Language Acquisition and Language Processing Lab
- Welcome!
In the Language Acquisition and Language Processing Lab we investigate language skills in children and adults. The lab is primarily dedicated to basic research. We do experimental research on language acquisition (first language acquisition with children and second language acquisition with adults) as well as on language processing (for instance comprehension and categorisation). Our goal is to find out how humans develop their abilities to understand and reflect on the world around them and to talk about it. Closely related is the question what young children know about the world around them. How do they think? How do they learn to talk?
Recent Developments and News
New Book
Mila Vulchanova Emile van der Zee (eds.), Motion Encoding in Language and Space, Oxford University Press. This book brings together researchers in linguistics, computer science, psychology and cognitive science to investigate how motion is encoded in language. (Read more here).
New infrastructure research network Language and Perception
The Network is funded by NordForsk and Coordinated by Prof. Mila Vulchanova. See here for more information.
Recent Talks
Friday Research Seminar Presentation
Language and Cognition in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): a Weak Central Coherence Account - Mila Vulchanova (NTNU), Joel Talcott (Aston University), Valentin Vulchanov (NTNU)
February 3, 2012, Centre for the Biology of Memory, NTNU.
Prof. Vulchanova Keynote Speaker at Nordisk Språkkonferanse 2011
Mila Vulchanova deliveres Keynote Address at Workshop Challenging Clitics
Juhani Järvikivi Invited Speaker
Juhani Järvikivi gives an invited talk at the Workshop: Discourse Cohesive Means in Acquisition, to be held in Berlin, March 11-13, 2012.
Recent Papers
Vulchanova, M., Eshuis, H., Martinez, L., & Listhaug, K. (in press). No evidence of L1 Path Encoding Strategies in the L2 in advanced Bulgarian speakers of Norwegian. Spatial Cognition and Computation. Click here for the online publication.
Vulchanova, M., Talcott, J. B., Vulchanov, V., & Stankova, M. (2011). Language against the odds, or rather not: The weak central coherence hypothesis and language. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 25, 13-30. Click here for the online publication (full text access requires subscription).
Järvikivi, J. & Pyykkönen, P. (2011). Sub- and supralexical information in early phases of lexical access. Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences. (pdf)
Pyykkönen, P., & Järvikivi, J. (in press). Children and situation models of multiple events. Developmental Psychology. Click here (PDF) for the prepublication version (note that this version differs slightly from the final version). The final paper is here .
Öztürk, P., Vulchanova, M., Tumyr, C., Martinez, L., & Kabath, D. (2011). Assesing the Feature-Driven Nature of Similarity-based Sorting of Verbs. Polibits, 43, 15-22. Click here (PDF) for the paper.
Eshuis, R., Coventry, K. R., & Vulchanova, M. (2009). Predictive eye movements are driven by goals, not by the mirror neuron system. Psychological Science, 20, 438-440. Click here (PDF) for the article: Note that this version differs slightly from the final version. Click here for Psychological Science's online publication (full text access requires subscription).
Recent Conferences
Vulchanova, M., Vulchanov, V., Sarzhanova, D., & Eshuis, R. The role of input in bilingualism: are there downsides? Workshop on Bilingualism: Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspectives, Aix-en-Provence, France, September 12-14, 2011.
Veivo, O., & Järvikivi, J. Early orthographic effects in spoken word recognition with non-dominant bilinguals depend on proficiency level. Workshop on Bilingualism: Neurolinguistic and Psycholinguistic Perspectives, Aix-en-Provence, France, September 12-14, 2011. (Talk)
Vulchanova, M., Talcott, J., Vulchanov, V., Eshuis, R., & Stankova, M. Morphology in ASD: Local processing bias and language. 7th International Morphological Processing Conference. Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain, June 22-25 2011. (Poster)
Aasheim Norås, S., & Vulchanova, M. Norwegian and English children won't look in the same places for the same thing – Differences in preposition acquisition in Norwegian and English based on the preferential-looking paradigm. SALC III, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 16, 2011. (Talk).
Aasheim Norås, S. Prepositions are hard in Norwegian: English and Norwegian infants display different looking behaviours when processing spatial prepositions. Workshop Psycholinguistics in Flanders. Universiteit Antwerp, Belgium, May 25-26, 2011. (Poster)
Dahl, A. Studying early L2 comprehension in young children. Workshop Psycholinguistics in Flanders. Universiteit Antwerp, Belgium, May 25-26, 2011. (Talk)
Vulchanova, M., Vulchanov, V., Stankova, M., & Eshuis, R. Idiom comprehension in the first language: a developmental study. Workshop on Processing and Appreciating Creative Figurative Language. Dept. of Psychology, University of Heidelberg, Germany, 11-12 May 2011. (Poster)
Dahl, A. Early-start L2 English: Effects of increased input on vocabulary and listening comprehension in Norwegian first-graders. Symposium What's on your mind? Thinking for speaking in second language acquisition. Odense, Denmark, November 1-2, 2010. (Poster).
Vulchanova, M., & Eshuis, R. Children's visual processing of eyes and mouth in still portrait pictures and a talking face video. Workshop on The Embodied Mind: Perspectives and Limitations. Nijmegen, the Netherlands, on 27-28 October 2010. (Poster)
Older news:
**Schedule now available!**
The NordLing 1.5 PhD course on topics in Language and Cognition
September 6-9th, 2010
Hosted by the Faculty of Humanities, NTNU – Trondheim, Norway
The Biology and Learning International Conference
NTNU Trondheim, September 10th, 2010
Hosted by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences and Technology Management Suhmhuset, Elvegata 6 - Trondheim
The 'NordForsk Infrastructure Research Training Course: Experimental methods and designs for the study of spatial cognition, language and development' was held in Stiklestadt, April 26-30, 2010.
Click here for some pictures of our stand on the 'forskningsdagene' and researcher's night 2009.
The Workshop Talent in the face of deficit was held in Trondheim, August 27-28, 2009.
Research Seminar: Dysleksi og språklæring – engelsk/fremmedspråk. March, 27, 2009
Our Lab now co-ordinates the Nordic Infrastructure Project: Spatial categorization and language across populations
and was granted a pilot project on fictive motion:
