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I'm interested many different questions in language acquisition and higher-order cognition. My interests in language acquisition centre on questions of
learnability and domain specificity: what biases must children have in order to acquire knowledge in different domains (syntax, word and feature learning,
understanding of kinds)? To what extent are these biases domain-general? My interests in other aspects of cognition focus on categorisation and
concept learning, with some latent interests in decision-making and the process of hypothesis formation and evaluation. Refereed Publications Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J.B., Regier, T. (under review) The learnability of abstract syntactic principles. The manuscript is available here, and I welcome comments. It is still a draft, so please do not cite. Materials can be found here. Navarro, D., Perfors, A. (in press) Similarity, feature discovery, and the size principle. Acta Psychologica. [pdf] Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J.B., Wonnacott, E. (in press) Variability, negative evidence, and the acquisition of verb argument constructions. Journal of Child Language. [pdf] Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J.B., Gibson, E., Regier, T. (in press) How recursive is language? A Bayesian exploration. Linguistic Review. [pdf] Materials can be found here. Perfors, A., Navarro, D. (2009) Confirmation bias is rational when hypotheses are sparse. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society [pdf] Maurits, L., Perfors, A., Navarro, D. (2009) Joint acquisition of word order and word reference. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society [pdf] Navarro, D., Perfors, A. (2009) Learning time-varying categories. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society [pdf] Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J.B. (2009) Learning to learn categories. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society [pdf] Ejova, A., Navarro, D., Perfors, A. (2009) When to walk away: The effect of variability on keeping options viable. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. [pdf] Foraker, S., Regier, T., Khetarpal, N., Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J. (2009) Indirect evidence and the poverty of the stimulus: The case of anaphoric "one." Cognitive Science 33(2). 287-300 [pdf] Xu, F., Dewar, K., Perfors, A. (2009) Induction, overhypotheses, and the shape bias: Some arguments and evidence for rational constructivism. In B. M. Hood and L. Santos (Eds.), The origins of object knowledge. Oxford University Press. [pdf] Foraker, S., Regier, T., Khetarpal, N., Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J.B. (2007) Indirect evidence and the poverty of the stimulus: The case of anaphoric one. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. [pdf] Kemp, C., Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J.B. (2007) Learning overhypotheses with hierarchical Bayesian models. Developmental Science 10(3). 307-321 [pdf] Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J., Regier, T. (2006) Poverty of the Stimulus? A rational approach. 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Vancouver, British Columbia. [pdf] Materials can be found here. Fernald, A., Perfors, A., Marchman, V. (2006) Picking Up Speed in Understanding: Speech Processing Efficiency and Vocabulary Growth Across the 2nd Year. Developmental Psychology 42(1). 98-116 [pdf] Kemp, C., Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J. (2006) Learning overhypotheses. 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Vancouver, British Columbia. [pdf] Wasow, T., Perfors, A., Beaver, D. (2005) The Puzzle of Ambiguity. In O. Orgun and P. Sells (eds) Morphology and the Web of Grammar: Essays in Memory of Steven G. Lapointe. CSLI Publications [pdf] Perfors, A., Kemp, C., Tenenbaum, J. (2005) Modeling the acquisition of domain structure and feature understanding. 27th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Stresa, Italy. [pdf] Materials can be found here. Kemp, C., Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J. (2004) Learning domain structures. 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Chicago, Illinois [pdf] Perfors, A. (2002) Simulated Evolution of Language: A Review of the Field. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. ed. Nigel Gilbert 5,2. [link] |
Conference Presentations
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Perfors, A., & Tenenbaum, J. (2009) The role of labels in learning to learn categories.
Experimental Psychology Conference. Wollongong, NSW, Australia. Navarro, D., & Perfors, A. (2009) Learning sparse rules. Experimental Psychology Conference. Wollongong, NSW, Australia. Perfors, A., & Tenenbaum, J. (2009) Learning to learn categories. Australian Conference for Mathematical Psychology. Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Perfors, A. (2008) Learnability in language acquisition (and how Bayesian and other modelling might help). Berkeley Workshop on Connectionist and Probabilistic Models of Cognition. Berkeley, CA. Perfors, A. (2008) Learnability and negative evidence: A Bayesian exploration with CHILDES. 11th Conference of the International Association for the Study of Child Language. Edinburgh, UK. Perfors, A. (2008) Word learning: Bayes, labels, and inductive constraints. Workshop on New Directions in Word Learning. York, UK. Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J., Regier, T. (2007) Indirect evidence and the poverty of the stimulus. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Nashville, TN. Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J., Regier, T. (2007) Representation and learnability: A rational approach. 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Psychology. Irvine, CA. Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J., Regier, T. (2007) A Bayesian approach to the poverty of the stimulus. Machine Learning and Cognitive Science of Language Acquisition Workshop. University College London. Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J., Regier, T. (2007) Hierarchical phrase structure and recursion: A Bayesian exploration of learnability. Recursion in Human Languages Conference. Normal, IL Perfors, A., Kemp, C., Xu, F., Tenenbaum, J. (2007) Learning inductive constraints. Symposium at Biennial Meeting for Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD); Boston, MA Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J., Regier, T. (2006) Poverty of the Stimulus? A Rational Approach. 32nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. St. Louis, Missouri. Perfors, A., Beaver, D., Bergman, A., Brants, T., Wasow, T. (2002) Why Does Ambiguity Exist? Second Annual Semantics Fest, Stanford, California |
Theses
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Perfors, A. (2008) Learnability, representation, and language: A Bayesian approach.
PhD Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
[pdf] Perfors, A. (2000) Simulated Evolution of Communication: The Emergence of Meaning. MA Thesis, Stanford University Department of Linguistics. [pdf] Perfors, A. (1999) Slow and Steady Doesn't Win the Race: The Relation Between Infant Information Processing Skills and Language Comprehension. Honors Thesis, Stanford University Symbolic Systems Department. |
Posters
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Wonnacott, E., Perfors, A., Tenenbaum, J. (2008) Higher order inference in
verb argument structure acquisition. 14th Annual Conference on Architectures
and Mechanisms for Language Processing. Cambridge, UK.
[poster]
Perfors, A., Kemp, C., Tenenbaum, J., Wonnacott, E. (2007) Learning inductive constraints: The acquisition of verb argument constructions. Machine Learning and Cognitive Science of Language Acquisition Workshop. University College London. [poster] [pdf writeup] Perfors, A., Kemp, C., Tenenbaum, J., Wonnacott, E. (2007) Learning inductive constraints: The acquisition of verb argument constructions. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. [poster] [pdf writeup] Perfors, A. (2004) What's in a Name? The effect of sound symbolism on perception of facial attractiveness. 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Chicago, Illinois [pdf][writeup] Perfors, A., Magnani, K., Fernald, A. (2002) Speed and Accuracy in On-Line Comprehension are Related to Vocabulary Growth in 15- to 25-month old Children. 15th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, New York, NY Perfors, A., Magnani, K., Fernald, A., Pinto, J. (1999). How Do Infant Information Processing Skills Relate to Later Linguistic Performance? Society for Research in Child Development Conference, Albuquerque, NM Magnani, K., Perfors, A., Fernald, A. (1999). Are developmental changes in the speed and accuracy of word recognition related to vocabulary growth in the second year? Society for Research in Child Development Conference, Albuquerque, NM Fernald, Anne, Pinto, J., Swingley, D., Perfors, A., Magnani, K., & Bradley, A. (1998) Infants Can Recognize Words Using Partial Phonetic Information. 11th International Conference on Infant Studies, Atlanta, GA. 1998 |