Introduction to topiCS Volume 13, Issue 2
Andrea Bender · Topics in Cognitive Science · 2021
The current issue of Topics in Cognitive Science comprises two topics, both of which are devoted to award-winning research: one to the Rumelhart Prize and one to the Best Papers from the Cognitive Science Society Conference. Our lead topic honors Michael K. Tanenhaus, the eighteenth recipient of the David E. Rumelhart Prize. Tanenhaus received this award in 2018 for transforming “our understanding of human language and its relation to perception, action, and communication”—a field he has been working in for over 40 years. His achievements, his contributions to cognitive science, and his mentorship to numerous students, postdocs, and colleagues are expertly summarized by John Trueswell, who organized this topic and has served as editor for the three contributions to it. In his introduction, Trueswell also explains why Tanenhaus, instead of choosing from an army of former students, invited as contributors to his symposium colleagues he considered influential for his own work. The selection begins with a historical review by Dana H. Ballard and Ruohan Zhang of how computational models of human vision have evolved since David Marr proposed his three-level model, and how algorithm descriptions were again refined into distinct levels over time. Herbert Clark then highlights a neglected issue in research on language use—the anchoring of utterances to various aspects of the situation—and points out the perils for the field of ignoring this key process. Finally, Meredith Brown and Laura Dilley, together with Michael Tanenhaus, present an account of word recognition and segmentation that focuses on syllable inference as a mechanism for the understanding of spoken language. The topiCS team wishes to take this opportunity to congratulate all recipients of CSS prizes for their awards and for the outstanding work that earned them these awards—kudos! topiCS encourages letters and commentaries on all topics, as well as proposals for new topics. Letters are not longer than two published pages (ca. 400–1,000 words). Commentaries (between 1,000 and 2,000 words) are often solicited by Topic Editors prior to the publication of their topic, but they may also be considered after publication. Letters and commentaries typically come without abstract and with few references, if any. The Executive Editor and the Senior Editorial Board (SEB) are constantly searching for new and exciting topics for topiCS. Feel free to open communications with a short note to the Executive Editor ([email protected]) or a member of the SEB (for a list, see the publisher's homepage for topiCS: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1756-8765/homepage/EditorialBoard.html).