On April 16th, 2018, Dr. Falk Huettig of Max Plank Society delivered a lecture “Prediction during Language Processing” for students and teachers of School of International Studies in Room 201, Building East 5, with Professor Liang Junying of the SIS as the host.
In recent years, prediction is thought to be an indispensable principle in human information processing. Dr. Falk hopes to illustrate the prediction in language processing. Firstly, he enumerated the studies conducted in varied fields, including philosophy and neuroscience regarding prediction as well as the existence of prediction in human experience. He then proposed that prediction is extremely inspiring for language processing. Afterwards, he put forward four core questions in language processing regarding prediction, namely, why prediction is studied or the roles prediction plays in language processing; the subject and object of prediction or the signals human uses to predict upcoming language information and the contents predicted by those signals; how to predict, e.g the mechanisms involved in language processing, the factors which might exert influence upon prediction as well as the exact influence; when prediction might happen, or to predict what time the incoming language input happens. All his ideas are supported by complete and accurate examples.
Dr. Falk then gave an overview of the core points in current studies and a detailed introduction to experiments, making clear study details and data-based conclusions. Meanwhile, he listed the controversies in relevant topics, making the participants to better understand the key points about the topics. He also claimed future studies should prioritize on prediction, with mechanisms, factors and environments taken into account. In the Q & A, the students and teachers had vigorous talks with Dr. Falk and he answered all their questions.
This informative lecture benefitted the students and teachers a lot so they got to know the core questions in human language processing. (Written by Li Jiexin, photograph credit to Lin Yumeng)
Institute of Linguistics & Applied Linguistics
The Innovative Team of Data Plus Language Rules and Cognition, Zhejiang University
April 17, 2018
