconicity and related issues	.
week 7	3/9	no seminar [L. Barsalou's colloquium: Perceptual symbol systems, Friday, 3/10]	.	.
week 8	3/16	Iconicity, isomorphism and non-arbitrary coding in syntax. Metaphor-Icon Link in Poetic Texts: A Cognitive Approach to Iconicity. Syntactic iconicity and linguistic freezes.	Irene Mittelberg	.
spring break	.. ..	...	.	.
week 9	3/30	Concept, Image, and Symbol: The Cognitive Basis of Grammar.	Daniel Richardson	.
week 10	4/6	Maps for verbs. Mapping Conceptual Representations into Linguistic Representations: The Role of Attention in Grammar.	Michael Spivey	.
Theme IV	w.11-13	Select computational approaches	.
week 11	4/13	The origins of syntax in visually grounded robotic agents.	Kevin Hamlen	.
week 12	4/20	Subsymbolic natural language processing: an integrated model of scripts, lexicon, and memory.	Mark Andrews	.
week 13	4/27	Biological constraints and the representation of structure in vision and language	Shimon Edelman	.
week 14	5/4	General discussion	all together now	.

• Multiple geometric representations of objects in languages and language learners (Landau, 1995).
• How language structures space (Talmy, 1983).
• Syntactic iconicity and linguistic freezes and ``prefabs'' (Makkai, 1995).