Patricia Kuhl discusses how children who have had early experiences keeping time to music, might have an easier time learning a foreign language. Read the full text here.
Language Lessons Start in the Womb
I-LABS scientists were cited in a New York Times article covering new research about language learning in the womb. Read the full text here.
Spotlight on distinguished women scientists at UW
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear I-LABS Co-Director Dr. Patricia Kuhl speak at the UW Frontiers of Science and Engineering Symposium! The symposium highlights distinguished women scientists and engineers at the UW. It is free and open to the public. Friday January 20 2017 3:00-5:00 (reception starting at 2:30) Savery Hall Room 260 Read more about the event here: https://www.cs.washington.edu/frontiers2017 Hope to see you there!
New Publication: Speech discrimination in 11-month-old monolingual and bilingual infants
A new MEG study by Naja Ferjan Ramirez was published in this month’s Developmental Science. Findings indicate that the dual sensitivity of the bilingual brain is achieved by a slower transition from acoustic to phonetic sound analysis. Naja’s photo from the study was featured on the cover of the magazine! Read more here
Study: Children can ‘catch’ social bias through nonverbal signals expressed by adults
New research from I-LABS Allison Skinner suggests that preschool-aged children can learn bias even through nonverbal signals displayed by adults, such as a condescending tone of voice or a disapproving look.“ This research shows that kids are learning bias from the non-verbal signals that they’re exposed to, and that this could be a mechanism for the creation of racial bias … Read More
Naja Ferjan Ramirez featured at TEDx Ljubljana
Dr. Naja Ferjan Ramirez spoke at TEDxLlubljana in her native country of Slovenia. Ferjan Ramirez is an expert in the study of bilingualism and its development. Watch the talk here, beginning at 1:02:32.
New Research Explores Children’s Race and Gender Identities
A study by I-LABS Onnie Rogers provides a glimpse into how children perceive their social categories.“ Kids are thinking about race and gender, and not just in terms of being able to identify with these social categories, but also what they mean and why they matter.” Read more here
Patricia Kuhl Recognized In Seattle Magazine’s Hall of Fame
Patricia Kuhl has been recognized by Seattle Magazine as one of the “trailblazers who have transformed Seattle in extraordinary ways.” Through her groundbreaking research in language and brain development, Kuhl showed how early language exposure alters the brain and determined that “parentese” (a natural way parents speak to babies) lays the foundation for infants to distinguish sounds and understand language. Read … Read More
Andrea Stocco’s Brain-to-Brain Research is Basis for Short Play
See “Rift” by Kristina Sutherland Rowell, October 14-16 Andrea Stocco participated in the Infinity Box Theater Project’s “Thought Experiments on the Question of Being Human.” The project consists of scientists conversing with playwrights to come up with an original play examining the question of what it means to be human in light of current developments in science and technology. Andrea’s play, titled … Read More
Engaging children in STEM
New research finds that STEM should be social! I-LABS researchers Andrew Meltzoff, Allison Master, and Sapna Cheryan discovered that children who completed STEM activities as groups reported that the activities were more fun and achieved more success than children who participated in the STEM activities individually. To learn more about making STEM social, Read the Conversation here.