Rethinking Language, Memory, and Cognition in the Age of AI

The Hong Kong Jockey Club University of Chicago Academic Complex | The University of Chicago Francis and Rose Yuen Campus in Hong Kong
168 Victoria Road, Mount Davis
Hong Kong

How do humans and intelligent systems process language, learn from experience, and generalize across contexts? This one-day interdisciplinary seminar, hosted by the University of Chicago Hong Kong Campus, brings together leading researchers and doctoral students to explore emerging questions at the intersection of cognitive science, education, linguistics, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. 

Organized by Dr. Wilma Bainbridge (University of Chicago) and Dr. Catherine Wing-Chee So (The Chinese University of Hong Kong), the seminar features invited talks by Dr. Urs Maurer (CUHK), Dr. Qihong Lu (CityU), Dr. Janet Hsiao (HKUST), and Dr. David Haslett (HKUST). Topics include predictive coding during reading, the role of episodic memory in learning structured knowledge, how large language and vision-language models align with human cognition, and the relationship between language technologies and linguistic diversity. Across these discussions, speakers will consider how models of language, memory, and cognition can be updated to better reflect real-world learning environments. The seminar will end with a collaborative idea hackathon among students designed to spark new interdisciplinary research directions. 

Speakers: 

• Wilma Bainbridge, The University of Chicago
• Catherine Wing-Chee So, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Urs Maurer, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Qihong Lu, City University of Hong Kong
• Janet Hsiao, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• David Haslett, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 

Seminar Schedule: