Infant Studies Center

Research in the Infant Studies Center investigates the earliest components of language acquisition. Before an infant can begin to learn words, she must first learn which sounds are used to form words in the native language. Much of the research in the lab focuses on how an infant's perception of speech sounds changes over the course of the first year of life, as the infant begins to develop native language phonetic categories. Experiments in the lab typically employ looking-time paradigms, in which the dependent measure is the infant's preference for one auditory stimulus compared to another, as indicated by how long the infant will look at a visual stimulus (a picture or a flashing light) to keep the sound playing.

Principal Investigator: Jessica Maye, Ph.D j-maye@northwestern.edu