UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
		COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

			     presents


                      "Referring to Objects: 
              Verbal Reference, Pointing and Salience"


                           Dr. Paul Piwek 
     (Centre for Research in Computing, The Open University, UK)


                    10 February 2010  (Wednesday)
                        Lecture Theatre E351 
		   Hatfield, College Lane Campus
			      3 - 4 pm


		   Everyone is Welcome to Attend

                   Refreshments will be available



Abstract:

Pointing combined with verbal referring is one of the most
paradigmatic human multimodal behaviours. The aim of this talk is
foundational: to uncover the central notions
that are required for a computational model of multimodal referring
acts that include a pointing gesture. I draw on existing work on the
generation of referring expressions and show that in order to extend
that work with pointing, the notion of salience needs to play a
pivotal role. I investigate the role of salience in the generation of
referring expressions and introduce a distinction between two opposing
approaches: salience-first and salience-last accounts. I then argue
that these differ not only in computational efficiency, as has been
pointed out previously, but also lead to incompatible empirical
predictions. In the remainder of the talk, I discuss how a
salience-first account nicely meshes with a range of existing
empirical findings on multimodal reference. A novel account of the
circumstances under which speakers choose to point is proposed that
directly links salience with pointing. Finally, this account is placed
within a multi-dimensional model of salience for multimodal reference.




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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~nehaniv/colloq