Olessia Jouravlev

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience @Carleton_U. Researching language in the brain. Pro-vaccine. Anti-war. Mom of twins :)

[Lex Fridman @lexfridman]

Here's my conversation with Edward Gibson (@LanguageMIT), a linguist and psychologist at MIT, heading the MIT Language Lab. We talk all about the human language: syntax, grammar, structure, theories of language, evolution of language, how it reflects culture, and of course LLMs, both their amazing power and their limitations.

It's here on X in full, and is up on YouTube, Spotify, and everywhere else. Links in comment.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:13 - Human language
5:19 - Generalizations in language
11:06 - Dependency grammar
21:05 - Morphology
29:40 - Evolution of languages
33:00 - Noam Chomsky
1:17:06 - Thinking and language
1:30:36 - LLMs
1:43:35 - Center embedding
2:10:02 - Learning a new language
2:13:54 - Nature vs nurture
2:20:30 - Culture and language
2:34:58 - Universal language
2:39:21 - Language translation
2:42:36 - Animal communication

[Bob Rae @BobRae48]

Five years I was visiting the Rohingya refugee camp in #CoxsBazar - someone whispered to me “Tell them we’re human”. Jews and Palestinians, Russians and Ukrainians, we are all human. It is right to be outraged by acts of brutality and evil. But it is never right to demonize and hate an entire people. All of us need hope. Hate kills people. We cannot let it kill hope. And yes, emotions like hate and anger make it harder to think clearly and consequentially. Less impulse and rage are what we need now.

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

@PhTaheri Disagree! Some of the best educators that I have met were all world-renowned researchers. e.g., Every class taught by @Nancy_Kanwisher is a masterpiece. https://t.co/V4HF1kYyL7

[Saima Malik-Moraleda @saima_mm]

Have you ever met someone who speaks 5+ (sometimes several dozen!) languages and wondered how all these languages coexist in their brain?

In @ev_fedorenko’s lab, we've studied the brains of this unique population. Here’s what we found.

Pre-print: https://t.co/ljtug3gxoW
🧵Below

[Dr Charlotte Houldcroft @DrCJ_Houldcroft]

My favourite study of "how often does a family with small children get a respiratory infection?" is this one, from the USA:
https://t.co/fepEzs4A6Q
Children <5y have one of 16 common respiratory viruses detected in a nasal swab 50% of the year!

[Jennifer Hu @_jennhu]

New paper with Sammy Floyd, @OlessiaJour, @ev_fedorenko, @LanguageMIT! Non-literal language understanding is an essential part of communication. But what is the role of mentalizing vs. language statistics in pragmatics? & how well do NLP models capture human prag behaviors? 🧵1/6

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

@gearoidmm @JuliaDavisNews He meant Khatyn massacre (done by Germans during WW2).

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

@coryshain Fellow twin parent here also fascinated by the way kids develop their language :) Here is how the phrase "I show you" developed in my family. -Marie/Sofie showme. -Marie/Sofie showme you. -I showme you. -I show you.

[Steve Stewart-Williams @SteveStuWill]

One of my all-time favourites. Stare at the red dot on the woman's nose for 30 seconds, then look at an empty wall while blinking quickly. Promise it's worth it... https://t.co/jsmr9VtTjj

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

@DavidMSidhu @janderz @SumbulSyed2 Congratulations! Due to the pandemic craziness, I was not even aware that there was a job serch at Psych Department. Thrilled that another psycholinguist is joining Carleton. I am a fan of your work :)

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

@janderz @CHEO So sorry to hear this, John :( I hope he gets well as soon as possible.

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

@janderz @NSERC_CRSNG @carletoncogsci @CU_FASS Yay! Amazing news! Congratulations, John!

[Anonymous @LatestAnonPress]

Putin is a small man with Napoleon complex, increasingly isolated. The Russian state speaks only in Orwellian doublespeak. This will be the beginning of the end for Putin.

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

@Chusito1917 @dpfunke @USATODAY Yes, it is a family from Donbas being separated during evacuation of women and children to Russia a few days ago. But it still shows how much pain this war inflicts to ordinary people.

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

@UkraineNews0 @sendvidbot

[Quark 🇺🇦 @UkraineNews0]

🇺🇦 That’s how a father in Ukraine sent his family to the safe zone and said goodbye to the camera.
https://t.co/hI2P30WAAZ

[Anton Troianovski @antontroian]

Zelensky addressing the Russian people in Russian now:
“Today I initiated a phone call with the president of the Russian Federation. The result was silence, though the silence should be in the Donbas. As a result I want to address all citizens of Russia…

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

The goal of this imperialistic feat is to distract attention of ordinary Russians from real problems - inflation, economic stagnation, and violation of rights and freedoms. This is not going to end well...

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

I am appalled by actions of the Kremlin toward a sovereign country of Ukraine. It shows once again that Putin is completely detached from reality, leading Russia to chaos, economic downfall, and international isolation :(

[Olessia Jouravlev @OlessiaJour]

Most Russians are brainwashed by state propaganda. They believe that the "peacekeepers" are sent to Donbas to save "our" people. There are millions of "our" people inside of Russia barely surviving and waiting to be saved by the government.