Professor, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Keynote title: Designing computational tools for behavioral and clinical science

Abstract: Automatic analysis of human affective and social signals brought computer science into closer alignment with social sciences, enabling new collaborations between computer scientists and behavioral researchers. In this talk, I highlight the key research directions in this burgeoning interdisciplinary field, and provide an overview of its major opportunities and challenges. Computer science and psychology have different methodological assumptions and approaches. Drawing on examples from our recent research - such as automatic analysis of interactive play therapy sessions with children, and diagnosis of bipolar disorder from multimodal cues - as well as relying on examples from the growing literature, I explore the potential of human-AI collaboration, where AI systems do not replace, but support monitoring and human decision making in behavioral and clinical sciences. In particular, the role of face, body, gesture, speech and multimodal analysis  are discussed, as well the role of explainability and interpretability, which are important aspects for trustworthy computer systems in this domain. 

Lecturer (Assistant Professor), University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Keynote title: Repetition and adaptation in humans and language models

Abstract: From children echoing caregivers to learn how to form utterances, to second-language learners mirroring teachers to gain fluency, to collaborators navigating knowledge asymmetries to ground goal-oriented dialogue, repetition shapes how we communicate and coordinate. This talk examines how we repeat and adapt to one another in dialogue, exploring the multiple functions of repetition in conversational interaction, including easing processing demands, facilitating grounding, providing feedback, and signalling social alignment. I will show that repetition and adaptation in human-human dialogue occurs across different levels of communication—lexical, structural, and gestural; that repetition is local in scope; varies with speaker relationships and communicative abilities; and can facilitate communicative success. 

I will then turn to repetition and adaptation in Language Models, the backbone to many human-facing conversational technologies. When generating next utterances within a dialogue context, LMs mirror some of the repetition behaviour associated with efficient collaborative dialogue in humans, including local repetition of lexical and syntactic forms. Moreover, in a behavioural task setting similar to priming studies in psychology, LMs’ expectations about upcoming structural material are modulated by similar contextual cues as in humans.

In the final part of this talk, I will turn to human-machine interaction, focusing on how LM-based conversational systems could adapt to speakers from different social groups. I will also consider how, in the absence of system adaptation, human interlocutors modify their own language to accommodate the system—sometimes to a greater extent than when interacting with other humans. Overall, this research highlights the importance of the subtle dynamics of repetition and adaptation for both human communication and the development of social AI.

Professor, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Talk title: Social AI at the University of Glasgow: History, Activities and Collaboration Opportunities