From lip- to script-reading: new ANR contract awarded

The LPL is pleased to announce that the project "From lip- to script-reading: An integrative view of audio-visual associations in language processing" (AVA), submitted by Chotiga Pattamadilok, LPL researcher, was validated in the framework of the last ANR PRC selection.

Summary:
The early exposure to speech and speakers’ articulatory gestures is the basis of language acquisition and is a fingerprint of audiovisual association learning. Is this initial ability to associate speech sounds and visual inputs a precursor of infants’ reading ability? Answering this question requires a good understanding of the cognitive/neural bases of both language abilities and whether they interact within the language system. Studies comparing task performance and spatio-temporal dynamics of brain activity associated with these abilities will be conducted. At the theoretical level, the outcome should lead to an elaboration of a unified framework explaining how multi-modal inputs jointly contribute to form a coherent language representation. At the practical level, the new perspective of a link between the developmental trajectories of “lip-reading” and “script-reading” should contribute to language learning and facilitate early detection and remediation of reading deficits.

Partners:
Laboratoire Parole et Langage, Aix-Marseille Univ. (coordinator)
Laboratoire D'Etude des Mécanismes Cognitifs, Univ. Lyon 2
Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, Univ. Grenoble Alpes
SFR Santé Lyon-Est, Univ. Lyon 1

European project COBRA accepted!

We are pleased to announce that the COBRA (Conversational Brains) project has been accepted by the European Commission as part of the Marie Curie Innovative Training Networks program. COBRA brings together 14 partners in 10 countries (France, Great Britain, Italy, Slovakia, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Finland, Hong Kong), including 4 industrial partners. It will run for four years, starting in 2020.

COBRA is a continuation of the European MULTI project previously carried out by the LPL, and is closely linked to the ILCB Institute. It will contribute to developing research and advanced training in the field of brain-language relationships, in human-human and human-machine conversational interactions, and in a wide variety of languages. It will open wide perspectives for our students in cognitive science and language science, at doctoral level and on a European scale.

The overall budget is 4 million euros. The project was prepared with the support of Protisvalor. It is coordinated by Noël Nguyen.

Link: http://conversationalbrains.eu

In addition, a press release has just appeared on this subject in the last issue of AMU's letter:

 

Project ANR CoDyFLE accepted!

The LPL is pleased to announce that the project “Conversational Dynamics in multimodal computer-mediated communication for Foreign Language Education” (CoDyFLE) led by Marco Cappellini (LPL / AMU) as part of the ANR 2019 call “Networking European or International Scientists ”(MRSEI) was selected by the selection committee.

Among its partners, this project has the following institutions: Clermont University - Auvergne - Language Research Laboratory, Trinity College Dublin, Università del Salento, Groningen University, Universidad Autonoma Madrid, Universitad Oberta de Catalunya, Open University, Polytechnic University Hong Kong, Arizona State University, Ayni, 7-Speaking.

LPL members: Marco Cappellini (project leader), Christelle Combe, Marion Tellier and Brigitte Bigi

PHC Aurora 2019 project accepted

The Parole and Language Laboratory is pleased to announce that the research project proposed by Laurent Prévot (LPL) and Pierre Lison (Norwegian Computing Center) as part of the call PHC AURORA 2019 has been selected by the selection committee.
This project, which focuses mainly on the themes “dialogue systems, large conversational corpus, TAL for the conversation” also counts among its members Philippe Blache (LPL) and Magalie Ochs (LIS).