Natural Language Processing and Cognitive Science, Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Natural Language Processing and Cognitive Science, NLPCS 2008, In conjunction with ICEIS 2008, Barcelona, Spain, June 2008

The 5th International Workshop on "NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE" (NLPCS 2008)

12-13 June, 2008 - Barcelona _ Spain

In conjunction with the 10th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2008), http://www.iceis.org/

Co-Chairs
Bernadette Sharp, Staffordshire University, United Kingdom,
B.Sharp@staffs.ac.uk
Michael Zock, CNRS, LIF, Marseille, France, michael.zock@lif.univ-mrs.fr

BACKGROUND

Realising that no single discipline will ever suffice to reveal the functioning of the human mind, cognitive science was born. The idea was to analyse complex behaviour (speaking, thinking, problem-solving) from different angles or levels and to build models that could account for them.

GOALS

While ambitious and intriguing, the idea looked promising enough to attract numerous researchers, and there were plenty of opportunities then to present this kind of work. Alas, the situation has changed, the discipline has lost speed during the last decade. And if the reasons for this are multiple, ranging from lack of results to unkept promises (« cognitive science » remaining wishful thinking rather than a widely shared way of doing research), the fact is that funding has become more and more scarce, and so have the opportunities to present work done within this framework.

In the meantime statistical approaches have gained in popularity, and evaluation has become an obligatory feature for presentation of work in the arena of computational linguistics. While there is no doubt that evaluation has certain qualities, it does not guarantee progress or insights per se. A broader perspective is needed. To get the necessary insights and to get the big picture, we probably need to get back to the framework in which we worked in those days, which means, we should adopt and integrate multiple viewpoints, that is, take a cognitive science approach. This is the goal of this workshop.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE NEW NAME AND RELATION TO THE TOPICS

The workshop used to be called NLUCS (Natural Language Understanding and Cognitive Science), yet, realising that this is too restrictive, we decided to rename it NLPCS (Natural Language Processing and Cognitive Science), as NLP is obviously more than just natural language understanding. Information Retrieval, Information Extraction, Machine Translation, Question Answering, Text Summarization, Text Generation,etc. are all part of NLP or HLT (Human Language Technology), and they all go clearly beyond language understanding. This being so, it might be a valuable proposition to integrate them into the debate. In other words, we would like to widen the scope and provide a forum for all researchers of NLP working within the CS paradigm.

Also, while certain components (dictionaries, grammars, or ontologies)are very general, the way they are used varies considerably with the task. Hence it is important to show how the task reflects in the use of a given resource.
The goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for researchers working within the paradigm of cognitive science

TOPICS OF INTEREST INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

• Computational Models of NLP
• Cognitive and Psychological Models of NLP
• Evolutionary NLP
• Situated (embodied) NLP
• Multimodality in speech / text processing
• Text Summarization and Information Extraction
• Natural Language Interfaces and Dialogue Systems
• Computer Assisted Language Learning
• Multi-Lingual Processing
• Pragmatics and NLP
• Speech Processing
• Tools and Resources in NLP
• Ontologies
• Text Mining
• Electronic Dictionaries
• Evaluation of NLP Systems

These topics can be addressed from any of the following perspectives:
full automation by machines for machine (traditional NLP or HLT), semi-automated processing, i.e. machine-mediated processing (programs assisting people in their tasks), simulation of human cognitive process.

SUBMISSION OF PAPERS

Prospective authors are invited to submit papers for oral presentation in any of the areas listed above. Only full papers in English will be accepted, and the length of the paper should not exceed 10 pages (5000
words). Instructions for preparing the manuscript (in Word and Latex format) are available at the ICEIS web site.
http://www.iceis.org/paper_template.htm Postscript/RTF versions of the manuscript should be submitted through ICEIS web-based paper submission procedure: http://www.iceis.org/paper_submission.htm

WORKSHOP FORMAT

The workshop will comprise of invited talks and oral presentations of previously submitted papers that went through a double peer review process. The proceedings of the workshop will be published in the form of a book.

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper Submission: March 3, 2008
Author Notification: April 4, 2008
Final Camera-Ready and Registration: April 14, 2008

WHORKSHOP PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Aretoulaki, M. (Germany), Intervoice Ltd., UK
Barnden, J. (UK), Birmingham University
Cristea, D. (Romania), University "A.I.Cuza" of Iasi, Romania
Day, C. (UK) , Keele University, UK
Delmonte, R. (USA), University of Texas
Endres-Niggemeyer, B. (Germany), Fachochschule Hanover, Germany
Helmreich, S.(USA), New Mexico State University, USA
Higgins, C. A. (UK), Nottingham University
Hinrichs, E. W. (Germany), University of Tuebingen
Mladenic, D. (Slovenia), J. Stefan Institute, Slovenia
Molla, D. (Australia), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Mota, C. (Portugal), L2F (INESC-ID) & Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
Mothe, J. (France), Université de Toulouse, France
Narayanan, S. (USA), University of California, Berkeley
Nunes, M. G. (Brasil), Instituto de Ciências Matemáticas e da Computação
- USP/São Carlos, Brasil
Rayson, P. (UK), Lancaster University, UK
Ren, F. (Japan), University of Tokushima, Japan
Roche, C. (France), Université de Savoie
Russell, S. (USA), University of New Hampshire
Schwitter, R. (Australia), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Sedes, F. (France), Université de Toulouse, France
Sharp, B. (Bahrain, UK), Royal University for Women, Staffordshire
University
Sheremetyeva, S. (Denmark), LanA Consulting ApS
Soule-Dupuy, C. (France), Université de Toulouse, France
Thompson, G. (UK), Liverpool University
Tufis, D. (Romania), University "A.I.Cuza" of Iasi, Romania
Wilks, Y. (UK), Sheffield University
Windridge, P. (UK), Staffordshire University
Zock, M. (France), CNRS-LIF, Marseille

WORKSHOP LOCATION

The workshop will take place in conjunction with the 10th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2008) in Barcelona - Spain.