What does it mean to understand language?

2025/11/24 by Colton Casto, Anna Ivanova, Casto, Colton +5 · 6 voices · 3 citations
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Action Observation and Synchronization #Categorization, perception, and language #Cognition #Construct (python library) #Information processing #Meaning (existential) #Mental representation #Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism #On Language #Perception #Semantics (computer science)

paper · pdf · open access · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.19757

published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University)

openalex publication_date 2025/11/24 · openalex created_date 2025/11/28 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Language understanding entails not just extracting the surface-level meaning of the linguistic input, but constructing rich mental models of the situation it describes. Here we propose that because processing within the brain's core language system is fundamentally limited, deeply understanding language requires exporting information from the language system to other brain regions that compute perceptual and motor representations, construct mental models, and store our world knowledge and autobiographical memories. We review the existing evidence for this hypothesis, and argue that recent progress in cognitive neuroscience provides both the conceptual foundation and the methods to directly test it, thus opening up a new strategy to reveal what it means, cognitively and neurally, to understand language.

Citations

• LITcoder: A General-Purpose Library for Building and Comparing Encoding Models
• Towards large language models with human-like episodic memory
• A language network in the individualized functional connectomes of over 1,000 human brains doing arbitrary tasks
• The Platonic Representation Hypothesis
• From Word Models to World Models: Translating from Natural Language to the Probabilistic Language of Thought
• Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4
• How does inattention affect written and spoken language processing?
• Language Models are Few-Shot Learners
• Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension.
• Grounded Cognition

Cited by

• Resurrections and insurrections in the neurobiology of language

Discussions

• What does it mean to understand language? We argue that the brain’s core language system is limited, and that *deeply* understanding language requires EXPORTING info to other brain regions. w/ @neuran [bsky, 82 points, 2 comments]
• What a privilege and a delight to work with @coltoncasto.bsky.social @ev_fedorenko and @neuranna on this new speculative piece on What it means to understand language, nicely summarized in this Tweepr [bsky, 35 points, 2 comments]
• Pre-print available here: arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19757 [bsky, 9 points, 0 comments]
• Perhaps arxiv.org/abs/2511.19757 [bsky, 5 points, 1 comments]
• What does it mean to understand language? [hn, 2 points, 0 comments]
• What does it mean to understand language? [hn, 2 points, 0 comments]

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• Explaining what? Time for nuance in the field of neurobiology of language