Neuroscience
Nature Reviews Neuroscience offers the full text (HTML and .pdf) of this interesting overview to language development in its November issue:
Patricia K. Kuhl. Early language acquisition: Cracking the speech code. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2004. 5: 831-843.
Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.
Infants learn language with remarkable speed, but how they do it remains a mystery. New data show that infants use computational strategies to detect the statistical and prosodic patterns in language input, and that this leads to the discovery of phonemes and words. Social interaction with another human being affects speech learning in a way that resembles communicative learning in songbirds. The brain's commitment to the statistical and prosodic patterns that are experienced early in life might help to explain the long-standing puzzle of why infants are better language learners than adults. Successful learning by infants, as well as constraints on that learning, are changing theories of language acquisition.
(doi:10.1038/nrn1533)
- Left Hemisphere Already Specialised For Language By Two Months Of Age
It's widely known that in the majority of people the left hemisphere is dominant for language. But how early does this lateralisation of function emerge? An obvious way to find out is to put babies in a brain scanner and see if their brains show the...
- Congratulations Dr. Patricia Kuhl!
The 20th Jean-Louis Signoret Neuropsychology Prize of the Fondation Ipsen is Awarded to Prof. Patricia K. Kuhl (University of Washington, Seattle, USA) PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 2, 2011 - The international jury under the presidency of Prof. Albert Galaburda...
- Rats In The News
You've probably read the news story which has received a good deal of press over the past day about a psychological investigation into language-patterning abilities in rats. The full-text reprint of this paper is available at this time on the website...
- Bilingualism And The Brain
A new study about the relation between the brain and bilinualism, as presented in a Reuters news report:Learning 2nd Language Changes Brain Anatomy - Study Wed 13 October, 2004 19:18 By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Being bilingual produces...
- New "ling 449e Biology Of Language" Course!
LING 449E Biology of Language Course Fall 2015 TTH 2:00 pm-3:15 pm Instructor: Chris Heffner What defines human language? Are other animals capable of using language in the same ways that humans can? These questions and more will be discussed in...
Neuroscience
Language Development
Nature Reviews Neuroscience offers the full text (HTML and .pdf) of this interesting overview to language development in its November issue:
Patricia K. Kuhl. Early language acquisition: Cracking the speech code. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2004. 5: 831-843.
Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.
Infants learn language with remarkable speed, but how they do it remains a mystery. New data show that infants use computational strategies to detect the statistical and prosodic patterns in language input, and that this leads to the discovery of phonemes and words. Social interaction with another human being affects speech learning in a way that resembles communicative learning in songbirds. The brain's commitment to the statistical and prosodic patterns that are experienced early in life might help to explain the long-standing puzzle of why infants are better language learners than adults. Successful learning by infants, as well as constraints on that learning, are changing theories of language acquisition.
(doi:10.1038/nrn1533)
- Left Hemisphere Already Specialised For Language By Two Months Of Age
It's widely known that in the majority of people the left hemisphere is dominant for language. But how early does this lateralisation of function emerge? An obvious way to find out is to put babies in a brain scanner and see if their brains show the...
- Congratulations Dr. Patricia Kuhl!
The 20th Jean-Louis Signoret Neuropsychology Prize of the Fondation Ipsen is Awarded to Prof. Patricia K. Kuhl (University of Washington, Seattle, USA) PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 2, 2011 - The international jury under the presidency of Prof. Albert Galaburda...
- Rats In The News
You've probably read the news story which has received a good deal of press over the past day about a psychological investigation into language-patterning abilities in rats. The full-text reprint of this paper is available at this time on the website...
- Bilingualism And The Brain
A new study about the relation between the brain and bilinualism, as presented in a Reuters news report:Learning 2nd Language Changes Brain Anatomy - Study Wed 13 October, 2004 19:18 By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Being bilingual produces...
- New "ling 449e Biology Of Language" Course!
LING 449E Biology of Language Course Fall 2015 TTH 2:00 pm-3:15 pm Instructor: Chris Heffner What defines human language? Are other animals capable of using language in the same ways that humans can? These questions and more will be discussed in...