Argumentation has been traditionally studied across a number of fields, notably philosophy, cognitive science, linguistics and jurisprudence. The study of computational models of argumentation is a more recent endeavour, bringing together researchers across these traditional fields as well as computer scientists and engineers, amongst others, within a rich, interdisciplinary, exciting discipline with much to offer. Computational models of argumentation have emerged since the eighties. Starting with Pollock (“Defeasible reasoning”, 1987), argumentation was identified as a way to understand defeasible reasoning, with the first systematic formal account of the evaluation of arguments given their internal structure and their relation with counterarguments. In AI, starting with Lin and Shoham (“Argument systems: A uniform basis for nonmonotonic reasoning”, 1989), Dung (“Negations as hypotheses: An abductive foundation for logic programming”, 1991), and Kakas, Kowalski, and Toni (“Abductive logic programming”, 1992), argumentation was proposed as a unifying formalism for various existing forms of nonmonotonic, default reasoning. This line of research led to the development of the seminal abstract argumentation frameworks by Dung (“On the acceptability of arguments and its fundamental role in nonmonotonic reasoning, logic programming and n-person games”, 1995), awarded the AI Journal Classic Paper Award in 2018 in recognition of this paper’s crucial role in making argumentation a mainstream research topic in AI. Furthermore, in the study of decision-making, Krause, Ambler, and Fox (“The development of a logic of argumentation”, 1992), pointed to the important role for argumentation to lead to principled decisions (in general and in a medical setting). Today’s computational models of argumentation share many goals with these early works, notably an awareness of the importance of formal models which lend themselves to be implemented as computer programs. These can then be integrated into “arguing” systems able to engage in argumentation-related activities with humans or with other systems. As such, computational models of argumentation require crossing bridges with a variety of disciplines, including computational linguistics, formal logic, social choice, game theory, graph theory and AI and law.

Since 2006 the biennial International Conference on Computational Models of Argument (COMMA) has provided a dedicated forum for presentation and discussion of the latest advancements in this interdisciplinary field, covering basic research, systems and innovative applications. The first COMMA was supported by the EU 6th Framework Programme project ASPIC and was hosted by the University of Liverpool in 2006. After the event, a steering committee promoting the continuation of the conference was established and, since then, the steady growth of interest in computational argumentation research worldwide has gone hand in hand with the development of the conference itself and of related activities by its underpinning community. Since the second edition, organized by IRIT in Toulouse in 2008, plenary invited talks by world-leading researchers and a software demonstration session became an integral part of the conference programme. The third edition, organized in 2010 by the University of Brescia in Desenzano del Garda, saw the addition of a best student paper award. The same year, the new journal Argument and Computation, closely related to the COMMA activities, was started. Since the fourth edition, organized by the Vienna University of Technology in 2012, an Innovative Application Track and a section for Demonstration Abstracts were included in the proceedings. At the fifth edition, co-organized in 2014 by the Universities of Aberdeen and Dundee in Pitlochry, the main conference was preceded by the first Summer School on Argumentation: Computational and Linguistic Perspectives. The same year also saw the launch of the first International Competition on Computational Models of Argumentation (ICCMA). Since COMMA 2016, hosted by the University of Potsdam, the COMMA proceedings are Open Access. This COMMA was also the first that included additional satellite workshops in the programme. COMMA 2018 was hosted by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish National Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. It included an industry afternoon bringing together businesses, NGOs, academics and students interested in practical applications of argument technologies in industry. COMMA 2020 was organised in Italy for the second time, by the University of Perugia, but, due to the COVID pandemic, was run fully online. It was preceded by the 4th Summer School on Argumentation: Computational and Linguistic Perspectives (SSA 2020), and featured a demonstrations session and three satellite workshops: the International Workshop on Systems and Algorithms for Formal Argumentation (SAFA), initiated at COMMA 2016; a new Workshop on Argument Visualization, and the well-known Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument, established in 2001, at its 20th edition at COMMA 2020.

COMMA 2022 will be once again an in-person event, for the third time in the UK, but now in Cardiff, organised by Cardiff University. It will be preceded by the 5th Summer School on Argumentation, with a focus on “Explainability Perspective”, a topic that has grown over the last two editions of COMMA. COMMA 2022 will also be preceded by four workshops: CMNA 2022, the Workshop on Computational Models of Natural Argument (at its 21st edition at COMMA 2022); SAFA 2022, the 4th International Workshop on Systems and Algorithms for Formal Argumentation; as well as ArgXAI 2022, the 1st International Workshop on Argumentation for eXplainable AI, and ArgML 2022, the 1st International Workshop on Argumentation & Machine Learning. The latter two workshops reflect novel avenues being explored by the COMMA community, building bridges with data-centric AI.

The COMMA 2022 programme reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the field, and its contributions range from theoretical to practical. Theoretical contributions include new formal models, the study of formal or computational properties of models, design for implemented systems and experimental research. Practical papers include applications to law, machine learning and explainability. As in previous editions of COMMA, papers cover abstract and structured accounts of argumentation, as well as relations between different accounts. Many papers focus on the evaluation of arguments or their conclusions given a body of arguments, with a continuation of a recent trend to study gradual or probabilistic notions of evaluation.

COMMA 2022 also hosts a demonstration session, as in previous years, with 16 demos (one, NEXAS, described in a full paper) indicating that the field is ripe for models and methods to be integrated within a variety of applications.

The three invited talks also reflect the diverse nature of the field. Prof Paul Dunne, from the University of Liverpool, gives an overview of the study of computational complexity in argumentation; Prof Iryna Gurevych, from TU Darmstadt, discusses an important application area, namely dealing with misinformation in natural language; and Prof Antonis Kakas, from the University of Cyprus, looks at theory-informed practical applications of argumentation.

Finally, we want to acknowledge the work of all those who have contributed in making the conference and its satellite events a success. We are grateful to IOS Press for publishing these proceedings and continuing to make them Open Access. As local and international sponsors of the conference, we would like to thank the School of Computer Science and Informatics at the Cardiff University and EurAI, the European Association of AI. We acknowledge steady support and encouragement by the COMMA steering committee, and are very grateful to the programme committee and additional reviewers, whose invaluable expertise and efforts have led to the selection, out of 75 submissions, of 26 full papers, 16 extended abstract for demos, and 1 full paper also describing a demo. The submission and reviewing process has been managed through the Easychair conference system, which we acknowledge for supporting COMMA since the first edition. Our thanks also to the COMMA 2022 workshops’ organisers (in no particular order): Floriana Grasso, Nancy Green, Jodi Schneider, Simon Wells, Kristijonas yras, Timotheus Kampik, Oana Cocarascu, Antonio Rago, Isabelle Kuhlmann, Jack Mumford, Stefan Sarkadi, Sarah A. Gaggl, Jean-Guy Mailly, Matthias Thimm, Johannes P. Wallner and their programme committees and invited speakers. We also thank the COMMA invited speakers and the invited speakers at the summer school programme (Antonio Rago, Markus Ulbricht, Annemarie Borg and Federico Castagna) and the members of the Online Handbook of Argumentation for AI (OHAAI) Committee (Andreas Xydis, Jack Mumford, Stefan Sarkadi, Federico Castagna) for organising the student session during the summer school. Last but not least, we thank all the authors and participants for contributing to the success of the conference with their hard work and commitment.

Francesca Toni (Programme Chair)

Sylwia Polberg (Conference and Summer School Chair, Organizing Committee Member)

Richard Booth (Demo chair, Organizing Committee Member)

Martin Caminada (Organizing Committee Member)

Hiroyuki Kido (Organizing Committee Member)

July 2022