I am studying how our mental representation of concepts or words is organized and processed, mainly using computational methods such as distributional semantic models and network analysis. I am recently interested in how abstract concepts are grounded in linguistic and embodied experiences, focusing on the role of language.

I have been studying the cognitive processes involved in comprehension and appreciation of figurative language, especially metaphor and irony, using computational modeling and psychological experiments. I have proposed several theories, i.e., implicit display theory of verbal irony, interpretive diversity theory of nominal metaphor comprehension, indirect categorization theory of predicative metaphor comprehension, and incongruity resolution model of poetic metaphor appreciation.

I have been interested in geometric models of word meanings or distributional semantics since latent semantic analysis (LSA) was proposed. My primary research focus is to explore the intrinsic properties and knowledge of distributional word vectors and how they are consistent with human conceptual knowledge. I have also applied these models to simulate cognitive processes for lexical access, conceptual representations, metaphor comprehension and so on. Recently, these research topics are extended to large language models such as BERT.

My laboratory has been studying several issues in natural language processing, e.g., automatic summarization, document clustering, automatic generation of newspaper articles, and sign language translation. We are recently engaged in processing various domains of texts, such as medical care records, legal documents, reading comprehension tests for JFL learners.

Yano,K. and Utsumi,A. (2023). Pipeline signed Japanese translation using PBSMT and Transformer in a low-resource setting, Journal of Natural Language Processing, 30(1):30-62.

Utsumi,A. (2022). A test of indirect grounding of abstract concepts using multimodal distributional semantics, Frontiers in Psychology, 13:906181.

Nakamura,T., Matsui,T., Utsumi,A., Sumiya,M., Nakagawa,E. and Sadato,N. (2022). Context-prosody interaction in sarcasm comprehension: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study, Neuropsychologia, 170:108213.

Inohara,K. and Utsumi,A. (2022). JWSAN: Japanese word similarity and association norm, Language Resources & Evaluation, 56:109-137.

Yano,K. and Utsumi,A. (2021). Pipeline signed Japanese translation focusing on a post-positional particle complement and conjugation in a low-resource setting, Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL-IJCNLP 2021, pp.2021-2032.

Utsumi,A. (2020). Exploring what is encoded in distributional word vectors: A neurobiologically motivated analysis, Cognitive Science, 44(6), e12844.

Utsumi,A. (2018). A distributional semantic model of visually indirect grounding for abstract words, NeurIPS 2018 Workshop on Visually Grounded Interaction and Language (ViGIL).

Utsumi,A. (2018). Refining pretrained word embeddings using layer-wise relevance propagation, Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, pp.4840-4846.

Utsumi,A. (2018). A neurobiologically motivated analysis of distributional semantic models, Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2018), pp.1147-1152.

Utsumi,A. (2018). Literary metaphor comprehension and production: A unified view, In T.Ogata and S.Asakawa (eds.) Content Generation through Narrative Communication and Simulation, IGI Global, pp.310-327.

Nakamura,T., Matsui,T., Utsumi,A., Yamazaki,M., Makita,K., Harada,T., Tanabe,H.C. and Sadato,H. (2018). The role of the amygdala in incongruity resolution: The case of humor comprehension, Social Neuroscience, 13(5), 553-565.

Konno,S. and Utsumi,A. (2017). Estimating the number of word senses to improve multi-prototype vector space models, Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Language Sense on Computer, 59-64.

Takano,K. and Utsumi,A. (2016). Grounded distributional semantics for abstract words, Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2016), 2171-2176.

Matsui,T., Nakamura,T., Utsumi,A., Sasaki,A., Koike,T., Yoshida,Y., Harada,T., Tanabe,H.C. and Sadato,N. (2016). The role of prosody and context in sarcasm comprehension: Behavioral and fMRI evidence, Neuropsychologia, 87(1), 74-84.

Doizaki,R., Matsuda,T., Utsumi,A. and Sakamoto,M. (2016). Constructing a system which proposes metaphors corresponding to the onomatopoeia expressing medical conditions, International Journal of Affective Engineering, 15(2), 37-43.

Utsumi,A. (2015). A complex network approach to distributional semantic models, PLoS ONE, 10(8), e0136277.

Utsumi,A. (2015). Multilingual distributional semantic models: Toward a computational model of the bilingual mental lexicon, Proceedings of the EuroAsianPacific Joint Conference on Cognitive Science (EAP CogSci 2015), 270-275.

Utsumi,A. and Sakamoto,M. (2015). Discourse goals affect the process and product of nominal metaphor production, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol.44, pp.555-569.

Inohara,K., Honma,R., Goto,T., Kusumi,T. and Utsumi,A. (2014). The relationship between reading literary novels and predictive inference generation: A corpus-based approach employing a corpus of Japanese novels, Scientific Study of Literature, 4(1), 46-67.

Utsumi,A. (2014). Complex network analysis of distributional semantic models, Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2014), 3008-3013.

Sakamoto,M. and Utsumi,A. (2014). Adjective metaphors evoke negative meanings, PLoS ONE, 9(2), e89008.

Utsumi,A. (2014). A character-based approach to distributional semantic models: Exploiting kanji characters for constructing Japanese word vectors, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC2014), 4444--4450.

Utsumi,A. (2014). A semantic space approach to the computational semantics of noun compounds, Natural Language Engineering, 20(2), 185-234.

Utsumi,A., Watanabe,Y. and Wakayama,Y. (2013). Do people understand irony from computers? Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2013), 3598-3603.

Ozaki,Y. and Utsumi,A. (2013). A new partitioning method for the IDS method, Proceedings of 2013 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 3927-3932.

Tomida,Y. and Utsumi,A. (2013). A connectionist model for acquisition of syntactic islands, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Cognitive Science (ICCS2013).

Utsumi,A. (2012). Does comprehension time constraint affect poetic appreciation of metaphors?, Proceedings of the 22nd Biennial Congress of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA2012).

Utsumi,A., Nakamura,K., and Sakamoto,M. (2012). Effects of discourse goals on the process of metaphor production, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2012), 2475-2480.

Nakamura,T., Matsui,T., Utsumi,A., Yamazaki,M., Makita,K., Tanabe,H.C., and Sadato,N. (2012). The role of the amygdala in the process of humour appreciation, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2012), 797-802.

Taira,T., Kusumi,T., and Utsumi,A. (2012). Individual's process of metaphor interpretations and interestingness cognition, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2012), 2381-2386.

Sakamoto,M., Sumihisa,M., Matsumoto,T., and Utsumi,A. (2012). The comprehension of adjective metaphors is selectively affected by negative meanings associated with adjectives as vehicles, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2012), 2270-2275.

Utsumi,A. (2012). Extending and evaluating a multiplicative model for semantic composition in a distributional semantic model, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (ICCM2012), 243-248.

Hirose,M., Echizen,I., Utsumi,A. and Yoshiura,H. (2012). A private information detection for controlling circulation of private information through social networks, Proceedings of the 2012 Seventh International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, 473-478.

Utsumi,A. and Sakamoto,M. (2011). Indirect categorization as a process of predicative metaphor comprehension, Metaphor and Symbol, 26(4), 299-313.

Sumihisa,M., Tsukurimichi,H., Sakamoto,M. and Utsumi,A. (2011). Is evoking negative meanings the unique feature of adjective metaphors?, Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2011), 2655-2660.

Utsumi,A. (2011). Computational exploration of metaphor comprehension processes using a semantic space model, Cognitive Science, 35(2), 251-296.

Utsumi,A. (2010). Evaluating the performance of nonnegative matrix factorization for constructing semantic spaces: Comparison to latent semantic analysis, Proceedings of 2010 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 2893-2900.

Utsumi,A. and Sakamoto,M. (2010). Predicative metaphor comprehension as indirect categorization, Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2010), 1034-1039.

Nakamura,T., Sakamoto,M., and Utsumi,A. (2010). The role of event knowledge on comprehending synesthetic metaphors, Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2010), 1898-1903.

Utsumi,A. (2010). Exploring the relationship between semantic spaces and semantic relations, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC'2010), 257-262.

Utsumi,A.(2009). Computational semantics of noun compounds in a semantic space model, Proceedings of the 21st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-09), 1568-1573.

Sakamoto,M. and Utsumi,A.(2009). Cognitive effects of synesthetic metaphors evoked by the semantic interaction, Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2009), 1593-1598.

Sakamoto,M. and Utsumi,A.(2008). Semantic diversity revealed by a comparison between the types of adjective metaphors: Correlation vs. resemblance, Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Cognitive Science (ICCS2008), 390-393.

Utsumi,A.(2007a). Interpretive diversity explains metaphor-simile distinction, Metaphor and Symbol, 22(4), 291-312.

Utsumi,A. (2007b). Verbal irony as implicit display of ironic environment: Distinguishing ironic utterances from nonirony, In R.W. Gibbs and H.L. Colston (Eds.), Irony in Language and Thought: A Cognitive Science Reader, pp.499-529. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Utsumi,A and Sakamoto,M.(2007a). Computational evidence for two-stage categorization as a process of adjective metaphor comprehension, Proceedings of the 2nd European Cognitive Science Conference (EuroCogSci2007), pp.77-82.

Utsumi,A and Sakamoto,M.(2007b). Predicative metaphors are understood as two-stage categorization: Computational evidence by latent semantic analysis, Proceedings of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2007), pp.1587-1592.

Utsumi,A.(2006a). Computational exploration of metaphor comprehension processes, Proceedings of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2006), pp.2281-2286.

Utsumi,A.(2006b). A cognitive approach to poetic effects of rhetorical figures: Toward a unified theory of cognitive rhetoric, Proceedings of the 19th Congress of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (IAEA2006),pp.413-417.

Utsumi,A. and Suzuki,D.(2006). Word vectors and two kinds of similarity, Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Computational Linguistics and the 44th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (COLING-ACL 2006) Main Conference Poster Sessions, pp.858-865.

Utsumi,A.(2005). The role of feature emergence in metaphor appreciation, Metaphor and Symbol, 20(3), 151-172.

Utsumi,A and Kuwabara,Y.(2005). Interpretive diversity as a source of metaphor-simile distinction, Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2005), pp.2230-2235.

Utsumi,A. (2004). Stylistic and contextual effects in irony processing, Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci2004), pp.1369-1374.

Utsumi,A. (2003). Do emergent features influence poetic metaphor appreciation?, Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Literature in Cognition and Computer (iwLCC2003)}, 1-4.

Utsumi,A.(2002). Toward a cognitive model of poetic effects in figurative language, Proceedings of 2002 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, WP1M2.

Utsumi,A.(2000). Verbal irony as implicit display of ironic environment: Distinguishing ironic utterances from nonirony, Journal of Pragmatics, 32(12), 1777-1806.

Utsumi,A.(1999a). Explaining the time-course of literal and nonliteral comprehension, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Cognitive Science (ICCS/JCSS99), pp.771-774.

Utsumi,A.(1999b). A computational model of irony interpretation, Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the Pacific Association for Computational Linguistics(PACLING'99), pp.311-323.

Utsumi,A., Hori,K. and Ohsuga,S. (1998). An affective-similarity-based method for comprehending attributional metaphors, Journal of Natural Language Processing, 5(3), pp.3-32.