Current studies
We study the development of communication, cognition, and language. Over the first years, infants develop increasingly sophisticated means of communicating, from babbling to early words to language. We seek to understand the mechanisms by which communicative and cognitive development take place.
A theme of our research is the influence of the social environment on infant development.
Social and Nonsocial Learning in Language Development
Participants: Infants currently aged 5 – 5 ½ months
Duration: One 1-hour visit (at 5 months) and two 40-minute visits (at 9 months)
What contributions do different forms of learning make to the development of communication and language in infants? To explore this question we compare how infants learn across several social and nonsocial contexts. Parents and their infants explore our playroom, look at pictures of geometric shapes and smiling faces, play with a mobile, and participate in a face-to-face interaction. When infants are 9 months old, parents will be asked to return to our lab for two more visits as part of a related study. In these visits, parents and infants will again explore our playroom and play an interactive game together. These studies will help us understand how multiple forms of learning contribute to language development at different stages of infancy.
Pattern Learning in Vision and Audition
Participants: Infants aged 7½ - 8½ months
Duration: Two 30-minute visits, with one or both of their parents
Are infants better at discovering patterns when they are presented with visual or auditory sequences? How well do they learn when the elements composing the sequences are either abstract (like shapes and tones) or more familiar (such as faces and speech sounds)? In one visit, infants view interesting videos of either smiling faces or geometric shapes, and in the other visit, infants listen to a stream of syllables or tones. The pictures or sounds will share a similar underlying pattern, and we will look to see how well infants learn this structure within each mode of presentation (i.e., visual or auditory). This study will tell us about infants’ sensory preferences for processing sequential information and how their preferences may differ from those of adults. We will track the development of this learning, which will help us understand more about the skills infants can use to learn language.
Preferences for Speech
Participants: Infants aged 8 or 11 months
Duration: One 30-minute visit
Do infants show a preference for speech that is directed towards them over speech that is directed towards adults? The purpose of our study is to see if infants will prefer to spend time in a room associated with speech directed towards themselves or a room associated with speech directed towards adults. For the first part of the session, infants and parents will alternate between being in one room hearing speech directed towards infants and another room hearing speech directed towards adults. Next, infants will be allowed to choose which room they would like to spend time in.
Object Directed Vocalizations
Participants: Infants aged 11-12 months
Duration: One 45-minute visit
How do infants learn new words for objects? The purpose of this study is to determine whether babbling signals a readiness to learn, and whether words for objects are learned better when presented in a babbling context. During your visit, you and your infant will play in our playroom for 15 minutes. Next, your infant will be given new toys to play with while he/she sits on your lap. A researcher will teach your child a new word for one of these toys. The name for the toy will be cued by different types of sounds, some of which are baby babbles. To see what your infant remembers about the toys, he/she will be shown pictures of the toys and observe your infant’s preference for looking at the objects when the word is played over a speaker.
Vocal Learning and Development
Participants: Infants aged 8 1/2 - 10 months and one or both of their parents
Duration: two visits- the first visit lasts 40 minutes and the second visit (on the next day) lasts 50 minutes
How do infants develop language? This study attempts to answer this question by observing infants as they freely play and explore together with their parent. During the first visit, infant and parent play together in our playroom with interesting toys as they would play at home. On the second visit, we ask parents to play an interactive game with their infants by responding at certain times. This game will show us how babies change their behavior in response to different kinds of social interactions, and ultimately help us understand how babies learn the sounds of their language.
Adults’ Responses to Prelinguistic Infants
Participants: Mothers of infants aged 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 months
Duration: One 30 minute visit
Is baby babbling communicative? Do different forms of infant babbling change the behavior of their parents? In what contexts do infant vocalizations elicit stronger reactions from parents? In this study, mothers will use a computer to respond to prerecorded examples of infant behavior.
Word Learning in Social Interactions
Participants: Infants aged 14 -15 1/2 months and one or both of their parents
Duration: two visits- the first visit lasts 30 minutes and the second visit (scheduled the next day) lasts 30 minutes
What social behaviors help infants learn words? To study this question, we use different ways of teaching new words to infants. For the first visit, each infant sits on their parent’s lap while an experimenter introduces some new toys and their names to the infant. Afterwards, another experimenter engages the infants in a game to see what they remember about the new toys and their names. On the second visit, we play the game again to observe what the infants remember about the toys and their names over time. We can learn which adult teaching behaviors best help infants learn about words for new objects.
The Role of Parental Speech in Learning Nouns
Participants: Infants aged 17.5 - 19 months
Duration: One 40-minute visit
How do children learn names for objects? We would like to know how children make use of certain structures in parents’ speech to acquire nouns. To understand how children do this, this study investigates whether specific structures in parents’ speech are helpful to children when they are learning nouns.
The Role of Parental Speech in Learning Verbs
Participants: Children aged 28-30 months
Duration: One 30-minute visit
How do children learn names for actions? We would like to know how children make use of certain structures in parents’ speech to acquire verbs. To understand how children do this, this study investigates whether specific structures in parents’ speech are helpful to children when they are learning verbs. Your child will be show two novel actions demonstrated with stuffed animals. One of the actions will be labeled with a novel verb using different types of speech. Next, a second researcher will play a game with your child to see what he/she might remember about the actions.
Categorization and Labeling
Participants: Children aged 2½ or 4 years and one or both of their parents
Duration: One 30-minute visit
We are investigating how children name and categorize pictures of familiar objects. We show children a series of colorful pictures of familiar objects, such as dogs and trucks. Some of the pictures appear normal, while others are slightly distorted in shape or color. Then, we ask children to name and categorize some of the pictures and point to others. During this process, we will learn to what extent children consider shape and color of familiar objects when deciding what to name them, and this will ultimately help us to understand developmental changes in word learning.
Sentence Processing
Participants: Children aged 4½ to 5½ years and one or both of their parents
Duration: One 45-minute visit
What sources of information do children rely on when interpreting sentences? This study explores how children comprehend sentences that could have different meanings. We ask children to play a computer game in which she or he uses a computer mouse to move pictures of familiar items in response to instructions presented by the computer. This study will help us learn when and how children begin to use sources of information in a manner that is similar to adults.