Human cognition constrains how we communicate. Our cognitive biases and preferences interact with the processes that drive language emergence and change in non-trivial ways. A powerful method to discern the roles of cognitive biases and processes like language learning and use in shaping linguistic structure is to build agent-based models. Recent advances in computational linguistics and deep learning sparked a renewed interest in such simulations, creating the opportunity to model increasingly realistic phenomena. These models simulate emergent communication, referring to the spontaneous development of a communication system through repeated interactions between individual neural network agents. However, a crucial challenge in this line of work is that such artificial learners still often behave differently from human learners. Directly inspired by human artificial language learning studies, we proposed a novel framework for simulating language learning and change, which allows agents to first learn an artificial language and then use it to communicate, with the aim of studying the emergence of specific linguistics properties. I will present two studies using this framework to simulate the emergence of a well-known language phenomenon: the word-order/case-marking trade-off. I will also share some very recent findings where we test for the presence of a well-known human cross-modal mapping preference (the bouba-kiki effect) in vision-and-language models. Cross-modal associations play an essential role in human language understanding, learning, and evolution, but our findings reveal that current multimodal language models do not align well with such human preferences.
In each edition of the Responsible Digital Transformations (RDT) Keywords Project, we explore the diverse interpretations of a certain concept or keyword across disciplines. In line with the current RDT campaign theme, this third edition will focus on the concept of 'Creativity' in the age of generative AI.
Speakers:
Dr. Monika Kackovic: Associate Professor FEB and coordinator of the MSc BA Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Creative Industries (EMCI) program.
Dr. Claudio Celis Bueno: Assistant Professor in New Media and Digital Cultures and co-coordinator of the AI and Cultural Production research group.
Christoph Finkensiep: Assistant Professor in Generative AI in the Arts, and cognitive scientist at the Music Cognition Group.
The afternoon is moderated by Dr. Nanne van Noord, Assistant Professor of Visual Culture and Multimedia in the Multimedia Analytics Lab.
Together with colleagues at Uva (Judith Good, Hamed Alavi, Natali Helberger and Claes de Vreese), TUD, TUE, UU, HU, and CWI, as well as several non-academic partners, Floris Roelofsen obtained an NWO Perspective grant for the project Inclusive Technologies for Access and Social Participation.
The call 'NWA Science Communication' funds science communication projects that aim to strengthen the connection between science and society. For example by offering new science communication concepts to target groups without obvious links with science.
In January the call for the For Women in Science Fellowships 2025 will open. This programme is a collaboration between L’Oréal Benelux, NIAS-KNAW, the Dutch Network of Women Professors, NEMO Science Museum and the Netherlands Commission for Unesco.
The prestigious programme offers women researchers in the Life Sciences or STEM disciplines with 3–10 years of post-PhD experience the opportunity to dedicate a semester exclusively to advancing their research. Hosted at NIAS-KNAW in Amsterdam, fellows will be able to work free from administrative, clinical, or teaching responsibilities, fostering significant progress in their work while engaging with an interdisciplinary academic community.
The SSH Open Competition XS Call for proposals is specifically intended to encourage curiosity-driven and innovative research that involves the relatively rapid exploration of a promising idea.
The NWO Domain Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) has three different funding programmes in the Open Competition. These grants are for ideas that hold great promise (XS) and for large-scale grants (M, L). The SSH-XS grants are available for projects with a maximum budget of 50,000 euro to enable proposals for curiosity-driven, innovative research in the research fields covered by the NWO Domain SSH. The Call for proposals of 2025 has 3 rounds. This information concerns the first round.
Principal Investigators of ongoing or recently ERC funded projects can apply for a ERC Proof of Concept grant. This grant aims at facilitating the exploration of the commercial and social innovation potential of ERC funded research. PIs can apply for up to € 150.000 for a period of up to 18 months. The next deadline for submissions is 13 March 2025. The second round will close on 18 September 2025.
The Rubicon scheme is targeted at talented researchers who have obtained their PhD within the past year and who want to spend 12 to 24 months at an excellent research institute outside the Netherlands. Applicants must have conducted scientfic research in the Netherlands for a period of at least three years full time in the past five years. There are three rounds per year. The call for proposals for the first round is not yet open, but a (tentative) deadline has been announced: 25 March 2025.
As a PhD candidate, you will conduct independent research on mechanistic interpretability. This is a relatively new field, so there is substantial room to contribute. This can be done for various types of AI models (e.g., transformers, GNNs, etc), and/or in the context of various applications, ranging from social network analysis to molecular simulation; as long as the data contains ground truth explanations, we can evaluate the new methods we propose.
CEU's Department of Philosophy is announcing a one-year postdoctoral fellow ship (part-time, 70%) within the FWF-DFG project MODREQUAM ("Modal Reasoning, Quarc and Metaphysics") under the supervision of Dr. Matteo Pascucci.
Project MODREQUAM concerns applications of non-classical logics to the analysis of modal reasoning and quantification. The selected candidate will work in collaboration with the P.I. of the Austrian side of the project, Dr. Matteo Pascucci. They are expected to write research articles related to the topics of the project, contribute to the organization of events planned within the project and take part in international conferences to present project outcomes.
The Department of Computer Science at Lund University invites applications for a PhD position in theoretical computer science and/or combinatorial optimization.
The PhD student will be working in the Mathematical Insights into Algorithms for Optimization (MIAO) group headed by Jakob Nordström, which is active at both the University of Copenhagen and Lund University on either side of the Oresund Bridge. The MIAO research group has a unique profile in that we are doing cutting-edge research both on the mathematical foundations of efficient computation and on state-of-the-art practical algorithms for real-world problems. This leads to classical questions in computational complexity theory—though often with new, fascinating twists—but also involves work on devising clever algorithms that can exploit the power of such paradigms in practice.
This is a four-year full-time employed position, but PhD positions usually (though not necessarily) include 20% teaching, in which case they are prolonged for one more year. The starting date is negotiable, but should ideally be in August-September 2025 or earlier. All positions in the research group are fully funded, employed positions (including travel money) that come with an internationally competitive salary.
Prof. Bart Bogaerts is looking for talented PostDocs to join the CertiFOX project, where we bring 100% correctness guarantees to tools for combinatorial optimization.
We are seeking to fill a three-year postdoctoral position as well as a fully funded, four-year PhD position on the Czech Science Foundation project "INTERACT: Interpolation, Amalgamation, and Computation," led by Dr. Wesley Fussner at the Institute of Computer Science of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
The project aims to develop a cohesive theory of interpolation across varying logical environments by reconciling proof-theoretic and algebraic approaches. The successful candidates will join the logic team at the Institute of Computer Science of the Czech Academy of Sciences and will conduct research on the themes of the project both independently and in collaboration with the PI and other project members.
A memorial website was created at https://resources.illc.uva.nl/emeriti/Kees-Doets/ to commemorate recently deceased Kees Doets, with an obituary, a list of his publications, and personal statements written by Kees' friends and colleagues.
Over the past decade, the rise of digital technologies and social media has provided social scientists with a new avenues for the study of society.