Our Research
Welcome to the Brain, Language, and Computation Lab at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University!
In our laboratory we conduct research to understand the neural and computational bases of language representation and learning. Our research specifically addresses the questions of neuroplasticity (e.g., how does language learning lead to experience-dependent brain changes?), individual differences (e.g., how does cognitive capacity impact learning success?), and knowledge representation (e.g., how does brain connectivity reflect knowledge and understanding?).
To achieve these goals, we rely on a variety of convergent behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging methodologies and technologies (e.g., cognitive testing, artificial neural network modeling, virtual reality, and functional magnetic resonance imaging).
Latest News
Jul 2025
Chanyuan Gu, Samuel A. Nastase, Zaid Zada & Ping Li published a paper ‘Reading comprehension in L1 and L2 readers: neurocomputational mechanisms revealed through large language models’ in npj Sci. Learn.
Jul 2025
Congratulations to Ms Peng Yingying, for her outstanding performance at the PolyU Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition held on 2 July 2025.
Jun 2025
Mingjun Zhai has been awarded GRF grant for the project titled “Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural differences in taxonomic and thematic systems” (Co-Investigators: Prof. Ping Li and Dr. Sam Nastase)
Jun 2025
The implications of the Nature Human Behaviour paper attracted much media attention, including Hong Kong Economic Journal, Yahoo news, Sina HK, Macau Business, Taiwan Business News, Viet Nam News, Tech Xplore, Mirage News, ScienMag, Newswise, Health Medicine Network, and others.
Jun 2025
Qihui Xu, Yingying Peng, Minghua Wu and Ping Li published a paper ‘Large language models without grounding recover non-sensorimotor but not sensorimotor features of human concepts’ in Nature Human Behaviour.
Apr 2025
The theoretical and practical implications of the ICLR2025 paper attracted media attention including BCI-Hub.
Feb 2025
Prof. Brian MacWhinney visiting BLC Lab
Read more about Feb 2025
Jan 2025
Kexin Huang, Ping Li and colleagues published a paper ‘Toward Generalizing Visual Brain Decoding to Unseen Subjects’ in International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR).
Read more about Jan 2025
Dec 2024
Prof. Li Ping, has been elected as a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society (CSS).
Read more about Dec 2024