NEWS: revised versions of the accepted full papers will be published in an edited book as part of the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series, available both in printed form, as well as electronically in SpringerLink online.


The series of workshops on Computational Models of Natural Argument, active since 2001, acts to nurture and provide succour to the ever growing community working in "argument and computation". AI has witnessed a prodigious growth in uses of argumentation throughout many of its subdisciplines: agent system negotiation protocols that demonstrate higher levels of sophistication and robustness; argumentation-based models of evidential relations; groupwork tools that use argument to structure interaction and debate; computer-based learning tools that exploit monological and dialogical argument structures in designing pedagogic environments; decision support systems that build upon argumentation theoretic models of deliberation to better integrate with human reasoning. The CMNA workshop series focuses in particular on "natural" argumentation. Naturalness may involve the use of means which are more visual than linguistic to illustrate a point, such as graphics or multimedia. Or to the use of more sophisticated rhetorical devices, interacting at various layers of abstraction. Or the exploitation of "extra-rational" characteristics of the audience, taking into account emotions and affective factors.

Topics

Contributions are solicited addressing, but not limited to, the following areas of interest:

The characteristics of "natural" arguments: ontological aspects and cognitive issues.
The use of models from informal logic and argumentation theory, and in particular, approaches to specific schools of thought developed in informal logic and argumentation.
Rhetoric and affect: the role of emotions, personalities, etc. in models of argumentation.
The linguistic characteristics of natural argumentation. Empirical work based on corpora looking at these topics would be especially welcomed.
Natural argumentation and media: visual arguments, multi-modal arguments, spoken arguments.
Evaluative arguments and their application in AI systems (such as decision support and advice giving).
Applications of argumentation based systems, including, for example, the pedagogical, health-related, political, and promotional.
Tools for interacting with structures of argument, including visualisation tools and interfaces supporting natural, stylised or formal dialogue.
The building of computational resources such as online corpora related to argumentation.
Format:

CMNA 12 intends to provide, primarily, an informal forum for discussion, a venue to foster discussion and encourage cooperation. To facilitate this, accepted papers (by multiple reviewer blind review) are distributed to all participants in advance of the event, to improve coherence and interaction.

Attendance:

Attendance to the CMNA workshop is open to all interested in the field, as well as authors of accepted papers. Those interested to attend who have not a paper to present, are encouraged to send a brief submission of interest to the workshop chairs before the event.

Submission requirements:

The workshop encourages submissions in three categories:

Long papers (up to 10 pages)
Short papers describing work in progress (up to 5 pages)
Demonstration of implemented systems: submissions should be accompanied by written reports (up to 3 pages).

Papers should be submitted at: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cmna12

Workshop Chairs:

Floriana Grasso, Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, floriana@liverpool.ac.uk
Nancy Green, Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina Greensboro, nlgreen@uncg.edu
Chris Reed, School of Computing, University of Dundee, chris@computing.dundee.ac.uk

Program Committee (tbc)

Leila Amgoud, IRIT, France
Trevor Bench-Capon, University of Liverpool, UK
Tim Bickmore, Northeastern University, Boston
Guido Boella, University of Turin, ItalyChrysanne DiMarco, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Tom Gordon, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin, Germany
Marco Guerini, ITC-IRST, Trento, Italy
Helmut Horacek, University of the Saarland, Germany
Anthony Hunter, University College London, UKHelena Lindgren, Umeå University, Sweden
David Moore, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
Fabio Paglieri, ISTC-CNR, Rome, Italy
Vincenzo Pallotta, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Cecile Paris, CSIRO, Sydney, Australia
Paul Piwek, Open University, UK
Henry Prakken, University of Utrecht and University of Groningen, The NetherlandsSara Rubinelli, University of Lugano, SwitzerlandPatrick Saint-Dizier, IRIT-CNRS, Toulouse, France
Doug Walton, University of Winnipeg, Canada
Adam Wyner, University of Liverpool, UK
Tangming Yuan. University of York, UK