Research

Research Interests

Abstract Labels and the AI Hype in Computer Vision
What kinds of subjective, cultural labels are we asking AI models to assign to images? How well do these models work, and what biased visions of the world do they reproduce?

Situated Ground Truths and Plural Perspectives
What are we teaching AI systems as “the truth” to emulate? Technically implementing Donna Haraway’s idea of “situated knowledge” for AI: teaching partial, situated perspectives.

Toxic Memes and Content Moderation
Memes and other viral cultural data can spread dangerous messages. But exactly what do we mean with online toxicity, and how are we automating morality and normativity?

Depictions of the AI/Human Dynamic
Are we the chimpanzees of the AI era? I don’t think so, but contemporary media is using evolutionary rhetoric to depict AIs as “evolved” human beings.

Publications

2024

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani, Erik Tjong Kim Sang, and Davide Ceolin. “Characterizing Online Meme Toxicity (Extended Abstract).” In 6th Multidisciplinary International Symposium, MISDOOM 2023, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, November 21–22, 2023, Proceedings, 2024.

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani. “The wicked problem of naming the intangible: Abstract concepts, binary thinking, and computer vision labels.” Future Humanities, volume 2, page e11. Wiley Online Library, 2024.

• Fiorela Ciroku, Stefano De Giorgis, Aldo Gangemi, Delfina S Martinez-Pandiani, and Valentina Presutti. “Automated multimodal sensemaking: Ontology-based integration of linguistic frames and visual data.” Computers in Human Behavior, volume 150, page 107997. Elsevier, 2024.

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani, Nicolas Lazzari, and Valentina Presutti. “Stitching Gaps: Fusing Situated Perceptual Knowledge with Vision Transformers for High-Level Image Classification.” In SEMANTiCS 2024: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Semantic Systems, 17-September 2024, Amsterdam, Netherlands. IOS Press, 2024.

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani. “Bridging the Gap: Decoding Abstract Concepts in Cultural Heritage Images.” Chapter in Decoding Cultural Heritage: A Critical Dissection and Taxonomy of Human Creativity through Digital Tools, page 157. Springer Nature, 2024.

2023

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani, Nicolas Lazzari, Marieke van Erp, and Valentina Presutti. “Hypericons for interpretability: Decoding abstract concepts in visual data.” International Journal of Digital Humanities, pages 1–40. Springer, 2023.

2022

• Sofia Pescarin and Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani. “The Impact of Story Structure, Meaningfulness, and Concentration in Serious Games.” Information, volume 13, page 567. MDPI, 2022.

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani and Sofia Pescarin. “Beyond Static Colors: An Interactive Participatory Design Perspective on Color-Centric Experiences.” International Journal of Conservation Science, volume 13, pages 1691–1706, 2022.

• Enrico Daga, Luigi Asprino, Rossana Damiano, Marilena Daquino, Belen Diaz Agudo, Aldo Gangemi, Tsvi Kuflik, Antonio Lieto, Mark Maguire, Anna Maria Marras, and Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani. “Integrating citizen experiences in cultural heritage archives: Requirements, state of the art, and challenges.” ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH), volume 15, pages 1–35. ACM New York, NY, 2022.

• Sofia Pescarin and Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani. “Factors in the cognitive-emotional impact of educational environmental narrative videogames.” In International Conference on Extended Reality, pages 101–108. Springer, 2022.

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani and Valentina Presutti. “Coded Visions: Addressing Cultural Bias in Image Annotation Systems with the Descriptions and Situations Ontology Design Pattern.” In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference of Graphs and Networks in the Humanities 2022: Technologies, Models, Analyses, and Visualizations, 2022.

2021

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani and Valentina Presutti. “Automatic Modeling of Social Concepts Evoked by Art Images as Multimodal Frames.” In Proceedings of the Workshops and Tutorials held at LDK 2021 co-located with the 3rd Language, Data and Knowledge Conference (LDK 2021), 2021.

• Valentina Anita Carriero, Fiorela Ciroku, Jacopo de Berardinis, Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani, Meroño-Peñuela Albert, Andrea Poltronieri, Valentina Presutti, et al. “Semantic integration of MIR datasets with the Polifonia Ontology Network.” In ISMIR Late Breaking Demo Session of the 22nd International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, 2021.

2020

• Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani. “A Collaborative Color Laboratory: Using 3D Modelling, Texturization, and AR to Challenge White Supremacist Uses of Ancient Classical Sculptures.” In Building Community Online, 2020.

2018

• Joyce Benenson, Maxwell White, Delfina Sol Martinez Pandiani, Lindsay J Hillyer, Sera Kantor, Henry Markovits, and Richard W Wrangham. “Competition elicits more physical affiliation between male than female friends.” Scientific Reports, volume 8, page 8380. Nature Publishing Group UK London, 2018.

Talks and Lectures

2024

• Leveraging LLMs for Detection and Interpretation of Toxic Memes
  Internet Research with Foundation Models Workshop at CAT4SMR (Capture and Analysis Tools for Social Media Research), Amsterdam, 3 September 2024.

• Relación texto-imagen en memes: Construcción (en curso) de un modelo de IA para la detección automática de ‘narrativas tóxicas’ (Text-image relationship in memes: (Ongoing) Construction of an AI model for automatic detection of ‘toxic narratives’)
  V Congreso Internacional PRISMA: Lenguaje e Inteligencia Artificial. Aproximaciones lingüísticas y desafíos interdisciplinarios. Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile, 28-30 May 2024.

• Toxic Memes Workshop
  Invited to give an interactive workshop on the legal, media, and computational approaches to toxic content moderation at the AI, Media & Democracy LAB. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 2 April 2024.

• Coding the Encoder: Situating Subjective and Contextual Aspects in High-Level Image Annotations
  Speaker at the International Conference on Reimagining Annotation for Multimodal Cultural Heritage on digital annotation in the humanities and the GLAM sector across three primary axes: tools, methods and projects. Rennes 2 University and the MSHB (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme en Bretagne), France, 7-9 February 2024.

2023

• Collapsing Meaning in Hypericon Images: Abstract Concepts, Distributed Reality, and Perceptual Bias
  Invited speaker at the Operational Imaginaries: Images of Abstraction, Operational Media and Experience cross-media seminar by the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, 25-26 May 2023.

• The Wicked Problem of Naming the Intangible: Abstract Concepts, Binary Thinking, and Computer Vision Labels
  Invited speaker at the FACEing Binarism: Towards a More Equitable AI symposium. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands, 30 March 2023.

2022

• Seeing the Intangible: Interpretable Visual Understanding of High-Level Abstract Concepts
  Guest speaker at the group meeting of the User-Centric Data Science group at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands, 25 November 2022.

• Tip of the Iceberg: Abstract Concepts in High-Level Visual Understanding
  Guest speaker at the IMT School for Advanced Studies’ seminar: Semantic Representation, Abstractness, and Abstraction. Lucca, Italy, 27 April 2022.

• Coded Visions: Cultural Bias in Assigning Meaning to Digital Images
  Invited speaker at the 2022 Digital Humanities & Digital Communication Spring Seminars of the Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia. Modena, Italy, 28 March 2022.

Other Scholarship

Below are the titles of some of my earlier academic writings. If you are interested in reading them, get in touch.

Science and Human Evolution

• Receptor Promiscuity: Unveiling the Molecular Evolution of Steroid Hormone-Receptor Diversity
• Forgettable Self-Projection: A Potential Link Between Human Differential Memorability and Anthropomorphism
• From Complex Guts to Pruned Brains: The Importance of Microglia
• The Evolution of Childhood
• Color and Size: Racism, the Cardiovascular System, and Low Birth Weight Outcomes
• The Brain and Estrogen: Modulated or Modulating
• Your Brain on Estrogen: Beyond Genetics
• Keys to Success? Homo sapiens’ Derived Life History Patterns
• Science and Media: “Will Climate Change Make Men Extinct?”
• Social Policing through Blackmailing & Opportunistic Gossiping
• Where Would We Be Without Climate Change? Perhaps, We Wouldn’t Be
• Malleable Brains: Broadening Our Conceptions of Childrearing and Love

Religion, Psychology, Philosophy

• Surface Tension: Racial Melancholia and Consciousness in W.E.B. Du Bois’ Work
• You Owe Yourself Each Moment: Nietzsche’s Epicurean Affirmation of the Present
• God Kills Us Because He Loves Us: Post-Lapsarian Human Mortality as a Redeeming Mechanism
• “Times of Trial”: The Tactical Use of the Test Symbol in American Public Discourse
• A Presidential Belief System: Sources and Transgressions in light of Mr. Trump
• “Shared” Values: Yoga, the Personal and the Disciplinary
• The Depth Within: Patacara, Suzuki and Nirvana
• Śāntideva’s Exchange of the Self and Other
• Queering the Patriarchal: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality
• The Emergence of the Abstract: Self, Time, Existence. Steps to the Religious Delusion
• Rastafari’s Africa: a Creationist Evolution of Man

Art

• Orchestration, Power and Artistic Control: Matisse’s Carmelina
• Drying the Damp: Autoeroticism in Degas’ Woman Drying Herself
• Carcasses of Youth and Beauty: Klimt and Rodin on the Destiny of Death
• Let Me Into Your Orbit: Physics and the Dancer-Audience Relationship in Contact Improvisation
• Beautiful Beacon: The Aesthetic Sense as a Fruitful Guide in Scientific Inquiry
• Lorde’s Zami: Reclaiming Eroticism through the Patois Tongue
• “Upon my knees”: Religious Submission and Eroticism in Carmilla
• El Destino Ético: El Deseo Íntimo Consumado
• La Creación Artística Como Copia y Apropiación