Abdellah Fourtassi

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

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...

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...

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

We're currently accepting paper submissions. We also warmly invite volunteers to join us as reviewers — come help shape and grow this new community!
Workshop link/CFP:
comp-dev-ling.github.io

CDL @ ACL 2026 aims to turn these emerging methods and questions into a real community around Computational Developmental Linguistics. If you study how models learn language, and what this reveals about human learning, we'd love to see you at CDL.

Now, with LLMs and deep learning, we have tools to study dynamics more directly; addressing "the logical problem of language learning," including the role of input and inductive biases—with surprising parallels (and gaps!) with human development (e.g., BabyLM challenge)

For decades, developmental linguistics flourished through interdisciplinary insights from linguistics, formal learning theory, psych/cog sci; gathering naturalistic data, developing experimental paradigms, and contrasting theories of acquisition

"Developmental Linguistics" has a long intellectual lineage: Already in the early 70s and 80s, scholars used this term to argue that linguistic analysis should be dynamic; understanding language means understanding how it develops, shaped by experience, biases, and interaction

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!

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.

The title page

🚨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...

Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics (CMCL) workshop will be co-located with LREC 2026 in Palma, Mallorca!🌴Stay tuned for more details!✨
@byungdoh.bsky.social Tatsuki Kuribayashi @grambelli.bsky.social Philipp Wicke, Jixing Li, Ryo Yoshida @cmclworkshop.bsky.social

Assistant Professor, Associate Professor or Full Professor of Cognitive Science - Vacancy at Aarhus University Vacancy at School of Communication and Culture - Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics, Dept. of, Aarhus University

CogSci in Aarhus is hiring, open rank (assi, asso or full prof).
We want somebody working on and teaching computational modelling of cognitive processes and/or social processes. Students are amazing, work/life balance very satisfactory, and colleagues are nice!

international.au.dk/about/profil...

A busy figure showing some time series and timing distributions movement versus speech

Team science (all shared authorship), pre-registered, diamond open access paper now accepted at Open Mind: "Foreign Language Learners Show a Kinematic Accent in Their Co-speech Hand Movements".

with Bosker, Marieke Hoetjes, Doenja Hustin, Lieke van Maastricht

www.wimpouw.com/files/POSTPR...

Beyond the Adult Mind: A Developmental Framework for Predictive Processing in Infancy In this paper, we argue that Predictive Processing cannot be a unifying account of cognition until it can explain infant development. We show why development is crucial for understanding human cognit...

New paper alert: Beyond the Adult Mind: A Developmental Framework for Predictive Processing in Infancy!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#PsychSciSky #DevPsyc #CogPsyc #neuroskyence

This is now out in Cerebral Cortex.

Open Access: academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...

@antoniahamilton.bsky.social @gabriellavigliocco.bsky.social Uzair Hakim @paola182.bsky.social Danny Thompkings @fdi55.bsky.social

🧠 NLP & Cognition – Next Meeting
The GDR TAL Working Group meets on Dec 12, 2025 at Campus Saint-Charles (Marseille).
Keynote by Yair Lakretz, panel + GT sessions in the afternoon.
📍 Frumam
🔗 Registration: lnkd.in/eFCgZvjs

#NLP #Cognition #CognitiveScience #AI #Language #Linguistics

New work from the lab! A full multimodal picture of caregivers behaviours supporting learning in the early years answering the question: what do caregivers say and do to support their children’s word learning?

📢 Announcing the First Workshop on Multilingual and Multicultural Evaluation (MME) at #EACL2026 🇲🇦

MME focuses on resources, metrics & methodologies for evaluating multilingual systems! multilingual-multicultural-evaluation.github.io

📅 Workshop Mar 24–29, 2026
🗓️ Submit by Dec 19, 2025

𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞? 🇨🇳🇮🇩🇸🇪

Here’s the proof! 𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐲𝐁𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐋𝐌 is the first Multilingual Benchmark of Developmentally Plausible Training Data available for 45 languages to the NLP community 🎉

arxiv.org/abs/2510.10159

Thrilled to be heading to Suzhou with a big team of GroNLP'ers 🐮

Interested in Interpretable, Cognitively inspired, Low-resource LMs? Don't miss our posters & talks #EMNLP2025!

To model human linguistic prediction, make LLMs less superhuman When people listen to or read a sentence, they actively make predictions about upcoming words: words that are less predictable are generally read more slowly than predictable ones. The success of larg...

Another banger from @tallinzen.bsky.social .

Also fits with some of the criticisms of Centaur and my faculty-based approach generally; if you want LLMs to model human cognition, give them more architecture akin to human faculty psychology like long and short-term memory.

arxiv.org/abs/2510.05141

Abstract painting of two people gesturing

"A compelling and thought-provoking analysis of human sociality and the origins of language."

The Interaction Engine by Stephen C. Levinson (@mpi-nl.bsky.social), Out Now & #OpenAccess

https://cup.org/4nusznG

#OA #Linguistics #LangSky 🐦🐦

Super proud of this work and very grateful for all the amazing people who provided valuable feedback along the way @remivantrijp.bsky.social @sheinalew.bsky.social @cedricboeckx.bsky.social @inbalarnon.bsky.social ❤️❤️❤️🙏