Several faculty in our department have a primary focus on the study of language, including the study of speech perception ( Dr. Kluender), the development of language in children (Dr. Saffran), meaning and embodied cognition (Dr. Glenberg), language production (Dr. Vigliocco) and comprehension (Dr. Gernsbacher) in adulthood, communication systems in other species (Drs. Snowdon and Marler), and the neural bases of language (Drs. Gernsbacher, Saffran and Vigliocco). These interests are reflected both in our course offerings and in research opportunities available in our labs.

Below are the course descriptions for two level III language related courses that are offered in 1998/1999.

Psychology 411 Lecture 26: Language and the Brain	Psychology 421: Psychology of Language
Gabriella Vigliocco	Jenny Saffran
How do we use language? How is language represented in the brain? What can we learn concerning language from the study of patients who suffered brain damage? For example, what can we learn from studying patients who can say nouns but cannot say verbs anymore? Or from patients who can name objects but cannot name fruit and vegetables? These are questions that we will address in this course. The course is design to introduce basic research in psychology of language and to connect this research to studies of language impaired speakers as well as to studies using different techniques to correlate language use to specific brain areas and functions.	How do children acquire their native language? My research focuses on the kinds of learning abilities required to master the complexities of language. Three broad issues characterize my work. One line of research asks what kinds of learning emerge in infancy. A second line of research probes the biases that shape human learning abilities, and the relationship between these biases and the structure of human languages. A third issue concerns the extent to which the learning abilities underlying this process are specifically tailored for language acquisition.