Compositional Approaches for NLP, Physics, and Social Sciences (CAPNS 2018) will be colocated with QI 2018 (http://qi2018.quantum-interaction.org/). The workshop is a continuation and extension of the Workshop on Semantic Spaces at the Intersection of NLP, Physics and Cognitive Science https://sites.google.com/site/semspworkshop/ held in June 2016.

AIMS AND SCOPE

The ability to compose parts to form a more complex whole, and to analyze a whole as a combination of elements, is desirable across disciplines. In this workshop we bring together researchers applying compositional approaches to NLP, Physics, Cognitive Science, and Game Theory. The categorical model of Coecke et al. [2010], inspired by quantum protocols, has provided a convincing account of compositionality in vector space models of NLP. Similar category-theoretic approaches have been applied in cognitive science, and now are being extended to game theory. The interplay between the three disciplines will foster theoretically motivated approaches to understanding how meanings of words interact in sentences and discourse, how concepts develop, and how complex games can be analyzed. Commonalities between the compositional mechanisms employed may be extracted, and applications and phenomena traditionally thought of as 'non-compositional' will be examined.

Topics of interests include (but are not restricted to):

Applications of quantum logic in natural language processing and cognitive science
Compositionality in vector space models of meaning
Compositionality in conceptual spaces
Compositional approaches to game theory
Reasoning in vector spaces and conceptual spaces
Conceptual spaces in linguistics
Game-theoretic models of language and conceptual change
Category-theoretic diagrammatic reasoning for natural language processing, cognitive science, and game theory
Compositional explanations of so-called 'non-compositional' phenomena such as metaphor

IMPORTANT DATES:

June 30th: Paper submission
July 15th: Notification to contributors
September 2nd: Workshop date

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:

Gerhard Jäger, Professor of General Linguistics, University of Tübingen
Paul Smolensky, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research, and Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University

SUBMISSIONS:
We invite:
Original contributions (up to 12 pages) of previously unpublished work. Submission of substantial, albeit partial results of work in progress is welcomed.

Extended abstracts (3 pages) of previously published work that is recent and relevant to the workshop. These should include a link to a separately published paper or preprint.

Contributions should be submitted at:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=capns2018

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE:

Peter Bruza, Queensland University of Technology
Trevor Cohen, University of Texas
Fredrik Nordvall Forsberg, University of Strathclyde
Liane Gabora, University of British Columbia
Peter Gärdenfors, Lund University
Helle Hvid Hansen, TU Delft
Chris Heunen, University of Edinburgh
Peter Hines, University of York
Alexander Kurz, University of Leicester
Antonio Lieto, University of Turin
Glyn Morrill, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Dusko Pavlovic, University of Hawaii
Taher Pilehvar, University of Cambridge
Emmanuel Pothos, City, University of London
Matthew Purver, Queen Mary University of London
Mehrnoosh Sadrzadeh, Queen Mary University of London
Marta Sznajder, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy
Pawel Sobocinski, University of Southampton
Dominic Widdows, Grab Technologies
Geraint Wiggins, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Victor Winschel, OICOS GmbH
Philipp Zahn, University of St. Gallen
Frank Zenker, University of Konstanz

ORGANIZATION:

Bob Coecke, University of Oxford
Jules Hedges, University of Oxford
Dimitri Kartsaklis, University of Cambridge
Martha Lewis, ILLC, University of Amsterdam
Dan Marsden, University of Oxford