Does Practice Make Perfect? How the Brain Learns Language in a Social World

How does the brain practice, evaluate and perform complex skills? What allows us to learn something as intricate as comprehending and producing language? In this pair of talks by two experts in related but different fields, our speakers will discuss the neuroscience of language in a world where so much depends on social communication.

Vikram Gadagkar, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute, will open the event by revealing what songbirds teach us about the brain’s remarkable ability to fine tune the vocal learning process. Karen Froud, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Education and Director of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, will then talk about how the human brain represents, processes and produces speech, especially in the context of developmental and acquired language disorders.

Following the two talks, Raphaël Millière, PhD, the 2020 Robert A. Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University, will moderate a discussion and Q&A with the speakers. Audience questions are welcomed, either submitted during registration or live during the event.

This talk is part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Brain Insight Lecture series, offered free to the public to enhance understanding of the biology of the mind and the complexity of human behavior. The lectures are hosted by Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.