Language occupies a central role in the cognitive sciences, either by its own, as a formal model for other computational and behavioral systems, or as an important mediating factor in a myriad of cognitive tasks. The typical scales of analysis of language phenomena range from the smallest resolution of neuroimaging techniques to the development of language over the lifespan of the individual. This has effectively neglected the study of how languages emerge and how they diversify through time, which unfold over centuries or even millennia and involve entire populations. In this presentation I will argue that the time is ripe for an integrative science centered on understanding how the cognitive, cultural and behavioral makeup of individuals aggregate at the social level to yield linguistic diversity. This incipient science brings to the cognitive sciences its own methodological repertoire (inspired on phylogenetics, ecology and the data science of complex observational datasets) as well as novel sources of empirical evidence borrowed from anthropology, human evolution and comparative linguistics. First I will lay out a research program buttressed on published research by me and others, and I will finalize by discussing the far reaching consequences of the lack of a linguistically diverse perspective not only in the cognitive sciences, but also in technology, medicine, education and AI.

Please use the following link to acces the seminar 

https://mit.zoom.us/j/93793685095