郭桃梅老师课题组邀请了University of Rochester的Benjamin Zinszer博士到实验室做学术报告，欢迎感兴趣的老师和同学参加。以下为报告信息：
    时间：7月27日9:30am
    地点：英东楼422
    题目：Bilingual semantics: Two interacting codes for one world
    报告摘要：People around the world speak different languages, but these languages all serve the same purpose: Language encodes concepts represented in one person’s brain and, through this code, activates a similar representation in another person’s brain—that is, communication. Psycholinguists have known for many years that different languages do not divide the world into the same named categories. For example, some objects called 杯子 in Chinese are called cups in English, but many are not. These cross-language semantic differences pose an interesting problem: How do speakers of different languages represent the same world? And how do people who speak more than one language resolve differences between each language? 
    In this talk, I start with compelling new neural evidence for an old problem: Using multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) of fMRI data, I show how speakers share a common conceptual ground, even when they are using different languages. I use this common ground to achieve brain-based translation between speakers of Chinese and English. Next, I explore differences in language-specific semantic information and how this information affects the behavior and neural processes for object naming in monolinguals and bilinguals. I present new evidence that language-specific semantic variables are reflected in functional brain activity, and I use this information to measure online semantic competition in object naming for Chinese-English bilinguals. Taken together, these experiments illustrate how speakers of Chinese and English start with highly similar conceptual representations, learn very different language-specific semantic information, and finally handle these differences in bilingualism.
    报告人简介：Benjamin Zinszer is a postdoctoral researcher for the Raizada Lab in the University of Rochester’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. He completed his PhD in Psychology at Penn State University, studying cross-language interaction in Chinese-English bilinguals. His primary research interests are in semantic representation and bilingualism, using behavioral, functional MRI, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy methods.  He has previously conducted behavioral and neuroimaging research at Beijing Normal University through the U.S. National Science Foundation’s PIRE and EAPSI programs and maintains ongoing collaborations with colleagues in China.