Head (linguistics)

About: Head (linguistics) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2540 publications have been published within this topic receiving 29023 citations. The topic is also known as: nucleus.

Text-to-AV synthesis system for Thinking Head Project.

Abstract: Here we introduce our new text-to-AV (speech and face animation) system created for our Thinking Head project that provides a modular research platform to the AV community. This includes a novel phone-to-face motion module capable of synthesizing face animation from triphone data. Using phoneme timing information from human speech and combining this with information derived from our speech face motion database built from motion capture data, we build correspondences between diand tri-phones, and face motion. A comparison between face motion synthesized from speech using only our system and face motion generated from motion capture during speech verifies our capability to synthesize AV speech motion with equivalent quality as for motion-capturedriven speech face motion.

A View of the CP/DP-(non)parallelism from the Cartographic Perspective

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to reconsider some aspects of the so-called clause/noun-phrase (non-)parallelism (Abney 1987 and much subsequent work). The question that arises is to find out what is common and what is different between the clause as a Complementizer Phrase (CP)-structure and the noun as a Determiner Phrase (DP)-structure in terms of structure and derivation. An example of structural parallelism lies in the division of the clause and the noun phrase into three domains: (i) the Nachfeld (right periphery), which is the thematic domain; (ii) the Mittelfeld (midfield), which is the inflection, agreement, Case and modification domain and (iii) the Vorfeld (left periphery), which is the discourse- and operator-related domain. However, we will show following Giusti (2002, 2006), Payne (1993), Bruening (2009), Cinque (2011), Laenzlinger (2011, 2015) among others that the inner structure of the Vorfeld and of the Mittelfeld of the clause is not strictly parallel to that of the noun phrase. Although derivational parallelism also lies in the possible types of movement occurring in the CP and DP domains (short head/X-movement, simple XP-movement, remnant XP-movement and pied-piping XP-movement), we will see that there is non-parallelism in the application of these sorts of movement within the clause and the noun phrase. In addition, we will test the respective orders among adverbs/adjectives, DP/Prepositional Phrase (PP)-arguments and DP/PP-adjuncts in the Mittelfeld of the clause/noun phrase and show that Cinque’s (2013) left–right asymmetry holds crosslinguistically for the possible neutral order (without focus effects) in post-verbal/nominal positions with respect to the prenominal/preverbal base order and its impossible reverse order.

Memory models of visual search - searching in-the-head vs. in-the-world?

Abstract: Visual search takes place whenever we are looking for something. But when a stimulus has been visually encoded on a previous occasion, memory processes can supplement or compete with eye movements during search. While previous research has mostly focused on the perceptual features that allow us to identify a target among distractors in single shot searches (Wolfe, 1998, Psych. Science), recent findings have highlighted the contributions of visual short-term memory (VSTM) to search processes (Alvarez & Cavanagh, 2004, Psych. Science). We present a paradigm of repeated serial search that attempts to illuminate the potential roles of working memory (Anderson & Matessa, 1997, Psych. Review) and VSTM in visual search. A series of simple process models exemplifies various ways in which memory for items and/or locations can facilitate or obliterate search. Within a cognitive engineering approach, we developed multiple computational models that allowed us to explore and explicate the consequences of assumptions about VSTM capacity and organization, and the interaction between long-term memory and VSTM. Each model yielded distinct performance profiles based on the sequential order of target stimuli. We investigated our model predictions through an experiment that employed a serial search paradigm. Each of 10 targets (showing alphanumeric captions) had to be found on average twice per trial. As some items could be mere distractors and next targets were presented (auditorily) whenever the current target was found, participants could not anticipate the target sequence. Detailed comparisons between search performance, eye data and our computational models show clear evidence for memory processes for both target and distractor information, both within a single search and across multiple searches. Also, a between-subjects manipulation of target visibility shows that the use of knowledge-in-the-head (or memory) increases as the perceptual-motor costs of visual access are increased. The work reported was supported by a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research AFOSR #F49620-031-0143.