Dr. Greta Kaufeld was a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and defended her PhD titled ‘Investigating spoken language comprehension as perceptual inference’ on January 19 2021.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you wanted to say something, but simply could not find the words you were looking for? This might happen when speaking a foreign language, in which you are not (yet) very proficient. However, this can also happen in your native language, for example when you are distracted or tired. Most of us have probably already experienced such or similar situations with temporary communication difficulties. Luckily, these are usually just short-lasting moments, and we manage to find the right words eventually.
Children are born into a world where technology is all around us. This raises questions about children’s screen time habits, and the effects of screen time on their language development. Research suggests that the content as well as how children view screens are important, and that social interaction during screen time is crucial in helping young children learn from videos.
In the misty mountains of the Canary island La Gomera (next to Tenerife) sounds the whistle of a particularly curious bird: humans. On this island, farmers have been communicating by whistling melodies to one another for as long as they can remember.
When facing unexpected world changes, as in the case of the current pandemic, the language system adapts to the challenge to express a new reality. How? By forging new words! Let’s find out how this happens by looking at one of the most powerful engines we can count on: our brain.
