Tag: Language

Like human brains, large language models reason about diverse data in a general way

While early language models could only process text, contemporary large language models now perform highly diverse tasks on different types of data. For instance, LLMs can understand many languages, generate computer code, solve math problems, or answer questions about images and audio.    MIT researchers probed the inner workings of LLMs to better understand how they […]

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Evelina Fedorenko receives Troland Award from National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recently announced that MIT Associate Professor Evelina Fedorenko will receive a 2025 Troland Research Award for her groundbreaking contributions toward understanding the language network in the human brain. The Troland Research Award is given annually to recognize unusual achievement by early-career researchers within the broad spectrum of experimental psychology. […]

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Global Languages program empowers student ambassadors

Angelina Wu has been taking Japanese classes at MIT since arriving as a first-year student. “I have had such a wonderful experience learning the language, getting to know my classmates, and interacting with the Japanese community at MIT,” says Wu, now a senior majoring in computer science and engineering. “It’s been an integral part of […]

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Personal interests can influence how children’s brains respond to language

A recent study from the McGovern Institute for Brain Research shows how interests can modulate language processing in children’s brains and paves the way for personalized brain research. The paper, which appears in Imaging Neuroscience, was conducted in the lab of MIT professor and McGovern Institute investigator John Gabrieli, and led by senior author Anila […]

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New autism research projects represent a broad range of approaches to achieving a shared goal

From studies of the connections between neurons to interactions between the nervous and immune systems to the complex ways in which people understand not just language, but also the unspoken nuances of conversation, new research projects at MIT supported by the Simons Center for the Social Brain are bringing a rich diversity of perspectives to […]

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Professor Emeritus James Harris, a scholar of Spanish language, dies at 92

James Wesley “Jim” Harris PhD ’67, professor emeritus of Spanish and linguistics, passed away on Nov. 10. He was 92. Harris attended the University of Georgia, the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He later earned a master’s degree in linguistics from Louisiana State University and a […]

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