Computational Psycholinguistics Lecturer: Afra Alishahi Lectures: Monday 14-16 Geb. C7 2, Konferenzraum 2.11 (starts October 27) Tutorials: Wednesday 14-16, by Garance Paris Geb. C7 2, CIP-Raum (starts November 5) Final Exam: February 16, 2009 at 14-16 Geb. C7 2, Konferenzraum 2.11 Course Contents This course will discuss current computational models of human language processing. We will consider both how computational linguistics can inform the development of psycholinguistic theories, and also how computational models can account for and explain (experimentally) observed human language processing behaviour. The course will begin with an introduction to psycholinguistic research, summarising both the key observations about human language understanding, and also presenting central theoretical debates including issues such as modularity, incrementality, and the psychological status of linguistic principles and representations. We will then consider a number of computational models of lexical and sentence level processing and language acquisition. The models covered exploit symbolic, probabilistic, connectionist, and also 'hybrid' computational mechanisms.