Kim Wende, neuroscientist

Language is basis of human indiviuality, free thought
Research project: Causality & Free will
at Neural Institute UCl

experiments with eye-tracking
-> create something = overlap between arts & science
since 4 years neuroscientist
http://sites.uclouvain.be/arc/ ( http://causality-freewill.net )
Psychology first - interested in scizophrenia
-> hear voices, loose control over their thoughts
neural processes of causality might be at core of schizophrenia, also at the basis of language

found a way to prove causality & free will
wants to be part of EU policies
get rid of property as we know it, believes in ownership / different between digital and material ownership?
-> meaningful transfers of information -> financial transfers should be paid for/produced by machines vs knowledge produced by humans using computers (should be freely fluctuating)

<t-> reading poem

why causality/why language

hume: causality cement of the universe
joda: nature is everywhere, the force (of metaphors)
timothy crow, big bang theory of the origin of psychosis -> laterilisation doesn't work anymore in psychosis
information is transmitted asymmetrically in human brain - abstract & both hemispheres have to collaborate to produce understandable speech (lateralisation)
Heteromodal Cortex: http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-0-387-79948-3_738
generate new meaning: by talking
vs animals that produce sounds for its effect it has (animals produce sounds only for the effect that the sound has, but does not persist
beyond the moment of the sound being created - the sound cannot be stored in semantic memory)
we put biological energy/effort in word production - beyond sound effect, because we like to transmit abstract & meaningful sounds ie. communicate

Lateralisation
makes us subjective individuals
in order to be free, we must be individual

Question from audience: what are older brain structures ?
lizard/reptilian brain, inherit from predecessors & can influence it by using language during individual process & during evolution
handedness is not demonstrated to be in relation with language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity


Lots of ways to study language in neuroscience
-> MRI scanner, her way of working, people speaking out words while in MRI scanner, recording their voices
investigation of creative processes and retrival processes..
1 word on screen for 3 seconds
continuous single words, to be pronounced in 10 sec
+ associations with keyword
-> way to research 'reasons'  meaningful associations (causes light), vs sound-only relations (rhymes with light)

general activity of word production
-> lateral part very active (hearing & understanding)
-> semantic retrieval (production of words that have meaning) - broadcast area in fornt of cortex (more meaning, more effort, more activity), evokes concepts in the back; there they are stored (?)
all happening on left side = verbal side
vs schizophrenia: both hemispheres do the same thing + front & back part are disconnected (might cause hyperassociations)

cultural reference: scanner darkly -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405296/

Different types of meaning
how do we do this?
hypothesis: takes place within metacognition (processes of thinking about thinking)
-> are more abstract than normal semantic retrieval
-> retrieve meaning about relations = causality (if, then)
concept of causility in semantic memory is notion of meaningful relation (reasons)

only one part of left frontal cortex is more active with producing meaning than free association
independant from time -> think more to have reasons for something, less words produced, but more acitvity
semantic abstract information generated by putting more biological energy in this process, takes time (hypothesis)
we are causal agents when we do this 
german: 2 words for reflection processes: reflection (frontal parts) & elaboration (left front communicates with the back), needed and need to be integrated in sturcture of the brain (consciousness) (na-denken) (Nach-denken)

free will: we can produce new information, we do that independently from time
Albert Michotte: causality in perception (step before), we produce words + we have to know that it is us who produce them (what schizophrenia misses, but they add causality to it) 
relationship of perception and causality

libet, there is no free will..
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/libet_experiments.html

Same tasks over & over in order to be able to publish a lot (3 articles/year is not enough), not enough time to do new experiments

Donate your eyemovements! (call to participate in her research)
http://www.animation-station.com/eyes/images/eye0025.gif