Pre-Workshop Lecture
*cancelled*
University of Catania
12th March 2025
Peter Hagoort
Professor Emeritus - Max Plank Institut
Windows into the language ready brain
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In the course of evolution homo sapiens has been equipped with a brain that enables communication through natural language. This complex language faculty has been cobbled together out of systems for processing sound, sequences and symbols. I will discuss the multitude of brain networks supporting our language skills. I will show the dynamics of language processing, and forms of neural plasticity to adapt to requirements of different languages. Finally, I will argue that for language and communication interaction with other cognitive systems is required.
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Professor Emeritus Peter Hagoort has been director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics since November 2006, and is the founding director of the Donders Institute, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (DCCN, 1999). In addition, he was professor in cognitive neuroscience at the Radboud University Nijmegen.
For his scientific contributions he has been showered with distinctions and awards, such as the Hendrik Mullerprijs in 2003, the Knighthood of the Dutch Lion in 2004, the NWO-Spinoza Prize in 2005, an honorary doctorate in science for his contributions to the cognitive neuroscience of language at de University of Glasgow (2007), the Heymans Prize in 2008, the Academy Professorship Prize (2012), the Distinguished Career Award (DCA) of the Society of the Neurobiology of Language in 2021, and the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences for his contributions to the interdisciplinary studies in cognitive neuroscience and the understanding of human language processing in the brain (2024).