ILCB

Multimodality as a design feature of language: Implications for language structure, processing and acquisition
2022-02-28 12:00 - 13:30 (Europe/Paris) | 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
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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.

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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.

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13h BUFFET ILCB
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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.

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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).

TBA
2022-06-20 08:00 - 17:00 | via zoom
Raquel Fernández (University of Amsterdam)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

TBA
2022-07-11 08:00 - 17:00 | via zoom
Rory T. Devine (University of Birmingham)
Abstract: TBA
Where: Zoom link https://univ-amu-fr.zoom.us/j/2515421853

Prosody as a beacon for understanding a speaker's stance and intentions
2022-09-27 11:00 - 12:00 | B011 LPL, 5 avenue Pasteur, Aix-en-Provence, 13100, France
Marc D. Pell, de l’Université McGill
Prof. Pell’s research investigates how adults communicate their emotions, attitudes, or other social intentions while speaking, to better understand the social-pragmatic context of spoken language.
Much of his work focuses on the effects of the human voice during pragmatic language processing and in social cognition. Members of his lab are exploring the neurocognitive basis of vocal communication, how this system is influenced by socio-cultural factors, and how vocal communication is influenced by acquired disease of the brain (e.g., Parkinson’s disease, repetitive head injury). Behavioural paradigms, acoustic analysis, neuroinvestigative techniques (ERPs, fMRI), and neuropsychological assessments of brain-damaged adults are being used to test these ideas.

Laboratory and field research - My experience with capuchin monkeys
2022-10-05 18:00 - 19:00 | Théâtre Antoine Vitez, 29 Av. Robert Schuman, Aix-en-Provence, 13100, France
Elisabetta Visalberghi, Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie del Consiglio Nazionale delle
Ricerche, Roma Italia.

Abstract: The Swiss primatologist Hans Kummer demanded a strong interchange between laboratory and field research. In fact, it is often the case that the field researcher has questions that only proper experiments can answer, or that the laboratory researcher reaches conclusions whose correct interpretation requires field observations. I used both approaches to understand the behavior of capuchin monkeys and I also bridged them by carrying out field experiments,. Here, I will illustrate how my colleagues and I proceeded in exploring the issues of flexible tool use and social learning and discuss how much easier, for laymen and scientists as well, is to accept something that can be easily seen (i.e., tool use) than something that is not so evident (as it is in the case of “feeble” social biases).

Language in the brain and algorithms.
2022-10-07 12:00 - 13:00 | Salle des voûtes, St Charles, 3 place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13001, France
Jean-Rémi KING : Chercheur à l’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris et Meta AI.
It took less than five years for AI to revolutionize the field of natural language processing. Can the resulting algorithms help us understand this complex cognitive ability? Here, we develop state-of-the-art language models and compare them to the adult human brain. To do so, we are integrating large-scale datasets of magneto/electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and intracranial recordings while individuals read or listen to natural sentences. Our analyses demonstrate systematic similarities between AI models and the brain, which allow us to (1) efficiently decode speech from brain activity and (2) delineate the location and temporal course of the hierarchy of language representations. Overall, these studies show how the interface between AI and neuroscience sheds new light on the computations at the heart of human language.

formation NIRS/EEG
2022-10-19 08:00 - 2022-10-21 18:00 | FRUMAM, 3 place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13001, France
PROGRAMME FORMATION ACCOMPAGNEMENT PRISE EN MAIN fNIRS – EEG

JOUR 01 : Les Bases théoriques de la technique NIRS / EEG

La différence entre Technique (besoins) et Technologie (solutions)
Introduction par cadrage des deux techniques
Les différentes techniques spectroscopiques (NIRS) et les différentes techniques d’électrophysiologie.
L’onde électromagnétique

Le photon e sa double nature corpusculaire et d’onde
L’interaction de l’onde EM avec la matière

Diffusion et Absorbance

La loi de Lambert-Beer et la loi de Lambert-Beer Modifiée
La propagation de l’onde EM dans le milieu

Le signal NIRS et ses différences / similitudes avec le signal EEG

Les origines physiologiques et anatomiques du signal NIRS vs EEG

Couplage neuro-vasculaire
Potentiel d’action

Résolution temporelle et spatiale

Le traitement du signal NIRS vs EEG : fondamentaux

Les artefacts de mouvement
Les contaminations environnementales
Les contaminations physiologiques
L’évolution du SNR (signal noise ratio) et l’erreur
L’extraction de la composante Corticale – Neuronale – Evoquée ou du PE

Méthode UNIVARIATE (NIRS)
Méthode MULTIVARIATE (NIRS)

JOUR 02 – 03 : La solution technologique NIRX / BRAIN PROUCTS

Explication des components de l’hardware et installation : NIRSCOUT / actiCHamp Plus
Prise en main du logiciel d’enregistrement (NIRSTAR – BRAIN VISION RECORDER)
Diagnostic hardware
Optimisation du signal NIRS / EEG
Intégration dans LSL et synchronisation multi signal
Prise en main du logiciel de Montage design : NIRSITE (pour la NIRS)
Création du casque et qualité du signal (testé sur adulte)
Visualisation du signal
Hands-on

Typology of multilinguals' languages and its relation to brain and cognition
2022-11-18 12:00 - 13:00 | B011 LPL, 5 avenue Pasteur, Aix-en-Provence, 13100, France
Olga Kepinska : Universität Wien
Learning and using additional languages has been time and again shown to be related to functional and structural changes to the brain. One aspect of multilingualism that has not been examined systematically so far is the typology of multilinguals’ languages: Do differences and similarities between languages multilinguals know contribute to the development of their cognition and brain? In this talk, I will discuss a methodology for describing the continuum of multilingual language experience that accounts for typological distance. We applied it in two studies with groups with diverse language backgrounds. In the first, we investigated n = 162 5-6-year-olds with various language backgrounds on a monolingual-to-quintilingual continuum. Overlaps in lexical distances between participants’ languages were found to be related to aspects of their dominant-language lexical knowledge and to brain activation patters during a dominant-language lexical task. In the second study, we looked at typological distance at the level of phonology and its relation to brain structure. In particular, we investigated how neuroanatomical indices describing the transverse temporal gyrus (TTG, cortical structure housing early auditory cortex) were related to cross-linguistic phonological information of n = 136 adult participants exposed to between 1 to 7 languages. We found that language experience with phonologically distant languages was associated with cortical thickness of the second TTG. These results refine our understanding of the neural underpinnings of multilingual language experience and will be discussed in the larger context of genetic versus environmental influences on the brain.

Towards a computational neurophysiology of covert auditory processing in health and disease
2022-12-09 12:00 - 13:00 | SALLE 15-409, Université Aix-Marseille 3 Pl. Victor Hugo,, Marseille, 13003, France
Le lunch talk Jean-Julien Aucouturier, est annulé en raison des perturbations dans les transports.
Nous sommes sincèrement désolé pour cette annulation de dernière minute.
Bien à vous
Etienne Thoret
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Jean-Julien Aucouturier
Abstract: The past 10 years have seen the emergence in the cognitive neuroscience community of a novel class of ‘data-driven’ methods inspired by psychophysical reverse-correlation, which allow researchers to model a participant’s behavioral responses to arbitrarily generated visual or auditory stimuli (Adolphs et al. 2016). Taking the example of some of our recent results on the perception of speech prosody (Ponsot et al., PNAS 2018; Goupil et al. Nature Communications 2021), I will show how to extend these new methodologies to the analysis of neurophysiological data, in order to identify the sensory mechanisms that underly covert auditory processing in both healthy participants, stroke and coma patients.
Bio: Jean-Julien Aucouturier was trained at SONY Computer Science Laboratories with François Pachet and holds a PhD in Computer Science from Université Pierre et Marie Curie (2006). JJ has then held several postdoctoral positions in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Tokyo with Takashi Ikegami and at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute with Kazuo Okanoya. After a decade at IRCAM in Paris where he directed the ERC-funded CREAM music neuroscience team, he is now Directeur de recherche CNRS (equiv. Full Professor) at the FEMTO-ST Institute (CNRS/Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté) in Besançon, France. His research program in FEMTO-ST is based on data-driven, system-science approaches to clinical neurophysiology, with a focus on the auditory/speech modality, and health technology applications in neurology and psychiatry. Lab website: https://neuro-team-femto.github.io

Séminaire & Soutenance HDR Isabelle Dautriche
2023-01-13 10:00 - 18:30 | Salle des voûtes, St Charles, 3 place Victor Hugo, Marseille, 13001, France
10H Judit Gervain (University of Padoa, Italy & CNRS)
How do infants represent speech: the developmental origins of the embedded neural oscillations model
The proposal (Giraud & Poeppel 2012) that a hierarchy of embedded neural oscillations support speech and language processing in the brain has received ample evidence in adults. However, the developmental orgins of such a neural architecture remain to a large extent unknown. The talk will present EEG data from newborns and older infants showing that neural oscillations are already in place early in development and are shaped by prenatal and postnatal experience.
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11H Coffee break
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11H30 Luca Bonatti (University Pompeu Fabra, Spain)
The role of logic in infant cognition

Do infants have a logic in their mind, and what role could it have in their cognitive system? David Hume argued that no novel content can arise by simply inspecting ‘relations of ideas’ — what we would now call logic, but only by knowing ‘matters of fact’ – objects, events, causal relations. This creates a puzzle: how is it possible that a system that adds no novel knowledge be useful to our cognition of the world? I will argue that the puzzle is a bit less puzzling if one thinks that knowledge is not acquired not only by adding novel information, but also by reducing uncertainty. I will present experiments with adults and infants suggesting that elementary logical processes are indeed spontaneously triggered in different contexts, and precisely serve the role of reducing uncertainty by eliminating possibilities.
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12H30 Lunch ILCB
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14H Soutenance HDR, Isabelle Dautriche (CNRS & Aix-Marseille University)
How children learn the meaning of words
One central task in most linguistic theory is to provide an account of the acquisition of language: What kind of machine in its initial state, supplied with what kinds of input, could acquire a natural language in the way that infants of our species do? This question is usually confined to the acquisition of phonology and syntax, leaving vocabulary aside. After all, words must be learnt by noticing the real-world contingencies for their use. No other theory could explain why English children learn to associate the sound sequence /ˈbɛtə/ to the meaning “better” and Turkish children to “worse”. I argue that focusing on distributional or statistical abilities provides an incomplete picture of word learning as it fails to account for how learning occurs, what kind of knowledge learners bring into the word learning problem and what properties of language may facilitate it. I will present experimental and computational work that suggest that 1) children are active learners, able to combine and weigh several sources of information while learning the meaning of words; 2) that the vocabulary of natural languages has evolved to be more learnable by infants and 3) that infants come equipped with non-linguistic biases that guide their learning, some of which may be shared with other species.
Committee:
Jennifer Culbertson, University of Edinburgh
Balthasar Bickel, University of Zurich
Luca Bonatti, University Pompeu Fabra
Judit Gervain, University of Padoa & CNRS
Noël Nguyen, Aix-Marseille Université
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17H Apéro
