Jakub Szymanik

Meaning and Computation Lab

Output of ERC grant Cognitive Semantics and Quantities summing up much of my research on up to 2022.
me

Associate professor in the Center for Brain/Mind Sciences and the Computer Science Department at the University of Trento.

Categories

Meaning and Computation Lab

About

The research group is interested in meaning, computation, and cognition. We want to primarily understand why natural languages lexicalize only a handful of options out of all the logically possible meanings. Our approach is characterized by a mixture of formal (logic, computational modeling, simulations) and empirical (neurobehavioral experiments, corpus linguistics) methods.

Recent representative papers

(more papers are listed Papers and probably on Google Scholar)

  1. Fausto Carcassi and Jakub Szymanik. The Boolean Language of Thought is recoverable from learning data. Cognition, 239, 2023
  2. Sonia Ramotowska, Shane Steinert-Threlkeld, Leendert van Maanen, Jakub Szymanik. Uncovering the Structure of Semantic Representations Using a Computational Model of Decision-Making. Cognitive Science, 2023.
  3. Iris van de Pol, Paul Lodder, Leender van Maanen, Shane Steinert-Threlkeld, Jakub Szymanik. Quantifiers satisfying semantic universals have shorter minimal description length. Cognition, 2023.
  4. Milica Denić, Shane Steinert-Threlkeld, Jakub Szymanik. Indefinite pronouns optimize the simplicity/informativeness trade-off. Cognitive Science, 45(3), 2022.
  5. Fausto Carcassi and Jakub Szymanik. Neural Networks track the logical complexity of Boolean concepts. Open Mind, 2022.
  6. Fausto Carcassi, Shane Steinert-Threlkeld, and Jakub Szymanik. Monotone Quantifiers Emerge via Iterated Learning. Cognitive Science, 45 (8), 2021.
  7. S. Steinert-Threlkeld and J. Szymanik. Ease of Learning Explains Semantic Universals, Cognition, vol 195, 2020.
  8. Jakub Szymanik. Quantifiers and Cognition. Logical and Computational Perspectives, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, Springer, 2016.
Past and current group members

Greta Gaimarri

Tamar Johnson

Alexandra Sarafoglou

Manuel Vargas Guzmán

Heming Strømholt Bremnes (now a postdoc at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology)

Maria Boritchev (now a researcher at Orange Labs )

Sonia Ramotowska (now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam)

Milica Denić (now a postdoctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University)

Kim Archambeau (now ULB Brussels)

Fausto Carcassi (now an assistant professor at the ILLC, University of Amsterdam)

Witold Kieraś (now Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Science)

Dorota Komosińska (now Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Science)

Arnold Kochari (now Science for Life Laboratory in Stockholm)

Shane Steinert-Threlkeld (now Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the University of Washington)

Funding

NCN grant: Hybrid Reasoning Models

Language in Interaction grant, Sharing vague meanings

ABC Project Grant, From rigid theory to cognitive models: individual differences in semantic

ERC Starting Grant, Cognitive Semantics and Quantities

ABC Project Grant, Investigating the dynamics of decision strategies<\p>

NCN Opus Grant, Quantifiers in Language: Use and Meaning

NWO Research Gravitation Program Language in Interaction

NWO VENI What makes social interactions hard?