6 March: fyi -- PhD Studentship, University of Saarland, Germany
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PhD Studentship "Generating and Grounding Referring Expressions" in
NLP/Psycholinguistics
Saarland University, Saarbruecken, Germany
The Embodied Spoken Interaction (ESI) group at the Saarland
University, headed by Dr. Maria Staudte, invites applications for a
PhD studentship, available from June 1st, 2013 (75% TV-L E13).
People look at what is being talked about. By following referring
expressions (RE) to their referent, a person can ground that
expression in the environment and fully understand and validate the
utterance that contains it. In turn, fixating the intended referent
signals to the speaker that the listener has understood. Thus,
listener eye-movements fulfill several roles: While (privately)
seeking visual information linked to the utterance content, they also
(publicly) reflect (un-)successful reference resolution or, more
generally, belief states of the listener to the speaker.
In a dynamic and complex environment, such as the GIVE challenge, in
which other tasks are involved as well, it becomes increasingly
difficult to infer *what* precisely listener eye-movements reflect
*when*. Understanding such patterns and how they can be exploited most
efficiently by a system generating navigational instructions is a
major concern of this research project.
The proposed PhD project will develop strategies and algorithms for a
RE generation system that is informed about the user's visual
attention at any given time by modern remote eye-tracking technology.
Besides the developing component, this research is also empirical and
will involve the design of user studies and data analysis to develop
and test these strategies. Alternative settings, such as in-car
tracking along with navigational instructions, are also conceivable in
order to explore effective ways of using listener gaze for giving
efficient and safe instructions.
Applicants should hold a Master degree in computational linguistics,
computer science, cognitive science or equivalent, and should have an
interest in modeling and understanding the dynamics of gaze and speech
in interaction. Good programming skills are necessary. Experience with
experiment design and statistics are an advantage but not required.
Most importantly, the successful applicant should be enthusiastic
about the general research questions and be prepared to learn new
methods.
The Embodied Spoken Interaction (ESI) group is part of the
"Multi-modal Computing and Interaction" Cluster of Excellence
(http://www.mmci.uni-saarland.de/) at Saarland University which
provides a very fruitful and constructive research environment with
excellent opportunities for exchange and cooperation. The group has
access to numerous state-of-the-art eye-tracking laboratories, a 64
channel EEG/ERP lab, and modern computing infrastructure, and conducts
research at the level of international excellence.
The candidate will be expected to contribute to the high standards of
the group and to be actively involved in the preparation and
publication of new results. Further information about the group can be
found at:
http://www.mmci.uni-saarland.de/en/independent_research_groups/esi
Applicants should submit their research statement, a CV, a copy of
their school and university degrees, a representative reprint (thesis
or paper if applicable), and names and contact information of two
references. The position remains open until filled, but preference
will be given to applications received by 1 April.
All documents should be e-mailed as a single PDF to:
Dr. Maria Staudte
e-mail: masta@coli.uni-saarland.de
Department of Computational Linguistics
Saarland University
66123 Saarbruecken, Germany
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