Public Outreach / In the News

Select talks on EvLab related research

  • Studies of unusual brains reveal critical insights into brain organization, function. MIT News. February 2023.
  • The Difference Between Speaking and Thinking. The Atlantic. February 2023.
  • Studying the Brains of Polyglots May Lead to Insights About Language. Brain and Life. Oct/Nov 2022.
  • Efficient communication—not enabling complex thought—is the computational goal of the language system MPI for Psycholinguistics 40th Anniversary event “The Neurobiology of Language: Key Issues and Ways Forward”. April 2021.
  • The neural mechanisms of language processing and their relationship to executive function mechanisms. C-STAR Lecture Series (https://cstar.sc.edu/lecture-series/). September 2020.
  • The language system in the human mind and brain. Abralin ao Vivo, the talk series of the Brazilian Linguistics Association. May 2020.
  • Composition is the core driver of the human language system. NeurIPS Workshop “Context and compositionality in biological & artificial neural systems”. December 2019.
  • Language processing in autism spectrum disorders. SPECTRUM Webinar. April 2019.
  • Specialization for language in the human brain. Center for Academic Research & Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) symposium “How Language Evolves”. February 2015.

    • News articles about our research

  • "The Curious Hole in My Head" New York Times (Sept 2022): Link
  • "Can we think without using language?" Live Science (June 2022): Link
  • "Google's powerful AI spotlights a human cognitive glitch: Mistaking fluent speech for fluent thought." (The Conversation, June 2022) Link
  • “She Was Missing a Chunk of Her Brain. It Didn’t Matter”, WIRED Magazine (April 2022): Link
  • “The remarkable brain of a carpet cleaner who speaks 24 languages”, The Washington Post (April 2022): Link
  • “Individual neurons responsible for complex social reasoning in humans identified”, MGH News and Public Affairs (Mar 2021): Link
  • “To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language”, MIT news (Dec 2020): Link
  • “Uncovering the functional architecture of a historic brain area”, MIBR News (Mar 2020): Link
  • “Word play”, MIBR News (October 2019): Link
  • “Can we think without language?”, MIBR News (May 2019): Link
  • “Brain's language center has multiple roles”, MIT news (Oct 2012): Link
  • “Localizing language in the brain”, MIT news (Sept 2011): Link

    • Interviews, podcasts, etc.

  • 2022: SlatorPod, "How the Brain Processes Language, With MIT Neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko". Link
  • 2022: Brain Inspired, "Large Language Models"; with Emily Bender and Paul Middlebrooks. Link
  • 2022: American Psychological Association (APA) podcast, "Speaking of Psychology: Why can some people speak dozens of languages?" Link
  • 2021: World Science Festival, “Mind Your Language: Thought, Metaphor and Imagination” (a panel discussion with Brian Greene; other participants: Noam Chomsky, Daniel Dor, and Steven Pinker). Link
  • 2021: Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office Webinar “The shrinking distance between human and machine: Computing where we end and the technologies begin”. Link
  • 2021: Alan Alda's “Science Clear and Vivid” podcast. Link
  • 2021: Stephen Wilson's “Language Neuroscience” podcast. Link
  • 2020: Patrick Cox's subtitledpod.com podcast. Link
  • 2019: Christian Saunders' CangaroEnglish podcast. Link
  • 2019: BBC, interview with Simon Calder for “The Polyglots. The superlinguists.” Link
  • 2018: Science for the Public, interview with Yvonne Stapp for “Language acquisition: How many languages can you learn?” Link
  • 2018: New Yorker, interview with Judith Thurman for “The mystery of people who speak dozens of languages.” Link

    • A short film about our research (2016)

    https://youtu.be/5Tuw8VbcSDs

    Written, produced and directed by:
    • Catherine Curro Caruso
    • Alicia Chang
    • Christin Gilmer
    Executive producer: