[mod.ai] Cognitive Science at SUNY Buffalo

rapaport@buffalo.CSNET ("William J. Rapaport") (11/21/86)

                  GRADUATE GROUP IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE

                STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO

                           Buffalo, NY 14260

            Gail A. Bruder             William J. Rapaport
       Department of Psychology   Department of Computer Science
				     rapaport@buffalo.csnet

                        Co-Directors, 1986-1987

Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary effort intended to investigate
the  nature  of  the  human  mind.  This effort requires the theoretical
approaches offered by computer science, linguistics, mathematics, philo-
sophy,  psychology,  and  a  host  of  other  fields related by a mutual
interest in intelligent behavior.

     The Graduate Group in Cognitive Science was  formed  to  facilitate
cognitive science research at SUNY Buffalo.  Its activities have focused
upon language-related issues and knowledge  representation.   These  two
areas are important to the development of cognitive science and are well
represented at SUNY Buffalo by the research  interests  of  faculty  and
graduate students in the group.

     Since its formal recognition in April 1981, the Graduate Group  has
grown quickly.  Currently, its membership of over 150 faculty and gradu-
ate students is drawn from the Departments of Computer Science; Psychol-
ogy;  Linguistics;  Communicative  Disorders  and  Sciences; Philosophy;
Instruction; Communication; Counseling and Educational Psychology;  Edu-
cational Organization, Administration, and Policy Studies; the Intensive
English Language Institute; Geography; and  Industrial  Engineering;  as
well  as  other area colleges and universities.  The Group sponsors lec-
tures and informal discussions with visiting scholars; discussion groups
focused  on Group members' current research; an interdisciplinary, team-
taught, graduate course, "Introduction to Cognitive Science"; a graduate
seminar  on  current  topics and issues in language understanding; and a
Cognitive Science Library.

                             1985 COLLOQUIA

Our colloquium speakers during 1985 included Andrew Ortony  (Psychology,
Illinois),  David  Waltz  (Computer Science, Brandeis), Alice ter Meulen
(Linguistics, Washington), Joan Bybee (Linguistics, SUNY Buffalo), Livia
Polanyi  (AI,  BBN), Joan Bresnan (Linguistics, Stanford), Leonard Talmy
(Linguistics, Berkeley), Judith Johnston (Communicative Disorders, Indi-
ana),  Richard  Weist  (Psychology, SUNY Fredonia), and Benjamin Kuipers
(AI, Texas).

                            RESEARCH PROJECT

A research subgroup of  the  Graduate  Group  in  Cognitive  Science  is
actively  engaged in an interdisciplinary research project investigating
narrative comprehension, specifically the role of  a  "deictic  center".
Grant  proposals, conference papers, publications, and several disserta-
tion proposals have come from this collaborative  effort.   A  technical
report  describing this project--Bruder et al., "Deictic Centers in Nar-
rative:  An Interdisciplinary Cognitive-Science Project,"  SUNY  Buffalo
Department  of Computer Science Technical Report No. 86-20--is available
from William J. Rapaport, at the above address.

     Specifically, we are developing a  model  of  a  cognitive  agent's
comprehension of narrative text.  Our model will be tested on a computer
system that will represent the agent's beliefs about the objects,  rela-
tions,  and events in narrative as a function of the form and content of
the successive sentences encountered.  In particular, we are concentrat-
ing  on  the  role of spatial, temporal, and focal-character information
for the cognitive agent's comprehension.

     We propose to test the hypothesis that the construction and modifi-
cation  of a deictic center is of crucial importance for much comprehen-
sion of narrative.  We see the deictic center as the locus in conceptual
space-time  of  the objects and events depicted or described by the sen-
tences currently being perceived.  At any point in  the  narrative,  the
cognitive  agent's  attention  is  focused on particular characters (and
other objects) standing in particular spatial and temporal relations  to
each  other.  Moreover, the agent "looks" at the narrative from the per-
spective of a particular character, spatial location, or temporal  loca-
tion.  Thus, the deictic center consists of a WHERE-point, a WHEN-point,
and a WHO-point.  In addition, reference to  characters'  beliefs,  per-
sonalities, etc., are also constrained by the deictic center.

     We plan to develop a computer system that will "read"  a  narrative
and  answer  questions  about  the  deictic information in the text.  To
achieve this goal, we intend to carry out a group of projects that  will
allow  us  to  discover  the linguistic devices in narrative texts, test
their psychological reality for normal and abnormal  comprehenders,  and
analyze  psychological  mechanisms that underlie them.  Once we have the
results of the individual projects, we will integrate them and  work  to
build a unified theory and representational system that incorporates the
significant findings.  Finally, we will test the  system  for  coherence
and accuracy in modeling a human reader, and modify it as necessary.

			      COURSEWORK

The Graduate Group in  Cognitive  Science  provides  students  with  the
opportunity  for training and research in Cognitive Science at the Ph.D.
level.  Students must be residents in a host  department  (Communicative
Disorders  and  Sciences,  Computer  Science,  Linguistics,  Philosophy,
Psychology), whose requirements must be fulfilled (but which can include
coursework  in  the  other Cognitive Science disciplines), and must meet
certain additional requirements:  enrollment  in  the  graduate  course,
Introduction  to  Cognitive  Science; and the completion of a "Focus" in
one other participating department.  Further details are available  from
the Co-Directors of the Group.

     The Graduate Group faculty also encourages outstanding  undergradu-
ates to develop an interest in Cognitive Science.  Qualified undergradu-
ates may request admission to the graduate course (Introduction to  Cog-
nitive  Science)  and  can design a major in Cognitive Science under the
Special Majors program at SUNY Buffalo.