Let’s study learning trajectories in self-supervised speech models! 🔊 Do they reflect the hierarchical organization of spoken language? We have analyzed a lot of training checkpoints to find out 🌠 Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2604.02043 ⬇️

🎉 Happy to have presented my postdoctoral work in collab with Laurent Prévot & @fourtassi.bsky.social at #ESLP2026 ! 🧠 Can distributional input alone support the emergence of abstract relational knowledge? We explore this through computational models of child-directed speech. #NLPproc #cogsci

Had fun presenting our work (@gretagandolfi.bsky.social, @gabriellavigliocco.bsky.social, @fourtassi.bsky.social, Yan Gu) on multimodal coordination in early word learning w 3–4-year-old children and their caregivers today at Embodied and Situated Language Processing at Lancaster University. (1/4) 👇

We are excited to announce the second keynote of CoNLL 2026! Adele Goldberg (Princeton University) “Compositionality and creativity in natural language and LLMs” 📅 Saturday, July 4, 2026 🕘 09:00 📍 Room Harbor B #CoNLL2026 #NLP #Compositionality

My current position will be coming to a close at the end of 2026, so I’m beginning to explore next steps. I’m a postdoctoral researcher at UCL working at the intersection of language, cognition, and multimodal communication. 1/4 👇

Does verbal coordination help 3–4 year old children learn new words? In our new preprint (w/ @gabriellavigliocco.bsky.social, @gretagandolfi.bsky.social, @fourtassi.bsky.social, Yan Gu), we explored 20 predictors of word learning. One combination stood out. 👇 (1/4) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Are you an advanced PhD student looking for a reviewing experience? I’m looking for one emergency reviewer for one paper in ACL Rolling Review in the track "Linguistic Theories, Cognitive Modeling, and Psycholinguistics" --due before next Tuesday April 28th.

Call for a PhD position in Cognitively inspired natural language processing with Lisa Beinborn and me. Part of the new SPP "Robust Assessment & Safe Applicability of Language Modelling: Foundations for a New Field of Language Science & Technology” (LaSTing). huds.uni-goettingen.de/assets/Call_...

Applications open for the School on Analytical Connectionism 📅 August 17-28, 2026 🗺️ Chalmers University of Technology Gothenburg 📚 Topical focus: language acquisition ... with me, Michael Biehl, Paul Smolensky & many other incredible researchers 😊 www.analytical-connectionism.net/school/2026/

What if you could automatically transcribe children's speech sounds from their first babbles to full sentences? Screening for speech delays. Comparing how kids learn to talk across languages. Following how sounds evolve month by month. We're building toward this with BabAR🧵 (sound on 🔊)

Open PhD/Postdoc position (start: Oct 2026). Topic: AI/LLMs and child language/communicative/cognitive development. The exact project will be shaped with the candidate. Join our team @univ-amu.fr at the intersection of computer and cognitive science (& right next to the Calanques!). Send me your CV!

Deadline approaching (March 20), consider submitting! The process is flexible to accommodate different situations: - Hybrid presentation mode - Direct submission or via ARR - Non-archival option: present work that is (or will be) published elsewhere - Short (4 pages) or long (8 pages) papers

Abdellah Fourtassi@fourtassi.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Thrilled to announce the 1st Workshop on Computational Developmental Linguistics (CDL) at ACL 2026 🎉 A new venue at the intersection of development linguistics × modern NLP, spearheaded by @fredashi.bsky.social @marstin.bsky.social, and and outstanding team of colleagues! A thread 🧵

📢 PhD position in the NeuroAI of Language Why can LLMs predict brain activity so well? We're hiring a PhD student to find out -- AI interpretability meets neuroimaging Deadline March 20 Please RT 🙏 👇 mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-neuroai-language

My interview with the Photizo channel on how AI can help us understand language development! The interview is in French, but you can enable the auto-translated English subtitles at your own risk 🙂 www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ8h...

COMMENT L'IA AIDE À COMPRENDRE L'ACQUISITION DU LANGAGE CHEZ L'ENFANT (avec Abdellah Fourtassi)

YouTube video by Photizo on AI

youtube.com

*Preprint*: Pedagogy in the speech-gesture couplings of caregivers: Evidence from a corpus-based analysis by @marinewang.bsky.social, @eddonnellan.bsky.social and myself: doi.org/10.31234/osf...

📣📣📣Job alert Multimodal Language Department Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics MAX PLANCK RESEARCH GROUP LEADER POSITION (W2 BBESG) lnkd.in/eaq5MW9a

🚨 New Paper: How can AI help us understand child lang dev? If we train models on children’s environment, they can tell us if this environment support learning. E.g., models tested child linguistic input (Huebner et al.) and visual input (Vong et al.). What about Social Interaction? (a thread 🧵)

Excited to present this poster today (w/ @gabriellavigliocco.bsky.social, @gretagandolfi.bsky.social, @fourtassi.bsky.social, and Yan Gu) at the 3rd International Workshop on Naturalistic Experimentation of Child Development at Birkbeck, University of London. Check out the poster here: osf.io/876ab

A new theme issue of #PhilTransB examines the mechanisms of learning from social interaction. Read articles for free: buff.ly/K8v43YM

New Paper out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! Language learning as ontogenetic adaptation Marisa Casillas and I argue that language learning: 👪 is a by-product of social interaction ↘️ integrates a wealth of information sources 🌐 adapts to the cultural context www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

Language learning as ontogenetic adaptation

Language learning is a multi-threaded, multi-mechanism process. It is multi-threaded in that it emerges as a byproduct of addressing multiple goals while engaging in social interactions. It is multi-m...

cell.com

One more week to apply for the PhD position on curiosity in early development (B4) in my group!

RTG 2906 Curiosity@rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social · 8mo ago

📢Applications are open for the second cohort of our RTG! Learn more about the opportunities: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/open+posi... 🔔Join our info meeting on Dec 10, 1 p.m. CET. Register via: survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/34...

Thrilled to announce the 1st Workshop on Computational Developmental Linguistics (CDL) at ACL 2026 🎉 A new venue at the intersection of development linguistics × modern NLP, spearheaded by @fredashi.bsky.social @marstin.bsky.social, and and outstanding team of colleagues! A thread 🧵

New book! I have written a book, called Syntax: A cognitive approach, published by MIT Press. This is open access; MIT Press will post a link soon, but until then, the book is available on my website: tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...

It has been so so fun to think with some of my favorite scientists about what it means to understand!

Colton Casto@coltoncasto.bsky.social · 8mo ago

What does it mean to understand language? We argue that the brain’s core language system is limited, and that *deeply* understanding language requires EXPORTING info to other brain regions. w/ @neuranna.bsky.social @evfedorenko.bsky.social @nancykanwisher.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2511.19757 1/n🧵👇

New little home for the research program: www.tilburguniversity.edu/about/school...

🚨 #EnvisionBOX alert 🚨 We are pleased to announce a virtual EnvisionBox Community Meeting, designed to bring together researchers who work with computational tools for processing, annotation, and analysis of multimodal data available on the EnvisionBox platform (and beyond). #multimodality

Multiple job alerts! The @rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social at the @uni-goettingen.de and @primatenzentrum.bsky.social has 10 openings for PhD students! Join us now in Göttingen.

RTG 2906 Curiosity@rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social · 8mo ago

📢Applications are open for the second cohort of our RTG! Learn more about the opportunities: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/open+posi... 🔔Join our info meeting on Dec 10, 1 p.m. CET. Register via: survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/34...

🚨NEW PUBLICATION ALERT!🚨 The 'Design Features' of Language Revisited (w/ @mperlman.bsky.social @glupyan.bsky.social Koen de Reus & @limorraviv.bsky.social) Feature Review out now in #OpenAccess in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! #language #linguistics Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

🐒 New #Research featuring several ILCB researchers! A new annotated dataset of common marmoset vocalizations is now available, offering: • 253h of high-quality recordings • 800k+ audio files • 215k annotated calls • A trained classifier to support future research 🔗Link: hal.science/hal-05073707v1

📣 Very happy to announce a new BBS target article with Nick Chater in which we propose a new theory of cultural evolution, highlighting the importance of bottom-up social interaction in explaining the emergence of cultural complexity 🧵 1/8 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...