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SUMMARY:Do we control language or does language control us? - Professor Gu
 illaume Thierry\, School of Psychology\, Bangor University\, Wales.
DTSTART:20170505T153000Z
DTEND:20170505T170000Z
UID:TALK71853@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Louise White
DESCRIPTION:In this talk\, I will show how bilingual adults spontaneously 
 access native translations of second language words unconsciously and unkn
 owingly stop accessing these representations when second language words ar
 e unpleasant. Even more surprising\, bilinguals unconsciously access the s
 ound of words in their native language while speaking in their second. Mor
 e surprising still\, cross-language effects extend to the domain of syntax
 : Welsh-English bilinguals spontaneously transfer to English a morpho-phon
 ological transformation rule of Welsh that is entirely alien to their nati
 ve language! And perhaps worryingly\, bilinguals engaging in a gambling ta
 sk for money take more risk when receiving verbal feedback in their native
  as compared to their second language. Taken together these findings revea
 l unsuspected levels of automaticity and cognitive diversity linked to lan
 guage variations within and between individuals. This realization calls fo
 r a reconsideration of the way in which we conceptualise free will and ope
 rations classically regarded as volitional.\n\nShort biography\n\nGuillaum
 e Thierry\n\nProfessor of Cognitive Neuroscience\n\nBangor University\, Wa
 les \n\nUsing experimental psychology and electroencephalography\, Guillau
 me Thierry studies language comprehension in the auditory and visual modal
 ities\, and mainly the processing of meaning by the human brain\, i.e.\, s
 emantic access. Since he started his career at Bangor University in 2000\,
  Professor Thierry has investigated a range of themes\, such as verbal/non
 -verbal dissociations\, visual object recognition\, colour perception\, fu
 nctional cerebral asymmetry\, language-emotion interactions\, language dev
 elopment\, developmental dyslexia\, and bilingualism. Since 2005\, Prof. T
 hierry’s has received funding form the BBSRC\, the ESRC\, the AHRC\, the
  European Research Council\, and the British Academy to investigate the in
 tegration of meaning in infants and adults at lexical\, syntactic\, and co
 nceptual levels\, using behavioural measurements\, event-related brain pot
 entials eye-tracking and functional neuroimaging\, looking at differences 
 between sensory modalities\, different languages in bilinguals\, and codin
 g system (verbal / nonverbal). Prof. Thierry’s core research question is
  how the human brain crystallises knowledge and builds up a meaningful rep
 resentation of the world around it. He now focuses on linguistic relativit
 y and the philosophical question of mental freedom.\n\n
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology
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