Monday, Oct. 28: Jenny Saffran, Sounds and meanings working together: Word learning as a collaborative effort

Professor Jenny Saffran, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison will present:

Sounds and meanings working together: Word learning as a collaborative effort

When we think about word learning, we tend to focus on the fundamental act of mapping a word onto the world. However, lexical learning does not occur in a vacuum. At the outset of word learning, infants already have a great deal of experience with the sound patterns that make up their native language, and the objects that clutter their proximal environment. In this talk, I will consider recent data suggesting that knowledge of sounds and knowledge of referents go hand in hand during the language learning process.

Monday, October 28, 12:00-1:30pm in 3105 Tolman Hall