March 27 and 28th, 2015

organized by Johan van Benthem and Jakub Szymanik

 

Topics:

Human capacities to act and interact are key themes in the humanities and cognitive science. Agency and communication bring together many disciplines: linguistics, philosophy, logic, and others. Many current developments meet at this interface: the cognitive turn in linguistics, the rise of game theory in semantics and pragmatics, ‘theory of mind’ and strategic interactions, and the methodological tension between symbolic (logical) and probabilistic approaches to modeling cognition. In this mix, old boundaries between the humanities and cognitive science are shifting, and a new generation of researchers is looking at many things afresh. Amsterdam has a rich tradition in the above research areas; many of them represented at the ILLC and other Humanities institutes. The workshop will highlight new interfaces between cognitive disciplines for the international community at the SMART Conference, but it will also explore its integrative potential for the Humanities in the Amsterdam milieu.

The workshop will focus on the dynamic social processes in language use that lead to the convergence of cognitive intentions and the emergence of cognitive skills. Moreover, to serve its integrative function, it also pays attention to the interplay of the two main available paradigms: logical-linguistic-computational and probabilistic.

Program

Friday, March, 27th

Location: Doelenzaal, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam.

9.30-10.00 Welcome and coffee

Session on symbolic and probabilistic explanations of cognition
chair: Jakub Szymanik

10.00-11.00 Keynote lecture: Thomas Icard (Stanford University) What does logic have to do with cognition?

11.00-11.30 Leendert van Maanen (University of Amsterdam) Accumulator models of decision-making

11.30-12.00  Ivan Titov (University of Amsterdam) Inducing Shallow Semantic Representations from Text with Little or No supervision

12.00-14.00 Lunch break

Session on social cognition
chair: Nina Gierasimczuk

14.00-15.00 Keynote lecture: Rineke Verbrugge (University of Groningen) Social cognition: The facts matter

15.00-15.30 Maartje Raijmakers (University of Amsterdam) Self-explanation to stimulate training in logical reasoning

15.30-16.00 Ulle Endriss (University of Amsterdam) Computational Models of Group Decision Making

17.00-20.00 Evening program in Zuiderkerk

Saturday, March, 28th

Location: Oude Manhuispoort, 1012 CN Amsterdam, room D009.

Session on meaning, communication and cognition
chair: Thomas Icard

9.30-10.30 Keynote lecture: Michael Franke (University of Tuebingen), Reasoning in Reference Games: Individual- vs. Population-Level Data

10.30-11.00 Coffee break

11.00-11.30 Robert van Rooij (University of Amsterdam) Cognitive constraints on pragmatic persuasion

11.30-13.30 Lunch break

Session on argumentation and cognition
chair: Jakub Szymanik

13.30-14.30 Keynote lecture: Bart Verheij (University of Groningen) Arguments, scenarios and probabilities: how to catch a thief with and without numbers

14.30-15.00 Henry Prakken (University of Utrecht) Argumentation, rational acceptance and the lottery paradox

15.00-15.30 Cristian Santibanez. (Diego Portales University) Building Niche through Argumentation

15.30-16.30 Coffee break