Following the closure of Haskins Laboratories on March 30, 2023, several research groups are bringing their groundbreaking work in the cognitive neuroscience of language, developmental linguistics, speech, reading, and psychology to the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC). Each group lead is listed below with a summary of their research interests and team members. “I am so pleased to have these outstanding scientists join us to continue their wonderful research and collaborative efforts that have long been underway at 300 George Street, where their offices will continue to be located,” commented YCSC Chair Linda Mayes, MD.
Richard (Dick) Aslin brings with him trainees Erin Isbilen, Isabel Nichoson, and Abigail Lavel. For over two decades, Aslin’s research centered on a form of implicit learning referred to as “statistical learning,” which initially focused on the task of word segmentation from fluent speech and has been extended to other domains, such as musical tones, phonetic categories, sequences of visual shapes, sequences of motor responses, and combinations of objects (or object parts) in complex visual scenes. Aslin also leads studies focused on spoken word recognition in infants, toddlers, and adults using eye-tracking and EEG methods. More recently, his work has shifted to focus on brain function in adults and infants using fMRI, fNIRS, and EEG.
Vince Gracco focuses on the neuroscience of human communication and their disorders using multiple neuroimaging modalities and physiological techniques. Current research is focused on sensorimotor and cognitive control processes for spoken language, network targeted neuromodulation as a treatment for disorders of speech and voice, neural adaptation and compensation resulting from sensory deprivation and hearing restoration in cochlear implanted children and adults and investigating variation in response to reading remediation in children with Reading Disability using dynamic brain/behavior tracking.
Nicole Landi, director of the Landi Lab, brings with her a team of two associate research scientists, Dan Kleinman and Nabin Koirala. Her lab uses multiple methodologies, including ERP, MRI and genetics to study language and reading development in typically developing children, and in children with complex neurodevelopmental disorders, including dyslexia, developmental language disorder (DLD), and autism.
David Lewkowicz brings with him trainees Rachel Nelson, Julia McClellan, and Natasa Ganea. His research focuses on perceptual and cognitive development in human infants and preschool children. The research has two primary focal points, the development of multisensory perception and attention as it relates to object, speech, language, and social perception; and the development of pattern/sequence learning. Current studies investigate how infants, young children, and adults use their selective attention to perceptually segregate multiple audiovisual events (i.e., multiple talkers), the role that audiovisual integration plays in this process, and the effects of early experience (i.e., bilingualism, neurodevelopmental disabilities) on multisensory segregation and integration.
Samuel Mehr directs The Music Lab, an international research group focusing on the psychology of music, and trainee Ekanem Ebinne joins Mehr in drawing from ideas and tools in cognitive and developmental psychology, data science, and evolutionary anthropology to ask what music is, how music works, and why music exists. In addition to more traditional experimental work, the lab specializes in large-scale citizen science experiments. Mehr and colleagues recently released new study findings related to language experience predicting music processing across 54 languages.
David Ostry brings with him Nishant Rao and is interested in understanding how the brain changes with experience. His specific focus is on the sensory and motor networks of the human brain, for which he uses speech production and voluntary limb movement as experimental models. Ostry’s studies use robots in combination with behavioral and physiological techniques to assess motor function and the characteristics of motor learning. His most recent work deals with the idea that learning does not affect sensory and motor systems in isolation; rather, motor learning changes sensory systems, and perceptual learning changes movement and motor networks in the brain.
Ken Pugh focuses on the neurobiology of typical and atypical language and reading development in children. His research program falls primarily in two broad domains: cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics. Pugh served as a Member of the Language and Communications Study Section at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as well as a member of the “Committee on the Learning Sciences: Foundations and Applications to Adolescent and Adult Literacy” at the National Research Council of the National Academies.
Doug Whalen brings with him colleagues Wei-Rong Chen and Christine Shadle. His research has covered a broad range of topics in speech perception, speech production, and cognitive neuroscience, as well as coordinating efforts to document endangered languages. His perceptual work has highlighted the way in which listeners use all information available to them when perceiving a speech signal, even when the information might be misleading and thus better left unattended. Both behavioral and neural imaging work indicate that such a phenomenon is due to the precedence that the speech signal takes in the processing of our perceptual world.