UPLANDS
Uplands is my current project examining prediction's role in syntactic language acquisition. During this project I'm working with Floris de Lange in the Predictive Brain lab at the Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen. This project is funded through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, part of the EU's Horizon Europe programme.
Error-based learning
Learning to communicate with others is one of our most important achievements in childhood. Yet due to the difficulty of investigating language use in the earliest years of life, we still know surprisingly little about the cognitive mechanisms that enable the language acquisition process. The most influential current theories suggest that language learning hinges on prediction, the ability to anticipate upcoming input. These theories – collectively known as the error-based theories of language acquisition – describe a powerful and dynamic mechanism mapping the steps from exposure to language to becoming competent and creative users of it. Yet while these theories are popular, the empirical assessment of prediction-based language acquisition theories is still in its infancy.
Project aims:
Uplands aims to address two key questions:
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1. Do prediction violations lead to cross-domain learning in language?
2. What role do predictions play in this process?
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Answering these questions will significantly expand our knowledge of how a prediction-based learning mechanism functions. Our approach iterates on new behavioural paradigms developed during my PhD, combining them with electrophysiological measures (such as MEG). The results will not only shed further light on prediction’s role in language acquisition, but will also establish a methodological approach that can form the basis of future research into these questions.
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Having conducted several behavioural studies, we are now collecting data for a MEG study - these results will be shared here shortly!
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