CUHK Research: Changing the world

Putonghua or English) to justify the allocation of significant research resources. Moreover, companies are reluctant to fund initiatives with limited commercial returns. Research in Cantonese speech, therefore, does not attract the same level of resources as more widely- used languages. Fortunately, the professors have received support from the Hong Kong Government’s General Research Fund, which has enabled the formulation of a Cantonese corpus for their work. “Development across the lifespan” Despite their long years of work together, the professors intend to continue their collaboration. For example, they are looking at how to support younger patients in language acquisition, and have developed an AI- based system that can accurately predict the progress of babies’ language skills. Professor Wong asks: “Can we develop more effective tools to help children and their parents or caregivers communicate with each other? Or perhaps we can help autistic children improve their social communication skills?” They see their series of projects not as attempts to fix isolated issues, but as part of a wider effort to overcome fundamental social problems arising from speech difficulties and disabilities. professors hope that their work will provide a foundation for further study into dysarthria in Hong Kong, which might, in turn, enable additional medical and therapeutic responses. With their teams, Professors Wong and Meng have also done MRI experiments, with older adults at different cognitive levels as subjects, hoping to isolate the features of such decline by looking into how those affected might understand language or express themselves. “Ageing is a big risk factor in cognitive decline,” says Professor Meng. “We can detect the decline of cognitive functioning through the patients’ daily use of language in communication.” Professor Wong adds, “Most studies look at this from an anatomical perspective: is this brain area thicker or thinner? Our research in addition examines the patterns of neural activities associated with performing a task.” These more “naturalistic” tasks enable the researchers to test for symptoms of cognitive decline, combining neuroscience and AI technology. Professor Meng credits former Vice-Chancellor Charles K. Kao with establishing the Department of Electronics in the 1970s, which opened up CUHK’s research into electronic engineering and enabled it to get a foothold in the world of AI. “Artificial Intelligence is a newly added subject for ranking in the Best Global Universities Rankings 2023 by the US News & World Report, and it is encouraging that CUHK’s research on AI is ranked top in Hong Kong and third globally.” She adds that CUHK has also been very adept at bringing professionals across disciplines together, as their project has demonstrated. A major problem the professors faced throughout their years of collaboration has been the relative lack of support for research involving the Cantonese language. While an estimated 80 million people speak Cantonese across the world, too often this is seen as insufficient (compared with, for example, We candetect thedecline of cognitive functioning through thepatients’ dailyuse of language in communication. Professor Meng 19