Hope Kean retweeted
McGovern neuroscientists have discovered that you don't need language to think logically. People with severe language impairments solve complex reasoning puzzles perfectly and brain scans show language areas remain silent during logical reasoning.
mcgovern.mit.edu/2026/07/06/…
Now out in PNAS! 🥳 pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.25…
Is the Language of Thought == Language? A Thread 🧵
New Preprint (link: tinyurl.com/LangLOT) with @alexanderdfung, @ParisJaggers, Jason Chen, Josh Rule, @BennYael, @MITCoCoSci, @spiantado, Rosemary Varley, @ev_fedorenko
1/8
Hope Kean retweeted
The @PNASNews paper led by @ev_fedorenko + @HopeKean is out today: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.25…
@mitbrainandcog @ScienceMIT
Hope Kean retweeted
Does logical reasoning require language? According to new research from @ev_fedorenko, @HopeKean, and collaborating neuroscientists, study participants were able to solve various complex logic games and puzzles without language, showing that: no, language is not necessary. ⬇️
Hope Kean retweeted
The special issue celebrating John Duncan's retirement is now out! Check out all the gem articles here:
sciencedirect.com/special-is…
and the editorial (see next figure in the thread for an entertaining analysis)
doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsych…
Hope Kean retweeted
Humans largely learn language through speech. In contrast, most LLMs learn from pre-tokenized text. In our #Interspeech2025 paper, we introduce AuriStream: a simple, causal model that learns phoneme, word & semantic information from speech.
Poster P6, Aug 19 at 13:30, Foyer 2.2!
Is the Language of Thought == Language? A Thread 🧵
New Preprint (link: tinyurl.com/LangLOT) with @alexanderdfung, @ParisJaggers, Jason Chen, Josh Rule, @BennYael, @MITCoCoSci, @spiantado, Rosemary Varley, @ev_fedorenko
1/8
Now published in Neuropsychologia in the special issue in honor of John Duncan! 🎉 authors.elsevier.com/c/1l0HB…
New paper with @alexanderdfung, @PramodRT9 , @jessica__chomik , @Nancy_Kanwisher, @ev_fedorenko on the representations that underlie our intuitive physical reasoning about the world. Thread 🧵about our new preprint 📄✨linked here: tinyurl.com/intphyslang 1/10
New paper with @alexanderdfung, @PramodRT9 , @jessica__chomik , @Nancy_Kanwisher, @ev_fedorenko on the representations that underlie our intuitive physical reasoning about the world. Thread 🧵about our new preprint 📄✨linked here: tinyurl.com/intphyslang 1/10
🌟To conclude: neither linguistic nor domain-general abstract representations (in the MD system) underlie intuitive physical reasoning! The physical-reasoning system therefore appears to be another specialized reasoning system, akin to the Theory of Mind Sys (@rebecca_saxe)! 9/10