This coming week we will have a talk by Dimitri Prica, from Brain Mechanisms of Language Learning group. Below are details about the talk:
Implicit learning, goal directed attention, and neural oscillations
With apologies to Putnam, meaning is very much in the head. The physical substrate of language, whether it be speech or writing, cannot elicit processing of the linguistic kind on its own. That sort of processing needs to arise from the architecture and functioning of a mind with linguistic experience. Modern investigations in the neurocomputational basis of language suggest that it is the interplay of endogenous cortical rhythms and those generated by the speech signal that result in linguistic processing. But where do these endogenous rhythms come from? How are they acquired? This project consists of a re-analysis of previously acquired EEG data, this time using oscillatory dynamics as an index of processing. The ERP analysis revealed that the first element of an implicitly learned AXC rule elicited different neural activity in the rules that included a final element participants were instructed to pay attention to (i.e. A¹XC¹ vs. A²XC², where C¹ was the target element). This indicates that, at equal levels of exposure, one is processed in a more canonically linguistic way. This follow-up investigation aims to find out:
1. If this difference is also captured in the oscillatory activity associated with the two types of rules.
2. If the pre-stimulus alpha activity can explain the difference in processing observed.
Location: Online (ZOOM). Click here to join the meeting