Associate Professor in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence (tenured, ius promovendi) (2022 —)
— Research Unit Leader | Computational Models of Brain and Behavior (2024 —)
— Principal Investigator (PI) | Neurocomputation of Language lab (2022 —)
Department of Cognitive Science and Articifial Intelligence, Tilburg University

Scientific Staff (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) (2014 – 2022)
— Principal Investigator (PI) | CRC1102/IDeaL (2018 – 2022)
— Marie Curie "Experienced Researcher" Fellow (EU Marie Curie ITN LanPercept) (2014 – 2016)
Department of Language Science and Technology (Psycholinguistics), Saarland University

PhD, Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Groningen (2010 – 2014)
cum laude (highest possible distinction)
— Robert J. Glushko Prize for outstanding dissertation in cognitive science (2015)

MSc, Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences (research master), University of Groningen (2008 – 2010)
cum laude (highest possible distinction)

BA, Information Science ('Computational Linguistics'), University of Groningen (2005 – 2008)
cum laude (highest possible distinction)

28.03.2025 | New paper: On the biphasic nature of the N400-P600 complex underlying language comprehension (Brain and Cognition)

04.02.2025 | New paper: Referential Retrieval and Integration in Language Comprehension: An Electrophysiological Perspective (Psychological Review)

10.07.2024 | 2024 Scholar Metrics: Event-related potentials index lexical retrieval (N400) and integration (P600) during language comprehension is the most cited paper in Brain and Cognition (2019-2024)

10.06.2024 | New paper: On the limits of LLM surprisal as functional explanation of ERPs (CogSci 2024)

submitted / under revision

1. Krieger, B., Brouwer, H., Aurnhammer, C., and Crocker, M. W. (submitted). On the limits of LLM surprisal as a functional explanation of the N400 and P600.

accepted / in press

1. Venhuizen, N. J. and Brouwer, H. (in press). Two Models of Meaning: Revisiting the Principle of Compositionality from the Neurocognition of Language. Psychology of Learning and Motivation.

journal articles

22. Delogu, F., Aurnhammer, C., Brouwer, H., and Crocker, M. W. (2025). On the biphasic nature of the N400-P600 complex underlying language comprehension. Brain and Cognition, 186. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2025.106293 [pdf] [code/data]

21. Venhuizen, N. J. and Brouwer, H. (2025). Referential Retrieval and Integration in Language Comprehension: An Electrophysiological Perspective. Psychological Review. doi: 10.1037/rev0000530 [pdf]

20. Hofmann, M. J., Chang, Y-N, Brouwer, H., and Zock, M. (2024). Editorial: Neurocomputational Models of Language Processing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1524366 [pdf]

19. Aurnhammer, C., Crocker, M. W., and Brouwer, H. (2023). Single-trial Neurodynamics Reveal N400 and P600 Coupling in Language Comprehension. Cognitive Neurodynamics. doi: 10.1007/s11571-023-09983-7 [pdf] [code] [data]

18. Aurnhammer, C., Delogu, F., Brouwer, H., and Crocker, M. W. (2023). The P600 as a Continuous Index of Integration Effort. Psychophysiology, 2023;60:e14302. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14302 [pdf] [code] [data]

17. Venhuizen, N. J., Hendriks, P., Crocker, M. W., and Brouwer, H. (2022). Distributional Formal Semantics. Information and Computation, 287: 104763. doi: 10.1016/j.ic.2021.104763 [pdf]

16. Aurnhammer, C., Delogu, F., Schulz, M., Brouwer, H., and Crocker, M. W. (2021). Retrieval (N400) and Integration (P600) in Expectation-based Comprehension. PLoS ONE 16(9): e0257430. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257430 [pdf] [code] [data]

15. Calvillo, J., Brouwer, H., and Crocker, M. W. (2021). Semantic Systematicity in Connectionist Language Production. Information, 12(8), 329. doi: 10.3390/info12080329 [pdf] [code]

14. Delogu, F., Brouwer, H., and Crocker, M. W. (2021). When components collide: Spatiotemporal overlap of the N400 and P600 in language comprehension. Brain Research, 1766. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2021.147514 [pdf] [code] [data]

13. Brouwer, H., Delogu, F., Venhuizen, N. J., and Crocker, M. W. (2021). Neurobehavioral Correlates of Surprisal in Language Comprehension: A Neurocomputational Model. Frontiers in Psychology 12:110. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.615538 [pdf] [data]

12. Brouwer, H., Delogu, F., and Crocker, M. W. (2021). Splitting Event-Related Potentials: Modeling Latent Components using Regression-based Waveform Estimation. European Journal of Neuroscience, 53, pp. 974-995. doi: 10.1111/ejn.14961 [pdf] [code] [data]

11. Venhuizen, N. J., Crocker, M. W., and Brouwer, H. (2019). Semantic Entropy in Language Comprehension. Entropy, 21(12), 1159. doi: 10.3390/e21121159 [pdf]

10. Delogu, F., Brouwer, H., and Crocker, M. W. (2019). Event-related potentials index lexical retrieval (N400) and integration (P600) during language comprehension. Brain and Cognition, 135. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2019.05.007 [pdf] [data]

9. Venhuizen, N. J., Crocker, M. W., and Brouwer, H. (2019). Expectation-based Comprehension: Modeling the interaction of world knowledge and linguistic experience. Discourse Processes, 56:3, pp. 229-255. doi: 10.1080/0163853X.2018.1448677 [pdf]

8. Venhuizen, N. J., Bos, J., Hendriks, P., and Brouwer, H. (2018). Discourse Semantics with Information Structure. Journal of Semantics, 35(1), pp. 127-169. doi: 10.1093/jos/ffx017 [pdf]

7. Khachatryan, E., Brouwer, H., Staljanssens, W., Carrette, E., Meurs, A., Boon, P., Van Roost, D., and Van Hulle, M. (2018). A New Insight into Sentence Comprehension: the Impact of Word Associations in Sentence Processing as Shown by Invasive EEG Recording. Neuropsychologia, 108, pp. 103-116. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.12.002 [pdf]

6. Brouwer, H. and Crocker, M. W. (2017). On the proper treatment of the N400 and P600 in language comprehension. Frontiers in Psychology 8:1327. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01327 [pdf]

5. Brouwer, H., Crocker M. W., Venhuizen, N. J., and Hoeks, J. C. J. (2017). A Neurocomputational Model of the N400 and the P600 in Language Processing. Cognitive Science, 41(S6), pp. 1318-1352. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12461 [pdf] [supporting information]

4. Brouwer, H. and Crocker, M. W. (2016). On the Organization of the Perisylvian Cortex: Insights from the Electrophysiology of Language. Comment on "Towards a Computational Comparative Neuroprimatology: Framing the language-ready brain" by M.A. Arbib. Physics of Life Reviews, 16, pp. 58-60. doi: 10.1016/j.plrev.2015.12.006 [pdf]

3. Brouwer, H. and Hoeks J. C. J. (2013). A Time and Place for Language Comprehension: Mapping the N400 and the P600 to a Minimal Cortical Network. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7:758. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00758 [pdf]

2. Hoeks, J. C. J., Stowe, L. A., Hendriks, P., and Brouwer, H. (2013). Questions left unanswered: How the brain responds to missing information. PLoS ONE, 8(10): e73594. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073594 [pdf] [materials]

1. Brouwer, H., Fitz, H., and Hoeks, J. C. J. (2012). Getting real about Semantic Illusions: Rethinking the functional role of the P600 in language comprehension. Brain Research, 1446, pp. 127-143. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2012.01.055 [pdf]

book chapters

3. Crocker, M. W. and Brouwer, H. (2023). Computational Psycholinguistics. In: Sun, R. (Ed.)., Cambridge Handbook of Computational Cognitive Sciences, pp. 890-920. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. [pdf]

2. Brouwer, H., Crocker, M. W., and Venhuizen, N. J. (2017). Neural Semantics. In: Wieling, M., Kroon, M., Van Noord, G., and Bouma, G. (Eds.), From Semantics to Dialectometry: Festschrift for John Nerbonne, pp. 75-83. College Publications.

1. Hoeks, J. C. J. and Brouwer, H. (2014). Electrophysiological Research on Conversation and Discourse Processing. In: Holtgraves, T. (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of Language and Social Psychology, pp. 365-386. New York: Oxford University Press. [pdf]

conference papers

8. Krieger, B., Brouwer, H., Aurnhammer, C., and Crocker, M. W. (2024). On the limits of LLM surprisal as functional explanation of ERPs. In: Samuelson, L. K., Frank, S. L., Toneva, M., Mackey, A., and Hazeltine, E. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 488-495, July 24-27, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

7. Macher, N., Abdullah, B. M., Brouwer, H., and Klakow, D. (2021). Do we read what we hear? Modeling orthographic influences on spoken word recognition. In: Sorodoc, I-T., Sushil, M., Takmaz, E., Agirre, E. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Student Research Workshop, pp. 16-22.

6. Venhuizen, N. J., Hendriks, P., Crocker, M. W., and Brouwer, H. (2019). A Framework for Distributional Formal Semantics. In: Iemhoff, R., Moortgat, M., and de Queiroz, R. (Eds.), Logic, Language, Information, and Computation, Proceedings of the 26th International Workshop WoLLIC 2019, LNCS 11541, pp. 633-646. doi: 10.1007/978-3-662-59533-6_39

5. Calvillo, J., Brouwer, H., and Crocker, M. W. (2016). Connectionist Semantic Systematicity in Language Production. In: Papafragou, A., Grodner, D., Mirman D., and Trueswell, J. C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 2555-2560, August 10-13, Philadelphia, United States. [code]

4. Venhuizen, N. J., Bos, J., Hendriks, P., and Brouwer, H. (2014). How and Why Conventional Implicatures Project. In: Snider, T., Wiegand, J., and D'Antonio, S. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24rd Semantics and Linguistics Theory Conference (SALT24), pp. 63-83, May 30-June 1, New York, United States.

3. Venhuizen, N. J. and Brouwer, H. (2014). PDRT-SANDBOX: An implementation of Projective Discourse Representation Theory. In: Rieser, V. and Muller, P. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue, SemDial 2014 - DialWatt, pp. 249-251, September 1-3, Edinburgh, Scotland.

2. Venhuizen, N. J., Bos, J., and Brouwer, H. (2013). Parsimonious Semantic Representations with Projection Pointers. In: Erk., K. and Koller, A. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computational Semantics (IWCS'13), March 19-22, Potsdam, Germany.

1. Brouwer, H., Fitz, H., and Hoeks, J. C. J. (2010). Modeling the noun phrase versus sentence coordination ambiguity in Dutch: Evidence from Surprisal Theory. In: Hale, J. H. (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2010 Workshop on Cognitive Modeling and Computational Linguistics, ACL2010, pp. 72-80, Uppsala, Sweden, 15 July 2010.

phd thesis

Brouwer, H. (2014). The Electrophysiology of Language Comprehension: A Neurocomputational Model. PhD thesis, University of Groningen. [pdf] [propositions] [précis]

Supervisors: prof. dr. J. C. J. Hoeks, prof. dr. ir. J. Nerbonne; Reading committee: prof. dr. P. Hendriks, prof. dr. M. Kutas, prof. dr. D. C. Plaut; Extended reading committee: prof. dr. J. J. A. van Berkum, prof. dr. G. R. Kuperberg

talks and posters

My resume contains a full list of talks and posters—send me an email to obtain a copy.

Some slides and posters can also be found on ResearchGate.

original

6. rerps: regression-based Event-Related Potential (ERP) waveform estimation.

5. Mesh: A lightweight and versatile artificial neural network simulator.

4. DFS Tools: Distributional Formal Semantics (DFS) tools. [Python bindings]

3. dispace: Implementation of the Distributed Situation-state Space (DSS) model.

2. PDRT-SANDBOX: A Haskell library implementing (Projective) Discourse Representation Theory.

1. COALS: Implementation of the Correlated Occurrence Analogue to Lexical Semantics.

ports

2. LensOSX: A native MacOSX port of Lens, the light, efficient network simulator.

1. OSXtlearn: xtlearn wrapped in a MacOSX application bundle.