The Role of Prediction in Early Perceptual and Language Deve lopment
In the last decade\, research has establishe d that prediction is an important mechanism supporting perception\, cogniti on and learning across multiple domains in the mature brain/mind. Developme ntalists studying early development have been using methods such as the “Vi olation of Expectation” paradigm for many decades yet it is unclear whether the same kinds of predictive mechanisms support those infant behaviors. In this talk\, I will present evidence that the infant brain is highly predic tive\, and the sophisticated types of prediction\, previously associated on ly with adults\, are available early in life to support infant behavior and development. To this end\, I will present convergent evidence from neuroim aging (fNIRS) and behavioral methods (eye tracking) across the first years of postnatal life (from neonates to two year olds). I’ll show how predictio n is closely linked to language development including recent work investiga ting the emergence of lexical comprehension and lexical prediction from 12- 24 months. Overall\, this talk aims to establish that\, contrary to prior v iews\, the brain doesn’t become predictive during development. Instead\, it starts predictive and builds on those early-available predictive mechanism s.
Prof Lauren Emberson is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Departmen t and Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. Prof Emberson is the winner of the APA Boyd McCandless Award\, the APS Rising Star award and a f inalist for the Biennial Society for fNIRS Early Investigator Award. At Pri nceton\, she is a founder and director of the Princeton Baby Lab which supp orts developmental research across several laboratories from birth to late childhood. She received her BSc from the University of British Columbia\, h er PhD from Cornell University and completed a postdoctoral position at the University of Rochester under Prof. Aslin in 2015.
CATEGORIES:Featured News and Events LOCATION:Douglas Kenny Building\, Suedfeld Lounge\, Room 2510 GEO:49.263719;-123.254803 URL;VALUE=URI:https://psych.ubc.ca/events/event/developmental-guest-talk-dr -lauren-emberson/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://psych.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/11/GuestTalkWebFeatureImage.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20191103T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR