While language scientists argue about the extent to which language learning is special relative to other cognitive abilities, there is consensus that domain general learning abilities play a role in facilitating successful language outcomes. We study these abilities using a comparative approach that involves children, adults, and nonhuman primates. Two particular areas of interest have been understanding the learning environment of bilinguals and whether the experience of a acquiring a second language influences how learners track patterns. We also study motor planning and language production, with an eye toward understanding whether word ordering choices are influenced by domain general sequencing biases.
Our Research
Statistical Learning
Language and Motor Planning
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Bilingualism
Primate Research
Congrats to Jack!
Congratulations to our research assistant Jack, who just won a Student Leadership Scholarship from Penn State!
Natalie got an award!
5th year Natalie was awarded a teaching release from the Research and Graduate Studies Office! She will use this release to travel to collect bonobo data for her dissertation
Congrats to Allison Link, MS!
Allison successfully defended her masters thesis titled Acquiring grammatical classes from distributional properties of the input: The challenge of bilingual acquisition and passed with no revisions, Congrats Allison Link, master of science!