Dear All,
The RTG 2906 „Curiosity“ invites to a Guest Talk: „Statistical learning, predictability, and uncertainty„. The talk is delivered by Jenny Saffran from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Scheduled for March 3rd, 2:15 pm in ZHG 003.
What is the lecture about?
Infants rapidly develop from being naïve listeners, who experience language as a sea of sounds, to understanding their native language(s). How does this remarkable learning process unfold? One potentially useful source of information lies in the statistical patterns that characterize natural languages, which signal structures ranging from phonemes to words to grammatical structures. Beyond merely tracking these patterns, how might infants use statistical regularities to support language development? In my presentation, I will explore the hypothesis that infants exploit statistical regularities in the service of efficiently processing information in their linguistic environments, with a particular focus on the importance of both predictability and uncertainty in driving this process.
About the speaker
Jenny Saffran is the College of Letters & Science Mary Herman Rubinstein Professor of Psychology at University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her research focuses on learning in infants and young children, with a particular focus on language. She has received numerous awards for her research, teaching, and mentoring, including, most recently, the inaugural Jeffery L. Elman Prize for Scientific Achievement and Community Building from the Cognitive Science Society.
Please feel free to share this invitation!
With kind regards,
Aleksandra Bovt
