Computing with Meaning by Operationalising Socio-cognitive SemanticsRobert McArthur Tuesday 26 September 2006 at 11am
AbstractPeter Gärdenfors has proposed the framework of conceptual spaces to represent meaning. Between the symbolic representation (like first order logic) and subconceptual representation (like neural networks), the conceptual representation uses a geometric paradigm for modelling semantics. This talk describes the outcomes of bringing together Grdenfors' theory with existing and modified cognitive algorithms, and applying them to mailing list, email and blog data. The meanings in the semantic spaces were exploited in the areas of charting the topical ebbs and flows in an online community, visualising a computational sense-of-self of people with chronic illness, managing expertise within enterprises, the discovery of social networks using tacit knowledge, and finally the uncovering and use of deeper notions of user context. Short resume
Robert was born in Brisbane and was educated in Darwin, Bougainville Is. PNG, Brisbane and Canberra. He
received a BSc(Hons) from the ANU and has researched in the diverse areas such as speaker independent
automatic voice recognition and Australian drought policy. He was the first technical director of the
first independent ISP in Australia, Pegasus networks, and lectured at QUT for over 4 years during which
time he established the first web server in Queensland and received a MInfTech and education GradCert.
He researched at the DSTC, a Brisbane-based IT CRC, for 8 years before joining the CSIRO ICT centre at
the demise of the DSTC. His recent IT research activities have included Guidebeam, a search tool utilising
a browse paradigm, and of late he has focussed on melding interdisciplinary areas of cognitive science,
philosophy, information science and sociology into investigating how to use computers to increase our
awareness. His next venture is extending the work on modeling a computational sense-of-self into a broader
theory and practice of a |