How do infants learn a language? Why and how do languages evolve? How do we understand a sentence? This book explores these questions using recent computational models that shed new light on issues related to language and cognition. The chapters in this collection propose original analyses of specific problems and develop computational models that have been tested and evaluated on real data. Featuring contributions from a diverse group of experts, this interdisciplinary book bridges the gap between natural language processing and cognitive sciences. It is divided into three sections, focusing respectively on models of neural and cognitive processing, data driven methods, and social issues in language evolution. This book will be useful to any researcher and advanced student interested in the analysis of the links between the brain and the language faculty.

This open access book introduces a general framework that allows natural language researchers to enhance existing competence theories with fully specified performance and processing components. Gradually developing increasingly complex and cognitively realistic competence-performance models, it provides running code for these models and shows how to fit them to real-time experimental data. This computational cognitive modeling approach opens up exciting new directions for research in formal semantics, and linguistics more generally, and offers new ways of (re)connecting semantics and the broader field of cognitive science. The approach of this book is novel in more ways than one. Assuming the mental architecture and procedural modalities of Anderson's ACT-R framework, it presents fine-grained computational models of human language processing tasks which make detailed quantitative predictions that can be checked against the results of self-paced reading and other psycho-linguistic experiments. All models are presented as computer programs that readers can run on their own computer and on inputs of their choice, thereby learning to design, program and run their own models. But even for readers who won't do all that, the book will show how such detailed, quantitatively predicting modeling of linguistic processes is possible. A methodological breakthrough and a must for anyone concerned about the future of linguistics! (Hans Kamp) This book constitutes a major step forward in linguistics and psycholinguistics. It constitutes a unique synthesis of several different research traditions: computational models of psycholinguistic processes, and formal models of semantics and discourse processing. The work also introduces a sophisticated python-based software environment for modeling linguistic processes. This book has the potential to revolutionize not only formal models of linguistics, but also models of language processing more generally. (Shravan Vasishth) .

An accessible introduction to the principles of computational and mathematical modeling in psychology and cognitive science This practical and readable work provides students and researchers, who are new to cognitive modeling, with the background and core knowledge they need to interpret published reports, and develop and apply models of their own. The book is structured to help readers understand the logic of individual component techniques and their relationships to each other.

A comprehensive introduction to the computational modeling of human cognition.

A cutting-edge reference source for the interdisciplinary field of computational cognitive modeling.

Introduction. Modeling language, cognition and action : from connectionist simulations to embodied neural cognitive systems / Angelo Cangelosi -- Language, perception and action. Lessons from the embodiment of language : why simulating human language comprehension is hard / Arthur M. Glenberg. Associative neural models for biomimetic multi-modal learning in a mirror neuron-based robot / Stefan Wermter, Cornelius Weber and Mark Elshaw. Grounding language in perception : a connectionist model of spatial terms and vague quantifiers / Angelo Cangelosi ... [et al.]. Structured connectionist models of language, cognition and action / Nancy Chang, Jerome Feldman and Srini Narayanan. Predicting the effect of slightly complex utterances / Michael Klein and Kenji Doya. An associative model of cortical language and action processing / Andreas Knoblauch, Heiner Markert and Guenther Palm -- Categorization and language. Carving nature at its joints and carving joints into nature : how labels augment category representations / Gary Lupyan. Language as an aid to categorization : a neural network model of early language acquisition / Marco Mirolli and Domenico Parisi -- Language processing. A connectionist evaluation of schemes to measure difficulty of words based on their phonological structure / Jennifer Hayes and Peter Howell. Sentence comprehension without propositional structure / Stefan L. Frank. Emergence of linguistic features : independent component analysis of contexts / Timo Honkela, Aapo Hyvärinen and Jaakko Väyrynen. Latent linguistic codes for morphemes using independent component analysis / Krista Lagus, Mathias Creutz and Sami Virpioja. A neural network model for natural language : the case of homonymy / Eleni Koutsomitopoulou. Dynamic representation of stack- and queue-like syntactic structures / Andre Grüning. The active role of proper names : evidence from neural network experiments and philosophy of language considerations / Barbara Giolito -- Cooperation and communication. Emergence of communication in embodied agents : co-adapting communicative and non-communicative behaviours / Davide Marocco and Stefano Nolfi. Estimating intentions of others for imitation and cooperation / Norikazu Sugimoto, Kenji Doya and Mitsuo Kawato -- Motor representations and cognition. Mental representations and cognitive behaviour : a recurrent neural network approach / Sirnone Kühn and Holk Cruse. Spatial cognition in action-SCA model : children's gestural imagery in action / Marilyn Panayi and D. M. Roy. Evolving a simulated robotic arm able to grasp objects / Gianluca Massera, Stefano Nolfi and Angelo Cangelosi. Is language necessary to merge geometric and non-geometric spatial cues? The case of the "Blue- Wall Task" / Michela Ponticorvo and Orazio Miglino -- Attention and perception. A neurocognitive theory of attentional modulation of spread of activation / Eddy J. Davelaar. Modelling the attentional blink / Howard Bowman and Bradley Wyble. A model of spatial and object-based attention for active visual search / Linda Lanyon and Susan Denham. Hemispheric asymmetries in the neglect syndrome : a computational study / Andrea Di Ferdinando ... [et al.]. An oscillatory neural model for tracking a moving object / Yakov B. Kazanovich and Roman M. Borisyuk. Selective attention and action in an artificial, evolved agent : reactive inhibition / Robert Ward and Ronnie Ward. A proposed model of repetition blindness / Colm G. Connolly and Ronan G. Reilly -- Cognitive processing and control. Modelling the slow emotional Stroop effect : suppression of cognitive control / Bradley Wyble, Dinkar Sharma and Howard Bowman. Evidence of modularity from primate errors during task learning / Joanna J. Bryson. Accounting for episodic, semantic and procedural memory in the recommendation archtecture cognitive model / L. Andrew Coward. Can self-control be explained through games? / Gaye Banfield and Chris Christodoulou. An investigation of the myopia for future consequences theory of VMF patient behaviour on the Iowa gambling task : an abstract neural network simulation / Kiran Kalidindi, Howard Bowman and Bradley Wyble -- Face processing and classification. Recognition of pain expressions / Peter J. B. Hancock ... [et al.]. Global and feature based gender classification of faces : a comparison of human performance and computational models / Samarasena Buchala ... [et al.] -- Developmental processes. A neural network investigation of the head preference : problems Explaining Empirical Results by bottom-up processes alone / Martial Mermillod ... [et al.]. Children's causal inferences as revealed by backwards blocking tasks : a memory self-refreshing neural networks account / Serban C. Musca -- Neural network methodology. Embryological modelling of the evolution of neural architecture / Chris P. Bowers and John A. Bullinaria. Evolving neural networks that suffer minimal catastrophic forgetting / Tebogo Seipone and John A. Bullinaria. Improving cell assembly categories by fatigue / Christian Huyck and Hina Ghalib. Comparing computational and human measures of visual similarity / Tim M. Gale ... [et al.]. Psychological ALife : bridging the gap between mind and brain. Enactive distributed associationism and transient localism / Anthony F. Morse -- Future challenges : thinking and reasoning. Modelling thinking and reasoning : the challenge ahead / Jonathan St B T Evans

This book presents an integrated framework for developing and testing computational models in psychology and related disciplines. Researchers and students are given the knowledge and tools to interpret models published in their area, as well as to develop, fit, and test their own models.