Laboratory for Language Development

We investigate how young infants become interested in speech that surround them, and learn to be the speaker of that language. In particular, we focus on the role of 'prosody' (i.e., intonation, rhythm and other suprasegmental characteristics of the speech) in language acquisition. We study how infants become attuned to the prosodic characteristics of their ambient language, and how acquiring it would affect other domains of language development.

Research Subjects

• Acquisition of language specific phonology and prosody by Japanese infants
• Phonetic and prosodic characteristics of Japanese infant directed speech
• Contribution of linguistic information and cognitive development in children's language comprehension
• Role of sound-character relationship in learning how to read in Japanese
• Computational modeling of phonological acquisition

Publications

1. Minai, U., Jincho, N., Yamane, N., & Mazuka, R.:
   "What hinders child semantic computation: Children's universal quantification and the development of cognitive control."
   Journal of Child Language, 39 (5), 919-956 (2012)
2. Bion, R. A. H., Miyazawa, K., Kikuchi, H., and Mazuka, R.:
   "Learning phonemic vowel length from naturalistic recordings of Japanese infant-directed speech."
   PLos ONE, 8 (2): e51594 (2013)
3. Tsuji, S., Gonzalez, GN., Medina, V., Nazzi, T., and Mazuka, R.:
   "The labial-coronal effect revisited: Japanese adults say pata, but hear tapa."
   Cognition, 125 (3), 413-428 (2012)
4. Nakamura, C., Arai, M., and Mazuka, R.:
   "Immediate use of prosody and context in predicting a syntactic structure."
   Cognition, 125 (2), 317-323 (2012)
5. Ito, K., Jincho, N., Minai, U., Yamane, N., & Mazuka, R.:
   "Intonation facilitates contrast resolution: Evidence from Japanese adults and 6-year olds,"
   Journal of Memory and Language, 66 (1), 265-284 (2012)
6. Sato, Y., Kato, M., & Mazuka, R.:
   "Development of single/geminate obstruent discrimination by Japanese infants: Early integration of durational and non-durational cues."
   Developmental Psychology, 48 (1), 18-34 (2012)
7. Mazuka, R., Cao, Y., Dupoux, E., and Christophe, A.:
   "The development of phonological illusion: A cross-linguistic study with Japanese and French infants."
   Developmental Science, 14 (4), 693-699 (2011)
8. Minagawa-Kawai, Y., van der Lely, H., Ramus, F., Sato, Y., Mazuka, R., & Dupoux, E.:
   "Optical brain imaging reveals general auditory and language-specific processing in early infant development."
   Cerebral Cortex 21 (2), 254-261 (2011)
9. Matsuda, Y-T., Ueno, K., Waggoner, A.,R., Erickson, D., Shimura, Y., Tanaka, K., Cheng, K., & Mazuka, R.:
   "Processing of infant-directed speech by adults."
   NeuroImage, 54 (1), 611-621 (2011)
10. Sato, Y., Sogabe, Y., and Mazuka, R.:
    "Development of hemispheric specialization for lexical pitch-accent in Japanese infants."
    Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22 (11), 2503-2513 (2010)