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             REFERRING PHENOMENA IN A MULTIMEDIA CONTEXT
                  AND THEIR COMPUTATIONAL TREATMENT

             Organized by the ACL Special Interest Group
                  on Multimedia Language Processing
                               SIGMEDIA


                  Madrid, Spain, July 7-11, 1997
                    (in conjunction with ACL-97/EACL-97)
        http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/imedia/workshops/mm-references.html.


WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:

A growing number of research projects has started to investigate the
use of referring expressions in multimedia systems. On the one hand,
the use of multiple media has led to new problems, such as a proper
treatment of cross-media references. For example, text may refer to
parts of an illustration. On the other hand, it has turned out that
many concepts already known from natural language processing, such as
cohesion, take on an extended meaning in multimedia discourse. For
example, a proper treatment of referring expressions in a multimedia
discourse requires an explicit representation of the syntax and
semantics of the graphical discourse. As theories of NL reference
become more sophisticated, it is quite natural to investigate whether
these theories also encompass other media, such as graphics and
pointing gestures.

Several research projects have already started to transfer theories to
the broader context of multimedia discourse. Examples of models that
have been used for multimedia applications are Grosz and Sidner's
theory of discourse structure, the centering model developed by Joshi
and colleagues and Appelt's and Kronfeld's model of
referring. However, there are researchers who doubt that linguistic
phenomena, such as anaphora, also exist in multimedia dialogue. The
reason they give is that there are no graphical devices for
distinguishing between a reference-specifying and a
predication-specifying part since objects and their properties are
hardly separable once depicted.

The workshop will be centered around questions, such as "To what
extent can linguistic models be applied to multimedia references?",
"Which linguistic phenomena can also be observed in multimedia
discourse?"  and "Is a cross-modality theory of reference
possible?". Topics of interest include, but are by no means restricted
to the following:

-  computational models for the analysis/generation of referring expressions
   in a multimedia discourse
-  coordination/synchronization of multiple media, such as speech and
   pointing gestures
-  deixis in multimedia environments
-  cohesion and coherence in multimedia discourse
-  representation of multimedia discourse
-  encoding theories for text and graphics
-  formal models of multimedia referring
-  referring expressions in augmented/virtual realities
-  empirical studies


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:

Thomas Rist (Primary Contact), DFKI, Germany ([log in to unmask])
Elisabeth Andre, DFKI, Germany ([log in to unmask])
Laurent Romary, CRIN-CNRS & INRIA Lorraine, ([log in to unmask])


PROGRAMME COMMITTEE:

Elisabeth Andre, DFKI GmbH, Germany
Doug Appelt, SRI International, USA
Jean Caelen, University of Grenoble, France
Robert Dale, Microsoft Research Institute, Australia
John Lee, University of Edinburgh, UK
Luis Pineda, IEE, Mexico
Thomas Rist, DFKI GmbH, Germany
Laurent Romary, CRIN, France
Massimo Zancanaro, IRST, Italy
Bonnie Webber, University of Pennsylvania, USA


SUBMISSION DETAILS:

We solicit the submission of full papers (5 - 12 pages) or short
project descriptions (2 - 4 pages).

Electronic submissions in postscript format are strongly encouraged
and should be emailed to [log in to unmask] Hard copy (*four* copies
of the paper) should be mailed to Thomas Rist (address below).


WORKSHOP PARTICIPATION:

Workshop attendance will be limited to maximally 40 people, persons
without a submission should contact the organizers as soon as
possible. According to the ACL/EACL workshop guidelines, all workshop
participants must register for the ACL/EACL main conference.


IMPORTANT DATES:

17th March 1997:     Deadline for receipt of submissions
4th April 1997:      Authors informed of acceptance/rejection
24th April 1997:     Final versions due for proceedings
11th/12th July 1997: 1-Day Workshop


ADDRESS FOR SUBMISSION AND FURTHER INFORMATION:

Thomas Rist
DFKI GmbH
Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3
D-66123 Saarbruecken
Germany
Phone: +49 681 302 5266
Fax: +49 681 302 5341
email: [log in to unmask]