OG hyp gen paper update! Even if you're not interested in the specific phenomenon we look at, the general framing should be of interest to a much broader audience
“All bears have a property”, “Some bears have a property”, “Bears have a property” are different in terms of how the property is generalized to a specific bear – a great example of how language constrains thought!
This holds for kids, adults, and according to our new work, (V)LMs! 🧵
happy to have finally made a pilgrimage to ucsd, a special place for some of us :)
You can get more info on my research interests on my website: najoung.kim
And some of the bigger picture thoughts that might not be evident from individual publications here: bsky.app/profile/najo...
My lab at BU is recruiting PhD students and possibly a postdoc this year!
We study humans & machines, centered around topics like meaning, generalization, evaluation methods and design, and the nature of computation and representation that underlie language and cognition.
🫴🫴
I'm recruiting through Linguistics (Deadline: Jan 7), CS & CDS (Deadlines: Dec 15).
Find more info here: najoung.kim/students/
I also want to mention that the lang x computation research community at BU is growing in an exciting direction, especially with new faculty like @amuuueller.bsky.social, @anthonyyacovone.bsky.social, @nsaphra.bsky.social, &
@profsophie.bsky.social! Also, Boston is quite nice :)
Here are the slides: docs.google.com/presentation...
For context the intended audience is Lang Dev researchers who are attending a session on "what can LLMs tell us about human language".
If you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them!
the slides are kanishka's thread but if you are interested in the non-cut-down version of the first half here it is: bsky.app/profile/najo...
Whence insights? The value of delineating human and machine CogSci Najoung Kim (Boston University) Society for Language Development Annual Symposium November 6, 2025 1
docs.google.com
Here are the slides: docs.google.com/presentation...
For context the intended audience is Lang Dev researchers who are attending a session on "what can LLMs tell us about human language".
If you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them!
Announcing a new version of our 2024 paper on linguistic hypothesis generation from LMs!
@najoung.bsky.social and I have systematized our hypothesis generation framework, added stringent criteria for model selection, 10x-ed our learning trials, and included an epigraph from Jeff Elman 🙏!
Whence insights? The value of delineating human and machine CogSci Najoung Kim (Boston University) Society for Language Development Annual Symposium November 6, 2025 1
docs.google.com
Here are the slides: docs.google.com/presentation...
For context the intended audience is Lang Dev researchers who are attending a session on "what can LLMs tell us about human language".
If you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them!
@najoung.bsky.social and I did a side quest during NeurIPS and gave a joint talk at UCSD on our thoughts about the role of NNs/LLMs in Human CogSci!
Thanks @alexwarstadt.bsky.social and Rachel Dudley for hosting us!
Catch our slides here: docs.google.com/presentation...
Kanishka Misra
docs.google.com
Whence insights? The value of delineating human and machine CogSci Najoung Kim (Boston University) Society for Language Development Annual Symposium November 6, 2025 1
Whence Insights? Delineating Human and Machine CogSci, and hypothesis generation as a potential bridge Najoung Kim and Kanishka Misra UCSD Linguistics, 25/12/5
