Neocerebellar Emulation in Language Processing Giorgos P Argyropoulos

Neocerebellar Emulation in Language Processing Giorgos P. Argyropoulos Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, University of Edinburgh giorgos@ling. ed. ac. uk 1. Introduction 3. Language comprehension in the cerebellum Despite the ample evidence gathered during the last decades in support of the involvement of the cerebellum in language processing, there has been little attention paid to the identity of the computations underlying such involvement, especially given that the cerebellum seems to perform a 3. 1. What is a Kalman filter? unitary computation for a wide range of behavioral repertoires. Emphasizing language comprehension here, I attempt the grounding of a The Kalman filter (Kalman, 1960) is a dynamical state estimator testing incoming recently proposed psycholinguistic processor (Pickering & Garrod, 2007) in data against expectations, compensating for delays and filtering out noise in the cortico-cerebellar circuit. sensory feedback, if the signal can be modeled as the output of a known dynamical system. A Kalman regulator uses the sensory error to correct the estimate resulting from the forward model. The Kalman gain determines the extent to which the sensory residual influences the a priori estimate (i. e. , whether emulation tramps the actual sensory feedback or not). 4. The cerebellar pseudosyntax 1) Townsend & Bever (2001): Sentence comprehension employs both algorithmic (the actual “syntax”) and faster, preemptive heuristic computations (the “pseudosyntax”); the latter pertains to “semantic associations” and “syntactic habits”. 2. The cerebellum 3. 2. The reception of the Kalman filter in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics 2. 1. The unitary cerebellar computation • Cytoarchitectural (computational) homogeneity, functional heterogeneity (e. g. , Kawato & Gomi, 1992; Wolpert et al. , 1998). • “a unitary principle of architecture, but a localizationist principle of the connectivity” (Schmahmann, 2000; 206). 3. 3. The neocerebellar KF linguistic processor The computations of a Cerebellar Cortico-Nuclear Micro-Complex (Ito, 1989). Figure taken from Ito (2002, p. 281). Long-term depression (LTD) occurs at parallel fiber-to. Purkinje cell synapses after conjunctive activation of these synapses together with climbing fiber-to-Purkinje cell synapses (Ito et al. , 1982). PC: Purkinje Cell. GR: Granule Cell. CC: Cerebellar Cortex. IO: Climbing Fiber. MF: Mossy Fiber. CN: Cerebellar Nucleus CF: Climbing Fiber. LTD: Long Term Depression. Hollow circle: Excitatory synapse. Filled circle: Inhibitory synapse. 5. Conclusion The posterolateral cerebellum might be involved in language perception processes by implementing Kalman Filter computations in a way that makes language perception noise- resistant, and automatic, triggering covert, imitative involvement of production mechanisms in language perception. Acknowledgments I am grateful to my supervisors, Prof. Jim Hurford, Dr. Patrick Sturt and Dr. Thomas Bak, as well as to the Pavlos and Elissavet Papagiannopoulou Foundation for the financial support in my Ph. D studies. References Figure adapted from Argyropoulos (2008). This is a case of (cerebellar) emulation-induced (mirror neuron-based) covert imitation in language perception. Argyropoulos, G. (2008). The subcortical foundations of grammaticalization. In Andrew D. M. Smith, Kenny Smith and Ramon Ferrer i Cancho (Eds. ), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 7 th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (pp. 10 -17). Singapore: World Scientific Press. Barton, R. A. 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