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DTSTART:20201101T020000
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UID:15341-91c09cb52816ca999eb52cacbd0340cb@events.la.psu.edu
DTSTAMP:20260510T225552Z
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250502T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250502T103000
SUMMARY:Center for Language Science Speaker Series: Anna Ivanova
DESCRIPTION:\nWhat is the relationship between language and thought? Thi
s question has long intrigued researchers across scientific fields. In t
his talk\, Anna Ivanova will propose a framework for clarifying the lang
uage-thought relationship. She will introduce a distinction between form
al competence—knowledge of linguistic rules and patterns—and functional
competence—understanding and using language in the world. This distincti
on is grounded in human neuroscience\, where a wealth of evidence indica
tes that formal competence relies on a set of specialized brain regions
(“the language network”)\, whereas functional competence requires the us
e of multiple non-language-specific neural systems. She will then illust
rate how the formal/functional competence distinction can help (a) delin
eate the functional architecture of the human brain and (b) understand t
he capabilities and limitations of today’s large language models. In bot
h cases\, she will primarily focus on general world knowledge\, a functi
onal competence domain where language and conceptual knowledge can be pa
rticularly tricky to disentangle.\n\nFor more details: https://events.la
.psu.edu/event/cls-anna-ivanova/
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:What is the rel
ationship between language and thought? This question has long intrigued
researchers across scientific fields. In this talk, Anna Ivanova will p
ropose a framework for clarifying the language-thought relationship. She
will introduce a distinction between formal competence—knowledge of lin
guistic rules and patterns—and functional competence—understanding and u
sing language in the world. This distinction is grounded in human neuros
cience, where a wealth of evidence indicates that formal competence reli
es on a set of specialized brain regions (“the language network”), where
as functional competence requires the use of multiple non-language-speci
fic neural systems. She will then illustrate how the formal/functional c
ompetence distinction can help (a) delineate the functional architecture
of the human brain and (b) understand the capabilities and limitations
of today’s large language models. In both cases, she will primarily focu
s on general world knowledge, a functional competence domain where langu
age and conceptual knowledge can be particularly tricky to disentangle.<
/p>
For more details: https://events.la.psu.edu/event/cls-anna-ivanova/
URL:https://cls.la.psu.edu/news-events/cls-speaker-series/
LOCATION:Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library
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