Spring School on Language, Music, and Cognition: Organizing Events in Time

The interdisciplinary spring school “Language, music, and cognition: Organizing events in time” was held from February 26 to March 2, 2018 at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Cologne. Language, speech, and music as events in time were explored from different perspectives including evolutionary biology, social cognition, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience of speech, language, and communication, as well as computational and biological approaches to language and music. There were 10 lectures, 4 workshops, and 1 student poster session. Overall, the spring school investigated language and music as neurocognitive systems and focused on a mechanistic approach exploring the neural substrates underlying musical, linguistic, social, and emotional processes and behaviors. In particular, researchers approached questions concerning cognitive processes, computational procedures, and neural mechanisms underlying the temporal organization of language and music, mainly from two perspectives: one was concerned with syntax or structural representations of language and music as neurocognitive systems (i.e., an intrapersonal perspective), while the other emphasized social interaction and emotions in their communicative function (i.e., an interpersonal perspective). The spring school not only acted as a platform for knowledge transfer and exchange but also generated a number of important research questions as challenges for future investigations

An integrated theory of language production and comprehension

Currently, production and comprehension are regarded as quite distinct in accounts of language processing. In rejecting this dichotomy, we instead assert that producing and understanding are interwoven, and that this interweaving is what enables people to predict themselves and each other. We start by noting that production and comprehension are forms of action and action perception. We then consider the evidence for interweaving in action, action perception, and joint action, and explain such evidence in terms of prediction. Specifically, we assume that actors construct forward models of their actions before they execute those actions, and that perceivers of others' actions covertly imitate those actions, then construct forward models of those actions. We use these accounts of action, action perception, and joint action to develop accounts of production, comprehension, and interactive language. Importantly, they incorporate well-defined levels of linguistic representation (such as semantics, syntax, and phonology). We show (a) how speakers and comprehenders use covert imitation and forward modeling to make predictions at these levels of representation, (b) how they interweave production and comprehension processes, and (c) how they use these predictions to monitor the upcoming utterances. We show how these accounts explain a range of behavioral and neuroscientific data on language processing and discuss some of the implications of our proposal

Generative models, linguistic communication and active inference

This paper presents a biologically plausible generative model and inference scheme that is capable of simulating communication between synthetic subjects who talk to each other. Building on active inference formulations of dyadic interactions, we simulate linguistic exchange to explore generative models that support dialogues. These models employ high-order interactions among abstract (discrete) states in deep (hierarchical) models. The sequential nature of language processing mandates generative models with a particular factorial structure—necessary to accommodate the rich combinatorics of language. We illustrate linguistic communication by simulating a synthetic subject who can play the ‘Twenty Questions’ game. In this game, synthetic subjects take the role of the questioner or answerer, using the same generative model. This simulation setup is used to illustrate some key architectural points and demonstrate that many behavioural and neurophysiological correlates of linguistic communication emerge under variational (marginal) message passing, given the right kind of generative model. For example, we show that theta-gamma coupling is an emergent property of belief updating, when listening to another

Towards a complete multiple-mechanism account of predictive language processing [Commentary on Pickering & Garrod]

Although we agree with Pickering & Garrod (P&G) that prediction-by-simulation and prediction-by-association are important mechanisms of anticipatory language processing, this commentary suggests that they: (1) overlook other potential mechanisms that might underlie prediction in language processing, (2) overestimate the importance of prediction-by-association in early childhood, and (3) underestimate the complexity and significance of several factors that might mediate prediction during language processing

Language acquisition in developmental disorders

In this chapter, I review recent research into language acquisition in developmental disorders, and the light that these findings shed on the nature of language acquisition in typically developing children. Disorders considered include Specific Language Impairment, autism, Down syndrome, and Williams syndrome. I argue that disorders of language should be construed in terms of differences in the constraints that shape the learning process, rather than in terms of the normal system with components missing or malfunctioning. I outline the integrative nature of this learning process and how properties such as redundancy and compensation may be key characteristics of learning systems with atypical constraints. These ideas, as well as the new methodologies now being used to study variations in pathways of language acquisition, are illustrated with case studies from Williams syndrome and Specific Language Impairment

What can developmental disorders tell us about the neurocomputational constraints that shape development? the case of Williams syndrome

The uneven cognitive phenotype in the adult outcome of Williams syndrome has led some researchers to make strong claims about the modularity of the brain and the purported genetically determined, innate specification of cognitive modules. Such arguments have particularly been marshaled with respect to language. We challenge this direct generalization from adult phenotypic outcomes to genetic specification and consider instead how genetic disorders provide clues to the constraints on plasticity that shape the outcome of development. We specifically examine behavioral studies, brain imaging, and computational modeling of language in Williams syndrome but contend that our theoretical arguments apply equally to other cognitive domains and other developmental disorders. While acknowledging that selective deficits in normal adult patients might justify claims about cognitive modularity, we question whether similar, seemingly selective deficits found in genetic disorders can be used to argue that such cognitive modules are prespecified in infant brains. Cognitive modules are, in our view, the outcome of development, not its starting point. We note that most work on genetic disorders ignores one vital factor, the actual process of ontogenetic development, and argue that it is vital to view genetic disorders as proceeding under different neurocomputational constraints, not as demonstrations of static modularity

Phasal Eliminativism, Anti-Lexicalism, and the Status of the Unarticulated

This paper explores the prospect that grammatical expressions are propositionally whole and psychologically plausible, leading to the explanatory burden being placed on syntax rather than pragmatic processes, with the latter crucially bearing the feature of optionality. When supposedly unarticulated constituents are added, expressions which are propositionally distinct, and not simply more specific, arise. The ad hoc nature of a number of pragmatic processes carry with them the additional problem of effectively acting as barriers to implementing language in the brain. The advantages of an anti-lexicalist biolinguistic methodology are discussed, and a bi-phasal model of linguistic interpretation is proposed, Phasal Eliminativism, carved by syntactic phases and (optionally) enriched by a restricted number of pragmatic processes. In addition, it is shown that the syntactic operation of labeling (departing from standard Merge-centric evolutionary hypotheses) is responsible for a range of semantic and pragmatic phenomena, rendering core aspects of syntax and lexical pragmatics commensurable