Overview
Language acquisition and psycholinguistics. In
particular, she is interested in the development and
consequences of acquiring very different types of
languages. The research has taken a cross-linguistic
approach between English and Japanese, and her
current research involves the following three areas: (1)
study of sentence comprehension strategies by adult
and child speakers of Japanese and English; (2) cross-
linguistic study of infants' speech perception; and (3)
influence of acquiring language specific categories on
cognition.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Research Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
·
2013 - Present
Psychology & Neuroscience,
Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Recent Publications
Early influence of language experience in non-native speech perception: Discrimination of three-way Thai stop contrasts by Korean and Japanese infants.
Journal Article Infant behavior & development · March 2025 Young infants' remarkable ability to discriminate non-native phoneme contrasts played a critical role in shaping the tenets of the perceptual narrowing hypothesis: early on, infants are sensitive to most phoneme categories, including those not used in thei ... Full text CiteLack of early sensitivity and gradual emergence of native phoneme categories: A pattern from underrepresented language learners.
Journal Article Developmental science · September 2024 Perceptual narrowing of speech perception supposes that young infants can discriminate most speech sounds early in life. During the second half of the first year, infants' phonetic sensitivity is attuned to their native phonology. However, supporting evide ... Full text CiteEthical and epistemic costs of a lack of geographical and cultural diversity in developmental science.
Journal Article Developmental psychology · September 2024 Increasing geographical and cultural diversity in research participation has been a key priority for psychological researchers. In this article, we track changes in participant diversity in developmental science over the past decade. These analyses reveal ... Full text CiteRecent Grants
Learning to Pay Attention to Language Related Visual Cues
ResearchCo Investigator · Awarded by RIKEN Brain Science Institute · 2009 - 2023Doctoral Dissertation Research: Young Children's use of Prosody in Disambiguating Sentences: The Case of Korean Children
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2002 - 2003Sentence Processing in Japanese and English
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) · 1994 - 2001View All Grants
Education, Training & Certifications
Cornell University ·
1990
Ph.D.
University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom) ·
1984
M.S.