@ARTICLE{MARZI_2023_ARTICLE_MMV_490328, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Melloni, C. and Vender, M.}, TITLE = {Finger-tracking reading profiles in monolingual and bilingual early graders}, YEAR = {2023}, ABSTRACT = {In this paper we propose an analysis of the reading behaviour of a group of Italian monolingual (n= 24) and bilingual (n= 35) 2nd schoolgraders, engaged in the tasks of reading aloud lists of isolated words and nonwords (from the DDE-2 test battery), as well as narrative connected texts displayed on the touch-screen of a common tablet, to be read either aloud or silently. A finger-tracking technique is illustrated, which provides detailed information about the reading behaviour and attention focus of early graders. Our results reveal various differences between groups. In particular, a different tracking pattern emerged in reading long, morphologically-complex word forms, correlating with a higher decoding error rate and comprehension difficulties in bilingual children compared with their monolingual peers. We suggest that the unsteady, discontinuous reading pattern for long noun and verb forms may be due to a (proto)-morphological reading strategy, with monolingual children being more successful in benefiting from a morpheme-based reading route. We also discuss the potentials of the finger-tracking technique as a tool to offer a more profound and comprehensive analysis of the reading profiles of both monolingual and bilingual readers.}, KEYWORDS = {developing readers, bilingualism, L2 literacy, connected text reading, morphological processing, finger-tracking}, PAGES = {327-361}, URL = {https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1418/109051}, VOLUME = {XXII}, DOI = {10.1418/109051}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2023_ARTICLE_MP_485504, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {A discriminative information-theoretical analysis of the regularity gradient in inflectional morphology}, YEAR = {2023}, ABSTRACT = {Over the last decades, several independent lines of research in morphology have questioned the hypothesis of a direct correspondence between sublexical units and their mental correlates. Word and paradigm models of morphology shifted the fundamental part-whole relation in an inflection system onto the relation between individual inflected word forms and inflectional paradigms. In turn, the use of artificial neural networks of densely interconnected parallel processing nodes for morphology learning marked a radical departure from a morpheme-based view of the mental lexicon. Lately, in computational models of Discriminative Learning, a network architecture has been combined with an uncertainty reducing mechanism that dispenses with the need for a one-to-one association between formal contrasts and meanings, leading to the dissolution of a discrete notion of the morpheme.The paper capitalises on these converging lines of development to offer a unifying information-theoretical, simulation-based analysis of the costs incurred in processing (ir)regularly inflected forms belonging to the verb systems of English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. Using Temporal Self-Organising Maps as a computational model of lexical storage and access, we show that a discriminative, recurrent neural network, based on Rescorla-Wagner's equations, can replicate speakers' exquisite sensitivity to widespread effects of word frequency, paradigm entropy and morphological (ir)regularity in lexical processing. The evidence suggests an explanatory hypothesis linking Word and paradigm morphology with principles of information theory and human perception of morphological structure. According to this hypothesis, the ways more or less regularly inflected words are structured in the mental lexicon are more related to a reduction in processing uncertainty and maximisation of predictive efficiency than to economy of storage.}, KEYWORDS = {Morphological inflection, Morphological regularity, Prediction-driven processing, Discriminative learning, Lexical self-organisation, Gradient structure, Information theory, Non-linear modelling}, PAGES = {1-51}, URL = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s11525-023-09415-6}, DOI = {10.1007/s11525-023-09415-6}, PUBLISHER = {Springer (Heidelberg, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {1871-5621}, JOURNAL = {Morphology (Dordrecht)}, } @ARTICLE{MAZZARINO_2023_ARTICLE_MM_483114, AUTHOR = {Mazzarino, S. and Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Morphological processing in Italian L2 developing readers: a pilot study}, YEAR = {2023}, ABSTRACT = {In this paper we focus on the morphological competence and awareness of 23 Italian second-language (L2) school children, by comparing the reading profiles of Italian L1 and L2 children attending primary school from 2nd to 5th grades. Reading data were collected through the experimental finger-tracking protocol developed within the ReadLet project, which supports collecting and structuring behavioural reading data of short narrative texts displayed on a tablet touch-screen. The analyses reproduced the main effects that are well-attested in the developmental literature, and pointed out some differences in the behavioural profile of L2 versus L1 children, with the former being more affected by word length and frequency effects, as well as by the aloud reading task than the latter. Interestingly, however, a functional morphological segmentation strategy emerges in L2 readers processing complex inflected forms during the aloud reading task. We interpret it as a possible strategy to alleviate the extra cognitive load associated with the overt articulation of morphologically complex words within the context of a connected text.}, KEYWORDS = {reading, bilingualism, morphological awareness, developing readers, word processing}, PAGES = {143-166}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/483114}, VOLUME = {XXII}, DOI = {10.1418/107679}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @EDITORIAL{MARZI_2023_EDITORIAL_MP_490518, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Integrative Views on Representations and Processes in Morphology}, YEAR = {2023}, ABSTRACT = {One of the most enduring conceptualisations of the language architecture rests on a modular subdivision of work between lexical representations of stored items on the one hand, and dynamic processes, modelled as procedural rules working on such items, on the other hand. In morphology, network-based approaches have suggested an alternative "integrative" view of word representations and processes, where lexical representations consist of partially overlapping activation patterns spreading over several processing units. From this integrative perspective, the resulting network is both a lexicon and a word processor. We argue that the network-based view provides a stimulating research framework for several complementary levels of language inquiry (including theoretical, computational and neuro-psychological approaches) to be fruitfully integrated into a novel, comprehensive understanding of morphology. We discuss some implications of this view and delineate prospects of progress in this area.}, KEYWORDS = {morphology, mental lexicon, Connectionism, Network science, Discriminative Learning}, PAGES = {397-556}, URL = {https://link.springer.com/journal/11525/volumes-and-issues/33-4}, VOLUME = {33(4)}, DOI = {10.1007/s11525-023-09416-5}, PUBLISHER = {Springer (Dordrecht, NLD)}, } @EDITORIAL{MARZI_2023_EDITORIAL_MP_492243, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Integrative views of representations and processes in morphology: an introduction}, YEAR = {2023}, KEYWORDS = {Morphology, Mental Lexicon, Connectionism, Network science, Discriminative learning}, PAGES = {397-408}, URL = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11525-023-09416-5}, VOLUME = {33}, DOI = {10.1007/s11525-023-09416-5}, PUBLISHER = {Springer (Heidelberg, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {1871-5621}, BOOKTITLE = {Morphology (Dordrecht)}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2022_ARTICLE_MNMMP_471441, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Narzisi, A. and Milone, A. and Masi, G. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Reading behaviors through patterns of finger-tracking in Italian children with autism spectrum disorder}, YEAR = {2022}, ABSTRACT = {The paper proposes an ecological and portable protocol for the large-scale collection of reading data in high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children based on recording the finger movements of a subject reading a text displayed on a tablet touchscreen. By capitalizing on recent evidence that movements of a finger that points to a scene or text during visual exploration or reading may approximate eye fixations, we focus on recognition of written content and function words, pace of reading, and accuracy in reading comprehension. The analysis showed significant differences between typically developing and ASD children, with the latter group exhibiting greater variation in levels of reading ability, slower developmental pace in reading speed, less accurate comprehension, greater dependency on word length and word frequency, less significant prediction-based processing, as well as a monotonous, steady reading pace with reduced attention to weak punctuation. Finger-tracking patterns provides evidence that ASD readers may fail to integrate single word processing into major syntactic structures and lends support to the hypothesis of an impaired use of contextual information to predict upcoming stimuli, suggesting that difficulties in perception may arise as difficulties in prediction.}, KEYWORDS = {reading, autism, finger-tracking, deleloping readers, prediction-driven processing}, PAGES = {1-17}, URL = {https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/12/10/1316}, VOLUME = {12}, DOI = {10.3390/brainsci12101316}, PUBLISHER = {Molecular Diversity Preservation International (Basel)}, ISSN = {2076-3425}, JOURNAL = {Brain sciences}, } @INCOLLECTION{CREPALDI_2022_INCOLLECTION_CFMNPT_471258, AUTHOR = {Crepaldi, D. and Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Nadalini, A. and Pirrelli, V. and Taxitari, L.}, TITLE = {Finger movements and eye movements during adults' silent and oral reading}, YEAR = {2022}, ABSTRACT = {Using a common tablet and a web application, we can record the finger movements of a reader that is concurrently reading and finger-pointing a text displayed on the tablet touchscreen. In a preliminary analysis of "finger-tracking" data of early-graders we showed that finger movements can replicate established reading effects observed in more controlled settings. Here, we analyse and discuss reading evidence collected by (i) tracking the finger movements of adults reading a short essay displayed on a tablet touchscreen, and (ii) tracking the eye movements of adults reading a comparable text displayed on the screen of a computer. Texts in the two conditions were controlled for linguistic complexity and page layout. In addition, we tested adults' comprehension in both silent and oral reading, by asking them multiple-choice questions after reading each text. We show and discuss the reading evidence that the two (optical and tactile) protocols provide, and to what extent they show comparable effects. We conclude with some remarks on the importance of ecology and portability of protocols for large-scale collection of naturalistic reading data.}, KEYWORDS = {Reading, finger-tracking, digital technology}, PAGES = {443-471}, URL = {https://link.springer.com/book/9783030998905}, VOLUME = {23}, PUBLISHER = {Springer (Dordrecht, NLD)}, ISBN = {978-3-030-99890-5}, BOOKTITLE = {Developing language and literacy-Studies in Honor of Dorit Diskin Ravid}, EDITOR = {Levie, R. and Bar On, A. and Ashkenazi, O. and Dattner, E. and Brandes, G.}, } @INCOLLECTION{MARZI_2022_INCOLLECTION_MP_464598, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Psycholinguistic Research on Inflectional Morphology in the Romance Languages}, YEAR = {2022}, ABSTRACT = {Over the past decades, psycholinguistic aspects of word processing have made a considerable impact on views of language theory and language architecture. In the quest for the principles governing the ways human speakers perceive, store, access, and produce words, inflection issues have provided a challenging realm of scientific inquiry, and a battlefield for radically opposing views. It is somewhat ironic that some of the most influential cognitive models of inflection have long been based on evidence from an inflectionally impoverished language like English, where the notions of inflectional regularity, (de)composability, predictability, phonological complexity, and default productivity appear to be mutually implied. An analysis of more "complex" inflection systems such as those of Romance languages shows that this mutual implication is not a universal property of inflection, but a contingency of poorly contrastive, nearly isolating inflection systems. Far from presenting minor faults in a solid, theoretical edifice, Romance evidence appears to call into question the subdivision of labor between rules and exceptions, the on-line processing vs. long-term memory dichotomy, and the distinction between morphological processes and lexical representations. A dynamic, learning-based view of inflection is more compatible with this data, whereby morphological structure is an emergent property of the ways inflected forms are processed and stored, grounded in universal principles of lexical self-organization and their neuro-functional correlates.}, KEYWORDS = {Romance language morphology, paradigms, inflectional classes, lexical self-organisation, frequency effects, priming, discriminative learning, lexical blocking, long-term and short-term memory}, PAGES = {1-44}, URL = {https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-709}, DOI = {10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.709}, PUBLISHER = {Oxford University Press (Oxford, GBR)}, ISBN = {9780199384655}, BOOKTITLE = {Oxford Encyclopedia of Romance Linguistics}, EDITOR = {Loporcaro, M.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2022_INPROCEEDINGS_MNFMMVPTP_471602, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Narzisi, A. and Ferro, M. and Masi, G. and Milone, A. and Viglione, V. and Pelagatti, S. and Tomassini, I. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Patterns of finger-tracking in Italian early readers with Autism Spectrum Disorder}, YEAR = {2022}, ABSTRACT = {Background: Of late, the synergistic interaction of eye and hand movements in the exploration of a visual scene displayed on a computer touchscreen was shown to provide a congruent signature of the "attention maps" of subjects with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A familiar context where this visual and tactile interaction is exploited is when children use the finger of their dominant hand to point the letters of written words as they are reading, particularly at early stages of their literacy development. In the present work, a dedicated app running on a common tablet is used to capture and analyse the finger-tracking behaviour of children with ASD while they are reading few episodes of a connected text on the tablet touchscreen. The reader's voice is also recorded through the tablet built-in microphone. The sliding movements of the finger across the tablet touchscreen are discretized into a series of densely distributed "touch events", which are then mapped onto the text lines in much the same way eye fixations are projected onto a sequence of words using an eye-tracker. Reading texts are linguistically annotated, to control for levels of reading difficulty, and finger-tracking times are associated with linguistic glosses. Objectives: Investigate patterns of finger-tracking as a potential non biological marker for identification of children with ASD . Methods: A preliminary analysis is offered of evidence of the finger-tracking behaviour of 20 Italian children with high functioning ASD, aged 7-11 years, while they are engaged in reading. A grade-matched control group of children with typical development was included. Patterns of finger-tracking are assessed in connection with three complementary aspects of reading behaviour: (1) word recognition, (2) pace of reading of multi-word intonation units, and (3) text comprehension, controlled by asking children a few multiple-choice questions on text content after each reading session. Results: Considerable variation in levels of reading ability was observed in the ASD sample, with a few children showing clear evidence of impaired reading comprehension. However, fluent readers with ASD exhibit the same correlation between accurate decoding (assessed by measuring per-word reading speed) and high levels of reading comprehension found in controls. Likewise, decoding rates were found to significantly increase with increasing grade levels, following the typical developmental pattern observed in controls. On a less local level of linguistic analysis, the reading pace of ASD readers fails to be modulated according to major syntactic structures, punctuation marks and direct speech turns, an effect concomitant with a flat prosodic intonation of oral reading. Conclusions: Preliminary findings confirm the heterogeneous nature of reading skills in children with ASD, showing that the use of a tablet screen as a tactile interface for visual perception analysis can offer a robust experimental protocol for large-scale, multimodal collection of naturalistic data for extensive assessment of readers with ASD.}, KEYWORDS = {reading, autism, finger-tracking, developing readers, prediction-driven processing}, PAGES = {192-192}, URL = {https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.autism-insar.org/resource/resmgr/files/insar_2022/2022_Abstract_Book.pdf}, VOLUME = {2022}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {INSAR}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Austin, Texas}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {11-14/05/2022}, BOOKTITLE = {2022 annual meeting abstract book}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2022_INPROCEEDINGS_MP_471259, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {An information-theoretic analysis of the inflectional regular-irregular gradient for optimal processing units}, YEAR = {2022}, ABSTRACT = {Prediction-driven word processing defines the human ability to anticipate upcoming input words in recognition. From this perspective, input word forms need to be processed as quickly and efficiently as possible. Under the reasonable assumption that spoken words are memorized and processed as word trees (e.g. Marslen-Wilson's "cohorts"), the larger the size of the cohort of an input word at a certain point in time (and the later its uniqueness point), the harder and slower to process the word is. Regularly and irregularly inflected verb forms have different stem family sizes and different uniqueness points. Using a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) as a computational model of the human lexical proces- sor, we explore here how their distributional and structural properties may affect (optimal) processing strategies.}, KEYWORDS = {Morphological inflection, prediction-driven processing, discriminability, non-linearity, learnability}, PAGES = {50-51}, URL = {http://www.nytud.hu/imm20/abstracts/main.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {20th International Morphology Meeting-(Dedicated to the memory of Ferenc Kiefer)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Budapest}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {01-04/09/2022}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2021_ARTICLE_MGSV_447049, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Greco, A. and Scilingo, E. P. and Vanello, N.}, TITLE = {Towards a model of arousal change after affective word pronunciation based on electrodermal activity and speech analysis}, YEAR = {2021}, ABSTRACT = {In this paper, we explore the possibility of building a model of subject arousal by exploiting the acquisition and the analysis of speech and electrodermal activity (EDA). Several issues have to be addressed to reach this goal as the estimation of the relationship between arousal and behavioral measures and the reliability of EDA signal during speech production. To accomplish this task, we will investigate the relation among EDA, speech activity and subject arousal, during isolated affective word pronunciation. Our results show that significant information on subject arousal can be obtained by analyzing EDA during the processing of out-of-context words with an emotional content in a reading aloud task. Based on a sample of eighteen Italian participants, we observed a significant relation between EDA features and self-reported arousal scores. Quantitative models relating EDA and speech-derived features are proposed and discussed. We found that increasing values of tonic and phasic components of EDA signals correspond to increasing self-assessed arousal scores; Mel-frequency cepstral analysis of speech was also shown to carry relevant information about subject arousal, with a significant inverse relation to self-assessed scores. Our results suggest how the analysis of concurrent acquisition of EDA and speech features may offer a valid approach for the prediction of subject arousal during speech production, as well as a method for validating self-assessment ratings themselves.}, KEYWORDS = {speech, electrodermal activity, statistical models, arousal, word pronunciation}, PAGES = {1-8}, URL = {http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bspc}, VOLUME = {67}, DOI = {10.1016/j.bspc.2021.102517}, PUBLISHER = {Elsevier (Oxford, Regno Unito)}, ISSN = {1746-8094}, JOURNAL = {Biomedical signal processing and control (Print)}, } @BOOK{MARZI_2021_BOOK_M_461758, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Modelling the morphological lexicon-A computational approach to mono-and bilingual learning and processing of verb inflection}, YEAR = {2021}, ABSTRACT = {This work aims at defining an explanatory model of the morphological lexicon as a dynamic system of word learning and processing in both mono- and bilingual contexts. The main focus is on exploring some relevant aspects of the paradigmatic organisation of the mental lexicon in language learning, based on a dynamic analysis of mono- and bilingual contexts. The proposed interdisciplinary approach to lexical acquisition combines theoretically-motivated accounts, psycho-cognitive evidence and methodologies, and machine learning technologies. In particular, I will take into account those basic psychological and cognitive mechanisms that are considered as crucial in language acquisition: (i) the ability to perceive recurrent morphological structures (invariances) in varying temporal contexts, (ii) the capability to access/activate time series of symbols in the short term memory and to selectively integrate them with long term memory expectations, (iii) the attitude towards building novel forms through analogical extension of intra- and inter-paradigmatic relations (generalisation). This investigation is pursued through a computational model based on a recurrent Self-Organising Map, with Hebbian connections defined over a temporal layer (Temporal Self-Organising Map, TSOM), providing a principled algorithmic account of effects of lexical acquisition, processing and access. The computational simulation of a biologically inspired neural architecture of the mental lexicon offers the possibility to reproduce a wide range of conditions of mono- and bi-lingual input exposure, and to illustrate the dynamic of word acquisition and the emergence of morphological organisation. The proposed model provides an adaptive multifactorial account of morphology acquisition affected by a variety of input factors, such as word frequency distributions, paradigm regularity and wordlikeness, whereby lexical perception and organisation are grounded in memory-based processing strategies. In addition, it suggests a processing-based notion of morpheme, as a by-product of processing dynamics, with paradigms emerging as specialised surface relations between inflected forms.}, KEYWORDS = {morphology, learning and processing, monolingual and bilingual acquisition, verb inflection, artificial neural networks, temporal self-organising maps}, PAGES = {5-171}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/461758}, VOLUME = {1095. 82}, PUBLISHER = {Franco Angeli (Milano, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-351-3548-7}, } @INCOLLECTION{CAPPA_2021_INCOLLECTION_CFG_461297, AUTHOR = {Cappa, C. and Ferro, M. and Giulivi, S.}, TITLE = {Valutare l'efficienza di lettura in classe, fra "ecologia" e tecnologie}, YEAR = {2021}, ABSTRACT = {La sperimentazione AEREST ha consentito la creazione di un protocollo in grado di offrire una valutazione accurata e dettagliata delle abilità di lettura e comprensione del testo. Lo strumento si è rivelato semplice da utilizzare per gli insegnanti, ed è stato accolto con curiosità e interesse dagli allievi, certamente attratti dal supporto utilizzato per la somministrazione (il tablet), ma anche dai testi, che sono stati scelti e adattati con particolare cura. L'analisi dei dati ha consentito di identificare una considerevole varietà di profili di lettori, per i quali sarà possibile progettare percorsi di potenziamento mirati. Come già accennato, si è potuta constatare l'efficacia dello strumento nell'identificazione di allievi le cui difficoltà (pur evidenti agli occhi degli insegnanti) non vengono rilevate dai test comunemente utilizzati per la valutazione, ma la cui lettura non può essere considerata 'efficiente'. Costituiscono esempi in questo senso gli allievi che decodificano in modo accurato e veloce, con buone prestazioni nella comprensione all'ascolto, ma che manifestano difficoltà nella comprensione di un testo in lettura silente, poiché in questa attività devono integrare la decodifica con l'accesso al significato. Un ulteriore esempio è costituito dagli allievi che ottengono buoni risultati in tutti i test, impiegando però un tempo eccessivamente lungo per svolgerli. Nella prospettiva qui adottata, anche per questi allievi è necessario individuare strategie di supporto volte a evitare che le attività scolastiche, in particolare i compiti a casa, occupino una parte troppo ampia del tempo dell'allievo, togliendo spazio al gioco, allo svago, agli interessi personali e alla socializzazione. Questi ultimi sono aspetti che, come sottolinea la Carta internazionale dei diritti dei bambini (1959), rivestono un'importanza cruciale per il processo di crescita e il benessere generale di ciascuno. Oltre alle difficoltà, il protocollo AEREST consente di mettere in evidenza le prestazioni eccellenti, grazie alla struttura dei test e alle caratteristiche dei testi e delle domande che li accompagnano. Capire a fondo come "funzionano" gli allievi è indispensabile per poterli sostenere al meglio negli apprendimenti, indipendentemente dalla presenza o meno di un'"etichetta" diagnostica. Gli insegnanti hanno in questo senso una grande responsabilità, e uno strumento come AEREST, grazie anche all'implementazione su piattaforma tecnologica, può aiutarli in quella che forse è la loro principale sfida quotidiana: fare in modo che le difficoltà scolastiche non siano vissute come barriere all'apprendimento, al successo scolastico, alle opportunità professionali, alla realizzazione personale, ma come soglie da superare e da trasformare in trampolini di lancio.}, KEYWORDS = {efficienza di lettura, decodifca, comprensione, scuola primaria}, PAGES = {49-69}, URL = {https://buponline.com/prodotto/disturbi-specifici-dellapprendimento-e-insegnamento-linguistico/}, VOLUME = {3}, PUBLISHER = {Bononia University Press (Bologna, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-6923-829-1}, BOOKTITLE = {Didattica dell'italiano}, EDITOR = {Garulli, V. and Pasetti, L. and Viale, M.}, } @INCOLLECTION{GIULIVI_2021_INCOLLECTION_GCF_461302, AUTHOR = {Giulivi, S. and Cappa, C. and Ferro, M.}, TITLE = {Le difficoltà di lettura. Limiti o soglie calpestabili?}, YEAR = {2021}, ABSTRACT = {'Se alzi un muro, pensa a ciò che resta fuori', scrive Italo Calvino in uno dei suoi romanzi più celebri, Il barone rampante. Quante volte alziamo muri, nelle situazioni e negli ambiti più disparati, magari senza che ce ne sia volontà o consapevolezza? La scuola, paradossalmente, è forse uno dei contesti in cui più spesso ciò accade. Non per negligenza, né per carenza di competenze - almeno nella maggioranza dei casi - ma perché la complessità dell'universo educativo, e di una classe, è spesso difficile da afferrare, accettare, accogliere, gestire, percepire come un valore. Il problema è che, in certi casi, a restare fuori dal muro sono le opportunità di apprendimento degli allievi, il loro benessere scolastico ed extrascolastico, le loro possibilità future. La lettura e le opportunità di accesso al testo possono costituire uno dei migliori trampolini di lancio, oppure una delle maggiori barriere, verso un'educazione adeguata, verso la possibilità di partecipazione attiva nella società, verso future opportunità accademiche e professionali. Le abilità legate alla lettura, la maggiore o minore efficienza con cui l'allievo le sviluppa costituiscono anche una delle principali fonti di complessità in classe. Da qualche tempo si assiste in Ticino a una crescente attenzione verso le difficoltà e i disturbi della lettura. I docenti sono sempre più sensibili, informati e aggiornati sul tema. Ciò che ancora sfugge, tuttavia, è l'estrema eterogeneità dei profili dei 'piccoli lettori', e la reale natura delle difficoltà che possono manifestarsi in età scolare. Consideriamo, per esempio, una delle cause di tali difficoltà: la dislessia, il disturbo specifico dell'apprendimento (DSA) che impedisce l'automatizzazione della decodifica del testo scritto. Si tratta di un disturbo di origine neurobiologica; ciò non significa, tuttavia, che si manifesti in modi sempre uguali o costanti nel tempo. Ogni dislessia (o altro DSA) è diversa da ogni altra e ogni dislessia evolve nel tempo insieme all'allievo. Come ricorda Giovanni Bollea, fondatore della neuropsichiatria infantile in Italia, "i disturbi dei bambini sono disturbi che cambiano in persone che cambiano" (Bollea, 1980). I DSA possono cambiare per una molteplicità di fattori, che spaziano dalle caratteristiche cognitive ed emotive del singolo, a quelle dei contesti in cui vive, agisce, apprende: la scuola, la famiglia, gli spazi di svago e socializzazione. Riuscire a gestire a scuola questo genere di complessità significa creare le condizioni per trasformare potenziali barriere in trampolini di lancio; significa permettere a tutti gli allievi, anche a coloro che devono fare i conti con un disturbo o una difficoltà di lettura, di trarre il massimo dal luogo primariamente preposto agli apprendimenti e all'educazione.}, KEYWORDS = {scuola primaria, didattica, apprendimento}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/461302}, EDITOR = {Biffi, C. and Falconi, R.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{BRUNO_2021_INPROCEEDINGS_BGCMF_461393, AUTHOR = {Bruno, E. and Giulivi, S. and Cappa, C. and Marini, M. and Ferro, M.}, TITLE = {Evaluating the accuracy of decoding in children who read aloud}, YEAR = {2021}, ABSTRACT = {Digital tools based on automatic speech recognition (ASR) could be a useful support for teachers in assessing the reading skills of the students. We focus on the evaluation of the decoding accuracy of children with grade level ranging from the 3rd to the 6th performing a reading aloud task on a narrative text displayed on an ordinary tablet using the ReadLet platform. On the basis of previously collected data, we built a gold dataset with sentences characterised by the audio data, the original text to be read, and the text actually spoken by the child. By using the open-source Kaldi toolkit an ASR system based on the GMM-HMM model was trained on the training portion of the gold dataset. The accuracy of the ASR system was calculated as the ability to correctly decode the test audio data with respect to the annotated text, and the decoding accuracy of the children was estimated by measuring the gap between the results obtained with the annotated text and the original text. A consistent trend with increasing grade level was found in terms of word correctness, substitutions and insertions, while the trained model appears to be significantly able to evaluate the children decoding accuracy.}, KEYWORDS = {speech recognition, decoding accuracy, reading aloud, voice parameters, Kaldi, GMM-HMM acoustic model}, PAGES = {145-148}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/461393}, DOI = {10.36253/978-88-5518-449-6}, PUBLISHER = {Firenze University Press (Firenze, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-5518-449-6}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {12th International Workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications (MAVEBA'21)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Firenze (Italy)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {14-16/12/2021}, BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications (MAVEBA'21)}, EDITOR = {Manfredi, C.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{TAXITARI_2021_INPROCEEDINGS_TCFMNP_441870, AUTHOR = {Taxitari, L. and Cappa, C. and Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Nadalini, A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Using mobile technology for reading assessment}, YEAR = {2021}, ABSTRACT = {The enormous potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for addressing critical educational issues is generally acknowledged, but its use in the assessment of the complex skills of reading and understanding a text has been very limited to date. The paper contrasts traditional reading assessment protocols with ReadLet, an ICT platform with a tablet front-end, designed to support online monitoring of silent and oral reading abilities in early graders. ReadLet makes use of cloud computing and mobile technology for large-scale data collection and allows the time alignment of the child's reading behaviour with texts tagged using Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools. Initial findings replicate established benchmarks from the psycholinguistic literature on reading in both typically and atypically developing children, making the application a new ground-breaking approach in the evaluation of reading skills. Index Terms--reading assessment, reading research, mobile technology, NLP, cloud computing, special education needs.}, KEYWORDS = {reading assessment, reading research, mobile technology, NLP, cloud computing, special education needs}, PAGES = {1-6}, URL = {http://www.ieee.ma/cist20/component/content/?id=26\&Itemid=185}, ISBN = {9781728166469}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {6th IEEE Congress on Information Science \& Technology (IEEE CIST'20)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {online}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {05/06/2021}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2021_INPROCEEDINGS_MTFNP_445743, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Taxitari, L. and Ferro, M. and Nadalini, A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Valutare la lettura "in tempo reale": un esempio di integrazione tra linguistica computazionale e linguistica applicata}, YEAR = {2021}, ABSTRACT = {In anni recenti, linguistica computazionale e linguistica applicata hanno ampliato i loro rispettivi ambiti d'indagine, utilizzando l'ontologia formale della linguistica teorica e i modelli cognitivi della psicolinguistica per studiare le difficoltà che i parlanti incontrano nello svolgimento di "compiti" linguistici specifici. Nell'ambito della lettura, le tecnologie per il Trattamento Automatico del Linguaggio (TAL) si sono dimostrate capaci di classificare il livello di leggibilità di un testo, basandosi sulla distribuzione di alcuni parametri linguistici in testi pre-classificati per età dei lettori destinatari, o per grado di scolarità, o per livello di sviluppo cognitivo. Ad esempio, parole o frasi più lunghe, o parole più rare tendono a distribuirsi in testi di più difficile comprensione, o destinati a lettori più maturi. E' possibile così assegnare a un testo, o a ogni singola frase, un punteggio di leggibilità in funzione (inversa) della complessità lessicale, morfologica, sintattica o pragmatica dell'unità testuale analizzata. In Linguistica Applicata (LA) la valutazione della difficoltà di lettura ha seguito un approccio funzionale. Nel modello semplice di lettura, ad esempio, la capacità di leggere un testo è analizzata come il prodotto dell'interazione tra decodifica e comprensione. Attraverso l'osservazione di un campione di bambini impegnati nella lettura, è possibile valutare la loro fluenza in decodifica, gli errori di decodifica e comprensione, e l'efficacia di percorsi educativi personalizzati. La piattaforma ReadLet è stata sviluppata con l'obiettivo di integrare l'approccio classificatorio del TAL con quello funzionale della LA. Il bambino legge un breve testo visualizzato sullo schermo di un tablet, ad alta voce o in modalità silente. In entrambi i casi, al bambino viene chiesto di "tenere il segno" con il dito sullo schermo nel corso della lettura. La traccia tattile è registrata e allineata con il testo visualizzato sullo schermo mediante un algoritmo di convoluzione. Al contempo, il testo è annotato automaticamente per tratti linguistici. Alla fine della sessione di lettura silente, il bambino risponde ad alcune semplici domande sul contenuto del testo. I dati raccolti consentono di valutare le difficoltà (rallentamenti o errori) che il bambino incontra nella lettura, e di mettere in relazione "in tempo reale" queste difficoltà con aspetti linguistici specifici del testo. Un'analisi preliminare dei dati raccolti da ReadLet su oltre 400 allievi di alcune scuole elementari toscane e della Svizzera italiana, ha evidenziato il differente "passo" di lettura tra lettori con sviluppo tipico e atipico, e il peso che variabili come lunghezza, frequenza e lessicalità hanno su profili di lettura individuali e aggregati. La possibilità di "controllare" automaticamente la distribuzione di queste variabili nel testo e di correlarle con le difficoltà del singolo bambino consente, infine, di somministrare testi con livelli di difficoltà gradualmente crescenti, rendendo possibili percorsi personalizzati di potenziamento.}, KEYWORDS = {reading assessment, reading strategies, NLP, ICT mobile technologies}, PAGES = {5-5}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/445743}, VOLUME = {2021}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {XXI Congresso Internazionale di AItLA}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Bergamo (I)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {11-12/02/2021}, BOOKTITLE = {FARE LINGUISTICA APPLICATA CON LE DIGITAL HUMANITIES}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2020_ARTICLE_M_424281, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Modeling Word Learning and Processing with Recurrent Neural Networks}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {The paper focuses on what two different types of Recurrent Neural Networks, namely a recurrent Long Short-Term Memory and a recurrent variant of self-organizing memories, a Temporal Self-Organizing Map, can tell us about speakers' learning and processing a set of fully inflected verb forms selected from the top-frequency paradigms of Italian and German. Both architectures, due to the re-entrant layer of temporal connectivity, can develop a strong sensitivity to sequential patterns that are highly attested in the training data. The main goal is to evaluate learning and processing dynamics of verb inflection data in the two neural networks by focusing on the effects of morphological structure on word production and word recognition, as well as on word generalization for untrained verb forms. For both models, results show that production and recognition, as well as generalization, are facilitated for verb forms in regular paradigms. However, the two models are differently influenced by structural effects, with the Temporal Self-Organizing Map more prone to adaptively find a balance between processing issues of learnability and generalization, on the one side, and discriminability on the other side.}, KEYWORDS = {word-learning, serial word processing, recurrent neural networks, long short-term memories, temporal self-organizing memories}, PAGES = {14}, URL = {https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/6/320}, VOLUME = {11}, DOI = {10.3390/info11060320}, PUBLISHER = {Molecular Diversity Preservation International (Basel)}, ISSN = {2078-2489}, JOURNAL = {Information (Basel)}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2020_ARTICLE_M_424627, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Modelling the interaction of regularity and morphological structure: the case of Russian verb inflection}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {The main focus of this paper is to investigate how aspects of morphological regularity may have an impact on early stages of word processing, prior to full lexical access. Here I explore the interaction of regularity and morphological structure by using a computational simulation of the process of learning Russian verb forms, without any morpho-syntactic or morphosemantic additional information. With a recurrent variant of self-organising memories, namely a Temporal Self-Organising Map, or TSOM, experimental results allow an investigation of the impact of incremental learning and online processing principles on paradigm organisation, by assessing the differential impact of several aspects of regularity, ranging from formal transparency and predictability to allomorphy, on the processing/learning behaviour in a connectionist framework. The proposed analysis suggests a performance-oriented account of inflectional regularity in morphology, whereby perception of morphological structure is not the by-product of the design of the human word processor, with rules separated from exceptions, but rather an emergent property of the dynamic self-organisation of stored lexical representations, dependent on the adaptive processing history of inflected word forms, intrinsically graded and probabilistic.}, KEYWORDS = {morphological complexity, discriminative learning, recurrent neural networks, self-organisation, Russian verb in?ection}, PAGES = {131-156}, URL = {https://www.mulino.it/riviste/issn/1720-9331}, VOLUME = {XIX}, DOI = {10.1418/97534}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @ARTICLE{MASINI_2020_ARTICLE_MP_444782, AUTHOR = {Masini, F. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {L'evidenza morfologica nell'era digitale: per un'integrazione di teoria e computazione}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {This article proposes a research perspective on morphological and lexical data based on an integrated approach that merges linguistic theory and computational analyses of a large quantity of textual data. Starting from a description of the units and processes of morphology, and of the issues they raise, we discuss to what extent these theoretical notions can be translated into the algorithmic procedures of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and what resources and methods are nowadays available to make morphological and lexical knowledge explicit within texts. At the same time, we explore the repercussions that the application of computational (but also psycho-/neuro-linguistic) techniques may have on our theoretical representations and on their plausibility.}, KEYWORDS = {morphology-lexicon-categories-Natural Language Processing-Italian}, PAGES = {77-126}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/444782}, VOLUME = {VI}, PUBLISHER = {Editrice CLUEB; [poi] Edizioni dell'Orso (Bologna; [poi] Alessandria, Italia)}, ISSN = {0393-1226}, JOURNAL = {Quaderni di semantica (Testo stampato)}, } @INCOLLECTION{MARZI_2020_INCOLLECTION_MBBP_421742, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Blevins, J. P. and Booij, G. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Inflection at the morphology-syntax interface}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {What is inflection? Is it part of language morphology, syntax or both? What are the basic units of inflection and how do speakers acquire and process them? How do they vary across languages? Are some inflection systems somewhat more complex than others, and does inflectional complexity affect the way speakers process words? This chapter addresses these and other related issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. Our main goal is to map out the place of inflection in our current understanding of the grammar architecture. In doing that, we will embark on an interdisciplinary tour, which will touch upon theoretical, psychological, typological, historical and computational issues in morphology, with a view to looking for points of methodological and substantial convergence from a rather heterogeneous array of scientific approaches and theoretical perspectives. The main upshot is that we can learn more from this than just an additive medley of domain-specific results. In the end, a cross-domain survey can help us look at traditional issues in a surprisingly novel light.}, KEYWORDS = {inflection, paradigmatic relations, word processing, word learning, inflectional complexity, family size, entropy}, PAGES = {228-294}, URL = {https://www.degruyter.com/view/book/9783110440577/10.1515/9783110440577-007.xml}, VOLUME = {337}, DOI = {10.1515/9783110440577-007}, PUBLISHER = {De Gruyter Saur (Berlin/Munich, DEU)}, ISBN = {9783110440577}, BOOKTITLE = {Word Knowledge and Word Usage. A cross-interdisciplinary guide to the mental lexicon}, EDITOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Plag, I. and Dressler, W. U.}, } @INCOLLECTION{PIRRELLI_2020_INCOLLECTION_PMFCBM_421741, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Cardillo, F. A. and Baayen, H. R. and Milin, P.}, TITLE = {Psycho-computational modelling of the mental lexicon}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {Over the last decades, a growing body of evidence on the mechanisms governing lexical storage, access, acquisition and processing has questioned traditional models of language architecture and word usage based on the hypothesis of a direct correspondence between modular components of grammar competence (lexicon vs. rules), processing correlates (memory vs. computation) and neuro-anatomical localizations (prefrontal vs. temporo-parietal perisylvian areas of the left hemisphere). In the present chapter, we explore the empirical and theoretical consequences of a distributed, integrative model of the mental lexicon, whereby words are seen as emergent properties of the functional interaction between basic, language-independent processing principles and the language- specific nature and organization of the input. From this perspective, language learning appears to be inextricably related to the way language is processed and internalized by the speakers, and key to an interdisciplinary understanding of such a way, in line with Tomaso Poggio's suggestion that the development of a cognitive skill is causally and ontogenetically prior to its execution (and sits "on top of it"). In particular, we discuss conditions, potential and prospects of the epistemological continuity between psycholinguistic and computational modelling of word learning, and illustrate the yet largely untapped potential of their integration. We use David Marr's hierarchy to clarify the complementarity of the two viewpoints. Psycholinguistic models are informative about how speakers learn to use language (interfacing Marr's levels 1 and 2). When we move from the psycholinguistic analysis of the functional operations involved in language learning to an algorithmic description of how they are computed, computer simulations can help us explore the relation between speakers' behavior and general learning principles in more detail. In the end, psycho-computational models can be instrumental to bridge Marr's levels 2 and 3, bringing us closer to understanding the nature of word knowledge in the brain.}, KEYWORDS = {mental lexicon, word storage and processing, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, connectionist models, discriminative learning}, PAGES = {23-82}, URL = {https://www.degruyter.com/view/book/9783110440577/10.1515/9783110440577-002.xml}, VOLUME = {337}, DOI = {10.1515/9783110440577-002}, PUBLISHER = {De Gruyter Saur (Berlin/Munich, DEU)}, ISBN = {9783110440577}, BOOKTITLE = {Word Knowledge and Word Usage}, EDITOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Plag, I. and Dressler, W. U.}, } @INCOLLECTION{PIRRELLI_2020_INCOLLECTION_PPD_423388, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Plag, I. and Dressler, U. W.}, TITLE = {Word knowledge in a cross-disciplinary world}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {This editorial project stemmed from a 4-year period of intense interdisciplinary research networking funded by the European Science Foundation within the framework of the NetWordS project (09-RNP-089). The project mission was to bring together experts of various research fields (from brain sciences and computing to cognition and linguistics) and of different theoretical inclinations, to advance the current awareness of theoretical, typological, psycholinguistic, computational and neurophysiological evidence on the structure and processing of words, with a view to promoting novel methods of research and assessment for grammar architecture and language usage. The unprecedented cross-disciplinary fertilization prompted by a wide range of scientific and educational initiatives (three international workshops, two summer schools, one main conference and over a hundred grants supporting short visits and multilateral exchanges) persuaded us to pursue this effort beyond the project lifespan, spawning the idea of an interdisciplinary handbook, where a wide range of central topics on word knowledge and usage are dealt with by teams of authors with common interests and different backgrounds. Unsurprisingly (with the benefit of the hindsight), the project turned out to be more challenging and time-consuming than initially planned. Cross-boundary talking and mutual understanding are neither short-term, nor immediately rewarding efforts, but part of a long-sighted, strategic vision, where stamina, motivation and planning ahead play a prominent role. We believe that this book, published as an open access volume, significantly sharpens the current understanding of issues of word knowledge and usage, and has a real potential for promoting novel research paradigms, and bringing up a new generation of language scholars.}, KEYWORDS = {interdisciplinarity, word knowledge, word usage, language units, statistical and computer modeling, levels of understanding, between-level mapping, linking hypotheses, scale effects}, PAGES = {1-20}, URL = {https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110440577}, VOLUME = {337}, DOI = {10.1515/9783110440577}, PUBLISHER = {De Gruyter Saur (Berlin/Munich, DEU)}, ISBN = {9783110440577}, BOOKTITLE = {Word Knowledge and Word Usage. A Cross-Disciplinary Guide to the Mental Lexicon}, EDITOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Plag, I. and Dressler, U. W.}, } @EDITORIAL{PIRRELLI_2020_EDITORIAL_PPD_424203, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Plag, I. and Dressler, W. U.}, TITLE = {Word knowledge and word usage: a cross-disciplinary guide to the mental lexicon}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {This editorial project stemmed from a 4-year period of intense interdisciplinary research networking funded by the European Science Foundation within the framework of the NetWordS project (09-RNP-089).}, KEYWORDS = {interdisciplinarity, word knowledge, word usage, language units, statistical and computer modeling, levels of understanding, between-level mapping, linking hypotheses, scale effects}, PAGES = {1-717}, URL = {https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110440577}, VOLUME = {337}, DOI = {10.1515/9783110440577}, PUBLISHER = {De Gruyter Saur (Berlin/Munich, DEU)}, ISBN = {978-3-11-051748-4}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{FERRO_2020_INPROCEEDINGS_FGC_441873, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Giulivi, S. and Cappa, C.}, TITLE = {The AEREST reading database}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {Aerest is a reading assessment protocol for the concurrent evaluation of a child's decoding and comprehension skills. Reading data complying with the Aerest protocol were automatically collected and structured with the ReadLet web-based platform in a pilot study, to form the Aerest Reading Database. The content, structure and potential of the database are described here, together with the main directions of current and future developments.}, KEYWORDS = {reading database, reading efficiency, decoding, comprehension, multimodal analysis}, PAGES = {1-6}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-85097912116\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {2769}, PUBLISHER = {Accademia University Press (Torino, ITA)}, ISSN = {1613-0073}, ISBN = {9791280136282}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {7th Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLIC-IT'20)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Bologna, Italy}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {01-03/03/2021}, BOOKTITLE = {CEUR workshop proceedings}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2020_INPROCEEDINGS_MRNTP_438979, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Rodella, A. and Nadalini, A. and Taxitari, L. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Does finger-tracking point to child reading strategies?}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {The movement of a child's index finger that points to a printed text while (s)he is reading may provide a proxy for the child's eye movements and attention focus. We validated this correlation by showing a quantitative analysis of patterns of "finger-tracking" of Italian early graders engaged in reading a text displayed on a tablet. A web application interfaced with the tablet monitors the reading behaviour by modelling the way the child points to the text while reading. The analysis found significant developmental trends in reading strategies, marking an interesting contrast between typically developing and atypically developing readers.}, KEYWORDS = {reading assessment, reading strategies, mobile technology, special educiation needs}, PAGES = {1-7}, URL = {http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2769/paper_60.pdf}, VOLUME = {vol-2769}, PUBLISHER = {CEUR-WS. org (Aachen, DEU)}, ISSN = {1613-0073}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics 2020}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Bologna}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {1-3/03/2021}, BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of the Seventh Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics}, EDITOR = {Monti, J. and Dell'Orletta, F. and Tamburini, F.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2020_INPROCEEDINGS_PCCDFGMNT_442758, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Cappa, C. and Crepaldi, D. and Del Pinto, V. and Ferro, M. and Giulivi, S. and Marzi, C. and Nadalini, A. and Taxitari, L.}, TITLE = {Tracking the pace of reading with finger movements}, YEAR = {2020}, ABSTRACT = {Recent experimental evidence in visual perception analysis shows that eye and finger movements strongly correlate during scene exploration, at both individual and group levels. A familiar context which exploits this synergistic behaviour is when children learn to read, with the practice of finger-pointing to text as a support for their attention focus, directional movement and voice-print match. Using a tablet to display short texts, we collected evidence on the finger-pointing behaviour of 3rd-6th Italian graders engaged in both silent and oral reading. "Finger-tracking" data, sampled by the tablet and aligned with the text, made it possible to time a child's reading paceat word and sentence level. Results are shown to replicate established benchmarks in the reading literature, such as the difference in reading pace between age-matched typical and atypical readers as a function of word frequency and length, and neighbourhood entropy and Old20. Atypical readers show increasing difficulty with longer words, with a steeper time increment for word length > 6, integrating previous evidence. In addition, neighbourhood density plays a sparse facilitative role in atypical reading, with no significant interaction with neighbourhood entropy, pointing to a non trivial developmental interplay between sublexical reading and the richness of the Italian orthographic-phonological lexicon. Despite their different dynamics, optical and tactile strategies for text exploration prove to be highly congruent: this suggests that finger-tracking can be used as an ecological proxy for eye-tracking in reading assessment.}, KEYWORDS = {Reading, Finger tracking, Mental Lexicon, Word frequency, Word Length, Neighbourhood entropy}, PAGES = {1}, URL = {https://osf.io/hr62g/}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Words in the World International Conference}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Montreal (Canada)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {16-18/10/2020}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2019_ARTICLE_MFP_406277, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {A processing-oriented investigation of inflectional complexity}, YEAR = {2019}, ABSTRACT = {Due to the typological diversity of their inflectional processes, some languages are intuitively more difficult than other languages. Yet, finding a single measure to quantitatively assess the comparative complexity of an inflectional system proves an exceedingly difficult endeavor. In this paper we propose to investigate the issue from a processing-oriented standpoint, using data processed by a type of recurrent neural network to quantitatively model the dynamic of word processing and learning in different input conditions. We evaluate the relative complexity of a set of typologically different inflectional systems (Greek, Italian, Spanish, German, English and Standard Modern Arabic) by training a Temporal Self-Organizing Map (TSOM), a recurrent variant of Kohonen's Self-Organizing Maps, on a fixed set of verb forms from top-frequency verb paradigms, with no information about the morphosemantic and morphosyntactic content conveyed by the forms. After training, the behavior of each language-specific TSOM is assessed on different tasks, looking at self-organizing patterns of temporal connectivity and functional responses. Our simulations show that word processing is facilitated by maximally contrastive inflectional systems, where verb forms exhibit the earliest possible point of lexical discrimination. Conversely, word learning is favored by a maximally generalizable system, where forms are inferred from the smallest possible number of their paradigm companions. Based on evidence from the literature and our own data, we conjecture that the resulting balance is the outcome of the interaction between form frequency and morphological regularity. Big families of stem-sharing, regularly inflected forms are the productive core of an inflectional system. Such a core is easier to learn but slower to discriminate. In contrast, less predictable verb forms, based on alternating and possibly suppletive stems, are easier to process but are learned by rote. Inflection systems thus strike a balance between these conflicting processing and communicative requirements, while staying within tight learnability bounds, in line with Ackermann and Malouf's Low Conditional Entropy Conjecture. Our quantitative investigation supports a discriminative view of morphological inflection as a collective, emergent system, whose global self-organization rests on a surprisingly small handful of language-independent principles of word coactivation and competition.}, KEYWORDS = {Morphological complexity, Discriminative learning, Recurrent neural networks (RNNs), self-organization, emergence, processing uncertainty, stem-family size}, PAGES = {1-23}, URL = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00048/full}, VOLUME = {4}, DOI = {10.3389/fcomm.2019.00048}, PUBLISHER = {Frontiers Media (Lausanne, Svizzera)}, ISSN = {2297-900X}, JOURNAL = {Frontiers in communication}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{GRECO_2019_INPROCEEDINGS_GMLSV_415175, AUTHOR = {Greco, A. and Marzi, C. and Lanata, A. and Scilingo, E. P. and Vanello, N.}, TITLE = {Combining Electrodermal Activity and Speech Analysis towards a more Accurate Emotion Recognition System}, YEAR = {2019}, ABSTRACT = {Current research in the emotion recognition field is exploring the possibility of merging the information from physiological signals, behavioural data, and speech. Electrodermal activity (EDA) is amongst the main psychophysiological arousal indicators. Nonetheless, it is quite difficult to be analyzed in ecological scenarios, like, for instance, when the subject is speaking. On the other hand, speech carries relevant information of subject emotional state and its potential in the field of affective computing is still to be fully exploited. In this work, we aim at exploring the possibility of merging the information from electrodermal activity (EDA) and speech to improve the recognition of human arousal level during the pronunciation of single affective words. Unlike the majority of studies in the literature, we focus on speakers' arousal rather than the emotion conveyed by the spoken word. Specifically, a support vector machine with recursive feature elimination strategy (SVM-RFE) is trained and tested on three datasets, i.e. using the two channels (i.e., speech and EDA) separately and then jointly. The results show that the merging of EDA and speech information significantly improves the marginal classifier (+11.64%). The six selected features by the RFE procedure will be used for the development of a future multivariate model of emotions.}, KEYWORDS = {emotion recognition, feature selection, pattern classification, physiology, psychology, support vector machines, human arousal level, single affective words, EDA, electrodermal activity, speech analysis, emotion recognition system, speech processing}, PAGES = {229-232}, URL = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=\&arnumber=8857745\&isnumber=8856280}, VOLUME = {41st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC)}, DOI = {10.1109/EMBC.2019.8857745}, PUBLISHER = {IEEE Service Center (Piscataway, NJ, Stati Uniti d'America)}, ISSN = {1557-170X}, ISBN = {978-1-5386-1311-5}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {41st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Berlin, Germany}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {23-27 July 20}, BOOKTITLE = {Conference proceedings (IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. Soc., Conf.)}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2019_INPROCEEDINGS_MGSV_430473, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Greco, A. and Scilingo, E. P. and Vanello, N.}, TITLE = {Electrodermal activity and speech features as predictors for arousal level changes after affective word pronunciation}, YEAR = {2019}, ABSTRACT = {This work explores the possibility of estimating subject arousal through the analysis of speech and electrodermal activity (EDA). One critical issue to be clarified is the reliability of EDA signal during speech production. To accomplish this task, a relation among EDA, speech activity and subject arousal during isolated affective word pronunciation task, will be investigated. The results show that significant information on subject arousal can be still obtained by analyzing EDA during speech. In fact, a significant relationship between EDA features and self-reported arousal can be observed. In addition, a quantitative linear model relating EDA- and speech-related features could be identified. These preliminary results indicate how the analysis of concurrent acquisition of EDA and speech deserves further attention and could offer a valid approach for the prediction of subject arousal during speech production, as a method for validating self-assessment ratings.}, KEYWORDS = {electrodermal activity, regression model, word pronunciation, arousal, speech}, PAGES = {93-96}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-85086605454\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {122}, PUBLISHER = {Firenze University Press (Firenze, Italia)}, ISBN = {978-88-6453-961-4}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {11th international workshop on Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Firenze}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {17-19/12/2019}, BOOKTITLE = {Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications}, EDITOR = {Manfredi, C.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{RORBERI_2019_INPROCEEDINGS_RM_408259, AUTHOR = {Rorberi, S. and Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Modelling the interaction of regularity and morphological structure: the case of Russian verb inflection}, YEAR = {2019}, ABSTRACT = {Modelling complex inflection systems, such as conjugation in Modern Greek, Italian or Russian, requires careful consideration of a number of factors, ranging from pervasive stem allomorphy to the identification of the appropriate inflection class and the inferential predictability of morpho-phonological processes. Descriptive approaches have taken different views on how to account for degrees of morphological (ir)regularity, while making different predictions about the way speakers process regular and irregular forms in highly-inflecting languages. In the present paper, we assess the psycholinguistic implications of two radically different approaches to the description of the Russian verb system: a more traditional approach dating back to Jakobson (1948), and a Words and Paradigm approach (Brown 1998). Based on recent fMRI evidence (Slioussar et al. 2014) and original results of a neural network simulation with recurrent self-organising maps (Ferro et al. 2011; Marzi et al. 2014; Pirrelli et al. 2015; Marzi et al. 2016), we suggest that both approaches are prima facie compatible with Russian data, while being in contrast with Pinker's claim that the regular-irregular distinction is an epiphenomenon of the storage-processing dichotomy in the human language faculty (Pinker \& Ullman 2002). We argue that this evidence lends support to integrative models of the mental lexicon (Marzi \& Pirrelli 2015), accounting for a graded interaction between regularity and morphological structure.}, KEYWORDS = {Inflectional complexity, Russian verb system, perception of morphological structure, recurrent self-organising neural network}, PAGES = {107-110}, URL = {http://drehu.linguist.univ-paris-diderot.fr/ismo-2019/?fichier=programme}, VOLUME = {2019}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {International Symposium of Morphology (ISMo) 2019}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Université de Paris, France}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {25-27/09/2019}, EDITOR = {Crysmann, B. and Villoing, F.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2019_INPROCEEDINGS_P_424205, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Investigating inflection as a complex system}, YEAR = {2019}, ABSTRACT = {From a cross-linguistic perspective, different inflection systems appear to apportion word processing costs differently, depending on when and where, in the full form, morpho-lexical and morpho-syntactic information is encoded. The resulting balance is the outcome of an interaction between form frequency and morphological productivity, responding to basic communicative requirements. Big families of stem-sharing inflected forms constitute the productive core of an inflection system. This core is easy to learn, as it requires memorization of one stem only, with all inflected forms being redundantly built upon it. Unsurprisingly, generalizable paradigms are less sensitive to token frequency effects, and tend to be located in the long, low-frequency tail of the Zipfian distribution of word forms. In contrast, the head of the Zipfian distribution mostly contains small families of alternating and possibly suppletive stems, which, however shorter, morpho-phonologically simpler and easier to process, require high token frequency to be learned and resist pressure towards regularization.}, KEYWORDS = {Morphological paradigms, Mental Lexicon, Inflectional morphology}, PAGES = {23-24}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/424205}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {International Symposium of Morphology (ISMo) 2019}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Université de Paris, Paris}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {25/9(2019, 27/9/2019}, } @ARTICLE{CARDILLO_2018_ARTICLE_CFMP_396348, AUTHOR = {Cardillo, F. A. and Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Deep Learning of Inflection and the Cell-Filling Problem}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {Machine learning offers two basic strategies for morphology induction: lexical segmentation and surface word relation. The first approach assumes that words can be segmented into morphemes. Inferring a novel inflected form requires identification of morphemic constituents and a strategy for their recombination. The second approach dispenses with segmentation: lexical representations form part of a network of associatively related inflected forms. Production of a novel form consists in filling in one empty node in the network. Here, we present the results of a task of word inflection by a recurrent LSTM network that learns to fill in paradigm cells of incomplete verb paradigms. Although the task does not require morpheme segmentation, we show that accuracy in carrying out the inflection task is a function of the model's sensitivity to paradigm distribution and morphological structure.}, KEYWORDS = {Deep Learning, LSTM, Cell-Filling Problem}, PAGES = {57-75}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/396348}, VOLUME = {4}, PUBLISHER = {aAccademia University Press, Torino (Italia)}, ISSN = {2499-4553}, JOURNAL = {Italian Journal of Computational Linguistics}, } @ARTICLE{FERRO_2018_ARTICLE_FMP_397012, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Discriminative word learning is sensitive to inflectional entropy}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {Psycholinguistic evidence based on inflectional and derivational word families has emphasised the combined role of Paradigm Entropy and Inflectional Entropy in human word processing. Although the way frequency distributions affect behavioural evidence is clear in broad outline, we still miss a clear algorithmic model of how such a complex interaction takes place and why. The main challenge is to understand how the local interaction of learning and processing principles in morphology can result in global effects that require knowledge of the overall distribution of stems and affixes in word families. We show that principles of discriminative learning can shed light on this issue. We simulate learning of verb inflection with a discriminative recurrent network of specialised processing units, whose level of temporal connectivity reflects the frequency distribution of input symbols in context. We analyse the temporal dynamic with which connection weights are adjusted during discriminative learning, to show that self-organised connections are optimally functional to word processing when the distribution of inflected forms in a paradigm (Paradigm Entropy) and the distribution of their inflectional affixes across paradigms (Inflectional Entropy) diverge minimally.}, KEYWORDS = {discriminative learning, word processing, recurrent neural networks, relative entropy}, PAGES = {307-327}, URL = {https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1418/91871}, VOLUME = {XVII}, DOI = {10.1418/91871}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @INCOLLECTION{MARZI_2018_INCOLLECTION_M_390949, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Morpho - phonotactic typicality and second language acquisition and processing}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {According to many accounts of word processing and access, an input word concurrently activates non-target lexical neighbours that become available for further processing stages. Psycholinguistic evidence shows how prediction and competition based on word similarity and lexical redundancy affect speakers' anticipation of incoming stimuli, so as to speed input recognition and improve lexical decision (Luce/Pisoni 1998; Bailey/Hahn 2001; Hahn/Bailey 2005, among others). As observed by Bailey and Hahn (2001), wordlikeness affects both language acquisition and processing. Wordlikeness can be defined in terms of phonotactic/ orthotactic likelihood and lexical density. Both neighbourhood size and frequency distribution of neighbours are known to play a role in word prediction and competition. In this perspective, monitoring this competing behaviour can shed some light on the relationship between phonotactic/orthotactic likelihood and lexical density, and their connection with issues of word recognition and production. My goal in this chapter is to provide a computational model of bilingual lexical self-organisation, with language-independent architectural and functional requirements of the lexical store, together with language-specific phonotactic constraints, appearing to control aspects of interaction of first and second language (hereafter L1-L2) and define the propensity to acquire novel words, showing how acquisitional strategies are affected by past knowledge of language and entrenched expectations on incoming stimuli. On the one hand, a strong expectation based on L1 affects the way L2 inputs are perceived. On the other hand, language-independent architectural and functional requirements of the lexical store, such as its highly integrated organisation and language-non-selective access (Dijkstra/van Heuven 2002), appear to control aspects of L1-L2 interaction. Simulations in the neuro-computational framework of Temporal Self-Organising Maps (TSOMs, Ferro et al. 2011; Marzi et al. 2012, 2014a, 2016; Pirrelli et al. 2014, 2015), where word processing and lexical acquisition are implemented as recoding and storage strategies for time-series of symbolic units, will highlight how partially overlapping phonological representations may cause competition in incremental learning, and how weaker connections and recycled memory resources make L2 representations underspecified due to the lack of strong lexical expectations and selective specialisation typical of the L1 representations.}, KEYWORDS = {L1-L2 acquisition, bilingual lexical self-organisation, phonotactic typicality, discriminative recurrent network}, PAGES = {219-232}, URL = {https://www.francoangeli.it/Ricerca/Scheda_Libro.aspx?ID=25216\&Tipo=Libro\&strRicercaTesto=25216\&lingua=it\&titolo=tipologia%2c+acquisizione%2c+grammaticalizzazione.+typology%2c++acquisition%2c+grammaticalization+studies}, VOLUME = {1095. 79}, PUBLISHER = {Franco Angeli (Milano, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-917-7847-5}, BOOKTITLE = {Tipologia, Acquisizione, Grammaticalizzazione-Typology, Acquisition, Grammaticalization studies}, EDITOR = {Chini, M. and Cuzzolin, P.}, } @INCOLLECTION{PIRRELLI_2018_INCOLLECTION_P_398877, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Morphological Theory And Computational Linguistics}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {For decades, processing issues have taken centre stage in the debate on the theoretical foundations of linguistic morphology. The present chapter provides a computer-based, algorithmic view on these issues, ranging from the encoding of input data to the structure of output representations, going through the basic operations of word splitting, storage, access, retrieval, and assembly of intermediate representations.}, KEYWORDS = {word processing, word storage, computational morphology, lexical modelling, machine language learning, finite state technology, artificial neural networks}, PAGES = {573-593}, URL = {http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199668984.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199668984-e-32?rskey=qZuY8Z\&result=9}, DOI = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199668984.013.32}, PUBLISHER = {Oxford University Press (Oxford, GBR)}, ISBN = {978-0-19-966898-4}, BOOKTITLE = {The Oxford Handbook of Morphological Theory}, EDITOR = {Audring, J. and Masini, F.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{FERRO_2018_INPROCEEDINGS_FCGMNCP_390504, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Cappa, C. and Giulivi, S. and Marzi, C. and Nahli, O. and Cardillo, F. A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {ReadLet: Reading for Understanding}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {This paper focuses on motivation, objectives, design issues and preliminary results of ReadLet, an ICT platform for assessing reading efficiency in primary school children. Test data are discussed on a sample of 200 early graders, reading French, Italian and Standard Modern Arabic (SMA).}, KEYWORDS = {Reading, text comprehension, Specific Learning Disorders, multimodal signal processing, cloud computing, portable assistive technology}, PAGES = {404-409}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/390504}, PUBLISHER = {IEEE (New York, USA)}, ISBN = {978-1-5386-4385-3}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {IEEE-CIST2018 LED-ICT}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Marrakech, Morocco}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {21-27/10/2018}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2018_INPROCEEDINGS_MFNBBP_388016, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Nahli, O. and Belik, P. and Bompolas, S. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Evaluating Inflectional Complexity Crosslinguistically: a Processing Perspective}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {The paper provides a cognitively motivated method for evaluating the inflectional complexity of a language, based on a sample of "raw" inflected word forms processed and learned by a recurrent self-organising neural network with fixed parameter setting. Training items contain no information about either morphological content or structure. This makes the proposed method independent of both meta-linguistic issues (e.g. format and expressive power of descriptive rules, manual or automated segmentation of input forms, number of inflectional classes etc.) and language-specific typological aspects (e.g. word-based, stem-based or template-based morphology). Results are illustrated by contrasting Arabic, English, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish.}, KEYWORDS = {paradigm-based morphology, inflectional complexity, prediction-based processing, recurrent self-organising networks, Statistical And Machine Learning Methods, Language Modelling}, PAGES = {3860-3866}, URL = {http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2018/summaries/745.html}, VOLUME = {2018}, PUBLISHER = {European language resources association (ELRA) (Paris, FRA)}, ISBN = {979-10-95546-00-9}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Miyazaki, Japan}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {7-12/05/2018}, BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018)}, EDITOR = {Calzolari, N. and Choukri, K. and Cieri, C. and Declerck, T. and Goggi, S. and Hasida, K. and Isahara, H. and Maegaard, B. and Mariani, J. and Mazo, H. and Moreno, A. and Odijk, J. and Piperidis, S. and Tokunaga, T.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{CAPPA_2018_INPROCEEDINGS_CFGMNCP_396593, AUTHOR = {Cappa, C. and Ferro, M. and Giulivi, S. and Marzi, C. and Nahli, O. and Cardillo, F. A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {ReadLet: piattaforma ICT per valutare l'efficienza di lettura}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {ReadLet è una piattaforma ICT pensata per valutare accuratamente l'efficienza di lettura nei bambini della scuola primaria. Combina tecnologia ICT portatile e cloud-computing con una serie di moduli software, specifici per modalità di somministrazione. Questi, implementati come servizi web, includono: i) valutazione dell'elaborazione del testo e della leggibilità; ii) valutazione della velocità di lettura (ad alta voce e silente) e delle sue fluttuazioni); iii) valutazione della correttezza della decodifica ad alta voce; iv) valutazione della comprensione del testo (in lettura silente e da ascolto). Un prototipo della tecnologia ReadLet è stato sperimentato su circa 200 alunni (8-11 anni), che variano per stato socio-economico, lingua (italiana, francese, araba) e area geografica (Italia, Svizzera, Marocco). L'utilizzo del tablet per la lettura è stato percepito dai bambini come un'esperienza coinvolgente e piacevole. Gli insegnanti hanno trovato lo strumento facile da utilizzare e in grado di fornire maggiori informazioni rispetto agli strumenti tradizionali.}, KEYWORDS = {leggere per capire, disturbi del linguaggio, screening}, URL = {https://www.airipa.it/congresso/pluginfile.php/2781/mod_resource/content/1/Programma%20Congresso%20AIRIPA_Arezzo_dettagliato-3.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {XXVII Congresso Nazionale AIRIPA}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Arezzo (Italy)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {28-29/09/2018}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{FERRO_2018_INPROCEEDINGS_FCGMCP_396591, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Cappa, C. and Giulivi, S. and Marzi, C. and Cardillo, F. A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {ReadLet: an ICT platform for the assessment of reading efficiency in early graders}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {Reading is not just word decoding, but the joint product of decoding and deep linguistic comprehension [ 1 , 2 ]. Effective linguistic comprehension relies on language skills such as semantic and syntactic awareness. Both decoding and linguistic comprehension are necessary for reading comprehension, and neither is by itself sufficient [ 2 ]. However, current protocols for reading assessment measure decoding (reading accuracy and speed) and reading comprehension separately [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. This does not allow evaluation of reading efficiency [ 6 ], defined as the ability to fully understand connected texts by minimising reading time, a cognitive ability that lies at the roots of students' academic achievement [ 8 , 7 ]. ReadLet is an ICT platform specifically designed to provide accurate, evidence-based assessment of reading efficiency in early grade children, by offering an ecological, non-invasive protocol for extensive data elicitation, storage and analysis. With ReadLet, early graders at school can read a one or two page text displayed on a tablet touchscreen, either silently or aloud. Children are asked to slide their finger across the words as they read, to guide directional tracking. After reading, the child is prompted with a few multiple-answer questions on text content presented one at a time, while the text remains displayed on the screen for the child to be able to retrieve relevant information. In the process, the tablet keeps track of time-aligned multimodal data: voice recording, finger sliding time, time of reading, time of question answering, and number of correct answers. Data are recorded, stored locally, sent to the ReadLet server through an internet connection, and processed remotely by a battery of cloud-based services, analysing data automatically to produce a detailed quantitative signature of each reading session. A server-based database aggregates anonymised data to make them available for specialists. Also individual's longitudinal profiles are stored, for them be queried and inspected upon authorised access. The platform combines portable ICT technology and cloud computing with a number of modality-specific software modules, implemented as web services including: i) a text processing and readability assessment service, consisting in a battery of tools for automated linguistic annotation of written texts and a machine-learning component assigning a readability score to annotated texts [ 9 ]; ii) a finger touch processing service aligning the child's finger sliding with the written text and measuring speed fluctuations; iii) a speech processing and decoding assessment service, aligning the acoustic record of child's reading with the written text and assessing correctness of recoding [ 10 ]. At the time of writing, the platform includes the first two modules only. Preliminary testing of a prototype version of ReadLet technology with a population of about 200 pupils aged 8 to 11, both male and female, varying for socio-economic status, language (Italian, French and Arabic) and geographical area (Italy and Morocco), showed that children are extremely responsive to using a tablet for reading, and very easy to engage in what they perceive as an enjoyable experience. We expect online databases of automatically classified cross-sectional and longitudinal data, accurate statistical modelling and developmental trends of reading literacy to help education professionals and clinical specialists assess the level of reading skills reached by the child, and decide which intervention programmes and measures are most appropriate. While information technology cannot and should not supplant the role and professional judgement of teachers and therapists, the project intends to provide portable tools, models and data for timely screening and daily management of reading difficulties and disorders.}, KEYWORDS = {reading efficiency, decoding, comprehension, language specific disorders}, PAGES = {61-61}, URL = {https://mentallexicon2018.ca/}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {11th International Conference on the Mental Lexicon}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Edmonton, Alberta (Canada)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {25-28/09/2018}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{LEONI_2018_INPROCEEDINGS_LMCFG_396592, AUTHOR = {Leoni, F. and Muzio, C. and Cappa, C. and Ferro, M. and Giulivi, S.}, TITLE = {Il progetto AEREST: primi risultati in Italia e in Canton Ticino}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {Il progetto AEREST, per una valutazione ecologica dell'efficienza di lettura, è attualmente in corso presso alcune classi di scuola primaria di istituti italiani e ticinesi. Si presentano qui i risultati ottenuti a seguito della prima sessione di raccolta dati, che si è svolta nell'A.A. 2017-18 su circa 160 bambini italofoni di età compresa tra 8 e 11 anni. Lo scopo di questa prima fase sperimentale è stato duplice: 1. ottenere indicazioni sull'efficacia, ai fini della valutazione dell'efficienza di lettura, dei testi utilizzati nelle prove di cui si compone il test AEREST; 2. ottenere indicazioni sulla fattibilità dell'implementazione dello screening su tablet, in termini di facilità di somministrazione e di gradimento da parte dei soggetti; 3. esplorare e confrontare le performance di lettura nel campione italiano e ticinese, al fine di individuare strategie didattiche volte a potenziare le eventuali abilità carenti.}, KEYWORDS = {efficienza di lettura, screening}, URL = {https://www.airipa.it/congresso/pluginfile.php/2781/mod_resource/content/1/Programma%20Congresso%20AIRIPA_Arezzo_dettagliato-3.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {XXVII Congresso Nazionale AIRIPA}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Arezzo (Italy)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {28-29/09/2018}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2018_INPROCEEDINGS_MFP_396356, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Is inflectional irregularity dysfunctional to human processing?}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {Regularly inflected verb forms are classically associated with the formal transparency and predictability of their internal constituents [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Transparency ensures that full forms can be segmented uniquely into their internal constituents: as in walk-s/walk-ed. Predictability allows for a speaker to fill in an empty paradigm cell, using information from other known forms of the same lexical paradigm and its inflection macro-class. From this perspective, irregulars appear to be dysfunctional to the human processing system, as they make it hard to infer - say - bought from buy , or segment bought appropriately into its constituent parts. Likewise, an influential psycholinguistic tradition relegates irregulars to the lexical store, whereas regulars are segmented by rules into their simpler constituents [ 4 , 5 ]. Here, we offer a few reasons for questioning this view. First, transparency and predictability are not dichotomous notions. Secondly, their influence on processing is not unidirectional. Unpredictable stems in irregularly inflected forms of complex inflectional systems provide a lot of processing information, by dynamically constraining the number of possible alternative endings during serial processing. Thirdly, acquisition of word inflection does not consist in associating co-occurring cues and outcomes, but in discriminating between multiple cues that are constantly in competition for their predictive value for a given outcome. We present the results of a few computer simulations with Self-organising Recurrent Neural Networks (TSOMs, [ 8 , 9 ]) that learn how to inflect high-frequency verb paradigms in 6 languages: English, German, Italian, Modern Greek, Modern Standard Arabic and Spanish. After training, each TSOM was tested on a word recognition (serial recoding) and a word production (serial recall) task, and results were analysed with generalised regression models. Processing uncertainty is differently apportioned on regulars and irregulars, depending on the nature of the processing task. While irregulars are harder to produce when they are unknown because they typically have fewer neighbours than regulars have, they are readily accessed once they are acquired, for exactly the same reason. Our data are in line with psycholinguistic evidence [ 10 , 11 ] that lexical processing is paced by two types of uniqueness point: Marslen-Wilson's Uniqueness Point (UP), distinguishing unrelated onset-overlapping words [ 12 ], and the Complex Uniqueness Point (CUP), distinguishing paradigmatically-related words [ 11 ]. Late UPs are inhibitory and elicit prolonged reaction times in acoustic word recognition, explaining an early delay in word recognition of irregular stems. Similarly, late CUPs are inhibitory, and this accounts for a slowdown in the processing advantage of regulars, compared to irregulars, after UP. These structural factors interact in a variety of ways and concurrently affect human processing, to show that irregularly-inflected forms may in fact reflect communicative and processing constraints of the word processor. They provide strong evidence against a processing architecture that assumes compartmentalized, independent processing routes for some specific combinations of these factors (e.g. a rule-based route for a combination of transparency and predictability, and a memory-based route for all other combinations). In addition, they seem incompatible with Bayesian approaches to auditory word comprehension ignoring a word's internal structure [ 13 ]. We suggest that a different design of the human language processor, based on a computational architecture integrating memory and processing as two different dynamics of the same underlying mechanism, can shed light on the complexity of inflection, and vindicate the role of irregular inflection in the system.}, KEYWORDS = {inflectional processing, temporal self organizing maps, letter prediction, morpheme boundary}, PAGES = {60-60}, URL = {https://mentallexicon2018.ca/}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {11th International Conference on the Mental Lexicon}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Edmonton, Alberta (Canada)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {25-28/09/2018}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2018_INPROCEEDINGS_P_399032, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {NLP-based assessment of reading efficiency in early grade children}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {Assessing reading skills is a laborious and time-consuming task, which requires monitoring a variety of interlocked abilities, ranging from accurate word rendering, reading fluency and lexical access, to linguistic comprehension, and interpretation, management and inference of complex events in working memory. No existing software, to our knowledge, is able to cover and integrate reading performance monitoring, instant feedback, personalised potentiation and intelligent decision support to teachers and speech therapists, assessment of response to intervention. NLP and ICT technologies can make such an ambitious platform an achievable target.}, KEYWORDS = {NLP-based methods, reading efficiency, early graders}, PAGES = {5-6}, URL = {http://dcl.bas.bg/clib/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/CLIB_2018_Proceedings_v2_final.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Computational Linguistics in Bulgaria}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Sofia, Bulgaria}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {27-29/05/2018}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2018_INPROCEEDINGS_PFMGSM_396353, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Gagné, C. and Spalding, T. and Marelli, M.}, TITLE = {Processing compounds: what frequency (alone) cannot explain}, YEAR = {2018}, ABSTRACT = {Observed elevation in typing latency for the initial letter of the second constituent of an English compound, compared with the typing time of the final letter of the first constituent (Gagné \& Spalding 2016), suggests that both compounds ( snowball ) and pseudo-compounds ( carpet ) are decomposed but also that full form representations are available in the lexical store. To gain further insight into the lexical representations underlying typing, we used computational modelling. In particular, we used superpositional models of word memory, based on Self-Organising Recurrent Maps (TSOMs) (Ferro et al. 2016; Marzi et al. 2016), where both simple and compound words are processed (and stored) using the same pool of processing (and memory) resources, to model the elevation in typing time at the constituent boundary and the rate of typing. In addition, we also considered models based in the Compositional Distributional Semantics framework (CAOSS, Marelli et al. 2017), to simulate independent effects of semantic transparency on compound typing (Gagné \& Spalding 2016). Due to co-activation and competition between compounds and their constituent words in TSOMs, levels of activation of processing nodes per letter positions appear to reflect degrees of context-sensitive predictability: the higher the level, the more expected the letter in that position. In English compounds, activation levels appeared to exhibit a characteristically U-shaped pattern, with min values centred on the constituent boundary. A similar pattern was found for pseudo-compounds, which nonetheless present a less pronounced U-shaped pattern and a higher activation value at the morpheme boundary than compounds do. The difference is in line with the higher speed-up rate in typing pseudo-compounds than compounds reported in Gagné and Spalding (2016). TSOMs were trained on letter-based representations, so computer experiments could simulate peripheral effects of serial processing of compound structure before lexical access. To investigate post-lexical issues, we also tested computational models of generation of the meanings of novel compounds based on CAOSS, which proved to be able to account for well-established relational effects in compound processing (Gagné 2001; Gagné \& Shoben 1997) with an unsupervised data-driven framework (Marelli et al. 2017). We ran a mixed-effects regression analysis of the data in Gagné and Spalding (2016) using vector-semantics estimates and TSOM activation levels to predict typing time for the initial letter of the second constituent. There was a negative effect of TSOM letter activation levels: i.e. the more active a letter node is, the faster a subject is at typing the letter ( t =-2.7 p =.007). Also, there was a positive effect of CAOSS-based compositionality estimates: i.e. the more easily a compound's lexicalized meaning can be obtained through compositional operations on single constituent vectors, the slower participants were at typing the first letter of the second constituent ( t =2.4, p =.017). These results have interesting implications for an integrative computational architecture accounting for the whole range of experimental evidence reported by Gagné and Spalding (2016). In particular we will focus on evidence of a stronger competition (and longer typing time) in Transparent-Transparent and Transparent-Opaque compounds, vs. Opaque-Transparent compounds, which gives an indication of a non-trivial interaction between semantic compositionality and serial processing effects.}, KEYWORDS = {compound processing, Temporal Self-organizing Map, letter production latency, constituent boundary}, PAGES = {60-60}, URL = {https://mentallexicon2018.ca/}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {11th International Conference on the Mental Lexicon}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Edmonton (Canada)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {25-28/09/2018}, } @ARTICLE{BOMPOLAS_2017_ARTICLE_BFMCP_380237, AUTHOR = {Bompolas, S. and Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Cardillo, F. A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {For a performance-oriented notion of regularity in inflection: the case of Modern Greek conjugation}, YEAR = {2017}, ABSTRACT = {Paradigm-based approaches to word processing/learning assume that word forms are not acquired in isolation, but through associative relations linking members of the same word family (e.g. a paradigm, or a set of forms filling the same paradigm cell). Principles of correlative learning offer a set of equations that are key to modelling this complex dynamic at a considerable level of detail. We use these equations to simulate acquisition of Modern Greek conjugation, and we compare the results with evidence from German and Italian. Simulations show that different Greek verb classes are processed and acquired differentially, as a function of their degrees of formal transparency and predictability. We relate these results to psycholinguistic evidence of Modern Greek word processing, and interpret our findings as supporting a view of the mental lexicon as an emergent integrative system.}, KEYWORDS = {paradigm-based morphology, gradient (ir)regularity, recurrent self-organisng networks}, PAGES = {77-92}, URL = {http://www.ai-lc.it/IJCoL/v3n1/IJCOL_3_1_5_bompolas_et_al.pdf?v=2a47ad90f2ae}, VOLUME = {3}, PUBLISHER = {aAccademia University Press, Torino (Italia)}, ISSN = {2499-4553}, JOURNAL = {Italian Journal of Computational Linguistics}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2017_ARTICLE_MFN_363116, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Nahli, O.}, TITLE = {Arabic word processing and morphology induction through adaptive memory self-organisation strategies}, YEAR = {2017}, ABSTRACT = {Aim of the present study is to model the human mental lexicon, by focussing on storage and processing dynamics, as lexical organisation relies on the process of input recoding and adaptive strategies for long-term memory organisation. A fundamental issue in word processing is represented by the emergence of the morphological organisation level in the lexicon, based on paradigmatic relations between fully-stored word forms. Morphology induction can be defined as the task of perceiving and identifying morphological formatives within morphologically complex word forms, as a function of the dynamic interaction between lexical representations and distribution and degrees of regularity in lexical data. In the computational framework we propose here (TSOMs), based on Self-Organising Maps with Hebbian connections defined over a temporal layer, the identification/perception of surface morphological relations involves the alignment of recoded representations of morphologically-related input words. Facing a non-concatenative morphology such as the Arabic inflectional system prompts a reappraisal of morphology induction through adaptive organisation strategies, which affect both lexical representations and long-term storage. We will show how a strongly adaptive self-organisation during training is conducive to emergent relations between word forms, which are concurrently, redundantly and competitively stored in human mental lexicon, and to generalising knowledge of stored words to unknown forms.}, KEYWORDS = {Non-concatenative morphological structure, Lexical storage and access, Topological alignment, Synchronisation, Self-Organising Maps}, PAGES = {179-188}, URL = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319157816301148}, VOLUME = {29}, DOI = {10.1016/j.jksuci.2016.11.006}, PUBLISHER = {Elsevier (Amsterdam, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {2213-1248}, JOURNAL = {Journal of King Saud University. Computer and information sciences (Online)}, } @EDITORIAL{PIRRELLI_2017_EDITORIAL_PZ_381161, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Zarghili, A.}, TITLE = {Arabic Natural Language Processing: Models, systems and applications}, YEAR = {2017}, KEYWORDS = {Natural Language Processing, Standard Modern Arabic}, PAGES = {A1-A3}, URL = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319157817301155}, VOLUME = {29}, DOI = {10.1016/j.jksuci.2017.04.004}, PUBLISHER = {Elsevier (Amsterdam, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {2213-1248}, BOOKTITLE = {Journal of King Saud University. Computer and information sciences (Online)}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{CARDILLO_2017_INPROCEEDINGS_CFMP_381090, AUTHOR = {Cardillo, F. A. and Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {How "deep" is learning word inflection?}, YEAR = {2017}, ABSTRACT = {Machine learning offers two basic strategies for morphology induction: lexical segmentation and surface word relation. The first one assumes that words can be segmented into morphemes. Inducing a novel inflected form requires identification of morphemic constituents and a strategy for their recombination. The second approach dispenses with segmentation: lexical representations form part of a network of associatively related inflected forms. Production of a novel form consists in filling in one empty node in the network. Here, we present the results of a recurrent LSTM network that learns to fill in paradigm cells of incomplete verb paradigms. Although the process is not based on morpheme segmentation, the model shows sensitivity to stem selection and stem-ending boundaries.}, KEYWORDS = {LSTM, Morphology induction, Cognitive modelling}, PAGES = {77-82}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-85037368972\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {2006}, DOI = {10.4000/books.aaccademia.2314}, PUBLISHER = {Accademia University Press (Torino, ITA)}, ISSN = {1613-0073}, ISBN = {978-88-99982-76-8}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Fourth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Roma}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {11-13/12/2017}, BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of the Fourth Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2017)}, EDITOR = {Basili, R. and Nissim, M. and Satta, G.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2017_INPROCEEDINGS_P_398875, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Co-activation and competition effects in lexical storage and processing}, YEAR = {2017}, ABSTRACT = {According to traditional wisdom in Linguistics, morphologically simple words reside in the mental lexicon, a kind of brain dictionary that contains unpredictable mappings between lexical features. Here I illustrate some of the defining features of an alternative view of the language architecture, where computation and storage are just the short-term and long-term dynamics of the same underlying process. Empirical results of a computational model of this view are reported and general implications for a theory of the lexicon are discussed.}, KEYWORDS = {Mental Lexicon, Morphology, Human Language Processing, artificial neural networks, lexical self-organization}, PAGES = {1-21}, URL = {https://picgl4.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/4-paper_1_pirrelli.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {4th Patras International Conference of Graduate Students in Linguistics}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Patras, Greece}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {20-22/05/ 2016}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{BOMPOLAS_2017_INPROCEEDINGS_BMFCPR_381125, AUTHOR = {Bompolas, S. and Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Cardillo, F. A. and Pirrelli, V. and Ralli, A.}, TITLE = {Transparency and predictability in Modern Greek conjugation: Implications for models of word processing}, YEAR = {2017}, ABSTRACT = {We argue that the Greek evidence calls for a substantial revision of the clear-cut interaction between transparency/predictability and regularity, to make room for a more process-oriented notion of regularity. According to this view, regularity is no longer an epiphenomenon of the design of the human language faculty and the purported dualism between rule-based and memory-based routes, but the graded result of the varying interaction of several structural factors concurrently affecting the human word processor.}, KEYWORDS = {Inflectional regularity, Word Processing, Modern Greek Conjugation}, PAGES = {17-19}, URL = {http://www.lilec.it/mmm/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Book-of-abstracts_MMM11_Final.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {MMM 11: 11th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Cyprus}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {22-25/06/2017}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2017_INPROCEEDINGS_P_381136, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Storage vs. Processing in Models of Word Inflection. A Neuro-computational Hebbian Perspective}, YEAR = {2017}, ABSTRACT = {The advent of connectionism in the 80's popularised the idea that the lexical processor consists of a network of parallel processing units selectively firing in response to sensory stimuli. In the light of these assumptions, the most important contribution of connectionism to the theoretical debate on lexical modelling at the time was the utter rejection of the widely accepted idea that word recognition and production require a dichotomous choice between storage and processing. However, in spite of the prima facie psycho-computational allure of this view of the lexicon, early connectionist models also embraced a number of unsatisfactory assumptions about word learning and processing. More recently, a growing number of approaches to inflection in both Psycholinguistics and Theoretical Linguistics developed the view that surface word relations represent a fundamental domain of morphological competence. Learning the morphology of a language amounts to acquiring relations between fully stored lexical forms, which are concurrently available in the speaker's mental lexicon and jointly facilitate processing of morphologically related forms through patterns of emergent self-organisation. This novel view presupposes an integrative language architecture, where storage and processing, far from being conceived of as insulated and poorly interacting modules, are the short-term and the long-term dynamics of the same underlying process of adaptive specialisation of synaptic connections. This view, upheld by recent evidence of the neuro-anatomical bases of short-term and long-term memory processes, crucially hinges on Hebbian principles of synaptic plasticity, which are, in turn, in keeping with mathematical models of discriminative learning. I contend that integrative computer models of Hebbian language learning represent an exciting way forward in current neuro-computational research on word processing, and a persistently fertile legacy of the connectionist revolution.}, KEYWORDS = {Hebbian Learning, Recurrent Neural Networks, Word Inflection}, PAGES = {19-19}, URL = {https://indico.sissa.it/event/12/abstract-book.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {International Morphological Processing Conference (MoProc)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Trieste}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {22-24/06/2017}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2017_INPROCEEDINGS_PMFC_381117, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Cardillo, F. A.}, TITLE = {Paradigm Relative Entropy and Discriminative Learning}, YEAR = {2017}, ABSTRACT = {In the present contribution, we show that principles of discriminative learning of symbolic time series go a long way in accounting for these effects, thus making an important contribution to our understanding of the human lexical processor and its sensitivity to word distributions both within and across paradigms.}, KEYWORDS = {Paradigm Entropy, Discriminative Learning, Mental Lexicon, Verb Inflection}, PAGES = {5}, URL = {http://w3.erss.univ-tlse2.fr/ParadigMo2017/program.html}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {ParadigMo 2017: First Workshop on Paradigmatic Word Formation Modeling}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Toulouse}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {19-20/06/2017}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2016_ARTICLE_MFCP_360723, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Cardillo, F. A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Effects of frequency and regularity in an integrative model of word storage and processing}, YEAR = {2016}, ABSTRACT = {Considerable evidence has accrued on the role of paradigms as both theoretical and cognitive structures regimenting the way words are processed and acquired. The evidence supports a view of the lexicon as an emergent integrative system, where word forms are concurrently and competitively stored as repeatedly successful processing patterns, and on-line processing crucially depends on the internal organisation of stored patterns.}, KEYWORDS = {Lexical access, word recall, serial processing, parallel activation, inflectional paradigms, mental lexicon}, PAGES = {79-114}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84986550295\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {28}, PUBLISHER = {Pacini (Ospedaletto, Italia)}, ISSN = {1120-2726}, JOURNAL = {Rivista di Linguistica}, } @EDITORIAL{MARZI_2016_EDITORIAL_MP_360724, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Word knowledge and word usage: A Foreword}, YEAR = {2016}, ABSTRACT = {This special issue, together with its companion issue to appear in Lingue e Linguaggio, stems from the NetWordS Final Conference Word knowledge and word usage: representations and processes in the mental lexicon.* The conference, held on the 30th and 31st of March, and the 1st of April 2015 in Pisa, concluded the 4-year NetWordS project, the European Network of Word Structure funded by the European Science Foundation within the Research Networking Programme. In line with the highly multidisciplinary profile of NetWordS agenda, the conference offered a comprehensive and inclusive forum focussing on two main lines of lexical inquiry: (i) usage-based approaches to bootstrapping word form and structure (morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic issues), including: acquisition of lexical categories, emergence of morphological structure, lexical memories, anticipatory prediction-based mechanisms of word recognition, word production, frequency-based models of lexical productivity, word encoding, models of lexical architecture, family-based effects in word processing, word reading and writing; (ii) usage-based approaches to word meanings (lexical semantics and pragmatics in morphologically simple and complex words), including: distributional semantics, compound interpretation, concept composition and coercion, conceptualization of perception and action, time and space in the lexicon, metonymy and metaphor, lexico-semantic relations, perceptual grounding and embodied cognition, context-based and encyclopedic knowledge, semantic association and categorization. The multidisciplinary focus on word knowledge and word usage promoted by the Conference led participants to openly discuss an impressive range of approaches and empirical data: priming and lexical decision in a number of contexts, distributional semantics and models of semantic composition, neural networks, machine learning and mathematical modelling of empirical evidence, as well as their neuro-biological and neuro-functional correlates.}, KEYWORDS = {word knowledge, word usage, mental lexicon, interdisciplinary approach, NetWordS}, PAGES = {3-6}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84986558643\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {28. 1}, PUBLISHER = {Pacini (Pisa, ITA)}, } @EDITORIAL{MARZI_2016_EDITORIAL_MP_360725, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Word knowledge and word usage: A foreword}, YEAR = {2016}, ABSTRACT = {This special issue, together with its companion issue to appear in Italian Journal of Linguistics, stems from the NetWordS Final Conference "Word knowledge and word usage: representations and processes in the mental lexicon". The conference, held on the 30th and 31st of March, and the 1st of April 2015 in Pisa, concluded the 4-year NetWordS project, the European Network of Word Structure funded by the European Science Foundation within the Research Networking Programme. In line with the highly multidisciplinary profile of NetWordS agenda, the conference offered a comprehensive and inclusive forum focussing on two main lines of lexical inquiry: (i) usage-based approaches to bootstrapping word form and structure (morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic issues), including: acquisition of lexical categories, emergence of morphological structure, lexical memories, anticipatory prediction-based mechanisms of word recognition, word production, frequency-based models of lexical productivity, word encoding, models of lexical architecture, family-based effects in word processing, word reading and writing; (ii) usage-based approaches to word meanings (lexical semantics and pragmatics in morphologically simple and complex words), including: distributional semantics, compound interpretation, concept composition and coercion, conceptualization of perception and action, time and space in the lexicon, metonymy and metaphor, lexico-semantic relations, perceptual grounding and embodied cognition, context-based and encyclopedic knowledge, semantic association and categorization. The multidisciplinary focus on word knowledge and word usage promoted by the Conference led participants to openly discuss an impressive range of approaches and empirical data: priming and lexical decision in a number of contexts, distributional semantics and models of semantic composition, neural networks, machine learning and mathematical modelling of empirical evidence, as well as their neuro-biological and neuro-functional correlates. It is widely acknowledged that looking at the same problem from different angles has an additive effect on the impact of current language research. Certainly more can be achieved, however, if, rather than simply adding more perspectives on the same subject, with individual research efforts staying within the boundaries of single knowledge domains, scholars manage to integrate them into a boundary-shifting methodological perspective. When psycholinguistic evidence from humans is successfully replicated algorithmically through a computational model implementing a few well-understood principles of time-series processing, we are in a position to empirically assess what input conditions favour memorisation and acquisition of symbolic strings by the model, and test these algorithmic predictions back on human subjects, thus going full circle. This may have a multiplicative effect on current research, providing not only mathematical modelling of present behavioural evidence, but amounting to fully explanatory mechanisms. Our current understanding of WHERE and WHEN some cognitive processes are implemented in the brain will be complemented by knowledge of WHAT information they rely on and HOW they integrate it. Other compelling examples of the full potential of cross-disciplinary integration can be found in the present volume and in the twin issue of Italian Journal of Linguistics. As a general point, we contend that only by putting single-domain acquisitions into the wider context of human communication, and developing an interdisciplinary framework whereby each specialist will take advantage of insights from other disciplines, we can make substantial progress in our understanding of the lexical roots of human verbal communication in real contexts. The edited selection of papers presented here provides a representative sample of the range of approaches debated at the NetWordS Pisa Conference, by way of illustration of how aspects of knowledge integration and methodological innovation can be put at the service of a better understanding of broad lexical issues.}, KEYWORDS = {word knowledge, word usage, interdisciplinary approach, mental lexicon, NetWordS}, PAGES = {3-6}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84978285090\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {XV. 1}, DOI = {10.1418/83651}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino (Bologna, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-15-26226-4}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{BOMPOLAS_2016_INPROCEEDINGS_BMFCP_362297, AUTHOR = {Bompolas, S. and Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Cardillo, F. A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Reassessing inflectional regularity in Modern Greek conjugation}, YEAR = {2016}, ABSTRACT = {Paradigm-based approaches to word processing/learning assume that word forms are not acquired in isolation, but through associative relations linking members of the same word family (e.g. a paradigm, or a set of forms filling the same paradigm cell). Principles of correlative learning offer a set of dynamic equations that are key to modelling this complex dynamic at a considerable level of detail. We use these dynamic equations to simulate acquisition of Modern Greek conjugation, and we compare the results with evidence from German and Italian. Simulations show that different Greek verb classes are processed and acquired differentially, depending on their degrees of formal transparency and predictability. We relate these results to psycholinguistic evidence on Modern Greek word processing, and interpret our findings as supporting a view of the mental lexicon as an emergent integrative system.}, KEYWORDS = {word processing, paradigm-based learning, morphological processing, Greek stem allomoprhy, Temporal Self-Organising Map}, PAGES = {72-77}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-85009242702\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {1749}, DOI = {10.4000/books.aaccademia.1721}, PUBLISHER = {Accademia University Press (Torino, ITA)}, ISSN = {1613-0073}, ISBN = {978-88-99982-08-9}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Third Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2016) \& Fifth Evaluation Campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian. Final Workshop (EVALITA 2016)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Napoli, Italy}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {05-07/12/2016}, BOOKTITLE = {CLiC-it \& EVALITA 2016-Proceedings of Third Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2016) \& Fifth Evaluation Campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian. Final Workshop (EVALITA 2016)}, EDITOR = {Basile, P. and Corazza, A. and Monetmagni, S. and Nissim, M. and Patti, V. and Semeraro, G. and Sprugnoli, R.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{FERRO_2016_INPROCEEDINGS_FCPGS_362349, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Cardillo, F. A. and Pirrelli, V. and Gagné, C. L. and Spalding, T. L.}, TITLE = {Written word production and lexical self-organisation: evidence from English (pseudo)compounds}, YEAR = {2016}, ABSTRACT = {Elevation in typing latency for the initial letter of the second constituent of an English compound, relative to the latency for the final letter of the first constituent of the same compound, provides evidence that implementation of a motor plan for written compound production involves smaller constituents, in both semantically transparent and semantically opaque compounds. We investigate here the implications of this evidence for algorithmic models of lexical organisation, to show that effects of differential perception of the internal structure of compounds and pseudo-compounds can also be simulated as peripheral stages of lexical access by a self-organising connectionist architecture, even in the absence of morphosemantic information. This complementary evidence supports a maximizationof-opportunity approach to lexical modelling, accounting for the integration of effects of pre-lexical and lexical access.}, KEYWORDS = {compound, pseudo-compound, written word production, lexical self-organisation, temporal self organising map}, PAGES = {146-151}, URL = {http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1749/}, VOLUME = {1749}, DOI = {10.4000/books.aaccademia.1775}, PUBLISHER = {Accademia University Press (Torino, ITA)}, ISSN = {1613-0073}, ISBN = {9788899982546}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Third Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics (CLiC-it 2016)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Napoli (Italia)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {5-6/12/2016}, BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings CLiC-it 2016}, EDITOR = {Basile, P. and Corazza, A. and Cutugno, F. and Montemagni, S. and Nissim, M. and Patti, V. and Semeraro, G. and Sprugnoli, R.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{RECCHIA_2016_INPROCEEDINGS_RFMD_362391, AUTHOR = {Recchia, V. and Ferro, M. and Maglie, R. and Dodaro, A.}, TITLE = {Readability of current patient information leaflets for informed consent in UK radiotherapy centers}, YEAR = {2016}, ABSTRACT = {Background: Guidelines on informed consent recommend the use of plain language and readability standards to enhance patient's comprehension, engagement and shared decision making. Aim: To assess the readability of current patient information leaflets (PILs) used for informed consent in radiotherapy. Methods: We evaluated PILs (n=38) from three radiation therapy centers in UK. They regard the most common radiation therapy techniques for different kinds of cancer and body disctricts, such as bladder, bowel, colo-rectum, brain, breast-chest, femal pelvis, prostate, lung, linphomas, stomach. We analyzed each text with Flesch-Kincaid (F-K) grade level, with higher numbers indicating harder-to-read text (from 0 = easy, to 25 = difficult). Then, we compared the related grade levels to the health literacy recommended standard of US grade level 5, indicating that patient education texts might be understood by a typical student in the US primary school. Results: Readibility is suboptimal for the analised PILs (red, green and blue points in the figure) and should be improved with respect to the international standard score (red dotted line in the figure). The results show a mean grade level equal to 8.1 (std = 0.8), thus suggesting the need of a 3-points decrease on average. Conclusion: Current PILs for informed consent in the three analised radiotherapy centers are hardly readable for the average patient. Although the readability scores achieved in the three centers is not very low, substantially higher readability scores should be achieved with novel PILs which explicitly discuss risks/benefits and other elements relevant for informed consent, and should be prepared by following standard recommendations of plain language.}, KEYWORDS = {Ethics and communication, Communicating Risk and Uncertainty, Health Literacy}, PAGES = {1}, URL = {http://www.communication.aau.dk/research/dihm/events/comet2016/}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {COMMUNICATION, MEDICINE AND ETHICS CONFERENCE 2016}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Aalborg, Denmark}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {4-6/6/2016}, } @ARTICLE{CAPPA_2015_ARTICLE_CMMSBG_286919, AUTHOR = {Cappa, C. and Meloni, F. and Muzio, C. and Schilirò, A. and Bastiani, L. and Giulivi, S.}, TITLE = {A screening on Specific Learning Disorders in an Italian speaking high genetic homogeneity area}, YEAR = {2015}, ABSTRACT = {The aim of the present research is to investigate the prevalence of Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) in Ogliastra, a particular area of Sardinia, Italy. Having experienced centuries of isolation, Ogliastra has become a high genetic homogeneity area, particularly interesting for studies on different kinds of pathologies. Here we are going to describe the results of a screening carried out throughout 2 consecutive years in 49 second grade classes (24 considered in the first year and 25 in the second year of the study) of the Ogliastra region. A total of 610 pupils (average age 7.54 years; 293 female, 317 male) corresponding to 68.69% of all pupils who were attending second grade in the area, took part in the study. The tool used for the screening was the "RSR-DSA. Questionnaire for the detection of learning difficulties and disorders", which allowed to identify 83 subjects at risk (13.61% of the whole sample involved in the study). These took part in an enhancement training program carried out for about 6 months. After the program, pupils underwent assessment for reading, writing and calculation abilities, as well as a cognitive assessment. According to the results of the assessment, the prevalence of SLDs was 6.06%. 4.75% of the total sample manifested dyslexia in isolation or in comorbidity with other disorders. According to the first national epidemiological investigation carried out in Italy, the prevalence of SLDs is 3.1-3.2%, which is lower that the prevalence obtained in the present study. This result, together with the presence of several cases of SLD in isolation (17.14%) and with a 3:1 ratio of males to females diagnosed with a SLD (which is typical of several pathologies, disorders or characteristics with a genetic origin), can be interpreted as a confirmation of the genetic basis of SLDs.}, KEYWORDS = {Dyslexia, Specific Learning Disorders, prevalence, high genetic homogeneity, screening, primary school, Italian language}, PAGES = {329-342}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/286919}, VOLUME = {45-46}, DOI = {10.1016/j.ridd.2015.07.011}, PUBLISHER = {Pergamon Press, New York, Stati Uniti d'America}, JOURNAL = {Research in developmental disabilities}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2015_ARTICLE_MP_346413, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {A Neuro-Computational Approach to Understanding the Mental Lexicon}, YEAR = {2015}, ABSTRACT = {Human lexical knowledge does not appear to be organised to minimise storage, but rather to maximise processing efficiency. The way lexical information is stored reflects the way it is dynamically processed, accessed and retrieved. A detailed analysis of the way words are memorised, of the dynamic interaction between lexical representations and distribution and degrees of regularity in input data, can shed some light on the emergence of structures and relations within fully-stored words. We believe that a bottom-up investigation of low-level memory and processing functions can help understand the cognitive mechanisms that govern word processing in the mental lexicon. Neuro-computational models can play an important role in this inquiry, as they help understand the dynamic nature of lexical representations by establishing an explanatory connection between lexical structures and processing models dictated by the micro-functions of human brain. Starting from some linguistic, psycholinguistic and neuro-physiological evidence supporting a dynamic view of the mental lexicon as an integrative system, we illustrate Temporal Self Organising-Maps (TSOMs), artificial neural networks that can model such a view by memorising time series of symbolic units (words) as routinized patterns of short-term node activation. On the basis of a simple pool of principles of adaptive Hebbian synchronisation, TSOMs can perceive possible surface relations between word forms and store them by partially overlapping activation patterns, reflecting gradient levels of lexical specificity, from holistic to decompositional lexical representations. We believe that TSOMs offer an algorithmic model of the emergence of high-level, global and language-specific morphological structure through the working of low-level, language-aspecific processing functions, thus promising to bridge the persisting gap between high-level principles of grammar architecture (lexicon vs. rules), computational correlates (storage vs. processing) and low-level principles and localisations of brain functions. Extensions of the current TSOM architecture are envisaged and their theoretical implications are discussed.}, KEYWORDS = {Mental lexicon dynamic storage parallel distributed processing hebbian learning temporal self-organising maps}, PAGES = {493-535}, URL = {http://jcs.snu.ac.kr/jcs/issue/vol16/no4/05+Marzi+and+Pirrelli.pdf}, VOLUME = {16}, PUBLISHER = {Institute for cognitive science, Seoul national university (Seoul, Corea del Sud)}, ISSN = {1976-6939}, JOURNAL = {Journal of cognitive science (Seoul. Online)}, } @INCOLLECTION{PIRRELLI_2015_INCOLLECTION_PFM_330234, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Ferro, M. and Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Computational complexity of abstractive morphology}, YEAR = {2015}, ABSTRACT = {Abstractive and constructive approaches to word structure make radically different assumptions concerning nature and role of the building blocks that make up a speaker's morphological competence. In this contribution, we show that the two views are also computationally different. In particular, we contend that a number of problems arising in connection with a subsymbolic implementation of the constructive view (as epitomised by classical multi-layered perceptrons) are tackled effectively, or disappear altogether, in a neurally-inspired implementation of associative networks, resting on key-notions such as self-organization and emergence. A particular variant of Kohonen's Self-Organizing Map is introduced as a model to explore and assess the implications of an abstractive approach in terms of its computational complexity. Details of the model (Temporal Self-Organizing Map, TSOM) and experimental data are shown to illustrate the interplay between processing and storage in language acquisition.}, KEYWORDS = {Word processing, computational complexity, mental lexicon, dynamic memories, self-organisation, word structure, morphology}, PAGES = {141-166}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84938781714\&origin=inward}, DOI = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198723769.003.0008}, PUBLISHER = {Oxford University Press (Oxford, GBR)}, ISBN = {978-0-19-872376-9}, BOOKTITLE = {Understanding and Measuring Mprphological Complexity}, EDITOR = {Baerman, M. and Brown, D. and Corbett, G. G.}, } @EDITORIAL{PIRRELLI_2015_EDITORIAL_PMF_329357, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Marzi, C. and Ferro, M.}, TITLE = {Proceedings of the NetWordS Final Conference on Word Knowledge and Word Usage: Representations and Processes in the Mental Lexicon}, YEAR = {2015}, ABSTRACT = {The international conference "Word Knowledge and Word Usage: Representations and processes in the mental lexicon" is the final outcome of 4 years of intense multi-disciplinary research networking and cooperation funded by the European Science Foundation within the framework of the NetWordS programme (May 2011 - April 2015). NetWordS' mission was to bring together experts of various research fields (from brain sciences and computing to cognition and linguistics) and of different theoretical inclinations, to advance the current awareness of theoretical, typological, psycholinguistic, computational and neurophysiological evidence on the structure and processing of words, with a view to developing novel research paradigms and bringing up a new generation of language scholars. The conference was intended to provide a first forum for assessing current progress of crossdisciplinary research on language architecture and usage, and discussing prospects of future synergy. People are known to memorise, parse and access words in a context-sensitive and opportunistic way, by caching their most habitual and productive processing patterns into routinized behavioural schemes. Speakers not only take advantage of token-based information such as frequency of individual, holistically stored words, but they are also able to organise stored words through paradigmatic structures (or word families) whose overall size and frequency is an important determinant of ease of lexical access and interpretation. Accordingly, lexical organisation is not necessarily functional to descriptive economy and minimisation of storage, but to more performance-oriented factors such as efficiency of memorisation, access and recall. Usage-based approaches to word processing lend support to this view, to promote explanatory frameworks that aim to investigate the stable correlation patterns linking distributional entrenchment of lexical units with productivity, internal structure and ease of interpretation. Ultimately, this is intended to establish a deep interconnection between performance-oriented,low-level lexical functions such as memorisation, rehearsal, access and recall, and their neuroanatomical correlates.}, KEYWORDS = {mental lexicon, linguistics, brain sciences, psycholinguistics, computing, cognition}, PAGES = {1-189}, URL = {http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1347/}, VOLUME = {1347}, PUBLISHER = {CEUR-WS. org (Aachen, DEU)}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{FERRO_2015_INPROCEEDINGS_FMP_331183, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Lexical parsability and morphological structure}, YEAR = {2015}, ABSTRACT = {A classical tenet in the psycholinguistic literature on the mental lexicon is that a parsed affix presents high activation levels (and thus contributes to activation spreading to other words with the same affix), and that such levels are tightly correlated with the affix productivity. In a number of influential papers, it has been suggested that parsability criteria interact with frequency to define morphological productivity in the lexicon. For example, the frequency of a derivative (e.g. government) relative to its base (govern) is shown to be a good predictor for parsability/productivity. The higher the frequency ratio, the more likely the morphological structure to be perceived, and the associated affix to be used productively. The present contribution intends to offer a computational explanatory basis for this correlational evidence, and assess its applicability to the acquisition of complex inflectional paradigms. In those languages, like Italian and German, whose inflection is stem-based rather than word-based, there is often no single paradigmatic form which can act as a base by being properly contained in all other inflected variants. Yet, it seems intuitive to suggest that verbs that are inflected for one paradigm cell only (e.g. neighbouring), are learned earlier and more easily but exhibit lower levels of perceived inflectional structure than verbs with richer paradigms. This appears to be in good accord with experimental evidence of time latencies in lexical decision, which are shown to correlate negatively with token frequency, paradigm size and paradigm entropy. Our simulations, based on Temporal Self-Organizing Maps (TSOMs) allow us to establish an interesting connection between inflectional parsability, frequency-based paradigm structure, and acquisitional constraints on the interaction between the human processor and working memory. Self-organising topological models of the mental lexicon can mimic the spatial and temporal organization of memory structures supporting the processing of symbolic sequences, and can provide an interesting framework for testing integrative accounts of lexical processing/acquisition as the complex result of general-purpose operations on word stimuli (e.g. working memory, long-term storage, sensory-motor mapping, rehearsal, unit integration, unit analysis, executive control, time-series processing), in line with recent acquisitions on the neuro-functional architecture of the perisylvian language network in the left hemisphere of human brain. Simulations of the incremental acquisition of "mini-paradigms" (small islands of morphological contrast encompassing up to three different forms for the same verb support the hypothesis that perception of structure (parsability) and morphological productivity strongly correlate in the inflectional lexica of German and Italian. In particular, by monitoring longitudinal progress in storage and generalisation of differently distributed inflectional paradigms in the two languages, we show that: i) high-frequency forms are stored and accessed significantly earlier than low-frequency forms; ii) deeply entrenched but paradigmatically isolated forms tend to block usage of other forms in the same paradigm; iii) low-frequency evenly distributed (highly entropic) intra-paradigmatic forms are acquired later but are easily extended. Our investigation credits the proposed computational framework with psycholinguistic plausibility, and grounds parsability-based models of morphological productivity on a specific, explicit proposal of lexical architecture. This provides an explanatory basis for both psycholinguistic and linguistic accounts of morphological structure, and offers an intermediate framework for scientific inquiry bridging the gap between linguistic units and functional units in neurosciences. Finally, it makes the interesting suggestion that principles of morpheme-based organisation of the mental lexicon are compatible with a learning strategy requiring memorisation of full forms.}, KEYWORDS = {morphological structure, word processing, token/type frequency}, PAGES = {22-37}, URL = {http://mmm.lis.upatras.gr/index.php/mmm/issue/view/293/showToc}, PUBLISHER = {Università degli Studi di Bologna (Bologna, Italia)}, ISSN = {1826-7491}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Morphology and Semantics-Ninth Mediterranean Morphology Meeting}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Dubrovnik (Croatia)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {15-18/09/2013}, BOOKTITLE = {Morphology and Semantics}, EDITOR = {Audring, J. and Koutsoukos, N. and Masini, F. and Raffaelli, I.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2015_INPROCEEDINGS_MFP_329352, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Lexical emergentism and the "frequency-by-regularity" interaction}, YEAR = {2015}, ABSTRACT = {In spite of considerable converging evidence of the role of inflectional paradigms in word acquisition and processing, little efforts have been put so far into providing detailed, algorithmic models of the interaction between lexical token frequency, paradigm frequency, paradigm regularity. We propose a neurocomputational account of this interaction, and discuss some theoretical implications of preliminary experimental results.}, KEYWORDS = {morphological strucutre, frequency distribution, temporal self-orgabnising maps}, PAGES = {37-41}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84927156830\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {1347}, PUBLISHER = {M. Jeusfeld c/o Redaktion Sun SITE, Informatik V, RWTH Aachen (Aachen, Germania)}, ISSN = {1613-0073}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {NetWordS Final Conference on Word Knowledge and Word Usage: Representations and Processes in the Mental Lexicon}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Pisa (Italy)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {30-31/03 01/04 2015}, BOOKTITLE = {Word Knowledge and Word Usage 2015}, EDITOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Marzi, C. and Ferro, M.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2015_INPROCEEDINGS_PNBDM_333414, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Nahli, O. and Boschetti, F. and Del Gratta, R. and Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Computational Linguistics and Language Physiology: Insights from Arabic NLP and Cooperative Editing}, YEAR = {2015}, ABSTRACT = {Computer processing of written Arabic raises a number of challenges to traditional parsing architectures on many levels of linguistic analysis. In this contribution, we review some of these core issues and the demands they make, to suggest different strategies to successfully tackle them. In the end, we assess these issues in connection with the behaviour of neuro-biologically inspired lexical architectures known as Temporal Self-Organising Maps. We show that, far from being language-specific problems, issues in Arabic processing can shed light on some fundamental characteristics of the human language processor, such as structure-based lexical recoding, concurrent, competitive activation of output candidates and dynamic selection of optimal solutions.}, KEYWORDS = {Non-concatenative morphology, Optical Character Recognition, WordNet, Temporal Self-organising Maps, Mental Lexicon, Language neuro-physiology}, PAGES = {1-8}, URL = {http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2802612}, DOI = {10.1145/2802612.2802637}, ISBN = {978-1-4503-3295-8}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Third AIUCD Annual Conference-Humanities and Their Methods in the Digital Ecosystem}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Bologna (IT)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {18-19/09/2014}, BOOKTITLE = {Third AIUCD Annual Conference-Humanities and Their Methods in the Digital Ecosystem}, EDITOR = {Tomasi, F. and Del Turco, R. R. and Tammaro, A. M.}, } @ARTICLE{CHERSI_2014_ARTICLE_CFPP_283372, AUTHOR = {Chersi, F. and Ferro, M. and Pezzulo, G. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Topological Self-Organization and Prediction Learning Support Both Action and Lexical Chains in the Brain}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {A growing body of evidence in cognitive psychology and neuroscience suggests a deep interconnection between sensory-motor and language systems in the brain. Based on recent neurophysiological findings on the anatomo-functional organization of the fronto-parietal network, we present a computational model showing that language processing may have reused or co-developed organizing principles, functionality, and learning mechanisms typical of premotor circuit. The proposed model combines principles of Hebbian topological self-organization and prediction learning. Trained on sequences of either motor or linguistic units, the network develops independent neuronal chains, formed by dedicated nodes encoding only context-specific stimuli. Moreover, neurons responding to the same stimulus or class of stimuli tend to cluster together to form topologically connected areas similar to those observed in the brain cortex. Simulations support a unitary explanatory framework reconciling neurophysiological motor data with established behavioral evidence on lexical acquisition, access, and recall.}, KEYWORDS = {Motor chains, Lexical chains, Serial working memory, Computational modeling, Self-organizing maps, Somatotopic organization, Prediction}, PAGES = {476-491}, URL = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tops.12094/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=\&userIsAuthenticated=false}, VOLUME = {6}, DOI = {10.1111/tops.12094}, PUBLISHER = {Cognitive Science Society, Inc (Hoboken, NJ, Stati Uniti d'America)}, ISSN = {1756-8757}, JOURNAL = {Topics in cognitive science (Print)}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2014_ARTICLE_MFK_288212, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Keuleers, E.}, TITLE = {Perception of typicality in the lexicon: Wordlikeness, lexical density and morphonotactic constraints}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {The extent to which a symbolic time-series (a sequence of sounds or letters) is a typical word of a language, referred to as WORDLIKENESS, has been shown to have effects in speech perception and production, reading proficiency, lexical development and lexical access, short-term and long-term verbal memory. Two quantitative models have been suggested to account for these effects: serial phonotactic probabilities (the likelihood for a given symbolic sequence to appear in the lexicon) and lexical density (the extent to which other words can be obtained from a target word by changing, deleting or inserting one or more symbols in the target). The two measures are highly correlated and thus easy to be confounded in measuring their effects in lexical tasks. In this paper, we propose a computational model of lexical organisation, based on Self-Organising Maps with Hebbian connections defined over a temporal layer (TSOMs), providing a principled algorithmic account of effects of lexical acquisition, processing and access, to further investigate these issues. In particular, we show that (morpho-)phonotactic probabilities and lexical density, though correlated in lexical organisation, can be taken to focus on different aspects of speakers' word processing behaviour and thus provide independent cognitive contributions to our understanding of the principles of perception of typicality that govern lexical organisation.}, KEYWORDS = {wordlikeness, lexical access, word processing, frequency, memory}, PAGES = {171-191}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84919701117\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {40}, PUBLISHER = {Zavod za lingvistiku Filozofskog fakulteta (Zagreb, Croazia)}, ISSN = {0586-0296}, JOURNAL = {Suvremena lingvistika}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2014_ARTICLE_MFP_287289, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Morphological structure through lexical parsability}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {The emergence of morphological structure in lexical acquisition is analysed in the computational framework of Temporal Self-Organising Maps (TSOMs), to provide an explanatory basis for both psycholinguistic and linguistic accounts of lexical parsability. The investigation we propose is grounded on the hypothesis that perception of morphological structure (parsability) and frequency strongly correlate in the acquisition of inflectional paradigms. Analysis of experimental results of word acquisition obtained by artificially varying training conditions, allows us to understand developmental competition between fully-inflected word forms, and to investigate a hierarchy of frequency effects. The computational and theoretical implications of such a memory-based view of the relationship between frequency and perception, and its potential to account}, KEYWORDS = {inflectional paradigms, morphological structure, token/type frequency, word processing}, PAGES = {263-290}, URL = {http://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1418/78410}, VOLUME = {XIII}, DOI = {10.1418/78410}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @ARTICLE{PIRRELLI_2014_ARTICLE_P_288043, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Review of "Computational Paralinguistics: Emotion, Affect and Personality in Speech and Language Processing" (by Schuller & Batliner, Wiley Publishing 2013)}, YEAR = {2014}, KEYWORDS = {Paralinguistics, Pragmatics, Language usage}, URL = {http://www.computingreviews.com/review/review_review.cfm?review_id=142608}, PUBLISHER = {Association for Computing Machinery (New York, N. Y, Stati Uniti d'America)}, ISSN = {1530-6585}, JOURNAL = {Computing reviews (Online)}, } @EDITORIAL{CAPPA_2014_EDITORIAL_CCGM_348938, AUTHOR = {Cappa, C. and Carnovale, F. and Giulivi, S. and Muzio, C.}, TITLE = {Valutazione delle abilità dello studente: punti di forza e di debolezza}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {Versione tradotta e adattatta per la realtà italiana del 6° modulo del progetto europeo Dyslang. L'obiettivo di questo modulo è quello di fornire informazioni di base su come valutare le peculiarità di un allievo/studente con disturbo specifico di apprendimento, in particolare i suoi punti di forza e debolezza. La diagnosi vera e propria di un disturbo specifico è demandata a figure professionali quali logopedisti, psicologi, medici etc... Il presente modulo, dunque, intende fornire indicazioni utili, seppur non esaustive, sul ruolo di insegnante, genitori e altre figure professionali nel processo di valutazione.}, KEYWORDS = {DSA, dislessia}, URL = {http://dyslang.eu/elearning/pdf/module-6_ch.pdf}, } @EDITORIAL{ELMOHAJIR_2014_EDITORIAL_EACAEPZE_330677, AUTHOR = {El Mohajir, M. and Al Achhab, M. and Chahhou, M. and Arioua, M. and El Mohajir, B. and Pirrelli, V. and Zarghili, A. and El Far, M.}, TITLE = {Proceedings of IEEE-CiST14-Third IEEE International Colloquium in Information Science and Technology (CIST)}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {The 3rd international IEEE Colloquium on Information Science and Technology (CIST'14) is part of the IEEE CONFERENCE SERIES that are held in Morocco, and is sponsored by the IEEE Morocco Section and the IEEE Morocco Computer \& Communication Joint Chapter, and the UAE IEEE Student Branch. The 2014 edition was organized in collaboration with the Faculty of Sciences of Tetuan, the national school of applied sciences of Tetuan and the University of Abdelmalek Essaadi. IEEE CIST is emerging as a key annual event that aims to serve as a forum to promote the exchange of the latest advances achieved by IT researchers, IT decision makers, IT managers, application designers and software engineers in the domain of information science and related technology. Computing challenges, models, applications and IT solutions will be discussed from the perspectives of academia, industry and government. In addition to the main conference topics, IEEE CIST will also provide a platform for supporting innovative and original contributions in three complementary disciplines that are: Arabic natural language processing, Information and multimedia processing and Internet of Things. We would like to extend our most sincere thanks and gratitude to the keynote speakers of IEEE CIST'14 for their important added value to this edition and to the Scientific Committee Members who helped us in the review process. We would like also to express our thanks to the IEEE Computer Society for their support through their Distinguished Lecturers Programs. We are also very glad to express our most sincere gratitude for the organizing committee members for their full dedication and professional organization of this edition. The success of this colloquium will be mainly attributed to the authors who contributed with their posters and talks. We hope that CIST will continue to offer a privileged context for participants to develop new ways and methods to achieve our objectives in advancing our research and projects. We can together achieve more and face more efficiently the challenges of the current millennium.}, PAGES = {440}, URL = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/mostRecentIssue.jsp?punumber=6996097}, VOLUME = {CFP1467R-ART}, DOI = {10.1109/CIST.2014.7016582}, PUBLISHER = {IEEE (New York, USA)}, ISBN = {978-1-4799-5979-2}, } @EDITORIAL{PIRRELLI_2014_EDITORIAL_PR_300048, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Raffaelli, I.}, TITLE = {Special Issue of Suvremena Lingvistika}, YEAR = {2014}, PAGES = {127-235}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/300048}, PUBLISHER = {Croatian Philological Society (Zagreb, HRV)}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{CARNOVALE_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_CCGM_286920, AUTHOR = {Carnovale, F. and Cappa, C. and Giulivi, S. and Muzio, C.}, TITLE = {Differenze nella percezione delle capacità scolastiche da parte degli studenti, dei genitori e degli insegnanti}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {Attraverso il questionario di osservazione sistematica per la rilevazione di difficoltà e disturbi dell'apprendimento RSR-DSA, si è indagata la percezione che gli studenti delle scuole secondarie di secondo grado hanno delle proprie capacità scolastiche, a confronto con i giudizi espressi dai loro genitori e insegnanti. Si è rivolta particolare attenzione ai comportamenti sostenuti dalle dinamiche psicologiche e relazionali connesse all'apprendimento. L'indagine si è svolta su due campione indipendenti provenienti da cinque regioni italiane (Piemonte,Veneto,Sardegna,Puglia,Campania). Il primo campione rappresenta la popolazione normale (n=circa1000), il secondo è composto da ragazzi con DSA(n=circa 30). Le medie dei valori totali risultati dai 2 campioni sono risultate statisticamente differenti p<.5.In entrambi i campioni è stata riscontrata un'influenza reciproca tra i livelli di ansia e sfiducia dei ragazzi e la percezione che essi hanno delle proprie capacità scolastiche. I ragazzi del campione normativo percepiscono più negativamente le proprie capacità rispetto agli adulti; mentre ciò non si verifica nel campione con DSA.}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/286920}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {XXIII Congresso Nazionale Airipa-I disturbi dell'apprendimento}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Lucca}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {24-25 ottobre 2014}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{GAGGIOLI_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_GCSPTBCFCTDGTRR_283374, AUTHOR = {Gaggioli, A. and Cipresso, P. and Serino, S. and Pioggia, G. and Tartarisco, G. and Baldus, G. and Corda, D. and Ferro, M. and Carbonaro, N. and Tognetti, A. and De Rossi, D. and Giakoumis, D. and Tzovaras, D. and Riera, A. and Riva, G.}, TITLE = {A decision support system for real-time stress detection during virtual reality exposure}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly being used in combination with psycho-physiological measures to improve assessment of distress in mental health research and therapy. However, the analysis and interpretation of multiple physiological measures is time consuming and requires specific skills, which are not available to most clinicians. To address this issue, we designed and developed a Decision Support System (DSS) for automatic classification of stress levels during exposure to VR environments. The DSS integrates different biosensor data (ECG, breathing rate, EEG) and behavioral data (body gestures correlated with stress), following a training process in which self-rated and clinical-rated stress levels are used as ground truth. Detected stress events for each VR session are reported to the therapist as an aggregated value (ranging from 0 to 1) and graphically displayed on a diagram accessible by the therapist through a web-based interface.}, KEYWORDS = {Psychological Stress, Psychophysiology, Virtual Reality, Decision Support System, Biosensors}, PAGES = {114-120}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/283374}, VOLUME = {196}, DOI = {10.3233/978-1-61499-375-9-114}, PUBLISHER = {IOS Press (Tokyo, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {0926-9630}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR21)}, BOOKTITLE = {Medicine Meets Virtual Reality}, EDITOR = {Westwood, J. D.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{LYDING_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_LSBBCDDLP_289308, AUTHOR = {Lyding, V. and Stemle, E. and Borghetti, C. and Brunello, M. and Castagnoli, S. and Dell'Orletta, F. and Dittmann, H. and Lenci, A. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {The PAISÀ Corpus of Italian Web Texts}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {PAIS`A is a Creative Commons licensed, large web corpus of contemporary Italian. We describe the design, harvesting, and processing steps involved in its creation.}, PAGES = {36-43}, URL = {http://aclweb.org/anthology/W14-04}, PUBLISHER = {Association for Computational Linguistics (Stroudsburg, USA)}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Corpus annotation, Tree-bank, Corpus design, Corpus harvesting}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Gothenburg. Sweden}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {April 26, 2014}, BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of the 9th Web as Corpus Workshop (WaC-9)}, EDITOR = {Bildhauer, F. and Schäfer, R.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_MNF_295178, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Nahli, O. and Ferro, M.}, TITLE = {Word Processing for Arabic Language: A reappraisal of morphology induction through adaptive memory self-organisation strategies}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {Modelling the mental lexicon focuses on processing and storage dynamics, since lexical organisation relies on the process of input recoding and adaptive strategies for long-term memory organisation. A fundamental issue in word processing is represented by the emergence of the morphological organisation level in the lexicon, based on paradigmatic relations between fully-stored word forms. Morphology induction can be defined as the task of identifying morphological formatives within morphologically complex word forms. In the computational framework we propose here (TSOMs), based on Self-Organising Maps with Hebbian connections defined over a temporal layer, the identification/perception of surface morphological relations involves the alignment of recoded representations of morphologically-related input words. Facing a non-concatenative morphology such as the Arabic inflectional system prompts a reappraisal of morphology induction through adaptive organisation strategies, which affect both lexical representations and long-term storage. We will show how a strongly adaptive self-organisation during training is conducive to emergent relations between stored word forms, and to high accuracy rates in generalising knowledge of stored words to unknown forms.}, KEYWORDS = {Non-concatenative morphological structure, lexical storage and access, SOMs, word recoding and processing, adaptive strategies, morphology}, PAGES = {241-247}, URL = {http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=7016626\&punumber%3D6996097}, DOI = {10.1109/CIST.2014.7016626}, PUBLISHER = {IEEE (New York, USA)}, ISBN = {978-1-4799-5979-2}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Third IEEE International Colloquium in Information Science and Technology (CIST)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Tetuan (Morocco)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {20-22/10/2014}, BOOKTITLE = {IEEE Conference Publications-Catalog Number: CFP1467R-ART}, EDITOR = {El Mohajir, M. and Al Achhab, M. and Chahhou, M. and Mounir, A. and El Mohajir, B. and Pirrelli, V. and Zarghili, A. and Elfar, M.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_PMF_290601, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Marzi, C. and Ferro, M.}, TITLE = {Two-dimensional Wordlikeness Effects in Lexical Organisation}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {The main focus of research on wordlikeness has been on how serial processing strategies affect perception of similarity and, ultimately, the global network of associative relations among words in the mental lexicon. Comparatively little effort has been put so far, however, into an analysis of the reverse relationship: namely, how global organisation effects influence the speakers' perception of word similarity and of words' internal structure. In this paper, we explore the relationship between the two dimensions of wordlikeness (the "syntagmatic" and the "paradigmatic" one), to suggest that the same set of principles of memory organisation can account for both dimensions.}, KEYWORDS = {wordlikeness, lexical access, word processing, frequency, memory}, PAGES = {301-305}, URL = {http://clic.humnet.unipi.it/it/atti.html}, VOLUME = {1}, DOI = {10.12871/CLICIT2014158}, ISBN = {978-8-86741-472-7}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {First Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics CLiC-it 2014 \& Fourth International Workshop EVALITA 2014}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Pisa, Italy}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {9-11/12/2014}, BOOKTITLE = {The First Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics-Proceedings}, EDITOR = {Basili, R. and Lenci, A. and Magnini, B.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{BOSCHETTI_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_BDMNP_288372, AUTHOR = {Boschetti, F. and Del Gratta, R. and Marzi, C. and Nahli, O. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Modelli, metodi e strumenti per il trattamento automatico della lingua araba e per l'editing in ambienti collaborativi}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {La linguistica computazionale ha portato negli ultimi vent'anni a un profondo mutamento nello studio delle lingue e delle loro testimonianze scritte, spostando l'accento della ricerca da aspetti linguistico-formali all'uso linguistico in contesti comunicativi reali. Il presente contributo illustra l'impatto di questo cambio di prospettiva sullo studio della lingua araba, attraverso una rassegna di alcune attività di ricerca in corso presso l'Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale del CNR di Pisa: I. acquisizione dei testi arabi tramite Optical Character Recognition (OCR) e sviluppo di strumenti per la correzione manuale del testo in ambienti collaborativi; II. sviluppo di algoritmi e strumenti per l'analisi morfologica della lingua araba; III. analisi delle dinamiche di acquisizione del lessico arabo mediante architetture bio-computazionali; IV. sviluppo della WordNet dell'Arabo collegata a Princeton WordNet, ItalWordNet, LatinWordNet e alla nascente AncientGreek WordNet. Queste attivit( sono rivolte sia all'analisi delle caratteristiche linguistiche dell'arabo che allo studio della produzione letteraria araba e dei suoi rapporti storico-culturali con altre lingue. In particolare, il contributo intende illustrare la fertilità di un approccio metodologico che metta in relazione le dinamiche di acquisizione del lessico arabo, con la messa a punto di procedure di analisi ed edizione critica del testo e con i principi di organizzazione ontologica di una lingua ad alta produttività derivazionale.}, URL = {http://aiucd2014.unibo.it/book-of-abstracts.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {AIUCD 3rd annual conference}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Bologna}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {18-19 settembre 2014}, BOOKTITLE = {La metodologia della ricerca umanistica nell'ecosistema digitale-AIUCD 2014 Terzo convegno annuale}, EDITOR = {Rossi, F. and Tomasi, F.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{CAPPA_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_CGMCGP_318565, AUTHOR = {Cappa, C. and Giulivi, S. and Muzio, C. and Carbone, A. M. and Gaggi, M. and Pastarini, F.}, TITLE = {Questionario di osservazione sistematica per i bambini del primo anno della scuola dell'infanzia}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {Bi-3 è un nuovo strumento di osservazione sistematica utilizzabile dagli insegnanti della scuola dell'infanzia e rivolto ai bambini di età compresa tra 32 e 48 mesi. Lo strumento nasce dalla necessità degli insegnanti di avere a disposizione uno strumento che permetta loro di individuare i punti di forza e debolezza dei bambini, già dal primo anno della scuola dell'infanzia, al fine di programmare e mettere in atto precocemente un potenziamento mirato. Lo strumento guida l'osservazione anche attraverso una serie di schede da proporre al bambino, ed è progettato in modo tale da consentire di indagare 5 aree: motricità globale, abilità linguistiche, linguaggio-comunicazione-emozione e cognizione numerica. Lo strumento è dotato di un software che permette lo scoring immediato, e genera, inoltre, - dei grafici relativi alle aree indagate. La presente proposta intende offrire una descrizione dei risultati ottenuti da una sperimentazione preliminare dello strumento.}, PAGES = {40-40}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/318565}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {I disturbi dell'apprendimento-XXIII Congresso Nazionale AIRIPA}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Lucca}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {24-25 ottobre 2014}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_P_288013, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Psycho-computational modelling of lexical access and organisation: what can we learn from Arabic?}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {Arabic morphology raises a formidable challenge to Markovian computational models of word processing, based on fixed-order memory chaining. Computational models of human short-term and long-term memory can help us considerably to shed light on the issues involved at the level of peripheral word processing (access lexical representations). According to this view, word processing (short-term activation) and lexical representations (entrenchment of habitual activation chains) are two sides of the same coin, as they involve the same levels of brain circuitry on a different time scale. Such an "integrative" view of the lexicon as a dynamic system will be possible only we are able to foster an increasing synergy of perspectives and scientific domains of inquiry: neurosciences, (psycho)linguistics and computing. Conventions of Arabic script are no accident (maliciously intended to trip up computer algorithms)! They rather reflect some fundamental dynamics of the way human brain processes language.}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/288013}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {IEEE CIST'14-Innovative Systems and Technologies for the Future}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Tetouan, Marocco}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {20-22 ottobre 2014}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2014_INPROCEEDINGS_P_288044, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Modèles psycho-computationnels du lexique mentale}, YEAR = {2014}, ABSTRACT = {Over the last decades, a growing body of evidence on the mechanisms governing lexical storage, access, acquisition and processing has raised a considerable challenge to traditional models of language architecture and word usage. By pulling together cognitive, neurofunctional and psycho-computational implications of these mechanisms, a new view of the lexicon-grammar architecture emerges, based on the dynamic interaction between storage and processing. We call this an "integrative" view of the mental lexicon}, KEYWORDS = {Mental Lexicon, Language Acquisition, Memory}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/288044}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Workshop International en Traitement Automatique de la Langue Arabe}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Fès, Marocco}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {8 maggio 2014}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2013_ARTICLE_M_287131, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Innovation, language, and grey literature}, YEAR = {2013}, ABSTRACT = {Language and innovation are inseparable. Language conveys ideas which are essential in innovation, establishes the most immediate connections with our conceptualisation of the outside world, and provides the building blocks for communication. Every linguistic choice is necessarily meaningful, and it involves the parallel construction of form and meaning. From this perspective, language is a dynamic knowledge construction process. In this article, emphasis will be laid on investigating how words are used to describe innovation, and how innovation topics can influence word usage and collocational behaviour. Especially in grey materials, and in a context-based approach, the lexical representation of innovative knowledge is closely related to the representation of knowledge itself, and gives the opportunity to reduce the gap between knowledge representation and knowledge understanding. This will bring into focus the dynamic interplay between lexical creativity and innovative pragmatic contexts, and the necessity for a dynamic semantic shift from context-driven vagueness to domain-driven specialisation.}, KEYWORDS = {Lexical productivity, Language technologies, Grey Literature, Web corpora}, PAGES = {145-151}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84884695370\&partnerID=q2rCbXpz}, VOLUME = {9}, PUBLISHER = {TextRelease (Amsterdam, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {1574-1796}, JOURNAL = {The Grey journal (Print)}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2013_ARTICLE_MF_283382, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M.}, TITLE = {Adaptive strategies in lexical acquisition}, YEAR = {2013}, ABSTRACT = {The emergence of morphological patterns from lexical storage in language acquisition is conditioned by language-specific factors as well as extra-linguistic cognitive capacities. With particular reference to the acquisition of plural markers in German, in a memory-based perspective highlighting interesting theoretical implications for usage-based models, the paper analyses acquisitional strategies by focussing on emergent relations between stored word forms and on dynamic expectation/competition of incoming input. In particular, we outline an adaptive multifactorial account of morphological processing that includes both frequency and formal factors. Our investigation is supported by a computational model of morphology acquisition/processing based on self-organisation memories, where word representations are dynamically recoded as time-series.}, KEYWORDS = {German plurals, Morphological generalisation, Self-organising memory, Word processing}, PAGES = {307-328}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84892521599\&partnerID=q2rCbXpz}, VOLUME = {XII}, DOI = {10.1418/75045}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2013_INPROCEEDINGS_M_287133, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Innovation, language, and the web}, YEAR = {2013}, ABSTRACT = {Language and innovation are inseparable. Language conveys ideas which are essential in innovation, establishes the most immediate connections with our conceptualisation of the outside world, and provides the building blocks for communication. Every linguistic choice is necessarily meaningful, and it involves the parallel construction of form and meaning. From this perspective, language is a dynamic knowledge construction process. In this article, emphasis will be laid on investigating how words are used to describe innovation, and how innovation topics can influence word usage and collocational behaviour. The lexical representation of innovative knowledge in a context-based approach is closely related to the representation of knowledge itself, and gives the opportunity to reduce the gap between knowledge representation and knowledge understanding. This will bring into focus the dynamic interplay between lexical creativity and innovative pragmatic contexts, and the necessity for a dynamic semantic shift from context-driven vagueness to domain-driven specialisation.}, KEYWORDS = {Grey literature, Language technologies, Lexical productivity, Web corpora}, PAGES = {153-159}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84924135180\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {14}, PUBLISHER = {TextRelease (Amsterdam, NLD)}, ISSN = {1386-2316}, ISBN = {9789077484203}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Fourteenth International Conference on Grey Literature}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {CNR, Rome Italy}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {29-30 November 2012}, BOOKTITLE = {Tracking innovation thorugh grey literature}, EDITOR = {Farace, D. J. and Frantzen, J. and Greynet}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2013_INPROCEEDINGS_MD_288409, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Daelemans, W.}, TITLE = {On memory and computation: a reappraisal of German noun plural inflection}, YEAR = {2013}, ABSTRACT = {The talk "On memory and computation: a reappraisal of German noun plural inflection" presented one of the main objectives on which the bilateral Italian-Belgian action is focussing, namely linguistic and extra-linguistic factors involved in mono- and bi-lingual word recognition. She suggests a multi-factorial view of morphology adaptive processing, in presenting a usage-based perspective, by investigating a few properties of the German noun plural system and focusing on the dynamic relation between regularity, productivity and competition of inflection patterns through computer simulations (Temporal Self-Organising Maps - TSOMs) of type/token-frequency effects. In detail, she highlighted a few formal properties of the -s plural class, and concluded that although relatively infrequent, -s plurals seem to pattern in fairly regular sub-classes which suffer from no competition by members of other inflectional classes.}, URL = {http://www.networds-esf.eu/index.php?page=3rd-networds-workshop}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Third NetWordS Workshop on "Variation and Adaptation in Lexical Processing and Acquisition"}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Dubrovnik, Croatia}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {19-20/09/2013}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2013_INPROCEEDINGS_MFP_287555, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Lexical parsability and morphological structure}, YEAR = {2013}, ABSTRACT = {A classical tenet in the psycholinguistic literature on the mental lexicon is that a parsed affix presents high activation levels (and thus contributes to activation spreading to other words with the same affix), and that such levels are tightly correlated with the affix productivity. In a number of influential papers, it has been suggested that parsability criteria interact with frequency to define morphological productivity in the lexicon. For example, the frequency of a derivative (e.g. government) relative to its base (govern) is shown to be a good predictor for parsability/productivity. The higher the frequency ratio, the more likely the morphological structure to be perceived, and the associated affix to be used productively. The present contribution intends to offer a computational explanatory basis for this correlational evidence, and assess its applicability to the acquisition of complex inflectional paradigms. In those languages, like Italian and German, whose inflection is stem-based rather than word-based, there is often no single paradigmatic form which can act as a base by being properly contained in all other inflected variants. Yet, it seems intuitive to suggest that verbs that are inflected for one paradigm cell only (e.g. neighbouring), are learned earlier and more easily but exhibit lower levels of perceived inflectional structure than verbs with richer paradigms. This appears to be in good accord with experimental evidence of time latencies in lexical decision, which are shown to correlate negatively with token frequency, paradigm size and paradigm entropy. Our simulations, based on Temporal Self-Organizing Maps (TSOMs) allow us to establish an interesting connection between inflectional parsability, frequency-based paradigm structure, and acquisitional constraints on the interaction between the human processor and working memory. Self-organising topological models of the mental lexicon can mimic the spatial and temporal organization of memory structures supporting the processing of symbolic sequences [8-10], and can provide an interesting framework for testing integrative accounts of lexical processing/acquisition as the complex result of general-purpose operations on word stimuli (e.g. working memory, long-term storage, sensory-motor mapping, rehearsal, unit integration, unit analysis, executive control, time-series processing), in line with recent acquisitions on the neuro-functional architecture of the perisylvian language network in the left hemisphere of human brain. Simulations of the incremental acquisition of "mini-paradigms" (small islands of morphological contrast encompassing up to three different forms for the same verb support the hypothesis that perception of structure (parsability) and morphological productivity strongly correlate in the inflectional lexica of German and Italian. In particular, by monitoring longitudinal progress in storage and generalisation of differently distributed inflectional paradigms in the two languages, we show that: i) high-frequency forms are stored and accessed significantly earlier than low-frequency forms; ii) deeply entrenched but paradigmatically isolated forms tend to block usage of other forms in the same paradigm; iii) low-frequency evenly distributed (highly entropic) intra-paradigmatic forms are acquired later but are easily extended. Our investigation credits the proposed computational framework with psycholinguistic plausibility, and grounds parsability-based models of morphological productivity on a specific, explicit proposal of lexical architecture. This provides an explanatory basis for both psycholinguistic and linguistic accounts of morphological structure, and offers an intermediate framework for scientific inquiry bridging the gap between linguistic units and functional units in neurosciences. Finally, it makes the interesting suggestion that principles of morpheme-based organisation of the mental lexicon are compatible with a learning strategy requiring memorisation of full forms.}, KEYWORDS = {morphological structure, word paradigms, frequency, human processor}, PAGES = {33-34}, URL = {http://mmm9.ffzg.unizg.hr/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/MMM_PROGRAM4.pdf}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {9th Mediterannean Morphology Meeting on "Morphology and Semantics" (9th MMM)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Dubrovnik, Croatia}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {15-18/09/2013}, BOOKTITLE = {Morphology and Semantics-Books of Abstracts}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{RUTA_2013_INPROCEEDINGS_RSTBCCBTFNMP_284784, AUTHOR = {Ruta, L. and Siracusano, R. and Tortorella, G. and Boncoddo, M. and Colombi, C. and Crifaci, G. and Billeci, L. and Tartarisco, G. and Ferro, M. and Narzisi, A. and Muratori, F. and Pioggia, G.}, TITLE = {The PRIMA-PIETRA Project: A Web-Based Platform for Early Autism Risk Assessment}, YEAR = {2013}, ABSTRACT = {It is well recognized that the best outcomes in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are achieved through early diagnosis and early intervention. ASD symptoms may occur as early as 12-18 months and different instruments have been developed for early autism risk assessment under the age of 2 years. The Modified Checklist for Autism in Children (M-CHAT) is a developmental surveillance-screening instrument administered during 18- to 36-month well-child visits that was demonstrated to improve early identification of autism. Novel technologies can substantially contribute to improve early diagnosis in ASD, providing early screening risk assessment platforms, unobtrusive measurements of behaviors and physiological responses, as well as brain structure and connectivity, or other measurable stimulus-event experimental paradigms. The Prima Pietra Project based at the Pervasive Healthcare Center of the Institute of Clinical Physiology of the National Research Council of Italy (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, C.N.R.) and the AOU Polyclinic "G. Martino" in Messina developed and provided an early autism risk assessment web-based platform for pediatricians and physicians available on the internet.}, KEYWORDS = {early autism risk assessment}, URL = {https://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2013/webprogram/Paper14488.html}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {International Meeting for Autism Research 2013}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {San Sebastian, Spain}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {2 May 2013}, BOOKTITLE = {International Meeting for Autism Research}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2012_ARTICLE_M_217342, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {First 'NetWordS'Workshop on Understanding the Architecture of the Mental Lexicon: Integration of Existing Approaches}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {The ambitious goal of the workshop, organised within the framework of "NetWordS", the European Science Foundation Research Networking Programme on the Structure of Words in the languages of Europe, was to lay the foundations for an interdisciplinary European research agenda on the Mental Lexicon for the coming 10 years, with particular emphasis on three main challenges: . Lexicon and Rules in the grammar . Word knowledge and word use . Words and meanings}, KEYWORDS = {Mental lexicon}, PAGES = {52-52}, URL = {http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en89/events/first-networds-workshop}, VOLUME = {89}, PUBLISHER = {ERCIM (Le Chesnay)}, ISSN = {0926-4981}, JOURNAL = {ERCIM news}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2012_ARTICLE_M_217353, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Knowledge communities in grey}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {The dynamic nature of modern human social interactions, and the increasing capability of wireless and mobile devices for creating and sharing contents, open up the opportunity for a wide dissemination of information through complex knowledge sharing systems. As the shared knowledge components build cognitive ties, there is no real sharing of knowledge without a common understanding of it. In this article, particular emphasis is laid on technologies in Natural Language understanding and knowledge management for providing structured, intelligent access to the continuously evolving content, generated on-line in a pervasive collaborative environment. In detail, robust automated techniques for term extraction and knowledge acquisition are used to tap the information density and the global coherence of text excerpts sampled from both general-purpose and subject-specific social networks. We show empirically that the two sources may exhibit considerable differences in terms of content accessibility and informativeness.}, KEYWORDS = {Grey Literature, Web Communities, Knowledge sharing, Concept Maps}, PAGES = {27-33}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84883276602\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {8}, PUBLISHER = {TextRelease (Amsterdam, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {1574-1796}, JOURNAL = {The Grey journal (Print)}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2012_ARTICLE_MFP_217399, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Word alignment and paradigm induction}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {The variety of morphological processes attested in inflectional system of average complexity calls for adaptive strategies of word alignment. Prefixation, suffixation, stem alternation and combinations thereof pose severe problems to unsupervised algorithms of morphology induction. The paper analyses morphological generalisation as a by-product of flexible memory self-organisation strategies for word recoding. Our model endorses the hypothesis that lexical forms are memorised as full units. At the same time, lexical units are paradigmatically organised. We show that the overall amount of redundant morphological structure emerging from paradigm-based self-organisation has a clear impact on generalisation. This supports the view that issues of word representation and issues of word processing are mutually implied in lexical acquisition.}, KEYWORDS = {Morphological Generalisation Morphological Paradigms Self-Organising Memory Word coding and Processing}, PAGES = {251-274}, URL = {http://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1418/38789}, VOLUME = {XI}, DOI = {10.1418/38789}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2012_ARTICLE_MP_217391, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Understanding the Architecture of the Mental Lexicon}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {The present collection stems from the 1st NetWordS Workshop "Understanding the architecture of the mental lexicon: Integration of existing approaches", held in the Pisa Research Area of the Italian National Research Council, in November 2011. "NetWordS: the European network on Word Structure in the languages of Europe" is the Research Networking Programme of the European Science Foundation launched in May 2011 with the ambitious goal of paving the way to the European interdisciplinary research agenda on the Mental Lexicon, with particular emphasis on the following three main challenges: - lexicon and rules in the grammar, - word knowledge and word use, - words and meanings.}, KEYWORDS = {Mental Lexicon, interdisciplinary approach}, PAGES = {101-105}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/217391}, VOLUME = {XI}, DOI = {10.1418/38780}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @ARTICLE{TARTARISCO_2012_ARTICLE_TBCRAFGP_196454, AUTHOR = {Tartarisco, G. and Baldus, G. and Corda, D. and Raso, R. and Arnao, A. and Ferro, M. and Gaggioli, A. and Pioggia, G.}, TITLE = {Personal Health System architecture for stress monitoring and support to clinical decisions}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {Developments in computational techniques including clinical decision support systems, information processing, wireless communication and data mining hold new premises in Personal Health Systems. Pervasive Healthcare system architecture finds today an effective application and represents in perspective a real technological breakthrough promoting a paradigm shift from diagnosis and treatment of patients based on symptoms to diagnosis and treatment based on risk assessment. Such architectures must be able to collect and manage a large quantity of data supporting the physicians in their decision process through a continuous pervasive remote monitoring model aimed to enhance the understanding of the dynamic disease evolution and personal risk. In this work an automatic simple, compact, wireless, personalized and cost efficient pervasive architecture for the evaluation of the stress state of individual subjects suitable for prolonged stress monitoring during normal activity is described. A novel integrated processing approach based on an autoregressive model, artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic modeling allows stress conditions to be automatically identified with a mobile setting analysing features of the electrocardiographic signals and human motion. The performances of the reported architecture were assessed in terms of classification of stress conditions. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.}, KEYWORDS = {Autonomic sympathovagal balance Autoregressive model Clinical decision support system Pervasive healthcare architecture Stress detection}, PAGES = {1296-1305}, URL = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140366411003720}, VOLUME = {35}, DOI = {10.1016/j.comcom.2011.11.015}, PUBLISHER = {IPC Science and Technology Press (Guildford, Regno Unito)}, ISSN = {0140-3664}, JOURNAL = {Computer communications}, } @ARTICLE{TERRANOVA_2012_ARTICLE_TFCRBSP_209663, AUTHOR = {Terranova, G. and Ferro, M. and Carpeggiani, C. and Recchia, V. and Braga, L. and Semelka, R. C. and Picano, E.}, TITLE = {Low Quality and Lack of Clarity of Current Informed Consent Forms in Cardiology: How to Improve Them}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {Guidelines on informed consent for clinical practice exhort physicians to use standard plain language to enhance patient comprehension and facilitate shared decision making. The aim of this study was to assess and improve quality and readability of current informed consent forms used in cardiology. We evaluated the currently used informed consent forms, previously written in Italian and English, of 7 common imaging examinations, according to the recommendations of scientific societies. For each text, we also developed a revised informed consent form according to reference standards, including Federal Plain Language guidelines. Regarding readability scores, we analyzed each text (standard and revised) with Flesch-Kincaid (F-K) grade level (higher numbers indicating harder-to-read text) and the Italian language-tailored Gulpease level (from 0 [difficult] to 100 [easy]). Overall quality and readability was poor for both the original English and Italian versions, and readability was improved with the revised form, with higher readability evidenced by changes in both F-K grade level (standard 10.2 ± 2.37% vs. revised 6.5 ± 0.41%; p < 0.001) for English and Gulpease (standard 45.7 ± 2% vs. revised 84.09 ± 2.98%; p < 0.0001) for Italian. In conclusion, current informed consent forms are complex, incomplete, and unreadable for the average patient. Substantial quality improvement and higher readability scores can be achieved with revised forms that explicitly discuss risks and are prepared following standard recommendations of plain writing.}, KEYWORDS = {bioethics imaging risk communication informed consent patient rights}, PAGES = {649-655}, URL = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1936878X1200321X}, VOLUME = {5}, DOI = {10.1016/j.jcmg.2012.03.007}, PUBLISHER = {ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC (NEW YORK, USA, Stati Uniti d'America)}, ISSN = {1936-878X}, JOURNAL = {JACC-CARDIOVASCULAR IMAGING}, } @INCOLLECTION{IOANNDIS_2012_INCOLLECTION_ITDFVTP_218873, AUTHOR = {Ioanndis, D. and Tzovaras, D. and Dalle Mura, G. and Ferro, M. and Valenza, G. and Tognetti, A. and Pioggia, G.}, TITLE = {Gait and Anthropometric Profile Biometrics: A Step Forward}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {While a sharp debate is emerging about whether conventional biometric technology offers society any significant advantages over other forms of identification, and whether it constitutes a threat to privacy, technology is rapidly progressing. Politicians and the public are still discussing fingerprinting and iris scan, while scientists and engineers are already testing futuristic solutions. Second generation biometrics - which include multimodal biometrics, behavioural biometrics, dynamic face recognition, EEG and ECG biometrics, remote iris recognition, and other, still more astonishing, applications - is a reality which promises to overturn any current ethical standard about human identification. Robots which recognise their masters, CCTV which detects intentions, voice responders which analyse emotions: these are only a few applications in progress to be developed.}, KEYWORDS = {biometrics sensing seat}, PAGES = {105-127}, URL = {http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/applied+ethics/book/978-94-007-3891-1}, VOLUME = {11}, DOI = {10.1007/978-94-007-3892-8_5}, PUBLISHER = {Springer Verlag (Norwell MA, USA)}, ISBN = {978-94-007-3891-1}, BOOKTITLE = {Second Generation Biometrics: The Ethical, Legal and Social Context}, EDITOR = {Mordini, E. and Tzovaras, D.}, } @INCOLLECTION{PIRRELLI_2012_INCOLLECTION_PFC_136472, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Ferro, M. and Calderone, B.}, TITLE = {Learning Paradigms in Time and Space: Computational Evidence from Romance Languages}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {In the linguistic literature, paradigms have enjoyed a hybrid status, half-way between entrenched patterns of lexical organization and processing structures enforcing global constraints on the output of traditional inflection rules. We describe here an original computational model of the mental lexicon where paradigmatic structures emerge through learning as the by-product of the endogenous dynamics of lexical memorization as competitive self-organization, based on the complementary principles of formal contrast (in space) and association biuniqueness (in time).}, KEYWORDS = {Computational model, Lexical memorization, Mental lexicon, Processing structures, Self-organizing maps}, PAGES = {135-157}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84921732430\&origin=inward}, DOI = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589982.003.0008}, PUBLISHER = {Oxford University Press (Oxford, GBR)}, ISBN = {978-0-19-958998-2}, BOOKTITLE = {Morphological Autonomy: Perspectives for Romance Inflectional Morphology}, EDITOR = {Maiden, M. and Smith, J. C. and Goldbach, M. and Hinzelin, M.}, } @EDITORIAL{MARZI_2012_EDITORIAL_MP_287395, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Understanding the Architecture of the Mental Lexicon}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {The present collection stems from the 1st NetWordS Workshop "Understanding the architecture of the mental lexicon: Integration of existing approaches", held in the Pisa Research Area of the Italian National Research Council, in November 2011. "NetWordS: the European network on Word Structure in the languages of Europe" is the Research Networking Programme of the European Science Foundation launched in May 2011 with the ambitious goal of paving the way to the European interdisciplinary research agenda on the Mental Lexicon, with particular emphasis on the following three main challenges: - lexicon and rules in the grammar, - word knowledge and word use, - words and meanings.}, KEYWORDS = {Mental Lexicon, interdisciplinary approach}, PAGES = {101-274}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/287395}, VOLUME = {XI}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino (Bologna, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-15-23601-2}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{CALDERONE_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_CP_288012, AUTHOR = {Calderone, B. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Apprendimento morfologico, relazioni base-derivato e topologie paradigmatiche. Evidenze psico-computazionali a confronto}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {Il presente lavoro è volto a esplorare alcune dinamiche acquisizionali relative ai processi di maturazione della competenza morfologica in apprendenti bambini. In quest"ottica, sono riportate due differenti simulazioni computazionali dei processi di apprendimento della morfologia flessiva in Italiano e in Inglese. La prima simulazione, propria di un quadro connessionista classico, dà conto in modo inadeguato delle differenti scale temporali nell"apprendimento di alcune forme flesse verbali in inglese e italiano. La letteratura sull"argomento (Pizzuto \& Caselli 1992, Noccetti 2003) documenta in modo convergente una maggiore rapidità nell"apprendimento delle forme del presente indicativo da parte dei bambini italiani rispetto al ritmo di acquisizione delle forme verbali corrispondenti (la forma di base e la terza persona singolare in -s) da parte di bambini di madre lingua inglese. La seconda simulazione, basata su un modello di memorie associative ,,a cascata" addestrate tramite protocollo non-supervisionato, rende conto in maniera non banale del paradosso acquisizionale, confermato su base inter-linguistica da un recente studio di Dressler e colleghi (Bittner et al., 2003), secondo cui sistemi flessivi più complessi e completi sono appresi con maggiore facilità di sistemi flessivi più semplici ed estesamente sincretici.}, KEYWORDS = {Lessico Mentale, apprendimento morfologico, paradigmi flessionali}, PAGES = {17}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/288012}, PUBLISHER = {Bulzoni Editore (Roma, ITA)}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {XLII Convegno della Società di Linguistica Italiana}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {25-27 settembre 2008}, BOOKTITLE = {Linguaggio e cervello / Semantica, Atti del XLII Convegno della Società di Linguistica Italiana (Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 25-27 settembre 2008)}, EDITOR = {Bambini, V. and Ricci, I. and Bertinetto, P. M.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{GIRAUDO_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_GMP_84808, AUTHOR = {Giraudo, H. and Montermini, F. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Processi cognitivi nell'analisi delle classi verbali dell'italiano: un approccio sperimentale}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {L'analisi della flessione, soprattutto verbale, nelle lingue romanze ha ricevuto un notevole impulso negli ultimi anni, in particolare dall'apporto alla ricerca in linguistica teorica di discipline come la psicolinguistica o le scienze cognitive. In questo articolo intendiamo riesaminare la ripartizione dei verbi italiani in classi, e osservare come la teoria morfologica e l'analisi sperimentale possano dare risultati convergenti e contribuire a mettere in luce i processi mentali che costituiscono la base della competenza morfologica dei parlanti (cf. Pirrelli 2007a; 2007b e, per un'illustrazione Bonami et al. 2008).}, KEYWORDS = {Morphology, Word Processing, Word Learning, Mental Lexicon, L1}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/84808}, VOLUME = {2 (CD ROM)}, PUBLISHER = {Bulzoni Editore (Roma, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-7870-652-1}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Linguaggio e cervello / Semantica, Atti del XLII Convegno della Società diLinguistica Italiana (Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 25-27 settembre 2008)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {25-27 settembre 2008}, BOOKTITLE = {Linguaggio e cervello / Semantica, Atti del XLII Convegno della Società di Linguistica Italiana (Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 25-27 settembre 2008)}, EDITOR = {Bambini, V. and Ricci, I. and Bertinetto, P. M.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_M_218950, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Knowledge communities in grey}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {The dynamic nature of modern human social interactions, and the increasing capability of wireless and mobile devices for creating and sharing contents, open up the opportunity for a wide dissemination of information through complex knowledge sharing systems. As the shared knowledge components build cognitive ties, there is no real sharing of knowledge without a common understanding of it. In this article, particular emphasis is laid on technologies in Natural Language understanding and knowledge management for providing structured, intelligent access to the continuously evolving content, generated on-line in a pervasive collaborative environment. In detail, robust automated techniques for term extraction and knowledge acquisition are used to tap the information density and the global coherence of text excerpts sampled from both general-purpose and subject-specific social networks. We show empirically that the two sources may exhibit considerable differences in terms of content accessibility and informativeness. Topics: Subject based Communities; Social Networking.}, KEYWORDS = {Concept maps, Grey literature, Knowledge sharing, Web communities}, PAGES = {34-40}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84924107682\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {13}, PUBLISHER = {TextRelease (Amsterdam, NLD)}, ISSN = {1386-2316}, ISBN = {9789077484173}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Thirteenth International Conference on Grey Literature: The Grey Circuit-From Social Networking to Wealth Creation (GL13)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Washington D. C.-USA}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {05-06/12 2011}, BOOKTITLE = {The Grey Circuit-From Social Networking to Wealth Creation}, EDITOR = {Farace, D. J. and Fratzen, J.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_MFCP_287129, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Caudai, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Evaluating Hebbian Self-Organizing Memories for Lexical Representation and Access}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {The lexicon is the store of words in long-term memory. Any attempt at modelling lexical competence must take issues of string storage seriously. In the present contribution, we discuss a few desiderata that any biologically-inspired computational model of the mental lexicon has to meet, and detail a multi-task evaluation protocol for their assessment. The proposed protocol is applied to a novel computational architecture for lexical storage and acquisition, the "Topological Temporal Hebbian SOMs" (T2HSOMs), which are grids of topologically organised memory nodes with dedicated sensitivity to time-bound sequences of letters. These maps can provide a rigorous and testable conceptual framework within which to provide a comprehensive, multi-task protocol for testing the performance of Hebbian self-organising memories, and a comprehensive picture of the complex dynamics between lexical processing and the acquisition of morphological structure.}, KEYWORDS = {Mental Lexicon, Morphology Acquisition, Self-Organizing Maps}, PAGES = {886-893}, URL = {http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2012/index.html}, ISBN = {978-2-9517408-7-7}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {8th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Istanbul, Turkey}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {23-25/05/2012}, EDITOR = {Calzolari, N. and Choukri, K. and Declerck, T. and Uğur Doğan, M. and Maegaard, B. and Mariani, J. and Odijk, J. and Piperidis, S.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_MFP_219553, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Ferro, M. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Prediction and Generalisation in Word Processing and Storage}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {Word storage and processing have traditionally been modelled according to different computational paradigms, in line with the classical corner-stone of "dual-route" models of word structure assuming a sharp dissociation between memory and computation (Clahsen 1999, Di Sciullo \& Williams 1987, Pinker \& Prince 1988, Parasada \& Pinker 1993). Even the most radical alternative to dual-route thinking, connectionist one-route models, challenged the lexicon-grammar dualism only by providing a neurally-inspired mirror image of classical base-to-inflection rules, while largely neglecting issues of lexical storage (Rumelhart \& McClelland 1986, McClelland \& Patterson 2002, Seidenberg \& McClelland 1989). Recent psycho- and neuro-linguistic evidence, however, supports a less deterministic and modular view of the interaction between stored word knowledge and on-line processing [Baayen et al. 1997, Hay 2001, Maratsos 2000, Stemberger \& Middleton 2003, Tabak et al. 2005, Ford et al. 2003, Post et al. 2008). The view entails simultaneous activation of distributed patterns of cortical connectivity encoding redundant distributional regularities in language data. Furthermore, recent developments in morphological theorising question the primacy of grammar rules over lexical storage, arguing that word regularities emerge from independent principles of lexical organisation, whereby lexical units and constructions are redundantly stored and mutually related through entailment relations (Matthews 1991, Corbett \& Fraser 1993, Pirrelli 2000, Burzio 2004, Booij 2010). We endorse here such a non modular view on Morphology to investigate two basic behavioural aspects of human word processing: morphological prediction and generalisation. The investigation is based on a computer model of morphology acquisition supporting the hypothesis that they both derive from a common pool of principles of lexical organisation.}, KEYWORDS = {Morphological generalisation, Word processing, Self-organising memory}, PAGES = {114-131}, URL = {http://mmm.lingue.unibo.it/}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Eighth Mediterranean Morphology Meeting on "Morphology and the architecture of the grammar" (MMM8)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Cagliari, Italy}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {14-17 September 2011}, EDITOR = {Ralli, A. and Booij, G. and Scalise, S. and Karasimos, A.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_PG_84785, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Guevara, E.}, TITLE = {Understanding NN Compounds}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {In this paper we intend to pursue two basic objectives: i) point out a substantial convergence between classification criteria for compounding that have developed independently from largely complementary perspectives and methodological stances, and ii) assess the important empirical consequences of this convergence and their potential impact on recent linguistic analyses of lexical compounds as either lexical (and specifically morphological) or syntactic phenomena. These two points are brought home by focusing on a particular class of Italian compounds, namely endocentric NN compounds such as ufficio reclami ('complaint office') or pesce palla ('ball fish') that prove to be increasingly productive in contemporary Italian (cf. Dardano 1978, Bisetto 2004).}, KEYWORDS = {Morphological composition, Word Processing, Word Learning, Mental Lexicon}, PAGES = {17}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/84785}, VOLUME = {2 (CD ROM)}, PUBLISHER = {Bulzoni Editore (Roma, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-7870-652-1}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Linguaggio e cervello / Semantica, Atti del XLII Convegno della Società diLinguistica Italiana (Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 25-27 settembre 2008)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {25-27 settembre 2008}, BOOKTITLE = {Linguaggio e cervello /Semantica, Atti del XLII Convegno della Società di Linguistica Italiana (Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, 25-27 settembre 2008)}, EDITOR = {Bambini, V. and Ricci, I. and Bertinetto, P. M.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_M_220819, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Innovation, Language, and the Web}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {Language and innovation are inseparable. Language conveys ideas which are essential in corporate innovation; innovation would be nearly impossible if we did not have language. Language establishes the most immediate connections with our conceptualisation of the outside world, and it provides the building blocks for communication. The structure of language itself reflects its functional and communicative use. Communication takes place when there is a real information exchange process. Every linguistic choice is necessarily meaningful, and absolute variables involve the parallel construction of form and meaning. From this perspective, language is not only structure, but a dynamic knowledge construction process as well. Knowledge transfer and innovation transfer are ubiquitous processes: knowledge extraction requires heterogeneous tasks related to the acquisition, from unstructured textual data in digital format, of structured and classified information relating to research topics. In the full version of this approach, emphasis will be laid on the mechanisms underlying language processing and communicative interaction, outlining knowledge retention and retrieval processes. The spread of Internet has enabled development of better bibliographic scientific databases with significantly improved capacity for storage and retrieval. In recent years, web searching has become the default mode of highly innovative information retrieval, though the main sources of digital information are unstructured or semi-structured documents. Information relating to developments in scientific research is collected in the form of abstracts or full publications, in large and growing bibliographic repositories. Considering the web as a corpus makes it possible to investigate how words are used to describe innovation, and how innovation topics can influence word usage and collocational behaviour. Investigation of corpora is concerned with the description of use and structure of language, by inquiring linguistic phenomena such as, co-occurence distributions, collocational variability, derivational productivity, neologism coinage. This will bring into focus the dynamic interplay between lexical creativity and innovative pragmatic contexts, thus blurring the traditional dichotomy between knowledge of language and its use. In particular, the work will focus on how words and language structures become vehicle for knowledge generation and innovation transfer, and how research data, research results and widely-distributed dissemination papers can support and enhance future research.}, KEYWORDS = {Lexical productivity, Language Technologies, Web corpora, Grey Literature}, PAGES = {85-88}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/220819}, VOLUME = {14}, ISSN = {1385-2308}, ISBN = {978-90-77484-19-7}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Fourteenth international Conference on Grey Literature (GL14)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {National Research Council, Rome-Italy}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {29-30 November 2012}, BOOKTITLE = {Tracking Innovation thorugh Grey Literature}, EDITOR = {Farace, D. J. and Frantzen, J. and Greynet}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIOGGIA_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_PBNFATFSGDTM_284777, AUTHOR = {Pioggia, G. and Billeci, L. and Narzisi, A. and Farruggio, V. and Arnao, A. and Tartarisco, G. and Ferro, M. and Siracusano, R. and Germanò, E. and Deodato, M. and Tortorella, G. and Muratori, F.}, TITLE = {PRIMA PIETRA: Research, Integration, Enhancement, Assistance and Education Program for Autism Services and Rehabilitation Technologies}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {It is commonly recognized that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms are as early as 12 months of age and that the best outcomes are often achieved through early diagnosis and early intervention. However, there are many challenges to delivering health care to parents with a child with ASD. Difficulties to service delivery and utilization are more intensified for families living in suburban or remote areas, often resulting in limited access to preventative mental health services in general and parenting ASD interventions in particular. As Vismara an Rogers suggested (Vismara, 2010), the use of technology could support long-distance clinical health care. PRIMA PIETRA Italian project is focused on early diagnosis and intervention providing Early Start Denver Model (Dawson et al., 2009) using tele-rehabilitation. PRIMA PIETRA is a collaborative project supported by the Minister of Health of the Sicilian Region, in collaboration with Basilicata and Tuscany Regions.}, KEYWORDS = {autism spectrum disorder, pervasive healthcare, early diagnosis}, PAGES = {4}, URL = {https://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2012/webprogram/Paper10070.html}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {International Meeting for Autism Research}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Toronto, Canada}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {18 May 2012}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_P_288047, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {At the core of lexical processing: computational and neurocognitive issues}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {The lexicon lies at the root of our linguistic competence and represents a fundamental interface domain between language and our conceptualisation of the outside world. In traditional conceptions of the language architecture, the lexicon has been generally characterised as a declarative memory store of static building blocks, with rules providing the basic principles and constraints on their on-line procedural combination. The talk deals with some recent computational models of self-organising memories and neuroimaging evidence of the connectivity of the perisylvian network for language processing and working memory located in the left hemisphere of the human brain, to suggest a different conception of the mental lexicon and its role in the architecture of language.}, KEYWORDS = {Memory, Mental Lexicon, Neurocognitive correlates}, URL = {http://hnk.ffzg.hr/fassbl2012/}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {8th International Conference Formal Approaches to South Slavic and Balkan Languages (FASSBL-8)}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Dubrovnik, Croatia}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {19-21 settembre 2012}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2012_INPROCEEDINGS_P_288106, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Hebbian Self-Organizing Memories for Lexical Recoding and Processing}, YEAR = {2012}, ABSTRACT = {Hebbian self-organizing memories (Pirrelli et al. 2010, Ferro et al. 2011, Koutnik 2007) can provide a rigorous and testable conceptual framework within which to unify diverse functional hypotheses for lexical acquisition and processing, and to clarify how these hypotheses may be explained computationally. I discuss a few desiderata that any biologically-inspired computational model of the mental lexicon has to meet, and report on how well such desiderata are met by different types of Hebbian self-organizing memories, exhibiting empirically different maturational trends in lexical acquisition.}, KEYWORDS = {Self-organising Maps, Memory, Word Processing}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/288106}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Workshop on Exo-lexical variables in monolingual and bilingual morphological processing, IMM15}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Vienna}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {February 9-12, 2012}, } @ARTICLE{CHERSI_2011_ARTICLE_CFPP_205122, AUTHOR = {Chersi, F. and Ferro, M. and Pezzulo, G. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Time, Language and Action-A Unified Long-Term Memory Model for Sensory-Motor Chains and Word Schemata}, YEAR = {2011}, ABSTRACT = {Action and language are known to be organized as closely-related brain subsystems. An Italian CNR project implemented a computational neural model where the ability to form chains of goal-directed actions and chains of linguistic units relies on a unified memory architecture obeying the same organizing principles.}, PAGES = {27-28}, URL = {http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN84/EN84-web.pdf}, VOLUME = {84}, PUBLISHER = {ERCIM (Le Chesnay)}, ISSN = {0926-4981}, JOURNAL = {ERCIM news}, } @ARTICLE{FERRO_2011_ARTICLE_FMP_205180, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {A Self-Organizing Model of Word Storage and Processing: Implications for Morphology Learning}, YEAR = {2011}, ABSTRACT = {In line with the classical cornerstone of "dual-route" models of word structure, assuming a sharp dissociation between memory and computation, word storage and processing have traditionally been modelled according to different computational paradigms. Even the most popular alternative to dual-route thinking - connectionist one-route models - challenged the lexicon-grammar dualism only by providing a neurally-inspired mirror image of classical base-to-inflection rules, while largely neglecting issues of lexical storage. Recent psycho- and neuro-linguistic evidence, however, supports a less deterministic and modular view of the interaction between stored word knowledge and on-line processing. We endorse here such a non modular view on morphology to offer a computer model supporting the hypothesis that they are both derivative of a common pool of principles for memory self-organization.}, KEYWORDS = {Lexical Processing, Self Organizing Maps, Morphological Structure, Serial Memory}, PAGES = {209-226}, URL = {http://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1418/35840}, VOLUME = {2}, DOI = {10.1418/35840}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2011_ARTICLE_MPS_186118, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pardelli, G. and Sassi, M.}, TITLE = {A terminology based re-definition of Grey Literature}, YEAR = {2011}, ABSTRACT = {The conventionally accepted definition of Grey Literature, as Information produced and distributed by non-commercial publishing, does not take into consideration either the increasing availability of forms of grey knowledge, or the growing importance of computerbased encoding and management as the standard mode of creating and developing grey literature. Semi-automated terminological analysis of almost twenty years of terminological creativity in the proceedings of eleven GL International Conferences offers the opportunity to pave the way to a bottom-up redefinition of Grey Literature stemming from attested terminological creativity and lexical innovation. In this paper, we focus on a set of automatically-acquired terms obtained by subjecting our reference Corpus to a number of pre-processing steps of automated text analysis, such as concordances, frequency lists and lexical association scores. Acquired terms allow us to throw in sharp relief developing trends and important shifts of emphasis in the current understanding of the notion of Grey Literature.}, KEYWORDS = {Grey Literature, Terminology extraction}, PAGES = {19-23}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84869064979\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {7}, PUBLISHER = {TextRelease (Amsterdam, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {1574-1796}, JOURNAL = {The Grey journal (Print)}, } @ARTICLE{VALENZA_2011_ARTICLE_VPAFSD_329628, AUTHOR = {Valenza, G. and Pioggia, G. and Armato, A. and Ferro, M. and Scilingo, E. P. and De Rossi, D.}, TITLE = {A neuron-astrocyte transistor-like model for neuromorphic dressed neurons}, YEAR = {2011}, ABSTRACT = {Experimental evidences on the role of the synaptic glia as an active partner together with the bold synapse in neuronal signaling and dynamics of neural tissue strongly suggest to investigate on a more realistic neuron-glia model for better understanding human brain processing. Among the glial cells, the astrocytes play a crucial role in the tripartite synapsis, i.e. the dressed neuron. A well-known two-way astrocyte-neuron interaction can be found in the literature, completely revising the purely supportive role for the glia. The aim of this study is to provide a computationally efficient model for neuron-glia interaction. The neuron-glia interactions were simulated by implementing the Li-Rinzel model for an astrocyte and the Izhikevich model for a neuron. Assuming the dressed neuron dynamics similar to the nonlinear input-output characteristics of a bipolar junction transistor, we derived our computationally efficient model. This model may represent the fundamental computational unit for the development of real-time artificial neuron-glia networks opening new perspectives in pattern recognition systems and in brain neurophysiology.}, KEYWORDS = {Bio-computational architectures for signal processing, Neuron, Astrocyte, Synapse, Neuron-astrocyte interaction model}, PAGES = {679-685}, URL = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0893608011000979}, VOLUME = {24}, DOI = {10.1016/j.neunet.2011.03.013}, PUBLISHER = {Pergamon (New York, Stati Uniti d'America)}, ISSN = {0893-6080}, JOURNAL = {Neural networks}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{FERRO_2011_INPROCEEDINGS_FMP_205490, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Marzi, C. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {T2HSOM: Understanding the Lexicon by Simulating Memory Processes for Serial Order}, YEAR = {2011}, ABSTRACT = {Over the last several years, both theoretical and empirical approaches to lexical knowledge and encoding have prompted a radical reappraisal of the traditional dichotomy between lexicon and grammar. The lexicon is not simply a large waste basket of exceptions and sub-regularities, but a dynamic, possibly redundant repository of linguistic knowledge whose principles of relational organization are the driving force of productive generalizations. In this paper, we overview a few models of dynamic lexical organization based on neural network architectures that are purported to meet this challenging view. In particular, we illustrate a novel family of Kohonen self-organizing maps (T2HSOMs) that have the potential of simulating competitive storage of symbolic time series while exhibiting interesting properties of morphological organization and generalization. The model, tested on training samples of as morphologically diverse languages as Italian, German and Arabic, shows sensitivity to manifold types of morphological structure and can be used to bootstrap morphological knowledge in an unsupervised way.}, KEYWORDS = {Mental Lexicon, Self-organizing Maps, Morphology}, PAGES = {32-41}, URL = {http://alpage.inria.fr/~sagot/woler2011/WoLeR2011/Program_%26_Proceedings.html}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {First International Workshop on Lexical Resources}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Ljubljana Slovenia}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {1-5 Agosto 2011}, BOOKTITLE = {First International Workshop on Lexical Resources}, EDITOR = {Sagot, B.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2011_INPROCEEDINGS_MPS_176389, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pardelli, G. and Sassi, M.}, TITLE = {A terminology based re-definition of Grey Literature}, YEAR = {2011}, ABSTRACT = {The conventionally accepted definition of Grey Literature, as Information produced and distributed by non-commercial publishing, does not take into consideration either the increasing availability of forms of grey knowledge, or the growing importance of computer-based encoding and management as the standard mode of creating and developing grey literature. Semi-automated terminological analysis of almost twenty years of terminological creativity in the proceedings of eleven GL International Conferences offers the opportunity to pave the way to a bottom-up redefinition of Grey Literature stemming from attested terminological creativity and lexical innovation. In this paper, we focus on a set of automatically-acquired terms obtained by subjecting our reference Corpus to a number of pre-processing steps of automated text analysis, such as concordances, frequency lists and lexical association scores. Acquired terms allow us to throw in sharp relief developing trends and important shifts of emphasis in the current understanding of the notion of Grey Literature.}, KEYWORDS = {GL conference corpus, Grey literature definition, Terminology extraction}, PAGES = {27-31}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-84883303651\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {12}, PUBLISHER = {TextRelease (Amsterdam, NLD)}, ISSN = {1386-2316}, ISBN = {9789077484166}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Twelfth International Conference on Grey Literature: Trasparency in Grey Literature, Grey Tech Approaches to High Tech Issues}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Praga}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {6-7 dicembre 2010}, BOOKTITLE = {Trasparency in Grey Literature, Grey Tech Approaches to High Tech Issues}, EDITOR = {Farace, D. J. and Fratzen, J.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2011_INPROCEEDINGS_M_205896, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C.}, TITLE = {Knowledge Communities in Grey}, YEAR = {2011}, ABSTRACT = {The dynamic nature of modern human social interactions, and the increasing capability of wireless and mobile devices for creating and sharing contents, open up the opportunity for a wide dissemination of information through complex knowledge sharing systems. The development of digital technologies and the continuous evolution of telecommunication networks are rapidly heading our society towards a culture of participation and to a more and more interactive communication. Adaptive networking protocols and data management systems are fostering pervasive information and communication environments. In this context, subject based communities offer the steadily increasing availability of ubiquitous accessible information. Networking communities, focussed on supporting relationships and content sharing, act at the same time as providers and users of all kind of grey literature materials in a highly distributed and collaborative scenario. Collaboration networks are thus becoming a key element in the advancement and dissemination of knowledge in scientific domains as well as in diverse aspects of everyday human life. In this sense, social media at best enhance new frontier ideas and highly innovative contents; they offer the enormous potential to transform research, and research results, into a knowledge co-creation process. As the shared knowledge components build cognitive ties, there is no real sharing of knowledge without a common understanding of it. Large amounts of structured information have to be managed, and generation and assimilation of knowledge have to be facilitated. The unlimited universe of data and information available on the web need to be identified, classified, analyzed, filtered, so as to enhance the generation and assimilation of new knowledge. Knowledge needs to be represented, standardized and distilled from multiple sources. Tagging on a web scale provides a potentially useful source of metadata, and paves the way to automated post-processing services such as information retrieval, and acquisition of concepts from large document repositories. In other words it creates an environment conducive to knowledge transfer. In the full version, particular emphasis will be laid on technologies in natural language understanding and knowledge management for providing structured, intelligent access to the continuously evolving content generated on-line in a pervasive collaborative environment. In particular, the work will focus on exploring the interaction/synergy between different modes/tools for knowledge acquisition and representation: from highly structured, standardized and objective knowledge information systems based on ontological hierarchies and relations to more dynamic, subjective tools for volatile knowledge representation such as word clouds and concept maps. This approach will highlight current automated tools for concept acquisition and ontology learning that are conducive to an incremental approach to content access and management, to establish a fruitful bridge between modes of knowledge sharing/creation and dynamic, incremental approaches to automated knowledge acquisition and representation.}, KEYWORDS = {Grey Literature, Web communities, Knowledge sharing, Concept Maps}, PAGES = {26-30}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/205896}, VOLUME = {13}, ISSN = {1385-2308}, ISBN = {978-90-77484-00-5}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Thirteenth International Conference on Grey Literature: The Grey circuit-From Social networking to Wealth Creation}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Washington D. C.-USA}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {5-6 December 2011}, BOOKTITLE = {The Grey Circuit-From Social Networking to Wealth Creation}, EDITOR = {Farace, D. J. and Fratzen, J.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{TERRANOVA_2011_INPROCEEDINGS_TFCRDGRP_205909, AUTHOR = {Terranova, G. and Ferro, M. and Carpeggiani, C. and Recchia, V. and Dodaro, A. and Gioffrè, D. and Richard, S. and Picano, E.}, TITLE = {Unreadability of current informed consent forms in cardiology-and how to improve it}, YEAR = {2011}, ABSTRACT = {Guidelines on informed consent for clinical practice and research trials recommend the use of standard plain language to enhance patient comprehension and to facilitate shared decision-making. Aim: To assess readability of our current informed consent forms used in cardiology.}, KEYWORDS = {public health, health policy, informed consent, readability}, PAGES = {69-70}, URL = {http://spo.escardio.org/abstract-book/presentation.aspx?id=97162}, VOLUME = {32}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {European Society of Cardiology}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Paris (France)}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {Agosto 2011}, } @ARTICLE{FERRO_2010_ARTICLE_FOPP_64549, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Ognibene, D. and Pezzulo, G. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Reading as active sensing: a computational model of gaze planning in word recognition}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {We offer a computational model of gaze planning during reading that consists of two main components: a lexical representation network, acquiring lexical representations from input texts (a subset of the Italian CHILDES database), and a gaze planner, designed to recognize written words by mapping strings of characters onto lexical representations. The model implements an active sensing strategy that selects which characters of the input string are to be fixated, depending on the predictions dynamically made by the lexical representation network. We analyze the developmental trajectory of the system in performing the word recognition task as a function of both increasing lexical competence, and correspondingly increasing lexical prediction ability. We conclude by discussing how our approach can be scaled up in the context of an active sensing strategy applied to a robotic setting.}, KEYWORDS = {Reading, Language Learning, Mental Lexicon}, PAGES = {1-16}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/64549}, VOLUME = {4}, PUBLISHER = {Frontiers Research Foundation (Lausanne, Svizzera)}, ISSN = {1662-5218}, JOURNAL = {Frontiers in neurorobotics}, } @ARTICLE{FERRO_2010_ARTICLE_FPP_64553, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Pezzulo, G. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Morphology, Memory and the Mental Lexicon}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {Recent experimental evidence on morphological learning and processing has prompted a less deterministic and modular view of the interaction between stored word knowledge and on-line processing. Storing a word in the mental lexicon does not simply entail keeping a faithful memory image of that word in the most compact way. It also requires encoding and manipulating such image through topological structures that are optimally adapted to word production and comprehension. Temporal Self-Organizing Maps (THSOMs) are a novel model of artificial neural network that keeps time serial information through predictive activation chains of receptors encoding both spatial and temporal information of input stimuli. The impact of this model on issues of lexical organization and morphological processing is investigated in detail through a series of simulations shedding light on the dynamics between short-term memory (activation), long-term memory (learning) and morphological organization of stored word forms (topology).}, KEYWORDS = {Morphology, Word Processing, Word Learning, Mental Lexicon}, PAGES = {203-242}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/64553}, VOLUME = {2}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @ARTICLE{MARZI_2010_ARTICLE_MPS_64555, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pardelli, G. and Sassi, M.}, TITLE = {Grey literature and computational linguistics: From paper to net}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {The advent and exponential development of the World Wide Web has led to an increasing availability of unstructured knowledge and distributed information sources, meeting general public requirements that are hardly addressed by other more traditional information channels. This trend has concurrently raised a considerable interest in the application of Computational Linguistics (CL) methodologies to document access and retrieval, as they offer the unprecedented opportunity to make the subjective, user- centred information demands of Net citizens meet the ever changing and heterogeneous information flow of the web. Over the last five years, more and more Italian Universities have introduced CL courses into their Humanities curricula, making available on-line teaching materials, tutorials and language engineering software that appear to supply the lack of offer from traditional Italian publishing houses. In this paper, we consider in some detail the role played by this type of Grey Literature in bringing up a wider and increasingly more aware community of web users in Italy.}, KEYWORDS = {Grey Literature}, PAGES = {145-148}, URL = {http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-78149461778\&origin=inward}, VOLUME = {6}, PUBLISHER = {TextRelease (Amsterdam, Paesi Bassi)}, ISSN = {1574-1796}, JOURNAL = {The Grey journal (Print)}, } @ARTICLE{PIRRELLI_2010_ARTICLE_P_157483, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Word Processing and Storage}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {The present collection of papers originates from a successful application to the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop Programme for the "Words in Action" workshop. The workshop, convened in Pisa on the 12th and 13th of October 2009, brought together experts of various scientific domains and theoretical inclinations to advance the current awareness of theoretical, typological, psycholinguistic, computational and neuro-physiological issues in word processing and storage, with a view to promoting novel methods of research and assessment for grammar architecture and language physiology.}, KEYWORDS = {Morphology, Word Processing, Word Learning, Mental Lexicon}, PAGES = {91-95}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/157483}, VOLUME = {IX}, PUBLISHER = {Il Mulino, Bologna (Italia)}, ISSN = {1720-9331}, JOURNAL = {Lingue e linguaggio}, } @BOOK{FERRO_2010_BOOK_F_283384, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M.}, TITLE = {High Efficiency Real-Time Sensor and Actuator Control and Data Processing: A Framework Solution for Control Systems in Biomimetic Autonomous Robots}, YEAR = {2010}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/283384}, PUBLISHER = {VDM Verlag Dr. Müller (Saarbrücken, DEU)}, ISBN = {978-3-639-25356-6}, EDITOR = {Ferro, M.}, } @INCOLLECTION{PIRRELLI_2010_INCOLLECTION_PGB_136469, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V. and Guevara, E. and Baroni, M.}, TITLE = {Computational issues in compound processing}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {Understanding compounds is a challenging computational task, cutting across multiple levels of linguistic analysis and touching upon intricate issues of representation, grammar architecture and algorithmic processing. At the same time, compounds raise all these problems in the most direct and exemplar way. From this perspective, they are an ideal probe into core issues of language architecture, making us pause about the need for advanced processing models and multi-disciplinary ap- proaches to long-lasting linguistic cruces. The paper reviews some of the lessons that can be learned from reading twenty years of computa- tional literature on the topic and assesses them against the background of germane theoretical and cognitive issues.}, KEYWORDS = {Morphology, Compounding, Natural Language Processing, Mental Lexicon}, PAGES = {271-285}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/136469}, PUBLISHER = {John Benjamins (Amsterdam, NLD)}, ISBN = {9789027248275}, BOOKTITLE = {Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding}, EDITOR = {Scalise, S. and Vogel, I.}, } @EDITORIAL{PIRRELLI_2010_EDITORIAL_P_273429, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understanding Word Processing and Storage}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {The present collection of papers originates from a successful application to the European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop Programme for the "Words in Action" workshop. The workshop, convened in Pisa on the 12th and 13th of October 2009, brought together experts of various scientific domains and theoretical inclinations to advance the current awareness of theoretical, typological, psycholinguistic, computational and neuro-physiological issues in word processing and storage, with a view to promoting novel methods of research and assessment for grammar architecture and language physiology.}, PAGES = {91-240}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/273429}, PUBLISHER = {Societa Editrice il Mulino (Bologna, ITA)}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2010_INPROCEEDINGS_MPS_84790, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pardelli, G. and Sassi, M.}, TITLE = {Grey Literature and Computational Linguistics: From Paper to Net}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {The advent and exponential development of the World Wide Web has led to an increasing availability of unstructured knowledge and distributed information sources, meeting general public requirements that are hardly addressed by other more traditional information channels. This trend has concurrently raised a considerable interest in the application of Computational Linguistics (CL) methodologies to document access and retrieval, as they offer the unprecedented opportunity to make the subjective, user-centred information demands of Net citizens meet the ever changing and heterogeneous information flow of the web. Over the last five years, more and more Italian Universities have introduced CL courses into their Humanities curricula, making available on-line teaching materials, tutorials and language engineering software that appear to supply the lack of offer from traditional Italian publishing houses. In this paper, we consider in some detail the role played by this type of Grey Literature in bringing up a wider and increasingly more aware community of web users in Italy.}, KEYWORDS = {Computational Linguistics, Grey, Web-based information}, PAGES = {81-84}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/84790}, VOLUME = {11}, PUBLISHER = {TextRelease (Amsterdam, NLD)}, ISSN = {1386-2316}, ISBN = {978-90-77484-13-5}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Eleventh International Conference on Grey Literature. The Grey Mosaic, Piecing it All Together}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Washington, DC}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {14-15 dicembre 2009}, BOOKTITLE = {The Grey Mosaic, Piecing it All Together}, EDITOR = {Farace, D. J. and Frantzen, J.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIOGGIA_2010_INPROCEEDINGS_PCATTFDGR_185519, AUTHOR = {Pioggia, G. and Carbonaro, N. and Anania, G. and Tognetti, A. and Tartarisco, G. and Ferro, M. and De Rossi, D. and Gaggioli, A. and Riva, G.}, TITLE = {Interreality: The use of advanced technologies in the assessment and treatment of psychological stress}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {Stress and its related comorbid diseases are responsible for a large proportion of disability worldwide. In particular, chronic stress is the main responsible for the dramatic increase of premature mortality in the Western countries. However, advanced simulation and sensing technologies, such as virtual reality and mobile biosensors offer interesting opportunities for innovative personal health-care solutions to stress. In this work, we describe a technology-based approach to the assessment and treatment of stress that is based on the vision of Interreality. The main feature of interreality is the creation of a hybrid-augmented experience merging the physical and virtual world. This is achieved through: a) an extended sense of presence: in interreality advanced simulations (3-D virtual worlds) are used to transform health guidelines and provisions into experience; b) an extended sense of community (social presence): interreality uses hybrid social interaction and dynamics of group sessions to provide each user with targeted social support in both the physical and virtual world; c) real-time feedback between the physical and virtual worlds: interreality uses bio and activity sensors and devices (e.g. smartphones) to track both the behavior and the health status of the user in real time and to provide targeted suggestions and guidelines. The feedback activity is twofold: (1) behavior in physical world influences the experience in the virtual one, and (2) behavior in the virtual world influences the experience in the real one.}, PAGES = {1047-1051}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/185519}, DOI = {10.1109/ISDA.2010.5687047}, ISBN = {978-1-4244-8134-7}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Intelligent Systems Design and Applications (ISDA), 2010 10th International Conference on}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Cairo, Egypt}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {29 Nov-1 Dec 2010}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2010_INPROCEEDINGS_MPS_186131, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pardelli, G. and Sassi, M.}, TITLE = {A Terminology Based Re-Definition of Grey Literature}, YEAR = {2010}, ABSTRACT = {The Luxembourg Convention on Grey Literature held in 1997 offered the following definition of Grey Literature (expanded in New York, 2004): "Information produced and distributed on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in electronic and print formats not controlled by commercial publishing, i.e. where publishing is not the primary activity of the producing body". Is this definition still valuable? Is it so far completely satisfactory? Or does it rather need important modifications? We suggest that an interesting re-definition of GL can be based upon careful examination of the longitudinal trend of 10 years of terminological creativity in the proceedings of the GL international Conference. Our empirical basis is the Corpus of GreyText Inhouse Archive, available on http://www.greynet.org/opensiglerepository.html consisting of titles, themes, keywords and full abstracts, for a total amount of more than sixty thousand word tokens. In the full version of our paper, we intend to focus on a set of automatically-acquired terms (both single-word and multi-word terms) obtained by subjecting our reference Corpus to a number of pre-processing steps of automated text analysis, such as concordances, frequency lists and lexical association scores (e.g. Mutual Information on word pairs). To anticipate some of our results, the following three terms, that appear to be shared by various disciplinary sub-fields, mark, in our view, important stages in the evolution of our current understanding of GL: digital, access and web. The attribute digital, an increasingly popular synonym of the now obsolete electronic, emphasises the growing importance of computer-based encoding as the standard medium of GL. The noun access (defining the process of accessing text documents) is seen in the company of adjectives like easy, full, grey and open to shape up important conceptual innovations in the way GL material is distributed: e.g. open access focuses on the free accessibility of digital contents. Coupled with information, document and repository (note, however, that repository is generally understood as a technical synonym of open archive), access points to a conception of world-wide available, structured cultural contents. Finally, reference to the web lays emphasis on the huge importance of the World Wide Web as the standard means of disseminating GL. All these aspects are not fully taken into account in the standard definition of GL reported above. Our inquiry is intended to pave the way to a bottom-up re-definition of GL, stemming from the terminological creativity and lexical innovation monitored over ten years of technical work in the field.}, KEYWORDS = {Terminology extraction, Grey Literature definition, GL Conference corpus}, PAGES = {24-28}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/186131}, VOLUME = {12}, ISSN = {1385-2308}, ISBN = {978-90-77484-15-9}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Twelfth International Conference on Grey Literature: Trasparency in Grey Literature, Grey Tech Approaches to High Tech Issues}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Prague}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {6-7/12/2010}, BOOKTITLE = {Trasparency in Grey Literature, Grey Tech Approaches to High Tech Issues}, EDITOR = {Farace, D. J. and Fratzen, J.}, } @ARTICLE{FERRO_2009_ARTICLE_FPTCD_183315, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Pioggia, G. and Tognetti, A. and Carbonaro, N. and De Rossi, D.}, TITLE = {A Sensing Seat for Human Authentication}, YEAR = {2009}, ABSTRACT = {This work is focused on the design and the realization of a sensing seat system for human authentication. Such a system may be used for security purposes in trucks, cars, offices, and scenarios where human subject authentication is needed and a seat is available. The sensing seat is realized by a seat coated with a removable Lycra sensing cover equipped with a piezoresistive sensor network. Since each sensor consists of a conductive elastomer composite rubber screen printed onto a cotton Lycra fabric, the sensing cover is able to respond to simultaneous deformations in different areas. This technology avoids the use of rigid electronic components and enables the realization of different cover layouts according to different types of seats. The algorithms for the enrollment, authentication, and monitoring tasks are discussed. A measurement campaign was carried out using data from 40 human subjects. The authentication capabilities of the system are reported in terms of acceptance and rejection rates, showing a high degree of correct classification.}, KEYWORDS = {Human authentication, security, sensing seat, strain sensor}, PAGES = {451-459}, URL = {http://puma.isti.cnr.it/linkres.php?resource=cnr.ifc/cnr.ifc/2009-A0-082}, VOLUME = {4}, DOI = {10.1109/TIFS.2009.2019156}, PUBLISHER = {IEEE, New York, N. Y., Stati Uniti d'America}, JOURNAL = {IEEE transactions on information forensics and security}, } @ARTICLE{PIFFERI_2009_ARTICLE_PRPPFMPB_269528, AUTHOR = {Pifferi, M. and Ragazzo, V. and Previti, A. and Pioggia, G. and Ferro, M. and Macchia, P. and Piacentini, G. L. and Boner, A. L.}, TITLE = {Exhaled Breath Temperature: a key feature to discriminate asthmatic children}, YEAR = {2009}, PAGES = {202-203}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/269528}, VOLUME = {20}, DOI = {10.1111/j.1399-3038.2008.00839.x}, PUBLISHER = {Blackwell, Oxford, Regno Unito}, JOURNAL = {Pediatric allergy and immunology}, } @ARTICLE{PIFFERI_2009_ARTICLE_PRPPFMPB_24183, AUTHOR = {Pifferi, M. and Ragazzo, V. and Previti, A. and Pioggia, G. and Ferro, M. and Macchia, P. and Piacentini, G. and Boner, A. L.}, TITLE = {Exhaled air temperature in asthmatic children: a mathematical evaluation}, YEAR = {2009}, ABSTRACT = {Recently, the exhaled breath temperature has been proposed as a potential marker for the evaluation of airway inflammation in asthma. The purpose of this study was to verify the ability to distinguish asthmatics from normal controls by a dedicated detailed mathematical evaluation of the exhaled air curve. Analysis was performed in the different phases of the curve of exhaled temperature, i.e. the rate of temperature increase (DeT) and the mean plateau value. Principal components analysis (PCA) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were used for the evaluation of the data in 90 asthmatic children and in 33 healthy age-matched controls. Both PCA and ANNs showed that a separation between patients and controls can be obtained only by the evaluation of the plateau phase of the curve, which better reflects the periphery of the airway.}, KEYWORDS = {artificial neural networks, asthmatic children, Kohonen self-organizing maps, principal components analysis}, PAGES = {164-171}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/24183}, VOLUME = {20}, DOI = {10.1111/j.1399-3038.2008.00742.x}, PUBLISHER = {Blackwell, Oxford, Regno Unito}, JOURNAL = {Pediatric allergy and immunology}, } @INCOLLECTION{DELLORLETTA_2009_INCOLLECTION_DLMMP_184585, AUTHOR = {Dell'Orletta, F. and Lenci, A. and Marchi, S. and Montemagni, S. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Text-2-Knowledge: una piattaforma linguistico-computazionale per l'estrazione di conoscenza da testi}, YEAR = {2009}, ABSTRACT = {The paper describes the automatic extraction of domain knowledge from Italian document collections and presents a fully-implemented ontology learning system (T2K, Text-2-Knowledge) that includes a battery of tools for Natural Language Processing, statistical text analysis and machine learning. Evaluated results show the considerable potential of systems like T2K, exploiting an incremental interleaving of NLP and machine learning techniques for accurate large-scale semi-automatic extraction and structuring of domain-specific knowledge.}, KEYWORDS = {Term extraction, Ontology Learning}, PAGES = {285-300}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/184585}, PUBLISHER = {Bulzoni (Roma, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-7870-469-5}, EDITOR = {Ferrari, G. and Benatti, R. and Mosca, M.}, } @INCOLLECTION{FERRO_2009_INCOLLECTION_FP_283387, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Pioggia, G.}, TITLE = {A biologically-based framework for distributed sensory fusion and data processing}, YEAR = {2009}, PAGES = {337-364}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/283387}, DOI = {10.5772/6586}, ISBN = {978-3-902613-52-3}, BOOKTITLE = {Sensor and Data Fusion}, EDITOR = {Milisavljevic, N.}, } @INCOLLECTION{LENCI_2009_INCOLLECTION_LMP_186141, AUTHOR = {Lenci, A. and Montemagni, S. and Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Annotazione sintattica di corpora: aspetti metodologici}, YEAR = {2009}, ABSTRACT = {Un assunto sempre più condiviso nell'ambito degli studi sull'acquisizione sia di L1 che di L2 è che l'evidenza empirica privilegiata debba essere rappresentata da corpora di produzioni scritte o orali degli apprendenti, estensivamente annotate a molteplici livelli di rappresentazione linguistica. Più in generale, corpora lemmatizzati e annotati a livello morfosintattico fanno ormai parte dello strumentario comune del linguista. Accanto ad essi, si fa però strada l'esigenza di disporre di risorse testuali più sofisticate dal punto di vista delle modalità di esplorazione linguistica, come ad esempio corpora annotati a livello sintattico (le cosiddette treebank). Questi consentono infatti di osservare i processi di convergenza degli apprendenti verso la lingua "obiettivo" anche a livello di specifici tratti grammaticali astratti o di macro-strutture linguistiche. L'articolo propone uno schema di annotazione sintattica caratterizzato da un doppio livello di codifica. Si tratta di un approccio originale che differisce dalla maggior degli schemi di annotazione sintattica esistenti per due aspetti: 1. la separazione della dimensione relazionale da quella a costituenti, che sono trattati a livelli di annotazione indipendenti, ma al tempo stesso correlati, in modo tale che lo stesso testo è simultaneamente interrogabile ai due livelli; 2. la rappresentazione a costituenti fornisce una rappresentazione del testo come sequenza di proto-costituenti sintagmatici non ricorsivi. Questa strategia di annotazione permette una fattorizzazione di diversi aspetti e dimensioni della struttura sintattica che risulta promettente da un lato per l'annotazione di corpora di lingua "non-standard" come quelli contenenti produzioni di apprendenti di L1 o L2, sia come punto di partenza per successivi processi di estrazione di informazione linguistica dal testo. Dopo aver illustrato le motivazioni sottostanti allo schema proposto, ciascun livello di rappresentazione (chunking e dipendenze funzionali) viene illustrato in dettaglio, mostrandone anche la possibilità di combinazione sullo stesso testo. L'articolo si chiude con la discussione di prospettive di uso di corpora annotati secondo lo schema di annotazione proposto.}, KEYWORDS = {Corpora annotati, annotazione sintattica}, PAGES = {25-46}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/186141}, PUBLISHER = {Guerra Edizioni (Perugia, ITA)}, ISBN = {978-88-557-0168-6}, BOOKTITLE = {CORPORA DI ITALIANO L2: TECNOLOGIE, METODI, SPUNTI TEORICI}, EDITOR = {Andorno, C. and Rastelli, S.}, } @INCOLLECTION{LENCI_2009_INCOLLECTION_LMPV_136465, AUTHOR = {Lenci, A. and Montemagni, S. and Pirrelli, V. and Venturi, G.}, TITLE = {Ontology learning from Italian legal texts}, YEAR = {2009}, ABSTRACT = {The paper reports on the methodology and preliminary results of a case study in automatically extracting ontological knowledge from Italian legislative texts. We use a fully-implemented ontology learning system (T2K) that includes a battery of tools for Natural Language Processing (NLP), statistical text analysis and machine language learning. Tools are dynamically integrated to provide an incremental representation of the content of vast repositories of unstructured documents. Evaluated results, however preliminary, show the great potential of NLP-powered incremental systems like T2K for accurate large-scale semi-automatic extraction of legal ontologies.}, KEYWORDS = {Ontology Learning, document management, legal knowledge extraction}, PAGES = {75-94}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/136465}, VOLUME = {188}, DOI = {10.3233/978-1-58603-942-4-75}, ISBN = {978-1-58603-942-4}, BOOKTITLE = {Law, Ontologies and the Semantic Web-Channelling the Legal Information Flood}, EDITOR = {Breuker, J. and Casanovas, P. and Klein, M. C. A. and Francesconi, E.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{FERRO_2009_INPROCEEDINGS_FPTDD_185528, AUTHOR = {Ferro, M. and Pioggia, G. and Tognetti, A. and Dalle Mura, G. and De Rossi, D.}, TITLE = {Event Related Biometrics: Towards an Unobtrusive Sensing Seat System for Continuous Human Authentication}, YEAR = {2009}, ABSTRACT = {The present work is focused on the improvement of a Sensing Seat system previously developed by the authors for the initial authentication purpose in office and car scenarios. The goal is to obtain an event-related continuous authentication system, where the human subject should not take care of the system itself so that he is free to perform his normal actions. The system is realized by means of a sensing cover where conductive elastomers are used as strain sensors. The deformation of the cover caused by the body shape while actions are performed by the subject are used to obtain time-dependent relevant features. Such information are then analyzed by suitable classifiers that are able to perform the real-time continuous authentication task. A measurement campaign was carried out using data from 24 human subjects employed in an office scenario while a set of 22 actions were performed. The authentication capabilities of the system are reported in terms of acceptance and rejection rates, showing a high degree of correct classification.}, PAGES = {679-682}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/185528}, DOI = {10.1109/ISDA.2009.256}, ISBN = {978-1-4244-4735-0}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Intelligent Systems Design and Applications, 2009. ISDA '09. Ninth International Conference on}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Pisa, Italy}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {30 Nov-02 Dec}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{MARZI_2009_INPROCEEDINGS_MPS_112950, AUTHOR = {Marzi, C. and Pardelli, G. and Sassi, M.}, TITLE = {Grey Literature and Computational Limguistics: From Paper to Net}, YEAR = {2009}, ABSTRACT = {The advent and exponential development of the World Wide Web has led to an increasing availability of unstructured knowledge and distributed information sources, meeting general public requirements that are hardly addressed by other more traditional information channels. This trend has concurrently raised a considerable interest in the application of Computational Linguistics (CL) methodologies to document access and retrieval, as they offer the unprecedented opportunity to make the subjective, user-centred information demands of Net citizens meet the ever changing and heterogeneous information flow of the web. Over the last five years, more and more Italian Universities have introduced CL courses into their Humanities curricula, making available on-line teaching materials, tutorials and language engineering software that appear to supply the lack of offer from traditional Italian publishing houses. In this paper, we consider in some detail the role played by this type of Grey Literature in bringing up a wider and increasingly more aware community of web users in Italy. Theme: Impact of Grey Literature on Net Citizens}, KEYWORDS = {Computational Linguistics, Grey Literature, Web-based information}, PAGES = {81-84}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/112950}, VOLUME = {11}, ISBN = {978-90-77484-14-2}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Eleventh International Conference on Grey Literature "The Grey Mosaic, Piecing it All Together"}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {Washington, DC}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {14-15 December 2009}, BOOKTITLE = {Eleventh International Conference on Grey Literature "The Grey Mosaic, Piecing it All Together" Acronimo titolo evento}, EDITOR = {Farace, D. J. and Frantzen, J.}, } @INPROCEEDINGS{PIRRELLI_2009_INPROCEEDINGS_P_288113, AUTHOR = {Pirrelli, V.}, TITLE = {Comprendere un documento con il computer}, YEAR = {2009}, ABSTRACT = {In this talk, I shall deal with the complex process of computer reading and understanding of text documents as the result of the interleaving of a number of levels of processing, both linguistic and extra-linguistic, such as parsing, classifying, learning and knowing. In real tasks, there exists no parsing without classifying, no classifying without learning, no learning without knowing and eventually no knowing without "doing things with words". Only through robust integration and co-operation of less than optimal components and inter-disciplinary cross-fertilization we can hope to develop general and comprehensive solutions which are more than the sums of their parts.}, KEYWORDS = {Gestione documentale, annotazione linguistica, indicizzazione}, URL = {https://publications.cnr.it/doc/288113}, CONFERENCE_NAME = {Documentazione, terminologia e Scienze delle Informazione}, CONFERENCE_PLACE = {CNR, Roma}, CONFERENCE_DATE = {12 giugno 2009}, }