Keynotes

Stefan Frank: Simulating bilingual sentence production with the Dual-Path model

The Dual-Path model (Chang, 2002) is a classical connectionist model of word-by-word sentence production that successfully accounts for a range of psycholinguistic findings. In order to explain phenomena specific to speaking in two languages, we developed a bilingual version of the model. In this talk, I will show that this Bilingual Dual-Path model not only simulates spontaneous code switches and cross-linguistic structural priming, but also correctly predicts how code switches affect subsequent priming. These results suggests that a single mechanism – learning from prediction error – underlies these (superficially very distinct) human bilingual behaviours.

Vera Demberg: Modelling individual differences in pragmatic processing with ACT-R

In Gricean pragmatics, inference during communication is regarded as a form of rational, domain-general reasoning about the intentions of other agents. However, experimental evidence shows that there are substantial individual differences in behaviour with participants often requiring many rounds of interaction before they exhibit the theoretically expected patterns. Based on experimental evidence and cognitive modelling, I will argue that these patterns emerge from resource-rational strategy selection behaviour subject to individualized parameters for reinforcement learning.