Learning, Development, and Neural Plasticity

The study of learning and plasticity during development cuts across domains and links those who study perception, language, and neurobiology. Faculty and students working on a variety of different systems share an interest in the mechanisms that underlie learning and plasticity, and explore these mechanisms using behavioral, computational, and neuroscientific methods. The research ranges from investigating the development of perception and language in human infants and adults, and the acquisition of bird song in finches and sparrows, to the measurement and modeling of the neural and computational mechanisms that underlie developmental plasticity, Hebbian learning, and critical periods in the development of the brain and behavior.

Primary Faculty

Richard N. Aslin Perceptual and language development	Daphne Bavelier Early visual and linguistic experience and cortical organization	Jessica Cantlon Cognitive development & evolution of concepts, especially numbers
Robert A. Jacobs Computational Cognition and Perception	Brad Mahon The representation of concepts and categories	Renee Miller Sex differences in brains and behaviors
Elissa L. Newport* Language acquisition; statistical and rule learning	Ernest J. Nordeen Neurobiology of vocal learning and plasticity	Kathy W. Nordeen Neural mechanisms of early learning
Alexandre Pouget Population coding; spatial representation in vision	Ted Supalla* Development and creolization of sign languages	Duje Tadin Experience driven changes in human visual processing