{"681047":{"#nid":"681047","#data":{"type":"event","title":"PhD Defense by Anh Thai","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETitle:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Mutual Exclusivity Bias \u0026amp; Spatial Reasoning In Vision-Language Models\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDate:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Friday, March 14, 2025\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETime:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;12:30PM-2:30PM ET\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIn-person Location:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003ECODA conference room 234\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EZoom link:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/93917488333?pwd=LubawACa3A3FMuBqbR9p1lmofkwYm6.1\u0022\u003Ehttps:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/j\/93917488333\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnh Thai\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPhD Student in Computer Science\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Interactive Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECollege of Computing\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECommittee\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. James M. Rehg (advisor), College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology,\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002\u2002Department of Computer Science and Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Judy Hoffman (co-advisor), College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. James Hays, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Michael C. Frank, Department of Psychology, Stanford University\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDr. Jia-Bin Huang, Department\u0026nbsp;of Computer\u0026nbsp;Science, University\u0026nbsp;of Maryland, College Park\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESummary\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDespite the rapid advancements in machine learning, enabling models to generalize beyond their training data, they still fall far behind the learning pace of young children. In this dissertation, we draw inspiration from developmental psychology, specifically children\u0027s learning environments and strategies, to inform machine learning algorithms. To achieve this, we focus on two key aspects of children\u2019s word and object learning: (1) Spatial preposition comprehension through 3D information, and (2) Mutual exclusivity bias, which aids in object-word association. We begin by investigating the generalization ability of 3D reconstruction models, identifying the key factors that influence this capability. Extending this exploration, we demonstrate that 2D feature representations with strong semantic correspondence matching can be effectively utilized for 3D object part segmentation. With the rapid progress in large vision-language models (VLMs), we introduce a novel method that leverages multi-view RGB images to tackle the 3D Visual Question Answering (3D VQA) task, where 3D spatial understanding is essential for achieving high performance. To further examine the capabilities of VLMs and assess whether they exhibit human-like learning biases, particularly those observed in young children, we introduce MEBench, a benchmark for object recognition. This benchmark challenges computational models to leverage mutual exclusivity bias to rapidly associate new semantic concepts with novel objects. Beyond traditional mutual exclusivity bias evaluation, we explore whether VLMs can effectively use spatial information to reason about scenes and resolve ambiguities in uncertain learning environments.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnh Thai (Ngoc Anh Thai)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMutual Exclusivity Bias \u0026amp; Spatial Reasoning In Vision-Language Models\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mutual Exclusivity Bias \u0026 Spatial Reasoning In Vision-Language Models"}],"uid":"27707","created_gmt":"2025-03-10 18:44:35","changed_gmt":"2025-03-10 18:45:46","author":"Tatianna Richardson","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2025-03-14T12:30:30-04:00","event_time_end":"2025-03-14T14:30:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2025-03-14T14:30:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2025-03-14 16:30:30","gmt_time_end":"2025-03-14 18:30:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2025-03-14 18:30:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"location":"CODA conference room 234","extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"221981","name":"Graduate Studies"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"100811","name":"Phd Defense"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1788","name":"Other\/Miscellaneous"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}