ILCB's monthly newsletter N°58

ILCB's monthly newsletter

N°58 - May. 15th, 2026

Institute of Language, Communication and the Brain
Bringing together experts in linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, medicine and computer science to understand and to model how language functions.

Dear members of the ILCB community,

It was a real pleasure to organize this year’s international conference on the Cognitive Science of Culture! The venue was wonderful, the talks were outstanding, and the atmosphere throughout the meeting was truly vibrant. Many thanks to the numerous members of the ILCB who contributed to making this event such a success. Special thanks to Nadera Bureau and Chotiga Pattamadilok for the countless hours!

This month, we also delighted to welcome Sonja Kotz from Maastricht University, a member of our International Advisory Board that has just arrived in Aix-Marseille for a sabbatical stay. I am sure many of you will have the opportunity to meet and interact with her over the coming months.

We are equally honored to welcome Fumiko Hoeft (University of Connecticut), who is travelling from across the Atlantic to visit her two former postdocs, Olga Kepinska (LPL) and Florence Bouhali (CRPN), both of whom joined the ILCB a few years ago and now hold permanent CNRS positions with us. If you are interested in understanding possible links between dyslexia, depression, and stress, do not miss her lunch talk on Friday the 22nd at 12:00 on the St Charles campus, followed by our traditional lunch gathering.

Finally, registrations for the 9th ILCB Summer School are now open! This year’s edition will take place in Aix-en-Provence, at Le Cube on the Schuman campus of Aix-Marseille University, from August 24th to 28th, 2026. Please feel free to circulate the information to interested colleagues and students.

Best wishes,

Johannes

Portrait of the month

Prof. Sonja Kotz

Prof. Sonja Kotz — photo (c) IMERA

Prof. Sonja Kotz, a long-standing member of the ILCB International Advisory Board, is starting a sabbatical at Aix-Marseille Université this month.

Sonja Kotz is Professor of Neuropsychology and Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at Maastricht University (The Netherlands). Her research explores body-brain-behaviour dynamics related to temporal (when) and content (what) predictions in audition, speech, and music across the lifespan, as well as in clinical populations including Parkinson’s disease, stroke, psychosis, tinnitus, and dyslexia. In this research she uses a broad range of behavioural and neuroimaging methods (M/EEG, r/s/fMRI, TMS). She previously served as President of both the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (ESCAN) and the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL) and is a senior editor at several domain specific journals (Imaging Neuroscience, Neurobiology of Language).

Sonja Kotz collaborates extensively with many leading researchers in speech, music, and cognitive neuroscience at the ILCB and worldwide.

Figure of the month

Attenders/Attendees of the 7th International Conference on the Cognitive Science of Culture about to enjoy the conference dinner.

Quote of the month

"The present research suggests that people can potentially derive benefits from interacting with a partner who they know to be inanimate.
In Studies 1a & 1b, participants who believed their conversation partner was a chatbot felt similar levels of social connection, rapport and positive feelings compared to those who believed their partner was human.
In Study 2, participants found a supportive interaction with ChatGPT more rewarding than a less supportive interaction with a human.
At the same time, the results of Study 3 suggest that when chatbots 'go too far' in their human-like behavior by sharing their own good news, the benefits of such interactions are no longer comparable to human counterparts."

Dunigan Folk, Stephanie Yu, and Elizabeth Dunn
Can Chatbots Ever Provide More Social Connection Than Humans?
2024. Collabra: Psychology 10 (1): 117083