PolyU Research Finds Improving AI Large Language Models Helps Better Align with Human Brain Activity

With generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) transforming the social interaction landscape in recent years, large language models (LLMs), which use deep-learning algorithms to train GenAI platforms to process language, have been put in the spotlight. A recent study by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) found that LLMs perform more like the human brain when being trained in more similar ways as humans process language, which has brought important insights to brain studies and the development of AI models. Current large language models (LLMs) mostly rely on a single type of pretraining - contextual word prediction. This simple learning strategy has achieved surprising success when combined with massive training data and model parameters, as shown by popular LLMs such as ChatGPT. Recent studies also suggest that word prediction in LLMs can serve as a plausible model for how humans process language. However, humans do not simply predict the next word but also integrate high-level information in natural language comprehension. A research team led by Prof. LI Ping, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Sin Wai Kin Foundation Professor in Humanities and Technology at PolyU, has investigated the next sentence prediction (NSP) task, which simulates one central process of discourse-level comprehension in the human brain to evaluate if a pair of sentences is coherent, into model pretraining and examined the correlation between the model’s data and brain activation. The study has been recently published in the academic journal Sciences Advances. The research team trained two models, one with NSP enhancement and the other without, both also learned word prediction. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected from people reading connected sentences or disconnected sentences. The research team examined how closely the patterns from each model matched up with the brain patterns from the fMRI brain data. It was clear that training with NSP provided benefits. The model with NSP matched human brain activity in multiple areas much better than the model trained only on word prediction. Its mechanism also nicely maps onto established neural models of human discourse comprehension. The results gave new insights into how our brains process full discourse such as conversations. For example, parts of the right side of the brain, not just the left, helped understand longer discourse. The model trained with NSP could also better predict how fast someone read - showing that simulating discourse comprehension through NSP helped AI understand humans better. Recent LLMs, including ChatGPT, have relied on vastly increasing the training data and model size to achieve better performance. Prof. LI Ping said, “There are limitations in just relying on such scaling. Advances should also be aimed at making the models more efficient, relying on less rather than more data. Our findings suggest that diverse learning tasks such as NSP can improve LLMs to be more human-like and potentially closer to human intelligence.” He added, “More importantly, the findings show how neurocognitive researchers can leverage LLMs to study higher-level language mechanisms of our brain. They also promote interaction and collaboration between researchers in the fields of AI and neurocognition, which will lead to future studies on AI-informed brain studies as well as brain-inspired AI.”

Research on Migrant Domestic Helpers’ Healthcare and Communication Challenges in Hong Kong Spotlighted in Local Newspaper

Research on the health and other structural issues faced by migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, conducted by Prof. Hans Ladegaard, Dr Jeffry Oktavianus and Dr Margo Turnbull of our Department of English and Communication is featured in a local newspaper. The researchers have interviewed more than 700 Filipino and Indonesian migrant domestic workers and surveyed more than 400 to investigate their life stories and well-being in Hong Kong, covering topics from narratives about their (traumatic) experiences, health literacy and healthcare needs to their communication networks. In view of the increasing number of workers driven by growing demand for domestic elderly care in Hong Kong, these studies aimed to highlight the significance of cultivating favourable conditions for workers. In light of the structural issues uncovered by the studies, a symposium, Migrant Worker Lives Matter, organised by ENGL in collaboration with two local migrant worker NGOs, PathFinders and Mission for Migrant Workers, will be held at the PolyU campus this Friday (24 May): Venue: Room N002, PolyU Main Campus Time: 24 May 2024, 2:00pm-6:15pm The event is free of charge and is open to public. Click HERE for the programme flyer and registration. Click HERE to read the full press release.

International Symposium on Language Sciences (ISLS) 2024 Successfully Held

The Faculty of Humanities, in collaboration with the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies and the Department of English and Communication, organised the International Symposium on Language Sciences (ISLS): Interdisciplinary Research and the Legacy of Yuen Ren Chao from 10 May to 11 May 2024. The Symposium attracted about 180 participants from 14 countries and regions, including Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macau, Mainland China, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the UK, and the USA. Renowned scholars (in alphabetical order of surname) Prof. Cui Xiliang (Beijing Language and Culture University), Prof. Luke Kang Kwong Kapathy (Nanyang Technological University), Prof. Sun Chaofen (Stanford University) and Prof. Ovid Jyh-Lang Tzeng (Academia Sinica) were invited as keynote speakers. The Symposium featured nearly 20 panels of parallel presentations and poster sessions, as well as six invited presentations covering a wide range of topics in language sciences. Paying tribute to the remarkable contributions of Prof. Yuen Ren Chao, there was also a session dedicated to discussing Prof. Chao’s contribution to linguistics and language sciences. The two 2024 Chao Prize Laureates, Prof. Peter Hagoort and Prof. William Shiyuan Wang gave their Chao Prize Lectures at the Symposium. The Symposium not only fostered the exploration of novel concepts and the sharing of research findings in the fields of linguistics and language sciences, but also inspired future generations of linguists and language science researchers to continue advancing these fields. Prior to the Symposium, a related Young Scholar Forum on Language Neuroscience was also held by the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies.

PolyU Presents Lifetime Achievement Award to Two Distinguished Scholars at the Inaugural Ceremony for the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences

The University is privileged to announce that Prof. Peter Hagoort, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, and Prof. William Shiyuan Wang, Chair Professor of Language and Cognitive Sciences of PolyU, are bestowed the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Inaugural Ceremony for the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences (Chao Prize). The Presentation Ceremony was held on 10 May 2024. The Chao Prize, initiated and hosted by the PolyU Faculty of Humanities, is named after the late Professor Yuen Ren Chao who is widely regarded as the father of modern Chinese language studies. It is an international award that honours scholars and researchers who have made distinguished contributions to language sciences. Addressing the Ceremony, Dr LAM Tai-fai, PolyU Council Chairman, said, “The Faculty of Humanities strives to follow the same interdisciplinary approach of Prof. Chao, by bringing together language, communication, history, culture and technology to advance understanding and foster innovation. PolyU fully supports this award, as it aligns with our motto ‘To learn and to apply, for the benefit of mankind’, by promoting excellence in language sciences research and its practical applications for the betterment of society. More broadly, this Prize represents our commitment to deepening cultural understanding for the benefit of the wider community.” On behalf of the University, Prof. LI Ping, Dean of the PolyU Faculty of Humanities, expressed gratitude to the Chao family for giving PolyU permission to establish the Prize in Prof. Chao name, and also to the Patron of the Prize, Shenzhen iRead Foundation, for its generous donation to support the Prize. Through the Chao Prize, the Faculty is poised to bring together renowned scholars in the field of language sciences from around the world and become a hub in language sciences research. While the iRead Foundation is dedicated to promoting children’s reading, Ms LI Wen, iRead Foundation Founder and Executive Board Chair, applauded the social value of the Chao Prize. She remarked, “Language serves as a vital tool for children to communicate, exchange ideas and acquire knowledge. By scientifically studying language, we can better understand how language development helps children’s mental and physical growth, as well as the patterns of language acquisition. This, in turn, enables us to provide children with better educational resources for reading and support them in cultivating good reading habits.” Both the Laureates are esteemed scholars of language sciences. Their research findings have brought major breakthroughs and far-reaching impacts to the field. Prof. Peter Hagoort receives the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences (Lifetime Achievement Award) for his distinguished contributions to the interdisciplinary studies in cognitive neuroscience and the understanding of human language processing in the brain. He applied neuroimaging techniques to investigate the language system and its impairments as in aphasia, dyslexia and autism. He is the Founding Director of the Donders Institute, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging and Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He is also an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Europaea, and the US National Academy of Sciences. Prof. Peter Hagoort is awarded the inaugural Chao Prize. In his acceptance speech, Prof. Hagoort said that it is all more rewarding to receive a prize named after an intellectual giant like Prof. Chao, who reminds us that language is not only an object of study, but also the way to create literature and humour, and thereby adding to the joy of life. Prof. William Shiyuan Wang receives the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences (Lifetime Achievement Award) for his distinguished contributions to the interdisciplinary studies in Chinese linguistics, evolutionary linguistics, and the cognitive neuroscience of language and ageing. His early interest in evolutionary theory, both biological and cultural, provided the basis of a theory of lexical diffusion. He is also Professor Emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley and an elected Academician of Academia Sinica. Prof. William Shiyuan Wang is awarded the inaugural Chao Prize. In his acceptance speech, Prof. Wang said that the Prize is based on the recognition of the vital and central role language plays in all human affairs, and that with Hong Kong sitting at the corssroads between East and West, PolyU is well situated for scholars to continually interact and collaborate with each other even across continents. For the biography of the two Laureates, please visit the website of the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences.

iRead Foundation Makes Donation to PolyU to Support the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences and to Advance Scientific Research in the Field

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has received generous funding from the Shenzhen iRead Foundation (iRead Foundation) to support the Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences (the Chao Prize) and to advance the development of language sciences.  Following the donation, PolyU and iRead Foundation will also explore opportunities to foster their academic and public engagement collaborations. Launched by the PolyU Faculty of Humanities last year, the Chao Prize comprises two awards, namely the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Early Career Contribution Award. The awards are presented biennially, starting from 2024, to senior and junior scholars who have made distinguished contributions to research and education in language sciences. iRead Foundation is committed to enhancing the development of the reading ability and quality in children. Recognising the aspiration of and the social value brought about by the Chao Prize, the Foundation has made a donation of US$800,000 to fund the cash prizes given to the Prize recipients for five consecutive prize cycles starting from the inaugural one in 2024. With this generous support, the Lifetime Achievement Award recipients will be awarded US$100,000, while the Early Career Contribution Award recipients will be awarded US$50,000. Ms Li Wen, iRead Foundation Founder and Executive Board Chair, hopes to advance scientific research on children’s reading and language development through the donation. She said, “Language is a significant tool for children to communicate and acquire knowledge. We believe the development of language sciences is crucial to the enhancement of children’s reading and writing. Through language research, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of how language development impacts children’s mental and physical growth, as well as their learning patterns. With this understanding, we can develop better reading resources for children and help them develop a positive lifelong reading habit.” Prof. Li Ping, Dean of the PolyU Faculty of Humanities, sincerely thanked iRead Foundation for their generous donation, which enables the University to increase the amounts awarded while also adding visibility to the Prize. He said, “PolyU truly appreciates the efforts of the Foundation to promote children’s reading and language abilities. We look forward to collaborating with them in fostering research and exchanges in the fields of language studies and reading development.” Through the Chao Prize, the Faculty is poised to bring together renowned scholars in the field of language sciences around the world, making itself a hub of language sciences research. The awardees of the inaugural Yuen Ren Chao Prize in Language Sciences have been announced and the Prize Presentation Ceremony, hosted by the PolyU Faculty of Humanities, will be held this month. For more information, please visit https://www.polyu.edu.hk/fh/chao-prize/.

DALS Gradute Won Best Journal Article Award from the Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics for a Paper Co-authored with Prof. Hu Guangwei

Dr Xuejun Ye, a graduate of our Doctor of Applied Language Sciences (DALS) programme, won the Best Journal Article Award from the Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics (HAAL). The award-winning article, entitled “Teachers’ stated beliefs and practices regarding L2 motivational strategies: A mixed-methods study of misalignment and contributing factors”, was co-authored with our Associate Dean Prof. Hu Guangwei and published in System, one of the top-tier journals in applied linguistics. The paper is based on Dr Ye’s DALS thesis and reports a study on the misalignments between secondary school English language teachers’ stated beliefs about language learning motivation strategies and their reported practices in the classroom, as well as factors contributing to such misalignments. The HAAL award presentation ceremony will be held on 16 May 2024. Click HERE to read the full journal article.

PolyU Confers University Fellowship on Mr Benedict Sin Nga-yan, Governor of Sin Wai Kin Foundation Limited

The University has conferred the title of University Fellow on Mr Benedict Sin Nga-yan together with two other outstanding individuals in recognition of their significant contributions to the University and community on 26 April 2024. Mr Sin has been a Court Member of PolyU since 2019, providing valuable advice and support for university development. As the Governor of Sin Wai Kin Foundation Limited, a charitable foundation founded by his late father Dr Sin Wai Kin, Mr Sin has been instrumental in fostering the establishment of the Endowed Professorship in Humanities and Technology in 2022, enabling PolyU scholars to explore and advance cutting-edge research for the betterment of mankind. The Foundation has generously supported PolyU’s education and research initiatives, including setting up the Sin Wai Kin Chinese Humanities Development Fund to promote the learning and research of Chinese culture, language, history and philosophy and funding for humanities and rehabilitation sciences research projects. Click HERE for details.

Six FH Nominees Awarded the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship 2024/25

Six FH nominees were offered the highly competitive Hong Kong PhD Fellowship to pursue PhD study at our departments, four at CBS and one each at CHC and ENGL. The Fellowship Scheme was established in 2009 by the Research Grants Council to support the best and brightest students around the world to pursue their PHD studies in Hong Kong universities. For further details about the Scheme, please visit https://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/rgc/funding_opport/hkpfs/. More about FH research areas https://www.polyu.edu.hk/fh/research/fh-researchers/.

Call for Nominations: Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2024

We are pleased to announce that the Faculty of Humanities(FH) is now calling for nominations for the Outstanding Alumni Award of PolyU Faculty of Humanities 2024. The award aims to give public recognition to FH graduates for their diverse accomplishments and contributions. Award Categories There are four award categories: Professional Achievement Entrepreneurial Achievement Scholarly Achievement Community Service Achievement Candidates who are aged under 40 by the end of the award year (i.e., 31 December 2024) can be considered for the Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Faculty awardees of the current year may be nominated for the Outstanding Alumni Award at the University level. Eligibility The nominated candidate must be a graduate of the Faculty of Humanities* who has successfully completed a full-time or part-time programme offered by PolyU (or its forerunners: Hong Kong Government Trade School, Hong Kong Technical College, and Hong Kong Polytechnic) which led to academic award accredited by the respective Institution. The Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award has three levels, namely Department, Faculty and University levels. The nominees for the Faculty Award should be recipients of the Departmental Alumni Award or graduates of the Faculty level programmes, such as Doctor of Applied Language Sciences and BA(Hons) in Language Studies for the Professions. The proposer can be PolyU graduates, Honorary Graduates, University Fellows, PolyU staff, current PolyU Council and Court members and current Advisory Committee members. There is no limit to the number of nominations to be submitted by each proposer. However, the proposer cannot be the candidate himself/ herself or a direct relative of the candidate. *including graduates from the former Faculty of Communication Nomination Deadline 13 May 2024 Award Details and Nomination Form Completed forms shall be sent to fh.events@polyu.edu.hk by the nomination deadline. Contact Us Email: fh.events@polyu.edu.hk Tel.: +852 3400 8212

CBS MATI Student and Lecturer Win Prizes at National English Reading and Writing Competitions

Our CBS MATI student, Mr Zhou Zhihao, won First Prize in the 2023 "Bilingual Chinese Stories" English Writing Competition (Group A) and Third Prize in the BETT National College Student English Reading Competition (Finals). Our Lecturer, Dr Li Wenjing, who served as the instructor for Zhihao, was also recognised with the “Excellent Instructor” award. Both the "Bilingual Chinese Stories" and the BETT series organise a number of national competitions for college students, including English reading, writing, and application and translation of foreign languages.