Dr. Bálint Forgács
Research Fellow
My main research area is the relationship between language acquisition and social cognition. It is a regular observation that infants’ language comprehension precedes their language production, however, recent results show that already 14-month-olds show brain responses very similar to adults, when familiar objects are named incorrectly. We investigate their surprisingly sophisticated social skills in playful situations, where we hope to see if they notice, when another person misunderstands language. In my experiments I try to learn more about the linguistic empathy of babies by measuring the extremely weak electricity produced by their thoughts.
Official profiles:
Official Page, Researchgate, Google Scholar, ORCID: 0000-0002-2191-5459ORCID, OSF, Academia, Linkedin
Contact:
1064 Budapest, Izabella utca 46. 310
+36 1 461-2600 / 5610
forgacs.balint@ppk.elte.hu
CV, List of Publications, MTMT database
Courses, thesis topics
Courses:
Introduction to Cognitive Science (CCNM17-101)
Thesis topics:
Theory of Mind and language acquisition in preverbal infants (EEG)
Metaphor processing in the brain in adults (EEG)
Publications
2022
Forgács, B. (2022). The pragmatic functions of metaphorical language. A life in cognition: Studies in Cognitive Science in Honor of Csaba Pléh, 41-57.
Forgács, B., Gervain, J., Parise, E., Gergely, Gy., Elek, L.P., Üllei, Zs, Király I (2022). Semantic systems are mentalistically activated for and by social partners. Scientific Reports 12, 4866. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-08306-w
Forgács, B., Tauzin, T., Gergely, G., & Gervain, J. (2022). The newborn brain is sensitive to the communicative function of language. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 1220.
Forgács, B., & Pléh, C. (2022). The fluffy metaphors of climate science. In Metaphors and Analogies in Sciences and Humanities: Words and Worlds (pp. 447-477). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Magyari, L., Pléh, C., & Forgács, B. (2022). The Hungarian hubris syndrome. Plos one, 17(8), e0273226.
2021
Forgács, B. (2021). A gravitáció mint szellem. Budapesti Könyvszemle-BUKSZ, 33(1-2), 23-28.
Forgács, B., & Pléh, C. (2021). Metafora hátán lovagol a sátán–avagy miért nem értjük meg a klímaváltozás valódi fenyegetését?. Argumentum, 17, 581-603.
2020
Forgács, B. (2020). An Electrophysiological Abstractness Effect for Metaphorical Meaning Making. eNeuro 7(5). https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0052-20.2020
Forgács, B. (2020). Book Review (In Hungarian): Csaba Pléh, Judit Mészáros, Valéria Csépe (Eds.): Writing Methods of History of Psychology and Hungarian History of Psychology. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2019 (In Hungarian). Hungarian Science, 181(3), 421-424.
Forgács, B., Gervain, J., Parise, E., Csibra, G., Gergely, G., Baross, J., & Kiraly, I. (2020). Electrophysiological Investigation of Infants’ Understanding of Understanding. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience,100783, ISSN 1878-9293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100783
2019
Forgács, B., Parise, E., Csibra, G., Gergely, G., Jacquey, L., & Gervain, J. (2019). Fourteen‐month‐old infants track the language comprehension of communicative partners. Developmental science, 22(2), e12751. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12751
Forgács, B. & Pléh, Cs. (2019). What Are You Thinking About Where? Syntactic Ambiguity between Abstract Arguments and Concrete Adjuncts in Hungarian, Modulated by Concreteness. Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, Volume 12, Issue 1.
2017
Pléh, Cs., Forgács, B., & Fekete, I. (2017). The Effects of Gender Stereotypes in Hungarian University Students: Results of an Empirical Pilot-study (In Hungarian). In: M. Kovács (Ed.), Társadalmi nemek (pp. 103-115). Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó.
2016
Forgács, B. (2016). Book Review: Réka Szabó: Metaforák és szimbólumok. Oriold és Társai, Budapest, 2015 (In Hungarian). Magyar Tudomány, 177(5), 636-639.
2015
Forgács, B., Bardolph, M., Amsel, B. D., DeLong, K. A., & Kutas, M. (2015). Metaphors are physical and abstract: ERPs to metaphorically modified nouns resemble ERPs to abstract language. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9(28).
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00028
Forgács, B. (2015). A kognitív tudomány metaforái és az agy. Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle, 70(2), 395-404. (Hungarian)
Forgács, B. (2015). Book Review: Csaba Pléh, Ágnes Lukács (eds.): Pszicholingvisztika 1-2. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2014 (In Hungarian). Magyar Tudomány, 176(6), 763-765.
2014
Forgács, B. (2014) Figures of language in cognitive science in the light of figurative language processing in the brain. PhD DIssertation.
Forgács, B.(2014). Figures of language in cognitive science in the light of figurative language processing in the brain. PhD thesis.
Forgács, B., Lukács, Á., Pléh, Cs. (2014). Lateralized processing of novel metaphors: Disentangling figurativeness and novelty. Neuropsychologia, 56, 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.01.003
2013
Forgács, B. (2013). The right hemisphere of cognitive science. In: Cs. Pléh, L. Gurova, and L. Ropolyi (Eds.), New Perspectives on the History of Cognitive Science (pp. 129-141). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
Forgács, B. (2013). Agy és megismerés a figuratív nyelv megértésében. (Hungarian)
2012
Forgács, B., Bohrn, I., Baudewig, J., Hofmann, M.J., Pléh, Cs., Jacobs, A.M. (2012). Neural correlates of combinatorial semantic processing of literal and figurative noun noun compound words. Neuroimage, 63(3), 1432-1442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.07.029
2010
Forgács, B. (2010). Book Review: Jerry A. Fodor: LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Oxford University Press US, 2008 (In Hungarian). Hungarian Psychological Review, 65(3), 555-563. DOI: 10.1556/MPSzle.65.2010.3.5
2009
Forgács, B. (2009). Verbal metacommunication–Why a metaphorical mapping can be relevant?. Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle, 64(3), 593-605. (Hungarian)
Forgács, B. (2009). Book Review: Tamás Demeter: Mentális fikcionalizmus. Gondolat Kiadó, Budapest, 2008 (In Hungarian). Hungarian Psychological Review, 64(4), 753–763. DOI: 10.1556/MPSzle.64.2009.4.7