CoCoDev
2021-11-12 16:00 - 17:00 (Europe/Paris) | via zoom
BabyBERTa: Learning More Grammar With Small-Scale Child-Directed Language
Philip Huebner (University of Illinos, Urbana-Champaign)
Abstract:
Transformer-based language models have taken the NLP world by storm. However, their potential for addressing important questions in language acquisition research has been largely ignored. In this work, we examined the grammatical knowledge of RoBERTa (Liu et al., 2019) when trained on a 5M word corpus of language acquisition data to simulate the input available to children between the ages 1 and 6. Using the behavioral probing paradigm, we found that a smaller version of RoBERTa-base that never predicts unmasked tokens, which we term BabyBERTa, acquires grammatical knowledge comparable to that of pre-trained RoBERTa-base – and does so with approximately 15X fewer parameters and 6,000X fewer words. We discuss implications for building more efficient models and the learnability of grammar from input available to children. Lastly, to support research on this front, we release our novel grammar test suite that is compatible with the small vocabulary of child-directed input.

Computational study of active and interactive word learning
2021-11-19 12:00 - 14:00 | via zoom
Lieke Gelderloos, a Ph.D. researcher at Tilburg University, whose work is at the intersection of cognitive science, linguistics, and artificial intelligence

The zoom link: https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

Abstract: Models of cross-situational word learning typically characterize the learner as a passive observer. However, a language learning child can actively participate in verbal and non-verbal communication. We present a computational model that learns to map words to objects in images through word comprehension and production. The productive and receptive parts of the model can operate independently, but can also feed into each other. This introspective quality enables the model to learn through self-supervision, and also to estimate its own word knowledge, select optimal input, and thereby alter its own learning trajectory. The modular set-up is also suitable for testing effects of communicative feedback. In this talk, I will cover our findings regarding active selection of input, and present preliminary results on tests with communicative feedback.

Aurélie Bidet-Caulet
2021-11-26 12:00 - 14:30 | FRUMAM, 3 place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13001, France
How does the human brain resist auditory distraction?
One main challenge for the attentive brain is to resist distracting information. Auditory distraction can result from predictable irrelevant information (e.g. ongoing background noise) or from unexpected, transient and salient distracting events (e.g. phone ring, fire alarm…). Using intracranial EEG, scalp EEG and MEG data combined with behavioral measures, we have investigated brain activities in the time and frequency domains to characterize the brain mechanisms involved in shielding from distraction, in the healthy, developing (children and ageing data), or dysfunctional (stroke or migraine patients) brain. I will present a first set of data showing that distinct inhibitory and facilitatory mechanisms support selective attention to reduce the impact of an irrelevant sound stream. Then, I will present data showing that the impact of an unexpected salient environmental sound results from a balance between top-down and bottom-up mechanisms of attention.

CoCoDev
2021-12-03 12:00 - 14:00 | via zoom
TBA

Okko Räsänen (Tampere University)

TBA
2021-12-17 12:00 - 14:00 | via zoom
Jonathan Ginzburg (Université de Paris)

Language embodiment and relativity: Evidence in Chinese-English bilinguals
2022-01-14 12:00 - 15:00 | via zoom
Guillaume Thierry
Bangor University, Bangor, UK

As soon as we master a language, several of our cognitive abilities that do not readily require language to operate and are seemingly independent from it interact with language representations in a highly sophisticated fashion, reflecting the highly integrated nature of human cognition. Examples of such cognitive abilities are perception, attention, affective regulation, memory, reasoning, and decision making. Although it is intuitive that such cognitive functions continuously interact with language in many ways, there is a paucity of data regarding the nature of such interactions. The quest for data shedding light on these interactions is difficult, however, and experimental paradigms used in the past are often criticised due to insufficiently controlled materials and experimental tasks. For instance, language-based studies involving overt reports and questionnaires often fail to acknowledge that they cannot test cognitive effects beyond the realm of language, since all proceedings are language-mediated. Behavioural studies also regularly fail to establish the level of awareness involved in tasks which could strategically, and therefore artificially, involve language on a metacognitive level. Here, I will present data from a set of studies showcasing the intricate nature of language-cognition interaction in the human brain, and particularly that of bilingual individuals who have come to master a second language in life. I will show how some language representations acquired early in life (i.e., from the native language) are there for life, influencing human cognition in a wholly unconscious manner. I will also show how new representations acquired later in life (i.e., from a second language) compete with native language representations and influence cognition unconsciously and ubiquitously. In closing, I will attempt to assess the repercussions of our observations for linguistic relativity and embodied cognition theory.

TBA
2022-01-28 12:00 - 14:00 | via zoom
Asli Ozyurek (Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior)

Teaching an old word new tricks? Phonological updates in the bilingual mental lexicon
2022-02-04 12:00 - 15:00 | Salle de conférences, 5 avenue Pasteur, Aix-en-Provence, 13100, France
Isabelle Darcy
Indiana University / ILCB / IMéRA
Listening to speech in your native language is easy. Recognizing the words spoken in conversation is generally an automatic and smooth everyday process in the first language (L1). Even in noisy or otherwise less than ideal conditions, performance is surprisingly robust. But anyone who has attempted to follow a conversation in a second language (L2) knows how demanding this can be, even when you know all the words. Even for reasonably clear speech, identifying individual words out of the speech stream is difficult. Charles and Trenkic (2015) reported that international university students missed about 30% of the words they heard during lectures.
For bilinguals, the perceptual processing of L2 speech sounds and the stored representations of the words themselves are influenced by the L1. For example, two words such as “lake” and “rake” may sound the same and may be stored as one word (= one homophonous pronunciation /leik/ for two concepts) for Japanese learners of English, because the /r/-/l/ distinction is difficult to perceive and represent for them due to the lack of this distinction in their L1. One consequence of these effects is the difficulty to know which word to activate when hearing /leik/, but also the difficulty to learn to pronounce the words differently.
Yet, many questions remain as to how bilinguals store the phonological form of words (their pronunciation) in the corresponding lexical entry in long-term memory, and how these representations change over time. Our lab has obtained evidence for dissociations between perception and lexical storage, which suggest that even after perception of a difficult phonological dimension improves, modifying lexical representations that use this phonological dimension remains hard. This means that even after a Japanese learner learns to distinguish /r/ from /l/, their representations of the words might still be the same.
In this talk I will outline research conducted in my lab to understand the phonological structure of the bilingual mental lexicon, how words are stored, and whether (and how) bilinguals are able to update previously inaccurate lexical representations.

A holistic measure of inter-annotation agreement with continuous data
2022-02-21 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Rachid Riad (École Normale Supérieure – Inria – Inserm)
Abstract: Inter-rater reliability/agreement measures the degree of agreement among raters to describe, code or assess the same phenomenon. Most coefficients (ex: α, κ) measuring these agreements in psychology and natural sciences focus on the categorization of events. Yet, the annotations of speech and especially conversational spontaneous speech represent a complex continuous phenomenon to annotate. There is not only categorization but also the localization of events that is asked from annotators, referred to as unitizing. In this presentation, we will describe the gamma agreement γ introduced by Mathet et al. 2015 and our work to extend this measure with the python package ‘pygamma-agreement’. We illustrate the use of this measure with corpora coming from (1) daylong recordings to study language acquisition, and (2) interviews at the hospital to study speech pathologies.
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

Multimodality as a design feature of language: Implications for language structure, processing and acquisition
2022-02-28 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Asli Ozyurek (Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

JOURNEE ILCB
2022-03-11 | Grand amphi, Campus St-Charles, 3 place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13003, France
JOURNEE ILCB
—————–
9h30 Conférence Plénière Ghislaine DEHAENE-LAMBERTZ, Directrice de Recherche CNRS, Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA, Paris
“Are human infants able to use symbols?”

Summary :
Human adults commonly use symbolic systems (e.g. speech, numbers, writing code, algebraic formula) to represent aspects of the external world, and they easily and flexibly go from symbols to objects and vice-versa. This “symbolic mind” might be related to a distinct human neural architecture, in particular, the expansion of the associative areas and the development of new long-distance fiber tracts, such as the arcuate fasciculus. More efficient connections to and from the frontal lobe and a longer memory buffer may lead to the discovery of more abstract structures, and ultimately enable to represent the external world with a symbolic system.
This neural architecture is in place at full-term birth and brain imaging studies have revealed that higher-level associative regions, such as frontal areas, are involved in infant’s cognition from start. We may thus expect that infants might share the same symbolic competence than adults. To support this claim, I will present brain imaging data showing the infants’ structural and functional brain architecture but also behavioral and ERP data revealing symbolic and logical computation in young infants.

—————–
10h30 Soutenance HDR, Kristof STRIJKERS, Chargé de Recherche CNRS, Laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-en-Pr.
“Towards an Integrated Brain Language Model — The spatiotemporal dynamics of production versus perception”

Committee :
Sonja KOTZ, Maastricht University (rapporteure)
Benjamin MORILLON, Aix-Marseille Université (rapporteur)
Noël NGUYEN, Aix-Marseille Université (tuteur)
Martin PICKERING, Edinburgh University (rapporteur)
Rasha ABDEL RAHMAN, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (examinatrice)
Summary :
The capacity of communicating through language has been instrumental in the evolution of our species. Being able to quickly alert our peers of an upcoming danger has high biological relevance, and the ease and speed with which we can use language has made this our primary communicative tool. Not surprisingly, understanding the fundaments of this ability has been a central issue throughout the history of human and social sciences. By now, our knowledge about the representations and processes underpinning language behaviour is impressive and thanks to the combined efforts of linguists, psychologists and neuroscientists, detailed neurolinguistic models of language production and perception have been developed. Despite the huge advances made to understand this complex capacity of the human mind, language research has been typically modality-specific, with a dissociation between production and comprehension in terms of research strategies, paradigms and models. The objective of the research I present here for my HDR project is to explore the nature of linguistic representations and processes from an integrated perspective. This is important, because in order to fully understand language processing and develop a neurolinguistic model that explains behavior, we’ll need to understand how production and perception interact. This HDR aims at contributing to this endeavor by comparing the spatiotemporal dynamics of production and perception for the basic building blocks of language: words. In doing so, I want to address the question of whether and how word representations and their processing overlap in time and space in the speaker and listener’s minds.

—————–
13h BUFFET ILCB
—————–

14h30 Soutenance HDR Adrien MEGUERDITCHIAN, Chargé de recherche CNRS, Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Marseille
“On the gestural origins of language : What baboons’ gestures and brain asymmetry could tell us”

Committee :
Pascal BELIN, Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Univ (rapporteur)
Emmanuel MELLET, Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives, CEA, CNRS, Bordeaux Univ (rapporteur)
Martine MEUNIER, Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, INSERM, CNRS (rapporteuse)
Ghislaine DEHAENE-LAMBERTZ, Neuroimagerie Cognitive, INSERM, CEA, Univ Paris-Saclay (examinatrice)
Marieke LONGCAMP, Laboratoire de Neuroscience Cognitive, CNRS, Aix-Marseille Univ (tutrice)
Agnès TREBUCHON, Institut des Neurosciences et des Systèmes, AP-HM, Aix-Marseille Univ (invitée)
Jacques VAUCLAIR, Centre PsyCLE, Aix-Marseille Univ (invité)

Summary :
Nonhuman primates mostly communicate not only with a rich vocal repertoire but also with manual and body gestures. In contrast to great apes, this latter communicative gestural system has been poorly investigated in monkeys. In the last 15 years, the gestural research we conducted in the baboons Papio anubis, an Old World monkey species, have shown potential direct evolutionary continuities with some key properties of language such as intentionality, referentiality, learning flexibility as well as its underlying lateralization and hemispheric specialization of the brain. According to these collective findings, which are congruent with the ones reported in great apes, it is thus not excluded that features of gestural communication shared between humans, great apes and baboons, may have played a critical role in the phylogenetic roots of language and dated back, not to the Hominidae evolution, but rather to their much older Catarrhine common ancestor 25-40 million years ago.

—————–
17h APERO

Dyslexia in children across languages
2022-03-14 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
FatimaEzzahra Benmarrakchi (UM6P – School of Collective Intelligence)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

Mind fair: a walk through language, communication and the brain
2022-03-18 | Espace Pouillon, 3 place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13003
Friday March 18th 2022
Espace Pouillon, campus St Charles, Marseille
Program
mind fair 18 mars

9:30-10:30 am – Opening triple keynote
“Hemispheric specialization of the brain in humans, babies & nonhuman primates꞉ Implication for language organization”
By Jessica Dubois (Inserm, NeuroDiderot Unit, Neuropsin, Paris),
“Exploring early hemispheric asymmetries in the developing brain through structural MRI studies in babies”

& Guy Vingerhoets (Gents Univ, Belgique)
“Variability of human brain organization: The text-book brain revisited”

11am-1pm
Data dive꞉ EEG and MEG data, from pre-processing to applications
In this group, we will see the basis of time-series analysis for our EEG, MEG and even intracerebral recordings. From the preprocessing of the data and the analysis in time and frequency of event-related potentials, to the main features of each frequency band. All this in an interactive session where you can bring your own laptop to finally process your data.
11.30am-1pm & 2.30-4pm
Try it yourself! Interactive experimental protocols
ILCB researchers bridge a zoo of experimental paradigms to decipher the behavioural, neural and computational underpinnings of human language and communication. This session aims to interactively show you a few of these cutting-edge paradigms developed by PhD and post-doc fellows within ILCB labs. Come try them by yourself to discover how the human brain, or deep neuromimetic networks, can process various aspects of language, speech, and perception.
1-2pm – Lunch buffet
2-4pm
Introduction to deep learning in Python and R
Theoretical introduction and hands-on sessions on deep learning and its applications to time-serie data (e.g., EMG, EEG data). For an optimal experience, participants should have basic knowledge of R or Python and should bring their own laptop (no installation required).
2.30-4pm
Letʼs be fair꞉ looking at the underpinnings of language from an ontogenetic and phylogenetic perspective
Which elements are needed to learn a language? Are some of these already present in infants and non-human primates? In order to answer these questions, we need methods adapted to the investigated populations꞉ let’s be fair!!
4-4.30pm – Open science discussions
4.30-6pm – Closing tandem keynote
The sounds and meaning of the motor cortex in language
By Benjamin Morillon (INS,Marseille)& Kristof Strijkers (LPL, Aix-en-Provence)
6pm – APERO

How do people interpret implausible sentences?
2022-03-25 12:00 - 14:00 | FRUMAM, 3 place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13001, France
Martin Pickering (Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences)
Abstract:
People sometimes interpret implausible sentences nonliterally, for example treating “The mother gave the candle the daughter” as meaning the daughter receiving the candle. But how do they do so? We contrasted a nonliteral syntactic analysis account, according to which people compute a syntactic analysis appropriate for this nonliteral meaning, with a nonliteral semantic interpretation account, according to which they arrive at this meaning via purely semantic processing. The former but not the latter account postulates that people consider not only a literal-but-implausible double-object (DO) analysis in comprehending “The mother gave the candle the daughter”, but also a nonliteral-but-plausible prepositional-object (PO) analysis (i.e., including to before the daughter). In three structural priming experiments, participants heard a plausible or implausible DO or PO prime sentence. They then answered a comprehension question first or described a picture of a dative event first. In accord with the nonliteral syntactic analysis account, priming was reduced following implausible sentences than following plausible sentences and following nonliterally interpreted implausible sentences than literally interpreted implausible sentences. The results suggest that comprehenders constructed a nonliteral syntactic analysis, which we argue was predicted early in the sentence.

Predicting individual differences in language learning across populations
2022-03-28 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Patrick Wong (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

16ème Congrès Français d'Acoustique - Marseille
2022-04-11 08:00 - 2022-04-15 17:00 | Le CAMPUS SAINT CHARLES, place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13003
Evenements_CFA2022
https://cfa2022.sciencesconf.org/

TBA
2022-04-11 16:00 - 17:00 | via zoom
Dan Yurovsky (Carnegie Mellon University)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

Motor-vocal coordination in early language development.
2022-04-25 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Eva Murillo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

The role of laughter in human social interactions
2022-04-29 12:00 - 13:00 | FRUMAM, 3 place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13001, France
Sophie Scott (Director, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL)
In this talk I will explore the neuroscience and evolution of laughter, a positive emotional vocalisation. I will draw parallels between human use of laughter and laugher and play vocalisations in other mammals, and I will also show some distinct differences between humans and other animals. I will explore the neural basis of laughter processing and discuss how this may relate to some individual differences in laughter use and experience.

Bilingual Lexical
2022-05-03 - 2022-05-04 | IMéRA
Bilingual Lexical Representations Workshop_Programme
Listening to speech in your native language (L1) is relatively easy. Recognizing the words used in a conversation is generally an automatic and smooth everyday process. Even in noisy or otherwise less than ideal conditions, our performance is surprisingly robust. But anyone who has attempted to follow a conversation in a second language (L2) knows how demanding this can be, even if you know all the words.

The semantic representations of L2 words have been investigated extensively. Our phonetic representations of those words, however, are much less widely understood. Independently of how well you know the meaning of words, identifying individual words out of the acoustic speech stream is difficult for the L2 listener. Not only the perceptual processing of L2 speech sounds, but also their stored phonetic representations, are influenced by the L1, making listening much more complex in the L2 than in the L1. The relatively new and rapidly evolving research area of bilingual lexical representations investigates how L2 learners represent the phonetic forms of words in their mental lexicon, and how these representations change over time.

This workshop aims to provide an overview of the most recent developments in the field. Now is an exciting time to outline the essential questions that need to be explored, and to work collectively towards a long-term research agenda. A number of methodological challenges are also best addressed together and across disciplines, in order for the field to move forward on a solid basis.

More information on this topic can be found here : https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/15827/fuzzy-lexical-representations-in-the-nonnative-mental-lexicon#overview
Le workshop sera en présentiel le matin a Marseille (a l’IMéRA), et il y a une option par zoom, également
https://imera.univ-amu.fr/en/bilingual-lexical-representations-workshop

Seminar on “speech production and perception”
2022-05-05 - 2022-05-06 | Salle de conférences, 5 avenue Pasteur, Aix-en-Provence, 13100, France
Prof. F. Guenther and REaDY team, LPL (5-6 May)
Thursday, May 5th 2022
Discussion with Prof. F. Guenther around the following presentations
14h-14h40 : Noël Nguyen & Kristof Strijkers : Phonetic and semantic convergence in speech communication
14h40-15h10 : Serge Pinto: Studying speech motor control from its impairment: the cases of hypo- and hyperkinetic dysarthrias
15h10-15h30 : Coffee break
15h30-16h10 : Elin Runnqvist, Lydia Dorokhova & Snezana Todorović : Action monitoring from tongue movements to words
16h10-16h40 : Anne-Sophie Dubarry : Exploring the variability of neurophysiological data during language processing

Friday, May 6th 2022, 10h30-12h00
KEYNOTE by Prof. F. Guenther
(Director of Speech Neuroscience Lab, Boston University)
Neurocomputational modeling of speech production
Speech production is a highly complex sensorimotor task involving tightly coordinated processing in the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes of the cerebral cortex. To better understand these processes, our laboratory has designed, experimentally tested, and iteratively refined a neural network model, called the DIVA model, whose components correspond to the brain regions involved in speech. Babbling and imitation phases are used to train neural mappings between phonological, articulatory, auditory, and somatosensory representations. After the imitation phase, the model can produce learned phonemes and syllables by generating movements of an articulatory synthesizer. An extended version of the model, called GODIVA, addresses the neural circuitry underlying the buffering and sequencing of phonological units in multi-syllabic utterances. Because the model’s components correspond to neural populations and are given precise anatomical locations, activity in the model’s neurons can be compared directly to neuroimaging data. Computer simulations of the model account for a wide range of experimental findings, including data on acquisition of speaking skills, articulatory kinematics, and brain activity during normal and perturbed speech. Furthermore, “damaged” versions of the model are being used to investigate several communication disorders, including stuttering, apraxia of speech, and hypokinetic dysarthria

Transdisciplinary Workshop Maison des Astronomes, IMéRA, Marseille
2022-05-09 - 2022-05-10 | IMéRA
Maison des Astronomes, IMéRA, Marseille
Outcome: a collective publication on methodological and theoretical issues
Abstract
The complexity of animal communication signals (including humans) can be evaluated on the basis of the combinatorics of the units that make up these signals (property also referred to as “double articulation”). The first articulation concerns the arrangement of the semantic units (words) into sentences and the second corresponds to the arrangement of elementary sounds (e.g. human phonemes) into meaningful units (e.g. human words). The possibility to build different combinations at each level allows to produce an exponential number of new statements.
To compare the complexity of the vocal communication signals of different animal species, including humans, we propose to investigate possible combinatorial units in non-human animals.
For this, we intend to address two principal issues:

The segmentation and clustering methods / principles used in the study of human and non-human vocalizations (mainly non-human primates and cetaceans).
The association/combinability of units from different sensory channels (acoustic, visual, tactile) and the processing of these multimodal/multicomponent units

This will be done using the tools and concepts from linguistics, psycholinguistics, comparative psychology, philosophy, bioacoustics, neurosciences, computer sciences and ethology.

TBA
2022-05-09 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Ellen Breitholtz & Christine Howes (University of Gothenburg)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

TBA
2022-05-16 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Christopher Cox (Aarhus University)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

TBA
2022-05-23 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Iris Nomikou (University of Portsmouth)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

Mapping the signed language lexicon: How are signs organized in the mind?
2022-05-24 11:00 - 12:00 | Salle de conférences, 5 avenue Pasteur, Aix-en-Provence, 13100, France
Dr. Zed Sevcikova Sehyr
San Diego State University
webpage: https://www.zedsehyr.com/publications.html

TBA
2022-05-30 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Marlou Rasenberg (Radboud University)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

Retraite de l'ILCB
2022-06-13 09:30 - 2022-06-15 17:00

TBA
2022-06-13 12:00 - 13:30 | via zoom
Deniz Tahiroğlu (Boğaziçi University)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

Neural systems underlying auditory categorization
2022-06-17 14:00 - 15:00 | salle A003 LPL, 5 avenue Pasteur, Aix-enProvence, 13100, France
Dr. Bhareth Chandrasekaran
Abstract: My program of research uses a systems neuroscience approach to study the computations, maturational constraints, and plasticity underlying behaviorally relevant auditory signals like speech. Speech signals are multidimensional, acoustically variable, and temporally ephemeral. A significant computational challenge in speech perception (and more broadly, audition) is categorization, that is, mapping continuous, multidimensional, and variable acoustic signals into discrete, behavioral equivalence classes. Despite the enormity of this computational challenge, native speech perception is rapid and automatic. In contrast, learning novel speech categories is effortful. In this talk, I elucidate mechanisms underlying how novel speech categories are acquired and represented in the mature brain. I will demonstrate that (1) neural representations of novel speech categories can arise in the associative auditory cortex within a few hundred training trials of sound-to-category training, (2) pre-attentive signal reconstruction in the early auditory system is subject to experience-dependent plasticity, and (3) the robustness of structural and functional connectivity within a sound-to-reward cortico-striatal stream relates to learning outcome. Finally, I will discuss ongoing experiments that leverage neurobiology to design optimal behavioral training and targeted neuromodulation interventions.

About the speaker: Dr. Chandrasekaran serves as a Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at The University of Pittsburgh. He earned his Ph.D. in Integrative Neuroscience from Purdue University in 2008, completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University before joining the University of Texas at Austin in 2010. He is the recipient of Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award in 2014, the Editor’s award for best research article in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, the Psychonomics Early Career award in 2016, and the Society for Neurobiology of Language Early Career Award in 2018. Dr. Chandrasekaran has served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research (Speech). Over the last two decades, his lab has leveraged cutting-edge multimodal neuroimaging methods and computational modeling approaches to develop a sophisticated understanding of how sounds are represented and categorized in the human brain. His approach is highly collaborative and interdisciplinary, integrating across fields of communication sciences and disorders, neuroscience, linguistics, psychology, engineering, and otolaryngology. His laboratory is currently supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).
