rapaport@sunybcs.UUCP (William J. Rapaport) (11/25/86)
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.
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GRADUATE GROUP IN VISION
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO
Buffalo, NY 14260
Malcolm Slaughter
Department of Biophysics
Director, 1986-1987
It is becoming increasingly important for vision researchers in diverse
fields to interact, and the SUNY Buffalo Graduate Group in Vision has
been formed to facilitate that interaction. Current membership includes
25 faculty and 25 students from 10 departments (Computer Science,
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Geography,
Psychology, Biophysics, Physiology, Biochemistry, Philosophy, and Media
Studies). The Group organizes a colloquium series and provides central-
ized information about activities both on campus and in the local area
that are of interest to vision researchers.
The Vision Group received formal recognition and funding in April
1986. The 1986-87 activities include: biweekly meetings to discuss the
current research being performed in one of the 20 vision laboratories
represented in the group; an upper division undergraduate/lower-level-
graduate course, which serves as an introduction to interdisciplinary
research in vision; and a colloquium series. This year's speakers
include Jerry Feldman (Computer Science, Rochester), Peter Shiller
(Psychology, MIT), Bela Julesz (Psychology, Bell Labs/Murray Hill),
Tomaso Poggio (AI, MIT; tentative), and Ed Pugh (Biophysics, Pennsyl-
vania; tentative).
William J. Rapaport
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Computer Science, SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260
(716) 636-3193, 3180
uucp:
.!{allegra,boulder,decvax,mit-ems,nike,rocksanne,sbcs,watmath}!sunybcs!rapaport
csnet: rapaport@buffalo.csnet
bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet