A team of researchers from the University of Neuchâtel studied the ability to associate a new sound with an object, amidst a noisy but familiar environment. This cognitive faculty of rapid association is attested in humans, as well as domesticated animals like cats and dogs. This new research shows that neither gorillas nor orangutans, though they are primates like us, make use of this so-called “fast mapping” ability.
To study the behaviour of chimpanzees in a non-intrusive fashion, a team of researchers from the University of Neuchâtel and Idiap Research Institute, in Martigny, members of the NCCR Evolving Language, have proposed a new approach based on artificial intelligence (AI), to automatically analyse primate videos.
Researcher James Henderson (Idiap Research Institute) received an ERC Advanced Grant to work on large language models (LLMs), deep learning computational models that can perform language-related tasks.
Exploring the past, present and future of language
The Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Evolving Language is a nationwide interdisciplinary research consortium bringing together research groups from the humanities, from language and computer science, the social sciences, and the natural sciences at an unprecedented level. Together, we aim at solving one of humanity’s great mysteries: What is language? How did our species develop the capacity for linguistic expression, for processing language in the brain, and for consistently passing down new variations to the next generation? How will our capacity for language change in the face of digital communication and neuroengineering?
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Evolving Language is led by Balthasar Bickel (Department of Comparative Language Science, UZH), Daphné Bavelier (Cognitive Neuroscience group, UNIGE) and Klaus Zuberbühler (Institute of Biology, UNINE). Over 40 research groups across Switzerland are taking part in this NCCR, from 9 different institutions as well as partners in industry (Google AI, Sonova) and public organisations. The project has 3 leading houses: the University of Zurich, the University of Geneva and the University of Neuchâtel.
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