How Language Creates Meaning
Humans (and to some extent AI) excel at language acquisition and processing, but why can we actually understand language? How do human and artificial minds extract meaning from language? Find out during this lecture about how humans and AI learn language. (English / SG-Certificate*)
Time: 16:45-17:45 hrs.
Admission is free, registration required (limited number of seats available)
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Keeping those words in mind
The question how humans are so good at language has been a primary question in the research agendas of psychologists, linguists, philosophers and artificial intelligence researchers alike. Proposed answers to this question have ranged from parents training their children language skills, inborn language instincts, powerful sophisticated neural networks, to embodied perceptual simulation accounts.
Language systems
All these answers have focused on an answer outside the language system, inside powerful human minds. But what if our language skills do not come from inside our human minds, but actually from the language systems that we use? During this keynote lecture, Prof. dr. Max Louwerse will advocate exactly this alternative answer as to how human and artificial minds extract meaning from language: language patterns help us to understand the meaning we try to communicate. Curious to hear why he thinks this and how research on human brains and artificial minds may benefit from knowing this? Come join us during this lecture.
Max Louwerse
Prof. dr. Max Louwerse is professor of Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence at Tilburg University.
He is author of the popular science book “Keeping Those Words in Mind: How Language Creates Meaning”. Louwerse has worked in psycholinguistics and computational linguistics, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence, on projects ranging from language and dialog, embodied conversational agents, intelligent tutoring systems, and virtual reality. He has authored over 160 articles in the cognitive sciences.
More information
This lecture is organized by Studium Generale.
Contact: Hannah van den Bosch (Studium Generale).
* For students, this lecture may count towards the SG-Certificate. Check the SG-Certificate website for all the terms and conditions.
