[lingtalks] TIME CORRECTION: Julie Gros-Louis Talk @ 3:30pm

[Steven Ford]

The UCSD Department of Cognitive Science is pleased to announce a talk by

Julie Gros-Louis

Indiana University
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences


Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 3:30pm
Cognitive Science Building Room 003


"The Origins of Communication: Social Influences on Development"


Abstract

Traditionally, researchers have considered vocal development to be an 
innate process toward the development of communication. Therefore, early 
stages of vocal production in both songbirds and prelinguistic infants 
("babbling") have been considered to simply be 'motor practice' for 
development of mature acoustic forms. However, initial studies in infants 
and other species suggest social influences on development, indicating that 
it should be viewed as part of a broader developmental ecology. I present 
converging lines of evidence from studies in songbirds and human infants 
that provide a systems view of communicative development. My research shows 
that social partners and their responses initiate developmental 
trajectories that influence the advancement of communicative skills. In 
particular, results indicate that differential feedback shapes the acoustic 
structure of vocalizations in addition to providing information about vocal 
usage and function. Therefore, interactive and contingency-based learning 
in social contexts should be considered an important developmental mechanism.
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