Spencer Caplan

Spencer Caplan

Visiting Assistant Professor
Computer Science Department
Swarthmore College

phone: (610) 328-8272
office: 258 Science Center
email: scaplan1 at swarthmore dot edu

I am currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Swarthmore College. My research is at the intersection of linguistics, computation, and cognition: I build computational and algorithmic models of language acquisition and language processing and design psycholinguistic experiments.

Current Semester

In Spring 2021 I am teaching CS21 (Intro to Computer Science).

Spring 2021 Schedule
    Monday:
    CS21 instructors meeting 11:00am-12:00pm
    Ninja meeting 4:30pm-5:30pm
    Tuesday:
    CPSC021.1C 9:45am-10:20am
    CPSC021.2A 2:00pm-2:35pm
    CPSC021.2B 2:40pm-3:15pm
    Wednesday:
    Research and Teaching Prep 9:00am-5:00pm
    CPSC021 Lab F 8:15pm-9:45pm
    Thursday:
    CPSC021.1C 9:45am-10:20am
    CPSC021.2A 2:00pm-2:35pm
    CPSC021.2B 2:40pm-3:15pm
    Department meeting 4:15pm-5:30pm
    Office Hours 5:30pm-7:00pm
    Friday:
    Research and Teaching Prep 9:00am-5:00pm

Previous Courses:

Non-Swarthmore Students

If you are not a student at Swarthmore, you probably want my research webpage located here.

Journal Articles

  •    S. Caplan, A. Hafri, & J. Trueswell. (in press) "Now you hear me, later you don’t: The Immediacy of Linguistic Computation and the Representation of Speech" Psychological Science (pre-print | OSF repo)
  •    S. Caplan, J. Kodner, & C. Yang. (2020) "Miller's monkey updated: Communicative efficiency and the statistics of words in natural language" Cognition (pdf | source code | demo)
  •    K. Schuler, J. Kodner, & S. Caplan. (2020) "Abstractions are good for brains and machines: A commentary on Ambridge (2020)" First Language (pdf)
  •    S. Caplan & K. Djärv. (2019) "What usage can tell us about grammar: Embedded verb second in Scandinavian" Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1), 101 (pdf)