PRE-CogSci 2011 – Bridging the gap between computational, empirical and theoretical approaches to reference

The PRE-CogSci 2011 workshop is a follow up to the first workshop on the Production of Referring Expressions: Bridging the gap between computational and empirical approaches to reference (PRE-CogSci 2009), organised on 29 July 2009 as part of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2009) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.1 This event was very successful, with 23 oral and poster presentations and an audience of approximately 65 participants. Following this workshop, the Topics in Cognitive Science (TopiCS) journal accepted the production of referring expressions as a new topic; a subsequent open call attracted 28 submissions. Accepted papers are expected to appear in 2011. Given the strong interest that the production of referring expressions has attracted on both occasions, another PRECogSci workshop seems timely, and will be organized as part of the 2011 Annual Meeting in Boston, MA. This workshop is similar to the first in its topic and overall structure (mixing externally reviewed oral and poster presentations with three invited presentations – see below), but this time we also emphasise the role of theoretical linguistic work, explore new directions (e.g., referring expressions in dialogue), and organise a panel discussion on the way in which different research communities can benefit from each others’ expertise on the production of language.