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SUMMARY:Language dynamics - what we hear and how we hear it - Prof. Anita 
 Mehta (University of Oxford)
DTSTART:20190530T153000Z
DTEND:20190530T170000Z
UID:TALK125317@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Julia Heine
DESCRIPTION:Speech perception and the evolution of languages have a long a
 nd rich history in the domain of linguistics research. I will\, in this ta
 lk\, present a physicist's take on aspects of each of these two topics. In
  the first part\, I'll describe a minimal model of the way in which a list
 ener deciphers a string of sounds and tries to reconstruct a word\, both w
 ith and without mishearings. This will lead to a phase diagram with a sepa
 ration between regions of easy and hard decipherability. In the second par
 t of the talk\, I'll describe a model of the evolution of participles\, an
 d show that the inclusion of true dynamical competition does better than R
 inge and Yang's threshold principle (2016) in explaining the survival of p
 articular forms. \n\nThe last part of this talk concerns the data analysis
  of a study of audiovisual cognition in a mixed-literacy population\, wher
 e the use of fluctuations\, rather than averages\, is able to produce good
  data collapse from initially rather noisy data.
LOCATION:English Faculty Building\, SR-24 (second floor)
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