Publications

• SLE 2019 BOOK OF ABSTRACTS     (6.52MB)

@miscellaneous{Juzek2019,
title = {Annotation quality assessment and error correction in diachronic corpora: Combining pattern-based and machine learning approaches},
author = {Tom Juzek and Stefan Fischer and Marie-Pauline Krielke and Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Elke Teich},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {52nd Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea (Book of Abstracts)},
pubstate = {published},
type = {miscellaneous}
}

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• https://benjamins.com/catalog/z.225.04deg

@inbook{Degaetano-Ortlieb2019b,
title = {Typical linguistic patterns of English history texts from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century},
author = {Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Katrin Menzel and Elke Teich},
editor = {Isabel Moskowich and Bego{\~n}a Crespo and Luis Puente-Castelo and Leida Maria Monaco},
url = {https://benjamins.com/catalog/z.225.04deg},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {Writing History in Late Modern English: Explorations of the Coru{\~n}a Corpus},
pages = {58-81},
publisher = {John Benjamins},
address = {Amsterdam},
pubstate = {published},
type = {inbook}
}

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We investigate the diachronic development of wh-relativizers in English scientific writing in the late modern period, characterized by an initially richly populated paradigm in the late 17th/early 18th century and a reduction to only a few options by the mid 19th century. To explain this reduction, we take the perspective of rational communication, according to which language users, while striving for successful communication, seek to reduce their effort. Previous work has shown that production effort is directly linked to the number of options at a given choice point (Milin et al. 2009, Linzen and Jaeger 2016). This effort is appropriately indexed by entropy: The more options with equal/similar probability, the higher the entropy, i.e. the higher the production effort. Similarly, processing effort is correlated with predictability in context – surprisal (Levy 2008). Highly predictable, conventionalized patterns are easier to produce and comprehend than less predictable ones. Assuming that language users strive for ease in communication, diachronically they are likely to (a) develop a preference for which options to use and discard others to reduce entropy, and (b) converge on how to use those options to reduce surprisal. We test this for the changing use of wh-relativizers in scientific text in the late modern period. Many scholars have investigated variation in relativizer choice in standard spoken and written varieties (e.g. Guy and Bayley 1995; Biber et al. 1999; Lehmann 2001; Hinrichs et al. 2015), in vernacular speech (e.g. Romaine 1982, Tottie and Harvie
2000; Tagliamonte 2002; Tagliamonte et al. 2005; Levey 2006), and from synchronic and diachronic perspectives (e.g. Romaine 1980; Ball 1996; Hundt et al. 2012; Nevalainen 2012, Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2002). While stylistic variability of the different options in written present day English is well known (see Biber et al. 1999; Leech et al. 2009), we know little about the diachronic development of relativizers according to register, e.g. in scientific writing. Also, most research only considers most common relativizers (e.g. which, that, zero) still in use in present day English. Here, we study a more comprehensive set of relativizers across scientific and “general language” (mix of registers) from a diachronic perspective. Possible paradigmatic change is analyzed by diachronic word embeddings (cf. Fankhauser and Kupietz 2017), allowing us to select items affected by change. Then we assess the change (reduction/expansion) of a paradigm estimating its entropy over time. To check whether changes are specific to scientific language, we compare with uses in general language. Finally, we inspect possible changes in the predictability of selected wh-relativizers involved in paradigmatic change estimating their surprisal over time, looking for traces of conventionalization (cf. Degaetano-Ortlieb and Teich 2016, 2018).

• cl2019_paper_266     (0.27MB)
• https://stefaniadegaetano.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/cl2019_paper_266.pdf

@miscellaneous{Krielke2019b,
title = {System and use of wh-relativizers in 200 years of English scientific writing},
author = {Marie-Pauline Krielke and Stefan Fischer and Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Elke Teich},
url = {https://stefaniadegaetano.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/cl2019_paper_266.pdf},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {10th International Corpus Linguistics Conference},
address = {Cardiff, Wales, UK},
abstract = {We investigate the diachronic development of wh-relativizers in English scientific writing in the late modern period, characterized by an initially richly populated paradigm in the late 17th/early 18th century and a reduction to only a few options by the mid 19th century. To explain this reduction, we take the perspective of rational communication, according to which language users, while striving for successful communication, seek to reduce their effort. Previous work has shown that production effort is directly linked to the number of options at a given choice point (Milin et al. 2009, Linzen and Jaeger 2016). This effort is appropriately indexed by entropy: The more options with equal/similar probability, the higher the entropy, i.e. the higher the production effort. Similarly, processing effort is correlated with predictability in context – surprisal (Levy 2008). Highly predictable, conventionalized patterns are easier to produce and comprehend than less predictable ones. Assuming that language users strive for ease in communication, diachronically they are likely to (a) develop a preference for which options to use and discard others to reduce entropy, and (b) converge on how to use those options to reduce surprisal. We test this for the changing use of wh-relativizers in scientific text in the late modern period. Many scholars have investigated variation in relativizer choice in standard spoken and written varieties (e.g. Guy and Bayley 1995; Biber et al. 1999; Lehmann 2001; Hinrichs et al. 2015), in vernacular speech (e.g. Romaine 1982, Tottie and Harvie 2000; Tagliamonte 2002; Tagliamonte et al. 2005; Levey 2006), and from synchronic and diachronic perspectives (e.g. Romaine 1980; Ball 1996; Hundt et al. 2012; Nevalainen 2012, Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2002). While stylistic variability of the different options in written present day English is well known (see Biber et al. 1999; Leech et al. 2009), we know little about the diachronic development of relativizers according to register, e.g. in scientific writing. Also, most research only considers most common relativizers (e.g. which, that, zero) still in use in present day English. Here, we study a more comprehensive set of relativizers across scientific and “general language” (mix of registers) from a diachronic perspective. Possible paradigmatic change is analyzed by diachronic word embeddings (cf. Fankhauser and Kupietz 2017), allowing us to select items affected by change. Then we assess the change (reduction/expansion) of a paradigm estimating its entropy over time. To check whether changes are specific to scientific language, we compare with uses in general language. Finally, we inspect possible changes in the predictability of selected wh-relativizers involved in paradigmatic change estimating their surprisal over time, looking for traces of conventionalization (cf. Degaetano-Ortlieb and Teich 2016, 2018).},
pubstate = {published},
type = {miscellaneous}
}

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Efficiency in language use and the role of predictability in context have attracted many researchers from different fields (Zipf 1949; Landau 1969; Fidelholtz 1975, Jurafsky et al. 1998; Bybee and Scheibman 1999; Genzel and Charniak 2002; Aylett and Turk 2004; Hawkins 2004; Piantadosi et al. 2009, Jaeger 2010). The analysis of reduction processes, where linguistic units are reduced/omitted has enhanced our knowledge on efficiency in communication. Possible factors affecting retention or omission of an optional element include discourse context (cf. Thompson and Mulac 1991), the amount of information a unit transmits given its context (known as surprisal, cf. Jaeger 2010) or the complexity of the syntagmatic environment (Rohdenburg 1998). So far, the role change in language use plays has been less considered.

• abstract_that-comp_final     (0.05MB)
• https://stefaniadegaetano.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/abstract_that-comp_final.pdf

@inproceedings{Degaetano-Ortlieb2019b,
title = {A diachronic perspective on efficiency in language use: that-complement clause in academic writing across 300 years},
author = {Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Marie-Pauline Krielke and Franziska Scheurer and Elke Teich},
url = {https://stefaniadegaetano.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/abstract_that-comp_final.pdf},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 10th International Corpus Linguistics Conference},
address = {Cardiff, Wales, UK},
abstract = {Efficiency in language use and the role of predictability in context have attracted many researchers from different fields (Zipf 1949; Landau 1969; Fidelholtz 1975, Jurafsky et al. 1998; Bybee and Scheibman 1999; Genzel and Charniak 2002; Aylett and Turk 2004; Hawkins 2004; Piantadosi et al. 2009, Jaeger 2010). The analysis of reduction processes, where linguistic units are reduced/omitted has enhanced our knowledge on efficiency in communication. Possible factors affecting retention or omission of an optional element include discourse context (cf. Thompson and Mulac 1991), the amount of information a unit transmits given its context (known as surprisal, cf. Jaeger 2010) or the complexity of the syntagmatic environment (Rohdenburg 1998). So far, the role change in language use plays has been less considered.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {inproceedings}
}

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We present an analysis of subregisters, whose differentiation is still a difficult task due to their hybridity reflected in conforming to a presumed “norm” and encompassing something “new”. We focus on texts at the interface between what Halliday (2002: 177) calls two opposite “cultures”, literature and science (here: science fiction texts). Texts belonging to one register will exhibit similar choices of lexico-grammatical features. Hybrid texts at the intersection between two registers will reflect a mixture of particular features (cf. Degaetano-Ortlieb et al. 2014, Biber et al. 2015, Teich et al. 2013, 2016, Underwood 2016). Consider example (1) taken from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. While traditionally grounded as a literary text, it shows a registerial nuance from the influential register of science. This encompasses phrases (bold) also found in scientific articles from that period (e.g. in the Royal Society Corpus, cf. Kermes et al. 2016), verbs related to scientific endeavor (e.g. become acquainted, examine, observe, discover), and scientific terminology (e.g. anatomy, decay, corruption, vertebrae, inflammable air) packed into complex nominal phrases (underlined). Note that features marking this registerial nuance include not only lexical but also grammatical features.

(1) I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. […] Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay. I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life. (Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, 1818/1823).

Thus, we hypothesize that hybrid registers while mainly resembling their traditional register in the use of lexico-grammatical features (H1 register resemblance), will also show particular lexico-grammatical nuances of their influential register (H2 registerial nuance). In particular, we are interested in (a) variation across registers to see which lexico-grammatical features are involved in hybridization effects and (b) intra-textual variation (e.g. across chapters) to analyze in which parts of a text hybridization effects are most prominent.

• abstact_cl2019_hybridization_final     (0.19MB)
• https://stefaniadegaetano.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/abstact_cl2019_hybridization_final.pdf

@inproceedings{Degaetano-Ortlieb2019b,
title = {Hybridization effects in literary texts},
author = {Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb},
url = {https://stefaniadegaetano.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/abstact_cl2019_hybridization_final.pdf},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 10th International Corpus Linguistics Conference},
address = {Cardiff, Wales, UK},
abstract = {We present an analysis of subregisters, whose differentiation is still a difficult task due to their hybridity reflected in conforming to a presumed “norm” and encompassing something “new”. We focus on texts at the interface between what Halliday (2002: 177) calls two opposite “cultures”, literature and science (here: science fiction texts). Texts belonging to one register will exhibit similar choices of lexico-grammatical features. Hybrid texts at the intersection between two registers will reflect a mixture of particular features (cf. Degaetano-Ortlieb et al. 2014, Biber et al. 2015, Teich et al. 2013, 2016, Underwood 2016). Consider example (1) taken from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. While traditionally grounded as a literary text, it shows a registerial nuance from the influential register of science. This encompasses phrases (bold) also found in scientific articles from that period (e.g. in the Royal Society Corpus, cf. Kermes et al. 2016), verbs related to scientific endeavor (e.g. become acquainted, examine, observe, discover), and scientific terminology (e.g. anatomy, decay, corruption, vertebrae, inflammable air) packed into complex nominal phrases (underlined). Note that features marking this registerial nuance include not only lexical but also grammatical features. (1) I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. […] Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay. I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life. (Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, 1818/1823). Thus, we hypothesize that hybrid registers while mainly resembling their traditional register in the use of lexico-grammatical features (H1 register resemblance), will also show particular lexico-grammatical nuances of their influential register (H2 registerial nuance). In particular, we are interested in (a) variation across registers to see which lexico-grammatical features are involved in hybridization effects and (b) intra-textual variation (e.g. across chapters) to analyze in which parts of a text hybridization effects are most prominent.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {inproceedings}
}

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Scholarly practices within the humanities have historically been perceived as distinct from the natural sciences. We look at literary studies, a discipline strongly anchored in the humanities, and hypothesize that over the past half-century literary studies has instead undergone a process of “scientization”, adopting linguistic behavior similar to the sciences. We test this using methods based on information theory, comparing a corpus of literary studies articles (around 63,400) with a corpus of standard English and scientific English respectively. We show evidence for “scientization” effects in literary studies, though at a more muted level than scientific English, suggesting that literary studies occupies a middle ground with respect to standard English in the larger space of academic disciplines. More generally, our methodology can be applied to investigate the social positioning and development of language use across different domains (e.g. scientific disciplines, language varieties, registers).

• scientization     (0.18MB)
• https://aclanthology.org/W19-2503
• https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W19-2503

@inproceedings{degaetano-ortlieb-piper-2019-scientization,
title = {The Scientization of Literary Study},
author = {Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Andrew Piper},
url = {https://aclanthology.org/W19-2503},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W19-2503},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 3rd Joint SIGHUM Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Cultural Heritage, Social Sciences, Humanities and Literature at NAACL 2019},
pages = {18-28},
publisher = {Association for Computational Linguistics},
address = {Minneapolis, MN, USA},
abstract = {Scholarly practices within the humanities have historically been perceived as distinct from the natural sciences. We look at literary studies, a discipline strongly anchored in the humanities, and hypothesize that over the past half-century literary studies has instead undergone a process of “scientization”, adopting linguistic behavior similar to the sciences. We test this using methods based on information theory, comparing a corpus of literary studies articles (around 63,400) with a corpus of standard English and scientific English respectively. We show evidence for “scientization” effects in literary studies, though at a more muted level than scientific English, suggesting that literary studies occupies a middle ground with respect to standard English in the larger space of academic disciplines. More generally, our methodology can be applied to investigate the social positioning and development of language use across different domains (e.g. scientific disciplines, language varieties, registers).},
pubstate = {published},
type = {inproceedings}
}

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We present a model of the linguistic development of scientific English from the mid-seventeenth to the late-nineteenth century, a period that witnessed significant political and social changes, including the evolution of modern science. There is a wealth of descriptive accounts of scientific English, both from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, but only few attempts at a unified explanation of its evolution. The explanation we offer here is a communicative one: while external pressures (specialization, diversification) push for an increase in expressivity, communicative concerns pull toward convergence on particular options (conventionalization). What emerges over time is a code which is optimized for written, specialist communication, relying on specific linguistic means to modulate information content. As we show, this is achieved by the systematic interplay between lexis and grammar. The corpora we employ are the Royal Society Corpus (RSC) and for comparative purposes, the Corpus of Late Modern English (CLMET). We build various diachronic, computational n-gram language models of these corpora and then apply formal measures of information content (here: relative entropy and surprisal) to detect the linguistic features significantly contributing to diachronic change, estimate the (changing) level of information of features and capture the time course of change.

• [16137035 - Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory] Toward an optimal code for communication The case of scientific English     (11.05MB)
• https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/cllt-2018-0088/html?lang=en
• https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2018-0088

@article{Degaetano-Ortlieb2019b,
title = {Toward an optimal code for communication: the case of scientific English},
author = {Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Elke Teich},
url = {https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/cllt-2018-0088/html?lang=en},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2018-0088},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
journal = {Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory},
pages = {1-33},
volume = {18},
number = {1},
abstract = {We present a model of the linguistic development of scientific English from the mid-seventeenth to the late-nineteenth century, a period that witnessed significant political and social changes, including the evolution of modern science. There is a wealth of descriptive accounts of scientific English, both from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, but only few attempts at a unified explanation of its evolution. The explanation we offer here is a communicative one: while external pressures (specialization, diversification) push for an increase in expressivity, communicative concerns pull toward convergence on particular options (conventionalization). What emerges over time is a code which is optimized for written, specialist communication, relying on specific linguistic means to modulate information content. As we show, this is achieved by the systematic interplay between lexis and grammar. The corpora we employ are the Royal Society Corpus (RSC) and for comparative purposes, the Corpus of Late Modern English (CLMET). We build various diachronic, computational n-gram language models of these corpora and then apply formal measures of information content (here: relative entropy and surprisal) to detect the linguistic features significantly contributing to diachronic change, estimate the (changing) level of information of features and capture the time course of change.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {article}
}

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@miscellaneous{Krielke2019,
title = {Paradigmatic change and redistribution of functional load: The case of relative clauses in scientific English},
author = {Marie-Pauline Krielke and Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Katrin Menzel and Elke Teich},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {Symposium on Corpus Approaches to Lexicogrammar (Book of Abstracts)},
address = {Edge Hill University},
pubstate = {published},
type = {miscellaneous}
}

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@inproceedings{Menzel2019b,
title = {Medical discourse across 300 years: insights from the Royal Society Corpus},
author = {Katrin Menzel and Elke Teich},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {2nd International Conference on Historical Medical Discourse (CHIMED-2)},
pubstate = {published},
type = {inproceedings}
}

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We present an information-theoretic approach to investigate diachronic change in scientific English. Our main assumption is that over time scientific English has become increasingly dense, i.e. linguistic constructions allowing dense packing of information are progressively used. So far, diachronic change in scientific writing has been investigated by means of frequency-based approaches (see e.g. Halliday (1988); Atkinson (1998); Biber (2006b, c); Biber and Gray (2016); Banks (2008); Taavitsainen and Pahta (2010)). We use information-theoretic measures (entropy, surprisal; Shannon (1949)) to assess features previously stated to change over time and to discover new, latent features from the data itself that are involved in diachronic change. For this, we use the Royal Society Corpus (rsc) (Kermes et al. (2016)), which spans over the time period 1665 to 1869. We present three kinds of analyses: nominal compounding (typical of academic writing), modal verbs (shown to have changed in frequency over time), and an analysis based on part-of-speech trigrams to detect new features that change diachronically. We show how information-theoretic measures help to investigate, evaluate and detect features involved in diachronic change.

• https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004390652/BP000014.xml
• https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004390652

@inbook{Degaetano-Ortlieb2019,
title = {An Information-Theoretic Approach to Modeling Diachronic Change in Scientific English},
author = {Stefania Degaetano-Ortlieb and Elke Teich and Ashraf Khamis and Hannah Kermes},
editor = {Carla Suhr and Terttu Nevalainen and Irma Taavitsainen},
url = {https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004390652/BP000014.xml},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004390652},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {From Data to Evidence in English Language Research},
pages = {258-281},
publisher = {Brill},
address = {Leiden},
abstract = {We present an information-theoretic approach to investigate diachronic change in scientific English. Our main assumption is that over time scientific English has become increasingly dense, i.e. linguistic constructions allowing dense packing of information are progressively used. So far, diachronic change in scientific writing has been investigated by means of frequency-based approaches (see e.g. Halliday (1988); Atkinson (1998); Biber (2006b, c); Biber and Gray (2016); Banks (2008); Taavitsainen and Pahta (2010)). We use information-theoretic measures (entropy, surprisal; Shannon (1949)) to assess features previously stated to change over time and to discover new, latent features from the data itself that are involved in diachronic change. For this, we use the Royal Society Corpus (rsc) (Kermes et al. (2016)), which spans over the time period 1665 to 1869. We present three kinds of analyses: nominal compounding (typical of academic writing), modal verbs (shown to have changed in frequency over time), and an analysis based on part-of-speech trigrams to detect new features that change diachronically. We show how information-theoretic measures help to investigate, evaluate and detect features involved in diachronic change.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {inbook}
}

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Minecraft is a videogame that offers many interesting challenges for AI systems. In this paper, we focus in construction scenarios where an agent must build a complex structure made of individual blocks. As higher-level objects are formed of lower-level objects, the construction can naturally be modelled as a hierarchical task network. We model a house-construction scenario in classical and HTN planning and compare the advantages and disadvantages of both kinds of models.

• whtn19     (0.14MB)
• https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Construction-Planning-Models-in-Minecraft-Wichlacz-Torralba/d2ffb1c4b815f1b245f248d436baf9a3c28cc148

@inproceedings{Wichlacz2019,
title = {Construction-Planning Models in Minecraft},
author = {Julia Wichlacz and {\'A}lvaro Torralba and J{\"o}rg Hoffmann},
url = {https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Construction-Planning-Models-in-Minecraft-Wichlacz-Torralba/d2ffb1c4b815f1b245f248d436baf9a3c28cc148},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Hierarchical Planning at ICAPS 2019},
pages = {1-5},
abstract = {Minecraft is a videogame that offers many interesting challenges for AI systems. In this paper, we focus in construction scenarios where an agent must build a complex structure made of individual blocks. As higher-level objects are formed of lower-level objects, the construction can naturally be modelled as a hierarchical task network. We model a house-construction scenario in classical and HTN planning and compare the advantages and disadvantages of both kinds of models.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {inproceedings}
}

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When generating technical instructions, it is often necessary to describe an object that does not exist yet. For example, an NLG system which explains how to build a house needs to generate sentences like “build a wall of height five to your left” and “now build a wall on the other side.” Generating (indefinite) referring expressions to objects that do not exist yet is fundamentally different from generating the usual definite referring expressions, because the new object must be distinguished from an infinite set of possible alternatives. We formalize this problem and present an algorithm for generating such expressions, in the context of generating building instructions within the Minecraft video game.

• https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W19-8601
• https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W19-8601

@inproceedings{Köhn2019,
title = {Talking about what is not there: Generating indefinite referring expressions in Minecraft},
author = {Arne K{\"o}hn and Alexander Koller},
url = {https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W19-8601},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W19-8601},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Natural Language Generation},
pages = {1-10},
publisher = {Association for Computational Linguistics},
address = {Tokyo, Japan},
abstract = {When generating technical instructions, it is often necessary to describe an object that does not exist yet. For example, an NLG system which explains how to build a house needs to generate sentences like “build a wall of height five to your left” and “now build a wall on the other side.” Generating (indefinite) referring expressions to objects that do not exist yet is fundamentally different from generating the usual definite referring expressions, because the new object must be distinguished from an infinite set of possible alternatives. We formalize this problem and present an algorithm for generating such expressions, in the context of generating building instructions within the Minecraft video game.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {inproceedings}
}

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Learning is most effective when new information can be related to a preexisting knowledge structure or schema. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the temporal dynamics of the processes by which activated schemata support the encoding of schema-congruent information. Participants learned category exemplar words that were either semantically congruent or incongruent with a preceding category cue phrase. Congruent words were composed of expected (high typicality, HT) and unexpected (low typicality, LT) category exemplars. On the next day, recognition memory for the exemplars and the category cues they were presented with was tested. Semantically related lures were used in order to ascertain that memory judgements were based on episodic memory for specific category exemplars. Generally, congruent (HT and LT) exemplars were remembered better than incongruent exemplars. ERPs recorded during the encoding of the exemplar words were compared for subsequently remembered and forgotten items. Subsequent memory effects (SME) emerged in the N400 time window at frontal electrodes and did not differ between congruent and incongruent exemplars. In the same epoch, an SME with a parietal distribution was specific for congruent exemplars, suggesting that activated schemata strengthened memory for congruent exemplars by supporting the encoding of item-specific details. Subsequently remembered LT exemplars were associated with a late frontal positivity that is assumed to reflect expectancy mismatch-related processing such as the contextual integration of an unexpected word by the suppression of strongly expected words. A correlation analysis revealed that the greater the involvement of the processes reflected by the frontal positivity, the lower the level of false positive memory responses in the test phase one day later. These results suggest that the contextual integration of schema-congruent but unexpected events involves a weakening of the representations of semantically related, but unstudied items in memory and by this benefits subsequent memory.

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393219301228?via%3Dihub
• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.05.013

@article{Höltje2019,
title = {The congruent, the incongruent, and the unexpected: Event-related potentials unveil the processes involved in schematic encoding},
author = {Gerrit H{\"o}ltje and Bente Lubahn and Axel Mecklinger},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393219301228?via%3Dihub},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.05.013},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
journal = {Neuropsychologia},
pages = {285-293},
volume = {131},
abstract = {Learning is most effective when new information can be related to a preexisting knowledge structure or schema. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate the temporal dynamics of the processes by which activated schemata support the encoding of schema-congruent information. Participants learned category exemplar words that were either semantically congruent or incongruent with a preceding category cue phrase. Congruent words were composed of expected (high typicality, HT) and unexpected (low typicality, LT) category exemplars. On the next day, recognition memory for the exemplars and the category cues they were presented with was tested. Semantically related lures were used in order to ascertain that memory judgements were based on episodic memory for specific category exemplars. Generally, congruent (HT and LT) exemplars were remembered better than incongruent exemplars. ERPs recorded during the encoding of the exemplar words were compared for subsequently remembered and forgotten items. Subsequent memory effects (SME) emerged in the N400 time window at frontal electrodes and did not differ between congruent and incongruent exemplars. In the same epoch, an SME with a parietal distribution was specific for congruent exemplars, suggesting that activated schemata strengthened memory for congruent exemplars by supporting the encoding of item-specific details. Subsequently remembered LT exemplars were associated with a late frontal positivity that is assumed to reflect expectancy mismatch-related processing such as the contextual integration of an unexpected word by the suppression of strongly expected words. A correlation analysis revealed that the greater the involvement of the processes reflected by the frontal positivity, the lower the level of false positive memory responses in the test phase one day later. These results suggest that the contextual integration of schema-congruent but unexpected events involves a weakening of the representations of semantically related, but unstudied items in memory and by this benefits subsequent memory.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {article}
}

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A word’s predictability or surprisal in linguistic context, as determined by cloze probabilities or languagemodels (e.g. Frank, 2013a) is related to processing effort, in that less expected words take more effort to process (e.g. Hale, 2001). This shows how, in purely linguistic contexts, rational approaches have been proven valid to predict and formalise results from language processing studies. However, the surprisal (or predictability) of a word may also be influenced by extra-linguistic factors, such as visual context information, as given in situated language processing. While, in the case of linguistic contexts, it is known that the incrementally processed information affects the mental model (e.g. Zwaan and Radvansky, 1998) at each word in a probabilistic way, no such observations have been made so far in the case of visual context information. Although it has been shown that in the visual world paradigm (VWP), anticipatory eye movements suggest that listeners exploit the scene to predict what will be mentioned next (Altmann and Kamide, 1999), it is so far unclear how visual information actually affects expectations for and processing effort of target words. If visual context effects on word processing effort can be observed, we hypothesise that rational concepts can be extended in order to formalise these effects, hereby making them statistically accessible for language models. In a line of experiments, I hence observe how visual information – which is inherently different from linguistic context, for instance in its non-incremental-at once-accessibility– affects target words. Our findings are a clear and robust demonstration that the non-linguistic context can immediately influence both lexical expectations, and surprisal-based processing effort as assessed by two different on-line measures of effort (a pupillary and an EEG one). Finally, I use surprisal to formalise the measured results and propose an extended formula to take visual information into account.

• http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:291--ds-284518
• https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-28451

@phdthesis{Ankener_diss_2019,
title = {The influence of visual information on word predictability and processing effort},
author = {Christine Ankener},
url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:291--ds-284518},
doi = {https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-28451},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
school = {Saarland University},
address = {Saarbruecken, Germany},
abstract = {A word’s predictability or surprisal in linguistic context, as determined by cloze probabilities or languagemodels (e.g. Frank, 2013a) is related to processing effort, in that less expected words take more effort to process (e.g. Hale, 2001). This shows how, in purely linguistic contexts, rational approaches have been proven valid to predict and formalise results from language processing studies. However, the surprisal (or predictability) of a word may also be influenced by extra-linguistic factors, such as visual context information, as given in situated language processing. While, in the case of linguistic contexts, it is known that the incrementally processed information affects the mental model (e.g. Zwaan and Radvansky, 1998) at each word in a probabilistic way, no such observations have been made so far in the case of visual context information. Although it has been shown that in the visual world paradigm (VWP), anticipatory eye movements suggest that listeners exploit the scene to predict what will be mentioned next (Altmann and Kamide, 1999), it is so far unclear how visual information actually affects expectations for and processing effort of target words. If visual context effects on word processing effort can be observed, we hypothesise that rational concepts can be extended in order to formalise these effects, hereby making them statistically accessible for language models. In a line of experiments, I hence observe how visual information – which is inherently different from linguistic context, for instance in its non-incremental-at once-accessibility– affects target words. Our findings are a clear and robust demonstration that the non-linguistic context can immediately influence both lexical expectations, and surprisal-based processing effort as assessed by two different on-line measures of effort (a pupillary and an EEG one). Finally, I use surprisal to formalise the measured results and propose an extended formula to take visual information into account.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {phdthesis}
}

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Questions under Discussion (QUDs) have been suggested to influence the integration of individual utterances into a discourse-level representation. Previous work has shown that processing ungrammatical ellipses is facilitated when the elided material addresses an implicit QUD raised through a nonactuality implicature (NAIs). It is not clear, however, if QUDs influence discourse coherence during comprehension of fully acceptable discourse. We present two ERP studies examining the effects of QUDs introduced by NAIs using two-sentence discourses. Experiment 1 showed that processing definite NPs with inaccessible antecedents is facilitated when their content is relevant to the QUD. Using acceptable discourses, Experiment 2 showed that definite NPs failing to address a QUD elicit increased processing cost. Overall, our results indicate that QUDs raise the expectation that the following discourse will address them, providing unambiguous evidence that their influence is not limited to the processing of ungrammatical input.

• https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2019.1575140
• https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2019.1575140

@article{Delogu2019b,
title = {Discourse Expectations Are Sensitive to the Question Under Discussion: Evidence From ERPs},
author = {Francesca Delogu and Torsten Jachmann and Maria Staudte and Francesco Vespignani and Nicola Molinaro},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2019.1575140},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2019.1575140},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
journal = {Discourse Processes},
pages = {1-19},
abstract = {Questions under Discussion (QUDs) have been suggested to influence the integration of individual utterances into a discourse-level representation. Previous work has shown that processing ungrammatical ellipses is facilitated when the elided material addresses an implicit QUD raised through a nonactuality implicature (NAIs). It is not clear, however, if QUDs influence discourse coherence during comprehension of fully acceptable discourse. We present two ERP studies examining the effects of QUDs introduced by NAIs using two-sentence discourses. Experiment 1 showed that processing definite NPs with inaccessible antecedents is facilitated when their content is relevant to the QUD. Using acceptable discourses, Experiment 2 showed that definite NPs failing to address a QUD elicit increased processing cost. Overall, our results indicate that QUDs raise the expectation that the following discourse will address them, providing unambiguous evidence that their influence is not limited to the processing of ungrammatical input.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {article}
}

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A large body of contemporary psycholinguistic research utilizes the information-theoretic notions related to the transmission of information in an attempt to better understand and formalize the regularities of language production and comprehension. The overarching hypothesis is that prediction is a core mechanism underlying language comprehension. Anticipating what is likely to be mentioned next based on the previous context is what is assumed to allow for smooth and effortless communication. The anticipation of linguistic units that fit the current context reduces the uncertainty about the upcoming material, which consequently facilitates the processing of that material, in a typically noisy channel. Situated language processing allows for the integration of not only linguistic but also non-linguistic visual information that contribute to establishing the context, and facilitate the creation of anticipations regarding the upcoming linguistic material. Moreover, noticing that our interlocutor is directing her attention to a certain object, inspires a shift in our visual attention towards the same entity. Since what is relevant for our interlocutor is highly likely to be relevant for us, too, whether simply conversationally, or more importantly, even existentially (Emery, 2000). Hence, following the speaker’s referential gaze cue towards an object relevant for the current conversation has been shown to benefit listeners’ language processing, measured by shorter reaction times on subsequent tasks (e.g., Staudte & Crocker, 2011; Staudte, Crocker, Heloir, & Kipp, 2014; Knoeferle & Kreysa, 2012; Macdonald & Tatler, 2013, 2014). The present thesis aimed to provide an insight into the mechanisms behind this facilitation. We examined the dynamics of combining visual and linguistic information in creating anticipation for a specific object to be mentioned, and the effect this has on language processing. To this end we used a pupillary measure of cognitive load that is robust enough to allow for free eye movements (the Index of Cognitive Activity; Marshall, 2000). This enabled us to measure not only the visual attention during language comprehension, but also the immediately induced cognitive load at various relevant points during the auditory presentation of the linguistic stimulus. Eight experiments were conducted towards addressing our research questions. The initial three experiments established the ICA measurement in the context of our linguistic manipulation. This series of experiments included reading, cognitive load during listening, and the examination of visual attention together with cognitive load in the visual world paradigm (VWP). Subsequently, we conducted five eye tracking experiments in the VWP where the linguistic context was further enriched by a referential gaze cue. All five experiments simultaneously assessed both visual attention and the immediate cognitive load induced at different stages of sentence processing. We manipulated the existence of the referential gaze cue (Exp. 4), the probability of mention of the cued object (Exp. 4, 5), the congruency of the gaze cue and the subsequent referring expression (Exp. 6), as well as the number of cued objects with equal probability of mention (Exp. 7, 8). Finally, we examined whether the gaze cue can take the role of fully disambiguating the target referent (Exp. 8). We quantified the importance of the visual context in language processing, and showed that if a certain object from the visual context has a higher likelihood of mention given the linguistic context, its processing is facilitated, in comparison to the processing of the same sentence without the visual context. Furthermore, our results support the previous findings that the referential gaze cue leads to a shift in visual attention towards the cued object, thereby facilitating language processing. We expanded these findings by showing that it is the processing of the linguistic reference, that is the referent noun, that is facilitated by gaze-following. Importantly, perceiving and following the gaze cue did not prove costly in terms of cognitive effort, unless the cued object did not fit the verb selectional preferences. This is true regardless of the number of objects cued, or the lower likelihood of mention of the cued object. We conclude that listeners strategically use visual information to reduce the referential uncertainty for upcoming nouns but that the visual cues, such as the referential gaze cue, do not underly the same kinds of expectations (and resulting cognitive costs) as linguistic references. We did not find evidence that the gaze cue is processed in a manner comparable to noun processing, rather, it is likely perceived as a relevant piece of information introduced in addition to the linguistic material, in order to aid language processing, but, importantly, not there to substitute it.

• http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:291--ds-285651
• https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-28565

@phdthesis{Sekicki_diss_0919,
title = {Exploiting referential gaze for uncertainty reduction in situated language processing: an information-theoretic approach},
author = {Mirjana Sekicki},
url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:291--ds-285651},
doi = {https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-28565},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
school = {Saarland University},
address = {Saarbr{\"u}cken},
abstract = {A large body of contemporary psycholinguistic research utilizes the information-theoretic notions related to the transmission of information in an attempt to better understand and formalize the regularities of language production and comprehension. The overarching hypothesis is that prediction is a core mechanism underlying language comprehension. Anticipating what is likely to be mentioned next based on the previous context is what is assumed to allow for smooth and effortless communication. The anticipation of linguistic units that fit the current context reduces the uncertainty about the upcoming material, which consequently facilitates the processing of that material, in a typically noisy channel. Situated language processing allows for the integration of not only linguistic but also non-linguistic visual information that contribute to establishing the context, and facilitate the creation of anticipations regarding the upcoming linguistic material. Moreover, noticing that our interlocutor is directing her attention to a certain object, inspires a shift in our visual attention towards the same entity. Since what is relevant for our interlocutor is highly likely to be relevant for us, too, whether simply conversationally, or more importantly, even existentially (Emery, 2000). Hence, following the speaker’s referential gaze cue towards an object relevant for the current conversation has been shown to benefit listeners’ language processing, measured by shorter reaction times on subsequent tasks (e.g., Staudte & Crocker, 2011; Staudte, Crocker, Heloir, & Kipp, 2014; Knoeferle & Kreysa, 2012; Macdonald & Tatler, 2013, 2014). The present thesis aimed to provide an insight into the mechanisms behind this facilitation. We examined the dynamics of combining visual and linguistic information in creating anticipation for a specific object to be mentioned, and the effect this has on language processing. To this end we used a pupillary measure of cognitive load that is robust enough to allow for free eye movements (the Index of Cognitive Activity; Marshall, 2000). This enabled us to measure not only the visual attention during language comprehension, but also the immediately induced cognitive load at various relevant points during the auditory presentation of the linguistic stimulus. Eight experiments were conducted towards addressing our research questions. The initial three experiments established the ICA measurement in the context of our linguistic manipulation. This series of experiments included reading, cognitive load during listening, and the examination of visual attention together with cognitive load in the visual world paradigm (VWP). Subsequently, we conducted five eye tracking experiments in the VWP where the linguistic context was further enriched by a referential gaze cue. All five experiments simultaneously assessed both visual attention and the immediate cognitive load induced at different stages of sentence processing. We manipulated the existence of the referential gaze cue (Exp. 4), the probability of mention of the cued object (Exp. 4, 5), the congruency of the gaze cue and the subsequent referring expression (Exp. 6), as well as the number of cued objects with equal probability of mention (Exp. 7, 8). Finally, we examined whether the gaze cue can take the role of fully disambiguating the target referent (Exp. 8). We quantified the importance of the visual context in language processing, and showed that if a certain object from the visual context has a higher likelihood of mention given the linguistic context, its processing is facilitated, in comparison to the processing of the same sentence without the visual context. Furthermore, our results support the previous findings that the referential gaze cue leads to a shift in visual attention towards the cued object, thereby facilitating language processing. We expanded these findings by showing that it is the processing of the linguistic reference, that is the referent noun, that is facilitated by gaze-following. Importantly, perceiving and following the gaze cue did not prove costly in terms of cognitive effort, unless the cued object did not fit the verb selectional preferences. This is true regardless of the number of objects cued, or the lower likelihood of mention of the cued object. We conclude that listeners strategically use visual information to reduce the referential uncertainty for upcoming nouns but that the visual cues, such as the referential gaze cue, do not underly the same kinds of expectations (and resulting cognitive costs) as linguistic references. We did not find evidence that the gaze cue is processed in a manner comparable to noun processing, rather, it is likely perceived as a relevant piece of information introduced in addition to the linguistic material, in order to aid language processing, but, importantly, not there to substitute it.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {phdthesis}
}

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Prior studies on language processing in aging have shown that older adults experience integration difficulties for contextually unpredictable target words (as indicated by low cloze probabilities in prior ratings), and that such comprehension difficulties are more likely to occur under more demanding processing conditions (e.g., dual-task situations). However, these effects have primarily been demonstrated for conditions when cloze probability of the linguistic stimuli was very low. The question we asked here was do dual-task demands also impair comprehension when target words provide a good, but not perfect, match with prior context? We used a dual-task design, consisting of a sentence comprehension and secondary motor tracking task. Critical target words were those which were not perfectly predictable based on context (words with a cloze probability of 0.7), as opposed to words that were near perfectly predictable based on context (cloze probabilities of 0.99). As a measure to index online processing difficulty for less expected target words, we took into account participants’ pupil size. Separate mixed effects models were fit for language comprehension, motor tracking, and pupil size, showing the following: (1) dual-task demands led to age-related comprehension difficulties when target words were less expected (as opposed to very highly expected), (2) integration difficulty in older adults was related to cognitive overload as less expected sentence continuations progressed over time, resulting in behavioral trade-offs between language comprehension and motor tracking, and (3) lower levels of working memory were predictive of whether or not older adults experienced cognitive overload when processing less expected words. In sum, more demanding processing conditions lead to comprehension impairments when words are highly unpredictable based on context, as many prior studies showed. Comprehension impairments among older individuals also occur for conditions when words provide a good, but not perfect, match with prior context. Higher working memory capacity can alleviate such impairments in older adults, thereby suggesting that only high-WM older adults have sufficient cognitive resources to pre-activate words that complete a sentence context plausibly, but not perfectly.

• https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00709/full
• https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00709

@article{Häuser2019,
title = {Effects of aging and dual-task demands on the comprehension of less expected sentence continuations: Evidence from pupillometry},
author = {Katja H{\"a}user and Vera Demberg and Jutta Kray},
url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00709/full},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00709},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
volume = {10},
abstract = {Prior studies on language processing in aging have shown that older adults experience integration difficulties for contextually unpredictable target words (as indicated by low cloze probabilities in prior ratings), and that such comprehension difficulties are more likely to occur under more demanding processing conditions (e.g., dual-task situations). However, these effects have primarily been demonstrated for conditions when cloze probability of the linguistic stimuli was very low. The question we asked here was do dual-task demands also impair comprehension when target words provide a good, but not perfect, match with prior context? We used a dual-task design, consisting of a sentence comprehension and secondary motor tracking task. Critical target words were those which were not perfectly predictable based on context (words with a cloze probability of 0.7), as opposed to words that were near perfectly predictable based on context (cloze probabilities of 0.99). As a measure to index online processing difficulty for less expected target words, we took into account participants’ pupil size. Separate mixed effects models were fit for language comprehension, motor tracking, and pupil size, showing the following: (1) dual-task demands led to age-related comprehension difficulties when target words were less expected (as opposed to very highly expected), (2) integration difficulty in older adults was related to cognitive overload as less expected sentence continuations progressed over time, resulting in behavioral trade-offs between language comprehension and motor tracking, and (3) lower levels of working memory were predictive of whether or not older adults experienced cognitive overload when processing less expected words. In sum, more demanding processing conditions lead to comprehension impairments when words are highly unpredictable based on context, as many prior studies showed. Comprehension impairments among older individuals also occur for conditions when words provide a good, but not perfect, match with prior context. Higher working memory capacity can alleviate such impairments in older adults, thereby suggesting that only high-WM older adults have sufficient cognitive resources to pre-activate words that complete a sentence context plausibly, but not perfectly.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {article}
}

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Impaired Semantic Verbal Fluency (SVF) in dementia due to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and its precursor Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is well known. Yet, it remains open whether this impairment mirrors the breakdown of semantic memory retrieval processes or executive control processes. Therefore, qualitative analysis of the SVF has been proposed but is limited in terms of methodology and feasibility in clinical practice. Consequently, research draws no conclusive picture which of these afore-mentioned processes drives the SVF impairment in AD and MCI. This study uses a qualitative computational approach – combining temporal and semantic information – to investigate exploitation and exploration patterns as indicators for semantic memory retrieval and executive control processes. Audio SVF recordings of 20 controls (C, 66-81 years), 55 MCI (57-94 years) and 20 AD subjects (66-82 years) were assessed while groups were matched according to age and education. All groups produced, on average, the same amount of semantically related items in rapid succession within word clusters. Conversely, towards AD, there was a clear decline in semantic as well as temporal exploration patterns between clusters. Results strongly point towards preserved exploitation – semantic memory retrieval processes – and hampered exploration – executive control processes – in AD and potentially in MCI.

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393218305116?via%3Dihub
• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.05.007

@article{Tröger2019,
title = {Exploitation vs. Exploration - Computational temporal and semantic analysis explains semantic verbal fluency impairment in Alzheimer’s disease},
author = {Johannes Tr{\"o}ger and Nicklas Linz and Alexandra K{\"o}nig and Philippe Robert and Jan Alexandersson and Jessica Peter and Jutta Kray},
url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393218305116?via%3Dihub},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.05.007},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
journal = {Neuropsychologia},
pages = {53-61},
volume = {131},
abstract = {Impaired Semantic Verbal Fluency (SVF) in dementia due to Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and its precursor Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is well known. Yet, it remains open whether this impairment mirrors the breakdown of semantic memory retrieval processes or executive control processes. Therefore, qualitative analysis of the SVF has been proposed but is limited in terms of methodology and feasibility in clinical practice. Consequently, research draws no conclusive picture which of these afore-mentioned processes drives the SVF impairment in AD and MCI. This study uses a qualitative computational approach - combining temporal and semantic information - to investigate exploitation and exploration patterns as indicators for semantic memory retrieval and executive control processes. Audio SVF recordings of 20 controls (C, 66-81 years), 55 MCI (57-94 years) and 20 AD subjects (66-82 years) were assessed while groups were matched according to age and education. All groups produced, on average, the same amount of semantically related items in rapid succession within word clusters. Conversely, towards AD, there was a clear decline in semantic as well as temporal exploration patterns between clusters. Results strongly point towards preserved exploitation - semantic memory retrieval processes - and hampered exploration - executive control processes - in AD and potentially in MCI.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {article}
}

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A controversial issue in psycholinguistics is the degree to which speakers employ audience design during language production. Hypothesising that a consideration of the listener’s needs is particularly relevant when the listener is under cognitive load, we had speakers describe objects for a listener performing an easy or a difficult simulated driving task. We predicted that speakers would introduce more redundancy in their descriptions in the difficult driving task, thereby accommodating the listener’s reduced cognitive capacity. The results showed that speakers did not adapt their descriptions to a change in the listener’s cognitive load. However, speakers who had experienced the driving task themselves before and who were presented with the difficult driving task first were more redundant than other speakers. These findings may suggest that speakers only consider the listener’s needs in the presence of strong enough cues, and do not update their beliefs about these needs during the task.

• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23273798.2019.1648839
• https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2019.1648839

@article{Vogels2019,
title = {How speakers adapt object descriptions to listeners under load},
author = {Jorrig Vogels and David M. Howcroft and Elli Tourtouri and Vera Demberg},
url = {https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23273798.2019.1648839},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2019.1648839},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
journal = {Language, Cognition and Neuroscience},
pages = {78-92},
publisher = {Routledge},
volume = {35},
number = {1},
abstract = {A controversial issue in psycholinguistics is the degree to which speakers employ audience design during language production. Hypothesising that a consideration of the listener’s needs is particularly relevant when the listener is under cognitive load, we had speakers describe objects for a listener performing an easy or a difficult simulated driving task. We predicted that speakers would introduce more redundancy in their descriptions in the difficult driving task, thereby accommodating the listener’s reduced cognitive capacity. The results showed that speakers did not adapt their descriptions to a change in the listener’s cognitive load. However, speakers who had experienced the driving task themselves before and who were presented with the difficult driving task first were more redundant than other speakers. These findings may suggest that speakers only consider the listener’s needs in the presence of strong enough cues, and do not update their beliefs about these needs during the task.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {article}
}

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While people process text, they make frequent use of information that is assumed to be common ground and left implicit in the text. One important type of such commonsense knowledge is script knowledge, which is the knowledge about the events and participants in everyday activities such as visiting a restaurant. Due to its implicitness, it is hard for machines to exploit such script knowledge for natural language processing (NLP). This dissertation addresses the role of script knowledge in a central field of NLP, natural language understanding (NLU). In the first part of this thesis, we address script parsing. The idea of script parsing is to align event and participant mentions in a text with an underlying script representation. This makes it possible for a system to leverage script knowledge for downstream tasks. We develop the first script parsing model for events that can be trained on a large scale on crowdsourced script data. The model is implemented as a linear-chain conditional random field and trained on sequences of short event descriptions, implicitly exploiting the inherent event ordering information. We show that this ordering information plays a crucial role for script parsing. Our model provides an important first step towards facilitating the use of script knowledge for NLU. In the second part of the thesis, we move our focus to an actual application in the area of NLU, i.e. machine comprehension. For the first time, we provide data sets for the systematic evaluation of the contribution of script knowledge for machine comprehension. We create MCScript, a corpus of narrations about everyday activities and questions on the texts. By collecting questions based on a scenario rather than a text, we aimed at creating challenging questions which require script knowledge for finding the correct answer. Based on the findings of a shared task carried out with the data set, which indicated that script knowledge is not relevant for good performance on our corpus, we revised the data collection process and created a second version of the data set.

• http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:291--ds-313016
• https://doi.org/10.22028/D291-31301

@phdthesis{Ostermann2019,
title = {Script knowledge for natural language understanding},
author = {Simon Ostermann},
url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:291--ds-313016},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.22028/D291-31301},
year = {2019},
date = {2019},
school = {Saarland University},
address = {Saarbruecken, Germany},
abstract = {While people process text, they make frequent use of information that is assumed to be common ground and left implicit in the text. One important type of such commonsense knowledge is script knowledge, which is the knowledge about the events and participants in everyday activities such as visiting a restaurant. Due to its implicitness, it is hard for machines to exploit such script knowledge for natural language processing (NLP). This dissertation addresses the role of script knowledge in a central field of NLP, natural language understanding (NLU). In the first part of this thesis, we address script parsing. The idea of script parsing is to align event and participant mentions in a text with an underlying script representation. This makes it possible for a system to leverage script knowledge for downstream tasks. We develop the first script parsing model for events that can be trained on a large scale on crowdsourced script data. The model is implemented as a linear-chain conditional random field and trained on sequences of short event descriptions, implicitly exploiting the inherent event ordering information. We show that this ordering information plays a crucial role for script parsing. Our model provides an important first step towards facilitating the use of script knowledge for NLU. In the second part of the thesis, we move our focus to an actual application in the area of NLU, i.e. machine comprehension. For the first time, we provide data sets for the systematic evaluation of the contribution of script knowledge for machine comprehension. We create MCScript, a corpus of narrations about everyday activities and questions on the texts. By collecting questions based on a scenario rather than a text, we aimed at creating challenging questions which require script knowledge for finding the correct answer. Based on the findings of a shared task carried out with the data set, which indicated that script knowledge is not relevant for good performance on our corpus, we revised the data collection process and created a second version of the data set.},
pubstate = {published},
type = {phdthesis}
}

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