Sabrina Gerth
Area A: General psycho- and neurolinguistics/ModellingSupervisors: Dr. Peter beim Graben (University of Reading), Prof. Dr. Shravan Vasishth (University of Potsdam)
Thesis: Minimalistic Parsing with Neural Networks
I'm interested in modeling natural language processing using dynamical systems and evaluating the ability of such parsers to predict processing difficulty using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) as a dependent measure. Furthermore I would like to address one of the most important open problems in sentence processing: how does the grammar of a language affect processing difficulty? This can be achieved by implementing dynamical systems using different kinds of grammar theories.
My research interest involves implementing neural networks using connectionist representations to model processing difficulty of brain damaged persons. This could further contribute to a better understanding of human language processing.
Contact:
Department of Linguistics
University of Potsdam
Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 24-25
D-14476 Potsdam / Golm
phone: ++49 (0)331-977-2484
email: sabrina.gerth[AT]uni-potsdam.de
website: www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~gerth
About me:
I am pursuing a PhD in computational linguists at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Potsdam. I'm interested in modeling human language processing by using dynamical systems. By this approach I want to find a way to bridge the gap between the symbolic computation of lingustics and the mathematical formalization of computer science and contribute to a better understanding of human sentence processing.
CV
Education:
| since 02/2007 | Ph.D. student Computational Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam. Minimalistic Parsing with Neural Networks. |
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| 10/2001-01/2007 | M.A. Computational Linguistics and Computer Science, University of Potsdam. Parsing with minimalist, weighted grammars and their state space representation (Magister-Thesis in German) |
Experience:
Research Assistant, USI - Artificial Language as an universal access to key concepts of Computer Science, Institue for Computer Science, University of Potsdam. (project end: 31. December 2003)
10/2007-01/2008
Software Developer in Java, development of server-client computer applications for the German Weather Service and the World Meteorological Organization, Ernst Basler + Partner GmBH, Potsdam.
06/2007-03/2008
Graduate Assistant, Administrator of anti-plagiarism software Ephoros, Dept. Human Sciences, University of Potsdam.
06/2004-06/2006
Research Assistant, Linguistic Database for Information Structure: Annotation and Retrieval, Collaborative Research Centre (Sonderforschungsbereich, SFB 632) Institute for Linguistics, University of Potsdam.
07/2003-12/2003
Publications:
Gerth S. & beim Graben P. (2009). Unifying syntactic theory and sentence processing difficulty through a connectionist minimalist parser. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 3(4), DOI 10.1007/s11571-009-9093-1.
Gerth S. & beim Graben P. (2009). Unifying syntactic theory and sentence processing difficulty through a connectionist minimalist parser. In A. Howes, D. Peebles, R. Cooper (Eds.), 9th International Conference on Computational Modeling - ICCM2009, Manchester, UK.
beim Graben, P., Gerth S. & Vasishth, S. (2008). Towards dynamical system models of language-related brain potentials. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 2(3), pp. 229 - 255.
beim Graben, P., Gerth, S., Saddy, D. & Potthast, R. (2007). Fock space representations in neural field theories. In: N. Biggs et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Waves 2007. The 8th International Conference on Mathematical and Numerical Aspects of Waves, pp. 120 - 122, Dept. of Mathematics, University of Reading.
Presentations:
Gerth S. (2009). Trees are not necessarily green - in search of trees in the brain. Poster presented at the 2nd interdisciplinary Ph.D. symposium of the University of Potsdam, 22nd September, Potsdam.
Gerth S. & beim Graben P. (2009). Unifying syntactic theory and sentence processing difficulty through a connectionist minimalist parser. Poster presented at the 9th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling, 24 - 26 July, Manchester (UK).
Gerth S., beim Graben P. (2009). Syntactic Theory and Sentence Processing Difficulty: A
Unification. Poster presented at the 22nd CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, 26 -
28 March, Davis (CA).
Gerth S., beim Graben P. & Vasishth, S. (2009). Tensor product models for language-related brain
potentials. Poster presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, 21
- 24 March, San Francisco (CA).
Gerth S. (2008). Tensor product models for language-related brain potentials. Invited talk presented at the Dynamical Systems in Language Workshop, 08 - 09 September, University of Reading.
Gerth S., beim Graben P. & Vasishth, S. (2008). Tensor product models for language-related brain potentials. Poster presented at the 21st CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, 13 - 15 March, Chapel Hill (NC).
beim Graben, P., Gerth, S. & Vasishth, S. (2008). Modeling language-related brain potentials by dynamical recognizers. Poster presented at the 21st CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, 13 - 15 March, Chapel Hill (NC).
Skills:
Natural languages Native German, Fluent English, Advanced French, Good Knowledge of Italian
Format languages Matlab, Java, C++, XML, Perl, Prolog, Lisp, Pascal, Ocaml