Photo: UW graduate student Jose Ceballos wears an electroencephalography (EEG) cap that records brain activity and sends a response to a second participant over the Internet. Andrea Stocco and Chantel Prat, of I-LABS, along with UW computer scientist Rajesh Rao published a study this fall in PLOS ONE showing for the first time that two human brains can be linked … Read More
I-LABS Researcher Speaks at Slovenian Prime Minister Visit to UW
Photo caption: Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia Dr. Miro Cerar, Dr. Naja Ferjan Ramirez, UW President Ana Mari Cauce, and UW Vice-Provost for Global Affairs Jeffrey Riedinger. Photos by Piotr and Marija Horoszowski. Naja Ferjan Ramirez, an I-LABS research scientist who was born and raised in Slovenia, took part in a recent UW meeting with Slovenian Prime Minister … Read More
UW Roboticists Learn to Teach Robots from Babies
Photo caption: The UW team used I-LABS research on how babies follow an adult’s gaze to “teach” a robot to perform the same task. Credit: University of Washington. A collaboration between I-LABS and University of Washington computer scientists has demonstrated that robots can “learn” much like kids — by amassing data through exploration, watching a human do something and determining … Read More
Watch CNN’s Reenactment of “Brain-to-Brain” Communication
Above: CNN’s Nick Glass interviews Andrea Stocco, an assistant professor at I-LABS and in the UW department of psychology. A UK-based reporting team from CNN International came to Seattle this fall to film the “brain-to-brain” experiment, a collaboration between I-LABS’ Andrea Stocco and Chantel Prat and UW Computer Science and Engineering’s Rajesh Rao. The nearly 5-minute segment reenacts the research team’s recently … Read More
Head Start: Tips for Parents from I-LABS Research
A list of brain-building tips parents can use to engage their infants is now available on the National Head Start Association’s website. The top two tips are based on I-LABS research: Tip #1, “Learn to Look!,” cites I-LABS findings of how a social behavior called “gaze following” in infants helps them learn language. Learn more about gaze following as a building block … Read More
Patricia Kuhl’s TED Talk Reaches 2 Million
Why is it about the baby brain that allows them to learn language? Why does the sing-song style of “parentese” speech help language acquisition? And how does growing up in a bilingual household change an infant brain? These are some of the findings Patricia Kuhl, co-director of I-LABS, discusses in her TED talk, “The Linguistic Genius of Babies.” The video of … Read More
Children’s Self-Esteem Already Established By Age 5
By age 5 children have a sense of self-esteem comparable in strength to that of adults, according to a new study by University of Washington researchers. Because self-esteem tends to remain relatively stable across one’s lifespan, the study suggests that this important personality trait is already in place before children begin kindergarten. “Our work provides the earliest glimpse to date … Read More
Patricia Kuhl’s Feature in ‘Scientific American’
How is it possible that in just a few short years a babbling baby becomes a talking toddler? In the November 2015 issue of “Scientific American,” I-LABS’ co-director Patricia Kuhl describes the brain mechanisms underlying the amazing yet fleeting gift that all infants have to quickly learn language. “I still marvel, after four decades of studying child development, how a child can … Read More
For Babies, Copy-Cat Games Provide a Social Compass
An article published in the Wall Street Journal describes recent I-LABS findings about baby brains and social behavior, which provide some of the first evidence of “body maps” in the infant brain. “Humans have a mapping ability that lets them see themselves in relation to others, thus helping them to navigate in the social world,” the article begins. It goes on to describe … Read More
Lost Brain Pathway Found
Photo caption: The VOF identified in a postmortem human brain in 1909 but labeled with a different name. A few years ago I-LABS’ Jason Yeatman, then a graduate student at Stanford University, found himself solving a mystery of an unidentified large fiber pathway in the human brain. “It was this massive bundle of fibers, visible in every brain I examined,” said … Read More