Formal Models of Human Sentence Processing: Techniques and Tools

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In what ways are human language and formal, computer-based languages similar? In what ways are they different? How can understanding of human languages lead to more effective computer languages and how can the explicit formalization offered by computer languages be used to increase understanding of how humans use language? These questions are central to efforts to understand language as a cognitive activity, an activity that plays a critical role in communicating, transforming, storing and retrieving information. With NSF funding, language researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will bring together the world's leading researchers to address these basic questions in a special sentence of the 21st Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in March 2008. In this special session, the latest developments in formal models of language processing, using techniques developed in computer science, neural network research and statistics will be applied to human language use. In addition, the special session will address how the sharing of formal tools (e.g., model simulations, datasets, and statistical procedures) could have a transformative effect on the study of human sentence processing by facilitating wider use of formal methods and by providing a way in which this research community could more effectively exploit advances in modeling and statistical analysis that have been developed in other scientific domains.The Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing is the most prominent meeting of high-level language-processing researchers in the world. In addition to directly supporting the special session on formal models, NSF funding will help support the participation of beginning investigators, including starting faculty, post-doctoral researchers and graduate students, and so will facilitate entry of new generations of researchers into the language sciences.