Summary

The Osnabrück Summer School “Concepts in Action: Representation, Learning and Application”(CARLA) aims to review and compare the current research on concepts from different disciplines concerning their approaches, goals and results and to foster truly interdisciplinary research initiatives. It is scheduled to take place from August 6-10 2018 in Osnabrück.

Concepts, as a subject of discussion since antiquity, are central to human cognition and therefore a core topic of cognitive science and essential to our understanding of the human mind. In the past decades, research on concepts has been carried out in a variety of fields (ranging from psychology over linguistics to artificial intelligence) and from a variety of perspectives. However, most of this research has been conducted independently or between a restricted selection of neighboring disciplines. In order to arrive at a more holistic understanding of concepts, it is crucial to have a higher awareness and familiarity with approaches from other disciplines. The current situation therefore calls for a broader education of young researchers that also encompasses related fields of study.

The summer school will bring together internationally renowned concept researchers (Nicholas Asher, Christiane Fellbaum, Peter Gärdenfors, Julie Hunter, Robert Goldstone, and Michael Spranger) and highly motivated PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. The lecturers will provide an introduction into concept research in their respective field of expertise and highlight most recent research results and existing and emergent challenges. Interactive discussion sessions in small and large groups will encourage the participants to critically reflect on the different approaches concerning similarities, differences, and potential synergies and to work towards solutions for currently unsolved questions in concept research.

The summer school will focus on three main topics:

• Representation: “How can we formally describe and model concepts?”
• Learning: “Where do concepts come from and how are they acquired?”
• Application: “How are concepts used in cognitive tasks?”

We explicitly aim at establishing a sustainable interdisciplinary network to ease the exchanges among concept researchers.

Both the flyer and the poster for this event are available for download.