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Utsumi Lab
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A cognitive science lab that uses computational models to explore how people understand word meaning and metaphor.
AboutAbout the lab
Uncovering the meaning of words through computational models
The Utsumi Lab uses computational models and psychological experiments to study how people understand the meaning of words and metaphors.
It investigates how the meanings of words and concepts are represented and processed in the mind, with a particular focus on abstract words.
The lab also studies the processes by which people understand, appreciate, and produce metaphor and irony.
Separately from its cognitive science research, the lab also works on language information processing, including automatic summarization and document clustering.
Key terms
- Semantic space model
- A model that handles word meaning by representing words and vocabulary as sequences of numbers (vectors)
- Large language model
- A model, typified by BERT, that has learned the properties of language from large amounts of text
- Document clustering
- A process that divides many documents into groups based on how similar their content is
ResearchResearch themes
The lab seeks to clarify, through computational models and psychological experiments, how people understand and process the meanings of words and metaphors. It also conducts research on language information processing.
*Illustrative imageRepresentation of word meaning and concepts
The lab studies, mainly through computational modeling, how human lexical knowledge and concept representations are represented and processed in the mind. In recent years, it has focused on abstract concepts and abstract words, exploring how they are acquired and represented through linguistic and bodily experience.
*Illustrative imageUnderstanding metaphor and irony
Focusing on metaphor and irony, the lab uses computational modeling and psychological experiments to investigate the cognitive processes behind understanding, appreciating, and generating rhetorical expressions. It has proposed many theories and models, including the interpretive diversity theory of nominal metaphor.
*Illustrative imageSemantic space models and language models
For semantic space models, which represent words as vectors, the lab works to clarify their cognitive properties and to develop new methods of constructing them. It is also applying them to modeling metaphor comprehension and semantic memory, and extending them to large language models such as BERT.
*Illustrative imageVarious studies in language information processing
Separately from its cognitive science research, the lab studies automatic summarization, document clustering, generation of specialized texts, and knowledge extraction. Recently it has focused on texts in fields such as medicine and nursing care, law, second language learning, and sign language.
MembersFaculty
- ProfessorAkira Utsumi
VoicesStudent voices
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Latin dictionary” Dr. Marcus Gossler / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Representation of word meaning and concepts: “Serbian-English and English-Serbian dictionaries” Milica Buha / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Understanding metaphor and irony: “Situational irony - Baker Street tube station” Dpbsmith at English Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Semantic space models and language models: “Word vector illustration” Singerep / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Various studies in language information processing: “Copies of documents from Patagonia (1528335)” Geoff Charles / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (宇都 雅輝 研究室): “Students they're writing the examination in the hall” Hauwasysy / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (稲葉 通将 研究室): “Storytelling ( )” Steve Snodgrass from Shreveport, USA / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (伊藤 毅志 研究室): “Kyoto Shogi-initial position” Surligne / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (久野 雅樹 研究室): “Optical Illusion, Berlin” John Samuel / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
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