Department of Linguistics and Languages will host a talk by Dr. Khalil Iskarou, an Assistant Professor in Linguistics at University of Southern California on February 8, 2017. This will mark the fifth talk of the Cognitive Science of Language lecture series of the current academic year. In this talk. Dr. Iskarous will explore the general computational principles involved in cognition, especially language. It will be argued that similar computations may underlie three skills: octopus behavior, syntactic structure computation (asymmetric c-command), and the planning and execution of speech production. These computations are based on competition and coordination of simple computational units, which can determine outputs characteristic of a wide variety of motor, perceptual, and cognitive skills.

Title: Discreteness and Dynamics in Computation: From Octopus Behavior to Language
Presenter: Dr. Khalil Iskarous
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Time: 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Location: BSB 121, McMaster University