Language Acquisition in the Brain and Algorithms: Towards Systematic Monitoring of the Evolution of Semantic Representations in Biological and Artificial Neural Networks

Speech depends on our ability to recursively combine successive words into a complex sense. Although the order of these putative operations (syntax) has been the subject of extensive examination in the way in which the human brain learns to perform a "Semantic composition" remains largely unknown. The Rothschild Hospital houses a unit specializing in drug-resistant epilepsy in children from 2 to 20 years old. The identification of the epileptogenic zone often requires making an iEEG recording for a week (implantation of intracerebral electrodes in depth). Sometimes this recording has to be repeated, providing a unique opportunity to directly record brain activity at different periods of its development. Children will listen to pre-recorded phrases and stories such as "The Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry" while being recorded with iEEG.