The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

: ''Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik''; Dutch: ''Max Planck Instituut voor Psycholinguïstiek'') is a

research institute A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural ...

located on the campus of

Radboud University Nijmegen Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, , formerly ) is a public university, public research university located in Nijmegen, Netherlands. RU has seven faculties and more than 24,000 students. Established in 1923, Radboud University has consistentl ...

Nijmegen Nijmegen ( , ; Nijmeegs: ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and the ninth largest of the Netherlands as a whole. Located on the Waal River close to the German border, Nijmegen is one of the oldest cities in the ...

Gelderland Gelderland ( , ), also known as Guelders ( ) in English, is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands, located in the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Nethe ...

the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The institute was founded in 1980 by Dutch psycholinguist Pim Levelt and is dedicated exclusively to

psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

. It is one of the few institutes of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

situated outside

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. According to the ranking of Web of World Research Centers, the institute ranks second amongst all

Max Planck Institutes The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

(MPI) in terms of visibility and eighth in terms of size.

Research

The institute specializes in

language comprehension Sentence processing takes place whenever a reader or listener processes a language utterance, either in isolation or in the context of a conversation or a text. Many studies of the human language comprehension process have focused on reading of ...

language production Language production is the production of spoken or written language. In psycholinguistics, it describes all of the stages between having a concept to express and translating that concept into linguistic forms. These stages have been described in ...

language acquisition Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and s ...

, language and

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...

, and the relation between language and

cognition Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

. Its mission is to undertake basic research into the psychological, social, and biological foundations of language. The goal is to understand how human minds and brains process language, how language interacts with other aspects of mind, and how to learn languages of quite different types. The MPI for Psycholinguistics is a globally recognized center of linguistics and presents with its international archive of

endangered languages An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...

a significant contribution to the preservation of the common heritage of mankind. Offering about 50 projects on the Internet, the archive has been sponsored since 2000 by the

Volkswagen Foundation The Volkswagen Foundation (German: ''VolkswagenStiftung'') is the largest German private nonprofit organization involved in the promotion and support of academic research. It is not affiliated to the present company, the Volkswagen Group. It wa ...

Current departments

The MPI for

Psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

has four primary organizational units besides research groups: Language and Genetics,

Language Development Language development in humans is a process which starts early in life. Infants start without knowing a language, yet by 10 months, babies can distinguish speech sounds and engage in babbling. Some research has shown that the earliest learning b ...

, Neurobiology of Language, and Psychology of Language.

Language and Genetics

Established in October 2010, the language and genetics department is headed by Simon E. Fisher. The department takes advantage of the latest innovations in molecular methods to discover how the human genome helps to build a language-ready brain. It aims to uncover the DNA variations, which ultimately affect different facets of human communicative abilities, not only in children with language-related disorders but also in the general population. Its work attempts to bridge the gaps between genes, brains, speech, and language, by integrating molecular findings with data from other levels of analysis, including

cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living an ...

experimental psychology Experimental psychology is the work done by those who apply Experiment, experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ Research participant, human participants and Animal testing, anim ...

, and

neuroimaging Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the neuroanatomy, structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive ...

. In addition, it hopes to trace the evolutionary history and worldwide diversity of key genes, which may shed new light on language origins.

Language Development

The original Language Acquisition Department (1980-2015) investigated processes of language acquisition and use. The department combined attention to both first and second languages, researching production as well as comprehension of speakers of different ages and cultures, and the developmental relationship between language and cognition. The focus was on morpho-syntax, semantics, and discourse structure. Headed by Wolfgang Klein, Language Acquisition previously launched three institute projects: Information Structure in Language Acquisition, Categories in Language and Cognition, and

Multimodal Interaction Multimodal interaction provides the user with multiple modes of interacting with a system. A multimodal interface provides several distinct tools for input and output of data. Multimodal human-computer interaction involves natural communicati ...

Clive Perdue Clive is a name. People and fictional characters with the name include: People Given name * Clive Allen (born 1961), English football player * Clive Anderson (born 1952), British television, radio presenter, comedy writer and former barrister * ...

was the scientific coordinator of the program ''Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants'', whose results, published in the early 1990s, proposed that

second language acquisition Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning—otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process of learning a language other than one's native language (L1). SLA research examines how learners ...

proceeds along three stages: ''pre-basic'' variety (or ''nominal utterance organisation''), ''basic variety'' (or ''infinite utterance organisation''), and ''post-basic variety'' (or ''finite utterance organisation''). The Language Acquisition Department returned in 2016 as the Language Development Department, headed by

Caroline F. Rowland Caroline F. Rowland (born 1971) is a British psychologist known for her work on child first language development, grammar acquisition, and the role of environment in child's language growth. Since 2016, she has been the Director of the Language ...

Neurobiology of Language

The Neurobiology of Language Department, headed by Peter Hagoort, focuses on the study of language production, language comprehension, and language acquisition from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. This includes using

, behavioral, and

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

techniques to investigate the language system and its neural underpinnings. Research facilities at the MPI include a high-density

electroencephalography Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignal, bio signals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in ...

(EEG) lab, a virtual reality laboratory, and several behavioral laboratories. Having a part of the department stationed at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, it has access to a whole-head 275-channel MEG system,

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and rad ...

scanners at 1.5, 3 and 7 Tesla, a TMS lab, and several additional EEG laboratories.

Psychology of Language

The Psychology of Language Department, headed by Antje S. Meyer, identifies characteristics of the cognitive system that determine behavior in a broad range of linguistic tasks and the relationships between language production, comprehension, and learning via speaking, listening, and cognition. The department also studies variability in adult language production and comprehension. Using various approaches, the Psychology of Language utilizes a combination of experimental and correlational work and inclusion of diverse samples of participants. With such methods, it has close links to the Language and Genetics and Neurobiology of Language departments.

Former Departments

Language and Cognition

The Language and Cognition Department (1994-2017), headed by

Stephen C. Levinson Stephen C. Levinson FBA (born 6 December 1947)LEVINSON, Prof. Stephen Curtis< ...

, investigated the relationship between language, culture, and general cognition, making use of the natural laboratory of language variation. In this way, the research aimed to bring the perspective of

language diversity Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...

to a range of central problems in the language sciences. Languages were described (sometimes for the first time) based on field data. These field experiments helped to extend the

corpora Corpus (plural ''corpora'') is Latin for "body". It may refer to: Linguistics * Text corpus, in linguistics, a large and structured set of texts * Speech corpus, in linguistics, a large set of speech audio files * Corpus linguistics, a branch of ...

(a.k.a. ''digital archive'') of

natural language A natural language or ordinary language is a language that occurs naturally in a human community by a process of use, repetition, and change. It can take different forms, typically either a spoken language or a sign language. Natural languages ...

research. The department used a diversity of methods that spanned many area, including

linguistic description In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a speech community. François & Ponsonnet (2013). All aca ...

ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

, child development perspectives,

psycholinguistic Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

experimentation, conversation analysis, corpus statistics,

brain imaging Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incre ...

phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

, and linguistic data mining. The department's overarching research focus was on

typology A typology is a system of classification used to organize things according to similar or dissimilar characteristics. Groups of things within a typology are known as "types". Typologies are distinct from taxonomies in that they primarily address t ...

within interactional linguistics.

Language Comprehension

The Language Comprehension Department (1993-2013), headed by Anne Cutler, undertook empirical investigation and computational modeling of the understanding of

spoken language A spoken language is a form of communication produced through articulate sounds or, in some cases, through manual gestures, as opposed to written language. Oral or vocal languages are those produced using the vocal tract, whereas sign languages ar ...

. Until 2009, the work within the department was largely divided between two research projects: decoding continuous speech and phonological learning for speech perception; thereafter, most work was in the project called ''Mechanisms and Representations in Comprehending Speech''. This project focused on core theoretical issues in speech comprehension such as on how

episodic memories Episodic memory is the memory of everyday events (such as times, location geography, associated emotions, and other contextual information) that can be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred ...

(e.g., hearing someone speak in an unfamiliar dialect) influence the speech perception system, or how prior knowledge about one's language (phonotactic probabilities, lexical knowledge, frequent versus infrequent word combinations) is used during perception.

Independent Research Groups

Communication before Language

This MPI research group, headed by Daniel Haun, investigates the social and cognitive foundations of human communication in infancy, specifically focusing on infants' developing social cognition and social motivation in relation to their emerging prelinguistic communication within social and cultural contexts. Their work is motivated by the idea that there is a psychological basis of human communication that develops ontogenetically prior to language and can be first expressed in gestures.

Evolutionary Processes in Language and Culture

Started in 2009, the research group investigates language diversity and change as part of an integrated cultural evolutionary system. Headed by Michael Dunn, the group takes a modern evolutionary perspective, using computational tools from genetics and biology, and integrating probabilistic, quantified approaches to

with rigorous tests of different models of the interaction between elements of language, contact and geography, and cultural variation.

Syntax, Typology and Information Structure

The research group, headed by Robert D. Van Valin, Jr., tries to determine the role of

information structure In linguistics, information structure, also called information packaging, describes the way in which information is Formal semantics (natural language), formally packaged within a Sentence (linguistics), sentence.Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. ''Informati ...

in explaining cross-linguistic differences in grammatical systems out of the idea that the interaction of pragmatics and grammar happens on several levels and differs from language to language. Another major task of the group is to investigate and re-evaluate the status of the information structure primitives (topic, focus, contrast, etc.) as cross-linguistically valid categories. To achieve this, the members of the group combine extensive corpus analysis of the data in their respective languages with production experiments; all findings are further cross-checked through standard information structure tests (question-answer pairs, aboutness tests, association with focus-sensitive items).

References

External links

Homepage

DoBeS Documentation of endangered languages
{{Authority control Research institutes established in 1980 Organisations based in Gelderland Psycholinguistics