Home > Events > CLIP Colloquium: Shohini Bhattasali (LING/UMIACS)
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CLIP Colloquium: Shohini Bhattasali (LING/UMIACS)

Time: 
Wednesday, February 02, 2022 - 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Location: 
5101 Brendan Iribe Center AND Online

Zoom: https://umd.zoom.us/j/98806584197?pwd=SXBWOHE1cU9adFFKUmN2UVlwUEJXdz09 (passcode: clip)

Neurocomputational Approaches to Language Processing

Abstract: Utilizing computational approaches to study linguistic processes in the brain has become a recent, emerging area of research. By using tools from natural language processing to operationalize cognitive hypotheses about human language comprehension, we can gain insights into the language and brain connection. This theory-driven experimental approach allows us to use interpretable models against large-scale neuroimaging datasets to test mechanistic hypotheses from cognitive neuroscience that can lead us to future breakthroughs in understanding language processing in the brain and give us clear insights into human cognition.

In this talk, I will share four studies to demonstrate how I have applied various NLP tools to fMRI and MEG datasets to gain insights into several aspects of language comprehension, namely memory retrieval and structure building in language; how argument structure guides incremental sentence processing; comparing broad vs. local contextual prediction in language; parallel processing of local and global linguistic context during speech processing. I will also outline several ways in which I plan to extend this work, especially engaging in more cross-linguistic psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic exploration.

Bio: Shohini Bhattasali is a postdoctoral associate at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), Department of Linguistics, and Neuroscience & Cognitive Science (NACS) program. Her interdisciplinary research program brings together computational linguistics and neurolinguistics, involving interfaces among cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics, and natural language processing. She is currently investigating human language interpretation and misinterpretation, through psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic measures and computational modeling of the interpretive process. Shohini received her Ph.D in Linguistics with a Graduate Minor in Cognitive Science from Cornell University in 2019. Her dissertation explored noncompositionality and argument structure from a neurolinguistic perspective by using various tools from computational linguistics & naturalistic fMRI data.