Download CV

Enes Avcu
Ph.D.

Neuroscientist

Psycholinguist

Teacher and Mentor

Hello! I am a linguist specializing in the cognitive neuroscience of language. My research program is focused on understanding the neural correlates of phonological computations that give rise to the complexities underlying human languages. I love to talk with you further about my research.

Contact Me

News

Latest News

I will be giving a talk titled "Task-Optimized Deep Learning Models Reveal Computational Pressures for the Specialization of Lexical Representation" at the 63rd Psychonomic Society meeting, which will be held  on November 17–20, 2022, at the Boston Sheraton Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Here is the link for the conference program.

I will be giving a talk titled "A Tale of Two Lexica: Investigating Computational Pressures on Word Representation with Deep Neural Networks" at the 12th Mental Lexicon conference, which will be held in person beginning on the evening of October 11 and concluding in the afternoon of October 14, 2022, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. Here is the link for the conference program.

I have presented two posters at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language October 6-8, Loews Hotel, Philadelphia. Click below for the links:

  • Lexical Mediation of Reduplication Effects in Arabic Speakers: Implications for
    Associationist Accounts of Word Formation [POSTER]
  • Computational Pressures behind the Development of Parallel Dorsal and Ventral Stream Lexica [POSTER]

Here are the other two posters from our group:

  • From Sounds to Words: Evidence for Lexical Representations Distinct from Nonwords [POSTER]
  • Causal Representation of Abstract Phonological Properties in Temporal Cortex [POSTER]

About Me

My story

I am a postdoctoral research associate at the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) / Harvard Medical School (HMS), where I work with my advisors David Gow and Seppo Ahlfors. My research program is firmly rooted in understanding the mechanisms and architectures that enable the human brain to integrate linguistic information at the phonological level. I use psycholinguistic methods,  multi-modal imaging (MEG/EEG, MRI for effective connectivity, and neural decoding), and computational modeling.

Prior to joining MGH/HMS, I was at the University of Delaware, where I got my Ph.D. in Linguistics with Arild Hestvik and Jeffrey Heinz. The main goal in my dissertation was to identify the phonological computations that give rise to the complex combinatorics underlying human languages by providing new knowledge about whether linguistic constraints that are learned in laboratory situations are directly “channeled” into incremental, real-time phonological predictive processing.

Before Delaware, I was at the Middle East Technical University where I got my M.Sc. in Cognitive Science working with Cem Bozsahin and Deniz Zeyrek.

When not doing science, I spend time with my son and daughter.

  • Degree: Ph.D. in Linguistics
  • Affiliation: MGH/HMS
  • Position: Postdoc
  • Address: Boston, MA, USA
  • E-mail: eavcu@mgh.harvard.edu
  • Phone: +1 617 768 8919

Publications

Journal Articles and Refereed Conference Proceedings
Avcu, E., Hwang, M., & Brown, K., & Gow, D. W. (2023).
Avcu, E., Newman, O., Ahlfors, S. P., & Gow, D. W. (2023).
Gow, D. W., Avcu, E., Schoenhaut, A., Sorensen, D., & Ahlfors, S. P. (2022).

Abstract representations in temporal cortex support generative linguistic processing. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 1-14. doi: 10.1080/23273798.2022.2157029

Avcu, E. & Rhodes, R. (2022).

Experimental linguistics: Bridging subregular linguistics and cognitive neuroscience, Theoretical Linguistics, vol. 48, no. 3-4. doi: 10.1515/tl-2022-2038.

Rhodes, R., Avcu, E., Han, C., Hestvik, A. (2022).

Auditory predictions are phonological when phonetic information is variable, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 1-16. doi: 10.1080/23273798.2022.2043395

Gow, D. W., Schoenhaut, A., Avcu, E., & Ahlfors, S. P. (2021).

Behavioral and neurodynamic effects of word learning on phonotactic repair, Frontiers in psychology, 12, 494. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.590155

Avcu, E. & Hestvik, A., (2020).

Unlearnable phonotactics, Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 5(1): 56. doi:10.5334/gjgl.892

Sorensen, D., Avcu, E., Lynch, S., Ahlfors, S. P., & Gow, D. W. (Under review with PBR).

Neural representation of phonological wordform in bilateral posterior temporal cortex.

Avcu, E., Rhodes, R. & Hestvik, A. (2019).

Neural Underpinnings of Phonotactic Rule Learning. In Katherine Hout, Anna Mai, Adam McCollum, Sharon Rose & Matt Zaslansky (eds.), Supplemental Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Meeting on Phonology. Washington, DC: Linguistic Society of America.

Avcu, E. (2018).

Experimental Investigation of the Subregular Hypothesis. In Proceedings of the 35th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, ed. Wm. G. Bennett et al., 77-86. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. www.lingref.com, document #3377.

Avcu, E., Shibata, C., Heinz, J. (2017).

Subregular Complexity and Deep Learning. In Proceedings of the Conference on Logic and Machine Learning in Natural Language (LaML), ed. Simon Dobnik and Shalom Lappin, volume 1, 20-34. Gothenburg, Sweden. CLASP Papers in Computational Linguistics. https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/54911.

Hohenberger A., Altan, A., Kaya, U., Tuncer, O.K., Avcu, E. (2016).

Sensitivity of Turkish infants to vowel harmony: Preference shift from familiarity to novelty. The Acquisition of Turkish in Childhood, pp.29-56. doi: 10.1075/tilar.20.02hon.

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

Working with

Education

Studied at

FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS

  • SNL Postdoctoral Abstract Merit Award
    100%
  • SPR
    Research Training Award
    100%
  • UD
    Dissertation Fellowship
    100%
  • UD
    100% Tuition Fellowship
    100%
  • TAF
    100% Tuition Fellowship
    100%
  • UD Professional Development Award
    Enter description
    90%
  • UD
    Graduate Travel Grant
    100%
  • UD
    Summer Research Grant
    Enter description
    100%
  • UD Summer Doctoral Fellowship Award
    100%

Language Skills

Reading and writing
  • English

    Fluent

    100%
  • Turkish

    Native

    100%

Techical Skills

Developing on
  • 100%
    GPS

    Using Granger Processing Stream to use effective connectivity and neural decoding

  • 90%
    Python

    Using python to run machine learning & statistical analysis

  • 90%
    R

    Using R to run statistical analysis

  • 80%
    Keras

    Using keras to run machine learning &computational modelling

  • 60%
    Matlab

    Using Matlab to run experiments and analyzing data

  • 65%
    Git

    Using git for version control

Contact

Let's talk

    Full name *

    Email address *

    Message *

    Enes Avcu
    Postdoc at MGH/HMS
    • Address: Boston, MA, USA
    • Phone: +1 617-768-8919
    • E-mail: eavcu@mgh.harvard.edu
    Enes Avcu