I am a neuroscientist, linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, literary critic, and political economist. My research focuses on compositionality in formal systems, neural systems, and artificial systems (Wikipedia). I use the formal, algebraic properties of language to help narrow the space of candidate neural mechanisms for how language is biologically implemented. Currently I work as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Neurosurgery, McGovern Medical School, University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHealth), at the Texas Institute for Restorative Neurotechnologies (TIRN).
My main focus of study is language processing in the brain, using invasive intracranial EEG recordings in patients receiving seizure mapping for pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. I study the neurobiological basis of syntax and semantics. My publications explore the evolution of language, the limits of Large Language Models, language acquisition, and philosophy of language.
I recently developed a neurocomputational architecture for natural language syntax (“ROSE”), explored ways to extend this model into a hybrid symbolic-connectionist framework, and proposed a design principle for human syntax (“Turing-Chomsky Compression”).
My previous affiliations have been with the Department of Linguistics, University College London (MA, MSc, PhD); Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London (MEG researcher, Linguistic combinatorics, 2016-18); Department of Psychology, University of Westminster (Lecturer in Psychobiology, 2016-18).
You can contact me at elliot.murphy@uth.tmc.edu
Elliot Murphy 