The Indian Institute of Technology Madras has announced the launch of its Language and Cognition Laboratory, a first of its kind research space dedicated to studying how India’s languages are understood and processed by the human mind. Established within the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, the lab brings together linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience and artificial intelligence into one interdisciplinary hub.
The goal is simple yet ambitious. The LC Lab wants to understand how people perceive language, produce speech and interpret sentence structures across multilingual settings. Using modern tools like eye tracking and reaction time measurement, researchers will study behavioural patterns that govern how Indian languages function in real world conversations.
A major long term mission of the lab is to contribute towards building human centred and linguistically aware AI systems. With India’s linguistic diversity often ignored in mainstream technology, the LC Lab aims to ensure that the country’s languages, grammar patterns and cultural nuances are represented meaningfully in emerging AI models. The lab will also work closely with the Centre for Responsible AI at IIT Madras to apply advanced AI methods in cognition and language studies.
Director V Kamakoti highlighted that linguistics today is shifting towards data driven research. He said the LC Lab fills a crucial gap by pairing linguistic theory with computational tools, allowing India to build technologies that respect cultural and linguistic realities.
A range of projects are already underway. Researchers are studying how grammar and voice constructions differ across Indian languages. Future work will explore dyslexia in Indian schoolchildren to create language relevant educational support tools. Upcoming phases will introduce advanced techniques like EEG and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to deepen research into how the brain processes language.
The LC Lab is supported by IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation and Aspire Infolab, Hyderabad. The facility is designed to become a national benchmark for linguistics research, offering insights that can shape the next generation of AI models and education systems.
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