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SUMMARY:How neurophysiological investigations of bilingual processing have
  shaped my conception of human freedom - Professor Guillaume Thierry (Univ
 ersity of Bangor)
DTSTART:20160428T150000Z
DTEND:20160428T163000Z
UID:TALK62082@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Theodora Alexopoulou
DESCRIPTION:How does our brain construct meaningful representations of the
  world around us? Do these representations\ndiffer in speakers of one and 
 two languages? Does language affect the perception and categorisation of\n
 things around us? Is there such thing as unconscious meaning processing? O
 n the basis of examples from\nbilingual comprehension and production\, lin
 guistic relativity\, and executive functioning\, I will propose that our\n
 conception of meaning formation and decision-making may need drastic revis
 ion. A fully interactive\,\nnon-selective account of the human brain is la
 rgely inconsistent with modular views positing some functions\n(such as la
 nguage) as encapsulated and relatively independent vis-à-vis other specia
 lised brain systems\nsuch as face recognition or motor control. Taken toge
 ther\, clues I have accumulated over fifteen years of\nresearch suggest un
 suspected levels of processing automaticity and rather puzzling limitation
 s to conscious\nevaluation in humans. We only have conscious awareness to 
 understand the nature of the mind\, yet most of\nwhat defines us appears t
 o stem from spontaneous\, unconscious information processing that is wholl
 y\nimpenetrable. In closing\, I make a tentative connection between such e
 mpirical results and the philosophical\nconcept of freedom.
LOCATION:GR06/07\, English Faculty Building\, 9 West Road\, Sidgwick Site
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