Project acronym BLENDS
Project Between Direct and Indirect Discourse: Shifting Perspective in Blended Discourse
Researcher (PI) Emar Maier
Host Institution (HI) RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary A fundamental feature of language is that it allows us to reproduce what others have said. It is traditionally assumed that there
are two ways of doing this: direct discourse, where you preserve the original speech act verbatim, and indirect discourse,
where you paraphrase it in your own words. In accordance with this dichotomy, linguists have posited a number of universal
characteristics to distinguish the two modes. At the same time, we are seeing more and more examples that seem to fall
somewhere in between. I reject the direct indirect distinction and replace it with a new paradigm of blended discourse.
Combining insights from philosophy and linguistics, my framework has only one kind of speech reporting, in which a speaker
always attempts to convey the content of the reported words from her own perspective, but can quote certain parts verbatim,
thereby effectively switching to the reported perspective.
To explain why some languages are shiftier than others, I hypothesize that a greater distance from face-to-face
communication, with the possibility of extra- and paralinguistic perspective marking, necessitated the introduction of
an artificial direct indirect separation. I test this hypothesis by investigating languages that are closely tied to direct
communication: Dutch child language, as recent studies hint at a very late acquisition of the direct indirect distinction; Dutch
Sign Language, which has a special role shift marker that bears a striking resemblance to the quotational shift of blended
discourse; and Ancient Greek, where philologists have long been observing perspective shifts.
In sum, my research combines a new philosophical insight on the nature of reported speech with formal semantic rigor and
linguistic data from child language experiments, native signers, and Greek philology.
Summary
A fundamental feature of language is that it allows us to reproduce what others have said. It is traditionally assumed that there
are two ways of doing this: direct discourse, where you preserve the original speech act verbatim, and indirect discourse,
where you paraphrase it in your own words. In accordance with this dichotomy, linguists have posited a number of universal
characteristics to distinguish the two modes. At the same time, we are seeing more and more examples that seem to fall
somewhere in between. I reject the direct indirect distinction and replace it with a new paradigm of blended discourse.
Combining insights from philosophy and linguistics, my framework has only one kind of speech reporting, in which a speaker
always attempts to convey the content of the reported words from her own perspective, but can quote certain parts verbatim,
thereby effectively switching to the reported perspective.
To explain why some languages are shiftier than others, I hypothesize that a greater distance from face-to-face
communication, with the possibility of extra- and paralinguistic perspective marking, necessitated the introduction of
an artificial direct indirect separation. I test this hypothesis by investigating languages that are closely tied to direct
communication: Dutch child language, as recent studies hint at a very late acquisition of the direct indirect distinction; Dutch
Sign Language, which has a special role shift marker that bears a striking resemblance to the quotational shift of blended
discourse; and Ancient Greek, where philologists have long been observing perspective shifts.
In sum, my research combines a new philosophical insight on the nature of reported speech with formal semantic rigor and
linguistic data from child language experiments, native signers, and Greek philology.
Max ERC Funding
677 254 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-03-01, End date: 2016-08-31
Project acronym BRAINBALANCE
Project Rebalancing the brain:
Guiding brain recovery after stroke
Researcher (PI) Alexander Thomas Sack
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT MAASTRICHT
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary Damage to parietal cortex after stroke causes patients to become unaware of large parts of their surroundings and body parts. This so-called spatial neglect is hypothesised to be brought about by a stroke-induced imbalance between the left and right hemisphere. Some patients experience a partial recovery of lost abilities, but the factors that drive this rebalancing are unknown. The research proposed here will overcome this bottleneck in our understanding of the brain recovery phenomenon, and develop therapeutic approaches that for the first time will control, steer and speed up brain rebalancing after stroke. To that goal, we introduce a revolutionary approach in which TMS, fMRI, and EEG are applied simultaneously in healthy human volunteers to artificially unbalance the brain, and then study and control processes of rebalancing. Because we are one of the few groups worldwide that has accomplished this methodology, and that has the expertise to fully analyse the data it will yield, we are in a unique position to deliver both fundamental insights into brain plasticity, and derived new therapies. In brief, we will use TMS to (i) mimic spatial neglect in healthy volunteers while simultaneously monitoring the underlying neural network effects using fMRI/EEG, and to (ii) determine which exact brain reorganisation leads to an optimal behavioral recovery after injury. Importantly, we will use cutting-edge fMRI pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms to predict which concrete TMS treatment will specifically support this optimal functional reorganisation in the unbalanced brain. Finally, we will directly translate these fundamental findings into clinical practise and apply novel TMS protocols to rebalance the brain in patients suffering from parietal stroke.
Summary
Damage to parietal cortex after stroke causes patients to become unaware of large parts of their surroundings and body parts. This so-called spatial neglect is hypothesised to be brought about by a stroke-induced imbalance between the left and right hemisphere. Some patients experience a partial recovery of lost abilities, but the factors that drive this rebalancing are unknown. The research proposed here will overcome this bottleneck in our understanding of the brain recovery phenomenon, and develop therapeutic approaches that for the first time will control, steer and speed up brain rebalancing after stroke. To that goal, we introduce a revolutionary approach in which TMS, fMRI, and EEG are applied simultaneously in healthy human volunteers to artificially unbalance the brain, and then study and control processes of rebalancing. Because we are one of the few groups worldwide that has accomplished this methodology, and that has the expertise to fully analyse the data it will yield, we are in a unique position to deliver both fundamental insights into brain plasticity, and derived new therapies. In brief, we will use TMS to (i) mimic spatial neglect in healthy volunteers while simultaneously monitoring the underlying neural network effects using fMRI/EEG, and to (ii) determine which exact brain reorganisation leads to an optimal behavioral recovery after injury. Importantly, we will use cutting-edge fMRI pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms to predict which concrete TMS treatment will specifically support this optimal functional reorganisation in the unbalanced brain. Finally, we will directly translate these fundamental findings into clinical practise and apply novel TMS protocols to rebalance the brain in patients suffering from parietal stroke.
Max ERC Funding
1 344 853 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-04-01, End date: 2016-03-31
Project acronym BRAINDEVELOPMENT
Project How brain development underlies advances in cognition and emotion in childhood and adolescence
Researcher (PI) Eveline Adriana Maria Crone
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary Thanks to the recent advances in mapping brain activation during task performance using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (i.e., studying the brain in action), it is now possible to study one of the oldest questions in psychology: how the development of neural circuitry underlies the development of cognition and emotion. The ‘Storm and Stress’ of adolescence, a period during which adolescents develop cognitively with great speed but are also risk-takers and sensitive to opinions of their peer group, has puzzled scientists for centuries. New technologies of brain mapping have the potential to shed new light on the mystery of adolescence. The approach proposed here concerns the investigation of brain regions which underlie developmental changes in cognitive, emotional and social-emotional functions over the course of child and adolescent development.
For this purpose I will measure functional brain development longitudinally across the age range 8-20 years by using a combined cross-sectional longitudinal design including 240 participants. Participants will take part in two testing sessions over a four-year-period in order to track the within-subject time courses of functional brain development for cognitive, emotional and social-emotional functions and to understand how these functions develop relative to each other in the same individuals, using multilevel models for change. The cross-sectional longitudinal assessment of cognitive, emotional and social-emotional functional brain development in relation to brain structure and hormone levels is unique in the international field and has the potential to provide new explanations for old questions. The application of brain mapping combined with multilevel models for change is original, and allows for the examination of developmental trajectories rather than age comparisons. An integrative mapping (i.e., combined with task performance and with biological markers) of functional brain development is important not only for theory development, but also for understanding how children learn new tasks and participate in a complex social world, and eventually to tailor educational programs to the needs of children.
Summary
Thanks to the recent advances in mapping brain activation during task performance using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (i.e., studying the brain in action), it is now possible to study one of the oldest questions in psychology: how the development of neural circuitry underlies the development of cognition and emotion. The ‘Storm and Stress’ of adolescence, a period during which adolescents develop cognitively with great speed but are also risk-takers and sensitive to opinions of their peer group, has puzzled scientists for centuries. New technologies of brain mapping have the potential to shed new light on the mystery of adolescence. The approach proposed here concerns the investigation of brain regions which underlie developmental changes in cognitive, emotional and social-emotional functions over the course of child and adolescent development.
For this purpose I will measure functional brain development longitudinally across the age range 8-20 years by using a combined cross-sectional longitudinal design including 240 participants. Participants will take part in two testing sessions over a four-year-period in order to track the within-subject time courses of functional brain development for cognitive, emotional and social-emotional functions and to understand how these functions develop relative to each other in the same individuals, using multilevel models for change. The cross-sectional longitudinal assessment of cognitive, emotional and social-emotional functional brain development in relation to brain structure and hormone levels is unique in the international field and has the potential to provide new explanations for old questions. The application of brain mapping combined with multilevel models for change is original, and allows for the examination of developmental trajectories rather than age comparisons. An integrative mapping (i.e., combined with task performance and with biological markers) of functional brain development is important not only for theory development, but also for understanding how children learn new tasks and participate in a complex social world, and eventually to tailor educational programs to the needs of children.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-02-01, End date: 2016-01-31
Project acronym COLUMNARCODECRACKING
Project Cracking the columnar-level code in the visual hierarchy: Ultra high-field functional MRI, neuro-cognitive modelling and high-resolution brain-computer interfaces
Researcher (PI) Rainer Goebel
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT MAASTRICHT
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2010-AdG_20100407
Summary "Recent developments of high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have advanced the level of functional detail to sub-millimetre spatial resolution. This is of critical importance because in the mammalian cortex, small functional cortical patches appear to constitute fundamental units of brain function. These functional units are often organized as ""cortical columns"" that contain clusters of neurons with similar functional preferences. The present project will investigate what ""features"" are coded by functional “columnar-level” units in the visual cortex, how represented entities can be decoded from distributed activity patterns, and how modelled intra- and inter-areal connections between feature representations enable neuro-cognitive computations. The research of this project strives towards a new level of insight in the functional organization of the human brain: Instead of describing observed fMRI activity at the level of specialized brain areas, the focus will be shifted towards the content coded within brain regions. The project investigates columnar-level coding in three cross-fertilising sub-projects. In the first sub-project, sophisticated experimental designs, ultra high-field fMRI and advanced data analyses will be combined to unravel columnar-level feature representations and the entities represented by distributed patterns at different levels of the visual hierarchy. In the second sub-project, a large-scale neural network model will be developed with the major goal to integrate measured columnar-level representations in a new theory of invariant object recognition and visual attention. In the third sub-project, high-resolution Brain Computer Interfaces (hr-BCIs) will be created that are based on information extracted from columnar-level representations. The hr-BCIs will implement highly content-specific neurofeedback tools for therapeutic treatment, and advanced communication devices for patients with severe motor impairments."
Summary
"Recent developments of high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have advanced the level of functional detail to sub-millimetre spatial resolution. This is of critical importance because in the mammalian cortex, small functional cortical patches appear to constitute fundamental units of brain function. These functional units are often organized as ""cortical columns"" that contain clusters of neurons with similar functional preferences. The present project will investigate what ""features"" are coded by functional “columnar-level” units in the visual cortex, how represented entities can be decoded from distributed activity patterns, and how modelled intra- and inter-areal connections between feature representations enable neuro-cognitive computations. The research of this project strives towards a new level of insight in the functional organization of the human brain: Instead of describing observed fMRI activity at the level of specialized brain areas, the focus will be shifted towards the content coded within brain regions. The project investigates columnar-level coding in three cross-fertilising sub-projects. In the first sub-project, sophisticated experimental designs, ultra high-field fMRI and advanced data analyses will be combined to unravel columnar-level feature representations and the entities represented by distributed patterns at different levels of the visual hierarchy. In the second sub-project, a large-scale neural network model will be developed with the major goal to integrate measured columnar-level representations in a new theory of invariant object recognition and visual attention. In the third sub-project, high-resolution Brain Computer Interfaces (hr-BCIs) will be created that are based on information extracted from columnar-level representations. The hr-BCIs will implement highly content-specific neurofeedback tools for therapeutic treatment, and advanced communication devices for patients with severe motor impairments."
Max ERC Funding
2 473 381 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-05-01, End date: 2016-04-30
Project acronym DIGITALBABY
Project The emergence of understanding from the combination of innate mechanisms and visual experience
Researcher (PI) Shimon Ullman
Host Institution (HI) WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2010-AdG_20100407
Summary The goal of this research initiative is to construct large-scale computational modeling of how knowledge of the world emerges from the combination of innate mechanisms and visual experience. The ultimate goal is a ‘digital baby’ model which, through perception and interaction with the world, develops on its own representations of complex concepts that allow it to understand the world around it, in terms of objects, object categories, events, agents, actions, goals, social interactions, etc. A wealth of empirical research in the cognitive sciences have studied how natural concepts in these domains are acquired spontaneously and efficiently from perceptual experience, but a major open challenge is an understating of the processes and computations involved by rigorous testable models.
To deal with this challenge we propose a novel methodology based on two components. The first, ‘computational Nativism’, is a computational theory of cognitively and biologically plausible innate structures , which guide the system along specific paths through its acquisition of knowledge, to continuously acquire meaningful concepts, which can be significant to the observer, but statistically inconspicuous in the sensory input. The second, ‘embedded interpretation’ is a new way of acquiring extended learning and interpretation processes. This is obtained by placing perceptual inference mechanisms within a broader perception-action loop, where the actions in the loop are not overt actions, but internal operation over internal representation. The results will provide new modeling and understanding of the age-old problem of how innate mechanisms and perception are combined in human cognition, and may lay foundation for a major research direction dealing with computational cognitive development.
Summary
The goal of this research initiative is to construct large-scale computational modeling of how knowledge of the world emerges from the combination of innate mechanisms and visual experience. The ultimate goal is a ‘digital baby’ model which, through perception and interaction with the world, develops on its own representations of complex concepts that allow it to understand the world around it, in terms of objects, object categories, events, agents, actions, goals, social interactions, etc. A wealth of empirical research in the cognitive sciences have studied how natural concepts in these domains are acquired spontaneously and efficiently from perceptual experience, but a major open challenge is an understating of the processes and computations involved by rigorous testable models.
To deal with this challenge we propose a novel methodology based on two components. The first, ‘computational Nativism’, is a computational theory of cognitively and biologically plausible innate structures , which guide the system along specific paths through its acquisition of knowledge, to continuously acquire meaningful concepts, which can be significant to the observer, but statistically inconspicuous in the sensory input. The second, ‘embedded interpretation’ is a new way of acquiring extended learning and interpretation processes. This is obtained by placing perceptual inference mechanisms within a broader perception-action loop, where the actions in the loop are not overt actions, but internal operation over internal representation. The results will provide new modeling and understanding of the age-old problem of how innate mechanisms and perception are combined in human cognition, and may lay foundation for a major research direction dealing with computational cognitive development.
Max ERC Funding
1 647 175 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-06-01, End date: 2016-05-31
Project acronym DIVIDNORM
Project Divided Metacognition: when epistemic norms conflict
Researcher (PI) Joëlle Proust
Host Institution (HI) ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2010-AdG_20100407
Summary The present project aims to provide a naturalistic account of epistemic norms, and of the associated epistemic awareness in children and adults from different cultures. Epistemics norms (ENs) such as intelligibility, relevance, truth, coherence and consensus are dimensions on which mental contents can be evaluated for their contribution to knowledge acquisition. Although EN sensitivity is central in education, little is known about 1) how to systematically analyze and inventory ENs, nor about 2) How and to what extent, children and adults from different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds recognize them in making epistemic decisions. Specialists in philosophy of mind, developmental and adult congitive science, along with field anthropology, will apply their methods to address these questions in an interdisciplinary spirit. A common methodological guideline will be to study EN sensitivity as embedded in self-evaluative judgments, and to focus on cases of conflict between various ENs, such as consensus versus truth. This research should reveal how EN sensitivity develops in European and Japanese children, what role is to be assigned, in norm dominance, to emotional interaction, epistemic or social deference, and how EN sensitivity is transferred, in similar tasks and contexts, from self to others and reciprocally.
Summary
The present project aims to provide a naturalistic account of epistemic norms, and of the associated epistemic awareness in children and adults from different cultures. Epistemics norms (ENs) such as intelligibility, relevance, truth, coherence and consensus are dimensions on which mental contents can be evaluated for their contribution to knowledge acquisition. Although EN sensitivity is central in education, little is known about 1) how to systematically analyze and inventory ENs, nor about 2) How and to what extent, children and adults from different cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds recognize them in making epistemic decisions. Specialists in philosophy of mind, developmental and adult congitive science, along with field anthropology, will apply their methods to address these questions in an interdisciplinary spirit. A common methodological guideline will be to study EN sensitivity as embedded in self-evaluative judgments, and to focus on cases of conflict between various ENs, such as consensus versus truth. This research should reveal how EN sensitivity develops in European and Japanese children, what role is to be assigned, in norm dominance, to emotional interaction, epistemic or social deference, and how EN sensitivity is transferred, in similar tasks and contexts, from self to others and reciprocally.
Max ERC Funding
2 360 136 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-07-01, End date: 2016-12-31
Project acronym DYNAMIND
Project A Dynamic View on Conscious and Unconscious Processes
Researcher (PI) Sid Kouider-Elouahed
Host Institution (HI) ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary "Distinguishing between conscious and unconscious processes is a fundamental issue for our understanding of the human mind. Most research on this topic has been limited to a static perspective, by studying static stimuli, by considering processing as a function of present information, and by focusing on a single, adult stage of development. Yet, both conscious and unconscious mental processes are intrinsically driven by dynamic properties. We will study these properties by relying on behavioral and brain imaging methods along three tracks:
1) Unconscious perception: Our visual system is, in real life, constantly receiving unconscious sequences of information that will generate dynamic and constantly updated processing streams. We will study these dynamic unconscious streams, thanks to Gaze-Contingent Substitution, a novel approach allowing for the presentation of subliminal videos and sequences of stimuli.
2) Conscious perception: Construction of a conscious percept does not only depend on present stimulation but also on interactions with prior knowledge. Relying on the Bayesian framework, we will study the mechanisms by which prior knowledge leads to the reconstruction of perceptual contents, by ""filling-in"" missing information during situations of partial awareness.
3) The maturation of consciousness: Using both psychophysical measures of visibility thresholds and high-density EEG, we will study the neural distinction between conscious and unconscious processes in pre-verbal infants, and whether consciousness develops through the maturation of posterior brain regions encoding sensory information, or rather anterior prefrontal regions related to attention and executive control.
The expected impact of the project will be 1) to evidence sequential and complex forms of subliminal influences 2) to specify the cognitive mechanisms leading to perceptual illusions 3) to provide new insights on the mystery of how consciousness develops in humans."
Summary
"Distinguishing between conscious and unconscious processes is a fundamental issue for our understanding of the human mind. Most research on this topic has been limited to a static perspective, by studying static stimuli, by considering processing as a function of present information, and by focusing on a single, adult stage of development. Yet, both conscious and unconscious mental processes are intrinsically driven by dynamic properties. We will study these properties by relying on behavioral and brain imaging methods along three tracks:
1) Unconscious perception: Our visual system is, in real life, constantly receiving unconscious sequences of information that will generate dynamic and constantly updated processing streams. We will study these dynamic unconscious streams, thanks to Gaze-Contingent Substitution, a novel approach allowing for the presentation of subliminal videos and sequences of stimuli.
2) Conscious perception: Construction of a conscious percept does not only depend on present stimulation but also on interactions with prior knowledge. Relying on the Bayesian framework, we will study the mechanisms by which prior knowledge leads to the reconstruction of perceptual contents, by ""filling-in"" missing information during situations of partial awareness.
3) The maturation of consciousness: Using both psychophysical measures of visibility thresholds and high-density EEG, we will study the neural distinction between conscious and unconscious processes in pre-verbal infants, and whether consciousness develops through the maturation of posterior brain regions encoding sensory information, or rather anterior prefrontal regions related to attention and executive control.
The expected impact of the project will be 1) to evidence sequential and complex forms of subliminal influences 2) to specify the cognitive mechanisms leading to perceptual illusions 3) to provide new insights on the mystery of how consciousness develops in humans."
Max ERC Funding
1 437 520 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-02-01, End date: 2016-01-31
Project acronym EARLYPOWERONTOLOGIES
Project Causal Structuralist Ontologies in Antiquity: Powers as the basic building block of the worlds of the ancients
Researcher (PI) Anna Marmodoro
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary The project aims to bring about a paradigm shift in our understanding of how the ancients conceived of the universe and its contents over a period of 9 centuries, 600 BC to 300 AD. The driving research hypothesis is that the sole elementary building blocks of nearly all ancient ontologies are powers, from which all there is in the universe is built. Powers are relational properties which are directed towards an end (e.g. the power to heat); thus a world of powers is structured in a web of causal relations. What is revolutionary about such a world is that there is only structure in it; hence, causal structuralist ontologies underlie object-metaphysics or process-metaphysics, and worlds of being and becoming, supplying structures from which objects and processes are derived. Yet such ontologies have never been investigated about ancient thought.
The project’s topic is new: ancient causal structuralism; the speciality is novel too, requiring targeted training of a team of post-doc researchers which will be provided by the applicant and collaborators. The innovativeness of the methodology consists in training ancient philosophy researchers to discern and identify formal aspects of ontologies at the very roots of human rationality – discerning how the ancients built everything out of power structures.
The paradigm shift will generate new knowledge and understanding about the ancient accounts of the world; provide a heuristic vantage point for redrafting the map of the intellectual influences between ancient thinkers; stimulate fruitful debate; and inspire new insights into ancient thought that are literally unthinkable at present. Cognate disciplines that will be affected by the paradigm shift are such as: history of physics; of mathematics; of theology; ancient anthropology.
Summary
The project aims to bring about a paradigm shift in our understanding of how the ancients conceived of the universe and its contents over a period of 9 centuries, 600 BC to 300 AD. The driving research hypothesis is that the sole elementary building blocks of nearly all ancient ontologies are powers, from which all there is in the universe is built. Powers are relational properties which are directed towards an end (e.g. the power to heat); thus a world of powers is structured in a web of causal relations. What is revolutionary about such a world is that there is only structure in it; hence, causal structuralist ontologies underlie object-metaphysics or process-metaphysics, and worlds of being and becoming, supplying structures from which objects and processes are derived. Yet such ontologies have never been investigated about ancient thought.
The project’s topic is new: ancient causal structuralism; the speciality is novel too, requiring targeted training of a team of post-doc researchers which will be provided by the applicant and collaborators. The innovativeness of the methodology consists in training ancient philosophy researchers to discern and identify formal aspects of ontologies at the very roots of human rationality – discerning how the ancients built everything out of power structures.
The paradigm shift will generate new knowledge and understanding about the ancient accounts of the world; provide a heuristic vantage point for redrafting the map of the intellectual influences between ancient thinkers; stimulate fruitful debate; and inspire new insights into ancient thought that are literally unthinkable at present. Cognate disciplines that will be affected by the paradigm shift are such as: history of physics; of mathematics; of theology; ancient anthropology.
Max ERC Funding
1 228 581 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-04-01, End date: 2016-03-31
Project acronym HUVAC
Project Neurophysiological and functional mechanisms of human voluntary action control
Researcher (PI) Florian Waszak
Host Institution (HI) CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary Humans carry out actions either in response to environmental demands, or independently of external input in order to achieve their goals. The first type of action may be referred to as stimulus-based or reactive, the latter kind may be referred to as intention-based or voluntary. Voluntary actions are an important component of our interaction with the environment and our social lives. Yet, research on human action has only relatively recently begun to try to understand the control of voluntary actions, focusing instead on action that is performed in response to a stimulus in the environment. The proposed project will pursue this attempt to elucidate the functional and neurophysiological underpinnings of voluntary actions along several axes (e.g., neural and functional mechanisms of voluntary action control, functional differences between voluntary and stimulus-based action control, mechanisms of action-effect learning). The project will approach these issues with the help of techniques coming from psychophysics (e.g., signal detection theory) and neurophysiology (EEG, fMRI), separately, and also in combination. Its aim is to shed light on yet unexplored issues in research on voluntary action control, such as its cortical mechanisms and time course, and to provide new methods for further sophisticated investigation.
Summary
Humans carry out actions either in response to environmental demands, or independently of external input in order to achieve their goals. The first type of action may be referred to as stimulus-based or reactive, the latter kind may be referred to as intention-based or voluntary. Voluntary actions are an important component of our interaction with the environment and our social lives. Yet, research on human action has only relatively recently begun to try to understand the control of voluntary actions, focusing instead on action that is performed in response to a stimulus in the environment. The proposed project will pursue this attempt to elucidate the functional and neurophysiological underpinnings of voluntary actions along several axes (e.g., neural and functional mechanisms of voluntary action control, functional differences between voluntary and stimulus-based action control, mechanisms of action-effect learning). The project will approach these issues with the help of techniques coming from psychophysics (e.g., signal detection theory) and neurophysiology (EEG, fMRI), separately, and also in combination. Its aim is to shed light on yet unexplored issues in research on voluntary action control, such as its cortical mechanisms and time course, and to provide new methods for further sophisticated investigation.
Max ERC Funding
1 466 160 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-03-01, End date: 2017-02-28
Project acronym INCPAR
Project Incomplete Parenthesis: Determining how and why secondary propositions can be elliptical or fragmented from a cross-linguistic and multifaceted theoretical perspective
Researcher (PI) Mark De Vries
Host Institution (HI) RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary This linguistic research aims to determine and theoretically explain the properties of incomplete parenthesis, in comparison to
regular ellipsis and fragments. Thereby, we will provide a systematic typology of (incomplete) parenthetical constructions and
amalgamated sentences based on grammatical features, taking into account the effects of syntax, information structure and
prosody. We also add a cross-linguistic perspective by comparing the inventory and behavior of parentheses in a number of
languages from different families, and we will collect the results in a specialized database that will be made publicly available
via an online application.
Summary
This linguistic research aims to determine and theoretically explain the properties of incomplete parenthesis, in comparison to
regular ellipsis and fragments. Thereby, we will provide a systematic typology of (incomplete) parenthetical constructions and
amalgamated sentences based on grammatical features, taking into account the effects of syntax, information structure and
prosody. We also add a cross-linguistic perspective by comparing the inventory and behavior of parentheses in a number of
languages from different families, and we will collect the results in a specialized database that will be made publicly available
via an online application.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 554 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-02-01, End date: 2016-01-31
