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SUMMARY:Language dynamics: a neurocognitive approach to incremental interp
 retation - Lorraine K. Tyler
DTSTART:20161117T140000Z
DTEND:20161117T150000Z
UID:TALK68847@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Guy Edward Toh Emerson
DESCRIPTION:Understanding spoken language involves a complex set of proces
 ses that transform the auditory input into a meaningful interpretation. Ou
 r percept is not of acoustic-phonetic detail but of the speaker’s intend
 ed meaning. This transition occurs on millisecond timescales\, with remark
 able speed and accuracy\, and with no awareness of the complex computation
 s on which it depends. How is this achieved? What are the processes and re
 presentations that support the transition from sound to meaning\, and what
  are the neurobiological systems in which they are instantiated? Surprisin
 gly little is known about the specific spatio-temporal patterning and the 
 specific neuro-computational properties of this complex dynamic system. In
  current research we address these issues by combining advanced techniques
  from neuroimaging\, multivariate statistics and computational linguistics
  to probe the dynamic patterns of neural activity that are elicited by spo
 ken words and the incremental processes that combine them into syntactical
 ly and semantically coherent sentences. Computational linguistic analyses 
 of language corpora enable us to build quantifiable models of different di
 mensions of language interpretation – from phonetics and phonology to ar
 gument structure and semantic integration -  and we test for their presenc
 e using multivariate methods on combined electro- and magneto encephalogra
 phy (EMEG)  data\, as the utterance unfolds in real time.  In this talk\, 
 I will present the novel account of speech comprehension that is emerging 
 from this research.\n\nYou can register for the symposium here:\nhttps://w
 ww.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cambridge-language-sciences-symposium-2016-tickets-2
 8454750926
LOCATION:Queen's Building\, Emmanuel College
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