First Caucasus School on Experimental Research and Cognitive Sciences Takes Places in Adygea
On September 17–20, 2025, the First Caucasus School on Experimental Research and Cognitive Sciences took place at the Gornaya Legenda venue of Adyghe State University (ASU). The event was organised by the ASU Experimental Linguistics Laboratory, the HSE Centre for Language and Brain, and the HSE Centre for Sociocultural and Ethnolinguistic Studies. The school brought together over 50 participants—students, doctoral candidates, and early-career researchers from across Russia, along with lecturers and speakers from France, Serbia, China, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
The school’s main focus areas included bilingualism, psycho- and neurolinguistics, clinical linguistics, and language policy. Particular attention was given to experimental methods of studying linguistic diversity in the digital age and their practical applications. The programme featured lectures and workshops by staff of the HSE Centre for Language and Brain and the HSE Centre for Sociocultural and Ethnolinguistic Studies. Their joint efforts created a rich educational and research environment uniting participants from diverse regions and academic fields.
Opening the school, Olga Dragoy, Director of the HSE Centre for Language and Brain, outlined the key topics—from psycho- and neurolinguistics to the clinical aspects of speech disorders. She spoke about current trends in experimental linguistics, the research agendas of psycho- and neurolinguistics today, and the cutting-edge theories that explain how and where in the brain we comprehend and produce speech.
Tatyana Bolgina, Junior Research Fellow at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain, devoted her lectures to how the brain is organised and how speech is represented within it. She discussed classical and modern theories of the neurobiology of language, addressing neural processing at each linguistic level and mechanisms of reading. Modern approaches to brain organisation rely on a network model: speech is not confined to one specific area or a limited set of areas but engages an extensive network of regions in both hemispheres, as well as white matter pathways.
Olga Buivolova, Research Fellow at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain, introduced participants to the subject of aphasia—one of the most studied yet complex speech disorders. She demonstrated how a linguistic approach allows for a more precise classification of aphasia types and the development of individualised therapeutic methods. According to her, neuroscience today is focused on moving from descriptive models to standardised, testable tools.
The HSE Centre for Language and Brain’s research spans all age periods, including childhood. Tatiana Eremicheva, Research Assistant at the Centre, led a course on ontolinguistics, addressing how children acquire language. She outlined four levels of speech development—phonological, lexical, grammatical, and communicative—and explained how reading is acquired at later stages. She stressed the importance of effective diagnostics and flexible approaches to assessing language skills, paying particular attention to speech development in multilingual contexts.
‘The meaning of an utterance is influenced by context, the speaker’s intentions, and social factors. However, it is impossible to understand what a given message meant in a particular situation without taking into account the non-verbal component: from facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice it becomes clear how to interpret someone’s statement or request. Such information is conveyed primarily through non-verbal channels,’ said Yulia Nikolaeva, Research Fellow at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain. She spoke about non-verbal communication and its role in everyday speech, also drawing attention to persistent myths such as the widely cited claim that ‘only 7% of information is transmitted in words.’ This figure, she explained, is based on distorted interpretations of early psychological experiments and is not supported by current data.
The HSE Centre for Sociocultural and Ethnolinguistic Studies at the Faculty of Humanities was one of the organisers of the First Caucasus School on Experimental Research and Cognitive Sciences. Over five days, Director Mira Bergelson and Research Assistant Madina Kade introduced participants to contemporary sociocultural theories, paying particular attention to research methodology—reliance on extensive linguistic data and the ability to analyse it.
‘Effective analysis of ethnolinguistic situations and the corresponding language policy must be based on the interpretation of the material collected by the researcher. In the case of sociolinguistic interviews, one cannot do without narrative and discourse analysis. This is the only way to identify a respondent’s underlying values—what a person truly believes in. And everything connected with the notion of ‘mother tongue’ belongs precisely to this domain,’ Prof. Mira Bergelson stated.
Participants discussed why language cannot be studied outside its sociocultural context and how this understanding shapes approaches to language policy in multi-ethnic regions.
Concluding the school, Olga Dragoy stressed the importance of integrating fundamental research into real-world practice—from involving neurolinguists in neurosurgical operations to implementing effective diagnostic tools in schools. She presented several of the centre’s applied developments:
- LexiMetr—a tool for assessing Russian reading skills in primary schoolchildren.
- KORABLIK—a test for diagnosing speech development in children aged 3 to 11.
- Dyslector—a programme that uses artificial intelligence and eye-tracking data to assess the presence and degree of dyslexia in schoolchildren.
Prof. Dragoy also described intraoperative brain-mapping tools developed at the centre, which are now applied during awake surgeries.
‘The applied developments pursued by the HSE Centre for Language and Brain rest on three pillars. First, they are built on a carefully designed linguistic foundation. Second, all our tests meet psychometric standards. And third, with each passing year our toolkit is becoming increasingly multilingual. We translate and adapt our instruments into different languages, and Adyghe was among the very first in which they appeared,’ explained Olga Dragoy.
The final event of the school was the satellite conference ‘Experimental Research and Cognitive Sciences,’ which brought together specialists from Russia, Europe, and Asia. The conference provided a platform for researchers to discuss how the brain generates thought, how artificial intelligence learns from biology, and the challenges facing language in the digital era. The programme combined theoretical questions—for instance, how cortical rhythms develop in infants—with applied case studies ranging from the study of Russian idioms to the preservation of Adyghe in the diaspora.
‘Today we are studying the features of the Adyghe language and the regional linguistic landscape, moving into neurolinguistics and clinical linguistics—towards a rigorous analysis of the connections between brain function and language. The Caucasus School on Experimental Research and Cognitive Sciences is our first attempt in this format, and we hope it will become a cherished Caucasian tradition. It opens new opportunities for linguists as it allows us to acquire new, relevant competencies and expands the scope of linguistics. I am confident that the School on Experimental Research will become the nucleus of a consortium of universities in southern Russia, which we are currently discussing. The growing interest in the languages of Russia’s indigenous peoples fits both the national and global agenda, while the multilingual Caucasus is the ideal platform for experimental linguistics and sociocultural research,’ said Susanna Makerova, one of the organisers of the school and Head of the ASU Experimental Linguistics Laboratory.
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