Carnegie Mellon's Tom Mitchell to Present "Neural Representations of Language Meaning"

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., September 3, 2014—Tom Mitchell, head of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University, will speak at Williams College on Thursday, September 18. He will present findings about how the human brain uses neural activity to create and represent meanings of words, sentences, and stories. The event will take place at 8 p.m. in the Wege Auditorium of the Thompson Chemistry Laboratory. It is free and open to the public.

In Mitchell’s research, people’s brains are scanned as they read text. “We have learned answers to questions such as Are the neural encodings of word meanings the same in your brain and mine? and Are neural encodings of word meanings built out of recognizable subcomponents, or are they different for each word?” Mitchell says.

His talk, which is part of the Class of 1960 Scholars Program lecture series, will summarize some of what he and his colleagues have learned and explore new questions they are currently attempting to answer.

“Mitchell is responsible for some of the most important and foundational work in machine learning and artificial intelligence,” says Andrea Danyluk, the Dennis A. Meenan ’54 Third Century Professor of Computer Science. “We’re thrilled that he will be at Williams to discuss his more recent research, which bridges the gap between artificial and human cognition.”

Mitchell is the E. Fredkin University Professor at Carnegie Mellon and a member of the university’s Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and a fellow and past president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

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For building locations on the Williams campus, please consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Communications (413) 597-4277. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/map

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Published September 3, 2014