Related papers: Semantic Structure of Feature Space in Large Langu…
In this paper, we address the problem of building dense correspondences between human images under arbitrary camera viewpoints and body poses. Prior art either assumes small motion between frames or relies on local descriptors, which cannot…
We propose a distributional theory of how hypernymy -- the ``is-a'' relation between general and specific concepts -- is encoded geometrically in language representations. Starting from the empirically verified assumption that words closer…
For a language model (LM) to faithfully model human language, it must compress vast, potentially infinite information into relatively few dimensions. We propose analyzing compression in (pre-trained) LMs from two points of view: geometric…
Does Large Language Model (LLM) technology suggest a meta-semantic picture i.e. a picture of how words and complex expressions come to have the meaning that they do? One modest approach explores the assumptions that seem to be built into…
Pre-trained word embeddings are widely used for transfer learning in natural language processing. The embeddings are continuous and distributed representations of the words that preserve their similarities in compact Euclidean spaces.…
Distributional models provide a convenient way to model semantics using dense embedding spaces derived from unsupervised learning algorithms. However, the dimensions of dense embedding spaces are not designed to resemble human semantic…
When we experience a visual stimulus as beautiful, how much of that experience derives from perceptual computations we cannot describe versus conceptual knowledge we can readily translate into natural language? Disentangling perception from…
We construct a multilingual common semantic space based on distributional semantics, where words from multiple languages are projected into a shared space to enable knowledge and resource transfer across languages. Beyond word alignment, we…
How related are the representations learned by neural language models, translation models, and language tagging tasks? We answer this question by adapting an encoder-decoder transfer learning method from computer vision to investigate the…
The impressive linguistic abilities of large language models (LLMs) have recommended them as models of human sentence processing, with some conjecturing a positive 'quality-power' relationship (Wilcox et al., 2023), in which language…
Applying machine learning algorithms to large-scale, text-based corpora (embeddings) presents a unique opportunity to investigate at scale how human semantic knowledge is organized and how people use it to judge fundamental relationships,…
Word embeddings represent language vocabularies as clouds of $d$-dimensional points. We investigate how information is conveyed by the general shape of these clouds, instead of representing the semantic meaning of each token. Specifically,…
Certain concepts, words, and images are intuitively more similar than others (dog vs. cat, dog vs. spoon), though quantifying such similarity is notoriously difficult. Indeed, this kind of computation is likely a critical part of learning…
Large language models have achieved remarkable success in general language understanding tasks. However, as a family of generative methods with the objective of next token prediction, the semantic evolution with the depth of these models…
Interpretability methods in NLP aim to provide insights into the semantics underlying specific system architectures. Focusing on word embeddings, we present a supervised-learning method that, for a given domain (e.g., sports, professions),…
Humans carry stereotypic tacit assumptions (STAs) (Prince, 1978), or propositional beliefs about generic concepts. Such associations are crucial for understanding natural language. We construct a diagnostic set of word prediction prompts to…
Understanding where transformer language models encode psychologically meaningful aspects of meaning is essential for both theory and practice. We conduct a systematic layer-wise probing study of 58 psycholinguistic features across 10…
Conversation is a cornerstone of social connection and is linked to well-being outcomes. Conversations vary widely in type with some portion generating complex, dynamic stories. One approach to studying how conversations unfold in time is…
Intimacy is a fundamental aspect of how we relate to others in social settings. Language encodes the social information of intimacy through both topics and other more subtle cues (such as linguistic hedging and swearing). Here, we introduce…
Speech and language technologies offer valuable opportunities for supporting mental health assessment through objective and interpretable cues. We present a systematic feature-based analysis framework leveraging perceptually grounded…