We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial
interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be …

For nearly two decades it has been known that infants' perception of speech sounds is
affected by native language input during the first year of life. However, definitive evidence of …

The rapidity with which infants come to understand language and events in their
surroundings has prompted speculation concerning innate knowledge structures that guide …

Two experiments investigated learning of nonadjacent dependencies by adults and 18-
month-olds. Each learner was exposed to three-element strings (eg, pel-kicey-jic) produced …

In 3 experiments, the authors investigated the ability of observers to extract the probabilities
of successive shape co-occurrences during passive viewing. Participants became sensitive …

Two-year-old children were taught either 6 novel nouns, 6 novel verbs, or 6 novel actions
over 1 month. In each condition, children were exposed to some items in massed …

Three experiments asked whether phonotactic regularities not present in English could be
acquired by adult English speakers from brief listening experience. Subjects listened to …

In the 1950s, researchers thought that children learn language through imitation, guided by
principles of shaping and reinforcement (Skinner, 1957). By the end of the decade, the new …

Prelinguistic infants must find a way to isolate meaningful chunks from the continuous
streams of speech that they hear. BootLex, a new model which uses distributional cues to …

After having been plagued for centuries by unfounded speculations, the study of language
evolution is now emerging as an area of legitimate scientific inquiry. Early conjectures about …