Human brain is one of the most complicated structures in
nature that has evolved through the method of self-organization (at least that
is what I believe). The unique cognitive abilities of humans like language,
reasoning and rational thinking, appreciation of art and music, etc. have set us
apart from other species on this planet. The structure and function of the
brain are among the least understood facets of nature, and it calls for a
holistic and multi-disciplinary investigation. It is a problem that is and has
been passionately pursued by philosophers, psychologists, linguists,
anthropologists, evolutionary biologists, mathematicians, AI-researchers and of
course, the neuro-scientists.
The objective of my research is to investigate and model
the human cognitive abilities and their evolution through computational and
AI-based techniques. Cognitive abilities can be divided into three broad
categories - intelligence, aesthetics and creativity.
Suppose you read a sonnet by Shakespeare, and you are asked the following
questions.
Do you understand the meaning of this sonnet? If
you say yes, you have used your intelligence along with the
knowledge of the English language and the world to understand it.
Do you like this sonnet? Whatever is the answer,
you are using a subjective model of liking - and this is what I call
aesthetic appreciation.
Can you add two more lines to this sonnet? And you
use your creative ability to do so.
Everything that we do or think involves a complex interaction
of all these three aspects, and often they cannot be separated out. For example,
when you add two lines to the sonnet, not only creativity, you are also
employing intelligence and your aesthetic sense for evaluation of your creation.
Nevertheless this basic decomposition can help us to study the properties of our
cognitive abilities better. A confluence of the three is what I think is
conscience. Whether spirituality forms a separate category or is just
a composition of the three aforementioned types, is something I am not sure of.
To explore the nature of human intelligence, its
evolution and limits I trying to model the evolution of natural languages,
their dynamic behavior (i.e. language change), and language acquisition,
because linguistic ability epitomizes human intelligence. This research
forms a part of my doctoral research. For further details on this
click
here.
As an application to the language related research, I am
also working towards language processing tools and techniques for Bengali
and Hindi.
Click
here for an overview of my NLP related research.
I have also done a little work on music cognition, which
includes both synthesis and analysis of musical compositions. I believe that
musical cognition can provide us with useful insights on human aesthetic and
creative abilities. For more about musical research,
click
here.