Imagine seeing the world through the eyes of a six-month-old child. You don’t have the words to describe anything. How could you possibly begin to understand language, when each sound that comes out ...

Working in the APEX Lab , led by cognitive psychologist Howard C. Nusbaum, Chinnappa is trying to decode what words and ...

In all countries, people talk differently to very young children compared to how they talk normally. This different style of ...

You may not realize this, but your newborn is a linguistic dynamo waiting to happen. Babies can distinguish 800 language sounds, which means they are primed to learn several languages — at the same ...

Experiments with newborn babies suggest they can already recognise their mother tongue, hinting that language learning may begin before birth. “We’ve known for a while that fetuses hear towards the ...

Rikke Louise Bundgaard-Nielsen receives funding from ARC Grant #FT190100243. Alice Nelson receives funding from ARC grant #FT190100243 and the ANU Futures Scheme for this research. Carmel OShannessy ...

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent. Human babies are far ...

The way that human adults talk to young children is unique among primates, a new study found. That might be one secret to our species’ grasp of language. By Carl Zimmer If you’ve ever cooed at a baby, ...

Learning a new language later in life can be a frustrating, almost paradoxical experience. On paper, our more mature and experienced adult brains should make learning easier, yet it is illiterate ...

With a new baby, it is a rite of passage for parents to worry about their adequacy as role models in the face of raising another human. How to keep them safe, what to feed them, and how to educate ...

If you’ve ever cooed at a baby, you have participated in a special experience. Indeed, it’s an all but unique one: Whereas humans constantly chatter to their infants, other apes hardly ever do so, a ...