AI models are able to derive the rules of human language without being provided with explicit information about grammar and word classes. This is the conclusion reached by researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). Their experiment corroborates the theory of cognitive linguistics that states, in contrast to the theory of universal grammar, that we are not born with an inherent understanding of syntactical constructions, but that it is learned through using language. The results of the study have been published in the prestigious collective volume “Recent Advances in Deep Learning Applications: New Techniques and Practical Examples“.

Researchers at Göttingen Campus have succeeded for the first time in examining the tiny synapses in the inner ear — the points of contact between the hair cells and the auditory nerve cells — at the molecular level. They were able to show that ion channels and other synaptic proteins essential for hearing are organized in specific patterns. This arrangement ensures optimized transmission of auditory information to the brain. These findings could contribute to the development of therapies for hearing disorders with synaptic causes. The results have been published in the journal Science Advances.

Imagine chatting at a party and trying to listen to your friend telling you about her day while there are other people talking, laughing and celebrating at the same time – difficult, isn’t it? The challenge of listening to one speaker when several people speak at once is called the cocktail party problem. Researchers from the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Leipzig University in collaboration with colleagues from the Max-Planck-Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and Lübeck University investigated what happens in the brain when we try to focus on one talker while ignoring another one. In the new study, now published in the Journal of Neuroscience, they show that the processing of both the voice we attend to and the voice we ignore plays a key role in how well we understand speech.