Assessing the replication landscape in experimental linguistics
Kobrock, Kristina & Roettger, Timo B. (2023). “Assessing the replication landscape in experimental linguistics." Glossa Psycholinguistics. 2(1).
CV
Experience
- October 2025 - now: Postdoctoral Researcher
- SPA lab: Psycho- and Neurolinguistics group
Osnabrück University
- April 2026 - July 2026: Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher
- CRC on Lingusitic Creativity in Communication
- Host: Sina Zarrieß
- Bielefeld University
- July 2022 - September 2025: Doctoral Researcher
- Research Training Group: Computational Cognition
- Supervisors: Nicole Gotzner and Elia Bruni
- Osnabrück University
- April - September 2021: Student Research Assistant
- Cognitive Modeling Group
- Supervisor: Michael Franke
- Osnabrück University
- October 2019 - March 2022: Tutor for Various Courses
- e.g.: “Language acquisition in multiple perspectives: From sounds to discourse,”
- “Foundations of Logic and Argumentation Theory,”
- “Artificial Intelligence and Logic Programming,”
- “Computer Science I”
Education
- Ph.D in Cognitive Science, Osnabrück University, 2026
- M.Sc. in Cognitive Science, Osnabrück University, 2022
- B.A. in Cultural Studies and Business Psychology, Leuphana University Lüneburg, 2018
Publications
Context Shapes Emergent Communication about Concepts at Different Levels of Abstraction
Kobrock, Kristina, Ohmer, Xenia, Bruni, Elia & Gotzner, Nicole (2024). “Context Shapes Emergent Communication about Concepts at Different Levels of Abstraction.” Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024).
Superordinate referring expressions in abstraction: Introducing the concept-level reference game
Kobrock, Kristina, Uhlemann, Charlotte & Gotzner, Nicole (2024). “Superordinate referring expressions in abstraction: Introducing the concept-level reference game.” Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 2024.
Agents can generalize to novel levels of abstraction by using adaptive linguistic strategies
Kobrock, K., Ohmer, X., Bruni, E., & Gotzner, N. (2024). “Agents can generalize to novel levels of abstraction by using adaptive linguistic strategies.” submitted to ARR.
Feeling good, approaching the positive
Kobrock, Kristina, Solzbacher, Johannes, Gotzner, Nicole and König, Peter (2024). “Feeling good, approaching the positive.” Frontiers in Psychology. 15.
The Efficiency of Ambiguity: Abstract References Emerge in Coarse Contexts
Briotto, Anna, Kobrock, Kristina & Bruni, Elia (2025). “The Efficiency of Ambiguity: Abstract References Emerge in Coarse Contexts.” submitted to ARR.
The role of pragmatic mechanisms in referential communication and categorization: An emergent communication model
Kobrock, K., Ohmer, X., Bruni, E., & Gotzner, N. (2026). The role of pragmatic mechanisms in referential communication and categorization: An emergent communication model. PLOS Computational Biology, 22(5), e1014326. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014326
The Efficiency of Ambiguity: Abstract References Emerge in Coarse Contexts
Briotto, Anna, Kobrock, Kristina & Bruni, Elia (2025). “The Efficiency of Ambiguity: Abstract References Emerge in Coarse Contexts.” submitted to ARR.
Talks
The role of affect in the Automatic Approach Bias: An empirical investigation
Talk at Philosophy of Science Conference - Cognitive Science track, Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik (IUC), Dubrovnik, Croatia
Computational approaches to a cognitive conception of language:
Talk at Computational Cognitive Science Group at Donders Centre for Cognition/Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands (online)
The role of language and pragmatics in higher-level cognition: Forming abstract concepts in social interaction
Short talk at International Interdisciplinary Computational Cognitive Science Summer School (IICCSSS), Tübingen, Germany
Feeling Good, Approaching the Positive: The Role of Affect and Arousal in the Approach-Avoidance Bias
Talk at Doctorate Colloquium, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany
Replications in Experimental Linguistics
Invited talk at The Friday Primes, Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Pragmatics in referential communication: An investigation of concept communication and the role of pragmatics with an emergent communication game
Contributed talk at Procedural and computational models of semantic and pragmatic processes, Workshop at the 34th European Summer School in Logic, Language and Information, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, 31 July – 4 August 2023, Ljubljana, Slowenia
Pragmatics in the referential communication of concepts: Context demands shape an emergent language towards being more efficient
Poster at The 10th biennial meeting of Experimental Pragmatics (XPRAG X), Paris, France
Investigating concept communication in a multi-agent framework
Talk at Workshop on the role of loopholes in communication, Osnabrück, Germany
Pragmatics in the referential communication of concepts: Context demands shape an emergent language towards being more efficient
Poster at Computational Cognition (ComCo) Conference, Osnabrück, Germany
Two approaches to studying abstraction via concept communication
Talk at ABSTRACTION group meeting, Bologna, Italy (online)
Investigating concept communication in a multi-agent framework
Talk at Colloquium of the Institute of Cognitive Science, Osnabrück University, Osnabrück, Germany
Efficient context‑adapted communication emerges in a multi‑agent model
Contributed talk at 2024 CORE Project Workshop: Unpacking Efficient Communication: The Roles of Cognitive Bias and Extralinguistic Context in Referring Expression Choice, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Studying superordinate referring expressions with a concept-level reference game
Invited talk at General Linguistics & Pragmatics, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany (online)
Availability of context makes an emergent language of artificial agents more efficient
Poster at Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024), Turin, Italy
Superordinate referring expressions in abstraction: Introducing the concept-level reference game
Contributed talk at Annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Modeling pragmatics in a multi-agent framework
Talk at The second Osnabrück-Irvine workshop on the role of loopholes in in polite communication, UC Irvine, Irvine (CA), USA
Modeling context-based pragmatics and recursive pragmatic reasoning in a multi-agent framework
Talk at Language & Cognition lab, Stanford University, Stanford (CA), USA
Studying superordinate referring expressions with a concept-level reference game
Contributed talk at 10th International Conference of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association (GCLA/DGKL), Osnabrück, Germany
Speakers, not listeners, prefer basic-level terms such as “dog”. Superordinate referring expressions in a concept-level reference game
Poster at 5th Experimental Pragmatics in Italy Conference (XPRAG.it), Venice, Italy
Investigating linguistic strategies for abstraction
Invited talk at Seminar organized by the ERC ABSTRACTION group, Bologna, Italy
Linguistic strategies for abstraction
Invited talk at Phillab, Darthmouth College (online), Hanover (NH), USA (online)
Agents generalize to novel levels of abstraction by using adaptive linguistic strategies.
Poster at Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2025, Vienna, Austria
SPA all stars: Making meaning in context
Invited talk at Experiments on the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface Workshop, Leibniz‑Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin, Germany
A web‑based eyetracking study on conceptual abstraction: No evidence for a basic‑level advantage in language comprehension
Poster at 11th Biennial Experimental Pragmatics Conference (XPRAG 2025), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
The role of pragmatic reasoning in the interaction‑based emergence of referential communication: Integrating the rational speech acts framework into a multi‑agent reinforcement learningmodel.
Invited talk at LMBayes Workshop on Rational Speech Act Theory and its Applications, Leibniz‑Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin, Germany (online)
The role of pragmatic and communicative factors in conceptual abstraction
Invited talk at Linguistics colloquium, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
INTERACT: A new interactive paradigm for testing speaker goals and social factors underlying indirect language use.
Poster at 6th Experimental Pragmatics in Italy Conference, Genoa, Italy
The role of conceptual hierarchies in contrastive inferences.
Poster at 6th Experimental Pragmatics in Italy Conference, Genoa, Italy
Teaching
Mentoring and Supervision
- Charlotte Uhlemann (now PhD student with Nicole Gotzner): M.Sc. thesis, August 2023
- Vanessa Verdugo: M.Sc. thesis, June 2024
- Anna Briotto (now PhD student at University of Padua): B.Sc. thesis, June 2024
- Ilva Hovemann: B.Sc. thesis, September 2024
- Eosandra Grund: B.Sc. thesis, February 2025
- Vanessa Obi: B.Sc. thesis, June 2025
- Mariia Gudkova: B.Sc. thesis, September 2025
- Ilva Hovemann: M.Sc. thesis, ongoing
- Esma Hodzic: B.Sc. thesis, ongoing
Service
- Co-organization of the Computational Cognition conference 2023 (short ComCo)
- Co-organization of the Colloquium of the Institute of Cognitive Science (IKW Colloquium)
- Review for Linguistics Vanguard
- Review for Workshop: Experiments on the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface (XPRAG FEST 2025)
- Review for The 14th Workshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics (CMCL) 2025 collocated with NAACL 2025
- Review for Computational Psycholinguistics Meeting 2025
- Review for 19th International Conference on Natural Language Generation
- Review for Computational Psycholinguistics Meeting 2026